WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 598 - Robert Williams

Episode Date: April 29, 2015

Artist Robert Williams is on Marc's Mount Olympus of Mind-Blowers. Robert talks with Marc about his numerous career highlights, including his work for Zap Comix, his founding of Juxtapoz magazine, his banned album cover for Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and more. Plus, Marc's buddy Nate Bargatze stops by the garage to talk about his new special. 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.

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When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol yes we deliver those moose no but moosehead yes because that's alcohol

and we deliver that too along with your favorite restaurant food groceries and other everyday essentials order uber eats now for alcohol you must be legal drinking age please enjoy responsibly product availability varies by region see app for details all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuckabillies what's going on how are you good to see you nice to be here thanks for coming for coming. I'm Mark Maron. This is my show, WTF. Welcome to it. Hope you're enjoying your day so far. Hope you're having a nice drive or a nice run or perhaps a nice bath. Be careful in the bath. If you're listening to me on something that's not a battery operated device, don't die in the tub while listening to me. device don't die in the tub while listening to me before i get into me i want to say that i have one of the great uh psychedelic geniuses on the show i don't know if he'd like being called that but a masterful painter of the the realms of the mind uh robert williams the genius painter is uh is on the show today i went over to the barnesdale art park where he had a basically

a retrospective along with some juxtapose uh collection and you know certainly you can look up robert williams he's got a lot of uh amazing books out of his work and uh you know he goes all the way back to zap comics maybe a little before dude's been around he was at he was down here in la with von dutch and uh big daddy roth making hot rods and doing pinstriping and he was up in san francisco with our crumb and s clay wilson and spain and the fellas doing the panels and now he does big paintings little paintings prints of all kinds uh he's an he's a very aggressive and profound imagination and it was a real honor to talk to the dude uh because uh his his his paintings blew my fucking mind it's always nice when i can get one of the original mind blowers on here you know for me there's only a few uh there's a a small

olympus mount olympus of mind blowers that defined how I see the world Williams came late to me though I don't think I registered him initially in the zap comics as being Robert Williams but later on the paintings were like a complete mind fuck and when I saw them in person I was uh uh excitedly devastated in the best way possible. So Robert Williams will be talking to me. Also, my buddy Nate Bargetzi, one of the funniest humans I know, has got a special coming out. So he stopped by the other day. We were at Moon Tower together, and he stopped by. His hour-long Comedy Central special, Full-Time Magic, is on Saturday, May 2nd at midnight.

It's 11 Central. And me, Mark Maron, the marination tour is extended. We're going to Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Port Chester, New York, Brooklyn, New York, Huntington, New York, Red Bank, New Jersey, Portland, Oregon, and two venues. Boulder, Colorado, Denver, Colorado. You can check out all the dates. They're up at WTFpod.com slash calendar. But I do want to give you a quick heads up for certain people in certain cities where the pre-sale is happening today until 10 p.m. That's for the Playhouse Square in Cleveland on June 5th. You can use the promo code PERFORMER.

For Minneapolis, the Pantages Theater on June 7th, promo code PERFORMER. For Huntington, New York at the Paramount Theater on June 27th, the promo code is PULSE. Portland, Oregon on July 10th and 11th at the Aladdin Theater and Revolution Hall, promo code MARIN. Boulder and Denver, Colorado, July 24th and 25th at the Aladdin Theater and Revolution Hall, promo code Marin. Boulder and Denver, Colorado, July 24th and 25th at the Boulder Theater and the Paramount Theater, promo code Marin. All the venues are officially going to go on sale

tomorrow, May 1st. So again, go to wtfpod.com slash calendar for all the dates and get involved in those pre-sales. Nate Bargetzi and i hung out him myself kirk metzger todd berry went to get some barbecue at moon tower and old nate said that he was going to be in town here in in uh los angeles for a couple days and i had not realized he moved to nashville he just under the radar moved to nashville tenn, where he grew up. I'm going to talk to him about that right now and about his new special.

As I said, that airs this Sunday, May 2nd, full-time magic, at midnight and 11 Central on Comedy Central. So, my buddy Nate, stopping by. Nate Bargetzi How long did it take me to get your name right? A long time A lot of people still say Bargetzi Because of me? Oh no, you called me Nick

So, oh, well the Nick thing, that wasn't a real thing A lot of people call you Nick after that? Yeah, yeah, that was People like looked up Nick Bargetzi I remember I told you, I said on like when you could look at something on my website, it was like the fourth thing was Nick Bargetzi. Didn't I correct it? You did, but you said my last name right.

Oh, good. Hey, we were just happy to be. Yeah, halfway there? Halfway, yeah. Something identifiable that they could have. I think I told you it would be, you know what, it might be easier for me just to change my name to nick then try to go but was that before i talked to you it was right at the beginning i thought you said it on the nerdist like when you did it was uh right after i met you right and we were talking about that and you

thought like you're big there it is my big opportunity to get mentioned on the nerdist podcast you know i fucked it up i just going to change my name to Nick. That would be the easier way. That's easier. That's less people to tackle then. So what the hell happened? You were out here in LA living in, where were you living somewhere?

We were way down. Carson. Carson? Yeah, near Torrance. So you're down there in Carson, near Torrance, with your new baby. New baby. Driving up into the city to do 10-minute spots.

And now you're gone. That was it. That was it, yeah. What happened with the show, with the Fallon-produced pilot? We did it two years in a row, and nothing happened. You did scripts. Scripts. Sold two scripts scripts and then wrote them and uh neither one of them got picked up and uh so now we're here uh we're is that when

you decided sort of like i don't need to live here i thought we did it uh before i moved in december yeah and uh i just i don't know i get like well i'm just like i'm just gonna do it and uh i say it was the first thing I've ever done in the, you know, I've been, I left Nashville in 13 years. So you moved back to Nashville? Yes.

I moved back to Nashville. It's the first thing I've done in 13 years that wasn't for me. Yeah. Everything's always been, this, you know.

Oh, this was selfless. This was the first selfless thing. I mean, I still, now I just leave there. Yeah. You owed it to your wife and your new child to give them a chance to you know have a life i have to be in the dicey

streets of carson by themselves okay well you're out at the improv i'm out at the improv is drinking just you know but like life's great whatever calling your wife up going how's everything what's going on did they catch that guy that shot that guy and then she's like i don't know you know so we heard a guy get shot in our neighborhood oh really yeah uh so that okay well you did the right thing and now you're not drinking anymore yeah you're living in nashville you got a house got a house right down the street from your parents yeah see that was but i think on some level that was uh that was a smart move in a selfish way to have the parents nearby because then you can have some time i can take the child yes we can give her my mom comes over and they're happy to right

grandparents yeah we have a bunch of uh my brother has four kids and my sister has a kid so like all the cousins and stuff and one of our uh one one of my nieces is like nine months older than my daughter, so they're like best friends. Yeah. And so them being around and she's going to all these birthday parties. I mean, she's like, instead of just being her and my wife. Down in Carson. Down in Carson.

Hold up. Hold up. And now we're you know and I gotta I stay at uh I got a room out here that I can come to

well my buddy has an extra room downstairs oh really I noticed you have an extra room yeah I mean you can stay in there

with the records with the records yeah there's a bed up against the wall you just throw it it's like a Murphy bed it's like a Murphy bed that just covers the window

it's not even hooked into no it's just it's a mattress it's a promotional thing it's like a Murphy bed? It's like a Murphy bed that just covers the window. It's not even hooked into? No, it's a mattress. It's a promotional thing. It's like the first idea for a Murphy bed. Yeah. Like the guy walks in and goes, what if you put that in the wall? Go with me.

That's how Murphy beds start. Yeah. So what's Nashville? What's the plan, man? The plan is, I'm not sure what the plan is. I was very nervous about even, I was trying to move and not tell anybody. Really? That was the idea.

Because you were embarrassed? You were ashamed? I wasn't embarrassed. I think you still feel that everybody thinks you just quit comedy. Oh yeah, you're out of the game. You're out of the game. You're done.

Giddy up. Yeah. Ran away. You still have that mentality. So I just literally did it and didn't tell anybody. I think when I talked to you at Moon Tower, you're sort of still in this justifying period. You're like, hey, you know, show business is in Nashville.

My agent has an office there, though they primarily deal with country musicians. You didn't give me what I wanted out of it either. You want everybody just to be like, yeah, dude, I think that's so smart that you did it. And I don't think I got that from you. I got like, oh, yeah. Then I'm just like,

oh boy. No. We already did it. I think it's great. Yeah. You're a comedian that has a career in comedy. You decided that it's a good idea

to turn your back on show business and move to Nashville and engage that show business. Well, they all, everybody, every time I'd go to meetings,

they all think I live in Nashville anyway. Like I would go just because of my accent or if I say something and they'll just assume I live there. Now what are you gonna do though? How are you gonna infiltrate? What's the plan? Are you gonna be the next generation of the, of like.

Blue collar guys? Well I didn't wanna say it. Yeah, it's out there. I mean it's, you know. It's already out there? It's out there. No, no, no, it's not out there. No one's saying. If you just get one of those blue collar guys to go out with you on tour, are you in contact

with any of those fellas? Some. Yeah? Yeah. You talk to Foxworthy? No, I've never talked to Foxworthy. I golfed in Nashville. Larry the Cable Guy was golfing in front of us.

Who? Larry the Cable Guy. Oh, yeah, Dan? Yeah. Yes. I told him, I said, you can tell, I go, I can tell how long someone's been in comedy is if they refer to you by Dan.

Yeah. Then I know that they've been around for a while. I remember him at the comedy store, briefly. Yeah. He's a good guy. He was the nicest dude in the world.

Yeah. And real cool. And it looked, it's funny, so I'm a big Vanderbilt fan, which is the school in Nashville, and I did not go there. And so we took a, my dad, we took a picture with me and him. You and Larry the Cable Guy.

Larry the Cable Guy. And he is all Nebraska. He's a big Nebraska fan. And so he's got all Nebraska stuff on, camouflage, dressed just like you would expect him to be dressed. I'm wearing all Vanderbilt stuff. So it almost looks like if the South is trying to create, if they're trying to create a new Larry the Campbell guy, and their idea is like, we want to use, look, we're going to

go, his school in Southern Nebraska will be Vanderbilt, will be a smart school. And people are like, well, that, you know, I don't know, that could turn people off. You're like, here's the thing. He did not go there. That's the twist. That's the hook. That's the hook that gets them in. To go, you think, oh, is this guy a smart guy? No, no, no, no, no, no. He is far from it. that's the twist that's the hook that gets him in to go

you think how's this guy a smart guy no no no he is far from it and just wears all the Vanderbilt stuff so this special

is on Comedy Central yes this Saturday May 2nd which is the night of the Mayweather Pac-12 fight so the Comedy Central

special is on this Saturday you can buy it May 5th. So have you gotten to know your daughter at all? We have crossed paths at the house. And she's two and a half. She'll be three in July. It went from like the first at the very beginning.

I remember once we were home. See, we'd go home for Nashville, too, sometimes for like a month. If I was going to be on the road, it was just easier to go home yeah and uh we'd stay at my parents and uh i remember one time i was packing and she started packing like her mini mouse suitcase and was like oh i'm going with daddy you know and that was brutal because it was like you know that would hurt but now it's actually brutal for me because she's almost fine with it. Yeah. Now I come home for like, you know, I was in New York and then I went home for a day.

Then I flew out to Austin and here. And so I've been gone for like two weeks besides one day. And she's just kind of like, you know, she's happy to see me. And then just kind of like, all right, see you. You know? That's worse. Yeah. So you going on

the road this week she says yeah she say that no she says is she good are you featuring are you headlining i'm like this weekend headline you know i'll probably do some guest spots but like you know we'll see what happens like that but you know that probably has more to do with the fact that she has more friends around she has more friends and they i think it gets to a point where they don't really like you or care about you. Yeah. FaceTime. FaceTime's big. How long does that last, though? We're FaceTime for a little bit. Like, it's not...

We're pretty good at, like, you know, you don't want to keep anybody awkwardly. Like, where it's like, okay. Where your daughter, your two-year-old daughter says, okay, daddy, I'm done. All right. Good luck with everything. I just see her moving her hands like, all right. He just keeps going and going. He's to your wife. She's like, daddy, I'm done. All right. Good luck with everything. I just see her moving her hands like, all right, he just keeps going and going. He's to your wife.

She's like, daddy's just yapping. Oh, nonstop. All right, you're on the road. I almost like the idea, too. I wanted to move and almost see if anybody would know just to be like, who wants to prove a point? No one would know because we don't ever see anybody because you're on the road or you go to your spot and you're done.

Like, I'd have to go. If I want to go see you, I have to go find you. We got to be at a festival. We have to be at a festival, yes. And you can just go do it. Well, I think it's going to be good. Are you going to? I hope it's good.

Well. I had this whole idea. I wasn't telling anybody. And then here we are now. Making the announcement for the special. What's the special called? Full Time Magic. Full Time Magic. Yeah. Oh, it's based on your dad. Now your dad's out there doing the magic. are now so making the announcement for the special what's the special called full-time magic full-time

magic yeah oh it's based on your dad now your dad's out there doing the magic he's doing he goes on the road did you grow up with him going on the road yeah he went on the road all the time uh i don't know if i ever like put it together i don't think i pay attention to details of things to your parents because you got your own life to live yeah but i yeah and i don't like and now when i think back it's like i just would be like, I don't know. Like, he just wouldn't be like a baseball game. You're like, I don't know, why is he not here? You know, and it's like now I'm like, oh, he was like.

Doing magic somewhere. God knows, yeah, what kind of gig he was having to do. Like in the 80s, like just some awful road gig. And I'm just like, he should have came to my game. I don't know why he didn't come to my game. Yeah, yeah. He didn't come to your game because he's somewhere going like, is this your card?

Yeah, yeah. He's somewhere doing that. He didn't come watch me, I don't know, he didn't come to your game. Yeah, yeah. He didn't come to your game because he's somewhere going like, is this your card? Yeah, yeah. He's somewhere doing that. He didn't come watch me, I don't know, not make it in baseball. You didn't make it in baseball because he was out there pulling coins out of people's hair. Yeah. Out of their ears. My son is fatherless and wayward.

He wasn't gone. He had a regular job. He taught. He was a teacher, too. Oh, that's right. So he... Does he do tricks for your kid? Mm-hmm.

They like it, and he does stuff for all our nephews and nieces. He'll do parties if they're family? Yeah, yeah. People still ask me. They'll be like, hey, they want to get my dad to be a clown, because he started as a clown. Yeah. And they wanted him to be a clown for their part.

And you have to tell them, like, guys, he doesn't do that anymore. You know what I mean? It's almost like, yeah, if someone wants you to come, hey, we come do some time. These are people you grew up with? Yeah. Now they have kids and being like, hey, could we hire your dad? Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he would still love.

They just picture that he doesn't move up at all. It's like if you have someone, a friend that will be like, you know, you you're doing this great you got your own show on tv and still be like hey could you do some time maybe at my wedding and you're like i don't do yeah it's not what i do anymore you know i don't even know you that well yeah yeah but all right i mean how much time do you want me to do and then you do it and then you get well that's so weird about people that they're so much in their own heads how are they going to know that i mean they might not even know you're where you're at they'll just see you around town and be like is your dad still because we got kids you can have a that they're so much in their own heads. How are they going to know that? I mean, they might not even know where you're at. They'll just see you around town and be like,

is your dad still, because we got kids, he's going to have a birthday party. Yeah, you know what my biggest, one of my biggest things when you mentioned being rolling stone? Yeah. That was one of the first things that I felt, and I already did a few late nights and all that.

Right. And that was the first thing where I felt like people were pretty like, wow. This guy's a guy? No, they were just impressed. Like friends friends like high school friends were like that was like oh yeah yeah that was like a oh wow so the specials an hour an hour that's another one people don't know they're like uh you tell them like i'm doing an hour and they're like oh you didn't you already do that you're like no that was a comedy central presents half hour and you're

you know it's like this is like much more time than that and harder to get and they're like oh yeah okay they don't know oh man they don't

I don't know what you have to do you have to be Seinfeld before someone will be like okay that's exactly right

he's made it that's exactly the truth that is the worst part about what we do is that even my parents it doesn't matter

my father be like you know you should maybe call Bill Maher ask him how he did it That is the worst part about what we do is that even my parents, it doesn't matter. My father would be like, you know, you should maybe call Bill Maher, ask him how he did it. I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. I'm doing fine. It's cool, yeah. But if you don't enter the culture like everyone knows you. Yeah, even if you don't want to know, they know.

But you're pretty far. I mean, it's crazy. I think my mom's the one that said that. She's They know. But you're pretty far. I mean, I don't know how, like, it's crazy. I think my mom's the one that said that. She's like, didn't you already do one? And then I got really mad at my mom, who's so supportive.

But I was like, so like. She didn't understand. Yeah, I was so like, I was like, are you serious? That was a half hour.

Yeah. This is a full hour. I was like, this is a full, you think they just hand these out? Yeah. I'm like,

do they? Yeah, it's pretty easy to get, to be honest. So, all right. So, we'll watch the special and it's good easy to get to be honest so alright so we'll watch the special and it's good to see you yes thanks for

how long are you in town for just until Friday oh what are you doing you know Hollywood stuff I don't know

meetings I'm doing Matt at midnight you've done that before we did it me and you did it oh that's right it was a big day

I won didn't I or no I didn't you and Natasha did Natasha win I think Natasha I got did it oh that's right it's a big day i won didn't i or no i didn't you and natasha didn't touch it i think i got knocked out oh that's right that was sad i felt bad for you oh i was out of it was immediately it's at the end that yeah it's at the end and then y'all stay and then and then the light goes out on you yeah they make it a red light really like just like it was sad man i think a lot of people were upset by it it was a shake by me getting yeah i don't think good it may look like it was a anti-southerner well a lot of people were upset by it. It was a shake-up. By me getting, yeah. It doesn't look good. It looked like it was anti-Southerner. Well, a lot of stuff is, you know?

Yeah, I know. So it's all coming back. That's your journey, though, is to bring back the pride. To get the Civil War started back up. Sure. Well, I don't know if that's a good, it seems like it's already starting around the country. I think what you're trying to do is- You can only hand out so many flyers starting around the country. I think what you're trying to do is bridge the gap between us, you know, highbrow, condescending.

I come in going, I know what y'all are doing. Yeah. I know what we're doing. Yeah. Honestly, we're all on the same page. We're all doing the same thing. You just have to listen. You just talk differently.

Yeah. That's all it is. Yeah. Stop projecting. We will go attack Manhattan and L.A. Yeah. That's all it is. Yeah. Stop projecting. We will go attack Manhattan and L.A. Yeah. They're the only two different people. And then, you know, you just infiltrate with a bunch of you, talking the way you do with

your sort of homespun wisdom. Mm-hmm. And we'll all come around. Yeah. All right. Yeah. That's the agenda. Yeah.

That's going to be my next special. All right, Nick. Well, it's great talking to you. Yeah. Nick Bargatze, full-time magic. Nate. agenda yes that's gonna be my next special all right nick well it's great talking to you nick bargetti full-time magic nate bargetti full-time magic all right buddy thanks for doing it buddy love that guy watch that special full-time magic saturday may 2nd at midnight 11 central i think it airs again right after so robert williams man i think that i'm sort of hung up on the idea

you know the different identities that we go through the different personas we try on not maybe maybe not personas but whatever you can get away with with your attire not personas, but whatever you can get away with with your attire, whatever that implies. The first time and the only time I was in rehab was back in 88, maybe 87. And in there, there was a dude named Milo. And I don't know if Milo made it. I don't know where he's at or whether he's alive. But, you know, he came in pretty whacked out of his mind from staying up too long on some substance. Doing dope and doing coke and doing speedballs and hearing the voices and keeping guard.

Just in case someone wants to steal your brain. That kind of stuff. Quietly sweating in the shed you know waiting for some shit to go down because the dispatch was was made if you understand what i'm saying but i got close to milo and he was a hardcore dude and milo had the uh a goatee before goatees were happening but this was not the standard goatee that goes along with the the bro shirt or the acid wash pants with the elaborate pockets uh no this was a goatee that went along with a bike a motorcycle and maybe a little jail time maybe not but he was a hardcore motherfucker and he smoked lucky strikes and you know when i was in

rehab that first time i was pretty shattered uh whatever personality i had had become a bit fragmented a bit wobbly uh was fragile to begin with so i remember in when i was in uh with i was in rehab i listened to milo tell stories and then he had a carton of luckies and i was smoking those luckies until they hurt my fucking my fucking lungs i take his luckies i buy a pack of my own because i want to be like him and then i i grew out after after uh after rehab i grew out the uh the the fu manchu thing but not it was before they were hip or cool this is the the late 80s so you know I was going for the hard look I'd pull my hair back into a longish ponytail and I had my round

glasses on that were tinted all the time and I had my uh my jailbird biker goatee and I wore my long trench coat and I was about what how old was I about 25 years old and I think I was wearing the Milo costume for a while because I thought it made me look like I could I had been places and I had I had I'd lost my mind but I'd never been to jail I never rode a bike and I don't think I could kill a man but I think that my beard looked like it could at that time why did i tell you that story because there's something about what robert williams sort of represents about the 60s about hot rods about motorcycles about cars about speed about you know unleashing your imagination about that darker part of the 60s that sort of I believe I always aspired to.

And through the Milo costume, I believed I had been there. Eventually, I shaved it and took me about a decade or two to get straight with who I was. But I think I'm here now. I got to tell you, I was nervous to interview Robert Williams because he was intimidating to me. I went to his opening. I met him briefly there. My buddy Coop, Chris Cooper, the poster artist and painter, is a big fan, obviously, and very influenced by Robert Williams and his personal friend. And he facilitated an introduction at the opening.

I met him. And Robert, in my mind, very quickly dismissed me. And I projected a lot onto that. And Robert, in my mind, very quickly dismissed me. And I projected a lot onto that. I just didn't think I was hard enough or serious enough or, you know, like the real deal enough for him to even register. I gave him, I projected that gift on him that he could judge me thoroughly to my soul that quickly. But I was nervous.

I met him over at the gallery where he did the show, where his art was hanging. And he was with his wife who who was not in the room. We were in the office there. So you might hear a phone ringing occasionally. And, you know, I was intimidated and, you know, I really wanted to have a good conversation with him because I do respect his work. So here's me trying not to be nervous with Robert Wood. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis

company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. This episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that.

An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is just to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. I'm a tremendous fan of yours, and I have been for a long time. You could do worse.

Yeah. Yeah. Two wives ago, the woman that became my first wife worked at Schiaffrosi. Really? Yes. And I remember knowing that you were there and going to see the things. The first time I saw the canvases in person, I had only seen them in books. And there was that moment where you see someone's work outside of a book,

and you're like, holy shit. The layers of work that went into those paintings and all your paintings, I couldn't believe it. It was mind-blowing to me to see it live. Yeah. Is that an odd thing to hear? No. No, it's not because there's there's when you see a painting in reality there's there's a certain disappointment and

also a certain pleasure in seeing it printed formalizes it yeah you know when you see when you actually see it you can actually see hand strokes and suffering and energy and thought into something you know when you see the painting. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's exactly the whole texture of the thing. Yeah. Now, like, in terms of your, like, styles of how you painted, it was much more laborious at a different point in time, right,

in terms of the techniques you used? Well, I've never been lucky enough to find an easy way out on these things. Yeah, yeah. And I've always in my mind think, well, I better find some shortcuts. But on the other hand, I think, well, here's a nicer way to do it. And that nicer way to do it is always more time consuming. And what was the nicest way you found? Where it was taking a year.

To get the better effect. Yeah, sure. I said, well, this will give a remarkable effect. And hell, that's another two or three days doodling around with that. Right, right. So it's kind of a losing game. It's not a rational person's occupation. But, I mean, obviously you have to be somewhat obsessed with it.

I mean, in order to do it i mean it's more than obsession yeah it's more than obsession and it's more than fulfillment it's uh it's like your worth yeah you know it's like when i was young i wanted to be a slick artist and be a big operator yeah be a hip dude yeah attracted chicks and everything sure i did an immense amount of studying of uh technical painting tomes and books and whatnot on technique thanks from back from the 1850s on the modern times and i have memorized all these color combinations and what paintings were transparent what paintings weren't transparent and whatnot. And my ego projected me into learning this stuff. But then as I got into the realities of selling the stuff and finding even a venue that would dare show this stuff, I was kind of at odds there.

But by this time, by the time of my late 30s, the skill owned me. It was no longer me trying to be a slick egotist. You know, the practice every day and the habits and the mixing the paints owned me, and I could do it automatically. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. So I was left with, you know, I've got this thing I've developed here, and I'm not getting any recognition, but on the other hand, nobody else seems to be able to do it, and I'm not going to do anything else.

At the same time, I was doing comic books, too. I was involved in Zap Comics. Sure. And my same problem developed there. I got into spending too much time on the comic books. A good comic book artist would do at least a page a day, and it was taking me a week a page, you know. So I just, there's like something wrong with my mental value of being practical and rational. But wasn't it perfectionism, though, really, right?

I mean, you had a process. Yeah, yeah. process yeah yeah um but i i caught on real early on what salvador dali said if uh uh if you're looking for perfection forget it you'll never find it you know but is that but is that something you can actually do intellectually i mean if you're wired to say like well this isn't quite good enough i mean you're never you're never going to get around that well let me let me point this out yeah if you're a young artist say you're never going to get around that well let me let me point this out yeah if you're a young artist say you're 10 or 12 and you're just taking art classes at school and you sit down to a canvas or a drawing you have an idea there's a chance that when you get through that project, that it's going to be maybe 25% of what you intended.

And you do project after project, and it'll probably be about 25% of what you intended, unless it's a tic-tac-toe or something, or a stick figure. So when you get to be in your late teens, your early 20s, and you start into college, you get up to maybe 40 45 but by this time you've learned to keep your mouth shut and let when you get a piece

of artwork done you give the impression that this was what exactly your total intention was yeah so you learned to shut your mouth right now right but you're still hitting about 45. yeah right okay you get you get into your late 20s and your 30s, and you sit down to do a piece of artwork, and you've got it in your head. Well, that's going to be, if you're pretty slick, that's going to be about 60 or 65%. Right, right. Now, I'm an old man. I'm 72, and I can hit about 80% now. I have an idea, and I sit down to do it.

Right. But I don't tell people that say i'll tell no it's a hundred pointer you know ever lick ever lick was intended right that's just the nature of genius sure absolutely now when i first met you it was interesting because i i didn't know if i i'd put you off or not because i i met you with coop who who has also done this show and who i'm friends with and the first. He's a great guy. And the first thing I said to you was like, I grew up in Albuquerque.

And you said, I'm sorry. You grew up in Albuquerque. I did, and I thought, well, this is a surefire way to connect with the dude in a heartbeat and make an impression. But you were like, oh, boy. No, no, no. Misread that?

Yeah, you misread that. You're a lot younger than me, and I wonder what your life was like in Albuquerque compared to mine. Yeah, well, what was left? I was there in the 40s and 50s. I can't imagine, man. So what was there? Were Kirkland Air Force Base? Oh, there were three Air Force Bases.

There were Sandia, Kirtland, and Manzano. Right. My mother said it perfectly when I was a little kid. She says, watch out for Albuquerque because it's still a frontier town. And she couldn't have said it better. Because between criminal activity on the street and the brutal police department, you know. Still. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. I was in fights and in jail all the time in albuquerque how'd you end up there you you mean in fights or in jail in albuquerque well i was born there yeah i was born there in 43 my parents were married and divorced four times my father was from the deep south so i was going back and forth from alabama georgia Florida, back to Albuquerque. Yeah. I know. So I come up from not only a broken home, but like a terribly torn apart home.

Over and over again. Over and over again. The same characters. My father had a sizable amount of money. He was fairly wealthy. What was his racket? My father had the largest drive-in restaurant in the world

that serviced 100 cars at one time. It had its own theater and its own radio station. Where was this? Montgomery, Alabama. Wow. And he was good friends with Hank Williams and Gene Krupa and a lot of people. They came through and... He knew Hank Williams very well.

And you remember him as a kid? Oh, yeah. But then when I go back to Albuquerque, I'm just totally broke. So I went from this one lifestyle to the other. And then in Albuquerque, it was a real reality check. Fighting continually and getting in trouble. I don't know. I've developed a lot and getting in trouble. And I don't know. I've developed a lot of character in me.

But on the other hand, my father was a military man, and he sent me to a strict military school. So I was raised with this inferiority complex that had to face up to Nietzsche. The only way I was going to get out of my inferiority complex was to start Nietzsche-ing it. Go above. Yeah, I had to stand up to Friedrich Nietzsche and grit my teeth and fight these guys on the street and get my ass kicked and whatnot,

but it happened time after time. When you were in Albuquerque, what high school did you go to? I went to Highland High. I went to Highland High. I went to Highland High. I graduated from Highland High. I'm sorry. I didn't.

I was thrown out. Right behind the Highland Theater. Yeah. Right there. Do you remember that bowling alley over by Highland High? I don't know if it was there when I was there. If it was still there. There was a rumble there with over 300 people, and they were in there throwing.

I was involved in it. Really? They were throwing bowling balls. Pach and they were in there throwing. I was involved in it. Really? They were throwing bowling balls. Pachucos went in there throwing bowling balls. There was knife fights, and people were stabbed. So it was the Pachucos, which later became the Cholos? Well, we used to call them Chooks. There was the Stomps, which were the Cowboys, and then there was the Chooks.

What were you? I was kind of a, well, I ran with both of them, really. Right, right, right. You can move through all fields. Pathetically. Pathetically. But you must have been a funny guy. Well.

Usually it's a sense of humor that you get through. I had my antennas out. I was a young kid that learned real quick. When I'd walk down the street, I'd always look two blocks down. Learned real quick. Walk down the street, look two blocks down. Because you might want to cross the street. Yeah.'s oh there's three of them yeah yeah right so what was that i don't want to go in i have so many of these vulgar street scene stories that could fill

a book let's go on about the art i i'm completely willing to do that where did uh like i saw a picture of you uh and i don't remember where maybe it was in the malicious uh that that collection that big book what was it malicious resplendor yes of you at the albuquerque state fair yes and you know i was sort of obsessed with the state fair you know i was obsessed with i i worked there as a concessionaire and i went that fair when that carnival moved i went with it and what were you doing pitch them in win them out take home some dishes oh yeah i played the cigarette game and a number of games i've always been obsessed with like uh like after i saw i had a book called very special people

you know and then i was obsessed with the anomalies human with freaks and i remember going to state fair to see ronnie and Donnie. See, that's after my time. Sure, sure. I saw freaks. There was freaks in the 10 and 1 show when I was there that I saw back in the early 50s. Right. Because I feel like in...

Nico and Ico, the sheep-headed men from Labrador, Johnny Ick. Johnny Ick was still around? Yeah. And you saw those guys. Yeah, I talked to them. I traveled with them. You traveled with Johnnyny ick and other characters yeah yeah yeah and because i have to have to believe that that informed your your eye somehow absolutely the tawdry side of cultures always fascinated me it's always seemed romantic to me it was like seemed like the kind of thief

society that was in hunchunchback of Notre Dame. Right. And it's a very, very dangerous world to function in as the lower classes, the criminal classes. And I was always attracted by the romance of petty criminals. And later I understood what my problem was. It wasn't really that I had these criminal tendencies. It was just that I was in a small town like Albuquerque that hadn't developed a full bohemian community. It wasn't there. It was very small around the University of New Mexico.

I was always in trouble with the police and whatnot. And then I'd become a chess hustler around the University of New Mexico. And I was just a kid. But you were compelled towards that theme. You were looking for the artist in Bohemia. Yeah, I very much involved myself in the beatnik movement in the late 50s. You did? Yeah.

In New Mexico? There wasn't like a true literary beatnik world that we think of, the orthodox, but there was an urban beatnik world that had created all over the United States from seeing sorry movies like, well, not sorry movies, but questionable Hollywood interpretations of the beatnik culture. One of them was the Beat Generation. The other one that I remember standing out really a lot was Bell, Book, and Candle with Kim Novak. So those kind of set the pattern

for the United States of America to have a beatnik idea of how to conduct themselves. I was very, very, I mean, I was 15, 16, very much into that world. I hung out at coffee shops and smoked marijuana. And were you doing art at that point? I was always doing some kind of art. What was going on?

Where did it start? Where did you start defining yourself or knowing that that was where you were going? Well, before I had a developed memory, my parents would sit me down on a big roll of butcher paper with crayons, you know, and I'd just take off. I did a big red skeleton bone for bone, and it was red skeleton comedian, you know. I was just out of diapers. And then there was a pop song called The Devil in My Darling's Eye, and I did a big eye with a devil in it, you know, and I'm just a little bitty baby. And then I think the fifth grade, they selected about six of the gifted kids, six or eight of the gifted students, to do a mural at the end of the hall. All these young, talented children would do their efforts.

And then I'd draw back and look and see the thing here and a thing here and a thing here and i'm the only one that could go up there and do a landscape tying them all together i can only right guy could unify yeah so i really didn't get to do my little thing my thing was unifying and then if something's big i'd put it on a hill close big and run small you know i could have perspective understanding to stage things so i had that innate uh ability so when did you like when when the beatnik thing started happening did you have some sort of aesthetic that you were gunning for or do you want to be part of well i'm i real early on was taken with surrealism. Right. Really young.

And I presumed that the beatnik thing, it was part and parcel of that. But I didn't have a real good grasp at the time of what abstract expressionism was. Where'd you see surrealism first? It was omnipresent. It was ubiquitous. It's in books and whatever. Dali mostly?

Yeah, mostly Dali. Then that, of course, you know, Dali was a Johnny-come-lately, and then he was thrown out. He was kind of parasited off Surrealism, and they got the whole name of Surrealism, you know, and they kicked him out, and that's still run off with the name of Surrealism to this day, you know. Yeah. Well, he lived to make bank, that guy. He did. Yeah.

He did. He was an operator. Yeah. No doubt about it. He should have been a wrestling promoter. He looked like one, in a way. He was enormously talented. Yeah.

A rich, rich imagination. He had a carny sort of disposition. You know, I went to a lecture, and there was this gal that knew him personally. And she said that when you were with him just around the house or something, he talked perfectly normal. But when he got around a bunch of people, he started affecting that exaggerated accent. Right. Yeah.

Why not? Put on a show. Yeah. So, all right, so you're in Albuquerque. Did you ever know a guy named Gus Blaisdell by any chance? No. He owned a bookstore later. I just don't even know when he got there.

Well, I left in 63, and I kind of burned all my bridges. You left running? Well, it was a good thing I did get out. I probably ended up in Santa Fe Prison. A lot of my friends did end up there in Santa Fe Prison, yeah. Do you still have friends in New Mexico? Just relatives. Oh, yeah?

A few hot rod buddies. When I go back to Al relatives. Oh, yeah? A few hot rod buddies. When I go back to Albuquerque, I see a few hot rod buddies. Is that when you first started doing hot rods? No, no. I first started when I was in Alabama in 1955 at 12 years old. I got my dad to buy me a 34 Ford Coupe. Yeah? So I was on to the hot rods way early. I started reading Hot Rod Magazine about 53. So I was on to the Hot Rods way early.

I started reading Hot Rod Magazine about 53. So that was in your consciousness. That was something that drove you, literally. That's right. And because, like, one thing I was, like, when I started going through stuff today, the intensity of, no matter how long it may take you to paint one of your paintings,

I mean, the intensity and the velocity of the thing coming at you, in all the ways that it comes at you there is you know there's no avoiding it and there's there's almost a speed to it well what i do i have to kind of disregard the the concept that this is going to be a a decoration in a house i i see my paintings closer to literature than i do to well yeah the titles are literature to you know uh if you if you have a sophisticated home you have a coffee table with classic books on it to show people how intelligent you are you'd have like maybe war and peace or two years before the Mass or Tales of Two Cities. And it's really interesting literature.

But as long as it's sitting on the coffee table and the pages are closed, it's okay. Because there's stuff in there that would make your hairline recede. Sure. Create diarrhea in children. Yeah. But unfortunately, art has to be tamed and knocked down because people can just look right at it. That's really a sad thing that literature is allowed to totally eclipse graphics. Comic book has kind of challenged that.

Comic book is one of the most important things of the 20th century. Fifty years from now, you look back on the 20th century and you'll see that the cartoon dominated the art world. The cartoon was the most important. From the beginning. It was the most important thing of the 20th century and you'll see that the cartoon dominated the art world the cartoon was the most in the beginning it was the most important thing in the 20th century well was the first time i ever saw people having sex like that like uh you know i agree with you i've got some examples in this show here those eight page bibles i think it was like 1951 i was eight years old and some kids showed me one of them eight-page Bibles that he stole from his dad. And I'm looking at that, and ah, that's how that works.

Exactly. That's how that works. The first time I saw it was a Spain picture. Like it was in an underground comic collection of two bodies in space, and they're having sex. And I was like, that's how it works? And then about a few years after that, someone me a point of graphic photograph at a baseball game and the fellow was a xgi that just was stationed in japan and he came back and he had these pictures of these japanese people in the act of sexual intercourse and that didn't look interesting to me at all that doesn't look

interesting in me at all seeing this guy's buttocks on top of another woman on top of a woman it just that wasn't as good as the eight page bible right yeah well when you uh when you set out to you left albuquerque to come here and and study art practically yes and where was the first place you studied i came out here to go to los angeles city college because it was only $6.50 a unit. So I spent two years at Los Angeles City College, and I was nominated for the dean's list, and I did. What were you working on specifically, just learning technique? Yeah, sculpture and painting. And the college newspaper there, the Collegiate, approached the art department for a cartoonist, an editorial cartoonist.

And nobody could draw. Approached the entire student body. Nobody could draw. So I'll do it. Man, what a wonderful opportunity at 20 years old to get in print. Yeah. The first time to get something published. What were you drawing?

Just editorial cartoons, whatever the current subject was. I won an award. It was a national contest and I came in second nationally of all the junior colleges. After I quit the school, I still had to come over to me to get editorial cartoons done. But I wasn't even a student anymore. You're still making money doing that? It wasn't very much money. It was enough money for me to get married on.

But I let it build up for a long, long time before I bothered with it. So after that, where did you go next to continue this? I went out and got a job, and then I took extension courses. I married my wife, Suzanne, and I met at CED. Still married? Yeah it still married yeah still married great and it was hard getting a real good job i got a job as a art director for black belt karate magazine and then at night i would take extension courses at chenards yeah and that was a big deal that was a very big deal history-wise now because all your major artists

in los angeles the older ones all all went to Chouinard. Did you jive with that school? No. Why? Not at all. Well, when I came out to California, and I was a pretty good draftsman, and I was so enthusiastic, so enthusiastic, ready to get into the arts. Yeah. to get into the arts. And I had, you know, all my influences were comic books and surrealism and B-movie posters

and hot rod magazines and all this second class influences. And so I come out here and lo and behold, it's right in the middle of the abstract expressionist period. Drawing was considered absolutely out of the question really not even as a groundwork not even you got to learn this first no one thought that way they had drawing and painting classes but it was contour drawing of quick studies of a nude model you know you couldn't you had to knock

that thing out pretty quick right you couldn't sit and nurse on this thing and get the shade tones right and whatnot. You couldn't work on muscle tone. You just quick impressions of a nude model. So that's the closest thing they had to academic drawing. Now, their philosophy was that representational art was a cheat. representational art was a cheat. And it was a phony thing because you're trying to make something look three-dimensional and it's actually two-dimensional.

And the arts after the Second World War, especially in the 50s and early 60s, was the art of truth and honesty. And art should reflect the honesty of the artist doing it and the impressions of the artist doing it. And if you paint it, it should look like paint. If you chisel wood, it should show the marks of the chisel. If you welded a sculpture, it should show the burnt slag on it

because that's the nature of it, see? Of course, completely disregarded that 550 years ago oil paint was invented to be tight you know that's the nature of oil paint if you can do it yeah wood can be polished and show the grain that's also the nature of it yeah metal sculptures can be ground down and polished sure andated. But they disregarded that. Did you think it was bullshit? No. No, because I was a young student,

and I realized I had to discipline myself to things that I wasn't used to, and I'd had to take this in. But I still had this tendency to tighten up. And then I had contemporary friends that were in Otis and Chouinard's and UCLA that referred to me as the illustrator. That I was going in the wrong direction. That I really would not be a painter because my stuff's tight and it spoke of three dimensions. So that got hung on you back then? Well, it was a slander. Right.

It was a slander. Now, what they don't understand, I would have to explain to them if I could get them by the scrub of the neck and drag them through five decades to face me now, not only was there length and depth and width, what would you call it,

there was the element of time. So that's the fourth dimension, see? Something moving in the picture, that's time. And if there's something that's abstractly created in it, that's a violation of physics, which is the fifth dimension, see? So not only am I cheating in one direction here, I'm cheating in three more directions with the ability to have the mental capability

to search things out. Yeah, any one of your canvases, it definitely, time travel, there's story, there's defying the physics, abstraction. There is a situation that exists in art schools. And I really support art schools. and I really support art schools, and I do support abstract expressionism, and there is no bad art,

but if something does exist, it should be pointed out that if you had 100 artists, and three of them were technical masters, and 97 of them could only pick their nose, the art of the time would be picking your nose. The three masters would be totally disregarded because they were creating a problem for the 97.

There was a graphic democracy, an art democracy, and I was facing that violation of that democracy when I was young because if I did real slick stuff as a kid in art school, I was showing off and I was trying to set the standards too high for the other young people that had other inclinations. So you were an outsider on both counts. You were creatively an outsider, but also technically threatening. I always end up outside the situation. I'm always in violation of the social situation that I function in.

I don't know what that is. Well, it's like it's the great spirit of fuck you. That might be, yeah, that immature contrariness that I have. But I don't know if it's immature, but I think that democracy you're talking about only applies to maybe that education, because once you get into the art business there's certainly no democracy at all no no but like okay so I'm seeing this

these two experiences when you first get out here and you go through technical and you get your shit together so you're a wizard technically and then you go to this you know sort of poetic of the time school I imagine this was the first building block of this sort of poetic of the time school i imagine this was the first building block of this sort of like well i can do anything you can do and i can do it better

and i can integrate it you know go fuck yourself well let me let me feign humility here it's not it's not that i am such a great artist and so slick it's just that everyone else is so fucking bad. But the intelligence of what I think is your sense of humor, which I appreciate deeply, is that you can turn anything on its head and you can now do what you're satirizing. Okay. I have to contradict you here. What I do is not primarily humor. It goes one step beyond humor. It's abstract thinking.

It has no punchline. It's not made to make you giggle. It's made to… Pull your mind. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Yeah.

It's designed to realize that a situation here that's come from a mind that completely functions a lot more investigatively and off any logical, practical train tracks. Right. But you have all these, the intelligence and the skills in place to do it on several different levels

within one canvas. So you're blowing minds. I appreciate you saying that. You're very generous with me. So after you get out of that, the abstract expression mind fuck that you were subject to. Then came pop art and conceptualism. Right. You say, well, pop art, that's realism.

Well, yeah, it's realism, but it's realism but it's it's uh it's um art has been appropriated that's right you cannot step out of pop art and do something that's a free thinking it has to be something appropriated it's a reflection of the things around you but who def but the people that define whether that's popular or not it's such a small group of people and it's you know it's rooted in like two or three intellectuals that you are yeah the whole thing is made of a failed artist you know yeah yeah yeah but so where did you go after that way how did you get from uh from there to uh to to big daddy roth and and well i was a container after being an art director for black belt magazine, and I lost that job, and then I had to go get another job,

something art-related, and I ended up desperately taking a job as a container designer for Weyerhaeuser Corporation. And that was a junior executive job where I wore a suit and tie. What does that mean, a Weyerhaeuser container? Weyerhaeuser is one of the biggest container companies in the world.

They're forestry, have giant forestry and lumber and cardboard boxes. So this was like an engineering job almost? Well, I had to make commercial boxes for products. I designed boxes. And this was during my psychedelic period, so it didn't take them long to realize that I wasn't an executive stock. So you were taking acid in designing boxes?

So they fired me. So then I fumbled around and by sheer divine providence got a job with Ed Roth. I'd met him years earlier at a car show. And then I went to the unemployment agency and they said, we don't have anything for you. We have this one thing, but nobody will take the job. The conditions are not right. They're a little filthy down there. I said, what is it?

They said, well, they're looking for an art director down at Big Daddy Ross. I said, give me the phone. Yeah, and you knew him. You knew his work, and you knew his magazines. Oh, yeah, I was a big fan of him. I knew him. I'd made him at car shows. And I was a hot rodder, you know, and I went down there and talked to him.

And he looked at my portfolio and he says, well, if I knew you were alive, I'd have hunted you up. Oh, really? So it was right away. Yeah, I just got this incredible job with an enormous amount of money. And then I could come and go and dress the way I wanted. I just had deadlines to fill. I was in charge of his advertising. Well, what was it like over there?

I mean, when you were in the hot rod, so you could take apart a car and put it back together and you know chop a car up you did that stuff yeah so what they were doing over there was like above and beyond right yeah yeah but i could stand here and talk to them they weren't doing anything i didn't totally comprehend right right and you guys hit it off oh yeah yeah and your job over there when he understood that at 12 years old i had a 34 ford 5.1, a coupe, you know, I mean. You were in. Yeah. Where did he come from?

His father, when he was born, he was living in Beverly Hills. And his father was Mary Picksford's chauffeur. Really? Really. And his father was a German that belonged to the German Bund. Uh-huh. And a real right- to the German Bund. Uh-huh. You know, real right-wing, strict German. Uh-huh.

And he hated driving Mary Pickford around because on a couple of occasions, she made him go pick up fertilizer in the limousine, you know. Huh. So Ed was an American kid from German parents. I think he started out doing winded design for Sears Roebuck and he was a remarkable sign painter

and interested in hot rods. Huh. I wonder if, for some reason, I wonder if the Erich von Stroheim character in Sunset Boulevard was based on his dad.

Well, there's a comparison there. Yeah? I think about that, yeah. You do? Yeah, I think about that. It just struck me like immediately. Yeah. Huh. Well, that's an impression I. I think about that, yeah. You do? Yeah, I think about that. It just struck me immediately. Yeah. Huh.

Well, that's an impression I wanted to give you, yeah. That's the guy. You could see him in a chauffeur's uniform with jodhpurs and black boots and a cap. And a chip on his shoulder. Yeah, standing as the doorman to the limousine. Right, right. And they're pissed off because they had to go get fertilizer and bring it back into Rolls-Royce or Duesenberg or something. Yeah, that huge car yeah so when you were over there what was your what was your

prime what were your jobs i mean what was the title job my my first responsibility was get out about six ads a month but then after besides that i designed t-shirts and decals and i worked helping work on the cars a little bit and I was just uh and since I was the only one there with a formal art education I was kind of a front man there when people come in and I was talking about art and careers and stuff he'd always get me to oh yeah go go do some PR yeah I had uh human research I had the vocabulary no one's gonna snow me you know so and it was a scene over there right it was a remarkable scene there, right? It was a remarkable scene. A remarkable scene.

A gypsy carnival scene. There's people coming in and out all day. There'd be movie stars and rock stars and bikers and police and the FBI and beautiful chicks and it's just it's just like he would go out of town on a touring with a every year to make a new car show car and then he would go on the circuit like a carnival and then i will stay there and work with the crew did t-shirts and stuff and when he'd come back he'd have all these followers come back you know so he had picked up over the united states you'd have all these hanger owners charismatic guy and then they'd come in with some good looking gal you know and then three weeks everybody had worked there had gonorrhea you know it was it was beyond colorful you know um but it was like the hollywood elite like dug it and they would come down rock world

dug it yeah i know in the car world Yeah, the rock world dug it. Yeah. And the car world is in the middle of the car and motorcycle world. Now, what did you learn from him in terms of how it influenced how you moved through? Because obviously, cartooning was, and he had a very specific style. Well, I gained confidence. I couldn't be snowed anymore by the art world. I had confidence. I was the first artist Ed allowed me to sign my name to the works.

So I started getting a following, you know. I learned to do t-shirts. I really learned how to do black and white with not a pen but with a brush like a real cartoonist, you know, a real comic book artist. And then I met Stanley Mouse, who's Ed's competitor, a real comic book artist. And then I'd met Stanley Mouse, who's Ed's competitor, a car shirt designer at car shows. But Stanley Mouse would give up the car show circuit, and he went up to San Francisco, and he became one of the founders of the psychedelic poster movement,

one of the, what's called the Big Five. Who are they? That's Griffin and Mouse? Rick Griffin, Mouse, Kelly, Wes Wilson, and Victor Moscoso. Those were the big five that got into Life Magazine in 66. That was a big article. That was a big article. Before we get up to San Francisco, what happened to Big Daddy Roth? What ultimately happened to that empire? That's a whole show in itself.

Oh, yeah? That's a couple hours. Yeah, he was the one that championed outlaw motorcycles. He was the first professional person. Choppers. Well, they used to be called Fat Bobs before Choppers, and then they got to be called Choppers. And because of the motorcycle gangs, they were really despised by society, and the hot rod world didn't want anything to do with them.

And he got involved with these guys like the angels well of i don't want to go into names here i don't want any retribution here but he got involved a lot of really brutal bikers and uh he promoted uh come up with the first outlaw biker magazine you know and he really promoted it and he had a lot of trouble with them and uh the irs and the fbi moved in on him because they thought he was involved with these biker gangs and they were under the impression that he had like some ruling control and they just enacted what's called the rico act right the gangster of uh racketeering so they thought he was a kingpin yeah so they moved in moved him. And the IRS just went right up his ass. And then the FBI was on him all the time.

And the IRS found out that he was maybe a fumbling in his books, but he was more honest than anybody. He was really a patriot, a real love of America, you know. So he wouldn't cheat. In fact, any dealings I ever had with him or any dealings I'd ever seen with anyone, everyone always got the best of him, you know. Right, because he was a fair guy. He was a very sweet and honest guy.

But anyway, where was I going to go with this? So they crushed him. Yeah, they eventually crushed him. And I had that job as art director for five years and his wife left him and it broke him and then he he finally got a job at knott's berry farm as a sign painter he's really down on his luck and a low ebb and then fortunately nostalgia came and picked him right back up again oh yeah the rap think uh the resurgence of rap think yeah and what about von dutch we didn't talk about him at all he seemed to be well von dutch was very

intelligent very intelligent uh enormously talented very imaginative but he was extremely right wing right wing to a fault. That's a nice way to say a lot of things. Yeah. He was one of my childhood heroes. Really? Yeah. Well, I remember seeing him in magazines, 53, 54.

He sort of started pinstriping as a hot rod affectation, and he brought back flames from the 30s. He was a very imaginative guy. I could really relate to him until then I got to know him. And then people warned me about him. They said, well, you know, watch out for him because he goes crazy. And I got to be good friends with him. And, you know, we'd stay up until the sun comes up drinking beer. And we got along real well. And then one day he turned on me and threatened to kill me, you know.

And so they were right. Watch out for him. He was mentally ill. Right. He was mentally ill. Well, you know, that happens. If you live in the world of artists, you're going to meet a few mentally ill people. Well, he would go into a biker bar.

He reacted to people violently. He'd go into a biker bar full of bikers. He'd get up on the bar, stand up on the bar and call them down for their costumes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he had a death wish. Yeah, you know, because he preceded

these guys in the motorcycle world and he saw them all as pretenders, you know, and they'd pull him off the bar and beat the hell

out of him. That's how he lived. You know, I was talking to one of the big biker chiefs and I said, have you seen Dutch recently? And he says, yeah, I saw him about two weeks ago.

Someone took a primary chain to him and beat his ass. And I'm pitching. Pitching, man. But what did you learn from him? Did you learn technique from him? Not really. You just appreciated what he did. He had an admiration for me.

He really didn't know how to paint. He never got past using one shot. You can't what he did. He had an admiration for me. He really didn't know how to paint. He never got past using one shot. You can't blend one shot. So he thought I was pretty slick. What's one shot? One shot is an enamel paint for pen striping. And the pigments are so dense in them, they don't blend. You can't blend them.

But he tried and made messes. But he had an appreciation for my painting skills. Oh, yeah? but he he had a appreciation for my painting skill yeah he said that that dolly that what would he say that I paint like dolly tries to paint you know kind of him but he had some he had some awful ugly things to say about me he said I was the boring this person he ever met in his life he was a chronic alcoholic and I mean chronic chronic the first thing in the morning started drinking beer till he went to bed for years and years and it finally finally got him in the liver it was killing him yeah then he was getting bitter more but he wasn't like he wasn't bitter

in the first place but he got like chronically bitter about? About life in general and the races. He's just a very negative person. But on the other hand, he had this bohemian presentation. He was good friends with Lord Buckley at one time. It's kind of a contradiction in life. But

when he saw his end was near, he wrote this last testimony on a piece of paper. And it run down the races and just how he's glad to get out of this world and all this. So it was a racist manifesto. Yeah, it was a racist manifesto. And he said that we're on the wrong side in the second world war and whatnot then he ended the letter by saying heil hitler you know and then uh the guy that was taking care of him jim brooker i guess he got that letter to the hell's angels and then then it got xeroxed and that

letter got all over everywhere and then this company comes along and they start selling von dutch apparel and I'm thinking well my goodness when you know I saw blacks wearing them on television and all that stuff I thought what man when is this that letter gonna surface you know this is did it? This letter gonna surface. Never did. Ten years it took for that letter to surface and it was in the LA Times verbatim and it just killed this big company that just killed this clothing company did it so the they couldn't find a spokesman to defend him and to keep coming to me you know the la times and

television stations and new york times all these people come back to me you know here's a guy's gonna kill me so i had to explain to him well well, he was mentally ill, and he was my childhood hero. But he affected an entire generation, and he was a wonderful influence for a lot of people. But he was quite the bigot and mentally ill. So you put him in context. Yeah, I tried. I don't know if I did. I tried.

I found myself being associated with him, which I didn't really want to do, you know. But no one else would come to his defense. People would come to his defense that weren't articulate. Right. It sounds like you handled it diplomatically and correctly. Well, that's a past chapter now. So when you left town, so this was after Big Daddy Roth, you go to San Francisco. Well, no, I never lived in San Francisco.

I had property up in Marin County. You still got it? No, no. I sold it a long time ago. I had property up there, and I was up there a lot. I spent a lot of time up in San Francisco. Hanging out? Yeah, yeah.

So where did you meet, like, Esquire Wilson and Crum and those cats? I love Esquire Wilson. I met these guys through Gilbert Shelton. Gilbert Shelton was doing car art back in the 60s through a fellow, a publisher named Pete Millar that did a magazine called Drag Cartoons. And Pete Millar liked Gilbert Shelton's Wonder Warthog. And they did a couple of Wonder Warthog books about hot rods.

And so I was dealing with the print mint to get some of my paintings published, and I'd seen this Zap comic, and it just really blew me away, and I asked for some pages, and then they'd hand this over to Gilbert. And Gilbert talked to Crum, and I got a letter from Gilbert inviting me in to get pages in Zap. So that's how it worked. It was Pages? You were allotted Pages?

Yeah. Well, they were very democratic about it. I become one of the seven owners of Zapp. Still? Yeah. Yeah? The thing is, I was probably the eighth or tenth underground artist underground cartoonist comic book artist in the united states then say yeah and it was later that thousands and thousands

of people jumped on isn't it interesting how intimate the landscape was media wise where well we were drawn together because we were all just you know we're fuck offs it used to read ec comics and you know like carnival art and yeah yeah and we were we were fuck-offs. We used to read easy comics and, you know, like carnival art. Yeah. Yeah. We were a rare breed, very rare bunch of people. And we just immediately gravitated toward each other because we were just not socially worth much. And you were defining a medium whether you knew it or not. Yeah.

Yeah. And what was S. Clay Wilson like at that time? Very much like his cartoons. Very, very much like his cartoons. A pirate? Yeah. Well, yeah. He rode bikes. Were you riding like at that time? Very much like his cartoons. Very, very much like his cartoons. A pirate? Yeah, well, yeah. He rode bikes. Were you riding bikes at that time? I went through a period of motorcycle riding in the late 50s and had some bad accidents.

And I saw the liability in that. I had a number of friends killed and maimed on motorcycles. I love motorcycles. I just have the good judgment to stay off of them. And you and Clay, who were you close with in that crew? All of them. Oh, yeah? You all just hung out?

Very close with all of them. Was there a community in the early Zap Comics where you and Crum and Spain and Clay and the other guys, I guess Griffin, who were the seven? Victor Moscoso and Gilbert Shelton. Did you guys sit in a room yeah and talk about what you wanted to do yes what was the agenda well no there was no agenda for the whole comic yeah sit in a

room and do jams okay pass a piece of paper around get drunk and have ladies around party up and meals there and have a lot of fun you know did you jam where you just add to the piece of art going around? Yeah. And you sort of collectively create this thing. You got any of those? No, no. Those ended up in the hands of very wealthy collectors. Oh, so they're around, though.

Yeah, Moscoso took care of those, and I think they sold them out to very wealthy collectors. Oh, when did we get to see those? Are they in books? Well, they're in all the Zaps. Each Zap had a jam in it. So you stayed with Zap the whole time? How many issues were there?

Twelve? Well, the last one that's in this book here, Zap 16, and then Crumb did an extra one, which makes it 17 issues. You still in touch with him? I talked about it a year ago. And Clay's not doing great. No, he's not doing good. Alcoholism caught up with him and you

know rick griffin died in a motorcycle accident 81 and then spain died two years ago from cancer and so it was uh people are going and now you got the turds now you know we're all people so after okay so after the zap you know residency you've been painting all the way through. All the way through. Hopelessly. In 1970, when Ed went out of business, a multimillionaire car collector came in and bought all of Ed's cars and bought all the original Roth artwork. And then got interested in the artist that did the artwork and saw my paintings. And then he bought all my paintings my paintings an enormous sum at that time enormous sum that kept me going for years so i could i couldn't get a show with that kind

of art and how many paintings six or eight and i couldn't i couldn't get a show and i couldn't get in a gallery and sure couldn't get in an art magazine and I just struggled along and struggled along selling paintings and then punk rock movement come along and I got started doing I started licensing my paintings to punk rock groups so then I built a whole new underground audience they They had the Zap Comic audience and the Roth audience, and then I started getting a little bit of the punk rock audience. Who were the guys who were doing that with you? You have to remember, the art world didn't have big audiences like this. They just had connoisseurs that they hoped to gather.

So this was the late 70s? I was building up this giant fandom. Yeah, late 70s? Yeah, and 80s. A giant fandom. Yeah. Late 70s? Yeah.

Or in 80s. And so once I got in with the punk rock artists, you know, I had a peer group. Who were they? Gary Panter? Gary Panter and Savage Pencil. There was a whole slew of them. And they all looked up to you, I imagine. Yes. Because of the Zap thing.

Right. Sure. Because of the Zap thing. Uh-huh. They weren't necessarily tight artists, but I sloppied it up to get in with them. So through that world, then I could get shows

at these real marginal punk rock galleries. And then I just haven't sold out shows, so that got me to bigger galleries, to bigger galleries. And finally I ended up in the 90s with Tony Schiaffrosi. That was like the second or third biggest gallery in the world at that time. Yeah, it was a great show. I sort of coveted the, what do you call it, the sock monkey. The invitation.

The invitation. Yeah, yeah. And I loved that thing and I think that's when I got the first book what we didn't mention was that the album cover for Guns N' Roses

The Appetite of Destruction which I imagine they took the title of the album from your painting right and that became like that

I think if people listening to this who don't know your work I'm sure they've already gone to their computers to check it out but that was a big piece because of how many people got that record well that was a yeah that was uh there were four

paintings done that were called super cartoons and that was one of the four paintings and uh axel rose ran across it somewhere and wanted to use it for an album cover and that was uh that was good exposure though right for that great exposure it was a it was a really uh i i had to defend it and i explained to them to pick something else when they wanted to cover and i said this is going to this is going to be very problematic because i'm culturally i understand i i understand because i've been in underground comics i know what problems are going to occur and you knew that was going to happen yeah i knew, I told them exactly what the order was that things were going to happen.

I said, well, your first problem is you're not going to be able to get this through the Canadian border. The second problem is going to be church groups. And the third problem is going to be family. For that cover? Yeah, for that cover. I told them the order of things were going to fall.

And it all happened? And I said, then the feminists are going to get on you and tear your pieces. Just like I said. And I said, then the feminists are going to get on you and tear your pieces. Just like I said. And you've dealt with that your whole career. Yeah. And your response has basically been, it's my imagination, fuck you. Well, when we were doing underground comics, there was a point about 60, about 70, about 1970,

that it looked like during the Vietnam War, if the country went more right-wing, they were going to start rounding up dissidents, people that were contrary to the actions of the government. Our names were listed with the FBI. We understood that if they start rounding up dissidents, they're going to hit Zap Comics. Sure.

So fortunately, the country got liberal there all of a sudden about the Vietnam War, and we just come out of this thing smelling like a rose. But on the other hand, all over the United States, about 400 news dealers did go to jail over selling Zap Comics. So we bear that burden and guilt and responsibility for these poor people who had to go to jail selling our comic books. We don't just take that for granted. So I was seasoned, already seasoned to know the responsibilities and the discomforts and situations that these comics created. So when I got time to, these guys used this painting on Guns

and Roses, I knew exactly what was going to happen the painting was never intended for general public it was intended for a special and audience a small audience that had investigative skills that would enjoy something like that well it's interesting to me that even you know after so many years like i mean the the fight you know during zap where you guys knew you were provoking and it was necessary at the time to define that territory aesthetically, mentally, and culturally.

We had an old axe to grind all of us because when they outlawed the really good comic books in the early 50s because of Dr. Wortham's Seduction of the Innocent book that they got rid of all the real good comic books in a Senate hearing. And all of a sudden...

Purian interest, was that the argument? Well, they said it was causing juvenile delinquency. They said there was too much violence in the comics and sexual luridness, and this was causing a whole generation of young people... And which comics were these, the EC or the Fred Gaines? EC, it was primarily the EC comics. That just about killed them except for Mad. We had that revenge to issue out to the American world.

It's like, you think those comic books are bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. You ain't seen nothing. And you continued that, is that it? Well, yeah, yeah. And you continued that, I said. Well, yeah, yeah. I'm a liberal person, a free thinker, you know.

Yeah. I'm not necessarily a leftist, but I am extremely liberal, enormously liberal. And do you still get flack? Nah, not anymore, no. We have changed the world. We were part and parcel responsible for changing the world. We changed movies, television. That zap had an enormous effect on the world that people don't realize. They just don't understand.

Well, it sort of started that ball rolling. I mean, I was thinking about coming over there today. I did a little reading about some of your history and I was like, well, look at this now. It's almost like, you know, there was a completely, we live in a completely pornified state. That's right.

That's right. And we're surviving. Yeah. And it's good mental health. You don't get too redeemed. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, if you limit

your masturbation to a reasonable amount of time per week. Yeah. Yeah. No. Do you think there is any repercussions?

Any negative downside to it any negative downside there's certainly a small percentage i'm sure yeah you know some people that uh are just hostile anyway right right do you feel vindicated uh yeah yeah when i was doing the punk rock art. I got a big following with tattoo artists. Skateboard artists, surf artists, surf world. So I was getting a lot of write-ups in rock and roll magazines

and stuff. Getting an enormous amount of press, you know. Stuff you'd never get in the art world. The art world's a very limited world. Yeah.

A boring universe. So I was talking to this gal at uh one of these tattoo magazines i says you know you're we ought to do a whole magazine at just this kind of art you know so she called you know what i explained to her was that there were some magazines out in france in the 20s and 30s for the surrealists that were really interesting you know maybe it's time to do something like that now not not like the boring art magazines that are on the stands now you know but some really interesting stuff like uh there used to be a magazine called Minotaur and the Surrealist Revolution and stuff back in the 20s and 30s I told her about that and she called me back two

weeks later she says well i've got that magazine i said what do you mean she says well i talked to my publisher and we did that magazine so they did it and um i i was the conduit that fed in the artists for the magazine because i knew all underground artists name of the magazine was art alternatives and it did really really well i bought that magazine i think i had the first one did really really well yeah and then they fired the girl say i guess the publisher was under the impression that we can just get any crazy shit in here and it'll sell you know so anyway it didn't do well at all after that and so i was talking to greg escalani and my wife, Suzanne, and whatnot about,

well, maybe we should find an underwriter and buy that title, put it back on the stands. Yeah. So I went to Timothy Lurie to see if he could get me an audience with Larry Flint, and that didn't work out. And I tried a couple other connections. I couldn't do any good. Then Greg Escalante reminded me that I'd done two covers for Thrasher, and maybe I ought to try to get a hold of Fausto Attila up in San Francisco.

And so I called him and told him, we would like to start a magazine, and we want to buy this title, Art Alternatives. It went down the drain. So we tried to buy that title and they would not sell it. So I said, well, I'll come up with a title. And I wrote a list of 120 titles. So they took about 10 of those titles and took them to a lawyer to see if they were clean.

And they picked Juxtapose. So Juxtapose came out in the winter of 1994 with 23,000 issues and it did remarkably well. It was in the black immediately. It just did great. And I was feeding the artist in there and supplying them with artists and whatnot. So then it was quarterly. So then the next issue came out, and it was great. It sold. This thing was just selling like crazy. And not only was it selling really good, but it had one of the largest sell-throughs of a magazine. A sell-through is if you print 100 magazines, 35 of them

will end up in the hands of people and 65 will go in recyclables. That's the way magazines are. Well, juxtaposed, the distributors immediately realized this thing had like 65, 70% of sell-throughs, just unheard of. So then the print rate, the print runs went way up. And after a couple of years, it went from quarterly to bimonthly and then later monthly. And the first thing we noticed, well, the thing outsold Artforum. Sweet. And then a little while goes by, a year or two goes by and it outsells uh art in america time goes by and it art sells art news and we discover well this is the top

selling art magazine in the world we've got here you know and so originally no art school would allow it in the class you know now it's in every art school. So I guess if I have a legacy, maybe that's it. Now, that isn't, you know, that helped a lot of artists. And there's a handful of artists that came out of Juxtapose that are now millionaires. Now, I guess I would take that as a legacy. But I think my legacy that I would want was what I do in paintings, you know. that I would want was what I do in paintings. It's the fact that they said in the 80s that painting was dead.

Well, painting hadn't even started. Painting hadn't even started because it's such a narrow-minded period of time. The conceptualists just really tried to get rid of painting completely and so the the area of imagination the playing field for art is so gigantic that no one's really really explored it you know and that would be the legacy I'd want to leave is the exploration of what imagination can lead to and how it would compound itself and become exponential in other words what my generation does i like to see another younger generation come and step on that and make that go one step further into wild abstraction you know to into the just compound the poetry make it lyrically remarkable well i'll tell you you know you can stand in front of almost any one

of your canvases for at least you can really spend at least two hours trying to work that shit out trying to make it not even it's not about making sense but it's about taking a journey you know what i'm saying yeah well i appreciate you saying that that's keep it's hard for me to keep a straight face with such a wonderful remark but now i'm right here i'm showing at uh barnesdale park at the los angeles municipal museum and i came here originally in 1964 to see a salvador dolly show yeah and i told all my contemporaries my fellow students fellow artists there's a dolly show up there at barnesdale park and none of them

would go they were not interested it had nothing to do with abstract expressionism it was just that old phony realism you know so the of all the places i've shown to come back here and have an art show here you know it's just it's such an honor and such a fulfillment you know yeah so uh if i fall over dead tomorrow i'll be looking good thank you robert williams that's a beautiful way to end so that's it that's the show i hope you enjoyed that i did the best i could i think we got comfortable i think things started to get comfortable with me and Robert eventually there. And I'm just fascinated with his work. Go check out his work by all means.

Respect. So what else? Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. The new tour dates will be up there. There's some pre-sales I told you about earlier. You should be able to get in on that. Thank you. Boomer Lives! So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

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