Episode 990 - Allan MacDonell

Episode 990 • Released January 31, 2019 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what's happening what the fuckettes how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf thank you for listening today on the show i'm

00:00:25Marc:is Alan McDonald.

00:00:28Marc:Alan McDonald is a writer.

00:00:30Marc:He's a guy I've known for many years from The Secret Club.

00:00:36Marc:He's written several books.

00:00:38Marc:Years ago, he wrote a book called Prisoner of X, 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine.

00:00:43Marc:He's also written a book of pieces, memoir pieces mostly, I believe, called Punk Elegies.

00:00:49Marc:And his newest book, Now That I Am Gone, a memoir beyond recall,

00:00:54Marc:is written from the point of view of him as a dead guy, that he's dead, but he's one of the dark wizards, and he's been around a long time, and he's been kind of dug in here in Los Angeles through the 70s and the punk scene and the 80s.

00:01:10Marc:I don't know, man.

00:01:11Marc:It's been a long time coming in terms of me talking to him because we had talked about it years ago, and now he will be here.

00:01:19Marc:He will be here for your dark enjoyment, Mr. Alan McDonald.

00:01:23Marc:Hey, I told you about those UK dates.

00:01:26Marc:I'm going to tell you again.

00:01:27Marc:I tweeted them out and now I know that they are selling quite well.

00:01:32Marc:So I wanted to make sure that I told you again and pronounce things right.

00:01:36Marc:I'll be at the Lowry in Salford, England on April 4th.

00:01:40Marc:I'll be at Royal Festival Hall in London, England, April 6th.

00:01:44Marc:I'll be at the Rep Theatre in Birmingham, England on April 8th.

00:01:48Marc:And I will be, this is an Irish date, not a UK date.

00:01:52Marc:I will be in Ireland, in Dublin, at Vicar Street on April 11th.

00:01:58Marc:Okay?

00:01:58Marc:And for you people who are LA bound or LA in or live here, bound or bounded by...

00:02:06Marc:Okay?

00:02:07Marc:Dynasty typewriter dates are coming.

00:02:09Marc:February 10th, February 17th, February 24th, March 17th at the Little Dynasty typewriter room, which is great.

00:02:17Marc:And I'll be at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen on March 23rd and the Boulder Theater in Boulder on March 24th.

00:02:25Marc:All those tour dates are available for you to peruse and link to tickets at wtfpod.com slash tour.

00:02:34Marc:Okay?

00:02:35Marc:Dig it.

00:02:36Marc:Also, quickly, if you're in L.A.

00:02:38Marc:tonight, Thursday the 31st.

00:02:40Marc:Is there 31 days in this thing?

00:02:43Marc:Is that where we're at with this?

00:02:45Marc:Yes.

00:02:46Marc:Thursday the 31st, my buddy Sam Lipsight will be reading from his new book, Hark, here at Skylight Books tonight.

00:02:54Marc:It's at 7.30 tonight, and that's at 1818 North Vermont Avenue.

00:02:59Marc:All right?

00:03:00Marc:Go see Sammy.

00:03:02Marc:OK, now addressing other things.

00:03:05Marc:I know a lot of you are cold out there.

00:03:07Marc:I mean, like fucking scary cold like shit.

00:03:10Marc:The steam is freezing as it hisses out of my radiator and falls on the floor while I'm under nine layers of blankets.

00:03:18Marc:in Chicago, New York, D.C., wherever the fuck you are.

00:03:21Marc:I'm sorry you're going through that.

00:03:23Marc:But things are changing climate-wise.

00:03:26Marc:And I just want to reach out again, as I usually do, to my listeners.

00:03:30Marc:I just want you to know that heading into the next election cycle, if your primary concern isn't the survival of the planet and you choose your personal taxes and just a terrifying fear of brown people as your priorities, again, I will say,

00:03:47Marc:You're a shameful, stupid person.

00:03:51Marc:And I think maybe if a few of you are still listening and you're in subzero temperatures in Minneapolis, far beyond anything like before, maybe you ought to take into consideration these things that maybe the priority should be, hey, can we still live on this rock?

00:04:11Marc:Can we?

00:04:12Marc:All right.

00:04:12Marc:That said that out of the way, let's get on to important things like the reaction to to my statements about Steely Dan.

00:04:24Marc:Now, I know that I was surprised.

00:04:28Marc:There are things I talk about on this show that I think are mundane or just part of my life or just weird moments.

00:04:34Marc:That's what gets the feedback.

00:04:36Marc:That's what people get worked up about.

00:04:39Marc:It's not like after I told you that I turned a corner on Steely Dan that I've spent the last three days nonstop, hour after hour listening to Steely Dan all over and over again.

00:04:49Marc:I just had a moment.

00:04:50Marc:It wasn't like I'm like born again Dan.

00:04:54Marc:You know what I mean?

00:04:55Marc:So I get this type of email.

00:04:57Marc:And now mind you,

00:04:58Marc:This is because I said I turned a corner in enjoying or being able to enjoy Steely Dan.

00:05:06Marc:Subject line, you lost me.

00:05:07Marc:I've been a fan for years and have found your cultural analysis to be interesting and often spot on.

00:05:13Marc:I may not always agree, but I follow your logic.

00:05:16Marc:Today, you said you had a big revelation regarding Steely Dan.

00:05:20Marc:You also put in two commercials before the payoff as to why you changed, which, by the way, was effective because I listened to both.

00:05:28Marc:Fine.

00:05:30Marc:I get why people like Steely Dan.

00:05:31Marc:I just personally have found it boring and sterile and lacking soul.

00:05:34Marc:Their music hurts my soul to consume.

00:05:37Marc:You turn the corner to the dark side today.

00:05:40Marc:And while I will continue listening to your podcast, it's likely most good things that have happened to you in the last few years will go away as a result of this revelation.

00:05:50Marc:That makes me sad for you, Dave.

00:05:54Marc:Do you think, Dave, do you think that Steely Dan has some sort of dark mystical power to extract something from my my soul and my mind and also my the sort of the past?

00:06:10Marc:Do you think that you feel that I have signed or stepped into some contract with the Dark Lord or?

00:06:20Marc:Believe me, I know what those feel like.

00:06:22Marc:This didn't feel like this.

00:06:23Marc:And fuck you, Dave, for cursing me.

00:06:27Marc:How dare you curse me?

00:06:29Marc:You put that in my head.

00:06:31Marc:Most good things that have happened to you in the last few years will go away as a result of this, as a result of me enjoying a Steely Dan song.

00:06:40Marc:Shame on you, Dave.

00:06:41Marc:The curse is upon you, Dave, for throwing around bad mojo like that.

00:06:47Marc:God damn it.

00:06:49Marc:But then there were plenty of emails that were like, good for you.

00:06:53Marc:Welcome.

00:06:54Marc:Yeah, it took me a while to I'm not even going to dwell on it.

00:06:58Marc:I'm not even going to dwell on it.

00:07:00Marc:There's been a couple of interesting emails.

00:07:04Marc:This one from someone, a woman named Sam just said, Maren, Maren, I really hope you figure it out soon.

00:07:10Marc:I'm getting tired of listening unless you have.

00:07:13Marc:And the show is a mirage.

00:07:17Marc:Love, Sam.

00:07:18Marc:Sam, isn't it all a mirage?

00:07:20Marc:Come on.

00:07:22Marc:Figure what out?

00:07:24Marc:I just figured out that I kind of liked a Steely Dan song a little more than I used to, and now I've been cursed by a guy named Dave.

00:07:32Marc:Cursed?

00:07:33Marc:He heaved some bad mojo my way.

00:07:36Marc:Sam, I have figured it out.

00:07:41Marc:This is a mirage.

00:07:44Marc:The mirage is part of figuring it out.

00:07:48Marc:Come on, Sam.

00:07:49Marc:Come on.

00:07:52Marc:Oh, this is a good one.

00:07:54Marc:Here we go.

00:07:56Marc:Subject line crowd work.

00:07:59Marc:Hey Mark, listening to the Brad Garrett episode made me remember experiencing some of your crowd work.

00:08:04Marc:I saw you in Bloomington last year working out your new stuff and at one point you got up from the stool, walked to the side of the stage, looked at me and said, how's it going?

00:08:14Marc:In that moment, I thought you were asking how I was doing, so I said something along the lines of good.

00:08:19Marc:You said okay, went back to the stool, and continued on with the show.

00:08:23Marc:It didn't hit me until later that knowing you as I do from the show and your struggle with insecurity, what you were probably more likely asking, was the show good?

00:08:32Marc:The answer is still yes.

00:08:33Marc:It was a great show and a highlight of 2018 for me.

00:08:38Marc:Just wanted to share, and I hope to see you on the road again in the future.

00:08:41Marc:Jake, Jake, I got to be honest with you.

00:08:44Marc:The way you describe that, I know exactly what those moments are for me on stage.

00:08:49Marc:I don't know if you were at that show alone or you were sitting with people or either way, you were probably sitting very close to the stage and I probably looked at you a couple of times and you weren't laughing and or I thought you might be a scary person.

00:09:03Marc:Like you might be like not only not laughing, but maybe ready to pounce or shoot or

00:09:09Marc:Or I'd sent something that rubbed you the wrong way or you weren't paying attention.

00:09:14Marc:But usually it's me disarming what I perceive to be a threat of some kind.

00:09:20Marc:So I don't know if you look scary or maybe you're a very intense person.

00:09:24Marc:But usually if I'm checking in like that, it's literally to make sure that that you're not a scary or mad person.

00:09:32Marc:Mad meaning crazy or mad mad.

00:09:36Marc:So you weren't quite right, but you were a little right.

00:09:39Marc:It was a little bit about insecurity, either because you weren't laughing or because you might you might kill me.

00:09:48Marc:OK, now let's let's do a heavier email since we're in it.

00:09:53Marc:Your help with my opiate addiction.

00:09:55Marc:Mark, I want to keep this short and sweet.

00:09:56Marc:I know you're a busy man.

00:09:57Marc:I've been a heroin addict since I was 20 and I am 29 now and I've been an avid listener for about a year now.

00:10:04Marc:Around the time I decided to get on methadone and put down the needle.

00:10:07Marc:I listen to your conversations almost every day on the way to the clinic.

00:10:11Marc:I'm recently divorced and decided to kick the methadone cold turkey, and I'm certain I couldn't be doing this without your talks.

00:10:18Marc:It keeps my mind off this demon I have on my back for the rest of my life.

00:10:22Marc:I feel a kindred spirit in you in some ways, you with your own addiction issues and your love of nicotine and caffeine.

00:10:28Marc:Basically, thank you.

00:10:29Marc:Keep doing what you're doing.

00:10:30Marc:You help people every day more than you may know.

00:10:32Marc:Thanks, Mark with a C. Sincerely, your fan, Al.

00:10:36Marc:Al!

00:10:37Marc:God damn it.

00:10:38Marc:Try to stay off it, man.

00:10:40Marc:Try to stay off it, buddy.

00:10:42Marc:I know it's hard.

00:10:43Marc:It's a fucking hard one.

00:10:45Marc:God damn it.

00:10:46Marc:I'm glad to help out.

00:10:47Marc:Seriously.

00:10:48Marc:Glad to help out.

00:10:50Marc:Now, on an unrelated note, I got two emails about my streetlight, the new streetlight.

00:10:59Marc:I talked to you guys about the streetlight on the street that they put up because there were people hanging around under the streetlight in their cars.

00:11:06Marc:I would never have thought about this, but I got two related.

00:11:11Marc:So here we go.

00:11:14Marc:Streetlight and in parentheses lurkers.

00:11:16Marc:Hey, Mark, just a heads up that you should find out if that shady area slash street happens to have a Pokemon gym and or poke stop nearby.

00:11:26Marc:As an avid player of the popular GPS based Pokemon game, I've been that suspicious person and had to explain myself a time or two.

00:11:34Marc:I've even had an angry older gentleman explain to me that if he sees any of these things, imaginary cartoon pocket monsters in his yard, they would get the business end of his 12 gauge.

00:11:45Marc:So I try to keep my habit only in public spaces, parks and such, because I am now aware that playing the game can create a side effect of creepiness in residential areas.

00:11:55Marc:The shotgun incident happened in my own neighborhood at the opposite end of the street that I live on.

00:12:00Marc:But unfortunately, there are a lot of players who give us all a bad name with a slew of bad manners slash habits.

00:12:04Marc:Some even worse than the one which might be happening in your neighborhood.

00:12:08Marc:Anyway, if you install the app on your iPhone or Android device yourself, you could figure it out pretty quickly.

00:12:15Marc:Otherwise, look for your nearest neighborhood, teenage slash 20-something.

00:12:18Marc:They will most likely know.

00:12:20Marc:Thanks, Matt.

00:12:21Marc:Matt, I see what you're doing with this.

00:12:23Marc:I see what you're doing with this.

00:12:24Marc:Earlier, I had Dave cursing me because of my...

00:12:27Marc:steely dan uh shift and now you're trying to suck me into the world of pokemon i know what you're doing i know hey man if you want to know just download the app and then they're there then i'm one of those guys wandering around going in circles on corners i get it i you know no dummy i wasn't born i wasn't born yesterday here's the other one though

00:12:52Marc:People parking.

00:12:53Marc:Hi, Mark.

00:12:54Marc:In the Brad Garrett episode, you mentioned mysterious people parked in cars down your street.

00:12:57Marc:I had the same issue about a year ago.

00:12:59Marc:And after seeing some of them get out of their cars and wander around while looking at their cell phones, I started thinking maybe this is a Pokemon Go hotspot.

00:13:08Marc:A couple of days after I had this hot, I was out for a bike ride.

00:13:11Marc:I saw two guys in their late 20s walking around that area.

00:13:14Marc:So I asked them if this was a Pokemon hotspot.

00:13:17Marc:Go hotspot.

00:13:19Marc:Yeah, it is.

00:13:20Marc:They confirmed my suspicion.

00:13:21Marc:I told them I thought they were either selling dope or catching Pokemon.

00:13:25Marc:We all had a good laugh.

00:13:26Marc:Then I bought some pot from them.

00:13:28Marc:Just kidding.

00:13:29Marc:There are still cars parked regularly down my street.

00:13:31Marc:Who knows?

00:13:32Marc:Maybe you are living next to a Pokemon.

00:13:34Marc:Go hotspot.

00:13:35Marc:Ask a gamer to check it out for you.

00:13:37Marc:Sincerely, Mitch.

00:13:38Marc:So this is a better way to go.

00:13:39Marc:Now I just have to find a gamer.

00:13:42Marc:Like I got a feeling that on my street, it wasn't those guys.

00:13:45Marc:They seemed older.

00:13:46Marc:There were there were definitely women sometimes in the cars and they were leaving drug paraphernalia on the street.

00:13:52Marc:Now, unless the monsters are druggies and that's what happens when you play Pokemon.

00:13:57Marc:I don't know.

00:13:58Marc:I don't.

00:13:59Marc:But I appreciate that the idea that maybe that's what's going on.

00:14:04Marc:Maybe it is.

00:14:04Marc:I do not know.

00:14:06Marc:So this brings us to our guest, right?

00:14:10Marc:Alan McDonald, as I said earlier, is a guy I know.

00:14:12Marc:He's written a few books.

00:14:14Marc:But he's a guy I wanted to talk to because he's lived one of those lives sort of in the shadows of punk rock and CDLA.

00:14:23Marc:And I don't get a lot of the history of L.A.

00:14:26Marc:trip from that point of view.

00:14:28Marc:I've had a few musicians on that come from that.

00:14:30Marc:But Alan was really there through all of it in this approach to memoir, which is his new one, which is Now That I'm Gone, a memoir beyond recall.

00:14:39Marc:is available wherever you get books.

00:14:41Marc:As I said, he's also the author of Prisoner of X, 20 Years in the Hole at Hussware Magazine, and Punk Elegies, True Tales of Death Trip Kids, Wrongful Sex, and Trial by Angel Dust.

00:14:53Marc:But that being said...

00:14:54Marc:because of our familiarity with each other and because i i like the guy we were able to sort of jump right into it man jump right into it like a couple of members of the secret society are able to jump right into it because we got a shorthand man an emotional psychological storytelling shorthand with each other and uh so this is me talking to alan enjoy

00:15:31Marc:How many records do you have?

00:15:39Guest:Yeah, I haven't counted them.

00:15:40Marc:Like about?

00:15:41Guest:About thousands.

00:15:43Guest:I'm pretty sure I have thousands.

00:15:45Guest:I had a period about nine years ago when I had kind of a mental breakdown.

00:15:49Marc:Yeah.

00:15:50Guest:And I got rid of like 2,000 records.

00:15:53Yeah.

00:15:53Marc:What'd you do with them?

00:15:54Guest:I gave them away, I sold some, and I traded some for other records I wanted more.

00:15:59Guest:But my feeling was I wanted to be more mobile.

00:16:02Marc:Yeah.

00:16:02Guest:And I had this giant wall, and I have these cupboards upstairs all full of records.

00:16:07Guest:And I thought, well, if I get rid of this portion of them, then I can be more mobile with this whole, which is absurd.

00:16:12Marc:Ridiculous.

00:16:13Marc:Yeah.

00:16:13Marc:Now, do you regret it?

00:16:14Marc:You regret it?

00:16:14Guest:I regret certain records.

00:16:15Guest:Like what?

00:16:18Guest:There's like some reissues that I had.

00:16:21Guest:Like I had these Miles Davis reissues.

00:16:22Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:16:23Guest:And I had these John Coltrane reissues.

00:16:24Marc:Yeah.

00:16:25Guest:And I had these Eric Dolphy reissues.

00:16:26Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:16:27Guest:And I thought, well, they're just reissues.

00:16:28Marc:Right.

00:16:29Marc:I used to miss them now.

00:16:30Guest:Yeah, now I miss them.

00:16:31Guest:But also, there are some records I thought, why did I get rid of that?

00:16:34Guest:And now that there's Spotify, I can play that record.

00:16:37Guest:And I go, oh, I see.

00:16:38Marc:Yeah.

00:16:39Marc:So I'm not so.

00:16:40Marc:It's weird when you get into the vinyl thing where I don't want to listen to it any other way now.

00:16:46Marc:I can listen in my car and stuff, but when I'm home, I'm just going to put the vinyl on.

00:16:51Marc:I do believe you can tell a difference.

00:16:53Guest:I think you can too, but if you have people over like you're having a party or something.

00:16:56Guest:I've got a New Year's Eve where I would play a side of an album, side of an album, side of an album.

00:17:00Marc:Then you got to be on top of that all night.

00:17:01Marc:What have you been doing, man?

00:17:02Marc:I haven't seen you in a while.

00:17:05Marc:I read a bunch of punk elegies.

00:17:07Marc:I read a bunch of the new book.

00:17:10Marc:I didn't have time to get through both of them.

00:17:13Marc:Is that going to be a problem?

00:17:14Guest:No, not to me.

00:17:16Guest:I'm going to.

00:17:17Guest:I feel you may.

00:17:18Marc:I'm going to.

00:17:19Guest:I know you read the first one.

00:17:20Guest:You read the first one all the way through.

00:17:21Guest:Uh-huh.

00:17:22Guest:And then I was on Air America with you.

00:17:24Guest:Yeah.

00:17:24Guest:And we talked about it.

00:17:25Guest:Which one?

00:17:25Guest:The Hustler?

00:17:26Guest:The Hustler one, yeah.

00:17:27Guest:Well, yeah.

00:17:28Marc:I mean, that was a while back, though.

00:17:31Guest:That was like 2006 or something.

00:17:33Guest:Holy fuck.

00:17:33Guest:Was that out here?

00:17:34Guest:It was out here.

00:17:35Guest:It was on the Valley.

00:17:36Guest:It was in the Valley.

00:17:37Marc:That's where I have PTSD about that whole period.

00:17:41Marc:Yeah, I bet you do.

00:17:41Marc:Because, yeah.

00:17:43Guest:What I remember the most was when I was over, and plus it's live radio, so I was worried, like I have to say something now.

00:17:49Guest:I have to say something now.

00:17:50Marc:At 10 at night.

00:17:51Marc:At 10 at night.

00:17:51Marc:It was late at night.

00:17:52Marc:It was like they put me in this weird placeholder situation where I had to wait around if there was a Clippers game on, because I had to wait until it was over.

00:18:00Guest:Yeah, wait for overtime.

00:18:02Guest:Right.

00:18:03Guest:But when I came out, Maria Bamford was outside waiting.

00:18:07Guest:To go in?

00:18:07Guest:Or something.

00:18:08Guest:Yeah.

00:18:08Guest:And I was sort of starstruck.

00:18:10Guest:Yeah?

00:18:11Guest:So you knew who she was back then?

00:18:12Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because of the TV.

00:18:14Guest:She was on some... There was some sort of TV... You were on some show as well.

00:18:18Guest:Was it a comedy thing?

00:18:19Guest:It was some kind of comedy, sort of panel talk thing.

00:18:22Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:23Guest:Occasionally.

00:18:24Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

00:18:25Guest:And maybe that's where I'd seen her as well.

00:18:27Guest:Yeah.

00:18:28Guest:But she was funny.

00:18:29Guest:You know, she appealed to something about me... Oh, no, I love her.

00:18:32Guest:...that I had in common with her.

00:18:33Marc:Yeah, I love her.

00:18:34Marc:I mean, there's something about the sort of like...

00:18:38Marc:There's nobody like her, and then she can access the sort of emotional insanity that some of us experience, and it just speaks directly to us, whereas other people think, like, I don't get it.

00:18:48Marc:Yeah.

00:18:49Marc:But I get it exactly.

00:18:49Guest:She's not exactly universal, but it is kind of a widespread... Yeah.

00:18:53Guest:Like, there's a disquiet that people are now realizing that's... Because of the political situation, people are realizing there's this disquiet in being somewhat of an other.

00:19:03Marc:Yeah.

00:19:03Guest:And she had that from there.

00:19:05Guest:Yeah.

00:19:06Guest:And I kind of had that earlier, so...

00:19:08Marc:She was always another.

00:19:09Marc:That's the weird thing about reading the older books.

00:19:10Marc:I mean, the Husker book, what is that called again?

00:19:13Marc:Prisoner of X. Prisoner of X, that's right.

00:19:15Marc:But I hadn't read the punk elegies one, and it's like once you start reading it, and I know you a bit, and I've known you a bit for years, but then I got to picture you kind of sweaty and raw and fucked up way back in.

00:19:31Marc:And deluded.

00:19:32Marc:Deluded?

00:19:32Guest:Very deluded, yes.

00:19:34Guest:Incredible.

00:19:35Guest:I would just fall for everything.

00:19:37Guest:It was...

00:19:37Guest:Oh, you mean you were a sucker?

00:19:39Guest:I was a sucker.

00:19:40Guest:I like this certain image.

00:19:41Guest:I thought, oh, this is going to change my life.

00:19:42Guest:This is going to make so much better.

00:19:44Guest:I know, but you were there at the cusp of something.

00:19:47Guest:That was exciting.

00:19:48Marc:Yeah, but there's something about Los Angeles that I can't wrap my brain around.

00:19:51Marc:I realized coming back, I was in New York for three weeks, and I was coming back, and I was driving in from the airport, and I'm like, I got no fucking love for this city.

00:20:00Marc:And then when I read, I didn't come up here, you know?

00:20:03Marc:And when I read your book, I'm like, these are the people that love this city.

00:20:06Marc:I do love this city.

00:20:07Marc:Because this city used to be, like, if you have a handle on it and you, like, know the nooks and crannies and you sweat it out in this city for 40, 50 years or your whole life.

00:20:15Marc:Yeah.

00:20:15Marc:I mean, it's... I've been here since I was eight years old.

00:20:19Guest:You came from Canada?

00:20:20Guest:Yeah, from Canada, from the west coast of Canada.

00:20:21Guest:So, west coast my whole life.

00:20:23Marc:Right.

00:20:23Guest:But this city, like, the traffic and the parking will kill you.

00:20:26Guest:Like, the traffic and the parking, the only times I really hate this city... Yeah.

00:20:29Guest:It's when I'm looking for a parking spot or I'm battling traffic.

00:20:32Guest:Right.

00:20:33Guest:But I feel like this city, it draws oddballs.

00:20:35Guest:There's still a lot of oddballs here.

00:20:37Guest:People come here to become famous in certain different ways.

00:20:39Guest:That's right.

00:20:40Guest:But they come in as different kind of oddballs.

00:20:43Guest:New York, the last few times I've been in New York, it's very conformed.

00:20:46Guest:Now, yeah.

00:20:48Guest:There's so much conformity there.

00:20:49Guest:We're the smartest people.

00:20:51Guest:Come to the smartest people.

00:20:52Guest:We're the smartest people are in the smartest place.

00:20:54Marc:I know, but I was working around.

00:20:56Marc:I mean, I don't even know if that's the case anymore.

00:20:58Guest:No, it's just everybody's a millionaire.

00:20:59Guest:It's just, here I am, I'm a millionaire, and I'm going to dress like this millionaire.

00:21:03Guest:And it's sort of the very uniform kind of dress code.

00:21:05Guest:Right.

00:21:06Guest:And it used to be you would go to New York like in the early 80s or the first time I was in the late 70s, and it was oddballs.

00:21:12Marc:Oh, no, down the Lower East Side?

00:21:13Marc:Yeah, all over the place.

00:21:14Marc:I went to see this new Warhol show, and it was actually great.

00:21:19Marc:And I've seen a lot of that stuff, and I thought I've seen it all, but they curated something at the Whitney and pulled together some stuff that just... It was just beautifully put together, and there was stuff I'd never seen before, but they had this video running of the factory, one of those kind of like dancing, kind of velvet underground...

00:21:34Marc:And I was looking at these people and just the hair and the sweat and the freedom of it, that these eras that you lived through in the 70s, but in the 60s, people tried to reproduce them all the time, but there's nothing like being at the source of that.

00:21:50Marc:And that'll never, it's not so much, it'll never happen again.

00:21:54Guest:Something different may happen again, but this particular thing, you can't reproduce it.

00:21:57Marc:But it was so human and sweaty and full of fluids and goo and drugs.

00:22:01Guest:A certain kind of hope.

00:22:02Guest:Like you really thought things,

00:22:04Guest:The start of the punk rock, everybody really thought things were going to change.

00:22:10Guest:We all thought we were going to become millionaires.

00:22:12Guest:This is part of the deal.

00:22:13Guest:That was what you were gunning for back then?

00:22:14Guest:Yeah, not necessarily gunning for, but you just figured it was inevitable because you were so far ahead.

00:22:19Marc:How old am I now?

00:22:20Guest:I'm 62 now.

00:22:22Marc:I'm 55.

00:22:23Guest:So you were like seven years back.

00:22:24Marc:So you were really in it.

00:22:26Guest:Yeah.

00:22:27Guest:I'm the same age as like the Sex Pistols and the guy from Joy Division who killed himself like that age, like that year.

00:22:33Marc:I tell you, man, in all your writing, there's always somebody who's about to kill themselves.

00:22:37Marc:Somewhere in the corner, someone's hanging for a rope.

00:22:39Guest:My generation was like a mess because we're right after the 60s people.

00:22:44Marc:Yeah.

00:22:44Marc:So we have all the drugs, all the- Well, let's go back though.

00:22:48Marc:So you come down from Canada.

00:22:51Guest:Eight years old.

00:22:51Marc:And what?

00:22:52Marc:You were in Vancouver, but you have any recollection of that?

00:22:54Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:22:55Marc:You wrote a bit in the new book.

00:22:57Marc:The new book structure very interesting to me because you call it a memoir.

00:23:01Marc:But so in the way you frame the first part of the book, you know, which was broken up in little bits and pieces of your past.

00:23:10Marc:Is that sort of your life flashing before your eyes?

00:23:12Guest:Fairly.

00:23:13Guest:Yeah, there's a chapter called My Life Flash Before My Eyes.

00:23:15Guest:And then there's also like my introduction to death, like the first time I learned about... Well, I saw that too, but like those bits and pieces, I didn't know the title heading.

00:23:21Marc:And then all of a sudden you're dead.

00:23:23Marc:And then all of a sudden I'm dead.

00:23:24Marc:And now you're looking at your wife and her friends and your friends and how they're moving through your absence.

00:23:30Guest:Yeah, how they carry forward without me.

00:23:31Marc:How do you... Why do you call that a memoir?

00:23:35Guest:Well, because...

00:23:36Guest:They call it a memoir.

00:23:38Guest:That falls on their memoir.

00:23:40Guest:And part of what I want to do is I want to illustrate that every memoir is, in fact, got an aspect of fiction.

00:23:46Guest:Of course, yeah.

00:23:46Guest:Because once you make yourself the hero of the story, once you make yourself the protagonist, it's fiction.

00:23:52Guest:Whether you're talking at a bar to somebody else, whether you're on stage giving a spiel, whatever, it's fictionalized.

00:23:58Guest:And so this one is like half of, like there was a review, this review said, it's something about how it's hard to judge the veracity of parts of this book.

00:24:08Guest:meaning the parts when the narrator is dead right they want to judge the veracity of like oh my dog this is this is this being narrated by my dog and they want to judge the veracity of my dog's narration how does that how do you how do you how do you how are you qualified to write a review if you if you're going to judge the veracity of the dog's point of view judging the veracity of my dog's point of view so you shifted the point of view

00:24:33Guest:Here and there, yeah.

00:24:34Marc:Because at the beginning, it was sort of like there was an omniscient point of view.

00:24:37Marc:Then all of a sudden, you're talking.

00:24:38Marc:So then we go to the dog.

00:24:40Marc:Did you write it like the sound and the fury?

00:24:41Marc:Was it just colors and the smells and sounds?

00:24:44Guest:No, he's a pretty aware dog.

00:24:46Marc:He's a pretty aware dog.

00:24:47Guest:And he has a giant penis.

00:24:48Guest:So he's named Bulger.

00:24:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:24:51Guest:And he's a good dog.

00:24:52Marc:And these are your real dogs.

00:24:54Guest:My dogs don't actually talk.

00:24:58Marc:No, but I mean, are those the names of your dogs?

00:25:01Guest:No, no, my dogs are called Tippy and Casper.

00:25:04Marc:And you changed the name of your wife, who I know.

00:25:06Guest:I changed the name, and also a lot of details, because of the fact that it is so fictionalized.

00:25:12Guest:All the same, she has not read it, and she's not been able to read it.

00:25:15Guest:Teresa, right?

00:25:16Guest:Yeah, and she won't recommend it.

00:25:19Marc:I find that happens with a lot of writers I know, even writers of fiction.

00:25:23Marc:I recently talked to my buddy Sam, and his wife is not thrilled about the new book.

00:25:28Marc:And it's like it's so not offensive, but people, you know, they think about themselves, so they're going to take it personally.

00:25:35Guest:Also, you worry what someone else might think about it.

00:25:38Marc:Or you, or they're going to look at you weird.

00:25:40Marc:Like your friends are going to read it.

00:25:41Guest:Or family or somebody, they're going to read it and go, oh, this is what he really thinks of you.

00:25:45Guest:When it's not what I think of any of these people.

00:25:47Marc:Does she know that?

00:25:48Guest:Yes, she knows that.

00:25:49Guest:But everybody I know knows that.

00:25:51Guest:Like if there's a character and it has, like maybe there's some characteristics that are akin to someone I know, that's a skin.

00:25:59Guest:And all the motivations and the various failings, those are mine.

00:26:04Marc:Yeah, right, right.

00:26:05Guest:Those are all, it's populated with my- Projection.

00:26:07Guest:Yeah, my faults, my whatever, you know.

00:26:10Marc:Yeah, and also how you see those people or-

00:26:12Guest:Once I'm writing, I stop seeing them once I do the physical description.

00:26:18Guest:And it's not them anymore.

00:26:20Guest:No.

00:26:20Guest:I have this physical description, and then basically everything that fills it out, I've realized now, it's just overflow of my own kind of neuroses or my own projections or what I would be like if I was in this situation.

00:26:32Marc:Yeah.

00:26:32Marc:Well, it's interesting that I realize that framing as a memoir makes sense.

00:26:37Marc:Outside of the fictionalization of what's happening after you die, when you start exploring these characters, if they are real, you are doing a lot of past because you can build these characters out from the point after the present when you're dead.

00:26:50Marc:But as soon as you go back, then you're dealing in a somewhat reality frame.

00:26:53Guest:In a way, but I have like the wife in the book.

00:26:57Guest:There's this circle of friends around her.

00:27:00Guest:Yeah.

00:27:00Guest:And none of those people really behave in a way that if people go, oh, look, that looks like me.

00:27:06Guest:Yeah.

00:27:07Guest:The people who it might look like have behaved in the past.

00:27:10Guest:Right.

00:27:12Guest:Even the past is like it's my kind of resentment and stuff.

00:27:17Marc:You went out of your way to have one of the characters that you renamed in Punk Elegies appear in the new book, and she kept the name that you gave her in Punk Elegies.

00:27:25Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:26Marc:Is she a real person?

00:27:28Guest:She is a real person, and she is a bit of a composite.

00:27:33Marc:She's more than one real person.

00:27:34Marc:Right.

00:27:35Marc:Because I know some of the people you know, so I'm kind of bending my brain to...

00:27:39Guest:Well, some of the people, like in the punk allergies, like there's this guy, Black Randy.

00:27:43Guest:Black Randy's a real human being, you know.

00:27:45Guest:There's Joe Strummer.

00:27:48Guest:There's an incident with Joe Strummer at the Roxy.

00:27:49Marc:Yeah.

00:27:50Guest:That actually happened.

00:27:51Marc:Sure.

00:27:51Guest:You can find that.

00:27:52Marc:And the guys from Swash Magazine, those are real guys.

00:27:54Marc:Yes, yes.

00:27:56Marc:But okay, so going back.

00:27:57Marc:So from Vancouver, which I think is like one of the greatest cities in the world, you come down here.

00:28:02Marc:Do you ever go back up to Canada?

00:28:04Marc:Do you have people in Canada?

00:28:05Guest:Well, they're all dying off.

00:28:06Guest:But yeah, my sister moved back.

00:28:07Guest:One of my brothers moved back.

00:28:09Guest:We used to go back every year.

00:28:10Guest:The last time I went back was probably about four years ago with my wife.

00:28:13Guest:We went to Vancouver Island.

00:28:15Marc:Yeah.

00:28:15Guest:We went up to- Pretty, right?

00:28:17Guest:It's really pretty.

00:28:18Guest:Went up to this place up in kind of the north of the island-

00:28:22Guest:Was it Tofino?

00:28:23Guest:Tofino.

00:28:24Guest:It was Tofino.

00:28:25Marc:Tofino.

00:28:25Marc:I want to go there, man.

00:28:26Guest:They have a hot spring.

00:28:27Guest:I know.

00:28:29Guest:You got to fly a little plane up there?

00:28:30Guest:We flew the little plane back.

00:28:32Guest:We took the boat too and flew the little plane back.

00:28:34Guest:Is it great?

00:28:35Guest:It's amazing.

00:28:36Marc:It's amazing.

00:28:37Marc:But you think you could have appreciated it when you were 20?

00:28:39Guest:Yeah, in a way, because I used to like to go out into nature and smoke weed.

00:28:43Marc:Yeah.

00:28:43Guest:Well, maybe when I was like 15 more than when I was 20, but yeah.

00:28:48Guest:Also, we visited my dad because my dad was in a nursing home in a place called Ladysmith on Vancouver Island.

00:28:54Guest:And then in this book, now that I'm gone, there's this section that's the people that have stayed behind me.

00:29:00Guest:Yeah.

00:29:00Guest:And it's like my dad and my wife's mom.

00:29:03Guest:Yeah.

00:29:03Guest:And my wife's mom lived with us for probably like eight to 10 years after she got dementia.

00:29:08Guest:Yeah.

00:29:09Guest:And so it's like those two characters, my dad in this nursing home after he'd had like these strokes.

00:29:14Guest:Yeah.

00:29:15Guest:So it's like, you know, it's as far out as you're going to get while you're alive.

00:29:18Guest:Yeah.

00:29:18Guest:It's like the far end of life, of consciousness.

00:29:21Guest:Yeah.

00:29:21Guest:And then interacting with me.

00:29:24Guest:But now that I, it's all kind of from the perspective of this narrator who's, you know, departed.

00:29:30Guest:Yeah.

00:29:31Marc:Well, it feels like at the beginning when I'm reading it, because like I'm 55, but it feels like that, you know, the way you think about death and the way you experience it and what you've experienced of it as, you know, you've moved through the circles you've moved through, it's kind of pressing.

00:29:44Marc:You know, but you're like, I feel a wrangling with the reality of it.

00:29:48Guest:That's the way it goes.

00:29:49Guest:Because with my, you know, whatever, textured past, like there's been people dying since I was a kid, since I was 16.

00:29:56Guest:And then a lot in the punk thing.

00:29:58Guest:But now it's like, it's not suicide and it's not drug overdoses.

00:30:05Guest:It's just natural causes.

00:30:06Guest:And I was saying that pretty much exactly what you said recently is death is no longer a theory.

00:30:12Guest:It's like it's a reality that you grow into this reality.

00:30:16Guest:And it becomes like I've always thought about death.

00:30:19Guest:I don't know if I'm morbid, but it becomes like this part of your living process is this awareness that people are dropping all over.

00:30:27Guest:Someone connects with me on Facebook from high school.

00:30:31Guest:Two years later, he's gone.

00:30:32Marc:Yeah, I've seen a lot of people go to, I mean, kind of natural causes, but when they're natural and you're not 60 yet, they're dubious natural causes, right?

00:30:43Marc:You know what I mean?

00:30:45Marc:But you sort of said something at the beginning of the book about how it's just always there.

00:30:50Marc:I've always intellectually dealt with it, and I've had a fear of it, but only rarely have I had a terror of it.

00:30:57Marc:Right.

00:30:58Marc:Like, you know, because you try to intellectualize it.

00:31:00Marc:Like, you know, I know it's going to happen.

00:31:01Marc:But if you really sit there and think about it, which I think you do in some points in the book, like if you're just laying there in bed and you really put yourself, you know, in the place.

00:31:11Marc:Like, you know, most nights I go to sleep wondering like, is this it?

00:31:17Marc:Is this it?

00:31:17Marc:That's how I put myself to sleep.

00:31:19Guest:I don't really have a tear of it, though.

00:31:21Marc:No, I didn't feel that.

00:31:22Marc:But, like, you say that after a certain age, it's just always there.

00:31:26Marc:Yeah.

00:31:26Marc:It's always lingering, like, right there.

00:31:28Guest:And then also, like, it kind of forces you into your life.

00:31:32Guest:Yeah.

00:31:33Guest:Because it's not that you live harder to shut it out.

00:31:36Guest:It's just like...

00:31:38Guest:why waste a moment?

00:31:39Guest:Why waste stuff?

00:31:41Marc:But do you, do you really do that?

00:31:42Marc:I mean, do you think that way?

00:31:43Guest:To some extent, I believe I, I don't think, I don't, you know, sit down and tell myself, I give myself a little pep talk saying, you know, you need to, look, you know, you only get so many moments.

00:31:51Guest:Yeah, go out.

00:31:52Guest:But if it is, I can, I can, I can recognize it.

00:31:55Guest:I can see it.

00:31:56Guest:Like, like I don't hold a grudge as much as my wife.

00:31:59Guest:Maybe, you know, I hope I don't just jinx myself, but, but I don't, I don't want to ruin my day.

00:32:03Guest:I don't want to ruin an hour.

00:32:04Marc:I don't think you can jinx yourself.

00:32:05Marc:You have a certain amount of control over holding a grudge.

00:32:07Marc:Yeah.

00:32:07Guest:But no, but something's going to happen that I'll go back to.

00:32:11Marc:I'll go back.

00:32:11Marc:I'll revert.

00:32:12Marc:Yeah, I'll revert.

00:32:13Marc:I don't want to revert.

00:32:14Marc:Yeah, I find that if I hold a grudge now after being sober as long as I have, that it's just the way it's going to be.

00:32:22Marc:There's not many of them, and they're not that active.

00:32:25Marc:But if you let me think about it for a minute, I'll be like, oh, yeah.

00:32:28Guest:But it's good.

00:32:29Guest:One way to deal with it, I heard very early in my sobriety.

00:32:31Guest:It's just like that person.

00:32:33Guest:Just make sure that person ceases to exist for you.

00:32:36Guest:Right.

00:32:37Guest:Detach with malice.

00:32:42Marc:Detach with erasure.

00:32:44Marc:Yeah.

00:32:44Marc:Well, yeah, but there was some other thing that the other sad thing, and I think it's something I share with you in terms of thinking that, like, there was a moment in the book after you die where somebody said, like, he was just getting happy.

00:32:55Marc:He was just starting to...

00:32:56Marc:He was just starting to get the hang of it.

00:32:57Guest:He looked like he might turn around.

00:32:58Guest:Things might come together.

00:33:00Guest:But that's another thing about when you get to this certain age and people are dropping off.

00:33:04Marc:Yeah.

00:33:05Guest:It's like you make that turn.

00:33:06Guest:You got to make that turn.

00:33:07Marc:You know what's also great is that you can see the evolution and the sort of you write more confidently with more space.

00:33:16Marc:You write differently, more poetically between the elegies in this book.

00:33:19Marc:There's definitely something more thoughtful.

00:33:22Marc:There are spaces that weren't there before.

00:33:24Marc:Yeah.

00:33:24Guest:Maybe.

00:33:24Guest:I feel like every time I finish something, I think, wow, I've almost got it.

00:33:31Marc:I've almost got it.

00:33:33Guest:There's a bit of an improvement.

00:33:34Guest:And then I look back a little later and I see everything where I feel like I fell a little short.

00:33:39Guest:But I'm pretty happy with it.

00:33:41Guest:I'm pretty happy with the way.

00:33:42Guest:It came out.

00:33:43Guest:Because a lot of the things I'm trying to express there, they can come off as really self-pitying and maudlin.

00:33:51Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:33:52Guest:And I don't want to do that.

00:33:53Guest:So I'm very conscious of trying to communicate something without being a bummer.

00:34:00Guest:Because I don't want the book to be a bummer.

00:34:02Marc:Well, you know, it's weird.

00:34:03Marc:You do, you know, because I don't know you that well that, you know, in what I know of you and what I've known of you for the last, you know, 15 years or whatever, it's just, you know, passing moments and physicality.

00:34:13Marc:You know, so like I'm just inserting a younger you into these tones.

00:34:18Marc:And I never felt maybe a little maudlin, but I guess to me,

00:34:24Marc:There's that weird thing where it's sort of like, are we being objective?

00:34:29Marc:Because there are people that don't think about this shit, and I don't really understand them.

00:34:34Marc:I sometimes wish I were them, and as I get older, some of the stuff that used to plague me or consume me just faded away.

00:34:41Guest:More outside stuff, right?

00:34:44Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, people's opinions.

00:34:47Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:48Marc:Yeah.

00:34:48Marc:But like the sort of basic nature of like, why are we here?

00:34:51Marc:You know, what is this struggle worth?

00:34:54Marc:Like when I see really old people just kind of like, you know, trying to get down the street.

00:34:58Marc:I'm like, that doesn't seem like the big payoff that we're waiting for.

00:35:01Guest:You know what I mean?

00:35:02Guest:Like.

00:35:02Guest:But there's got to be something else going on, too.

00:35:05Guest:There's a strange thing with really old people is their history gets erased.

00:35:11Guest:When you look at them, you don't see their history at all.

00:35:13Guest:You don't see what they've been.

00:35:15Guest:You don't see if they were in World War II.

00:35:17Guest:You don't see...

00:35:18Marc:But you dealt with someone with dementia.

00:35:19Marc:I mean, I guess I've been I don't want to use the word blessed because it's not really blessed.

00:35:23Marc:I've been spared.

00:35:26Marc:You know, both my parents are still alive.

00:35:27Marc:You know, I've I've been, you know, you know, fortunate in my life health wise, relatively speaking, up to this point.

00:35:34Marc:But I mean, I know in the book, you certainly have lost people I know.

00:35:38Marc:But to deal with somebody with Alzheimer's for a decade, I mean, it's got to be just relentless and horrifying.

00:35:43Guest:In a way, except that she was such a sweet person.

00:35:47Guest:Like you see a lot, there's a lot of people who get really angry.

00:35:49Marc:So there's a repetition of sweetness?

00:35:51Marc:Yeah.

00:35:51Guest:Well, okay, here it is.

00:35:52Guest:I'll give you an example.

00:35:53Guest:Christmas morning, right?

00:35:54Guest:I go, hey, Eva, Merry Christmas.

00:35:56Guest:She goes, it's Christmas.

00:35:57Guest:It's Christmas.

00:35:57Guest:Merry Christmas.

00:35:58Guest:Oh, she gets really happy.

00:35:59Guest:Fifteen minutes later, I go in.

00:36:01Guest:She forgets.

00:36:01Guest:Hey.

00:36:01Guest:Merry Christmas Eve.

00:36:02Guest:She goes, it's Christmas.

00:36:04Guest:She gets so happy.

00:36:04Guest:So I mean, it was kind of like, that's like one day.

00:36:07Marc:You're just sort of like giving her a hit.

00:36:08Marc:You could just do it all day long.

00:36:10Guest:You could do it all day long.

00:36:11Guest:But also like her core was really kind of like a sweet person.

00:36:15Marc:So she didn't become menacing or weak.

00:36:17Marc:She didn't become menacing.

00:36:18Guest:She didn't become all angry or resentful.

00:36:20Guest:And then I think she also, she was so appreciative of her daughter and that her daughter brought her in and was taking care of her.

00:36:26Guest:Like she was very, she had like this sort of core gratitude as well.

00:36:30Guest:Yeah.

00:36:30Guest:That kind of like it helped.

00:36:32Guest:And it stayed there.

00:36:33Guest:It stayed there.

00:36:34Marc:Oh, that's great.

00:36:34Marc:It stayed there.

00:36:35Guest:It's there still.

00:36:36Guest:She's in Montrose right now, and she's in a place in Montrose.

00:36:38Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:36:39Guest:And it's still there.

00:36:40Marc:So where in Los Angeles did you grow up?

00:36:43Guest:We grew up out in, what do you call it, San Gabriel Valley.

00:36:46Marc:Yeah.

00:36:46Guest:Like Kavina, West Kavina.

00:36:49Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:36:50Marc:I wasn't crazy about it.

00:36:51Marc:Well, the way you capture it in the book, just because I don't know those areas and I don't live those areas, just the weird sort of sparse suburban nature of it.

00:37:00Marc:I mean, that's really where the L.A.

00:37:05Marc:punk aesthetic sort of got pulled out of, right?

00:37:07Guest:In some degrees, yeah.

00:37:08Guest:But there was no imagination out there.

00:37:10Guest:I'm talking about the valley to the east.

00:37:13Guest:The valley to the north and the west, a lot of people there, their parents worked in the movie industry or the entertainment.

00:37:18Guest:Maybe they were just gaffers or whatever.

00:37:20Guest:They worked in costuming.

00:37:22Marc:But they were part of the dream factory.

00:37:23Guest:Yeah, they saw there was this bigger world where I was from.

00:37:26Guest:They didn't even have that.

00:37:27Guest:What was out there?

00:37:28Guest:Nothing.

00:37:28Guest:The real estate offices, what do you call it, mortgage companies?

00:37:32Guest:I don't know, just nothing really.

00:37:34Guest:A lot of smog.

00:37:35Guest:It had this inversion layer, a lot of smog.

00:37:37Guest:Not much imagination.

00:37:38Guest:What did your dad do?

00:37:39Guest:He sold real estate.

00:37:40Guest:He sold houses.

00:37:40Guest:My mom worked at a retail store.

00:37:45Marc:So you were just out there listening to townie music?

00:37:49Yeah.

00:37:49Marc:Well, I guess it was early enough to where at least the music that was mainstream or consolidated, you were there for like just post the birth of the new shit twice, I guess.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah, well, I liked a lot of, you know, like Bowie and Roxy music and T-Rex.

00:38:02Marc:But before that, I imagine when you were a kid, because when I was a kid, so you were a kid.

00:38:05Guest:Well, I had this stuff.

00:38:06Guest:Yeah, I had like that, like the protopunk kind of like the Electric Prunes and the Standells and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles when they were both fantastic.

00:38:14Marc:Right, like in 69, how old are you?

00:38:16Marc:Like I'm 60.

00:38:16Marc:I'm six.

00:38:17Marc:I'm 13.

00:38:17Marc:So that's all getting planted in.

00:38:19Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:38:20Guest:My test, whatever, it's all going crazy.

00:38:23Marc:Yeah, and then you get the Beatles.

00:38:24Marc:And you get the 60s.

00:38:25Guest:Yes, yeah.

00:38:26Marc:And you don't have older brothers or older siblings.

00:38:28Guest:I had an older sister, but she was more scholarly.

00:38:32Marc:Oh, she didn't have the records necessary to get you through?

00:38:35Marc:No, no, no.

00:38:35Guest:Well, even then, it was radio.

00:38:37Guest:The AM radio was, at that time, you got like Paint It Black would come on.

00:38:43Marc:Yeah.

00:38:43Guest:Paint It Black at that age, blasting out of your little transistor radio was very- Crazy.

00:38:47Guest:Well, it just makes you feel great.

00:38:49Marc:But so that's going into you when you're 13.

00:38:51Marc:So then you were actually.

00:38:52Guest:Also, I'm reading.

00:38:53Marc:Yeah.

00:38:53Guest:Like I'm reading because I started reading really early.

00:38:55Guest:I started reading like I was reading Dickens when I was like maybe 11.

00:38:59Guest:Like I read Oliver Twist, which is not like a like it's not a it's a trigger warning book.

00:39:05Guest:I mean, like kids get hanged.

00:39:07Guest:Kids get hanged.

00:39:08Guest:And as kids get hanged, other kids go and pick pockets of the people spectating at the hanging.

00:39:12Guest:You know, it's like.

00:39:12Marc:Yeah, Dickens was some dirty shit in a way.

00:39:14Marc:He was great.

00:39:15Guest:He also validated my... Because I had the suspicion that the people in authority were kind of full of shit.

00:39:21Guest:And that they didn't really necessarily have my best interest.

00:39:23Marc:At 13?

00:39:24Marc:Yes, yes.

00:39:24Marc:And you weren't brought up with any religion, really?

00:39:26Guest:Catholic.

00:39:27Marc:You were?

00:39:27Guest:Catholic, yeah.

00:39:28Marc:Well, at least it's a rich tradition of weirdness.

00:39:30Guest:Well, Catholic as well.

00:39:31Guest:It's like you reach this point, a lot of Catholics do, where you reach this point, it's like, who are these people to tell me what is what?

00:39:40Guest:How do they know more than I know?

00:39:41Guest:They don't.

00:39:42Guest:And you reach this kind of point where it's sort of like good and evil, right and wrong, like you know they exist, but it's not necessary for someone else to tell you what they are.

00:39:50Guest:I mean, the mafia is very Catholic, and look what they do.

00:39:54Marc:Well, yeah, well, they are actually very Catholic.

00:39:56Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:39:56Marc:No, I get it.

00:39:57Marc:And they execute because they, you know, it's like, you can't tell me.

00:40:00Marc:They have an incredible ability to compartmentalize, Alan.

00:40:03Guest:Maybe there's some of that.

00:40:04Guest:But I feel like I integrated.

00:40:06Guest:I didn't compartmentalize.

00:40:08Guest:I integrated it all.

00:40:09Guest:Well, that's why.

00:40:10Guest:I feel like it had a great effect on this whole Catholicism thing.

00:40:14Guest:Yeah.

00:40:15Guest:I feel like it did get, I mean, I know there's a whatever, but I feel like it did get kind of a moral code.

00:40:20Guest:Like there's sort of like this, what do you call it, honor culture.

00:40:23Guest:The whole honor culture thing?

00:40:24Guest:Honor culture, yeah.

00:40:25Guest:A lot of honor culture people are Catholic.

00:40:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:40:27Guest:And it's sort of like a moral code.

00:40:29Guest:Why do you think that is?

00:40:30Guest:Well, because if you violate the code,

00:40:32Guest:You know, you're in hell.

00:40:33Marc:You're in hell.

00:40:34Marc:Yeah, you're going to get hell.

00:40:36Marc:So even if you don't buy that shit anymore, the system that was put in place, you know, within your little world.

00:40:44Marc:Yeah, I get that.

00:40:45Marc:I actually have become sort of like mildly obsessed with the logic.

00:40:50Marc:and the intent of the seven deadly sins like in to me you know i just become fascinated with the idea because i once talked to christopher hedges and and he said to me he said that you know they weren't put there as a road map to perfection they were put there as a barometer for your for your behavior like there was never any idea that you were going to nail this yeah

00:41:12Marc:They're like the guardrails.

00:41:14Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:41:15Marc:But how did they pick those fucking seven?

00:41:17Marc:They're so solid, man.

00:41:19Marc:It's not that you're ever going to get rid of all those, but you know the shit you're supposed to keep in check because any one of them or a mixture of them, once they get out of hand, you're fucked.

00:41:29Guest:You're gone.

00:41:30Guest:You're in either the spiral or the straight out slide.

00:41:33Guest:With or without hell.

00:41:34Marc:I mean, I'm not even a hell guy.

00:41:36Guest:No, no, because hell's alive.

00:41:37Guest:Hell's what you do to yourself.

00:41:38Guest:Hell's what happens to you because of what you fucking did.

00:41:41Guest:We're in it.

00:41:42Guest:Yeah, if you're in hell, it's right there with you.

00:41:45Guest:It's not waiting for you in some distant place.

00:41:47Marc:No, or else you get sucked into somebody else's hell on a personal level, a cultural level, a political level, a national level.

00:41:55Marc:I mean, there's plenty of hells, man.

00:41:57Guest:Yeah, but I believe the seven deadly sins, that was really well thought out.

00:42:03Guest:I don't know if it was done by committee or if it was one fucking really visionary human being.

00:42:10Marc:It's beautiful, isn't it?

00:42:10Marc:And it's like, you know, that and the Ten Commandments is like, this is how society exists and this is how individuals don't destroy themselves.

00:42:17Marc:Here you go.

00:42:18Marc:You know, it's crazy.

00:42:20Marc:You could be okay.

00:42:21Marc:Deal with this, you could be okay.

00:42:22Guest:And then maybe like the four absolutes.

00:42:24Guest:What are they?

00:42:24Guest:That's how you behave with honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love.

00:42:28Guest:Oh yeah, I think I have that.

00:42:29Guest:So layer that on top.

00:42:30Guest:I used to go to work and I would work at Hustler and I would put HPUL on top of my little calendar every morning just to like to- The four absolutes?

00:42:39Marc:Yeah.

00:42:40Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:40Marc:Keep you in check.

00:42:42Marc:Not the seven deadly sins, just those that you don't want to feel guilty.

00:42:46Guest:I'm kind of dealing with those.

00:42:47Guest:I'm kind of making my money off of those.

00:42:49Guest:But this other thing, perhaps I'll work with it.

00:42:52Marc:It's not on you, man.

00:42:54Marc:You put it out in the world.

00:42:56Marc:So, okay, so you're growing up out there, and then so you're 13, and you get your mind blown by that music.

00:43:02Guest:And also the things I'm reading.

00:43:04Marc:Dickens.

00:43:04Guest:And then I got Kerouac pretty early.

00:43:07Guest:I got Burroughs pretty early.

00:43:10Marc:Burroughs you got to keep going back to, man.

00:43:12Marc:It's just like you're in a mire of like, you know it's a lot and you know everything's in there, but sorting it out is no easy game.

00:43:20Guest:Naked Launch was on a cutout table at Pickwick Books and I got my mother to buy it for me.

00:43:26Marc:She didn't know.

00:43:26Guest:Yeah, she bought me that, and she bought me the Essential Lenny Bruce on the same day.

00:43:30Marc:That's great.

00:43:31Guest:The Essential Lenny Bruce is just- The paperback?

00:43:33Marc:Yeah.

00:43:33Marc:Yeah, those are great.

00:43:35Marc:The Naked Lunch paperback, too, right?

00:43:36Guest:No, the Naked Lunch was a hardback.

00:43:37Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:43:38Guest:Yeah, Grow Press hardback, which got stolen from me at the Canterbury when I was a punk rocker.

00:43:42Guest:But the Lenny Bruce, it was his bits, all his routines.

00:43:45Marc:No, I know.

00:43:45Marc:Yeah, it's great.

00:43:46Guest:It was really- And again, that was like Dickens.

00:43:48Guest:That was like a Dickens thing, because it-

00:43:50Marc:They were kind of rich like that.

00:43:51Guest:Well, it validates your perception that what I'm being presented with by the authorities, the media, whatever, is not necessarily what's really happening in my life and the lives of people I can see around me.

00:44:03Marc:That's right.

00:44:04Marc:That's right.

00:44:04Marc:You're pulling the veil back a bit.

00:44:06Marc:Yes, yes.

00:44:07Marc:Because Dickens was really about class and Lenny Bruce was really about speaking truth to power.

00:44:14Guest:Yeah.

00:44:14Marc:Right?

00:44:15Marc:Yeah.

00:44:15Marc:Because I got that book.

00:44:16Marc:I got a hardback first edition of the Lenny Bruce bit, The Essential Lenny Bruce, and I got it in a used bookstore in Phoenix, and there was a Brownies bookmark in it, like that little Girl Scout, whatever the Brownies were.

00:44:31Guest:Because they must have had a book drive.

00:44:32Marc:Yeah, something.

00:44:34Marc:I have it.

00:44:35Marc:It's right over there.

00:44:36Marc:I love that thing.

00:44:37Marc:I love it.

00:44:38Marc:So when do you realize something is fucking happening?

00:44:41Marc:Like, what is the thing that goes into your head?

00:44:45Marc:What was the radio station?

00:44:47Marc:How did you know that things were about to change?

00:44:49Marc:Because punk didn't happen for another five years, right?

00:44:51Guest:Yeah, six or seven years, yeah.

00:44:52Marc:But you weren't hip to the Stooges or anything like that yet, were you?

00:44:56Guest:Not long after, like by 73.

00:44:58Marc:Really?

00:44:58Guest:So you were there to be... Well, because of Bowie.

00:45:00Guest:Bowie, like, let you know about everything.

00:45:02Guest:You know, Bowie, like, he produced that Lou Reed album, so then you gotta go and grab all that Velvet Underground stuff.

00:45:07Guest:He worked with the...

00:45:08Guest:Iggy on Raw Power, which is one of the most amazing albums ever.

00:45:12Guest:So you gotta go pull out all three of them.

00:45:16Guest:Here's the thing that happened.

00:45:17Guest:On TV, there was this big rock show.

00:45:21Guest:It was either from Cleveland or Cincinnati or something, big outdoor show.

00:45:24Guest:And Alice Cooper was on it, and Grand Funk, whatever.

00:45:27Guest:And Iggy and the Stooges.

00:45:28Marc:They're having a little resurgence, Grandpa.

00:45:30Guest:But Iggy and the Stooges were on it and Alice Cooper were on it.

00:45:32Guest:And they were both so transgressive that when I went back to school the next day, I had to dampen my enthusiasm for that.

00:45:41Guest:Because everybody else was like, did you see those sick fags?

00:45:43Guest:Really?

00:45:44Guest:Yes, yes.

00:45:45Guest:It was like, you couldn't just go, hey, I love this, because it was sort of reviled by a lot of people.

00:45:51Guest:Like Rolling Stone, for instance, if you can dig up the original review of the Iggy and the Dude's Funhouse album in Rolling Stone, they just savaged it.

00:46:01Guest:They felt it had no excuse for existing.

00:46:05Marc:Really?

00:46:06Guest:Yes.

00:46:07Guest:And the same with Black Sabbath Paranoid.

00:46:09Marc:Really?

00:46:09Guest:Yeah.

00:46:10Marc:I didn't know that.

00:46:11Marc:Yeah.

00:46:11Marc:Because you do write a piece that I read the other day about once Bowie became mainstream, that the experience of going to see him was different because the crowds were now- The crowd changed.

00:46:23Marc:They were not transgressive.

00:46:25Guest:Yeah.

00:46:25Guest:Well, the first time I saw Bowie, I was probably, it was maybe 72 or something.

00:46:30Guest:When Rodney brought him here?

00:46:31Guest:No, it was probably like a season afterward.

00:46:34Guest:It was right after Ziggy Stardust came out.

00:46:36Marc:Yeah.

00:46:36Guest:It was at the Long Beach Auditorium.

00:46:37Guest:I was still in high school.

00:46:38Marc:It was after Ziggy's, because he came.

00:46:40Guest:It was promoting Ziggy.

00:46:43Marc:I think he came out here before that, right after Space Odyssey.

00:46:47Marc:He came here and no one really knew who he was.

00:46:49Guest:Yeah, and I think he just kind of hung around.

00:46:50Guest:I don't think he played any shows.

00:46:52Marc:No, he didn't.

00:46:52Marc:I just read a screenplay about that period.

00:46:55Guest:the first i believe the first show he played was in santa marcus civic in 72 i didn't go to that one but i had the bootleg of that but when i went to the bowie show like i the the show was really 72 yeah at longby it's like the show itself which is beautiful and really like when he played um there were certain songs where he you know he got down on the stage and he really felt like he was talking to you and this song you hang on it's like don't commit suicide hang on you know it's like

00:47:19Marc:Oh, for the people who were freaks.

00:47:21Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:47:21Guest:Well, then in the audience, like, I got out, you know, I'm going out, and, like, I'm pretty young for the audience.

00:47:26Guest:I'm probably in the lower, like, youngest 5%.

00:47:28Guest:You're, like, 14?

00:47:29Guest:I'm probably, like, 16.

00:47:30Guest:Yeah.

00:47:30Guest:16 at this time.

00:47:31Guest:Yeah.

00:47:31Guest:15 or 16.

00:47:32Guest:Yeah.

00:47:33Guest:And then the audience largely was, like, they were, like, you know, they were sort of drug addicts, sort of, like, very creative people.

00:47:41Guest:There was a lot of gays.

00:47:42Guest:There was drag queens.

00:47:44Guest:There was, you know, Hollywood, like, sort of, like...

00:47:46Guest:We're skeeves.

00:47:49Guest:We're very skeevy.

00:47:50Guest:And then I noticed that I wasn't afraid of any of these people, and I noticed that none of them, when they looked at me and when they recognized me, when they viewed me, had any malice toward me, which was way different than what I was experiencing every day out in West Covina.

00:48:04Guest:So it's just like I thought, you know, there's this place.

00:48:08Guest:It's going to be different.

00:48:09Guest:Yeah, these are my people.

00:48:10Guest:Yeah, it's going to be different.

00:48:11Guest:I don't know if they're all my people, whatever, but it is a population that I can move among.

00:48:16Guest:Where judgment wasn't part of it.

00:48:19Guest:Yeah, they're not gonna judge me, and then if they do judge me, they're not gonna try to punch me in the face.

00:48:25Marc:Yeah, just because you're not like them.

00:48:28Marc:That's an amazing observation.

00:48:30Marc:Oh, it was a beautiful event.

00:48:31Marc:It must have been an amazing feeling.

00:48:32Guest:It was.

00:48:33Guest:It was really a pivotal event in my life.

00:48:35Guest:It was a rock concert.

00:48:37Guest:It was a David Bowie concert.

00:48:37Marc:Right, because all these different people, and nobody's like, hey, you freak.

00:48:42Marc:No, nobody was at all.

00:48:43Guest:And that was after, so... And the music, too.

00:48:45Guest:There were some songs.

00:48:47Marc:On Ziggy?

00:48:47Guest:Yeah, I can't remember the name of the song, but it's like...

00:48:50Guest:But he goes, you know, something where he sits down like touch me or I'm with you or whatever.

00:48:55Guest:I forget the lyrics.

00:48:56Guest:I'm paraphrasing.

00:48:56Guest:But I remember like just getting this feeling like, you know, not necessarily him, but someone is.

00:49:02Marc:Someone is.

00:49:02Marc:And it was really.

00:49:03Marc:Someone was speaking for everybody there.

00:49:05Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:49:06Marc:Yeah, I mean, I went to see that Bowie exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, and I fucking cried the whole way through.

00:49:12Guest:Yeah, I saw it too, and it really was emotional.

00:49:16Marc:Right?

00:49:16Marc:Yeah, it was really emotional.

00:49:17Marc:I can't even understand exactly why.

00:49:19Marc:I mean, I didn't have that experience that you had, but when you go into that middle room where they have that thing of him as Ziggy, I can't remember which song it was, and I'm watching him on the monitor, and I'm just like, all of a sudden, I start fucking bawling.

00:49:31Marc:That's crazy.

00:49:32Marc:It was like...

00:49:33Marc:You forget how important he was in your life.

00:49:35Guest:I was lucky because I saw that in Barcelona.

00:49:37Guest:We went on vacation.

00:49:39Marc:You saw what?

00:49:39Guest:I saw the Bowie thing in Barcelona.

00:49:41Guest:You did.

00:49:42Guest:But it was great because I don't speak Spanish.

00:49:44Guest:Yeah.

00:49:44Guest:So I'm there and I was able to, like, I didn't have to overhear anyone else's experience.

00:49:48Guest:I just had my own.

00:49:49Guest:And then when I start bawling.

00:49:51Marc:Yeah, it was pure.

00:49:52Guest:Well, fuck it, man.

00:49:53Guest:They don't even speak.

00:49:55Marc:So even the placards were in Spanish?

00:49:58Marc:So you didn't even have to.

00:49:59Marc:No, they had them in different languages.

00:50:00Guest:Yeah, it was in different languages.

00:50:01Marc:Oh, that's funny.

00:50:02Marc:So you didn't feel judged there either.

00:50:04Marc:No, no.

00:50:05Marc:Well, who was going to judge you?

00:50:06Marc:I mean, I found that the people.

00:50:07Marc:Yeah, the people were great in that.

00:50:08Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:09Marc:Like, you know, you felt like you were like, these are people who love that guy.

00:50:13Marc:And then there's always those people.

00:50:14Marc:And they're like, there's too many of them now.

00:50:16Marc:And they seem to be shamelessly destroying the world who just, you know, don't understand it.

00:50:22Guest:Don't understand any of it.

00:50:23Guest:Don't understand like this sort of need for connection.

00:50:25Guest:Connection is a valuable thing.

00:50:27Marc:Yeah.

00:50:28Marc:And you were able to see that, like, you know, at the at the root of it.

00:50:32Marc:I mean, because rock and roll, I mean, in and of itself, like was something different because a lot of those, you know, meatheads and gearheads and, you know, people, they sort of acclimated to rock and roll pretty good.

00:50:42Marc:That was understandable that that sort of that protest, you know, that breaking away from from whatever the Eisenhower 50s was.

00:50:51Marc:But for some reason, a lot of them didn't make the jump.

00:50:53Marc:in the late 60s.

00:50:54Guest:There's the violence in the music, too.

00:50:56Guest:There is actual violence in Under My Thumb.

00:50:59Guest:Those are violent beats.

00:51:02Guest:So there's the jockey, whatever.

00:51:06Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:51:07Marc:I'm not sure.

00:51:08Marc:Yeah, that's what they are.

00:51:09Guest:Well, that's the word that one of the words would use.

00:51:11Guest:Whatever, you know.

00:51:12Marc:But you talk a little bit about that.

00:51:15Marc:I think in the new book about sort of when you feel ill-defined or like an outsider in high school that you start to accumulate or at least inform yourself about what music is going to give you entrance into certain circles.

00:51:30Marc:And I remember that very distinctly.

00:51:33Marc:You had the freaks.

00:51:35Marc:You had the jocks.

00:51:36Marc:You had top 40.

00:51:37Marc:And then there was a couple weirdos who liked Beefheart and Zappa.

00:51:40Marc:And then when punk started happening when I was in high school, it didn't get to Albuquerque until the late 70s.

00:51:47Marc:New Wave happened in Albuquerque before punk really took hold.

00:51:51Marc:Because, I don't know, we had to be mainstreamed first before people went back.

00:51:56Guest:Well, it's funny because the New Wave, it's...

00:52:02Guest:It was sort of simultaneous with punk.

00:52:05Guest:People would separate them out, because maybe it was a little bit like, people were calling Nick Lowe new wave.

00:52:10Marc:Right, right, right.

00:52:11Guest:Whereas Nick Lowe, I think he produced the first dandum.

00:52:13Guest:He was there before.

00:52:14Marc:He was there before, yeah.

00:52:15Guest:But he became new wave.

00:52:17Guest:It was a strange definition, that new wave thing.

00:52:20Guest:But a lot of the punk, the hardcore, the more hardcore punk, that was something that a lot of the people who originally were in the LA punk scene, a lot of them moved out when that happened.

00:52:30Marc:The hardcore?

00:52:31Guest:Yeah, the hardcore came in and like people who like, let's say suburban lawns.

00:52:35Guest:Like suburban lawns were at odds with the hardcore.

00:52:39Guest:Why, because they were more... Because the hardcore people didn't like them.

00:52:42Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:52:42Marc:And they were like, you know... So that was sort of a schism where it's sort of the more elegant and beautiful elements of what Bowie was doing.

00:52:51Marc:sort of became that ethereal, new wavy kind of, there was a whole world of that.

00:52:57Guest:In a way, but also, like Sid Vicious, there's a famous photo of Sid Vicious with the David Bowie t-shirt when he's going to the David Bowie show.

00:53:04Guest:The guy from Joy Division, Ian Curtis, loved David Bowie.

00:53:07Guest:Well, that makes sense.

00:53:08Guest:The David Bowie influence on punk, I think is really, it's impossible to overstate it.

00:53:12Marc:I think Mike Watt, when I talked to him, really explained it, that whatever people call punk rock now that has become a certain sound

00:53:20Marc:whatever it is, that really wasn't what... That was just a strand of it.

00:53:25Marc:I mean, it seemed that... It was way more open initially.

00:53:27Marc:Right, that's right.

00:53:28Marc:That's what Mike said.

00:53:29Marc:It didn't have a sound.

00:53:31Marc:It was just a realm in which anyone could do whatever they wanted to do.

00:53:36Guest:The same with the look, and the same with the personality that you could bring in, and the same with your demographic.

00:53:41Marc:So what happened?

00:53:44Marc:How did punk happen here?

00:53:46Guest:The first thing I saw was this band called The Screamers.

00:53:49Marc:Yeah.

00:53:49Guest:And they did their, what do you call it, their debut show at a loft or a warehouse or whatever for a magazine called Slash.

00:53:59Marc:Right.

00:54:00Guest:And then I was attracted to Slash.

00:54:01Marc:How long had that been around at that time?

00:54:03Guest:Maybe two issues.

00:54:04Marc:Okay.

00:54:04Guest:Maybe one or two issues.

00:54:06Guest:And then this is like the Sex Pistols didn't have an album out yet.

00:54:10Guest:Maybe The Damned had an album out, but I'm not sure.

00:54:12Guest:There were really no punk albums.

00:54:14Guest:There was a number of singles.

00:54:16Guest:The Sex Pistols had two or three singles.

00:54:17Guest:The Damned had singles.

00:54:19Guest:The Clash had maybe two singles.

00:54:21Marc:Yeah.

00:54:22Marc:And The Screamers were a local band.

00:54:24Guest:Yes.

00:54:24Guest:And then the Ramones maybe had two albums.

00:54:27Guest:I would say it started with the Ramones.

00:54:29Guest:Yeah.

00:54:30Guest:And I have a feeling that like a lot of people from England would agree like the Ramones whenever they're on a tour and all of a sudden there was 80 bands.

00:54:36Guest:Yeah.

00:54:37Guest:So I guess it started with the Ramones.

00:54:39Guest:Yeah.

00:54:39Guest:And then here it was like the Slash magazine became this sort of promotional thing

00:54:45Marc:It was like, what was the one in New York called that Leggs wrote for?

00:54:50Marc:Punk.

00:54:50Marc:Punk magazine.

00:54:51Guest:I have some of those too.

00:54:52Marc:Those are great.

00:54:53Marc:Yeah.

00:54:54Guest:So Slash was a little later than Punk magazine.

00:54:56Marc:Right.

00:54:56Guest:Because Punk magazine was coming out before I dropped out of college.

00:55:00Guest:It was coming out in like in 76.

00:55:00Marc:Early 70s?

00:55:01Marc:Oh, that late?

00:55:02Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:55:03Guest:They may have even come out in 75, but I think the first I saw of it was 76.

00:55:07Marc:And what were some of the bands that started to kind of surface right at that time in Los Angeles?

00:55:12Marc:Yeah, in Los Angeles.

00:55:13Guest:The Screamers, The Germs.

00:55:15Marc:Yeah.

00:55:16Guest:The Weirdos.

00:55:16Marc:Yeah.

00:55:17Guest:The Plugs.

00:55:18Marc:Yeah.

00:55:18Guest:A band called The Skulls.

00:55:20Guest:The Zeros.

00:55:22Guest:X, of course.

00:55:23Marc:Yeah.

00:55:24Marc:Circle Jerks?

00:55:25Guest:Circle jerks were later.

00:55:26Guest:Circle jerks were when Keith Morris got kicked out of or fired from Black Flag.

00:55:29Guest:Okay.

00:55:30Marc:When Black Flag was one of them?

00:55:32Guest:Black Flag was a little later.

00:55:33Marc:Yeah.

00:55:33Guest:Black Flag was actually, like if you want to go wave, Black Flag was probably the start of the second wave.

00:55:38Guest:Okay.

00:55:38Guest:And Black Flag is what then, I would, Black Flag was like the spearhead of what became hardcore and like this giant massive kind of influx of younger kids.

00:55:51Marc:Yeah.

00:55:51Guest:Younger, but like by 17, 15,

00:55:54Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:55:55Marc:At that age.

00:55:55Marc:And just wanted to burn off some of that energy.

00:55:58Guest:Yeah, they just wanted to bash each other up.

00:56:01Marc:But before that, it was a little more arty?

00:56:03Guest:Sort of arty.

00:56:04Guest:Like a gay person did not hide that they were a gay person.

00:56:08Marc:Yeah, and that was a new thing.

00:56:10Guest:Somewhat new, not new in the neighborhood, because it was down in Hollywood.

00:56:13Guest:It was right there on Hollywood Boulevard.

00:56:15Guest:So it was not, you know, the gold cup was right there.

00:56:17Guest:The gold cup, you got like male hustlers, like teenage male hustlers out there.

00:56:21Guest:There's 50 or 80 of them.

00:56:22Guest:So in the neighborhood, you didn't have to hide.

00:56:24Marc:50 or 80.

00:56:25Guest:Yeah, it was crazy.

00:56:26Guest:It was crazy.

00:56:27Marc:Because by the time you moved in, like, when you were in Venice, and you were sort of distant from it, like, I just, I kept picturing you working at that fucking shoe store, and I just get so hungover and fucked up, I can't, I just can't imagine, like, the amount of drugs that you talk about doing in the Punk Elegies book, I'm like, I was getting queasy, you know?

00:56:45Marc:Like, how are you driving?

00:56:48Marc:What is happening?

00:56:49Guest:A lot of times I would have someone else drive.

00:56:51Guest:Oh, okay.

00:56:52Guest:Yeah, I had this one friend who drove really well, so he would drive a lot.

00:56:56Marc:The designated driver was only designated because he could drive well fucked up.

00:56:59Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:01Guest:Yeah, it wasn't like he designated to stay, you know, not to be high.

00:57:04Marc:So when he started writing, the first time you really did writing was for Slash?

00:57:08Guest:Probably high school and junior high.

00:57:11Guest:Junior high is when I first got some kind of feedback that made me feel good for writing.

00:57:16Guest:I wrote some story and the teacher made me read it in front of the class and the class all laughed at the places where I wanted to laugh.

00:57:22Guest:They thought I was kind of cool.

00:57:24Marc:Was it a weird story?

00:57:26Marc:Was that the time where your weirdness got celebrated?

00:57:28Guest:No, it was a story about trying to play baseball with this kid, like a pickup baseball game and how my at-bat went.

00:57:36Guest:It was just

00:57:37Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:57:38Guest:And then it was just like my thought process as it was happening and then how it played out as opposed to my thought process.

00:57:44Marc:Yeah, and I think the Slash Magazine guys, I think I saw them in a documentary recently.

00:57:48Marc:Maybe, I don't know if it was the Joan Jett documentary.

00:57:50Marc:I don't know because she was around too.

00:57:52Marc:The Runaways were around too, right?

00:57:54Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:55Marc:Because you write about going to a party and she was there.

00:57:57Marc:I just talked to her.

00:57:58Marc:I can't imagine what... She was so...

00:58:03Guest:I was going to say rad, but it's not a word I use.

00:58:07Guest:But she was an amazing presence.

00:58:10Guest:She was really something.

00:58:11Guest:And she was at the house where the ex had their first show and Black Randy had their first show.

00:58:16Guest:It was this guy named David Allen who had married this woman named Kitra.

00:58:19Guest:And her family had a house in Hancock Park.

00:58:21Guest:So they moved into this house in Hancock Park.

00:58:23Guest:And that show was in the living room there.

00:58:26Guest:And Joan Jett was at that.

00:58:27Guest:I mean, she knew where to go.

00:58:28Marc:That was ex's first show?

00:58:29Guest:Ex's first show and also Black Randy and the Metro Squad's first show.

00:58:32Guest:Wow, and it was just a packed house full of... It was just a house, and it was in the living room, and it was just full of people, like Joe and Jet was there, Pleasant was there, Most of X was there.

00:58:42Guest:Well, they played, of course.

00:58:43Guest:I was just trying to picture who was there.

00:58:45Guest:Billy Zoom still had long hair at that time, but he had hid it under a hat, sort of.

00:58:49Guest:I remember someone yanked his hat off so his hair came down.

00:58:52Guest:And then someone else, they had a water bottle, you know, those big water dispensers full of wine.

00:59:02Guest:And someone got angry at someone else and picked up the bottle to hit them with the bottle.

00:59:05Guest:So the wine went guggling off across the whole floor.

00:59:08Marc:Just smelled like wine?

00:59:09Guest:Yeah, I don't know what it smelled like because I was beyond smell at that time.

00:59:13Marc:You remember these little details.

00:59:14Guest:I remember a little detail here and there.

00:59:16Guest:I remember being up front.

00:59:17Guest:They had a little slope in the grass by the sidewalk.

00:59:21Guest:I remember somehow I was prone on that, and I couldn't figure out how to get standing up.

00:59:26Guest:So there was that.

00:59:28Guest:But I remember Joan Jett being there and thinking...

00:59:32Marc:She's something.

00:59:34Guest:She's something.

00:59:34Marc:So you wrote for Slash for just a little bit, and it was mostly so you could get into shows for free?

00:59:40Guest:Also, I thought somehow it would be a connection to something else.

00:59:44Guest:Yeah.

00:59:45Guest:You didn't know what?

00:59:46Guest:Yeah, I didn't know what.

00:59:47Guest:I figured maybe I'd be going around the war for Esquire or something.

00:59:52Marc:Oh, really?

00:59:52Marc:So you had the idea.

00:59:53Guest:I had the idea.

00:59:54Marc:Hunter S. Thompson?

00:59:55Guest:Yeah.

00:59:56Guest:This is going to make me really shine.

00:59:58Marc:And the drugs you guys were doing like that.

01:00:00Marc:I mean, I know Axe was into speed, right?

01:00:02Marc:Yeah.

01:00:02Guest:Probably, I'm not gonna speak for them.

01:00:04Marc:Oh, right, but I mean, what was the scene doing?

01:00:07Marc:I mean, it was sort of pre-dope, right?

01:00:08Guest:Yeah, well, it started out with speed and pretty quickly went to dope.

01:00:11Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:00:11Guest:Yeah, which is, I believe, what happens to most scenes.

01:00:14Guest:It starts out, a lot of alcohol, a lot of alcohol.

01:00:17Guest:Right.

01:00:18Guest:And then pills, like Valium, some Quaaludes, of course.

01:00:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:22Guest:And then meth, Black Beauties.

01:00:24Guest:Everybody loved a Black Beauty.

01:00:25Guest:Yeah.

01:00:26Guest:And then there was green ones that were benzeries, so like time release.

01:00:29Marc:Yellow jackets, white crosses.

01:00:30Guest:Well, white crosses were kind of like a counterfeit.

01:00:33Guest:They were just sort of backyard-made pills.

01:00:35Guest:But there were a lot of pharmaceuticals.

01:00:37Guest:And then needles came in.

01:00:40Guest:So what you'd want was dope.

01:00:42Guest:But dope was very expensive then.

01:00:44Marc:In the late 70s?

01:00:45Guest:Yeah, in Los Angeles at least.

01:00:46Marc:It wasn't the black dope yet?

01:00:48Guest:It was sort of like brownie, blackie.

01:00:51Guest:But it would be $25 a bag.

01:00:53Guest:And like in New York at that time, I think it was $5 or $10.

01:00:55Guest:Yeah.

01:00:56Guest:So it was really expensive, and usually the potency wasn't what you were hoping it would be.

01:01:02Marc:Yeah.

01:01:02Guest:And this wouldn't just be for novices.

01:01:04Guest:This would be all around the city.

01:01:06Guest:Oh, right, right.

01:01:07Marc:So it was just everywhere.

01:01:09Marc:The first wave of dope.

01:01:10Guest:It wasn't everywhere.

01:01:11Guest:It was like you had to know someone.

01:01:13Guest:You had to go to their house.

01:01:15Guest:Like later on, like in the early 80s, all of a sudden-

01:01:18Guest:Yeah, all of a sudden the tar, and you could buy it on the street, and it was five bucks.

01:01:21Guest:So the price went down from $25 to $5, and it was a drive-through or a walk-through.

01:01:28Marc:Yeah, everybody could die.

01:01:29Marc:Yeah, everybody could die.

01:01:30Guest:Luckily by then, I was gone.

01:01:32Marc:You were out?

01:01:33Guest:I think I was out, yeah.

01:01:35Marc:So there was one bit, and I think it's Punk Elegies, where you see the jams for a show, and John Cougar opened.

01:01:44Guest:Yeah.

01:01:45Marc:Johnny Cougar.

01:01:45Marc:Johnny Cougar at the time.

01:01:46Marc:And there was just this, like, the guys from Slash Magazine were like, this guy's fucking nothing.

01:01:50Guest:They just railed.

01:01:51Guest:They took him up.

01:01:52Guest:They deconstructed him.

01:01:53Guest:They deconstructed him there, you know, like under...

01:01:55Marc:Well, that's the other interesting thing is that, like, by the time you get to that apartment building, what was it called?

01:02:00Marc:The Canterbury Arms.

01:02:01Marc:The Canterbury Arms.

01:02:02Marc:Like, I mean, the way that, like, L.A.

01:02:04Marc:was situated with, like... Because, like, I remember, you know, hearing... I kind of have vague memories of New York in the 70s.

01:02:10Marc:But, like, I... You know, these different pockets of L.A.

01:02:13Marc:that were just chaos, man.

01:02:14Marc:They were just sort of, like, sexual chaos and drug chaos.

01:02:17Guest:It was... Well, it was a lot... That area was a lot like...

01:02:20Marc:Where was it?

01:02:21Marc:Times Square, like Hollywood Boulevard.

01:02:22Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:02:23Guest:Hollywood Boulevard around Hollywood and Cherokee.

01:02:25Guest:Right.

01:02:26Guest:And there was a number of blocks there where all the bars were dangerous, really.

01:02:29Guest:Yeah.

01:02:30Guest:Like looking back, like in retrospect.

01:02:32Guest:Right.

01:02:32Guest:Like we were out of our league everywhere we went.

01:02:35Guest:Right.

01:02:35Guest:Didn't really realize it, you know, like out of my depth.

01:02:38Marc:Yeah.

01:02:38Guest:I was everywhere I went, but was so full of myself that didn't really realize it.

01:02:41Marc:Well, that's part of what L.A.

01:02:42Marc:is.

01:02:43Marc:Yeah.

01:02:43Marc:You know, you've got to bring yourself to the table

01:02:45Guest:Well, I went to school in San Francisco for a year or two.

01:02:48Guest:And I would go downtown and get really wasted.

01:02:52Guest:And again, in retrospect, I realized how much danger I was putting myself in.

01:02:58Guest:Because I would go into bars or- In the Mission?

01:03:02Guest:Yeah, all over.

01:03:03Guest:Yeah.

01:03:03Guest:or up around North Beach, Tenderloin, and I would go into alleyways, I would go into bars, and I would be provocative to people.

01:03:11Guest:I'd be confrontational to people.

01:03:13Guest:And these are people, looking back, these are actual prison people.

01:03:16Guest:These are people who actually... Well, that's what I...

01:03:19Guest:Smash someone's head in for the, you know.

01:03:21Marc:Yeah.

01:03:22Marc:That's one thing I realized when I got sober and I tell people is that like it's not, you know, it's not just you don't just have to worry about dying from the drugs or alcohol.

01:03:31Marc:It's it's the you exponentially increase your possibilities of getting fucked some other way, whether being a car by another human.

01:03:39Marc:Yeah.

01:03:39Marc:When you're in the circle of those things.

01:03:41Guest:Because your behavior, you don't know what the... Yeah, and you don't know who you're buying from.

01:03:44Marc:You don't know what you're walking into.

01:03:45Marc:You don't know, like, you know, and you do it.

01:03:47Marc:Yeah, you do it.

01:03:48Marc:All of a sudden, you're in a hotel room with pirates and, you know, some guy with a gun, and you're like, all right, can I go?

01:03:53Guest:You're like, I should light this newspaper on fire.

01:03:56Guest:And then all of a sudden, the newspaper's on fire.

01:03:57Guest:And how did the newspaper get on fire?

01:03:59Guest:And they're asking you.

01:04:00Guest:You know, it's like... I don't know.

01:04:01Guest:Yeah.

01:04:02Guest:Yeah.

01:04:02Guest:Who tore the mailbox out of the wall?

01:04:04Guest:How did the mailbox get torn out of the wall?

01:04:06Yeah.

01:04:06Guest:You know, they're all looking at you like... Yeah.

01:04:09Guest:But it wasn't just me.

01:04:11Guest:Like, that area, like, we were all kind of over our heads, you know?

01:04:15Guest:Well, that, it seemed like... We didn't really realize it.

01:04:17Guest:Somewhat of a lawless area.

01:04:18Guest:Right.

01:04:18Guest:Somewhat of a lawless stretch of blocks.

01:04:20Marc:And what was the Sunset Strip like at that point?

01:04:23Guest:The Sunset Strip was a little more, I guess you could say upscale.

01:04:27Guest:There was a little more control.

01:04:28Guest:And then there were so many hookers on the Sunset Strip.

01:04:32Guest:And that continued for a few years.

01:04:34Guest:There was a squat that opened up next to where Carlos and Charlie's was.

01:04:41Guest:I don't know which is there now.

01:04:42Guest:But the Mau Mau's moved in there and a couple of other bands.

01:04:45Guest:But there were so many girls going back and forth that they would always be coming up and they would be getting hired with us and then go back out.

01:04:51Guest:But it was literally at least 50 to 80 girls in a seven block route.

01:05:00Marc:Crazy.

01:05:01Guest:It was really crazy.

01:05:02Guest:And then I think it became Outcall Escort.

01:05:05Guest:This is just pure speculation.

01:05:09Guest:But there was an organized effort

01:05:12Guest:to consolidate where the money came in, and so everybody became out-called, and they were not seen on the screen.

01:05:19Guest:In the 80s.

01:05:20Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:05:20Guest:I don't think it was a police, I don't think the police managed to make that happen.

01:05:24Guest:I think it was a different organized.

01:05:26Marc:Sure, sure, yeah, the Catholics.

01:05:28Guest:The Catholics did it, yeah.

01:05:30Guest:It was Catholic discipline, yeah.

01:05:32Marc:And what year did you write for Hustler?

01:05:35Guest:Hustler, I was at Hustler from 83 to 2002.

01:05:39Marc:Were you sober, Hussler?

01:05:41Guest:After one year.

01:05:42Marc:Yeah.

01:05:42Guest:First year, no.

01:05:43Guest:Then after that, I was sober.

01:05:45Guest:83 to what?

01:05:46Guest:92?

01:05:47Guest:No, 2002.

01:05:48Guest:That's a long time.

01:05:50Guest:Yeah, it was almost 20 years.

01:05:53Guest:When I wrote a book about it, I said 20 years at because actually the interview process started.

01:05:59Guest:If I count from the interview process to when I got fired, it was 20 years, so.

01:06:02Marc:Now, when you look back on it, especially living in the culture we live in now and what Hussler was and what he, what Flint sought to represent in terms of constitutionality and freedom to express whatever and then sort of like pushing the limits of taste on all levels.

01:06:21Marc:I mean, when you were working there, were you aware of that?

01:06:26Marc:I mean, was that part of the thing that you wanted to do?

01:06:28Guest:Yeah, it was part of the whole appeal.

01:06:30Marc:Yeah.

01:06:30Guest:Was, you know, you're gonna... Push the edge?

01:06:33Guest:You're gonna be on the front lines.

01:06:34Guest:It was very...

01:06:36Guest:It was very anti-celebrity.

01:06:40Guest:It was very anti-cult of celebrity.

01:06:42Guest:It was very sort of anarchist.

01:06:45Guest:It wasn't really anarchist, but it was really kind of holding any political power to answer it, like holding them accountable.

01:06:54Guest:And then it was using the harshest terms available to you.

01:07:00Guest:when you wanted to.

01:07:01Guest:And then also there was like with the photo sets.

01:07:05Guest:There was interacting with different kinds of creative people that was really kind of amazing to me.

01:07:12Guest:Particularly a lot of illustrators.

01:07:14Guest:I met a lot of the illustrators.

01:07:15Guest:A lot of people used to illustrate, let's say four or five, were some of the original San Francisco underground comic book guys.

01:07:21Marc:I didn't read it a lot, but I mean when I was a kid, Hustler was sort of like that was the real deal.

01:07:26Marc:They were holding them open.

01:07:27Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:29Guest:And then the love lights right on there, and then I think sometimes the color was sort of.

01:07:34Marc:Yeah, like it was insane.

01:07:35Guest:And then the paper, that paper was a higher quality paper.

01:07:39Marc:Right, yeah, it was shiny.

01:07:40Marc:It was a glossy paper.

01:07:41Guest:And then the color separations were done in Europe.

01:07:44Guest:by the same people who did color separations for the top jewelry companies.

01:07:48Guest:So it's like people who needed this gem to really show through in all its facets.

01:07:53Guest:That's who was doing the color separation for the hustler folks.

01:07:56Marc:So the labia and the clit could just sparkle.

01:08:00Guest:Yeah, not just that, but they would be delineated from one another.

01:08:03Guest:You'd have this depth and field.

01:08:05Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:07Guest:A lot of detail.

01:08:07Guest:There was a standard of workmanship

01:08:09Guest:That surprised a lot of people.

01:08:12Marc:And you were mostly writing columns?

01:08:14Guest:No, I was running the thing.

01:08:16Guest:I started out as a proofreader, and then I was writing columns, and then I was writing a lot of porn reviews, and then I became, what do you call it?

01:08:25Guest:articles editor so that like the feature articles I was editing those and you know recruiting writers and stuff then I got my own magazine and I jumped to the top magazine and then I kind of like did a little move and I got control of like all the magazine were you there you you came in after Flint was shot though yes he was already in the wheelchair but you had a pretty good relationship with him

01:08:46Guest:Yeah, for a long time.

01:08:47Guest:He was at my wedding.

01:08:48Guest:I was at his wedding.

01:08:50Guest:I think he really loved me because we did this thing during the Clinton impeachment where we got the Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives to resign from Congress on the same day Clinton was impeached.

01:09:03Guest:And so, like, the New York Times and the Washington Post would say, Clinton impeached, Livingston resigns.

01:09:08Guest:And why that matters is because the House of Representatives is the prosecutors in the impeachment trial.

01:09:15Guest:Right.

01:09:15Guest:The Senate's the jury.

01:09:16Guest:So we had the lead prosecutor resign on the same day that Clinton... How did a hustler do that again?

01:09:23Guest:We put out an ad saying we want to know anyone that's fucking someone who's in the government.

01:09:29Guest:And people came to us with various stuff.

01:09:31Guest:And someone came to us with a name.

01:09:33Guest:Yeah.

01:09:34Guest:And they said, call this call.

01:09:35Guest:It was an elected official came to us with a name.

01:09:38Marc:Yeah.

01:09:38Guest:Call this name.

01:09:39Guest:This is Livingston's girlfriend.

01:09:40Marc:Right.

01:09:41Guest:And he's married.

01:09:42Guest:He has kids.

01:09:42Guest:We called the name and she hung up on us.

01:09:44Guest:Yeah.

01:09:45Guest:And then the Hill, the publication of Capitol Hill, they called me and they said, we hear you have something on Livingston.

01:09:53Guest:And I said, well, you know, all the financial arrangements aren't in place, and so I can't really speak about it openly right now.

01:09:59Guest:And he goes, we're going with it.

01:10:02Guest:And then he went, and I went, I wonder if he's obviously going to ask Livingston about it.

01:10:07Guest:And I'm like, what if Livingston does a preemptive resignation?

01:10:10Guest:Because this guy named Dan Burton, also Republican.

01:10:13Guest:Yeah.

01:10:14Guest:Like a story was coming out in him in Vanity Fair.

01:10:16Guest:Yeah.

01:10:17Guest:And he preemptively confessed.

01:10:20Guest:Yeah.

01:10:20Guest:Did not resign, but preemptively confessed.

01:10:22Guest:Right.

01:10:22Right.

01:10:22Guest:And then within an hour, Livingston had confessed that he'd had this affair, but he wasn't going to resign.

01:10:29Guest:And he wasn't going to give up his speakership.

01:10:32Guest:But then a news crew came to interview me, and they go, what do you have on Livingston?

01:10:36Guest:And I did the same thing.

01:10:38Guest:The nondisclosure agreements are still in place, blah, blah, blah.

01:10:41Marc:You didn't have anything, though, but a hang-up.

01:10:43Guest:I had a hang up.

01:10:44Guest:And he goes, well, we hear that he's having sex with a lobbyist while pushing that lobby's agenda on the House of Representatives floor.

01:10:53Guest:That's interesting.

01:10:54Guest:So then they mic me up and they go, so what do you have in Livingston?

01:10:57Guest:And I said, we were aggressively pursuing indications that he's having sex with a lobbyist.

01:11:02Guest:And then within an hour, he resigned.

01:11:04Marc:Because it was true?

01:11:05Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably.

01:11:08Marc:So that was a Hussler victory.

01:11:10Guest:That was probably our biggest victory, I think.

01:11:13Guest:And then here's what happened.

01:11:14Guest:Beyond that, Livingston's wife, because it was around Christmas, right?

01:11:17Guest:Livingston's wife calls Larry directly and says, Bob has quit.

01:11:23Guest:You've won.

01:11:24Guest:Please don't give up what happened.

01:11:27Guest:And so Larry's able to say, out of the goodness of my heart, I'm not going to disclose the details.

01:11:32Marc:Yeah, and he didn't have it.

01:11:33Guest:He didn't have it.

01:11:34Guest:So he got to go, because he's an amazing poker player, he got to go this whole bluff.

01:11:37Guest:And so then beyond that, like anything we hinted that we had, they had to believe we had it.

01:11:43Guest:Oh, wow.

01:11:44Guest:So it was really kind of like, we feel, like I don't know, I'm speaking for me and myself.

01:11:50Marc:He's around.

01:11:51Marc:Larry's around.

01:11:51Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:52Marc:You still talk to him?

01:11:53Guest:No, there's a problem.

01:11:56Guest:There's a problem.

01:11:57Guest:In the Prisoner of X book, I performed at a roast of Larry that he asked me to perform at.

01:12:08Guest:He insisted I perform at, and then I got fired from there, and I haven't really talked to him since then.

01:12:12Guest:That's too bad.

01:12:13Guest:He didn't go over as well.

01:12:17Marc:You busted his balls too hard?

01:12:20Guest:Well, I think that what did it, because I did a bunch of stuff about him being cheap.

01:12:23Marc:Yeah.

01:12:24Guest:And he loved that.

01:12:25Guest:Yeah.

01:12:25Guest:But then I switched into this thing where I said that, in fact, he has a good game.

01:12:30Guest:He plays a good game.

01:12:31Guest:Yeah.

01:12:31Guest:But in fact, he's the most pussy-whipped man I've ever met.

01:12:34Guest:Uh-oh.

01:12:34Guest:And then I went on some stuff about that.

01:12:36Guest:And his wife, I think it really offended his wife.

01:12:39Guest:Oh, really?

01:12:39Guest:Yeah, because she stopped calling.

01:12:40Guest:She never called me again.

01:12:41Guest:She used to call me three or four times a week about various things around the office.

01:12:45Marc:And that was it?

01:12:46Guest:That was it.

01:12:48Marc:You got her mad at you.

01:12:49Guest:Yeah, kind of like, and then I don't think she's ever coming back.

01:12:53Guest:Oh, wow.

01:12:53Guest:She's never coming back to the Ellen McDonough fan club.

01:12:55Marc:Oh, wow.

01:12:56Marc:What are you going to do?

01:12:57Marc:You try to move on, and you just lay down every once in a while.

01:13:01Marc:Let me ask you a question about that.

01:13:04Marc:Because one thing that fascinates me, I can't quite get out of my mind, was that there was some sort of like...

01:13:10Marc:And I think it is a hinge to what's happened culturally in terms of like the complete kind of, and this is not a moral judgment, but in the 80s there was a concerted effort on behalf of Christians and conservatives to stifle porn.

01:13:28Marc:And then at some point it's like no one talks about it at all anymore and it's fucking everywhere.

01:13:33Marc:Like there is no like I never hear any kind of like, you know, right wing whack job ever.

01:13:39Marc:No one says anything about porn at all.

01:13:43Marc:And it's like crack.

01:13:44Marc:It's like everywhere.

01:13:45Marc:And it's like, you know, I'm not again, it's not a moral judgment.

01:13:49Marc:But I mean, I just don't know how they change your tune.

01:13:52Marc:I guess what?

01:13:53Marc:Because it becomes I think it's because it serves a purpose.

01:13:57Marc:now it does serve a purpose it's you know because otherwise these people who use they would be getting in relationships and they'd be having kids uh-huh and you'd have these unhappy families oh you think that's the point well that's one point it really is i think it's like a narcotic i think it's a narcotic effect i think it's like it's something that that completely isolates people i i mean again it's not like i have no problem with porn i know people in porn but but it's like the fact that like it's you know i used to do a joke about it like some computers come with porn already on it you try

01:14:26Guest:But here's the thing, like these people who are isolated, they may be better off, we may be better off with them isolated.

01:14:31Guest:Like rather than being out in the dating pool.

01:14:35Marc:I just think it's interesting that it diminished as a moral crusade.

01:14:39Guest:Well, you know, it kind of what happened, one of the things that happened is there was like a coalition.

01:14:45Guest:between like the far right and then like feminists.

01:14:51Guest:It was crazy because there would be these bills in past like in Minnesota or wherever and it would be like certain feminists like really pushing it like in conjunction with some really far right person.

01:15:03Marc:Which what was it about?

01:15:04Guest:About porn.

01:15:06Guest:About how the harms of porn and just how it is towards society that it needs to be- So some feminists were on that page and then there was another faction of feminists that wanted to appropriate it and be sexual empowerment through porn.

01:15:22Guest:I feel like I have some memory of Trump saying something negative about porn when he was back in the election.

01:15:27Marc:I don't know.

01:15:27Marc:He seems like a complete... He seems like he'd be jerking off all the time.

01:15:31Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:15:31Marc:No, I think he was.

01:15:32Marc:I also heard that he was upset that he couldn't watch porn in the White House.

01:15:35Marc:I mean, I don't know what's real, what isn't.

01:15:36Marc:That seems to be the point.

01:15:38Guest:I believe everything we've just said.

01:15:40Guest:I believe that he would attack porn and then still be jerking off on Air Force One.

01:15:44Marc:That's his genius.

01:15:45Marc:The duplicitous bullshit element.

01:15:47Marc:It's genius.

01:15:47Marc:Yeah.

01:15:48Guest:The fact is, people don't realize he has a genius.

01:15:51Guest:Because he's such an adult in many ways, or boorish, or whatever.

01:15:57Marc:Well, he's an equivocator, so everything's slippery, nothing is true, and the people that it sticks with are all worked up emotionally and they're making choices.

01:16:07Marc:to pick and choose the worst of what he's putting out there.

01:16:11Marc:And then to other people, he just discredits it or he says it's not real or I don't know or whatever, but he knows that the 35% of the fucking angry, scary people are like, you know, we know what he wants.

01:16:22Guest:And in the meantime, he's dismantling the government.

01:16:24Marc:Totally dismantling the government and trying to protect his own ass.

01:16:27Guest:Yeah.

01:16:27Guest:Well, trying to extend his... Business?

01:16:31Guest:His duration.

01:16:32Guest:It's his term.

01:16:34Marc:Someone told me that they... It's hard to figure out what exactly he's trying to do.

01:16:38Guest:Yeah, but someone who had worked with him, a comedian who had worked with him with some of his timing and shit, this person's take was that Trump is not... He's not thinking this is an eight-year job.

01:16:51Marc:Oh, you're talking about Jeff Ross?

01:16:53Marc:I might be.

01:16:54Marc:I talked to him about it.

01:16:55Marc:He says he's not going anywhere.

01:16:58Guest:And I believe that that was something that I started to suspect during the election when I first started to think that he could win.

01:17:04Guest:He's not thinking that he's going to have a two-term or a one-term.

01:17:08Marc:And also the thing is that it's the only way he can protect himself now.

01:17:16Marc:Because as soon as he's got that job, it's just all going to come crumbling down.

01:17:20Marc:Maybe.

01:17:21Marc:What do you mean?

01:17:21Marc:Maybe that, you know, the state of New York is fucking, you know, they've, everyone's got a case on the motherfucker.

01:17:26Marc:And the only way he can stay protected is if he keeps his fucking job.

01:17:30Marc:And we're all in trouble because we're all in trouble.

01:17:32Marc:We're all in trouble.

01:17:33Marc:So the new book, did you, did you get some resolve around death in writing it?

01:17:38Guest:I think I did.

01:17:40Guest:Also, it kind of caps off my whole time in memoir, I believe.

01:17:44Guest:Because I have the punk rock one, and then moving on through the hustler, and then this kind of post-hustler in the digital world, working in just how that went, and then being dead.

01:17:56Guest:So I feel like unless I come up with something like I cure polio again or whatever, I don't need to write another memoir.

01:18:03Marc:So what do you do to make ends meet?

01:18:06Guest:It's a tough road right now.

01:18:09Guest:I'm kind of like mooching.

01:18:12Guest:I do a lot of mooching.

01:18:13Guest:I mooch here and there.

01:18:14Guest:But I'm writing.

01:18:16Guest:There's a different kind of scam here and there.

01:18:18Guest:Not a scam, but like...

01:18:21Guest:Trying to put together proposals, a lot of proposals, a lot of spec, a lot of spec work.

01:18:27Guest:And then I wrote another book.

01:18:28Guest:I have a book that is pure fiction of short stories called Scary Parts.

01:18:32Guest:Oh, great.

01:18:33Guest:So it's that.

01:18:36Guest:I'm always looking for some kind of job.

01:18:38Marc:Yeah.

01:18:40Marc:How's marriage going?

01:18:42Guest:You know, marriage is something that's...

01:18:46Guest:my wife would probably listen to this.

01:18:48Guest:Okay.

01:18:49Guest:But we did this, I talked to, I had a conversation with her recently about it.

01:18:52Guest:Like marriage is not for the faint hearted.

01:18:53Guest:Yeah.

01:18:54Guest:It's a tough grow.

01:18:55Guest:You know, marriage, like you think, like people say, okay, you're going to have to compromise.

01:18:58Guest:Yeah.

01:18:59Guest:And you think, oh, I'm going to have to negotiate better.

01:19:01Guest:Yeah.

01:19:02Guest:Right.

01:19:02Guest:But no, you're going to have to actually compromise.

01:19:04Guest:And so it's, it's,

01:19:05Guest:suck it up yeah yeah and then but not just suck it because you have to be able to compromise and then still go it's like we were talking about earlier we're realizing that death is real you know right like you have to be able to like still go through and not just be going through the motions and actually somehow be present and be a contributor and and you know and and uh like recognize the other person yeah

01:19:29Guest:what they're giving to you.

01:19:30Marc:Well, I think that, yeah, right, exactly.

01:19:33Marc:And that heartbreak is always present, always.

01:19:37Marc:That it seems to me that, and this is realizations that I'm just having now, I've been married twice, I've been with someone a long time, and you don't have kids either.

01:19:45Marc:You do realize obviously that, and having read the stuff, like you've been through a lot of relationships and all relationships eventually hit a wall of some kind to where you have to be tolerant.

01:19:56Marc:There's no ethereal kind of perfect thing.

01:19:59Guest:There's things you have to wait out.

01:20:01Guest:right you wait out and also things that you know that like you know maybe you know whatever you're upset about or whatever you're not getting maybe it's okay you don't get that yeah that's the compromise right that's when you're compromised right but i've been i've been with we've been married for 22 years so it's like the wall there's been more than one wall you know you've been hitting the walls and you realize like

01:20:21Guest:I don't know.

01:20:22Marc:And you're sober too, so at least you have a language to process some stuff.

01:20:25Guest:It helps a lot.

01:20:26Marc:I bet.

01:20:26Guest:I mean, the behavior would be so much worse.

01:20:28Guest:I mean, the behavior would have nullified the marriage if I was drinking or- What made you get sober?

01:20:34Guest:I had a suicide attempt in a car.

01:20:37Guest:Oh.

01:20:37Guest:And then-

01:20:39Guest:And then I had this hallucination afterward where I thought that, because I totaled four cars with this one shot, and I saw dead bodies in these other cars and everything, and I just had this hallucination.

01:20:51Marc:Were there people in the cars?

01:20:52Guest:No, actually they were not there.

01:20:53Marc:And you tried to kill yourself driving into cars?

01:20:55Guest:Yeah.

01:20:57Marc:Why that way?

01:20:58Guest:Because it was available to me at the moment when I had the impulse.

01:21:01Guest:I was in the car.

01:21:02Marc:And you were high?

01:21:03Guest:I was a little high, yeah.

01:21:05Guest:It was .24 or something like that.

01:21:07Marc:But it was intentional.

01:21:08Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:21:09Guest:No, I was talking.

01:21:11Guest:Well, I did it.

01:21:12Guest:I was talking.

01:21:13Guest:I had this realization earlier on that I ruined my life because of my drinking, whatever.

01:21:18Guest:I had chances, and now they weren't ever going to be happening again.

01:21:21Marc:But you, in reading the books, there was dope, there was speed, there was angel dust.

01:21:27Marc:A lot of alcohol.

01:21:29Marc:And booze.

01:21:30Marc:That seemed to be the first love.

01:21:31Guest:And a lot of blows to the head.

01:21:32Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:21:33Marc:From falling down?

01:21:34Yeah.

01:21:34Guest:Getting hit.

01:21:35Guest:Yeah, I'm running into shit.

01:21:36Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:21:37Marc:Okay.

01:21:38Guest:So I'm in the car.

01:21:39Guest:I'm coming from a party, whatever.

01:21:40Guest:I'm going on Franklin West toward the Ivar.

01:21:45Guest:There's a little hill.

01:21:46Guest:Then you come down to Ivar.

01:21:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:21:47Guest:And I had this epiphany.

01:21:48Guest:I realized that I hadn't ruined my life, that God had ruined my life.

01:21:51Guest:And I hadn't had a thought of God, I don't know how long.

01:21:54Guest:And I haven't really had this direct thought since.

01:21:57Guest:But I thought, you know, you motherfucker.

01:22:00Guest:You know, I had so much going for me.

01:22:02Guest:You fucked me up.

01:22:03Guest:You motherfucker.

01:22:04Guest:You fucked with the wrong person.

01:22:06Guest:And then I decided I'm going to come and spit in your face.

01:22:09Guest:And then I took my car and I drove it into all these cars.

01:22:11Marc:So it was sort of a dark white light moment.

01:22:15Guest:It was a lamentation.

01:22:16Guest:It was a very, you know.

01:22:17Marc:So you were going to die because in that moment you believed in God and you were going to show him.

01:22:21Guest:Yeah, I was going to go.

01:22:23Guest:Face to face.

01:22:23Guest:Tell him off.

01:22:24Guest:You ruined it.

01:22:26Guest:You ruined it for me.

01:22:27Guest:And then, you know, then I had this hallucination that all these people were dead and I thought, oh my God, you know, what have I fucking done?

01:22:34Guest:And then when the cops were able to convince me that I was the only human involved, although they didn't really consider me human at that point.

01:22:39Guest:Yeah.

01:22:40Guest:And I just felt I had this kind of like elation in a way.

01:22:44Marc:Were you busted up?

01:22:46Guest:No, no, not at all.

01:22:47Guest:My car was bent.

01:22:49Guest:My car was bent in a V. You didn't succeed at all.

01:22:53Guest:No, I didn't succeed at all.

01:22:54Guest:But the police, like I got stitches from the police because they just beat the shit out of me.

01:22:57Guest:Because I guess I was talking.

01:22:59Guest:I thought I was dead, but I was the talking dead.

01:23:01Guest:They didn't like what they were hearing.

01:23:03Guest:Oh, so they beat.

01:23:05Guest:Yeah, but this voice came to me and said, I'm going to get help.

01:23:08Guest:And then I didn't even know help existed.

01:23:12Marc:How long ago was that?

01:23:13Marc:How long has it been?

01:23:13Guest:It was like 34 years in the end of May.

01:23:17Guest:Wow.

01:23:18Guest:So I was 28.

01:23:19Marc:That's amazing.

01:23:21Guest:It was the pivotal point of my life, really.

01:23:24Guest:That and the Bowie concert, those two things.

01:23:26Guest:But this even more.

01:23:28Guest:This even more.

01:23:28Guest:Because it was kind of a desperate kind of dragging through the days that was going on before that.

01:23:37Marc:Well, how do you like, because I mean, it seems like there's still some of that in the new book even, this idea that...

01:23:44Marc:Because I've reckoned with that myself that nothing's ever going to make me feel like I did it.

01:23:52Marc:But I'm experiencing success to a degree that I didn't think would ever be possible, so a little of that is diminished.

01:23:59Marc:But there's always something, if you're given to that way of thinking, you're always going to find something to exacerbate it.

01:24:07Guest:Yeah, something's always wrong.

01:24:09Marc:Right.

01:24:09Right.

01:24:09Guest:Even though nothing's really wrong.

01:24:11Marc:How do you deal with that?

01:24:13Guest:Day by day.

01:24:14Guest:It's an ongoing struggle.

01:24:17Guest:It really is.

01:24:18Guest:But that's another thing.

01:24:18Guest:When someone writes a book and it's a drug memoir, and at the end they have this redemption, the whole redemption cycle.

01:24:27Marc:You didn't do that.

01:24:28Marc:This isn't a drug memoir.

01:24:29Marc:I think this is a meditation on...

01:24:32Marc:Yeah.

01:24:33Guest:But the punk book, there's a lot of drugs.

01:24:36Guest:But it doesn't end with me getting this white light experience and getting sober and now I'm on a higher level.

01:24:43Guest:Because I feel like I'm still in the weeds to some extent.

01:24:46Guest:And I kind of reconcile the fact that I'm going to be in the weeds to some extent.

01:24:51Guest:I have an unmanageable inner life.

01:24:53Guest:And that's the problem.

01:24:54Guest:My emotions and my intellect, they tell each other things and they validate it.

01:24:58Guest:Like someone looks at me in a way, I don't even know, it hurts my feelings in a way or whatever.

01:25:03Guest:That's the worst.

01:25:04Guest:I predict it.

01:25:05Guest:And then my intellect says, you know, you're completely right.

01:25:08Guest:You're completely right, Alan.

01:25:09Guest:You're completely right.

01:25:13Guest:You're locked out.

01:25:14Guest:You're locked out.

01:25:15Guest:Right.

01:25:15Guest:People are against you.

01:25:16Marc:But most of the time they're not even thinking about you.

01:25:18Guest:No, it's like it's a complete misperception.

01:25:20Marc:It's a projection.

01:25:21Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:22Marc:It's a lie.

01:25:22Marc:It's lying to myself.

01:25:23Marc:Well, it's just exactly what you did in the car.

01:25:25Marc:It's like, you know, at some point at a pivotal moment, like you decided in some weird drunken state that you were going to blame God instead of yourself.

01:25:33Marc:Yeah.

01:25:33Marc:And that's what our brains do.

01:25:35Marc:It's sort of like those people are thinking this.

01:25:38Marc:Yeah.

01:25:38Marc:And it's like, we're the ones thinking it.

01:25:41Guest:But I always want this excuse to think that I'm unlovable.

01:25:44Guest:I heard someone else said this.

01:25:46Guest:This excuse that I'm unlovable and that I won't be taken care of.

01:25:49Guest:And it's probably not true.

01:25:52Guest:I mean, I'm not certain.

01:25:53Guest:Not certain yet.

01:25:54Guest:The jury's out.

01:25:55Guest:But I'm going to war.

01:25:57Guest:I'm going to act as though, in fact... You are lovable.

01:26:00Guest:In some way.

01:26:01Marc:Some odd way.

01:26:02Marc:You will be taken care of.

01:26:04Guest:Maybe not exactly what I want, but you know...

01:26:06Guest:More or less.

01:26:08Marc:That's the best we can do, man.

01:26:10Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:26:11Marc:It's good talking to you, man.

01:26:12Guest:Thank you very much for having me.

01:26:13Marc:Yeah, buddy.

01:26:19Marc:That was Alan McDonald.

01:26:21Marc:His new book is called Now That I'm Gone, A Memoir Beyond Recall, available wherever you get books.

01:26:26Marc:And now I'm going to play just one.

01:26:29Marc:It took me forever to get through these three changes in this riff that I played through the Echoplex, the old Fender amp, and the reissue Gibson Gold Top.

01:26:46Marc:It took me a lot of time to do it.

01:26:48Marc:And it's not perfect.

01:26:49Marc:It's still me.

01:26:51Marc:Are any of us perfect?

01:26:52Marc:Let me just play this thing.

01:26:54Marc:... ... ...

01:27:22guitar solo

01:27:49Guest:Boomer lives.