WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 579 - Nick Tosches

Episode Date: February 22, 2015

Author and journalist Nick Tosches is often called one of America's greatest living writers. Marc considers him to be an indispensible tour guide through the darkness in life. Nick talks with Marc about his work, including his influential biographies of Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis and Sonny Liston, but more importantly, Marc gets Nick's unvarnished take on the way we live now. 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.

Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, what the fucksters? I'm Mark Maron, this is WTF, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here, I appreciate it. It's nice to talk to you. So, I want to be right up front with you about this. I did not watch the Oscars yet. I'm recording this before the Oscars because I wanted to get you know be right up front with you about this I did not watch the Oscars yet I'm recording this before the Oscars because I wanted to have a clear head I know like after the Oscars are done it's going to be a whole new world out there everything's going to be different no one's going to be thinking the same no one's going to have the same feelings about anything everything will be different and I just wanted to have this one hour here uh or this this one intro where where i'm still of pure mind and

and not uh not fucked up in my head the oscars are the oscars i generally watch them for a little while i enjoy the uh pomp and circumstance of american royalty which are are celebrities uh occasionally i enjoy i like movie stars and i i'm I've been candid about that, you know, I don't fawn over them, I'm not some sort of pandering fanboy, but I do, you know, from a very young age, I've always been sort of excited by the movies and movie stars, and I am sort of excited to say that I've had a couple of Oscar nominees on this here show, and I don't know who's going to win, I don had a couple of Oscar nominees on this here show. And I don't know who's going to win.

I don't know if Michael Keaton will win, but I do know that he's episode 349 of this show. I do know Laura Dern. I don't know if she's going to win. I hope she wins. I love her. She's episode 430 of this show. You get the app. You upgrade to premium app.

You can go listen to those. Michael Keaton was phenomenal. Laura Dern, phenomenal episodes of this show there's also two uh other nominees paul thomas anderson richard linklater both available still for free that's episodes 565 and 566 incredible conversations with creative people but yeah i do i've always been fascinated with movie stars, but also fascinated, I was thinking about this, because my guest today is Nick Toshes, one of the great explorers of darkness, one of the great portals to the possibility of,

possibility and reality of human corruption and the battle in our hearts with the darkness, with the evil. Not even so much major evil. Yes, some major evil. He definitely deals with some major evil, but Nick Tosh's was one of those doorways for me. You know, I don't know where it started for me.

If you have a fascination with darkness can you place a memory on it where does it start where does it start i i vaguely remember seeing those horrible true detective magazines on the rack at skaggs drug store in fair plaza in albuquerque, New Mexico. Then I became sort of fascinated with Mafia, with the Mafia. I got a book that had all the pictures of the gangsters, dead and alive, those crime scenes. I must have been like eight or nine. I think I got my parents to buy it for me at the airport. It was an encyclopedia of the Mafia.

I could tell you right now what Long East Wilman looked like. I had this weird obsession with just the faces, black and white pictures of darkness manifesting in people. I had just a compulsive fascination with, same with tabloid Hollywood, old tabloid Hollywood. I'd created a collage in my room when I was a kid, maybe 12, 13, like Fatty Arbuckle and Jane Mansfield and all those horrible sort of early tabloid stuff. I was sort of fascinated with just looking at those pictures, looking at the juxtaposition between this extreme celebrity, this almost royal feeling and mythic presence,

and then just these gutted police shots and fucking sordid business, bodies missing heads and whatnot and murder scenes and the mob and i just it just blew my mind then there was also of course hitler loomed large if you were fascinated with darkness like who is that guy look at all this i'm just looking at pictures i was just fascinated with pictures of of of people who were emanating darkness and then as as i got older and i started to uh sort of look at art and i got very involved with the art of joel peter whitkin and and then you know reading burrows and and and sort of excavating uh you know human darkness and uh it just sort of it all hangs there

in my heart somehow you know you just don't want to get the weird thing about having a compulsion towards darkness or a morbid fascination there was you know manson don't want to get the weird thing about having a compulsion towards darkness or a morbid fascination there was you know manson period with me as well and is that you know when you really get close to it it's you know it's very it's disconcerting because there's party that wants to drift in and if you're ever unfortunate enough to have that moment where you're like, I think I've crossed a line. You know, you got to, you know, either hope you get out or figure out how to live there. If you're in, you're in.

Well, Nick Tosh's always represented one of those doorways for me. And I can't even remember when I read the first Nick Tosh's book I read, but I believe it was Dino. And Dino is, what's the full name of the book? Dino, Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. Someone recommended, it's a biography of Dean Martin. And someone recommended that book to me and said, it doesn't matter. Dean Martin doesn't matter. This is not about Dean Martin. This is about darkness. This is about that period in Hollywood. And I have a real

fascination with that period in Hollywood, but there's no better celebrity biography ever written than Dino, the Nick Tosh's book. It just, it blew my mind. It was written like a novel and I couldn't fucking put it down. Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, Dino. Check that, that was my entry into Nick Tosh's. And, you know, he just, he built a life based on research around Dean Martin and he just struggled for access

into whatever was going on inside of Dean Martin through the, you know, the world that was swirling Dean Martin through it. And by the end, there's an emptiness to it. There's a very profound and not necessarily that corrupt of a darkness that he finds in an aging Dean Martin. And then I went on, and then you just start,

then that opened the door. And then I got Hellfire, which was his first biography of Jerry Lewis, which is spectacular. A little more poetic. A little bit leaner than Dino. And then I got his, he did some nonfiction stuff, some journalist stuff. The Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll. The Birth of Rock and Roll and the Wild Years Before Elvis.

Great book. Introduced me to the amazing Winoni Harris and a few other people. And then there's the book Country, another journalistic book, The Twisted Roots of Rock and Roll, which gets a little hung up on research, but not a bad book. And then there's the nonfiction books. He wrote several novels. But there's also a tricky book called King of the Jews about Arnold Rothstein, one of the original gangsters. And it has a lot of

Christ mythology. He's very hung up with the Jesus and with the sin and with the evil and with the transgression. And I recently read part of his new novel, which was Me and the Devil, which was a little bit autobiographical, quite disturbing about an aging man with a younger woman. Deals with blood. But the bottom line is, is that Toshus was almost a mythic character to me. was almost a mythic character to me. And getting the opportunity to talk to him was a bit overwhelming

because there are people that I think possess the keys, man. There are people that I think possess the keys. The understanding of darkness. Everybody wants to have an understanding of darkness without losing themselves in it. That's the allure of it. How do I get a little bit of that without becoming that or without being enveloped in it that that's the that's the allure of it how do i get a little bit of that without becoming

that or well without being enveloped in it and there are certain artists that you pick as your guides and and he was sort of one of mine so meeting him was a was sort of a big deal oh yeah before i forget i believe it's been over like it's been about three months i i can find out exactly but i know it's been's been over, like, it's been about three months. I can find out exactly, but I know it's been, I think it's over three months or maybe about three months that I haven't had any nicotine. But during this Nick Tosh's interview, I did have the lozenges out, and he did show some interest in them, and it did provoke a bit of conversation about addiction and whatnot. So that's what's happening if it's unclear when you reach that point in the interview.

What else? Oh, I apologize. I was on Girls yesterday, so go DVR that. Or don't DVR it. Go on Demanded. Go watch it online. Go do HBO on the go. Or if you're watching it, I had a great time doing it.

Sometimes things just get away from me and I forget to plug myself. But you can certainly go watch it. I think I was funny. I met with Nick Toshes at the Bowery Hotel in my hotel room. I waited for Nick Toshes. I had my mic set up and I was nervous. You know, all I'm looking for is the conversation to flow.

If anything happens above and beyond that, that's great. If that doesn't happen, it's trying for me. And when I'm looking at somebody who I consider one of the great dark Buddhas, there are a few that I've known in my life that I've met and some that I haven't met.

Joel Peter Wittgen, Jerry Stahl, William Burroughs, Hubert Selby. There are people, the windows man, the ones that went in navigated came out told the tale dark wizards i didn't know uh anything about what money bruce actually did i mean i listened to him but i mean i mean imagine to sit there and watch a guy like that as opposed to listen to records 20 years after the fact. It's got to be a different thing.

Yeah. To me, Lenny Bruce always seemed sort of dated. Even when he was doing it? Well, I don't really, you know, I mean, he was still alive when I was a kid. But my cousin Louie had the records and yeah single day I don't know well yeah well cuz he was he was using a lot of those old show business you know you know like tropes and bits and mimicking and I think all of his references were kind of like he was sort of a shitty comic that kind of broke open became this other thing

so like it was all kind of sourced and shit that seemed kind of dated and hacky yeah I mean you know I liked Stan Hope's comment on him you know if this guy had lived he could be like doing an Andy Rooney

spot who knows if these people would be any good if they lived. Well, that's a fucking good question, though, isn't it? It's a great question. I mean, I wonder. Sometimes the temptation, the inclination is if you like somebody, think that, well, they would have only gotten better. Yeah.

But I don't know. I mean, God knows. Anyway. we well you lived we lived uh you know you're a little older than me but like uh you know i wonder that a lot about people like you know the first time i read your book and the reason i well one of the first books i read was the was dino and that sent me down this you know rabbit hole of like uh wondering you know who the fuck you were. And I recommend that book to anybody who gets into show business. I tell them, I say, it doesn't matter if you like Dean Martin.

Understand what you're getting into. Because there seems to be some sort of constant there. That you're entering a world of darkness. That there's no way around it. Even if it was at that different time, even if it was the 40s, the 50s, it doesn't matter. It seems to me that all the, you know, the structure of show business, for some reason,

given the money and the idea of entertaining people, there's going to be an emptiness there. There's going to be a darkness there that you're going to walk into. A complete darkness, complete emptiness, and some things do never change. that you're going to walk into. A complete darkness, complete emptiness, and some things do never change. It's like I was trying to figure out how I was going to go about talking to you about this. Because the ones that I've read,

I've read Dino once or twice, and then Hellfire I read, and Country I read. That was a lot of research, Country, huh? It was research in the sense that it was the first book I ever published, and the research was so intense because I was putting off the writing of it. was so intense because I was putting off the writing of it. And so it's much easier to write a book when you're not writing it.

When you say, this is all for the book. That's why you meet these characters that go through life, like 30 years working on a book. Why did they want to do that? Well, now I guess it's a screenplay or something. But I've always loved research, but I realize when I'm not doing it for my own self-satisfaction, it's basically to avoid the actual writing.

But when you do the research and you start going down like that, that rabbit hole of what that music was and these characters that you were going to explore to like did at least the process of research get you to a point of frustration and and self-hatred or something to where you were able to burrow into the that you really wanted to get to i don't know where self-hatred enters into it but see back then it was like real research. Now what is research? You go on the internet.

For two seconds. All you gotta do is Google it. That's research. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say that once in a while, I don't do it. But you have to be aware when you're doing it, that the misinformation is as plentiful if not more than the information.

Whereas, you know, going blind with microfilm and old books is a completely different deal. I don't do much research anymore. Then again, I'm going to retire. I'm not going to write. What do you mean, going to retire? Well, you know, I'm now technically older than dirt. you're going to retire well you know i'm now uh technically older than dirt and so i'm going to have my uh 65th birthday party very soon and uh celebration it's not a party it's a party it's not a party unless it has booze but uh celebration and uh the retirement may be delusional but at least i'll be retired for one night permanently yeah at 65 somehow or

another you put the uh you associate the two right yeah that's so why the hell not so i'm i'm i'm just going off and uh celebrating my what is it was the golden years oh yeah this is it this is the golden years yeah how's that feel for you what a line of shit that was the golden years oh yeah this is it this is the golden years yeah how's that feel for you what a line of shit that is the golden years you fall apart and that's a gold you know it's fucking it's about as gold as a commemorative coin you know it's like you know 12 carat gold plated electroplated yeah and you just see the nickel under it as it breaks. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then it tarnishes, you know, the real stuff. So... But when did you start?

You started, you know, you grew up where? I was born in Newark, and I grew up in both Newark and Jersey City, and then moved to New York in my late teens. My father's from Jersey City. Whereabouts, you know? He went to Snyder High School. Yeah, my cousin Dorothy went to. It was one of those things

where I always knew he grew up in Jersey City. I remember visiting my grandparents over there once when I was really young and then years later we went back and he was like,

hey, there's my old place. I'm going to get out of the car. I'm like, why don't you stay in the car? Yeah, Snyder, their colors were black and orange like fucking Halloween or something. Yeah, I think I was born in Margaret Haig maternity.

Yeah, yeah. That's where I was born. I was born in Jersey City. Mayor Haig, named after his wife. So you're there in Jersey. Were your parents, what did your old man do? Well, by the time I was, let's see, what did he do? He got out of the service.

He became a bouncer and then got in the bar business. And that was basically what he did. Yeah. And then what were your first jobs? He gave me a great job as the porter in his bar. What's a porter do? Cleans up the puke and piss from the previous night and yeah the wadded up uh toilet paper with lipstick in a lady's room and

yeah learns very early on that women are much bigger slobs than men that was the first lesson mops and you know yeah you know just that's what i did that before i went to school in the mornings and uh there's something about about that about being in a bar when you're younger when you can't Mops, and you know, just that's what, I did that before I went to school in the mornings. There's something about that, about being in a bar when you're younger, when you can't, when you don't know that life, and just having to deal with the aftermath of whatever went on the night before. It's sort of a weird entrance into that world

of like, yeah, grown-ups are up to something. And then to be part of it later on, these vague memories. But I never threw a cigarette butt in a urinal, I remember, in my adult years. That's what you learned? I remember picking them out, you know. And there were none of these sanitary gloves involved. Just washed up after.

Yeah. And then, you know, I wanted to be a writer, a poet, and so I started writing. What inspired you to do that? Who were you guys at that time when you read? Well, I was reading just trash. Yeah. But there was something about writing that appealed to me.

I felt the need to communicate, and there was really no one around to communicate to or with. And being a coward by nature, writing is a great way to communicate while hiding in a corner facing a wall. It's basically an act of fear. And then if you're fortunate, you get over the fear, and then you're stuck with this writing, Jones,

and then you start to learn how to write. Right. It's like anything else. A coward by nature. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hell. hell yeah i still am i mean i don't want to die right well does that make you a coward or just a person well if well person is even more generalized and coward everybody's probably it's got to be a little driven fear, especially those who pretend they're not.

Yeah, they're the worst. All that bravado. These days, I don't want to be a person. I mean, I look around the streets and, yikes, is this my species? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you start writing. You get your chops and what, you come into the city? Or do you have other jobs?

I had other jobs. I was a snake hunter in florida how long would that go on for a few until like a bit uh like a bit well how'd you get down to florida that place oh i was just bumming around with this buddy of mine and uh with this buddy of mine and they were building they were finishing the building of Disney World I guess in Orlando right construction jobs there then we had other jobs and got laid off and I don't know we ended up drifting south in Florida, tried to rob a boat from a boat basin. It was a scheme of going catfishing and making a ton of money. I don't know.

On a stolen boat? Yeah, you know, nothing worked out. The plans didn't go, didn't happen? Nothing worked out. I came back to New York. I got married. Did you go to college? No.

No. I didn't want to. I mean, I wanted money to drink with. Yeah. And back then, I was making $125 a week working for a lovable underwear company at 200 madison and for 125 bucks a week you could pay your rent eat and get drunk imagine that now i mean you can have you know i still have the same amount left over at the end of each week but it takes a lot more and and there's no inflation the government says all right so you're here.

You've done some snake hunting. You've cleaned up urinals. You've worked for an underwear company. And now you're living in New York. Where were you living initially? My first place in New York was between Central Park and Lincoln Center, 63rd Street, I believe, and the rent was $90 a month. For a studio? No, one bedroom.

Oh, my God. And then when I got married, when I came back from Florida, I was living in a flop house called the Alton House on 14th Street near 7th Avenue. house called the Alton House on 14th Street near 7th Avenue. And I met this young lady that lived around the corner on 15th Street and 7th Avenue in a real apartment. So I married her. Or first I snuck out of the flop house without paying a week's rent with my typewriter, moved in with her. I was married for five years got married in new york

moved down to nashville where i finished writing that book country that you mentioned and uh it came back divorced yeah nashville at that time out of my blood yeah i mean look i've been through two i got no kids that Why a second time, though? That's the one that always gets me. I left the first one for the second one because that had to be the answer. You was a guy, I remember it was 75 bucks to get divorced in Tennessee, and this guy, Bart Durham, this black divorce lawyer, I'll never forget him sitting in his office, the phone rings,

and it's some guy who wanted to know if his divorce was finalized so he could get married. Yeah. That was you. Well, you know, it was one of those things where, you know, sometimes you get married because, you know, you think you're sort of wired for it somehow or another culturally. It's like thinking you need to retire at 65.

There's something in your brain that thinks, well, this ought to fucking solve it. This is what people do. And then then you do it and you're like what the fuck did i do this for that's right but did you ever come up with an answer other than that it's what people other people did that was part of my reason i mean i was hanging out in the bar and at about certain hour every night these guys would say well, well, I'm going to go home and eat. I'll see you in a little while. And they'd go home and they'd get a meal and then come back out. And I said, that doesn't sound that bad, you know? I mean, it's just somebody who feeds you.

Yeah, it's a good way to never learn to take care of yourself. Well, I don't know. I guess I don't know what the hell my idea was because I didn't end up having any kids. But I'm still working with that. I'm still working on that shit. I don't know what the hell my idea was because I didn't end up having any kids. But I'm still working with that. I'm still working on that shit. I don't fucking know anymore. Well, I mean, just you getting ready for number three?

No, I think I've gotten too cynical. Too cynical. Well, I mean, whatever the virtues of it are, the first one was appropriate and seemed like I could have entered the world of a sort of middle-class security or some sort. I used to come from a pretty good family, grounded. The second one was fucking stunning, left me, crushed me, didn't really fucking bounce back. Well, how long did you stay crushed for? A year? Maybe three.

I find that with the heartbreak, if it's deep enough, it doesn't ever really go away. It just sort of kind of mumbles along. Well, it's good to live with heartbreak. I mean, heartbreak's easier to live with than most women. It's sort of like once you give up hope, life is more pleasant. Yeah, there is. There's a little bit of a weight to it to to hopelessness and and to you know there's a yeah there's a freedom to it and then you reach a certain age

and it's sort of like huh i was going to take care of me let's see yeah can i do this myself forever right well i think that's what kids ultimately are yeah but don't don't kids usually they did they dump their parents. Yeah, throw them in the home. That's the real heartbreak, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at least we avoid that. Well, back when you were a kid, and probably maybe just after I was a kid,

I mean, you know, if Grandma was dying, you did it in the house. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? You go over there, there was a hospital bed in the living room, and that was that. There seemed to be something not unlike love yeah yeah among uh family among family and now it seems like whoa i don't know it's hard to figure out because you know this sort of weird selfishness and i don't know if it's narcissism or what but the the sort of importance of self is elevated above all else i mean what do these like

gordon gecko types that are aging as we speak yeah you know with the uh the billion dollars the cute wife yeah and the kids that are raised by the uh 300-pound Haitian nannies, the dog with the dog walker, do they experience love? I don't know, man. Or is it sort of like fun? It's an historical thing that they have no consciousness of, fun, love. They go through the motions. I don't know. Sort of like the end of Dino.

I mean, what's in there? emotions i don't know it's sort of like the end of dino i mean you know what's in there what's in there yeah dean i would say in a way was an inspirational character i mean he showed how to deal with all that stuff that destroys people just by removing himself partly from it yeah have you figured that out from his own life right well. Let's go back to Nashville for a second. So you were in Nashville for a few years? Yeah. Why there? Just a researcher?

I had gone down. Somebody offered me a job down there. And I went down. It was a great job doing nothing, basically, drinking. Yeah. And it was pleasant down there I really I really enjoyed Nashville in those days I've been back it's not the same place the countryside around there was beautiful I eventually finished that

book there and then as I said when after I got divorced when I got divorced I came back here when do you when did you start writing about music, though? What drove you towards it? Well, it was because there were all these so-called underground rock and roll places where you could write and make like 10 or 15 or 20 bucks even. I think that was Rolling Stone. It was like 20. They paid you 20 bucks.

So you just saw it as a gig. Yeah. even I think that was rolling stones like 20 they paid you 20 bucks he just saw it as a gig yeah it was a way to get to get published and make a few bucks that since you know the big glossy magazines were impossible to break into so police days don't have those opportunities but you weren't in a sense that you know nicotine I haven't smoked a fucking cigarette in 10 years, but I eat those things all day. 10 years? Yeah. Wow, God bless you. Yeah, the doctor's trying to get me, wants me to take Shantex.

Yeah, I, you know, this shit will give you the shit. Like, I get the nicotine. Yeah, but I'm basically addicted to smoking. I know, I know. Not to nicotine. I thought I was. Well, 10 years on these things? Mm-hmm.

Woof. No, the good thing about these, man, is that you can regulate how much you're getting. Yeah, but I mean, and so obviously you're still addicted because you're taking these pills. That's exactly. No, they're candy. You suck on them. They're nicotine candy. Yeah, yeah.

Nicotine's a drug. I mean, it's a candy. Yeah, yeah. Nicotine's a drug. I mean, it's a pill. Oh, absolutely. But it's like there's a pleasure to it. Yeah, I know. I try not to go to that place. Well, enjoy them. I mean, it's...

I like this. Yeah, poison. So 10 years without a smoke, but how long without one of these have you gone? I don't know, man. I guess a year or so ago, I went about a month without anything, and it was just unbearable the amount of anger that was available to me. Have you tried other substances? Yeah, I don't do nothing no more.

I got 15 years sober, 15 years clean. I don't do nothing no more. Yeah, I ain't going to do nothing no more. You? nothing no more. Yeah, they ain't gonna do nothing no more. You? Well, cigarettes, cigars are a pleasure, not an addiction. They're great, right? I really like them, but I got busted for buying cigars through the internet. What, the Cubans?

Yeah, Homeland Security. Really? Yeah. What do you mean busted? They arrested you? Yeah, I got a notice from Homeland Security. It's like if I wanted my impounded goods, come and get them. It was like a 20-page document, you know, the day of the paperwork reduction act. But I was in England recently,

and I enjoyed them there. I plan to enjoy them at my retirement celebration, my birthday celebration. It's one of those things that any average asshole really can afford the best cigar. It's an affordable luxury, really. You know what I mean? I really enjoy that. A cup of coffee. Yeah.

I'm good. Maybe a glass of port. No, I don't do anything much anymore. I had to stop smoking reefer because my diabetes. Reefer would make me want to eat the worst possible. Oh, yeah. It never makes you want to eat a steak and a salad. Pine ice cream.

Yeah. You know, things are just, oh, Drake's Ringdings. Yeah, a box of those. Is the strawberry ice cream enough? That'll go well with the butter pecan. Oh, fuck yeah. Two pints. So that's why I stopped smoking reefer. And I basically lost my thirst for booze.

You never got strung out, though? Yeah, I've been strung out on a couple things over the years long ago. Yeah. No, I just basically stopped taking everything. I like to be present in my own life, both for better and for worse. So I'm getting off on that. I'm getting off on watching the whole...

I never thought the apocalypse would be such a mediocrity that nobody would notice it. Such a bore, yeah. I mean, I'm really getting off on watching the world just completely go to hell and looking at all these idiots around me. Yeah. It's terrific.

Yeah, I think the world ended about six years ago. Yeah. Now we're just in the... Yeah, it was so dull. Everybody's waiting for... Just missed it. You know, it's a $300 million Hollywood production here with special effects. That was it. you know this is a 300 million dollar hollywood production here with

special effects that was it no this is this is the post-apocalypse this is the post-apocalyptic world and they keep uh making all those movies god just keeps repeating itself have you noticed that as you get older that like the promotion and the movies themselves it's just this repetition of garbage oh they're like you know as seasonal garbage it's just like the same thing over and over again it gets bad when you want to go to a movie theater on a weekday afternoon in the dead of summer just for the air conditioning and you you can't bear the prospect of like of any of them yeah having that even you'd rather be in the heat than deal with what you're gonna have to put in your head you know these these and you always hear these movies like fall down in their face and you always hear but it'll do well overseas yeah and you're thinking

like what kind of morons is that like some kind of like american arrogance that you know uh no that's how we met that We shit, they eat it. That's right. Yeah, we're exporting the apocalypse. Yeah. The subtle apocalypse is making money overseas. No, the United States of America was like twice around the fountain and into the dirt. The American dream, you know.

Like the only country that ever saw ourselves as a dream. Yeah. No, it's real, Jack. And it's over. It's no good. So back in the 70s, you weren't like a diehard rock and roll guy. In the 70s, I always liked the older R&B. My cousin Dorothy is older than I, and I listen to a lot of the stuff she listened to. Well, yeah, and so it was rock and roll.

And then I sort of lost interest in that by the 70s. It was in the 70s that I lost interest. But you weren't part of the whole, like, you know, Legs McNeil. Is he a friend of yours? Yeah. No, I wouldn't say friend. Yeah. He's an acquaintance. But you weren't part of the defining voice of yours? Yeah. No, I wouldn't say friend. Yeah. He's an acquaintance.

But you weren't part of the defining voice of that punk thing. No, no, no. I didn't even know what the hell it was, to tell you the truth. I mean, I remember the 70s. You know, a lot of people think I was because I wrote this article in 1969 called The Punk Muse. Yeah. Boy, this guy used the, you know, coined the phrase. Yeah, yeah.

It's like, that's not what I had in mind, you know. It wasn't even. You were misinterpreted and you became. I don't know. Boy, to live is to be misinterpreted, right? Yeah. Only you know if you're lucky. All you got to do is go to a deli counter, you know.

Yeah. No, I didn't say that. So you got kind of lumped in with that crew? Yeah, it didn't bother me. I mean, it didn't bother me. As I said, the music was really tied into just having an outlet, a place to write. And a lot of the so-called music stuff i did had like nothing to do with

music uh i mean that was happening then or that was happening period well i mean the unsung heroes of rock and roll yeah that was fun yeah it was fun well that started out as a column for Cream Magazine. Yeah. More people have told me that that book makes them laugh than any other thing I've ever read. Not only that, it makes me laugh, but I didn't know who Winoni Harris was. So after I read that book, I started amassing those records and listening to them because I had to complete my own education. So it was an informative book. book well it was great stuff and and back then if you wanted to

hear Wynonie Harris you had to get the old records 78s or right King LPs these days you know it's all available which is good yeah and when and when you wrote when you decided to write on Jerry Lee Lewis which was you know that was really the first biography you did right yeah it was yeah it was a biography it was I don't know how the hell to describe it Jerry Lee fascinated me as a human being. And when you write a, when I write a biography, I have to be completely fascinated by some historical figure whose core is a mystery

that remains unsolved and usually has something to do with the mystery in me that is unsolved even to my myself and jerry lee struck me as the kind of guy he's the only probably the only person i could think of uh whom egomania fitted right was becoming he was also you know, there's no heaven, no hell, but he's going to invent hell just so he can go there. And he's a great artist.

Let's talk about strung out and self-abuse. Here's a guy. You look at a picture of the so-called million-dollar quartet. You've got Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah. And who on earth? What would the odds have Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah. And who on earth, what would the odds have been that the last one alive

is Jerry Lee? Right. I love that. Yeah. I love that. He's a great man, a great American. God bless him.

And then also in the book, he played him against his cousin, who was a Jerry, which, Jimmy Swagger. Jimmy Swagger was his cousin. And, yeah a jerry which who was jimmy jimmy swagger jimmy swagger was his cousin and yeah yeah and you had that you you had your sort of uh you know this sort of self-righteousness you know versus the devil and and it turns out that the self-righteous guy was you know infinitely more evil in a way oh he was a he was a true hypocrite right and jerry lee never was i remember jerry lee used to

point out uh before swagger downfall he would say yeah my cousin jimmy the big man the holy ghost feels i like that the holy ghost feels that's beautiful that's like the word racket i like the word racket oh well one of my racket. Oh, well, one of my favorites. It's so all-encompassingly descriptive. Yeah, yeah. Because everything is crooked or people want it to be. Everybody has a gimmick. Well, that's one of the benefits.

That's one of the good things about America. Is that like you want to invent yourself? You want to sell some bullshit? Go ahead. See what you can do with it? You want to sell some bullshit? Go ahead. See what you can do with it. The market's there. The market's there. But the trick is these days, I don't know.

What does sell these days? Well, who's in charge of the bullshit? That becomes a big question. Yeah. Because it seems like it's about 90% bullshit. Yeah. And there's a lot of it. And now you've got these machines that are just hungry for content.

What do you got? What can you give us for nothing? The people are waiting. That was a great revelation to me within the last year that I always thought I was a writer, and then I found out the new word for new phrase for writing is providing content yeah so if somebody asked me what I did for a living I would say it was content provider you know it's like I run into a guy in a bar and he starts talking to me I said what do you do for a

living I'm an entrepreneur uh-huh I mean period that's it's not entrepreneur of right but I mean imagine the way people describe themselves yeah I'm in the content providing field you know I mean, period. That's it. It's not entrepreneur of. Right. But I mean, imagine the way people describe themselves. Yeah. I'm in the content providing field. I mean, that's probably the new euphemism for unemployed entrepreneur. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

That's something that can happen entirely in your head. Yeah. And we have all these experts that are not expert at anything. Can you hook up this TV so that it works with the amp properly? I only want one remote control. Can't find anybody who can do it. The computer guy who sits there and does the same thing you do and you're watching him and he's getting paid by the hour

to do the same unsuccessful thing. So I don't know. I mean, it's like to hell with everybody. I'm enjoying watching everything go down i got two books coming out so i feel like you know i've done enough i've done enough you got you got them coming out now well i got one coming out very soon this is my first children's book my first and last children's book and then I have my next really big novel coming out next summer. I finished that.

It's the one true gospel. It's the true story of Jesus Christ. Really? Yeah. It actually is. What did you do for research on that one? What did you do for research on that one? I studied the Gospels, both the Orthodox ones and the Apocrypha,

and read around. The basic theological and historical thought now is, well, nothing in the Gospels could have happened. None of this was possible. None of it did happen. And yet, I believe. It's always written by these believers that can't even believe the pitch. Right.

So I took it from there. I took it from there. I got a little inspirational history going. So that may be my last book. Or I might write a book called Live Wrong, Live Long. There you go. And you can cite, you know, you can cite it. Like real, real help for people that like, you know, how to like not, you know,

you ever see this guy, Dr. Andrew Wheel or Violet? I mean, who buys this guy? You know, and it's this guy, Dr. Andrew Wheel or Violet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, who buys this guy? You know, and it's like, he smiles right. Yeah, he's got that beard. He smiles right. He's got the avuncular beard. He's not in it for your money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's there to help. Yeah, I would just wish he would just, like, keel over and drop dead while he was doing one of his things, you know what I mean? Because, yeah, he's going to help you things you know i mean because yeah he's gonna help you you know eat nuts yeah yeah well like it's like but the guys who like somebody like jerry lee who can't who can't help but be himself you know and and right so he's gonna push the envelope on that but i think it's interesting that you know the idea that you know live wrong live long is that you know maybe if you're you're at least you know honest with your desires and impulses and and you know you push it out into the world maybe part of

your maybe part of your karma or whatever the fuck you want to see is that well you're gonna have to you're gonna live longer than anybody else and you're gonna have to live with that or you just i mean i remember thinking when i was in my 20s that okay i'll live to be 32 that's enough and then it's just sort of like you know death doesn't want you you know it's like yeah honestly that is the most difficult thing because increasingly people not only are dishonest but they don't know what honesty is because they've never met themselves yeah yeah go to a job between lying to your co-workers and your boss lying for a living that's most of your waking hours then you lie to your wife i mean then you just lie to people in social

situations to impress them and now it's so easy with all this uh communication social networking platform yeah so it's like i mean is there honesty anymore of any kind i think you know like i said most people don't, have never met themselves. They'll go from the womb to the grave without ever meeting themselves. You can meet yourself, you can love yourself, hate yourself, but at least you're there. Yeah, well, I mean, I think that, I don't think anyone can be truly honest because everybody's lying to themselves. Well, certain well everyone lies to himself but honesty is such a gasp because it really upsets people scares the shit out of them yeah that's right i mean it really does that's why stanhope is so compelling you think that's it that's secret yeah like let's say you're going to be honest about you

know how you're feeling or where you're at or you know you you know a lot of times say you're going to be honest about how you're feeling or where you're at. A lot of times when you're honest, there's a desperation to it. Sometimes people are the most honest when they're in the most fear and they need help. I think what frightens me is that when I talk to people, and I've talked to a lot of people one-on-one, is that human beings are built to sort of shoulder the burden of others. They can do it. But in the culture we live in now, no one's got fucking time for it so you lose that whole element of communication and you know everybody's just set adrift on their own to you know sit in their own shit which i guess you know you do anyways but i think there was a time i think when you talk about

when you were younger about family and about that kind of shit it was sort of understood that at least he had that to fall back on and i think that's gone well hence the increased edge to the desperation no doubt there is nothing to fall nobody's arms to fall back into if you do you're going to crack your skull open on the street yeah but it's it's a gas like allowing yourself to time, freedom, silence, and solitude to truly experience how desperate you are. Yeah. Rather than turn it sideways or shut it off with television or a cell phone or an app. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That can really be a comment of no and when you look around with those fresh eyes you really see you thought you were desperate look at the desperation you get the clarity i mean even every every one of these smiles and giggles and laughs and chatters it's all total desperation and again i love it well that's the interesting thing about some of the guys you write about in when you say that you choose somebody to write about if you can you know find that mystery in yourself that you haven't resolved and there's something compelling about you know how they've you know wrestled with it or transcended it or just embody it yeah that what do you like when you look at somebody like uh dean martin like these are guys that you know especially at the end of dino and we can move

through the other books as well that you know at the end you don't really get an emptiness but you get a guy that somehow another despite everything he's given to the world or however he's been interpreted he you know he's sitting with that fucking with with the truth of himself and nobody knows about him if he's fortunate like jerry lee to to be aware that the truth of himself is always present beside him and not being expounded upon completely if it comes out it comes out uh askew by mistake or it slips out right and what about like you know somebody like uh like the sunny liston book was fucking phenomenal but did you did you see sunny liston as a as a victim i saw sunny list well it's hard to call a guy who

went around you know beating up old men for change, a victim. But, yeah, he was. And what fascinates me to this moment about Sonny Liston is as a late, great countryman from Newark, Leroy Jones, Amiri Baraka said, he was the big black spook in every white man's doorway. It was like white people hated him and feared him and black people wanted nothing to do with him because they were trying to be respectively middle class and yeah he was i out of place in this world uh i mean i've seen letters he

attempted to write well i wrote about them in the book those letters yeah listen well you know what i mean who cares about you know these you know million dollar baseball players whether they're on dope or not you know son Liston was a great American. Yeah. And, you know, glossed over by the truly great Americans get airbrushed out of the picture by America. It's like taking a cigarette out of Robert Johnson's mouth. You see new $100 bills, you look at an old one.

Benjamin Franklin has a fur collar. Not on the new ones. It's this is a miracle buddy you get that cigarette out of your mouth get that in politically incorrect collar off today where did they take the cigarette out of robert johnson's mouth and postage stamp oh yeah they're you know you're just like honoring like black history. Right. So it's like, well, we can honor it, but first we have to clean it up. Well, now that you see like the end of it, and when you talk about true Americans, you know, like Jerry Lewis and Sonny Liston, you know, how do you define that for yourself? stand out from the huddled masses yearning to be rich and mediocre uh because free has got nothing to do with this country this country every day is less free and people accept it they embrace it they don't know what to do with It's like the tales they used to tell after the Civil War. They freed the slaves. They got 10 miles down the road and a lot of them turned back.

People can't handle freedom. No one in this country should ever make a comment about it. I don't see how the German people allowed that to happen because as a people, we do anything we're told. Anything. And if you're mediocre enough

or big enough you become a hero. When I was a kid there were very few heroes. Now it's like what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a hero. Professional hero. A professional hero. I mean, what the hell, hero? It's like, I mean, these people get killed in this building downtown.

It's like nobody honors the cleaning lady that took the subway down at 5 o'clock in the morning to mop up those floors. Anyway, many tangents. Well, when you did The King of the Jews, which I go in and out of that book. It's a very dense book. On a rustic. Yeah. Strange book.

Yeah, it is a strange book. What was the agenda with that book? What were you looking for? Oh, he fascinated me because he was the agenda with that book? What were you looking for? Oh, he fascinated me because he was the patriarch of organized crime in New York and pretty much the United States. In New York, I mean, he inaugurated the dope racket the day the dope became illegal. he was the mentor to all the more well-known characters from Meyer Lansky to Lucky Luciano, who worked when they were kids, they worked for him.

Back in the good old days of New York, I love that period of New York history to read about it. You know, Mayor Walker, Arnold Rustin, when it was a city that never sleeps. love that period of new york history to read about it uh you know mayor walker arnold rustine when it was was a city that never sleeps right now it's what is it i don't know well i don't know what the hell you call this place well the the the interesting thing that i noticed about hollywood and about new york too is that there was a time when there were switchboards and it was a much more intimate landscape. And, you know, the sort of hierarchy

of both the criminal element and the non-criminal element is pretty well defined. Like, I mean, any guy in the street would know who Arnold Rothstein was in New York at that time. And now there's no fucking way to know what the hell's going on.

The criminal element is like a consortium between the governments and the banks you know we need to stimulate credit why don't you use the word debt that's what you're talking about we need to get the entire country into deeper debt to make money yeah and there is no more money there just you know digits on on computer transfers That's exactly right. Yeah, you can just lose everything because someone forgot a number. Yeah. Yeah, you got nothing.

There's been a mistake made. We lost a number. This is it. It's like, well, the tax system is almost like that. You know, it's like they can turn like 200 grand into five grand, you know, completely legally. I mean, according to since they make the laws. What do you think of Burroughs?

Oh, a very interesting old crackpot queen, you know, basically a science fiction writer with a dirty mind who got very lucky. He's funny. I mean, a lot of his ideas, they fascinate me only because they're just so bizarre. And he had this pseudoscience thing going. He had the cure for the common cold. He couldn't cure his own cold.

He had a book. He went on a retreat one time. I'm going to quit quit smoking i got the book to teach you how i gotta go off to the woods and do it you know and then there he is you know smoking yeah it was good you know stylistic all this stuff with cut-ups i mean that's just part of he cashed in pretty good at the end i like his nike commercial sneakers commercial but he had that idea that I think that we're sort of talking about a little bit, the idea of a nation of rats. Yeah.

That, you know, there is some prophecy to some of the weird shit that he was pulling out of it. Well, that's stuff that interests me. Yeah. Because what you have now is that this idea that we were going to live in this kind of big brotherish type of world. And then you realize that, like, not only do we live in it, but we are it. And, you know, and that's content.

That's how you provide content. That with all the social networking, you know, that if you have any, you can't do anything without somebody seeing you somehow. You know? That's literally true. Exactly. And it's like the truth is a lie by nature. It's like a Hollywood truth is a lie. And it's like that universally. I mean, George Orwell, I mean, this is so beyond his being on target.

Right. No, the idea of Orwell was that we you know we'd be up against something oppressive and and the truth of the matter is we've embraced it we're our own oppressors exactly and and we love it yeah exactly self-flagellance yeah you know yeah we just love it well when you write a book like the last novel when you you know which was you know raw to the point of like you know because i couldn't not picture you as the protagonist and me and the devil i mean i couldn't like you know i had to put you in there i got another friend my buddy sam lipsight you know that kid he's a he's a great writer he's a novelist and like he you know whenever i read his books and i talk to him

about it and i say to him it's like you know that part where you're uh you're doing that girl what he's like he's not me it's not me it's not me. It's not me. It's not me. It's a fiction. It's a fiction. That's always the convening out. I mean, that's the best thing about, you know, writing under the rubric of fiction. Yeah.

That wasn't me. It's a character that has my name, but it had nothing to do with it. But how close was that one to you? Oh, let's see. How do I give an honest but somewhat accurate answer? It was very close to me. Yeah. But not all the way, of course.

Not all the way. Like, how Catholic were you when you were a kid? I was not at all. Because something I realized this morning is that the benefit, the gift of Catholicism is this elaborate notion of historical evil, and that it has a face, and that it has a methodology, and that it has a mythology all its own. And do you, in the sense of relationship with sin or the devil, what are the struggles that go on in your own head about that? I really don't have any.

I'm sort of free of that. There might have been some when I was a little boy. My upbringing was not religious. The trappings of religious were present. To be a crucifix on the wall and next to it like a souvenir plaque from Asbury Park that said, Puppies' love leads to a dog life.

You know, things like that. It's like my grandmother from Italy would have told you, yeah, sure, Jesus Christ, he really existed. But her religion was basically superstition. Right. It was like, she'd see a license plate, play that number. What was it?

Don't open an umbrella inside the house. She had scores. And I'm becoming more and more like that the older I get. I just believe in superstition. I mean, I just... I'm superstitious. I mean, it makes more sense than any other damn religion I can think of.

Well, what are some of the... Jerry Lewis pointed out, and he was right. I went home and checked it. The word religion is never mentioned in the Bible in any language. So, no, religion has not been a big part of my life, except I'm fascinated by, I want to know whether man created the concepts of good and evil for self-protection, or he invented the gods first. And I think it was good and evil that makes more sense, and then the god, just to protect himself. Thou shalt not kill.

I don't want you killing me, so it's like God said and not me. Got to make it a universal law. Yeah, under punishment of suffering in hell. Right. You know what it is, basically? I don't give a damn about any of these gods or these religions or these things that people kill themselves for believe in or shake people down over it's it's it's like i don't really i don't

believe in uh donald duck yeah you know it's and it's all it's all away from me it's apart from me i like looking at this just i always sound like a sap, but maybe I am a sap. I don't know. I like looking at the, not today, not this gray cardboard colored sky, but I like watching the clouds roll by in the sky. I like the ocean. I like birds. I like money.

I like women's legs. I like coffee. These are a few of my favorite things. I like women's legs. I like coffee. These are a few of my favorite things. I like it. So when you talk about the good and evil thing, I mean, where do you land on that? First of all, the world is evil in the most boring way. Yeah.

Listen to anybody who's out to save the world. They're out to grow fatter, richer, off of your ass. This is evil. I mean, you know, charity. That's another great racket. People are just evil. Anybody, it's a world of evil. that's another great racket people are just evil anybody

it's a world of evil it's just that evil has become so boring I mean it's so dull it's like trying to go to the movies trying to find like evil that's interesting you have to create it you have to do it

and then you sit around and say what a deranged mind he's a guy who just had a hobby it. You have to do it. And then you sit around and say, what a deranged mind. He had a hobby. You bored him so he was going to make life interesting. I'll sever a few heads. I'll do some nice things to people.

Interesting things. Like these guys, like all the guys that you were kind of fascinated with, what ultimately did you find out about these guys that helped you the guys that you were kind of fascinated with, what ultimately did you find out about these guys that helped you out or that made you grow or opened your heart in a certain way? Well, the one thing they had in common was that they did remove themselves from either by intention or by circumstance, they were removed from this mainstream of flowing mud

that we call life in general. And I saw that as a road to freedom and salvation. I mean, all roads lead nowhere, but at least you look at some characters like that and it's... they led exceptional lives. They led exceptional lives. I believe as I said, Dean Morton's an inspirational character to me, more so than Jesus Jerry Lee Lewis sunny list in the way as tragic as his life was we don't turn to these people for inspiration it's what we turn to these days yeah that's like these books the unbearable lightness of

being I mean what bullshit give me a fucking break the unbearable lightness of being i mean what bullshit give me a fucking break the unbearable lightness of being i mean if that it's like libera liberace said it better you know it's just the unbearable racket of being it says it now i mean maybe i maybe after i retire i'll write that book. If it's all bullshit, all you're left with is not really misery, but the truth of a relentless, meaningless process that maybe you can find occasional moments of relief in. Again, there's inspiration, too. You can find it anywhere if you know where to look.

I mean, embrace the misery. Who came up with this embrace shit? But do that. Embrace the misery, the desolation, the loneliness. And if you do and you realize it, you're better off than 99% of the population who don't realize it, who cannot be alone with themselves for 10 seconds,

who cannot bear a moment of silence lest they be frightened by the emptiness within them. But like in like because in the in in the in the last novel and me and the devil I mean it seems to me that's you sort of at the end of the rope of of where desire is going to take you. Oh yeah that's what it was and it just and it was like complete pitch black. I can't imagine because I feel like I'm approaching that, that anything you hung any sort of hope on, whether it be love or sex or going to the edge of desire itself, however evil you may see that in your own mind

or however it's judged by others, the other side of that, if you come through and you don't do anything heinous, it's going to end up and get you in prison. That all you have there is, then you got nothing. Well, then you discover new things. You discover new things. You're back where you started from, basically.

Yeah. At least you've had fulfilled desires. You come out of the other end of desire. Yeah. And you realize, okay, you know that's it you know that dandruff shampoo is empty yeah uh and so you your desires become i don't want to say stranger because that is a bad implication but you start to desire like everything you've you've, like, we always, we most miss, we long for what we never knew. And most of us live lives of desire, but we never lived, really.

And so, like, just like life can become a desire. Yeah. But it's weird about desire that, like, when you, it seems to me that, to me that when you push it and when you keep going, that there's no sort of like, all right, I did it. It's just sort of the hunger expands. Yeah, there's no such thing as satiety, satisfaction. Right, right. That's not part of the deal.

Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, if only I, if only I. And then you were then, that was it. There's no I'm good. Yeah, I'm sad, I'm sad. There's like deathly resignation to one's life. But there's no satisfaction there at all. Right.

You know, it's like, oh, I didn't put the razor blades by the bed for good reason. You're absolutely right. Satisfaction is not part of the deal for more than, say, the satisfaction you would get from this present cigarette. Right. That's right.

It's as fleeting as that. As a matter of fact, they just sell satisfaction. Right. Yeah. Well, they try to as that. As a matter of fact, they just sell satisfaction. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they try to. I mean, that's the entire advertising industry is based on it. That's the biggest lie there is.

Well, this is a business of lying. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, satisfaction. I mean, it's never going to happen. Yeah. It's never going to happen. So I guess to be... Are you taking these pills?

You should know something about it. Dude, like... Well, to satisfy you, look, just by dish well yeah i know i know i know believe me i i am no stranger to the thrill of being placated by substance yeah but but like when you talk about not being able to sit with yourself for me this is very relevant i just turned you know i'm 51 you know and i've been through a certain amount of things. And you start to realize, at some point, it's like, I've been just fucking running. Just running. Running from that.

From that idea of being honest with yourself. To have that weird, sort of horrible, weighty silence of just like, this is it. This is it. So, when I hear you talking about that and i'm a guy that like once i figured out how to use a fucking iphone i'm like me i'll be in it i'll be in it every fucking two minutes are you on facebook i don't can't do the facebook i like twitter because i can just spurt shit out yeah so you tweet i do a tweet so i've learned all the new verbs yeah tweeting is kind of fun because if you get a few people on the line,

you can just fucking blurt shit out, and then a bunch of people go like, what the fuck? And you're like, yeah, that's right. Fuck you. Yeah, everybody is sitting around waiting. Waiting for what? Well, it's the same. It's like everything else.

Like an iPod, it's like having your earphones in, being on Twitter, having email with you all the time. It's just a hit. It's just a hit. It's just a the time it's just a hit it's just a hit it's just a hit it's just a hit everything is a hit it's right and it's all addictive too oh it's completely addictive man because it just fills in all those little emptinesses with another more electric kind of emptiness yeah well yeah what happens is like you know you get that hit and your brain chemicals go one way or another depending if it's a good hit or a bad hit yeah you know that that satisfaction thing but like sometimes you you talk to somebody for an hour and you come away feeling better do you ever feel like ah that was a good tweet we had yeah

sure man do yeah yeah because it's how long does that last well the thing interesting thing about twitter is it makes it makes your thoughts relatively disposable you know but you can get them back you know they're all sitting out there right but like you know you got 140 characters to tighten it up man you know you're gonna fucking throw a punch and it's it's a writing thing it's definitely writing so you know if something picks up some traction, you know, a little bit of poetry or whatever the fuck you're going to do in that

moment. You know, like I, you know, I, I try to write things relatively, you know, not so much like cryptic,

but like, you know, like I, I try to do something, Nick. I'm trying to, I'm trying to do something. Well,

you're doing something. Like yesterday I tweeted Inconsistency abounds Apologists everywhere That was basically what we're talking about Much more concise Much more concise I'll throw that shit out into the world

Good for you Let's close with this Do you ever get a moment where you know because obviously the the the the medicine for what we're talking about is exactly what is the bullshit which is you know finding a god finding a structure finding a life that gives you the illusion of security having faith being able to believe you know so like you know if you get rid of all that do you ever did you ever once have a struggle where you were craving that and decided like well maybe that's the way to go or were you always fighting it i've always had a certain bit of envy for very stupid people yeah i mean you know and i do mean to be judgment. Those who are visibly more stupid than I.

Because they seem to get off so easy. Their non-satisfaction, fake satisfaction point is so much lower. But did I ever try to reach out for a god or a system of salvation? for a god or a system of salvation. Oh, I might have, again, envied those people that do find peace in that form of lying to oneself. But no, I find it's all, you're looking for the fountain of youth, the elixir of life.

You know, you're the guy that found $10 million in a paper bag in the back of a cab, you know, who didn't give it back. You know, I mean, what do these people give that shit back? You know, I mean, get to who? And then you realize, well, you know, you're alive. You beat the racket. You're still here.

And all these people have died around you. And it's time to slow down and live not speed it up and uh get somewhere because there's really nowhere to go thanks for talking man so that was cool right talking to the one of the dark buddhas i think we did all right that was nick toshis Hope you enjoyed that. That's our show. Go to WTFpod.com Get that app if you want to hear those interviews with Laura Dern or Michael Keaton or

Richard Winklater or Paul Thomas Anderson and many others. Many others. More coming. What are we going to do? What are we gonna do? Slightly out of tune Jazzmaster. Thank you. Boomer lives!