WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1632 - Peter Weller

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Peter Weller knows that most people think of him as RoboCop. But he also knows that when they approach him to talk about RoboCop, it’s his opportunity to talk to them about art, jazz, theater and many other areas that are not merely hobbies for him, but actual artistic pursuits. Peter tells Marc why he got his Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance Art History and how his jazz trumpet playing in college stuck with him his whole life, leading him to a friendship with Miles Davis. They also talk about the necessity of art during times of political upheaval and revolution.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This Friday, the amateur arrives in IMAX. I want to find and kill the people who murdered my wife. Critics rave, the amateur is a tense, unpredictable ride. You're just not a killer, Charlie. Train me. That constantly finds new and inventive ways to up the stakes. The first one you kill, you let the other ones know you're coming. I want them all.

Academy Award winner Rummy Malik and Academy Award nominee Lawrence Fishburne. The amateur. Hey folks, today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. With Squarespace, you can showcase anything you want with a customizable website designed to attract clients or fans and grow your business. Start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder to get a fully custom website in just a few days. Check out squarespace.com slash WTF for a free trial. And then when you're all set to put your new site out

in the world, use offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash WTF. Offer code WTF. You know the drill. All right, let's do this. How are you? what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck Nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast

Welcome to it again Welcome to it again What's happening today? I talked to Peter Weller now look you know you know him, most people know him as Robocop and Buckaroo Banzai. He was also in Naked Lunch. That was a film based on the book by William Burroughs done by David Cronenberg and he was in The Sons of Anarchy. But he's also a jazz musician and interestingly an art historian. He has his PhD in Italian Renaissance Art History and he's publishing his first book

on the painter Leon Battista Alberti. Yeah, this is that guy. This is a multi-talented, forever curious, intelligent dude that didn't just limit himself to sitting around in a trailer waiting to go on set in the robot suit and he's also been around showbiz for a while is it this was a totally surprising conversation all right I will I will tell you that right now you know I am I wouldn't call myself an intellectual, but I know a few things about a lot of things.

I know some stuff about a lot of stuff, but it only goes so deep, because I'd never really, I don't know that I ever intellectually committed myself to any one discipline, and everything was sort of like just a rabbit hole to me. And at some point in a rabbit hole to me.

You know, and at some point in a rabbit hole, you reach a ledge or like a place to hang on and you realize like, I'm just gonna stop here. I can't go any deeper. And this is where I'm gonna be comfortable with where I am now and slowly make my way back up again. I'll be in Grand Rapids, Michigan coming to GLC Live at 20 Monroe on Friday, April 11th. That's next Friday.

And then in Traverse City, Michigan, I'll be at the City Opera House on Saturday, April 12th in Los Angeles here in LA. I'm at Dynasty Typewriter Monday, April 14th, Saturday, April 26, and Tuesday, April 29. Those are all at 7.30 p.m. I'm going to do Largo in LA. Got an 8 p.m. show on Tuesday, April 22. Then coming in for the home stretch, I'm in Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire, and then Brooklyn for my HBO special taping at the BAM Harvey Theater on May 10.

Go to WTFPod.com slash tour for all of my dates and links to tickets. I believe those Vermont shows are definitely sold out. Toronto's getting close. There are two shows there. New Hampshire, some tickets. I think that the HBO taping must be getting close to sold out, but we're coming in for landing, folks.

And I'm still sitting on about an hour and a half that I can make that I've been told I can do 70 minutes I got it I got an extension I got I got a time extension I got some time added well you know end times fun was 73 minutes I think there's something about no one's doing hours anymore. All right, you know, 43 is the new 60. I don't know when the fuck that happened. But like people are churning, I think it's YouTube primarily and self-production primarily

that you're not, you don't adhere to these things. You don't have to. And I get it, but I mean, isn't that the job? You're gonna do an hour. I'm doing an hour. That's what you're working towards, an hour, not 34 minutes. I mean, that's like a middle act running the light.

Come on, man. Let's do it. Let's do it old school. Let's do it big dick style. Let's do it with some push and some swagger. Come on. All right, maybe I went a little over the top with the big dick thing. I'm just saying that. Put the hour together.

So that's what I'm trying to do. Look, man, I'm just trying to like do my job. All right, just get off my back. I'm just trying to do my job. So I was happy to see some people took my advice it seems or at least I inspired them when I was talking about you because so much horrible shit is going on at such a pace politically that maybe you just make a sign that says, please just stop, this is crazy. Many variations, but I guess a couple of people

went out on the day before yesterday, on Saturday, on April 5th, and they sent me pictures of their signs that were based on my protest message. Please just stop, my protest message. Please just stop. This is crazy. This ongoing apocalyptic farce. God damn it. I wish it wasn't real.

Oh my God. But I'm preoccupying myself with many different things. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, this conversation, man, with Peter Weller, man, we're going deep, man man. He's a you know, he's an art historian art historian I minored in art history in college. Yeah, I went to college and and I thought about things I didn't just party I was always a little too stressed out for that a little too hungry a little too wanting to be smarty and But I could never contextualize anything because I was unable to compartmentalize.

So anything I read or took in or tried to wrap my brain around was really just... it just all went in and latched on to whatever it could in my head. I was never able to say like, well, these are the parameters of your thoughts. No, sir. not for me. No parameters. Just throw it all into the blender and let's see what happens. Same. Same is happening now.

The same thing happens now. I'll give you the one that I'm kind of rolling around in my head. Like, because, you know, okay, so if you if you meditate, and I gave this to David Harbour too, you'll hear on that episode, we, me and Harbour sat down again, did the same sort of philosophical, addictive, you know, let's try to make sense of us kind of jam session. Look forward to that. That's coming, me and Harbor. But if you want to meditate here, I've got a little something. Maybe wake up and try this one. The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about

to fall into barbarism. Let's say it again. The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism. That's from Hannah Arendt. So yeah, you know, that's a nice wake up. Ha ha ha. Or you throw in a little Wilhelm Reich into that.

Fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples. That's good. Pair those up and you know make an equation out of it so you can see what's coming. Just a bunch of hateful freaks who can't get laid or can't keep it up or just can't do it. Coming for you. How are you? Good morning. Everything okay? But the conversation is great because we brought up people that I hadn't talked about in a while. Ernst Gombrich. Ernst Gombrich. I bet you I'm the only person in the world right now saying Ernst Gombrich. I was assigned a book called Art and Illusion, I was assigned a book called Art and Illusion, a study in the psychology of pictorial representation. He also wrote a book, I think, about art history. But this was because I did a year-long survey class in the history of photography.

And I think out of any class I ever took in my life, and I've talked about this before in different ways, that one changed my brain the most. And I could never get through that book. I still have it. You know, there's still time. I got a few of those books from college. There's still time, man.

You know, I'll get to it. Art and Illusion, a Study in the Psychology of pictorial representation by Ernst Gombrich. In uncertain times, people look for peace of mind and a sense of security wherever they can find them. With Simply Safe, millions of Americans enjoy greater security and peace of mind every time they arm their system, when they head out each morning or when they lock up each night. We've been using Simply Safe for almost a decade and they always provide the best, most up-to-date methods for protecting your home.

Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. But SimpliSafe's Active Guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen with AI-powered cameras and live professional monitoring agents. If someone's lurking around or doing something they shouldn't, these agents see and talk to them in real time. Hey buddy, if you don't got a package, get off of the porch. Huh? Get off the porch. He's not home. They can also activate spotlights, even contact the police, all before anyone has the chance to get inside your home. even contact the police all before anyone has the chance to get inside your home.

Don't try it buddy, you hear those sirens? Right now head to simply safe dot com slash WTF to get the best value in home security. WTF listeners can get 50% off their new simply safe system with professional monitoring and their first month free at simply safe dot com slash WTF. That's simply safe dot com slash WTF that simply safe dot com slash WTF for 50% off At some animal moments today Well, I hiked Runyon Canyon. I haven't been over there in a long time Runyon is sort of the entry-level hike for people wanting to get into show business or tourists Where you just walk up this hill? It's very famous hike, beautiful. I'd forgotten just how spectacular the views from the top of Runyon are of LA and Hollywood

and all the way out to the ocean. It's been very clear out here, very pretty. Primo, Primo LA weather. And both of my flowers on either side of my door, the pots are finally blooming at the same time. It's very aggravating and I don't know anything about gardening or what to do about it. When one blooms and the other one isn't then the other one blooms. It's sort of like, can't you guys get it together? Can't you just flower at the same time? Is that too much to ask from you plants?

You're right across from each other. Make it happen. But today, yeah, we, Kit and I hiked up, run in with the dog, saw a lot of people with their dogs, a lot of dogs. And I, you know, I don't spend a lot of time around dogs. I'm with the other, I'm with the more challenging animal, the cat. But dogs just do their own thing. They'll see other dogs, hey, what's up? Or they won't even acknowledge it. They'll just be like, yeah, I'm moving, I'm moving ahead, got no time to socialize. Not interested, all the different breeds. It was nice. We moved through some aggravation at the beginning,

some parking-based aggravation, which can be a relationship killer. All it takes is one bad sort of morning trying to find a parking space, and things can be revealed You know, one bad sort of morning, trying to find a parking space and you know, things can be revealed that make a relationship never the same again. The parking problem. We transcended it.

Took half a hike. Anyway, so I get home and there's a dog toy on my fucking porch and out of the corner of my eye, I see a coyote just come up onto the porch and take the dog toy out into my yard. It was gonna spend some downtime. It's happened before, something about my yard. I think it's the hedge. They feel kind of protected in here and they take a load off.

Yeah, but I had set my ring camera so sensitive that primarily just to catch a coyote if I could or other wildlife and I finally got one. I see that coyote walk up and confidently take, as if it's his, the dog toy. And I opened the door because I don't know, part of me wanted to pet the coyote and it ran off, thank God. I wouldn't have pet the coyote. And then I had a moment with a squirrel.

You got to check in with a squirrel occasionally. They're all over the place and I just ignore them entirely. I never connect with the squirrels at all. At all. I take them for granted. And so I stopped and there was a squirrel in the tree and he stopped and we did the thing, connected, and that was good.

I told him I'd put some nuts out for him. But more importantly, Charlie, the struggle to feel good about medicating my favorite cat is, it's been really up and down, folks. And it makes me wonder, honestly, just who talks to more crazy people? Psychiatrists or veterinarians? Because I was crazy. I kept calling them, calling her.

They, you know, they put a vet tech on the phone and I'm like, I want to talk to a doctor. He's listless. He's lethargic. What is it? Well, it takes a while to, you while to figure out what the dosage, well, what do you mean? I'm taking them off it, man, up and down. And finally, I realized that no one knows anything or even how Prozac works in cats

or there's no research on it at all. And it's really just about this anxiety that has now morphed into a territorial shit show. But I just was going to take them off it and just ride it out with tranquilizing him daily when I'm gone. And then I'm like, dude, just, would you stop being so fucking whatever it is, like all or nothing, like this or that one or two zeros and ones? It just don't just, you know, you know, let's figure it out. What's what you know, so I gave him half the dose that the doc prescribed and He did come back to life a little bit

and I'm just gonna do that and then if When I go away and I come back and I have some time at home I'll assess again and if I have to wean them off it, I'll wean them off it The big problem is my needs from this cat. I'd gotten very used to him being a certain way and him meeting my needs, or at least me accommodating, or figuring it out, navigating the two of us. And now he's like, you know, because of the serotonin,

I guess his needs are less. And now I'm just this annoying needy guy. Whereas before it went back and forth. And now I'm like, you know, not needed by my cat. It's fucking heartbreaking. You know what I'm saying? Am I being, what's wrong with me? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Yeah, I need it. There's a pretty common resistance people have to therapy. The price tag. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. You pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, which saves you money, but it also saves you your time since BetterHelp is done entirely online wherever you are wherever you are

therapy should feel accessible not like a luxury with online therapy from BetterHelp you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress your mental health is worth it and now it's within reach therapy can work great for you whether you want to go to therapy for regular check-ins or if you have something pressing that you need to address. Either way, that's where I was recently. I felt like I needed to address some of the negative thinking I had going on, so I did, and now I'm on the path to addressing it.

If this is something you need help with too, money shouldn't stand in the way of a solution, and with better help it doesn't have to your well-being is worth it visit betterhelp.com slash WTF to get 10% off your first month that's better help HELP dot com slash WTF here we go this goes a lot of places this conversation and it's pretty pretty, it was for me. This is me talking to Peter Weller. Peter's first book is called Leon Battista Alberti in Exile, Tracing the Path of the First Modern Book on Painting.

Yeah, that's for real. It's available May 1st. This is me talking to Peter. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded This is me talking to Peter. details at phys.ca. Okay, I got a question for you. Yes. Is that you playing the guitar sometimes in your breaks? Yeah. It's great. Thanks man. Yeah. I said it's got to be him because then I hear strumming, then I hear some lead, then I hear some... Yeah. it's great. Thanks, man. Yeah, I said it's got to be him because then I hear strumming then I hear some lead then I hear some yeah, it's that's that's cool. It's uh, you know, it's something I started doing and I generally just um

Just sit here for a while With a riff and you know and work it out and then just lay it down with no you know, and work it out, and then just lay it down with no real production value. Just stick that mic into one of those old tube amps and play one of these fuckers. And that's where it goes. I'm not, I'm no genius, but I've got some... That looks like a Telecat, is that a Telecat?

Yeah, there's a Tele there. That Tele's a great one. Like I finally settled on a couple guitars after, I'm not a big, I don't collect and I've been given a lot of guitars, but I finally settled on two that I really dig and over a period of kind of being obsessed with these old amps, I finally found one that I dig

and I think I'm good, now I just have to unload some. So you got a Tele and what else there? That's a, the Tele's a Tele, I think they're called the Tele Deluxe. It's got a, it's like a Keith Richards guitar. That's a reissue strat there from the custom shop where that they relicked. That thing forward-facing is a 1960 Les Paul junior.

Wow. Which I love. The junior is a lighter guitar, right? It's a light guitar and it's got that one P 90 in it. So it can get pretty dirty. Right. You got a little range in there. You get that a kind of New York doll sound, or if you want to plug into a big amp, you

can get that Leslie West sound, but they clean up. Leslie West, man. Yeah, man. Heavy cat, literally, but great. I know I just listened to him recently. Because he's like a force to be reckoned with and I think he's forgotten. I think he's one of the great unsung. That's right.

Driving rock. Totally. I can hear the guy, I mean I'm a jazzer but but I'm a rocker, I came up in the 60s and my mother was a jazzer. And so, as my mother said, all music is great. But Leslie Wesson, I think to me anyway, is one of those cats that I could pick him out when I hear, just I.

Yeah, it's that tone, yeah. And I think, oh my God, he's the great unsung. Hero of the rift. Driving rock riffs, man. Well, yeah, well, he played one of those. That was his thing, man. The Westpaw Juniors. So when I hear you, you know, I want to talk about cats,

and then I hear another podcast. No, I want to talk about politics. No, I can't get into that. Then I want to talk about music. Yeah. And then I hear... That's your life, though, isn't it? Well, all that, yeah, art.

And then you talk about Rothko with somebody and I think, oh God, now I gotta get on there and talk about Rothko. Yeah, sure you do. And then I was listening to you yesterday, I was picking up something from, cause I loved the guy, I met him at Sony once, W. Como Bell.

Yeah. And you said on there that something just lasered me. You said, I'm paraphrasing you said you pick up the phone or read the news And then you hope you that your kid doesn't come in and see you're crying. Yes Right. Yeah, I mean my kid has seen me crying over I don't have a kid so that might have been a come out, but certainly yeah, it's the maybe it was him Maybe yeah. Yeah, but no, yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, it I got a 13-year-old. Oh, yeah. And it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me and the worst thing that ever happened to me.

Sure, why is it bad? Well, it's... How do you guide them? He's going through adolescence. Yes. And there's that amazing series now on... Oh, I haven't watched that. I don't want to watch it.

You know, I just hear it's like, terrifically piercing. Yeah. And do I want to be that upset about what the possible, I don't wanna watch it. You know, I just hear it's like terrifically piercing. And do I wanna be that upset about what the possible, except that it's informative and the best thing that communication can do is inform. And subsequently, if it's about weaning a boy away from gender belligerence, which it seems to be about, then it's a good thing.

I just don't know why I wanna jump into that. Sure, well, I mean, you know, you got time, it'll be there. Yeah. So tell me. It's not going anywhere, man. I don't know, man. I got a couple chapters left, brother, and that's like,

you know. Yeah, but you know, so like, you know, I'm thinking about this a lot and it seems like it's a focus of your life at this point. So tell me, you know, because in this time of authoritarianism that is going to unfold, you know, fairly quickly, you know, I've got a big picture thing going on in my head around.

Hasn't it already? Yeah, for sure. But there's still this idea, there is a facade of democracy that people are still honoring in order to keep their gigs and feel like they've got a handle on shit. But in these times

where you have these kind of forces, culturally and politically, that there's a notion that art is important and incendiary and vital to push back. And I don't know that Americans have experienced the nature of this type of fear where you implant something in your head that starts on your phone that tells you

that maybe you should just keep your mouth shut and keep your head down, which is easier with a phone. But how does art save us, Peter? Well, to me, okay, let's talk about visual art for a second. Okay. Okay, I got into visual art through film. Right. I was sort of embarrassed into it.

How's that? Well, my mother tried to turn me on to it. I didn't want to go to any fucking museum and sit around and look at, you know, squiggly lines and shit. Yeah. And then a great- Where'd you grow up?

I grew up all over. My father was sort of a G2 intelligence helicopter pilot and yeah a bunch of wars. Yeah And he was one of LBJ's Army one pilots Vietnam Korea and all that stuff. Oh really? So yeah, so did he talk about it? No, and no he my dad was and then he retired became a federal judge So you can understand the control freak that that guy was. On the same time, my mother was extraordinarily liberal

and artistic and a piano player and her mother and her grandmother a piano player. So I was turned on to jazz. And I was- That's interesting. This was in the 60s, late 60s. 50s and 60s, yeah. So my dad was stationed at United States Armed Forces

headquarters in Europe in 59 Yeah, and the Cold War is going on and even missile crisis going on and and hard bop is going on Hard bop is going on but my mother but my mother tries to turn me on to hard bop Yeah, it's about nine because I pick up a trumpet. Yeah, I still play trumpet in a quick. Yeah, so yeah, I like big bands I like Duke and that, right? And then later on, and that's in there, because that's my Miles Davis diary. I kept a diary about my experiences with Miles,

and then Rutledge asked me to edit it down to 5,000 words, and so subsequently that's that. In this jazz and literature introduction. I like the title. It's like a lot of books have titles like that that I have and I usually get through 20, 30 pages. Yeah, me too, man. And then I say I read it and I skimmed it.

But anyway, look, I want to celebrate today because in this art jam, Ali McGraw, the great and beautiful and luxurious Ali McGraw turned me on to contemporary modern art. I was doing a movie with her, we never hung out. After the movie, we started hanging out. People think of her as a movie star and a model

but what she really was was a stylist. She was a graduate from Wellesley in art history and design and so forth and stylist for Diana Vreeland and Vogue and whatever. So when did you meet her? I did a movie with her called Just Tell Me What You Want, Sidney Lomet, who was sort of a granddad to me. Really?

He was an amazing sort of mentor and friend forever. He's the best. So Ali, after the film, takes me to the largest Picasso exhibit ever, is when the Guernica is sort of- Where, at MoMA? At MoMA, before it went back to Spain. Yeah, I saw that.

My mother took me to that. That was in 82 or something. Yeah, we made a special trip. Yeah, I think I met my mother down there. So you got five floors of Picasso. So whatever anybody thinks of Picasso, they forget that he's a great figurative artist, a figurative realist. That's the important thing.

It's one of those things where it's like, can you write free verse without knowing how to do the other thing? Yeah know, it's one of those things where it's like can you write free verse without not knowing how to Do the other thing? Yeah, you could do it all. Yeah, can you play can you play? Night in Tunisia without knowing your Bach inventions. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, you got to have the foundation exactly right Take it unless you're Jimmy or somebody. Yeah. Yeah, so she takes me to that I go. Where do I start? Okay, I start with Impressionist wherever it's easy to see Monet, Monet, and I sort of pick up the books going forward. Then I go pick up the books going backwards, man. You get to the Renaissance, brother, and it's too much. It's war, it's politics, it's poetry, it's economics. It's patronage. It's patronage. It's taxes. It's this thing

you're talking about. What does art mean, is art political or not? Or is it possible to, is it revolutionary? Yeah, is it revolutionary? But dig, it's too much. So I stop. You stop what, looking at it? I stop, I don't wanna study one my way back. I wanna become the smarty pants in the room who could talk about Cy Twombly or Frankethaller, or whatever, you know, because I've jammed with Ali, who knows a bunch of these people,

the MoMA people and all that. The guys who are still alive. Yeah, and I've had lunches, you know, and I've been hanging out and so forth. So anyway, I am at the Japanese International Film Festival in Kyoto with the great Jean Moreau, Truffaut's Jean Moreau, and Mike Medivoy, a great Orion producer, producer of many films, and Vittorio Storaro. And for those of the people listening to this who don't know Vittorio Storaro, if I said the movie is Apocalypse Now, Sheltering Sky, Last Emperor, Last Angle in Paris.

DP? What is he? Yeah, he's the guy that first filtered Technicolor with Dario Argento. That's where he began with it. Okay, so he's a visions of light. He's a true cliche game changer. Those guys are the real geniuses. They're genius.

Yeah. So I'm with him and he wears Versace all the time. As a matter of fact, Coppola said he's the only guy who could spend two years in a Philippine jungle in a white suit. And if you've met Vittorio, he was born on my birthday, 10 years after. So I try to place Art Smartypants with Vittorio. I go in Italian, I say,

chi è il favorito Vittorio? Who's your favorite painter? And he goes, who's yours? I go, I don't know, I just dropped some names. And he says, have you ever been to Padova to see Giotto in the very first narrative of one by one, four, six frames of depth, feeling, color, perception, narrative movie?

Giotto. Giotto, G-I-O-T-T-O. And I go, who? And he says, Jotto. And so MetaVoy and Jean Moreau are watching this, so I don't wanna eat shit in front of them. I said, Jotto, I said, I don't know who you're talking about, brother.

And he flips his Versace scarf and says, well, Peter, we cannot talk about art. And walks off, man, and dig, I run after this pretentious, and I say, I say, pretentioso, which means you're a pretentious fuck. And he goes, no, you are pretentious, because you're like most Americans who can spout off these names.

Jackson Pollock, whatever, Larry Rear, whatever, but you got no context. Because if you don't go see Giotto in the Capella Scrovegni, which is only 20 yards long, in the very first narrative, by the way, everybody talks about him. Leonardo talks about him. Michelangelo, Picasso, Rothko.

Rothko writes a whole sort of homage to the guy. So if you don't know this guy, you got no context. None. And I feel slapped. Yeah, you were. And I was. Yeah. And I feel slapped. Yeah, you were. And I was, yeah. And I call up Allie and I say, hey man, what's with Joto?

She says, I tried to turn you on to him, but you didn't want to listen to that. You wanted to do all of a contemporary shit. Anyway, it is the anniversary of that church opening and revealing those frescoes, which are, which is insightful turn of all visual art takes today. March 25th, 1305. When did you get out there?

I went immediately, there's a great friend of mine, Brian Hamill, Brian Hamill is a brother of Pete Hamill, one of the great sports writers ever, Dennis John Hamill, one of my first friends in New York, and he's one of the great poster photographers ever. De Niro and Raging Bull and Manhattan and so on. I had that poster. Yeah.

And that's Brian. Okay. One of my oldest friends, I said, we gotta go, man. We gotta go to this place. Yeah, it's like a beatnik adventure. It is. And so we went to Venice and we took the train. Yeah. We sat there in the days you could smoke a cigar and sit with a cappuccino, look at this thing. And Brian goes, oh my God, man, ain't say nothing like it.

So I go every single December 24th now. Yeah, to look, to sit. To sit. Be present. Now you're only allowed 15 minutes because it's all hermetically sealed and restored. Oh, okay. So that's Joto, or it's called the Arena Chapel in English.

Yeah. It's a capella scrubbing. Okay. So you dig Rothko's chapel in Houston, and you're rapping on Rothko, Rothko's whole square imagery of color comes out of Giotto. No shit. Yeah. Yeah.

Had to come from somewhere. It all came. Carlo Carra, maybe the guy who invented Cubism, comes from Giotto, Picasso, or from Giotto. Oh, it's interesting that the arc from Giotto to Rothko is a complete deconstruction of narrative. It truly is, but you know, it's like what Ernst Gombrich said.

It's all. You got through that book? What, Story of Art? Yeah. I keep it by my bedside, man. Like a Bible, man. Like, you know, some people read Torah. I read that shit.

But I also read Torah. I was like, what the hell? But it's all connective. Yeah. And I dig what Gombrich said. You know. Gombrich's the man. Yeah, he said the hip thing, you know, everybody wants to be cool and say, I know what I like.

You don't know what you like. You like what you know. If someone takes you by the hand and walks you from Johto to Rothko, you're gonna end up liking Rothko. May not be your favorite, but you're gonna get it instead of just looking at a bunch of red squares. Put it into context.

Exactly right. Okay, well that's an interesting place to start in the sense of my question is that, in a time where there is no context, that the imposition of context on young minds now is gonna be a tall order dude. Everything's happening all at once all the time Yeah

so, you know you're taking in what you can to get your dopamine jolt and You know, are you putting it into context and in a world where there's a cond where there's no context Y'all you're running on is, you know little reactive triggers to things and you have no foundation for shit So especially when the media is coming at you so fast that you can cut. From everywhere. That you can cut everything else out. Yeah, yeah, no, we have the delivery system right here and we fucking annihilate our brains every morning. That's right.

So my question, like in terms of, well it's not even a question necessarily you can answer, but it's just something I think about, you know, when, well it's funny, because I'm doing this bit now that's starting to work, you know. I'm talking about, like, these, when you flip through reels on the phone. And the bit I'm doing is, you know,

I watched a drainage pipe unclog itself for a minute and a half, and it did not feel like wasted time. And then, like... That's meditative, man. Well, I know, but it's on my phone, and it's there for a reason. It's getting me to hold my attention for a minute and a half with all the other garbage coming through. But

then I said, like, this must... The way my brain works is like, this is it. This is what art is now, man, because art doesn't answer questions. It asks them. And so now I'm like, what is that coming out of that pipe? Is that a private house? Who are those people? This is poetry, there's so much there, you know? But, you know, my struggle is, if I go sit at the Rothko or I listen to people talk,

you know, I'm talking to you, or if I'm at the gym today, I got a guy two treadmills over telling another guy about how his wife fucked around on him. And it's like, there's a human connection to all of it that once we get out of the visceral human connection of things, which I think most people are out of, you know, how do we have community? But these aren't questions for you.

These are just the ones I'm fucking with in my head. Yeah, thanks a lot for laying that shit show on me, man. But you know something- Did it make sense? Yeah, totally makes sense for laying that shit show on me. But you know something. Did it make sense? Yeah, totally makes sense. Look, I got to, another thing you talk about is sobriety. I'm sober. Yeah.

So another thing is that you talk about, you had Sam Quinones on here. Yeah. Okay, I couldn't get through it because all that drugs, those are my drugs. Oh yeah, you were a meth guy or dope guy? Meth guy. Yeah.

Meth guy back in the 60s and childhood. Back when it was just like biker meth. No, real deal, liquid desoxin shit, man. Yeah? Geeze it, yeah. Yeah. You know what geezing means? No.

That's the old William Burroughs term for shooting it. Oh yeah, okay, that's what it was? Yeah. Geezing, I should know that one. Yeah, those people are huge influence to me. Sure. And thank God I'm sober, but the thing is, what you're talking about, watching the trash

come out of a pipe. Yeah. If it wasn't, people say, you know, this is the other cliche about being sober, is that, you know, I thank God for my drug addiction and my, and whatever, you know, this is the other cliche about being sober. You know, I thank God for my drug addiction and my, and whatever, because it wouldn't have led me to a place where I can appreciate that. The shit coming out of a drainage pipe and stare at it. Or sitting and now I do Zen meditation and I have to do it.

How does that go for you? All right. I have to do it every day, man. Like what? Twice? Once? You know, I should do it twice, I do it once. 15 minutes? No, 25. Yeah. Yeah, and just to watch the shit, the garbage come out.

Yeah, okay, so there's the metaphor. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. It's like, we're staring at that, we're staring at a wall. It's a relief to it. We're staring at a flower, or a Rothko. Or a Rothko for 25 minutes while my mind unloads garbage out of a pipe is a salvation to me.

And I can't explain that to a 24 year old who's on the rise on Wall Street, thinking about a Ferrari. They ain't gonna get that. Yeah, well I mean. I don't know. You know, I think you're right. Yeah, well, I mean. I don't know. You know, I think you're right. But I don't think they ever would have gotten it.

I just worry about, I guess, when it comes right down to it, because, you know, I've dug into jazz a bit. I hear what you're saying about art, and I get that context. And where we started was, how does it make an impact? Okay, so if you put it into context and appreciate it, but I'm just talking about the power of art and whether or not I'm missing what's going on now or does it have any power still? So when I sit in the Rothko Chapel,

I'm like, this is something people should do. You take this in, right? And if I listen to jazz and you realize, no, 99.5% of human beings don't even know this shit. And these guys were fucking astronauts. Yeah. So what is the impact, man? How do we facilitate, how do we elevate the culture

in a expansive way if all we do is sit and take in this garbage from our phone? Certainly there's some music or some movies that do it, occasionally. But I'm just worried about all of us untethered creatives who are now being kind of held down by our own minds and what is a genuine authoritarianism. How do we keep people still churning away?

Yeah. You want a response to that? Well, I mean, talk about jazz. Look, jazz is anger. Yeah. Yeah. You want a response to that? Well, I mean, talk about jazz. Look, jazz is anger. Yeah. You read Leroy Jones about jazz. It comes from, yeah, it comes from marching and funerals and whatever,

but it becomes a vestige of black American anger. Yeah. And I get it. Yeah. Because, get it. Yeah. But to listen to music, any of it, if I hear Jimmy or I hear Leslie West or I hear Miles, I hear whatever, I hear resurrection. I hear blow back.

It never takes me into a place of, I can just like accept everything that's going on. It agitates me. And that agitation alone is the thing that wakes me up. And it does it more than, look, somebody said, I don't know, Pascal, somebody said, some great philosopher said that all arts can only aspire to music.

Because everything else is interpretive and music is not. It's in you and does something to you. And music is magic. It's magic. And it's also personal. And it's also upsetting. And so I have, call me a glass half-fold guy, but as long as music is around, and by the way, there are certain times

in certain cultures where it's been suppressed, I've hope, I've hope that somebody's gonna, the music, look Mark, from 63 to 73, and that's not my idea, music was on the cutting edge of all the arts. It was on the cutting edge of poetry, play, theater, doesn't matter what it was. From 63 to 73, and there was an album,

doesn't come out, whether it was Jimmy or Moody Blues or Otis or Aretha or Bob Dylan like every other thing You know or or Donovan or or the cream? Or Zeppelin yeah, yeah that it was furious music. Yeah, and it infuriated me Yeah, and a good way and a good way and as Cheech Merrin said, you know as a joke as a joke He says, you know, we had a reason to take drugs back then because there, you know, there was a fucking revolution going on.

He says, I don't know why people are taking drugs now. I mean, they're going to take, say, Quinones thing. And I agree because that was, that music was the agitator. Music was the wake-up call. And so as long as I'm hearing it, I know I'm not dead. And I know I'm not impervious to saying, I hate this. And this is immoral, and this is cheap shit. But I'm glad I still live in a country.

You know, to get to a particular guy that you were quoting on a TV show seems a little bit passive about it, a liberal dude. I'm glad I'm not living in North Korea, brother. Yeah. You know, I'm glad somebody- Not yet. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm the cockeyed optimist,

but I think as long as we've got music, you know, that we got big inspiration, we got big hope. Good, why I, you know- As long as we got art too. Well, that's, okay, so that's hope. Good, well I, you know. As long as we got art too. Well that's, okay, so that's better. Okay, there you go. So hope. Okay, the Nazis censored art.

Yeah. The Russians have censored art. And Trump just closed down the Kennedy Center so he could run Broadway shows and Christian actors. Yeah. So yeah, he knows the playbook. So like, you know, but how does that look at, you know, in the big picture, how does art get censored?

How does, you know, it gets defunded? It gets, you know, the platforms don't integrate it. You know, like it's a different time trying to adjust to it, you know? And, you know, I'm a guy that, you know, even if I don't wanna go to art, like I go to Houston, I'm gonna go to the Rothko Chapel because I know that every time I sit before that stuff

or every time I take in a movie masterpiece or I listen to a jazz record of one sort of another, that as I age and as my brain changes and as I become deeper or more humble or more angry, that that thing's gonna sing to me in a different way. I gotta go back there. You know, you inspired me to go back there. I've only seen it once.

Yeah, well, it's just that, that is for me, you know, what defines genius is that you can go back there, I've only seen it once. Yeah, well it's just that, that is for me, what defines genius is that you can go back to their work at different points in your life and have a completely different experience every time. True, but what are you taking away from the experience? Are you taking away the freedom? Yeah, sure, you take away freedom, you take away,

if your brain is wiser, there's a depth that happens that wasn't there before. It could be relative to your emotional state or to what you've learned or to what you've let go of, but something keeps going deeper in. I guess it's freedom. I definitely appreciate their freedom because you're sitting and looking at

or listening to a free motherfucker. Right. Yeah, so yeah, that's definitely part of it. You're like, this guy was out there and now I'm halfway there. I was only a quarter of the way there when I saw this 20 years ago, but now I'm halfway there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you inspire me to go back. If I can inspire you to go to Padua to see Jotto. Yeah, yeah, no, I'll do it. You gotta go, man. Where is it in Padua? Okay, Padua is about 15 minutes out of Venice.

Okay. You go to Venice, you take the train, and Padua is the second oldest civic university that we have after Bologna. Yeah. And it's one of the hippest cities, man, it's beautiful. It's like a small town city. All right, well, I'm not a big vacation guy,

but maybe that's the vacation. I think you gotta go to Venice, man. So now let's take it back, because you've been in some movies that were kind of cultural touch points and culture changers. Yeah. Yeah. But people know you from Robocop and I remember being very excited about Naked Lunch and about Cronenberg's approach to Burroughs

because he's one of those guys, even though I wasn't hip to geezing. I've seen the word, but I didn't know necessarily what it meant. Also 16 years of the theater in New York, and I listened to you with Tracy Letts, but nobody brings up the theater in New York, man. Theater in New York, I talked to Pacino for like-

He's like a mentor to me. He's one of the great guys. The great, I mean a mentor to me, he's one of the great guys. Great, I mean like, to me too. You're one of the greats. I had one of these conversations with him, you know, and it was fortuitous, cause I was just about to do a role, which is a big role for me, a leading role,

and that conversation with him was a fucking game changer. Yeah. Because I think people, you know, they project onto him and they don't know him, but if you listen to him, he's a very sensitive, kind, but a real truth-seeker. Yeah. Yeah, you know, he he's very aware of the compromises He made because of his you know fiscal irresponsibility, but but when it comes down to it, you know, he's like he's an artist Yes, he's not a he's not just a working actor. No, he's an inspiration to me when I was coming up

Yeah in the theater in the well and He's not just a working actor. No, he's an inspiration to me when I was coming up. Yeah, in the theater? Well, Panic! and Needle Park is the first thing I saw when I was starting off in the theater. And also he was a studio guy and a method guy and so am I. How'd you end up in New York? Good idea. I went to North Texas State, a big jazz school,

playing the trumpet, had my whiplash moment. It's sick of people yelling at me. I wasn't gonna be Miles Davis. I didn't know what to do. Had to stay out of Vietnam. My brother and my dad just came back. And so I switched to English and theater and then realized the only thing for me was to act.

Now tell me, what was the moment of, what was the catharsis of, I'm never gonna be good enough at this? At the trumpet? Yeah. I'm sitting on a bandstand, I'm playing a Count Basie tune called Cloudburst. Yeah.

I'm soloing on Cloudburst. Yeah. And the very nice guy who's running the band, it's all Leon Breeden, this one o'clock, these are all, you know, the guys in the one o'clock all famous guys bones Malone Lou Marini. These are all Yeah, these are good cats. I went to school Lou Marini. Yeah. Yeah And Dean Parks great studio guitar player, man. These are the guys who in one o'clock I'm in the four and the five o'clock. Yeah, but I'm sitting on a bandstand and

Yelling at me man, and this is you know, you're not making a transition, I don't know what, from B flat minor or whatever. And I go, it's like whiplash, it's totally whiplash. The guy wants to throw a cymbal at me and I wanna quit. So I go, man, I'm not gonna do this for $49 and change, and I'm not gonna be Miles, who's in this book and is my only hero, I know, I just wanna preface it by saying, I was with Miles the last gig he ever played in his life, last person out of a dressing room

and walking into his car 18 days later, he was dead. So there's not a change in my life that I don't have a Miles Davis album that corresponds. But I realized I wasn't gonna be Miles. Which is the one you go back to the most Cuz I got one okay The one I go back to the most because I hear it every time I go to the dentist is bitches brew yeah Yeah For me, it's in a silent way

Well, that's right before bitches, bro, man. I mean, that Joe Zalvin old, don't it? Oh, yeah. And he annoys me, but that, yeah. Does he? Yeah. Yeah. There's something about his swagger and his hat,

but I get his place in it, but I'm not a weather report person, but in a silent way, the transition from. No, man, that's like liquid heart is what that is. Yeah, and I'll take the Jack Johnson record too. No one ever talks about that. No, I love the Jack Johnson. Oh my God.

Or On The Corner. If I take those two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's hip that you are saying that because most people go to Kind of Blue, Casters, Sketches, The Fag, blah, blah. That's hack. I was Coltrane.

Well. I can't say it's hack. No, no, I mean, but most of those people are guilty of what you had that moment with that DP and. That's right. Yeah. That got no context. Right.

Yeah, they got that and they stopped there. And then it's like what Keith Jarrett said, Miles, why don't you play those ballads anymore? He says, because I love them. Yeah. Because that's all I'll play. Yeah. So yeah, in a silent way, I love you for that, man.

Because most people will not bring that up. And Herbie on there? Herbie, yeah. That fucking, that record to me is like, oh, it all comes from here. Yeah, anything, like any ambient music, any Brian Eno, like Velvet Underground aside, but like the space that he creates in a silent way. Not so sure that Velvet Underground doesn't come from that, but he Eno, like you know, Velvet Underground aside, but like the space

that he creates in a single way. I'm not so sure that Velvet Underground doesn't come from that, but he does it, man. Yeah, yeah. I had a couple of convo's with him, man, about big jazz influence. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

All right, so you go, so you fuck off. I fuck off. You're like, I'm done with this shit, and you're like, I'm gonna act. I'm gonna act to stay out of Vietnam, I'm gonna just do this and then all of a sudden. I'm hitchhiking down to Austin How does that get you out of Vietnam? Well? I got to stay in school. I got something right okay stay in school Yeah, I got it. I guess like North Texas Otherwise the second I jump out I'm gonna be did you grow up was there a lot of years in North, Texas

I grew up in San Antonio your favorite town. I heard you're talking about San Antonio Yeah, that's where I grew up man, and then then favorite town. I heard you talking about San Antonio. Yeah, that's where I grew up, man. And then Denton, I spent three years there. And then I said, I was hitchhiking down to Austin, my dad had now retired. He was going to law school in Austin. And I'm hitchhiking and a guy says,

what are you doing? Out of my mouth, I said, I'm an actor. And I said, whoa, that's what I am. Now here's the interesting thing about parents. My dad who does not get acting, jazz, music, nothing. My mother who comes from that. I apply for a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

I think, oh wow, my mother's gonna be so happy. I'm gonna go there, man. I'm gonna do New York. This is where I'm gonna be. I go to Texas, to go to Minerals, Texas. My dad's now a judge, and I say, hey, mom, guess what, I got a scholarship to New York. My mother absolutely annihilates me, man.

Really? Yeah, she says, you ain't going to New York, I'm from New York, and New York's gonna kill you. You never make it New York, you just stay in school. Actor, you're kidding, man, nobody makes it as an actor. Your dad don't ever give you money for that, la la la la la, I feel absolutely denigrated. This is from the creative side of the family. This is the one I'm expecting to go hooray.

And I go to see my dad in his judges chambers, I'm not gonna do it. He says, I know why you're here. I said, yeah, I'm going to New York. He says, what do you want? I said, I need some loot. How much? I said, I don't know, about $600 a month.

How long? I said, two years. When are you paid back? Two years after that, just done. I said, really? He says, yeah. I said, really, you're gonna do it like that? He says, listen, the only thing the secret of life

is do what you wanna do. So go. Yeah. Bingo. That's beautiful, right? Isn't it, man? Oh, you didn't expect that. No, no, no.

You must have been going into those judges chambers. This is going to be the end of the dream. Here's another thing about, I just want to vamp on this. Here's another thing about sobriety. It's only being so many years of off shit with some sort of program, what you want to call a spiritual lot, that I could put my parents into context, like you just talking about,

without being the kid who has to remove the parents and put them in a snapshot on an iPhone and go, yeah, fuck them, that's what they were. I could put my parents into context and actually take away huge gifts. Yeah. They gave me in spite of the fact that my mother was a functioning alcoholic, my dad was a control freak. Yeah. Well, I mean, you got to at some point get the gifts and put them up front as opposed to the liabilities.

True, but a lot of cats don't do that. No, I know. You can't hold on that forever because then you're just going to repeat it. Yeah. Yeah, no, it takes a while to go like, all right, well let's focus on the good things. How am I who I am in a good way that I can give them credit for? Yeah, so you depoliticize your folks,

and then there's a little bit of give and take. So when did the drugs start for you? The drugs? Oh man, 67. So when you're playing horn, you gotta do the drugs. No. After. I never liked performing or doing anything behind drugs

or even being on a date. Yeah. Well, I mean, speed's not a great, it's not a great art drug, I don't think. That's not the go-to. That's not the go-to to get deep. No, no, no. No, it's not the dreamland thing.

No, that's a guy deal. Let's go out and get on a Harley Davidson and go 100 miles an hour, interstate 35. You did that? Yeah. How was that? It's the greatest excitement I ever had, and I'm really grateful I did it.

Went 100 miles an hour, and hardly, David's been shot up with stuff, but I'm also glad that I survived, because there's so many cats. I mean, my wife says, how can you laugh about that stuff? Like, I'm laughing with you. And my friend Joe, who's another sober guy, he says, and he said to Sherry,

who has no experience about it all, she says, because we're living Yeah, because we lived through it and there's so many people who are dead or in jail or whatever, you know or maimed Oh, you gotta laugh. We gotta laugh. Yeah, you pulled it off That's that's a that's true and don't you feel that then we have to have some sort of oh no It's the best dude, like because know, Normie's never gonna get it and even if you tell them the story, it's not gonna help your case.

They're gonna be appalled. They're just appalled. They're going, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, that's right. And that's the comedy of it. Yeah, and my dad said that about my mom. He says, don't ever tell your mom the stupid shit you ever did.

Don't ever tell her any age. And one time I was 55, she was 80, we said in Italy, 15 people. Somebody brings up some stupid thing like that, and she loses it on me. Why would you wanna do that? I said, Mom, I was 19 years old, it doesn't matter, are you stupid, are you what?

I said, oh, my dad was right, man, you don't tell your mother nothing. So you go to New York, kind of jacked up. Yeah, the American Academy, I start working right when I get out of there. And where'd you move to, where'd you live? In New York, I lived jacked up. Yeah, the American Academy, I start working right when I get out of there. And where'd you move to, where'd you live? In New York? Yeah. I lived on 86th and Riverside,

and then I lived on 72nd and 2nd, and then I finally got a nice joint on 82nd between Riverside and West. Always uptown. Yeah, always uptown. And so you're at the American Academy? I was at the American Academy, and realized I started working right away.

Who were you working with over there? I started, well, well, I got a gig thanks to Rick Nacita, my original agent, with C.A., William Morris. Was that Bill Esper's? Is that the American Academy? Bill Esper was not at the American Academy. Bill Esper was at Neighborhood Playhouse. Oh, yeah. Neighborhood Playhouse, yeah. So who was your guy? Okay, so I'm at the American Academy. I'm with a couple people, but the thing is, I'm

in a Tony Award-winning play. Right out of the gate? Right out of the gate. Sticks and Bones, David Rabe. Oh, Rabe. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that one. What's that one about? It's about Vietnam. It's Ozzy and Harriet.

It's a black comedy while Vietnam was going on. Because he did a, didn't he? Who did Streamers? That's Rabe. That's me. I did that too. Yeah, dude. That one's fun. I did that when it came to New York, and Nichols put me in it. Oh my God. Mike Nichols remained another sort of godfather to my career and great friend.

So you're hanging out, you're dealing with Rabe because he's workshopping it too and he's there or what? No, no, no. I just go audition for it. It's going to Broadway. Joe Papp is there. I get the part, I understudy it, and then I take it over. I take it over.

So this is 70 what? This is 73. Oh, so this is prime time. Yeah, prime time. Real shit going on. And then I realize I know enough that I don't know enough. And then Uta Hagen's book, Respect for Action, comes out.

And I, because I don't know the tentacles of how, or the process. The context. Or just the process of self-examination as an actor. How deep you gotta go, how deep you don't have to go. And there is a limit because you don't want to put it in your head, as Kazan said. Don't put it in your head,

leaving your crotch and your heart. You can't act out of your head. So I go audition for Udisha, she rejects me. And then I go, okay man, I don't know, I haven't known enough. What are you doing in the room? What are you doing in the room? Before the guy comes in with a gun,

before the girlfriend comes in and says, I hate you, what are you doing in that room? What is the physical life? It is not business. It is life. It is a physical life. Like no one is standing around with their arms folded in a close up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, nowadays television is overloaded with it. It just drives me fucking nuts to see, like, can't you have that guy wash the carbine before he puts it in there? And you can see actors who are brilliant at it. Maybe the most brilliant at it is Brando. Ain't nobody like him.

But what are you doing in the room? He's good with the fidgeting. most brilliant at it is Brando. Yeah. There ain't nobody like him. Yeah. But what are you doing in the room? So I go- He's good with the fidgeting. Yeah, there's nobody like Brando. Mark, come on man. There's no- It's all about the fidgeting.

No, it's like what Dustin said about him. There's nothing. See the scene with Maximilian Shell in The Young Lions. When he goes to see Maximilian Shell after he's been shot. See that, man. Dude, when I learned that the scene at the opening of The Godfather,

where he's talking to The Undertaker, that that cat wasn't, it was just around. So that fucking cat, well for whatever reason climbed up on Brandon. I know, man! And he's just like, you think that they. You think that guy doesn't know what to do in a room? Yeah, the cat man.

How about the glove scene with Eva Marie Saint and on the waterfront? Oh yeah. He goes and sits on the swing and takes her glove. She drops her glove, puts it on the, that's his invention. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are you doing in that room?

Anyway, I go back to Uta Hagan, I audition, I get in her class, then I get the streamers, I get a bunch of plays, and then I'm rolled to become a member of the actor's studio under the aegis of Kazan. Not Lee, but Lee was great. But I'm sort of a Kazan guy. Yeah, Kazan was there?

Kazan would take over the acting unit, and also, you do a final audition. It's an older Kazan? Where is he at that point? 70, 70 years old. It's like 19. So he's madean? Where is he at that point? Seventy. Seventy years old. Mm-hmm. It's like 19... So, he's made all the movies and now he's given back.

Yeah, now he's given back. He's given back to the director's unit. If he ain't there, he'll run the actors. Yeah. But the judges into that audition were fierce, man. I mean, you know, you got Eli Wallach, you know, and... Mm-hmm. But he got in. Yeah, and I got in unanimously.

And then I did a couple of improvs with Kazan, and mind-blower. Yeah. I mean, to do a 15-minute improv with a guy. Why was it mind-blower? Because the guy had a sense of what you wanted, and what time, place, character, circumstances defined. Yeah.

And that's the method. Yeah. And how to the method. Yeah. And how to keep it living better than anyone that I've ever met. And everybody gives him homage. I mean, Matt did, Nichols did, on and on and on it goes. Al will, you know, I mean, they just go like, okay, that guy had a sense of reality.

And he comes out of the group theater, which is the Russian, which is Korman. Yeah. And- Odets. Odets, yeah, the Russian, which is Korman. Yeah. And, and... Odets. Odets? Yeah, man.

Yeah. Odets. Odets. Wow, what a gift. Huh? Yeah. What a gift. Yeah, well...

Sweet smell of success. Yeah. The, you know, I became sort of obsessed. Didn't, Elie Kazan did, he did Face in the Crowd, didn't he? Yes. Yeah, just watch that again. How'd he get that out of Andy Griffith? Do you know that one?

Well, do you know the story he tells about, he didn't want Andy Griffith at all. I think he was in Sardis and the agent brought Andy Griffith to him. Yeah. And because Andy, I'm paraphrasing this thing, but he's thinking, how can I get out of here? This guy's like wrong. Yeah. And he goes to the bathroom as an excuse. And Griffith accosted him in the kitchen,

coming through the bathroom, and goes into this rant about I'm the guy, I'm the guy, I'm the guy. You know, I'm just a gazan, you don't want anybody, just by like firing up in this. He needed to get it out of him. And then he said he is the guy. And sometimes, sometimes just sitting with a guy at a table that's not the guy. You ever seen that weird movie that, like, I got obsessed with this very late Kazan movie that no one knows about.

That it was his son's script and they shot it at the house in Connecticut. It's called The Visitor. Yeah, with Jimmy Woods. What the fuck? That movie's nuts. I know, man. Jimmy Woods was one of my oldest pals. Yeah, well, James was what the fuck I don't movies nuts Jimmy was one of my oldest pals. Yeah, these are all pals to me man. I came up with these cats Yeah, well, what do you know about that movie anything? No, I know nothing that he was his son script and he shot it there and it was cuz it was like it was almost like An attempt to you know, it looks like it was shot

You know on a very low budget and it was a very, of the time, it was a very 70s movie. It had existential weird fucking business. It was the same story that Casualties of War came out of. It was like the sequel to De Palma's Casualties of War when those guys come find that motherfucker. And I was just, I just- When did you see it? How long ago?

Not long, like a year ago. And then I- I'm gonna go see it again, Nick, because I ain't seen it since it happened. And I got the Kazam by a biography, and I even reached out to, I don't know, I got a little obsessed, and I wanted to find out about what the story was, because I think they shot it at the house.

They did. Yeah, but apparently that house is in disrepair, and it's just still, I talked to some people that knew the family I don't know. I just became obsessed with the darkness of that movie. It seemed very like an outlier for him. Yeah Well, anyway, that's what New York gave me all those people and and the method and a process. Yeah Gifts. Yeah, and some great directors and how'd you get the first movie? Oh the first movie I did with Cliff Robertson called

Man Without a Country is a TV movie. I had five lines and it just went to audition for it. So you're just working. Yeah, but the first thing I did of substance was I was in doing, I was doing streamers and Gene Reynolds and Alan Burns, the guys who started Mary Taylor Moore, they were starting this, they offered me this role based on a real guy. started Mary Taylor Morris, they offered me this role based on a real guy that Showtime later did a movie of. An Orthodox Jew disappeared out of high school and resurfaced in New York as the head of the neo-Nazi American party, George Lincoln Rockwell. Yeah. Rockwell?

George Lincoln Rockwell. That was the guy? George Lincoln Rockwell is the head of the neo-Nazi American party. This guy, true story, is a guy who was an Orthodox Jew bullied Yeah, and then disappears for two years and resurfaces under a different name. Yeah working for George Lincoln Rockwell How about that for a victim? It was victimized like Stephen Miller. Yeah Trump Yeah, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to pull it Shot but yeah, okay

So they offered me that and Rick said they don't really offer you stuff to come out to LA. And I researched it at the Fifth Avenue Library and I thought, oh my God, I gotta do this. So I did it with me and Brian Dennehy, we went to do it and that was the first thing I did. Then out of that I got a movie. What's that called?

It's the second, it's the Lou Grant, first season of Lou Grant, it's the second episode and I forget what it's called. Okay, got it. Yeah. I mean and I forget what it's called. Okay, got it. Yeah. I mean, I was friends with Ed Asner forever, who was one of the great cats ever. Oh yeah, he's great, I talked to him.

Oh, what a dude. Yeah, real history, man. Yeah. Yeah, real old school Jew socialist. What a compassionate dude, though, man. Great. Yeah. And then when do you, like, how does,

cause I mean, like, I remember the. Yeah. And then when do you, like how does, because I mean, like I remember the Adventures of Buckley Banzai. Oh yeah? Yeah. Good. Can you tell me what it's about? Because I don't know. Well, you know what I remember, and it's always in my head on a fairly regular basis, wherever

you go. There you are. Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. But you know, people forget the head to that. The heads to that is don't be mean. Yeah. But you know, people forget the head to that. The heads to that is, don't be mean. Hey, don't be mean. That's the point of it.

Wherever you go, there you are. Because remember, no matter where you go, there you are. Yeah. And those are all pals to this day, Lloyd and Let's Go and Goldblum. Yeah. Well, it's kind of an amazing, I guess you would call it a cult movie. It's become a cult movie. It's become a unique film. It was indemnified into the Lincoln Center Library about some years ago and Lithgow and I put on a tuxedo and went to celebrate it. He said, what are you going to say? I said, I don't know. I don't know what to say. And the guy introduced it was Kevin Smith. comes out in a New York Rangers hockey jersey,

talks about it for 30 minutes about its racial divide with blacks and rednecks and the social drip down and it doesn't feed you any genre and it sort of plunges you into the middle of, and it defies its action side. And Lithgow keeps looking at me going, I didn't know that, did you know that? So we don't know what it is,

but Dennis Haysbert said it's about love. Okay, I'll take that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just had an amazing time doing it, and I'm so glad those cats are still friends. Yeah, I always wonder about that. Every time I talk to actors, I'm like, you still hang out with those guys? And they never do. You know, Mark, wonder about that. Every time I talk to actors, I'm like, you still hang out with those guys?

And they never do. You know, Mark, the cliche that I saw when I was, Livia said the best thing that anything you can get out of this theater film is love. Yeah. You know, it ain't the glitz and the glamor. Yeah. It's love.

And I think when you- And truth? And truth? Well, I think love is true. Yeah, sure. I think those are even anonymous. So when you're reading that at 23 and your eyes are on the gold,

and your eyes are on like, yes, to do good work and to be recognized by your peers, but also to make a buck, really the best thing you take out of this is love. Come on, man, it's a little touchy feely for me, man. I already just came out of this love generation shit, man. I'm in New York, I wanna get something harder than that. Now, it's the truth.

The best thing that ever happened to me in the entire, my career, it doesn't matter, the accolades, yeah. The money, sure, fine, okay, great. But the love, the friendships, the people that I retain that I can say thank you to are really the gold. Well, yeah, and all those, like, you know, you talk about Nichols, you talk about Lumet, you talk about, you know.

They gave me gifts I can't even speak. Kazan. I can't speak to those gifts, or Udhahagan, or whatever. And Udhahagan gave me, those people gave me not only the gifts of the epitomes as an actor, but also the epitomes of living. Yeah, living your truth. Yeah, well, I mean, can I give you a case of point?

Okay, I'm doing a scene for Uta in her graduate class with Franny and Zoe, you ever read that? Yeah. And Uta was great at picking out scenes from books and go do that, because you could create the circumstance, time, place, whatever yourself. And not necessarily dictate it like a script.

So I'm doing it with a really good actress, and I'm doing the part Zoe. I'm about 26, Zoe's supposed to be 25 in it. He's a commercial actor. Your mom is painting in the apartment. Franny comes back and the brother Seymour killed himself. If you read J. read JD Selinger, then she and she's reciting this Jesus prayer over and over again and they get in this rebop about what is important and what's

not important. At the end of the scene, Udda says, Peter, I want to ask you something, what's your objective here? I said to save my sister from killing herself. She goes, yeah, right, why? And I said, because she doesn't like herself. Udi's sitting there with his cigarette, look at me. She says, why else? I said, well, I don't know what you mean. I'm here to save her.

She says, why are you trying to save your sister? Again, I'm thinking, what am I missing? I said, because she doesn't like herself. And she reaches across the desk and yells, and neither do you. That loud. I'm like crushed. I go, oh my God, man. She turns to this class, she says,

there is no hegemony here. There's no, if you are infused with some sort of empathy, compassion, la la la, you must know the drama's drama and it's based on your own bullshit that you are trying to solve about you. I think, oh man, did that put my head in the sand. on your own bullshit that you are trying to solve about you. I think, oh man, did that put my head in the sand, man. And I came away with that, Mark, as a transformation.

Yeah, it was a good moment, right? Oh shit. But sometimes, you know, it was slap in the face. Yeah. Because I never read that book about Zoe trying to save himself, too. Yeah. Yeah, they are. They're panicked.

Yeah. That family's panicked about that brother. Yeah himself too. Yeah. Yeah, they are. They're panicked. Yeah. That family's panicked about that brother. Yeah. So. So that was a big one. Huge. So when do you hit the wall with the drugs?

I hit the wall with the drugs the first time when I left Texas. Yeah. I left Texas, I'm going to New York. Okay, man, I can't do that shit no more. I don't. I never liked pot. I was always a go faster guy. I never liked the slow down shit. Me too, okay, man, I can't do that shit. No more. I don't I never liked pot I was always a go-faster guy. I never liked the slow down. Yeah, what we call in Texas slobber drugs. Yeah Sit there with your head nodding on your thing. I was always a go-fast guy. Yeah

I was a go-faster guy. I was just balancing a little with the booze. Yeah, it's right. That's the only reason why I drank Yeah, was the knockoff. Keep the edge off. Did I, keep the edge off. Then I go to New York, and New York is great, you know, drink some beers, hang out with the actors, and what my dad said before I left, by the way, when he gave me that money, he said, give you some cheap advice, stay out of bars. And I take, that stayed with me, but I didn't stay out of bars, I was bars. Then I make a movie, then I get some glitz,

then I get some glamor, and Studio 54 opens. And there's an amazing documentary about Studio 54 that came out about three years ago, and it was the very first sort of interpersonal, harangue, intercultural, intergender thing. If you wanted to go to a Cuban bar, you went to a Cuba bar. You wanted to go salsa there. You wanted to go black bar, you went to that.

You wanted a gay bar to pick up the hot chicks, because the hot chicks would hang out at gay bars. You went to that. All of a sudden, Studio 54 was everybody. Everybody together hanging. And therein was, for me, and no offense to Studio 54, because I loved it, was cocaine. And so cocaine is my deal. And a friend of mine said to me, another sober cat,

he was about 10 years older than me, he says, have you ever realized you, no matter how much money you had in your pocket, no matter how many times maybe you would go to LA or whatever, that you were an outlaw? That you were like the James gang on the run? I go, what are you talking about? He says, weren't you always looking over your shoulder

for a cop or somebody or whatever when you had that shit in your pocket? I said, I never thought about that. I always thought I was impervious to bus because I wasn't that guy. He was gonna buy it on the street. I was gonna buy it from high end. I don't know what your jam was,

but my jam was going to the guy who was the accredited co- I used to have a guy down the Lower East Side called himself Hammerhead. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Of course that's his name, man. Yeah.

He's an interesting guy. But anyway, so that was it, and people started dying and then going to jail. And then the light went off on me for 1983, and it was— That was the end? Yeah. It's so funny when you come from speed and you do blow, it's kind of slumming. Yeah, but the beautiful thing about it is that speed, the speed I was doing, which was real deal liquid, was an operation that was like going to,

truly like going to the doctor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to get the syringe and the thing, and then la, la, la, la, la. Yeah. And blow was all of a sudden just, wow, you could just kind of travel on the subway with that shit, so.

Yeah. It was movable. Yeah, sure. It was a was movable. Yeah, sure. It was a movable piece, too. Yeah, and they had different little containers, you had a little vial, you had a little thing. A little snort apparatus and all that. A little grinder.

Yeah, I was partial to the pen cap. Yes. Well, you know, that's why I couldn't, I couldn't. Those big pen caps were perfect. I could not listen to all of Quinona's thing. Yeah. It had me so back into the jam, not that I worry about myself, but so many people of legend and so forth and friends who died.

Yeah. And so I have not finished that episode of yours, but I will. So when you do RoboCop, you're sober? Yeah. Because that's where you're at. Running, training for the New York Marathon, vegetarian, sober. Oh, all in. Totally all in.

Mona Yakeem mime, just a complete physical nose of the grindstone. Oh yeah? So much so that on Saturdays I would go dancing and on Sundays I would run 20 miles. You gotta get that dopamine somewhere. Yeah Yes, but but like even corneon has said that replacement of exercise and that dopamine from exercise and better eating is Better it's good. Yeah, I mean life is manageable. Yeah, you know, you're looking good man. How old are you 61? No, you're a stud. Yeah, I'm doing all right. The only thing I've got going now is these nicotine

pouches and they're fucking. Were you a cigarette smoker? No, I was, sure. Yeah. You? Cigars. Yeah, I did those too. I still do them.

Yeah, I'm a nicotine motherfucker. Okay. These things, I go on and off of that shit, but I don't smoke nothing no more. Yeah, well, I don't know, I gotta smoke a cigar, otherwise I'm a curmudgeon. What do you like? It's intolerable. What's your cigar?

It's a couple Cubanos and a couple Fuentes. I like those Bolivar Cubanos. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the strong ones. Yeah, they're great ones. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's if I go to Canada, that's what I do. Get those Bolivars.

You still smoke them? No, not in a while. I lost a taste for them, thank God. Okay, that's what I'd do. Get those boulevards. You still smoke them? No, not in a while. I lost a taste for them, thank God. Okay, that's good. At some point I was just sort of like, ugh. Yeah, so Robocop, I did that, was sober. Yeah, and that was a life changer, right? It was great.

I'm glad I did it and I'm glad I left it, yeah. Was that, but was that like, did you see yourself doing that? Was there, were you like, I don't know about this movie? No, I, no, no, I'd seen Verhoeven. That's the deal. Is that, you know, once one is immersed, I turned out gigs for money, and I was just interested,

truly, in what it was saying. Yeah. And I'd seen Verhoeven's movie, Soldier of Orange, and Spetters, and I thought Verhoeven was a gift. Yeah. And fourth man. And subsequently, I went in to talk to him, and I just talked to him.

Yeah. And that was that? I said, listen, man, you're all about doing a personal story with an operatic background, like Chekhov. Yeah. And we started that. Yeah. Like Chekhov called his plays comedies, why? Because somebody's picking Lind out of the naval lake,

Seinfeld, you know, while a revolution's going on. I go, wow, I got to cherry orchard, I got my 30 acres, whatever. Oh, that's interesting. While the revolution's going on. Oh wow. I got the cherry orchard. I got my you know, 30 acres or whatever. That's interesting while the revolutions going on Outside the world is falling apart And chalk off was writing plays about people with their own little personal agenda You know an obsessive I like this Yeah, and and that's why you call them comedies because they couldn't they can't see the forest for the trees. Because there's a built-in irony.

Totally, like completely. Completely, what you're saying, like I'm just looking at my iPhone. And what's wrong with that? Yeah, what's wrong with that? You know, hey, by the way, shit's blowing up outside. Yeah, that's not my problem. Yeah, nothing I can do about it.

Yeah, nothing I can do about it. That's sort of where I'm at. That's helpful. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. If you got nothing out of that, you're going to take that one? I'm going to take that one. Okay. Let's talk about the relationship with Miles.

When did that start? Okay. So, so my mother plays, it gets me weepy because of, you know, when Miles bequeathed me his self-portraits on my wall. There's a great painter, a painter like Kandinsky. And my mother turned me on to his. And like I said, I was 11 years old. It's in this diary, by the way, which is only 5,000 words.

And I hear a boat that's leaving soon for New York from Porgy and Bess, from his Gule Evans, man. And it sends me, man. I become miles addict. And then I don't ever want to meet him. I know Herbie. I know Wayne. I know all these guys. I played Miles addict. And then I don't ever want to meet him. I know Herbie, I know Wayne, I know all these guys who played with him, Zolv and all, on and on and on. He goes, but I don't want to meet Miles, you don't meet your heroes, man.

And also he's nuts. And then I'm sitting, but you know, but he's Miles. Yeah, sure. He's Miles. And then I'm sitting at the RoboCup, too. I'm sitting at Hermosa Beach Magic Club. The owner of Hermosa Beach Magic Club comes in. Mr. Davis is expecting you backstage.

I'm sitting with the Robo team, the people that make the suits. Why are you at the comedy club? Because he's playing there. I'm at a Miles concert. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I go to see him all the time, but I'm not gonna meet him, I'm not gonna hang with him.

I'll hang with Herbie, Herbie's one of the great guys, I'll say, I'll hang with Wayne, all these guys, man. So Miles's waiting for you. Yeah, you gotta know something, there's a friend of mine who's gone, Treat Williams, a wonderful, wonderful guy, a wonderful actor, motorcycle. But he always told me early on, he said, Weller, you know, you're a middle-class white boy

posing as a black hipster. I go, you know what, Treat, you're a middle class white boy posing as a black hipster. I go, you know what, Treet, you're right. It's basically in my soul, my wannabe thing. So hanging out, you know, going on. It's like that Terry Southern story. What? Red dirt marijuana? Yeah, it's in there. Yeah.

What is it, you know, where the guy's just kissing up to the black jazz musician? Yeah, yeah. At the end. That's me. That's me. What the fuck is that story called? It's good. It comes from Red Deer and Merwana and other tastes. It's in that collection.

It's in that collection. So I go backstage and there's Miles and Miles obviously knows he has a sucker walking in the door because every time somebody interviews me, like yourself or anybody else about a movie, I always switch it to jazz or music or rock or something musical. So he knows that this guy is a fan.

So he's coming out, he's doing, he goes, hey, Robocop, sit down. We start talking about For Your Best, start talking about my mother. His mother's got the same, his wife's sister's got the same name as my mother, Dorothy, it's the first, saved him from the first addiction and so forth.

We talk about the first tune and then I'm with him every gig. He invites me to his birthday party, and then I'm with him every gig. He invites me to his birthday party, invites me to this gig, that gig. And I'm sort of the white token movie guy groupie hanging with him. And I played in a trio with Jeff Goldblum. We played since Buckaroo.

Had a guy named Peter Harris who played with Hornsby and a great guitar player And we were playing people's lives here miles is the guy who said that when are you and go goblum? When you're gonna go balloon gonna get out in fucking living rooms It gives us a band said miles. You know, this is in New Orleans. Yeah, so miles were like we're actors Yeah, you know, well, we're gonna find a band Yeah, and he said buy one you got the fucking money and it turned around walked out I go back and tell Jeff it he was one of the great,

I said, Miles says, we gotta get a band. He goes, I don't know, we gotta play, gotta be reviewed. Yeah, it's fun to play with. And slowly, then Woody, I did Mighty Aphrodite, and Woody had done any hall with him. And Woody said, just find a place that's got no, it's got no business, and go in and say you'll play. And Jeff and I, and Peter Harris started,

and the rest is history. But meanwhile, I'm with Miles. I'm with Miles. I'm with Miles. I'm with Miles. And then the wonderful Bob Field Jr. is a musical supervisor. And his father was Bob Field, the producer for Coltrane. We're at the Hollywood Bowl.

We don't know if it's his last gig. But this interesting thing is that all these people are there. Like Quincy is there, man. And all kinds of people played with him. So is this a... Was he sick? Yeah, he was, but I didn't know. Because I'd just been hanging with him.

And then he said, he would hold me by the shirt sleeve. And I'd say, Miles, I got two hours. I'd say, Miles, I gotta go. He says, no, we're gonna go talk to Mark Maron, man and then I'd walk over with him and I call my mother and my mother was like so beautiful man She said Peter you're with your only fucking idol Who wants you to hang? Were you gonna go? You know what's better than hanging with miles? Yeah, what in life? What do you want to go have a? than hanging with Miles. What in life, where do you want to go?

Have a, lose your sobriety. So, Bob and I and his wife, Amy Cantor, wonderful singer and daughter of J. Cantor, Brando's agent, J. Cantor, and we walk outside and there's a kid in a wheelchair been waiting for hours to sign an autograph. We walk into his car and there's a glitz and glamour part of it.

He said, where you going? I said, I'm going to Paris to make a movie. And we had the same year, Ferrari. You and? Miles. Yeah. And he hated his, and I love mine. We always talk about it. And he said, drive my Ferrari for me.

You're going through New York? I said, yeah. In New York, we live a block away from each other. He said, I'm in Ferrari for me. I said, I'm not going to have time, man. And he looked at me like I was the biggest dick on planet Earth, man. Just cocked his head and he squinted at me and said, make time. He got in the car, was gone. And Bob said, that's pretty two prophetic words out of a dude, we didn't know his last words. Those are the last words to me.

And then he's dead. And then I get a fax in Paris that he's dead. I didn't know he was sick. I just fucking weep. Like we all weep when we lose someone. I weep, weep, weep. And then about three days later, I get this thing from this art publisher

that is self-portrait, which I wanted, is gonna go to me. But they want taxes, state taxes. And my mother calls me up, and man, my mother, man. Sometimes you talk about somebody like his family, and you hate them when you're 12, but you miss them when you're 12, but listen when you're 60 and my mother says

What's the deal is right miles is dead? Yeah, she says I know he's what he willed me to sell portrait Is there so what's the problem is they want fifty five thousand dollars and it's a state tax. She says well pay it I ain't got it And there's this pause and she says I turned you on to him when you were nine I said I didn't onto him when you were nine. I said, I didn't like him when I was nine. She says, yeah, you did, but you just didn't know it. So I turned him onto you.

You loved him since you were nine. Now, do you want to be 80 years old looking at a blank place on your wall where your real only artistic inspiration wanted you to have his self-portrait, but you didn't have $55,000?" And she goes, "'So,' another Oudahogan,

"'Sell something, God damn it!' And slams the phone and hangs it down, man. And I go, okay. So I sold some shit, and the painting's there. My wife says if there's a fire in this building, which there almost was, that painting's going to be on the ground

before your wife and kid. And I go, you know, maybe. Because that's Miles. And Miles is, you know, maybe, cuz that's Miles. And Miles is, look, you got one, everybody's got one. Yeah. Somebody. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Some artistic light that ignited you or showed you, it sounds hyperbolic, but there's somebody, if they're gonna have a life or direction, that's leading the way, don't you think? Yeah, yeah. Who is it for you? Name one. Well, in terms of, there's people that I go back to,

like when I was a kid, you know, comedically, you know, there was some sort of truth that comics had an ability to, to kind of like render, you know, to distill horror. Yeah, like Lenny Bruce. Well, Lenny, like you got to put him in context, but you know, there was something about Richard Pryor, you know, obviously obviously, but mostly the old Jewish guys, like Buddy Hackett, Jackie Vernon,

there were guys that somehow or another from me- What about Myron Cohen? Well, that's a little old, but yeah. I didn't know him when I was a kid, but when I'd watch comics, they somehow or another made sense of the world for me in a way that I could understand and disarmed a lot of things that were terrifying somehow.

And that was planted in me, that it was some sort of noble profession to be able to take the big thing that's pressing down on you in whatever way and frame it in a way where we all get relief. Yeah. Yes. Or that it would disintegrate.

Yeah. Yeah. Prior that it would disintegrate. Yeah. Yeah, Pryor was like that to me. I think that Pryor is maybe the guy I cannot stop listening to maybe. Yeah, because it's pretty, it deepens as you get older. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm a big Keith Richards guy, but I always leave room for him, but the guys that sort of define me were these comedians that I felt, you know, the moment of laughter because somebody knows what they're doing is a pretty magic thing. You know, unfortunately jokes don't hold up

like in a silent way, but. Well, some do though. Kinda. I mean, some rants do, like a couple of priors rants do. And by the way, has a Shaggit's. Myron Cohen brought borscht belt humor to The Tonight Show. I know, yeah. First time I ever heard it.

Yeah, yeah. And my mother was always talking about it, you know, because being in and around New York, she knew the jam, but I didn't. So I never knew what the goof was. I mean, and then I watching Myron Cohen on Johnny Carson for crying out loud. And then talk about exploding cliches. So, that guy's a cornerstone for me.

Yeah, I got a few of his records. Yeah, but there are bits, like, you know, there are moments where there was a guy named Dan Vitale who was, tortured guy, got sober, had a shot on SNL, but he blew it because he liked to smoke crack and do blow and drink. He was only there for a minute. I met him years later where he was just trying to keep his shit together.

He passed away. But as a sober guy, he used to do a joke. And he'd be on stage, he'd go, you know, I've hit bottom, folks. I've hit bottom. You know, when you're in the gutter, you got an empty fifth of vodka next to you, crack pipe, and you can't wake up.

You know, I know what the bottom is. And he goes, but when you hit bottom, you'd be surprised at just how much give that four has. That's frightening. Oh my God, that's frightening. So that kind of thing. That's deep shit. I hardly remember him, but I do. Yeah, he didn't have a lot of profile. No one really knew who he was, but he was around New York when I went there after I hit the wall with drugs here. Oh man, that's beautiful though. Oh dude.

And there's another one around the drugs like you know Kennison who was a monster. Oh but he was inspiration and sad. Well I mean I did a lot of blow with that guy. Oh you did? When I was in my early 20s you know he took kind of took me under his wing. I would have liked to have done blow with a guy. Oh dude it was like it was electric you know but he was he was not a great guy. And I'm not sure that he, but nonetheless, there's, you know, there's that bit where that put the, there's certain bits like that, you know,

how much give that for has that open up a world of like possibility of like poetry, right? But that bit he does about Manson, you know, a lot of people remember Sam for the, you know, move to where the food is or, you know, the, you know, a lot of people remember Sam for the you know Move to where the food is or you know, the you know, the the stuff about women the desert and whatever But his bit about Manson is the fucking bit. Yeah, that's the fucking bit like because he was such a you know Kennison was such a mega maniacal fucking whack job, you know that like the Manson story, you know, he needed to take down Manson because you know...

I'm sorry I'm laughing man. No, it's all right. I'm talking to your listeners out there, man. You say, is he actually laughing about Sam Kenneson and Charles Manson? Yes, I am. Well, why wouldn't you? So, but you know, the whole angle was like, you know, he does this bit about, there's a couple of lines in it where Manson's, listen to that know the whole angle was like, you know, he does this bit about there's a couple lines in it Where he Manson thought he was listening to that white album It's like that fucking album man helter-skelter and he's like you would have got the same monk. You would have got the same

What was it? You would have got the same message from the monkeys you fucking idiot last train to Clarksville whitey, you know So but he does a bit it's on the first record, the only record. Yeah, I remember. But he says that he's like, about the Manson murders, he goes, you know the guy I feel sorry for is a Polish artist, Wojciech Wajczowski. They found this guy, he'd been stabbed like 20 times, shot twice, and you know, all these injuries.

He goes, you know, I'm sure this guy was standing at the door when the Manson family was leaving, going, hey, where you going? You haven't stuck a chainsaw in my ass, you fucker. And then this line, this line kills me. He goes, glad to see you fuckers can handle your high. And that like just to the entire event of whatever the Mansons were, that because of Sam's warrior disposition around drugs,

was it was just these fuckers couldn't handle their high. And that's sort of genius in a way. Because it just brings the entire event of that, of what, the event that killed the 60s. It killed it, it killed it. To that. It got me to cut my hair. To that.

Glad to see you fuckers can handle your high, sarcastically. And I just thought that was fucking genius. As frightening as it is, and as true as it is, and as funny as he is, and maybe one of the blackest humorists that everyone across, that cornerstone that he's stolen that egg at is the thing that ended the 60s, as far as I'm concerned.

That's right. Because to live in that time, I marched for this, I marched for that, I marched for this, I was scared. And I loved what Obama said on your show, just gotta bring back Obama, because he's a hero and he's one of the few presidents I never met and I hope to God I meet the guy before both of us pass.

Because the inspiring thing he said was, don't believe it when people say it isn't getting better or it hasn't changed or nothing has changed. It has. Because March in the 60s, March in the 60s, 67, 68, 69, you're going to get killed. Someone's going to come up and club you to death in a second. I don't feel that now. I feel a different kind of paranoia. But for him to attack that, once the Manson thing went down, I could no longer be part of that.

Because then people started looking at me with what... I had hair like you. I had a goatee. I had hair down to this. Okay. It wasn't that shattering. It wasn't like down to my ass or whatever. But all of a sudden, the world started looking at me. And by the way, Tex Watson did those murders. I went to school with him in North Texas.

He was in North Texas at the same time me and Donna Hanley and me and Joe Green. That's that year's claim to fame. So you've got these guys who do this thing and then all of a sudden they're looking at me like, oh, have you got a knife? Are you gonna cut us up? Are you gonna whatever?

And I got to see is an honest to God chicken shit as much as Sam Kittes is goofing on it. I cut my hair, man. I became looking like Mr. Straight. I still wear bell bottoms and all that shit. Still did the stuff, but I was not gonna look like fucking Charles Manson. Because the world was looking at it differently. Yeah.

Just tell me about the book. Leon Battista Alberti. Yeah. Leon, that's Leon. Battista Alberti in exile, tracing the path to the first modern book on painting, and very shortly in an abstract about a very famous polymath, Renaissance guy, everybody's favorite Renaissance guy,

whose family was exiled from Florence. Yeah. And then he came back to Florence, and for a long time, art historians would have you believe that he wrote this first modern book on painting in about nine months and a year. And my argument is, no, no, no, no. He had a big education from Padua, where I wanted you to go. Yeah. Yeah. And then-

Giocchi. Giotto. Giotto. Yeah. And he looked at Giotto. Yeah. We're celebrating the birthday of the church today. Yeah. And he looked at that. He looked at stuff in Bologna and he looked at Giotto. Yeah. We're celebrating the birthday of the church today. Yeah. And he looked at that.

He looked at stuff in Bologna, he looked at stuff in Rome, and he saw Donatello before he ever got to Florence, and he was loaded for bearer before he ever hit Florence. Okay. So, and that's... So, this is your research. Yeah, it's my sources of how he came to write this first modern book on painting. That's interesting. So, it's an academic book almost.

It is an academic book, because it got a whole lot of pictures in it, and I hope you buy it, because it'll walk you through the Renaissance photographically also. When's that come out? Right now, it's gonna come out April 30th. Okay, so if we put this on a couple weeks, we can push it. I certainly wish you best with your HBO special, man.

Thank you, sir. It was great talking to you, real honor. Great talking to you, man. Thanks for having me on. Wow, there you go. We did it. We got somewhere. We got a lot of places. Again, his new book is called Leon Battista Alberti In Exile, Tracing the Path to the

First Modern Book on Painting. Hang out for a minute, will ya? With Robinhood Gold, you can now enjoy the VIP treatment, receiving a 3% IRA match on retirement contributions. The privileges of the very privileged are no longer exclusive. With Robinhood Gold, your annual IRA contributions are boosted by 3%, plus you also get 4% APY on your cash in non-retirement accounts.

That's over 8 times the national savings average. The perks of the high net worth are now available for any net worth. The new gold standard is here. With Robinhood Gold, to receive your 3% boost on annual IRA contributions, sign up at robinhood.com slash gold. Invest investing involves risk rate subject to change three percent match requires robinhood gold at five dollars per month for one year from first match must keep funds in ira for five years go to robinhood.com slash boost over eight times the national average savings account interest rate claim is based on data from the FDIC as of November 18th, 2024.

Robinhood Financial LLC member SIPC Gold membership is offered by Robinhood Gold LLC. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Puthoria. That feeling you get once you've finally pooped. Using the power of natural Senna from the Sena plant to promote bowel movement, Senocot laxative gently relieves occasional constipation, typically in 6 to 12 hours.

If it is hard to pass, try Senocot S. It uses natural Sena plus a stool softener to help you achieve Puforia. Hey, nine years ago this week I had my first conversation with my future bad guys partner, Mr. Wolf himself, Sam Rockwell. Have you said no to like huge opportunities? I've said no to money. I've said no to money. I wouldn't say like, you know, I turned down the Titanic or something. I've turned down, every time I've done stuff for money, I've regretted it.

You know, I don't really, just for the money. I mean, money's part of the equation, you know? Sure, sure. You wanna feel like you're earning an honest living? Yeah, you know, it's hard to make money in showbiz, but you know, when you get a chance to, it's good, but it's like, I always, I try to, I've turned down some money.

Yeah. Yeah, because, but not just because of the money, because the to, I've turned down some money. Yeah. You know? Yeah, because, but not just because of the money, because the project, you're obviously offering a lot of money. No, I want the money, obviously. But like, I'm not gonna do that for the money. Yeah, you know, there's limits. You know, and you're like, I can't, I can't do it, man.

I can't, I can't do it. That's from episode 695 with Sam Rockwell, and you can listen to that for free on whatever podcast app you're using right now. To get every episode of WTF ad free sign up for WTF Plus. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go this podcast is hosted by Acast. Here we go. Here's some guitar. So So So So So So So Boomer lives, Monkey and La Fonda, Cat Angels everywhere.