WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 738 - Laura Albert & Jeff Feuerzeig

Episode Date: September 1, 2016

Whether you know the story of JT LeRoy or not, you certainly haven't heard an episode of WTF like this. First, Marc talks with filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig about documenting the rise and fall of literary phenom JT LeRoy, a celebrated young man who was later revealed to be the creation of Laura Albert. Then Laura joins Marc in the garage to explain what gave birth to her infamous alter ego and to provide some insight into her life. 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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Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuck crastinators that was some that was when someone sent me and it just dropped into my head how's it it going? This is WTF. I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. A lot of info on this show. I wouldn't fast forward if you, you know, there's a lot of things going on with me.

There's some changes that some people need to know. I'm not trying to hold you here, but you should probably, you should probably hang out. Today on the show, it's a very compelling couple of guests. We have Jeff Fierzig and Laura Albert. Now, you probably don't know those two. Maybe you do. Maybe you do. Jeff made a doc a while back, I believe, called The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

That was a great documentary about a very interesting troubled man who made some fairly amazing music and uh and he's done another doc on the jt leroy phenomenon i don't know if you know about that but i'll explain it to you more in a minute jt leroy had a wrote three books two of them were huge bestsellers, and it was an astounding literary phenomenon. And the only problem was that J.T. LeRoy did not exist. Now, a pseudonym is not unusual in writing books, but this pseudonym sort of manifested into a complete, I don't even know what you would call it. I don't even know what you would call it. A woman, Laura Albert, who wrote these books as J.T. LeRoy, then manifested J.T. LeRoy by casting her with her sister-in-law,

and then she became someone else, and they moved through the literary world, through the world of celebrity, through the world of fashion internationally as this complete, I don't even want to call it a charade. Was it a performance art piece? Was it a hoax? Or was it just an artist's sort of movement through what ultimately was her work and her destiny to become a more complete person and complete artist? It's insane, but it's beautiful. And they're both here.

I talked to Jeff first, and then he leaves. And then I talked to Laura, who is JT Leroy, or who JT Leroy lives within. It was pretty amazing. Very emotional conversation with Laura today. It's powerful. Brace yourself. So now, big news. There's a lot of news I got to deal with.

First, sad news. Gene Wilder is dead at 83, I believe. And really one of the most, just what a beautiful man. What an amazing performer. What a great actor. And seriously, one of the funniest people to ever bless the planet on film or in person or however you encounter gene wilder what what a great great talent and and just uh it's it's sad he did live a long life and he was ill at the end um but uh but man man the producers young frankenstein the

richard pryor films uh uh silver streak and uh blazing saddles uh he had this bit part in bonnie and clyde that was beautiful you know i he just it's just great what a fucking funny guy what a beautiful fucking being what an amazing talent man it really was sad and i some of you may remember that I told this very bizarre but very true story that relates to Gene Wilder. I talked to Mel Brooks about Gene Wilder a bit, and that was pretty amazing. But this happened to me when I was younger and I was on drugs and I was hanging out with Sam Kennison late night at the comedy store or in the house behind the comedy store. We were going at it, talking the talk, laying the shit down, coked out of our minds. And I was in Sam's face and I said,

how'd you do it, man? How'd you figure it out? How'd you figure out your hook? How'd you figure out your, you know, your style? And I'm, you know, I'm annoying when I'm like that. your style. And I'm, you know, I'm annoying when I'm like that. And Sam looked at me and he goes, Gene Wilder, Gene Wilder.

That's all he gave me. It actually took me years to really put it together. That if you listen to Sam's build, Oh, Oh, Oh. And the way he moves through a routine where it said, Yeah. That's Gene Wilder.

And then Sam just adds, oh, oh, oh. Like it was the build, the pace, the amazing Wilder drive shaft just punching through. He does it in every movie at least once. He just elevates, amplifies, keeps building and building to hysteria. Oh, my God. Rest in peace, Gene Wilder. You were one of the best. So my news, I have to change some tour dates because I was cast in a Netflix series called Glow.

Gorgeous ladies of wrestling. I am the male lead opposite the lovely and amazing Alison Brie. This is being executive produced by Gingy Cohen. And I tell you, man, it sort of came out of nowhere. And it's going to be really a blast. So I'm thrilled. I'll be honest with you. It was really the thing I wanted to do next with my life.

The thing I wanted to really try to do was act. I wanted to try to act in a fun show where I didn't have to write it. I didn't have to produce it. I didn't have to play myself. And, and this, this happened, this amazing opportunity to be in this Netflix series, Glow, with Alison Brie. So how did it happen? Do you want to know? I'll tell you. My agent, Karina Nahai, just sent me these slides. She said, this is out there. I don't know if you'll be interested. They weren't looking for me. I was not called in in i'm not a big shot but i read the uh the script and i read the

uh the scenes and i'm like i can do this guy this guy is somebody i can relate to and i can i can do this guy so the deal was they're not really reading people in la i don't know what at what point in the casting um process they were at but she said i could put myself on tape that's old style talking i could record myself on my phone doing the scene and so i'm like okay so i went out this takes place in the 80s it's based on the actual gorgeous ladies of wrestling and uh and i i put on a lacoste shirt and i went down to um society of spectacle and had the the the gals down there uh loaned me some frames that were sort of aviator style they looked 80s to me mid-80s and i i just i decided he needed those

kind of frames and i went and and i had the woman who's been uh my trainer who's been you know i've been working out with uh amanda carnero and uh and she's an actress so i said will you read this with me and then my my uh my part-time assistant frank capello you know hold my phone we went over to my office and we shot like three takes of this scene and I sent it off to the agent, to Karina, and that's how I got it. I mean, they knew who I was, but they're not going to just hire me because they know who I am.

I got it from a taped audition. Don't hear that too often. So, exciting, right? Right? Now, moving into our guests today. It's fairly complicated, but it is by nature complicated. The documentary, which is called Author, the J.T. Leroy story, opens in theaters on Friday, September 9th.

And the basics are, I don't know how old you guys are or where you were when this happened, but this all went down in the early 2000s. The books came out, Sarah, and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. And the publishing industry and the literary community went wild for J.T. LeRoy, who was this teenage hustler, drug-addicted hustler, who had no parents, whose mother was a truck stop hooker.

And just, these books are beautiful. They definitely stand the test of time. But the question, the real question becomes, do they stand the test of the insanity that went on around it? Now, these books were real and they are real and they're beautiful books. They're real fucking masterpieces of literature,

these two books. And the bottom line was, is that JT Leroy was a real voice, a real person. But that person lived within Laura Albert. It's a very complicated story, but she created this, I wouldn't call it an alter ego, but it was a pseudonym. It was a person that spoke through her, J.T. LeRoy. But now when the books become popular, the world, the publishing world and the world of books and people who wanted to see J.T.

LeRoy and hear him read, you know, they demanded it in a way. And instead of just saying, you know, it's a pseudonym, it's not really a person because she'd already established this person with so many people on the phone. She needed, Laura needed to sort of make this right. So Laura Albert sort of enlists her sister-in-law to play JT Leroy. And then Laura becomes this other character who is JT Leroy's manager slash handler. And then Laura's husband becomes another character. And it just moves like that for years. They tour the world with this woman playing this teenage boy, J.T. LeRoy.

The books deal with sexuality, deal with a lot of stuff around gender that hadn't been dealt with at the time, but it also just turned the literary community and the world on just on its head that this this celebrated genius writer um made these amazing books and then it just turns out through a series of revealing articles and just this crashing of this wave that it was uh revealed to be not real and it's been going on a while so this is the story and jeff fairzig who uh who did uh the the doc is with me now and we'll lay it out a bit and then i'll come back for a second in between jeff and laura who i spoke to alone after june it's a night for the whole family be a part of kids night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

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T's and C's apply. Death. I watched your last movie at some point. Was it Devil and Daniel Johnson? Mm-hmm. Johnson? Yeah. That was a disturbing movie in a good way.

I appreciate that. You know, not a plug or anything, but it is a simple fact. Ten years ago, I made that film. Mm-hmm. And now we're going to have a Sony Picture Classics Blu-ray coming out next month. Oh, congratulations. So what compelled you towards this? Now we're going to have a Sony Picture Classics Blu-ray coming out next month. Oh, congratulations. So what compelled you towards this?

Well, obviously, the J.T. LeRoy story. I remember it happening, but I was not that engaged in the literary world, nor did I give a shit. Oddly, though, at some point I read Stephen Beachy's first novel. The guy who actually wrote the first New York Times piece that started to expose the performance or hoax or however you want to frame it. But I didn't know anything about this story. And I knew it was compelling. And all I remember about it when it happened was like this woman, man was not a woman, man. And this book where they were, I remember the argument was that she pulled off this massive hoax on the literary world. But what really becomes for me, and I think for you, and probably for people in the film

itself, the real conflict is, how does this diminish the work, ultimately? Or does it? It doesn't. Yeah, that's the question, one of them. Yes, it raises many questions. Right. What compelled you? How did you get into it?

Well, I was right there with you. I didn't know anything about what a JT Leroy even was. Yeah. Nor had I even heard of the scandal in 2006 when the New York Times broke the scandal. Really? You didn't know? Really? Not a thing.

Wasn't on your radar. Nor had I read the books. Right. Was not on my radar. Right. My whole trip is nonfiction and new journalism. Yeah. And I'm always looking for a great story.

Right. There's nothing I love more than a great truth is stranger than fiction story. A buddy of mine, a journalist, Paul Cullum, he turned me on to it a few years after the story broke. Paul Cullum. I feel like I know that guy. Yeah. He's a great writer.

He's written LA Weekly cover stories, things like that. Oh, okay. Anyway, Paul Termione knows my taste, and the hook at the time for me was, quote, unquote, the greatest literary hoax of all time. I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. How many are there? Jersey, Kosinski, where there's a couple?

There's more than a few, right? But it's like a question of memoir, right? Some of it. I mean, this was bigger because it involved other people. But usually a literary hoax comes down to, is that real or not real? If this is being presented as real, is it real or is it not real on the page? Well, listen, this was called a literary hoax at the time. And it was fiction that went way off the page.

Right. We've never seen a pseudonym or a pen name like this in history. Right. Because, of course, J.T. LeRoy, there was an avatar. There was a body out there that was not the person. So that was unique. Now, what happened was I read, I mean, God, it generated a massive amount of ink and think pieces.

Yeah. I read it all. And I just had this feeling. I said, you know, God, it generated a massive amount of ink and think pieces. Yeah. I read it all. And I just had this feeling. I said, you know, there has to be more to the story than we're being told. Which was what after you read everything? What was the basic story in your mind having done all the research that was available on J.T. LeRoy? Well, it was unknown, but there was one voice glaringly missing. And that was the voice of the author, Laura Albert, the author of the fiction on and off the page.

Because she pulled out. She had held her story back. And therefore, her telling was invisible, didn't exist. And I wanted to hear that voice. So I reached out to her. I sent her Devil and Daniel Johnston. And for listeners who perhaps have not seen it, the central theme is the intersection of madness and creativity,

which is a subject I find infinitely fascinating. Anyway, she watched the film and it spoke to her. And then she decided that she would share her story with me. And that's how we began to go down this road. Now, for people that don't know, which I imagine is most people, let's get a timeline in place. JT Leroy writes a book and it's hugely popular. It's got defenders in the literary community. She has reached out. He has, JT Leroy, this young son of a prostitute, of a truck stop prostitute who is HIV positive, has drug problems, gender problems,

was abused, is a shattered person, and has written this beautiful, and it is still a beautiful book, and it's very poetic and painful, and like nothing anyone has ever seen at that time. Right? Well, that's basically what went down. It was a book published.

It was called Sarah. Yeah. It was a novel. It was definitely of the Southern Gothic, Flannery O'Connor, Harry Cruise tradition. It was widely reviewed and became an international bestseller, as well as the second book,

the collection of short stories, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, which, as I came to learn, was written previous to that, those short stories. So this is 1999. Yeah. That both books come out. They're about a year apart, back to back, yeah. Right. What you reveal in the film through Laura's eyes and also through the eyes of the people that were her champions was that this was a character or a part of her or somebody speaking through her, however you want to see it, or mental illness, whatever you wanted to frame it as, depending on your particular mystical or psychological discipline. This character evolved out of a relationship with a phone, a teen counselor, really.

Yes, she, as we came to learn, or I came to learn in the film, was addicted to calling telephone hotlines and helplines. And she, as it turns out, had been calling hotlines, helplines, since she was a young girl. I found her old notebook when she was a child, Laura Albert. And there were pages and pages of telephone hotlines.

She would call any hotline she can get her hands on. In the margins of those hotlines, hundreds and hundreds of little boy-girl doodles, which I ultimately animated. She desperately wanted... That was all her art? Yeah. Oh, interesting. So this is a woman that you establish at the beginning of the film as having a difficult childhood, Laura, that is,

being overweight, having an absent father, an abusive mother, a little sister, Jewish, Brooklyn, but sort of not mentally well and progressively more unstable as a child. Yeah. As you see in the film, she's institutionalized multiple times. It's just a fact. And she ends up in a group home for girls where she became a ward of the state.

At 16. Yeah. Which is odd. I mean, in a sense, that is really a flagrant disregard of parenting responsibilities at that age. Her parents gave up custody to put her in this group home. She needed a lot of help, and she was still on those hotlines calling as boys all those years. I got boxes and boxes of her phone bills. She would dominate the phones, and to quote her, that was her life in fiction.

She never knew where the story was going to go. She never knew who was going to pick up the other end of that phone. She didn't know if a story was going to last a day or a week. With a particular operator. Correct. And with a particular character. Yeah. So by the time she calls as Terminator, Jeremiah Terminator Leroy, in San Francisco, I don't know, 20-something years later, she calls a hotline, Dr. Terrence Owens, guy picks up. That could have been the 17,000th call she's ever made as a boy at this point in time.

Right. But, you know, this is some interesting thing. Now, since you brought it up, and, you know, obviously, in your mind, you don't see that there's a possible spoiler to this movie. No. I mean, there isn't there isn't i mean we can talk about anything you want because it's still a fun ride well no but yeah i mean you made a decision that stood out to me as as mildly dubious okay go for it what is that which is you know you decide to reveal you decide to reveal the depth and the nature of the sexual abuse as like a capper almost at the end of the movie. You must have thought about that.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, first of all, it's beyond foreshadowed in the first act. No, no. Yeah. No, no. I'm not defending it. I'm going to tell you what I did. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's foreshadowed. If you can't figure out that that was going on, you're not paying attention. Right. Regardless, that's the inciting incident, and it's the literary holdback. The film is called Author. Yeah. And that is where that scene lives and where I wanted it to live and where it really resonated.

Because what I was doing was playing with her her backstory like memento and that it goes in reverse and it catches up with itself with the a story the saga of jt leroy with all of the deceit and lies that's baked into it and then it comes together at the end and hopefully we arrive at a whole person okay all right so that was the intent yes i feel i feel that because you go through waves with laura through the film yeah now we're going to talk to her in a minute um you go through waves with her through the film about how you feel about what she did now as an artist myself and i rarely call myself that but it's somebody who respects that that you know despite anything that happened whether i want to look at it as she really fucking did a number

on the literati community and the celebrity community and the affected nature of parasitical businesses that revolve around artistic talent, that she really turned them on their nose. But then you go a little deeper, and it's sort of like, well, she deceived these people. And then you start to think, well, isn't it genius that these people want to see what they want to see because her British accent was not great.

And there was enough stuff around the performances and around everything else that if anybody was sort of halfway going like, what the fuck is this? They would have been able to smell something. There were many tells. Tells. But to bring the audience who's listening up to speed, once these books became the celebration of the literary community

and then moved into the artistic community, the world of the intelligentsia and a certain type of celebrity is just in love. It was a zeitgeist moment in publishing history. We don't see it often. First of all, it was transgressive fiction. This was pretty hardcore material. Right. Well, she loves Dennis Cooper, who is like, you read his stuff. I haven't read it in years, but when I did read it, I was like, I'm going to have to give this a rest for about a decade. I felt the same way. And he's a great writer his great try you know wow i mean talk about pushing things uh-huh yeah so uh it's of that tradition and yet with there was like a

rock star like phenomenon at these book readings like you don't listen i got friends who write books go to a reading what is it like 15 people there yeah four people know the guy right this is this is lines around the block in multiple cities for like seven years around the world i saw this i saw the footage yeah and this is not jk rowling so you know something happened where fashion hollywood uh the literary community it all converged around this writing and this persona. Right. And who can predict why? Well, but the fascinating thing about the movie that makes it so compelling is that Laura Albert, who is an insecure, slightly emotionally shattered person,

has written to put this thing out in the world that the time that it becomes a great success, she's overweight, she's had a baby with the guitar player she's living with doesn't seem like seems like an okay relationship seems like bay area kind of like we're just hanging out doing weird shit relationship and now she's got this best seller and she uh and it's a pseudonym and she can't go out she She can't, you know, they want to have readings. She has to stay in character because of her own emotional problems, and she has celebrities do these readings, or the publisher has, I imagine it's the publisher,

and she okays them as J.T. LeRoy. That sounds like a good event. But there's one scene in San Francisco where she has one of these readings. Her first reading, I think you're talking about. Uh-huh. And she's there. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, just first of all, just finding this footage

where you have the author who at this point in time is morbidly obese. Uh-huh. And it's, I don't know how else to compare it except to attending your own funeral, like that fantasy perhaps many of us have. Right, she local san francisco writers reading the sections of the book and she's sitting there in the bookstore anonymous she's sitting there smiling quelling loving the validation that you know she had no idea that she wrote a book and we listen we create art right yeah throw it out into the world right it's pretty rare to have these kind of accolades showered upon you.

And I think in that way, she's very human as an artist. She wanted the validation for her work, but she certainly was not able to be that person herself. And there she is in the audience watching her own reading, but no one knows she's there. And there's footage of that. It's pretty mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling. And also, the element of, like, this isn't just a pseudonym. You know, even before the publishing of the book,

she has talked to Dennis Cooper. She's talked to, what's the other writer? Bruce Benderson. Bruce Benderson. And others. And others. She has a relationship with this therapist who doesn't know anybody. So they have all talked to J.T. LeRoy.

Yeah, the young boy. Right, the young boy who Laura Albert is manifesting. Who she's literally calling behind the door in her bathroom and her boyfriend for a long time doesn't even know she's making these calls because she's ashamed of this addiction. Of calling therapists, helpline. Absolutely.

So now she's created this character who has a relationship with major literary figures, and they champion her. Well, they champion him, and they champion this writing that they receive via fax. Yeah, the fax machine. Yeah, the fax machine is how she sent this material to people that she was looking for mentorship. sent this material to people that she was looking for mentorship. Did you find that if the therapist that she had built a relationship with,

that must be the longest relationship she had with a therapist, on the phone, encouraged her to write, do you think that this would have happened? Well, we'll never know. We can ask her. We can ask her. I mean, all I know is the simple facts that she had been calling this guy, Dr. Terrence Owens, or I should say he had been calling her. You weren't able to get an interview with him post?

Absolutely not. And he's never spoken to anybody publicly. But I do know- Is that because of patient confidentiality or because he feels- I've heard people theorize that. I just don't know the legal fact of that. I just know that he's never spoken to anybody and that's just how it is i do know that he had spoken to jt for an hour a day for three years before he suggests that you should write some of this down as a form

of therapy and then all of a sudden laura had an audience and then wrote balloons, faxed it to him, and he passed it along to a friend. The next thing you know, it's getting passed around is, holy shit, this is great writing. And then all of a sudden, Terminator got published. It was never, she's told this many times, but I've came to learn from my research. She never said, hey, do you know an editor? Do you know a book agent? Can you get me published?

There was none of that going on. It was a viral phenomenon. It was an organic journey filled with a massive amount of deceit. And it's like the Billy Childish song, I live by devious means. But there were unknown reasons of why this all transpired and now i believe you know the film has uncovered those reasons there there's a moment in the film where she knows what she's done there's a moment where she is reluctant to have There's a moment where she is reluctant to have Terminator published as memoir because she knew that it was not.

Correct. So. Because it wasn't memoir. Simple as that. But that's the moment. That was the rules. Right. Fiction has no rules, right? That's right.

Absolutely. She was anthologized in a book that our buddy Jerry Stahl is in, Close to the Bone. Right. Terminator got, in that particular anthology, the big reviews, and that's what exploded the whole situation. Then she got a book deal, and she walked away from it because they wanted memoir. Right. She didn't even write again for years.

And then she has this baby, and all of a sudden, to quote her, you know, the doors of perception or whatever she says opened. And the next thing you know, she wrote a novel. She like speed wrote it, sends it off to the publisher and the publisher says, you wrote a novel. She didn't even know she wrote a novel. Next thing you know, it got published as fiction. And that was Sarah. And that's the first book. That's the first book that came out as J.T. LeR, it got published as fiction. And that was Sarah. And that's the first book. That's the first book that came out as J.T. LeRoy, correct?

Fiction. So basically, J.T. LeRoy existed as just a voice on the phone for many, many years. Yeah. When the book smashed, there was a problem. Yeah. What do I do? Yeah. So she, as you see in the film, stares at her androgynous sister-in-law, Savannah Knope.

Yeah. And thinks it's interesting. Hmm, why don't I put a wig, a hat, and sunglasses on you and you'll be the body. Yeah. She was working as a waitress in a Thai restaurant at this point in time. Right, right. And she gives her 50 bucks as a one-off and they go off and they film German TV. And that seemed to have worked out.

And that was like Frankenstein come to life. Right. And then this went on for, I think, seven years. Where Laura Albert creates a character for herself. A British character. A British character named Speedy. Yes. Who manages JT.

Yes. The very pushy handler. Yeah. Yes. And so speedy is always there speedy is absolutely there and you know blocking or running uh interference for all the journalists and celebs that you know also want to get close to jt protecting what's her sister-in-law's name savannah savannah from fucking up uh that too where they're sharing information because regardless that savannah's out in public by day uh laura is still the voice of jt on the phone by night right and they have to download as you hear in the film to make sure they get their stories straight right because it gets very complicated she's spinning plates you know like

some sort of magician that we've never quite experienced before right so two of the two of them are out in the world they're meeting bono and and and laura that was an interesting sort of her her mystical understanding of show business and portals and and and levels uh yes bono summoned her Yeah, summoned her and this was the portal that JT was going through the portal that Bono was ordaining or giving her the magic code to rise to the next level.

Yeah, there's a U2 concert. It's somewhere in the arena in San Fran and Bono invites JT. There's a surprise waiting. Backstage passes are given to Speedy and JT. Right. There's a surprise waiting. Backstage passes are given to Speedy and JT. Right. Laura's the one snapping all those incredible photos, by the way.

Of Bono and JT. And the edge. Savannah and the edge. Don't leave out the edge. I'm sorry. Right. I don't want to leave out the edge. But it was funny to me that the big advice was, watch out for the assholes, basically.

Yeah. It was that great proverb of all show business, you know, never forget where you came from. Right. But what I thought was what was more compelling ultimately was U2's road manager speaking to Speedy as JT's road manager saying, do you see what my boy did for yours? And he mentioned him in Rolling Stone, mentioned JT LeRoy. Well, Bono. Yeah, that was the surprise that Bono had flipped for the book The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things and wanted to say, hey, I'm shouting to the world, I love this

writer. And then that was the big surprise during what they call the Bono talk. So now throughout all this, Laura Albert, as Speedy, is sort of feeling her oats and starting to take better care of herself. Maybe whatever she did, she got the gastrointestinal surgery. She's losing weight. Looks like she had a little other surgery. She's doing stuff.

She's sort of like, hey, I'm a thing now. And she's starting to come out as Speedy, but also as Laura. You know, she had created a self-masochistic Cyrano-like relationship by having Savannah and wanting to be near the accolades for her art, but yet still now being like literally pushed to the side. People did not like Speedy. Right. But she knew that. She wanted people not to like Speedy.

Right. Speedy's blocking. Right. But at the same time, everyone wants to hug, you know, basically the actor. Right. And she wants that hug desperately. Right. You described the metamorphosis.

Yeah. It's very Shakespearean what she does to herself, you know, starting off with so much obesity and self-hatred and body issues, goes through the surgery, ultimately becomes, you know, what she really wanted to be, which was the opposite. Beautiful. It's very much like that Shag song, Philosophy of the World. Yeah. Which I've always thought was so simple, yet brilliant.

It's like, it's Freudian. It's always the opposite. It's like, the fat girls want to be thin, boys who ride motorcycles want to drive cars. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened to Lauraura albert in this journey and she does become more self-confident and more beautiful and she's coming into her own she's coming into her own and like simultaneously within a year or two uh there's a fashion flurry around jt leroy gus van zandt who champions jt leroy early on is uh collaborating with him on uh elephant uh which you know there is a scene

in elephant that remains credited to uh jt leroy though the movie was improvised he she is he is still on there as a consulting producer associate producer so all this stuff is happening all this stuff in the movie the arc the sort of uh sort of denouement is all building up. She needs to get straight. She needs to tell the truth. And she decides to do that with Billy Corrigan, which seems because Billy Corrigan, it seems like her and her husband love the Smashing Pumpkins. She believes that Billy's a portal of some kind or a gifted being who understands her. And she tells everything to Billy.

Yeah. She had this tingle because Billy had written openly about abuse. Right. So she felt that they were kindred spirits. In a real way. Yes. That Billy would understand why this happened. Yes.

And when she met him, or I should say Speedy met him at Spaceland right here in LA at his wand show, she opened up and she, it was the first person, you know, outside of her small community

of close confidants that she confided in. Yeah. I like to ask her if that, if it was, was it bending her conscience? Did she, like outside of knowing that it was way out of control and that it was bound to fall down you know did she feel bad for misleading

people well you're gonna have to ask her that um that's a question to ask her you didn't ask her did you i don't remember specifically did you feel I don't remember specifically, did you feel bad? I think she absolutely, as you see in the third act of the film, there was a legitimate mosaic of responses to all that had transpired. Some people wanted to burn her at the stake. That was very, very real. Other people, as you hear, thought it was the greatest thing since sliced cheese yeah and uh sure thought it was even better yeah and then there were people who were very neutral and accepting uh like for instance you know gus van zandt so i wonder if that remains

i i you'd have to ask him i have no idea i'll ask her i can't sure him yeah you can you can talk to her today yeah i'll get talked to her in a minute yeah um well i mean ultimately once the shit hit the fan with the stephen beachy article and then she gets fined for what mail fraud or for forging a signature signing a contract the legal repercussions she's found guilty of fraud in a court of law for signing the name jt leroy uh obviously a person that does not exist on a contract a movie option contract for the book Sarah. But the Writers Guild lets her off the hook in the sense that it's a pseudonym.

They wrote an amicus brief. Right. Did that savor the fine? No, not at all. It was just a way for the Authors Guild who felt that that trial and that verdict was unfair. They wanted to stand up for all writers to use a pseudonym for any reason they choose to

personal political sexual uh whatever they want interesting that seems like a whole other movie well it was just an interesting fact but the fact of it is is that you know the the broader discussion that has to be had around this is that you know for whatever reason if indeed laura albert was really seeking to to collect the pieces of herself, whether she knew that during it or not, that the ultimate goal was to arrive a full person, hopefully. Because towards the end, when all this shit, when it starts to hit the fan, she's now working with Milch, is it Michael?

David Milch. David Milch on Deadwood because she sees that as another portal of some kind, that Deadwood, she's destined to be there. And she confides in Milch. And Milch, in a very practical way, says, look, the work stands on its own. All this other stuff is bullshit. Yeah, Milch was a great supporter. And once again, you couldn't write this, but how Shakespearean, where she's now coming into her own, she's actually perhaps going to write under her own name during Deadwood. But all of the deceit, all the lies catch up with her.

And then her whole world crashes right on her season on Deadwood. It's very interesting. Yeah. But she doesn't write as herself on Deadwood. Well, because it came to an end before that. She was writing as Emily. Well, because it came to an end before that, you know. She was writing as Emily. Well, yes. Emily Fraser was yet another character who was singing in the band that you referred

to, Thistle. That wasn't Speedy? Emily Fraser and Speedy, to me, I saw as the exact same person. Almost like Speedy was a nickname, and Emily Fraser became the real name. That's how I interpreted it. Right, right. But yet, it's still interesting to have yet another character in this universe she created so she's on the set of deadwood yes and in the shit hits

the fan yeah and then her life literally she gets excommunicated by the literary community she's she's labeled a pariah you know basically on her forehead is f for fraud yeah she's financially ruined and um and that becomes really the end she's curled up in a ball for a number of years until i come along what well really well why does mill chain does mill trying to get out to dry no no i'm not saying i got hung up to dry i'm so no no i'm saying that like even when the shit hit the fan oh he stood by her he did oh 100 yeah and still stands by her yeah and so does billy corgan Let's get her in here. Sounds good. All right, that was Jeff Fierzig, the director.

And I think that lays out the story. But now we're going to talk to Laura, the mastermind, the brilliant, fragmented mastermind behind this whole thing, who I love and I definitely connected with almost immediately. We have some similar issues, but I don't know why. It was just a very moving and compelling conversation to me. I think it's important that I tell you now that

I mentioned with Jeff that David Milch, the director and writer and creator of Deadwood, is involved in this. Well, Milch is by director and writer and creator of Deadwood, is involved in this. Well, Milch is, by his own admission and reputation, another genius madman who's definitely had his own struggles. And the way he factors into this, not unlike Billy Corrigan, who Laura saw as a portal and as a confidant, she watched Deadwood and knew that she had to be part of it. And she approached David Milch and told David Milch the entire story of the J.T. LeRoy arc, event,

theatrical, opera, whatever you want to call it. And he heard it. He understood it. He supported Laura and became sort of a personal savior to her and sort of framed it for her in a way that was, you know, correct and understandable that the art is what is important. And now I have a conversation with Laura Albert. And it's powerful.

And there are issues discussed that are, that I guess I should prepare you for. Some people say I should do this sometimes, but we do talk about sexual abuse and it is an emotional conversation. That's what I'm telling you. It's moving stuff. All right, this is me and Laura Albert. Laura Albert. I prefer the French. How's the French? Laura Albert. Yeah? Doesn't that

guy, Laura Albert, what are you going to do with that? I don't know. I'm Marc Maron. I'll take the French. Marc Maron. I like Maron. That kind of, Maron. Maron? Maron. How many episodes of Deadwood did you write? I didn't write any of them, and nobody wrote any of them. It's all Mr. Milch. It's a lie agreed upon.

Every genius work. Yeah. Every word. Yeah. It's all him. Yes, completely. Well, because I know that towards the end of the documentary, and the end of the, you documentary, before things got bad, you were on set,

and it seemed like you were going to do some work on there. Yeah. Well, you write an episode, and then he... Oh, okay. Yeah. He guts it and writes it? He takes an essence, and then there's a reason why there's a genius continuity.

Because it's... And he doesn't need the money. Well, he was very grace he doesn't need the money. Well, he was very graceful about passing on the credit. It's almost like everyone should have their 15 minutes of JT. Everyone should have their 15 minutes of being David Milch. Right. So I watched the whole movie, and I was talking to Jeff there, the director,

that at the time of all this happening, I had heard about it, but I was not in the worlds where it had a direct bearing on my life. You know, I just knew the name J.T. LeRoy. I knew that something happened, that it was a great performance art piece or a tremendous fraud of some kind.

But I didn't know the details until I watched this film. It's like Haley's comment. We know we didn't get smashed to bits. Right. Well, someone did. Well, I had once upon a time, yeah. But, you know, it's going to be a while until it comes again. Right.

Unlike a phone sex session. Right. But in watching it and in watching you tell your story of it, I found it to be like there were moments where I was watching you and I'm like, I don't know about her. And then there were moments where I'm like, no, I like her. And then there were moments where i was watching you and i'm like i don't know about her and then there were moments where like no i like her and then there were moments like oh this is great you know like you know you sort of grow with the relationship and watching you in the movie it sort of has its own arc as well i know you know the funny is the same thing happens to me

when i'm watching it i'm like oh my god yeah how the fuck is she gonna get out of this what the fuck did this bitch oh this is messed up she's right really in a pickle it's really like one of those cliffhangers you know where it's like what what yeah now like when you the thing i guess like at the core of it is that this writing came out of you and the writing stands on its own and it's great writing. These are beautiful books and they deserve to be read and continue to be read. So after all is said and done and whatever you went through, you know, what are your feelings about the actual work? Well, first of all, thank you. I mean, it hasn't been that long since I've actually been sitting here physically and hearing people say that to my face.

So it's all very Laura. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because, uh, the other day I was doing LA, uh, times review of books and I signed a book and I sent to them and I signed it JT Leroy and I'm like, Oh shit. It does. I was wondering how you would sign it. No, it keeps happening. I had to sign a whole box of books for a promotional for Goodreads

and I signed them J.T. LeRoy and then I realized, oh shit. And then I had to go back in and my signature is so bad. Your real signature. Yeah, I got J.T. LeRoy down. Oh yeah? My son has it down because I would have him sign books too. How old is he now? He's 18. How's that going?

He's wonderful. He's so cool. He's got such a great sense of humor. I mean, you gotta, you know? He's great. What did he think of the movie? His first thing he said was Mama? Who's that woman at the opening? I'm like, that's Winona Ryder. He's like, who's that? Oh, really? He'm like, oh, that's Winona Ryder.

He's like, who's that? Yeah. Oh, really? He didn't grow up with a celebrity. He's not into celebs. He's into artists. You know, it's like artists. It's like, yeah, he's real.

And how's his relationship with his dad? He's good. You know, they're good. How's yours? Good. Yeah? It's good. We both love our kid.

And we have moments of connecting, which is really beautiful. You know, we were together for 18 years. So when you watch the movie and how much in retrospect, because like I was talking with Jeff and I also know a little bit about this from my own journey in life, that if you are fragmented to whatever degree and you suffer from trauma of any kind that that disrupted your ability to have a a full sense of self correct yeah so after this whole arc of obviously it got to an extreme that you know like when you really think about you know your compulsion towards calling help lines that lasted a lifetime and and speaking through these male characters and seeking help and love through these characters, that when you went through the tunnel of this massive charade in a way,

and then it all came crumbling down and you're left with you, do you feel now like you? Because you were talking like Speedy out there and it came very quickly. And I imagine that J.T. LeRoy could come very quickly. But do you have distance from those things now, I assume? You know, Laura was always there. Yeah. It's not like Sybil, you know laura was always there yeah it's not like um sybil you know which i think was just i think that was just a hollywood version anyway of um garden garden variety disassociation

so i really just think that's a whole area that really needs to be looked at i think i'm not unique i think there are many women and men and people who go through, how many people go through abuse and they talk about disassociating, seeing yourself from the ceiling? I do that. I can do that.

And I was always there. It's not like there was some Laura that was never there. I think what I don't call hotlines anymore that happened, that need just kind of lifted probably somewhere around the time before Billy. And even calling. Before Corrigan? Yeah, before Corrigan.

I assume most people live in my head. Yeah, sure. So we got BC and AD. Right, right. So literally. Sure. Before, so that's, so we got BC and. BC and AD, right, right. So literally, God. And Milch would be DM. We start to sound like a Robitussin commercial. So, so, you know, you know how like conjoined, I can't say the word, conjoined twins. Yeah, yeah.

So one is often stronger than the other. And they share a lung, let's say. Yeah. So I would say that Terminator, which later became JT, the separate beings, actually, it was a morphing, was the stronger one. And it was like I was the appendage. Right.

And, but slowly, without paying attention, almost through this whole process, I became stronger, and I was breathing on my own. Yeah. With my own lungs. Correct. Yeah.

And, You see that in the film, it was somewhere towards the, right before, right, around Billy, right? Yeah.

Yeah. It was very organic, so subtly that you, I didn't notice it happening. And it needed to be cut, the cord connecting. Right. But I never would have done it. Right. If you hadn't told the truth.

It had to be done for me. It's like God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. Sure. It's a lot like drugs in a way. Right. Well, but also giving up addiction. Yeah. God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. Sure, it's a lot like drugs in a way. Right. Well, but also giving up addiction, you know, God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself.

I'll tell you a story. Okay. This is kind of jumping ahead, but at the beginning of Deadwood, of the year, Milch comes to me and he says, how do you want your name to appear in the credits? Yeah.

And I say, J.T. Leroy, without missing a beat. And he gives this kind of sad Eeyore. And you'd already told him the whole story. Oh, I told him the day after I met him. Yeah. I met him at the after party for rapping on season two because they were still shooting while they were showing. Yeah.

And we were staying at Carrie Fisher's house and Carrie got along great with JT, not with me. No, Speedy, which isn't me, but didn't get along with Speedy. But did Carrie know? No, she didn't know. So she just knew you as Speedy. Right.

Yeah. And she didn't like Speedy, but, you know. What are you going to do? Who did? You know what? There were people who did. There were people down with the Speedster, right? Okay, yeah.

Don't come after my Speedster. Okay. So I gave him the books, and then he read them that night. Yeah. And then he called and invited us out for dinner. Mm-hmm. And I told him right away, and I knew I would. I just knew I would. I knew there was no way.

Everything had made me ready to tell him, and I knew there was no way. Everything had made me ready to tell him and I knew there was no way I was not going to tell him. And he got it instantly. There was no like, what the fuck, I'm a sugar and that kind of thing is this. Yeah.

He got what? The entire arc of who you were and why you did what you did and the nature. No, he didn't. He understood. He did, you know, the rest is details.

He got the essence. details he got the essence yeah and the essence is what to you he said to me your work is of service you're touched by God I know I'm touched and

and then when everything came down he said you know I got your back so going back to the story of

this is my problem I it's the way I write in Paisley I talk in Paisley maybe 40% of the time I land it back to the way i write in paisley i talk in paisley maybe 40 of the time i land it back to the original point so i'm gonna bring it on back okay so what um the beginning of the year how do you want your name to appear it gives me a sad eeyore look of okay whatever you know he wants you to use laura towards the end of the year this is after the cord been cut i was

going back and forth because I had a young son. So I was coming, you know, Jeff was taking care of Trevor. Trevor was in school. And it was difficult not having his mom there. So I was going back and forth. And meanwhile, all hell's breaking loose because I'm being outed. I come back to Deadwood. And this is after everything's done.

It's cord cut. I'm revealed fully outed. He comes to me again and he says, how do you want your name to appear in the credits? It sounds like biblical, biblical almost. And I say, I mumble and I say, Laura Albert. I can't even say my name. I didn't even have the French. And he said to me, Laura Albert. I can't even say my name. I didn't even have the French.

And he said to me, oh man, he said to me, that's what I had hoped. And he gave me, there's this Robert Penn Warren poem that he always quoted and it's this is the process whereby pain in its pastness is converted to the future tense of joy and i i always come back to that and and the other one that he always quotes which i should have tattooed on my face the secret subject of any story worth telling is time but you can never say its name which to me is a fancy way of saying

it's in god's time not your fucking time bitch right so that's like it's powerful and you know and i'm happy for you and you know in watching the thing like as somebody who's a creative person myself and certainly likes uh to see things turned inside out and upside down and fucked with uh not you but what what it's happened i know it's been known to happen but but the when it when it all started when you know you i i imagine the longest relationship you had uh as jt with anybody who's with that therapist on the phone when when i would pick up to make a call yeah i mean i mean taking it back i i always when i would go to sleep at night i would watch stories of boys it was it was like, and I thought everyone had this.

I remember my sister was maybe four, so I was three and a half years older than her. And she couldn't sleep. We shared a room. And I said to her, well, you know, what about the boys? You know, I can't think, I can't sleep. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, what do you think don't you just, what about the boys? You know, I can't think, I can't sleep. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, well, what do you think about before you go to sleep? Because that's always how that put me out.

I would just watch the movie and it was always a different boy and they were going through some horrible thing. Right. And I would just watch that and they would either be rescued or they would die. Right. And I never knew which way. I mean, I would cry. I was like turning into your own soap opera.

Oh, yeah. I remember all the old ladies would watch as the world turns, and it was like, oh, you love me kind of thing. And I had boys that were being raped and beaten, and that was my soap opera that I watched every night. In your head. Yeah, yeah. But I could also go into it in the day,

but at nighttime that's how I went to sleep, and sometimes they would just keep me up, and I couldn't sleep into it in the day, but at nighttime that's how I went to sleep, and sometimes they would just keep me up, and I couldn't sleep because it was just so sad if they died, and I would try to change the ending and make them rescued, but I couldn't. Some got rescued and some died. And what do you think this sort of involuntary exercise of imagination was for you?

I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. Well, I mean, you did suffer physical and sexual abuse as a very young person. So do you think you were acting that stuff out mentally through the boys? I think it was a release.

It's like if you squeeze a balloon, it's got to go somewhere, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think I played, like Pi you know talks about kids playing and i played it out in my barbie dolls nobody wanted to play barbie dolls with me because my shit was scary to me i was just playing real they got raped you know they had sexual abuse they got physical abuse you know and they were like oh what should i wear and it's like i can't play like that now when because it seems like you know in in terms of parenting that obviously your father was absent and your mother was selfish and abusive.

No, you know, you know, my mother, you know, it's understanding where they came from. My mother is first generation American. Everyone escaped Jews from the horror that they survived. Okay. And her father was abusive. I mean, what did he survive? Right. And I mean, these were people who were escaping and there was no like, let me call a hotline, get help.

I mean, they're dealing with, oh, here comes, here's another pogrom. Yeah. And hearing the stories of they kept money to, because when the Cossacks came, you had to go and bail out and pay off the guards to get your husband out. And everything's burned and they escape. So my mom graduated college when she was 17. She was highly, highly intelligent. And she raised her siblings. And she never got therapy.

She was the highest winner on Jeopardy. They found some footage of her on Sale of the Century, Jeopardy. She was on $10,000 Pyramid. She was very creative. And she was not able to be an artist. She wrote under a male pseudonym. As a journalist? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I met Marvin Hamlisch, Sammy Cahn. She would take me with her. I met Ginger Rogers backstage. I got to see you go artist to artist. Okay. She debunked this whole fan worship thing. She told me how it worked with Frank Sinatra, where they would pay girls to faint.

She's like, that's fucking bullshit. You never give your power away worshiping with being a fan. And that was great about the punk world, because I didn't understand people all into Led Zeppelin and what I'm going to go pay money to see a spot on the stage. Baby, I love you. And that was great about the punk world because I didn't understand people all into like Led Zeppelin and what I'm gonna go pay money to see a spot on the stage. Baby, I love you. I mean, fuck that shit, right? With punk, I was like calling Ian McKay for minor threat.

I had all their numbers, Mike Muir, suicidal tendencies, and I was a journalist. Fuck you, I'm gonna stand toe to toe. And my mom, she did not have therapy. And she was, she, this is what happens. When we don't treat trauma, this is what fucking happens. And I am sure if I did not have the benefit of the group home and the therapy such that I was able to allow in, I didn't know what kind of mother I would be. I'm sure that I would have been an abusive mother. I've never touched my son. I

never hit him. But I find things that do come out of my mouth and I'm like, oh my God, I know where that's from. And I feel that void in front of me, and I know what that is. So my mother did not do to me what was done to her, but she did some of it. And if my son chooses to have children, I hope that he can further stop the cycle. And that's all we can do. And that's the importance of giving voice to all of this stuff. Right. So I love my mom.

Sure. And I love my mom. Sure. And I deal with this. She was, I have no doubt that she loved me and would kill for me and also kill me at the same time. She did. She tried. She tried to set fire to me in my room and she felt deeply wounded.

When she would get angry, she was so hurt herself that she would snap. She would literally snap. And her capacity to control herself, to stop, was not there. And that was because of the damage that she went through. Right. And this is something you've grown to understand. I understood it then. You did.

I couldn't really articulate it but i always had that compassion and understanding and i also knew that i didn't have that capacity to battle like that right and and also that because of the you know her sort of do you feel like she was threatened by you no i know i you know it's things uh i think it's so complex i'm not exploring it all yeah i think yeah i i think that she recognized that i was very my mother is kind of like color blind with emotions right okay so where i am an absorbent sponge and I catch everything, everything. Nothing. All right.

So she can insult you and have no idea that she just like to put a dagger in your heart. Right. And that's an interesting combination to have with each other. But she also was able to recognize that I had this sensitivity. So she would often use my ability to scope out a situation and people because she recognized that she had no fucking clue is she still around no she after the trial it killed her it killed her it killed her she was in a coma week after the trial your trial yep they sued her they sued everyone around me so i i think some of the questions I have in watching the movie and in you know kind of you know coming out on your side thankfully is that

Because I think the writing is great And I think they're important books and you know even what you're talking about now and even what you know You what milch mentioned was that if you are of service and obviously you know JT We're always spoke to something it spoke to an injury. It spoke to trauma. It spoke to a Perseverance of spirit it spoke to something it spoke to an injury it spoke to trauma it spoke to a perseverance of spirit it spoke to surviving right i mean yeah and it was actually your your vehicle for survival in a lot of ways well to me it it's the way an oyster creates a pearl out of irritation it's not like i want to sell this at sax you know right so as the the whole um the, everything starts to snowball.

And once you enlist Savannah, your sister-in-law, to play JT, and now you've got your character Speedy, and you're out doing the world, and it becomes a theatrical event that only you're really aware of, and Jeff and Savannah, really, right? That's it, until you copped a Corrigan. No, no, there were people who knew. Oh, there were? It was like a well-kept secret.

But do you... At first, it was very tight. It was very tight. And then it slowly, like a pair of underwear, it... Sure. Like anything else, right? Right. So, but in the beginning of that, you know, where we see some footage of you at one of

the first readings. Right. And there you were, feeling uncomfortable uncomfortable i would have died i would have fucking died if anyone knew so the initial intent of all this was really to protect you because you couldn't handle it jt was asbestos gloves to handle material i otherwise couldn't but once it became public though and you you you enrolled and enlisted people to play along to keep protecting that person. That was not some sort of grand artistic event you were structuring. It was still to insulate Laura Albert from the public. But it's not only that.

He wanted his own body. Right. All the boys that came through that didn't die wanted their own body. So you felt that. You had that relationship with these boys in your mind yeah i mean there was a i moved to san francisco because i had called a hotline and there was a woman named beverly mesh who worked at a hotline and she spoke to i don't remember who the initial boy was but he had a multiple he had multiple personalities and she wanted them to move out to california so she could help them and they

ended up outing me to her right which i was like don't you understand that that ends it because that's usually very often when i mean i would have therapists or people who would talk usually the relationship would peter out ones that went on for longer than just a night or whatever you know that's the thing. You wouldn't believe how many dysfunctional people. I would call hotlines and I would find like an alcoholic that works in a bar. There were so many times I would call a hotline, a crisis hotline, and they wanted sex with my boy and I would do it.

On the phone. Oh my God, you would not believe it. And I did it. I totally accommodated all the time. Because that's why I was running the mafia's phone sex lines in New York. My mom put in a phone sex line for me so I can contribute to the family and I loved it. I was training women, other women to do phone sex because I believe we have a real crisis in this country. They are not properly trained phone sex workers. What happens when they're not properly trained? Oh, they fucking, when a guy calls, you should be able to seamlessly accommodate his fantasy without having to ask him what he fucking wants.

It shouldn't start off with you like, she's all, baby, you want me to suck your fucking cock? Tell me what you want here. I, often they tell the person who books the call the basics, you know, like they wanna wear wear panties or, you know, they want a basic one off. Yeah. Yeah. But I can, I make it feel like I'm psychic and I take your little clues and I have to teach them how to get those clues.

So you're training phone sex people. I was great. Yeah. So. phone sex people i was great yeah so and again that was something that i i realized from working with people it you it's something you can't train someone you need like when people would tell me oh what you did with dt that's so brilliant i'm gonna do that whole thing it's like well take a healthy dose of mashugana right yeah yeah it's like how does the universe form? It's like a random accident and a little bit of oxygen. Right. But do you think that, well, I think you're an empath to a degree. You have

an innate empathy to sort of lock into somebody's needs in some bizarre way. Yeah. I guess my question is in a more sort of solid sense of the narrative of of what everyone knew is you know what happened is that you develop these relationships of very you know brilliant artists and you know you've archived all this stuff and a lot of people were hurt and felt betrayed and and were angry you know you know probably you know irredeemably so, I imagine. But of the relationships that you built with, say, Gus Van Zandt or Dennis Cooper or any of the other writers, are there any that, after all was said and done and after the thing collapsed, that you still are friends with? You know what?

One thing that made it really hard is when the media was coming, it was very counterintuitive. Everyone else who wrote fake memoir, and again, these books were published as fiction, they would call the press conference and say, you got me, I'm not really an albino rhinoceros from antarctica yeah you know right i i didn't do that it i went the opposite where people testifying because to me it's fighting for my life it's like tinkerbell you know we have to say we believe we

believe and and he'll live and um it it made people angry because it's like, why don't you just fucking give it up already? Just give it up. Give what up? The fact that we know you're busted. Right. And it was, nope, sorry. Nope, still real.

Right, right. And it's like, wait, no, you're totally busted. Nope, still real. It's like the kid who has cookies all over their face and the cookie jar is knocked over and you're like, I'm sorry, you can't prove it. Where's the footage? Yeah, and you wouldn't come out. No, because again, it's like, you can't prove it. Where's the footage? And you wouldn't come out.

No, because again, it's like, you know, like Milt said, that's what I had hoped. I'm like, he's still hoping. It ain't happening. And then when the New York Times, when Warren St. John would call people, he told them I was being charged with mail fraud and violating the Patriot Act.

So imagine you get a call and you find out that the person that you have a close connection to is not who they say they are, which is pretty fucking devastating and mind blowing. And then there's probably and that there's possible criminal charges, which I was like, what the fuck is Is mailing penis bones across state lines? Is that a crime? What was that charge? There was none. There was nothing. That's why I was like, is mailing rackering penis bones across state lines? Is that it?

I have no idea. And the Patriot Act, they said it in a trial. They accused me of violating the Patriot Act. But we always flew under our own passport. So that was, you know. Yeah. So it made people really terrified. And there were people who came and asked me.

And that was really powerful to be able to step back. And it was hard because I didn't quite understand it. That's why I couldn't take any of those opportunities people were saying to me nobody's going to care about you in seven months and I'm like well nobody cared about me seven months ago so what do I lose yeah I if if other people are going to tell your story I'm like well well that's painful but if that's how it has to be, because I don't understand it. I mean, when I would sit in the room, in the writer's room, so many of the characters, they were a mystery unto themselves. And I said to David, you know, I relate. And he's like, I hope you, I hoped you were paying attention. Because I got it.

I was a mystery unto myself. And I could not go do a celebrity tell-all because that's not what it was about. And if that meant dying misunderstood, I had enough people that I trusted and knew who I was. It's fine if the world wants to say that I'm the Antichrist. And about those relationships, you know, a lot of people had those conversations with me and they got it when I connected the dots. conversations with me and they got it when i connected the dots when they allowed me to give them my roadmap to crazy because you had like white men of privilege i'll say which were saying they were in a way they were putting their motive she did it to meet celebrities she did it to uh meet you know for whatever for cocked a reason you know and it's like again part of the reason

why i wanted to work with je Jeff was he understood my paradigm. He's Jewish. He comes from the East Coast. The main thing also is that he comes from the punk scene. So if your paradigm, it turns it upside down. When they were saying my motives, it's actually upside down. And you need someone who can get that. So when they spoke to me, they were either, mostly they were available to that because again, if you came with the work, all of this stuff is

in the work. It's already, all the tells are there. There's a scene in the movie, I'm telling Gus, and I remember this. I'm writing the scene where the cherryilla, the kid, the boy, is revealed to be what he's not. He said he was something different. And then they worshipped him. They turned him into Leroy, the king. And now they found out that he's not who he said he was. And they're hunting him with torches. And they're going to kill him.

And he's hiding in the woods. And he's naked. And Pooh comes and finds him and says, what were you thinking? And he said, I didn't mean for any of this to happen. You know, I get chills because when I wrote that, and I saved the keyboard. Yeah. I was crying because I knew I was writing the future. Mark, there was no JT.

There was Terminator. There was no JT yet, no Savannah. I had just given birth to a son, and I'm watching this unfold. And I'm writing the future, and I know there's fucking nothing I can do to stop it. Okay? How's your relationship with Savannah? You know, she'll always be family. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. How's your relationship with Savannah? You know, she'll always be family. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, again, it depends what people were there for. And let me just say this. There were a lot of people, like I said, I know how to make a trade. Yeah. And there were people that were very happy that they had an underage boy that had no parents,

that was a professional prostitute, and was available. And a lot of phone sex, sexual relationships were entered into. Again, if we were on to catch a predator, guess what would happen? I could be a 70-year-old woman with tits down to my knees, and guess who's going to jail? Not me. Okay, I have those recordings, perhaps going to jail? Not me. Okay? I have those recordings, perhaps.

Maybe. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So, in other words, trades were made. And so, their reaction might be informed by the fact that their best orgasm was had with a 40-year-old middle-aged woman, and not a little 12-year-old blonde blonde haired, blue eyed professional prostitute that conveniently didn't have parents.

So what in talking about motives, what what do you see your motive as now when you talk about everyone else's motives, when you look at the story and where you've landed and now you're doing the work as yourself, what what do you feel in retrospect you were moving towards you know what was really difficult was when we would go do a reading and people were lined up around the block yeah and i would go as speedy and i would ask people why they were there and they'd be like why the fuck should i talk to her right yeah and but when they would they would talk about what it meant to them and they would go to savannah and she didn't have those experiences and she couldn't be there with them okay you know in 12th step you get to keep it by giving it away right

and what was feeding me was was standing there with those people and having that commune, right? And them talking about the work and when I heard that. Like I said in the beginning, I haven't had that much experience. The books have been out for how long? And to have someone look at me and say what they thought. This is new for me, signing the books under my name. This is new for me. the books under my name. This is new for me. This is the process whereby the pain in its pastness is converted to the future 10th of July, right? So I get to stand there with people

and hold them, right? And everything in the past has made me ready. I have been there with people. And you know, I feel them coming. I see it. And they're shaking. And there's a way that they're holding themselves. And I know. And it's like all the shit of like, do I look okay? Is this all right?

Am I? That's a way. And it's another person coming. And I'm there in my body. And we talk about how you just show up and do the next indicated fucking thing. Because being in the world is really hard. And that's what it's fucking about how do you make it different how do you let people know

and what i found out is that the secret to that mark is craft i've listened to you right and there's something that you're able to do where you break stuff down and make it digestible so people it's it's something that people's almost on the edge of and you articulate it so it's like that aha and it it it just it's almost like a laxative for your bowels i'm constipated right now and all the girls were only talking about i think shitting is the number one literature metaphor how do you move that shit out it breaks it down it's how do you take problems of the soul and the spirit and transform them into issues of craft and technique so it lodges in somebody so they care about something they didn't before so they can move out of the illusion of that isolation of self right yeah because that's the only way we get out of our suffering.

Right. And showing up and being honest. I was in Brazil. Brazil was the first country that recognized, no problem, they put the books out under my name, they invited me down with Alice Walker. And I'm signing books and this girl comes up to me and I recognize and she's shaking. She tells me she's lost her English. She apologizes. She takes a picture and I get really, you know, Maria Abramowitz,

I think my epitaph should be the artist is present because that's what I really love. It's like to be super fucking present with someone. None of that like worship shit. I went inside with her and I'm like, here's my email. You write

to me, okay? It's okay. I loved Brazil and I felt a connection to all the people there was they did a play about me it was a punk rock martyr this you'll love in the play at the trial scene because you know they're christian they have me with my hair pulled back and i'm wearing a cross so in brazil i get to be the the the martyr boy the shiksa so i felt i'd go back to brazil i sure enough i get invited to a film festival to be a judge yeah and i'm like yes the day i'm leaving i get an email. It's from Delisa. That girl.

She sent me a photo and she said, I don't know if you remember. And then she tells me that a family member is sexually molesting her. And that she knew she needed to tell me. And I said to her, this is where it's, this is God. I said, I'm coming there today. If I didn't have all this documented in email like like everything you just this kind of shit happens all the fucking time with me like all the time so no one's no one's surprised anymore when coincidence is right coincidence is God's

way of staying anonymous baby that's just it and I said to her I'm coming down there today her city Brasilia okay of all the cities I've been to, that was the one. Yeah. And I asked her permission to contact people that I already knew that were going to be there to get services. I said, let's meet with your mom. I know how to do stuff. Yeah. And we did. I went down there. We got the abuse to stop.

We met with her mom. She got therapy services. She's a beautiful young lady. She got therapy services. She's a beautiful young lady. She went to school. She's a singer. I'm in touch with her. I can't tell you how many experiences like that. And you know, none of that other shit matters. That is it. And that's, that's why I knew Deadwood. That's why I knew Corrigan. It's, it's those commune of spirits. It's you. How do you keep showing up to the, how do you keep showing up in faith to this fucking process of life? That is it.

Every day you have to choose fear or faith. Sometimes every moment. And how do you break it down to do the next indicated thing? So, you know, you know that saying it gets better. It gets better. Bull fucking shit. You know, sometimes it doesn't gets better. Bull fucking shit, you know? Sometimes it doesn't get better.

I really love that. There are all these people that are famous and have, like, such rad lives, and it gets better. Maybe for you, motherfucker. But when I was in a group home eating state peanut butter, if you tell me it gets better, I'm like, yeah, like, when? And it's like, you know, sometimes you just have to buy yourself another fucking day and what i would tell people it's just like man when they see a fat girl and they want to roll their eyes or a fat boy right and it's just like feeling this disgust of you have no self-control that that's what was the importance of that movie preciousrecious. Okay. You know, Precious has a lot of problems like the dark characters are bad and

the lighter skin are good. You know, it's got issues, but this is what was so important about that movie. It played Sundance and I was reading about this. It won like some audience appreciation or whatever the award, you know, and the marketers, there was an article about this. It was like

Washington Post or some newspaper and they were saying the marketers don't know what article about this. It was like Washington Post or some newspaper. And they were saying the marketers don't know what to do with this film. Of course they don't. Because you have a protagonist that's morbidly obese. She's tall. She's dark. She ain't cute.

Can we be trusted to give a fuck? Of course we can't. And you know what was beautiful? We did. We did. And if I had that growing up, maybe I wouldn't have had to go. And like Whoopi Goldberg in her comedy routine, she puts a yellow T-shirt on her head. And she said, look at my long blonde hair and my blue, blue eyes.

And that was her being as a child as she would play because she knew who had the power. Because when I was a kid, okay, we're like the same age. So in 74, it was illegal to run away until 1974. Okay, they weren't even calling breast cancer. You couldn't even say breast. And I know this because my mother's cousin is Betty Rolland, who wrote First You Cry, Mary Tyler Moore played her. Before that was chest cavity.

So we're not even fucking talking about breast cancer. We sure as shit, we're not talking about sexual abuse, abuse any of that shit couldn't run away so when they started finally doing the after-school specials what do you think it was it was a blonde hair blue-eyed little boy that was on those tv shows very cute all those shows like fucking you know when they would do huck finn and and tom sorrier they were always so cute and boys could be mischievous where girls well if you're going to, you better be like, there's a taxi driver, pretty baby, so you could be a pretty,

so your choice was that, right? And I got it. If I'm going to be heard, I didn't see fat, chubby Jewish girls. And whenever I would talk about what was going on, there was no, trans was a scary thing. There was sweet transvestite from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Trans was like fucking, that was no, trans was a scary thing. There was sweet transvestite from, you know, Rocky Horror Picture Show. Trans was like fucking, that was like, that was a horror show.

That was what it was called. Right. Right? Yeah. I had no articulation. And also the fact that I had no choice about my sexuality and how, what I felt for me, you know, violence and sex are connected. Okay. I do not, I, for me to feel, to have an orgasm, I need to think about being hurt. And that's true. Right. And I would never say that. Okay, that's it.

I have no choice. I don't know how you disconnect those wires. I don't. And I've experimented doing that. And I feel maybe if it wasn't my choice, that would be something. But, you know, and it'd be like, fine, you know, go to Folsom Street Fair.

And if, you know, you can't beat them, so them so to speak join them but it wasn't my choice so i have issues with doing that and i want to disconnect it but i don't fucking know how and so ever since i can remember it was always like that and that's that's shameful to me it i i i understand it and being able to talk about it it's like you, you're only as sick as your secrets. And it is liberating talking about it. And I know it creates a space for other people to do it. Part of why I created JT, yes, it's to protect myself because I had no words for this. And that's directly connected to the abuse when you were three.

Yeah. That guy who said you were a bad girl for feeling joy. Because he spanked me and he touched me at the same time and the wires got crossed. And that was it. And I knew, I remember my mother, when she was dating, she got this, she would do like letters. You know, you didn't have internet. So she ran an ad and she got a letter and she's reading me a letter from a guy who was into S&M. And she's like, oh, this guy's so fucking sick.

This is sick. This is sick. And that's how that was seen. And I was like, oh, my God, that's what I'm into. And I'm really fucking sick. I am so fucking sick and what I think that we're how we got here that what is beautiful about all of this you know outside of the fact that you're working on on you know putting this stuff together in a real memoir is that people are appreciating the work

despite all the shit that distracted the focus from what is the work. And that you're sort of like survivalist almost, if it's pathological or if it's God-given that your perseverance passed all this stuff that happened, you know, obviously not, I'm not talking about childhood abuse, but the media circus that revolved around, you know, how you publicly resolved, you know, in an intuitive way, your personal, emotional and psychological issues that that stuff is now sort of and because

you didn't engage until this film right and until talking to me that you know an audience for the literature and for the writing and for what it represents and for what david milch calls you know being of service as being the pinnacle of what art should do is happening, and that's a beautiful thing. And, you know, I really had an inner sense that the right person would come. It's like the Cinderella shoe and the gala, we will sell no wine before it's time. I also hope that I wasn't so damaged and defensive that I wouldn't recognize when the right one came.

Because people were coming and I really wanted to be rescued because after the trial, I felt the gate go down. I said, I'm done. I'm done. I couldn't write anymore. So when Jeff came and I saw his film and I saw, wow, he's allowing.

Dennis Johnston. Yeah, Devil and Daniel Johnston. Yeah, I'm sorry, Daniel Johnston. That he allowed Daniel, who actually tried to kill people, okay, which as far as I know, unless I really am split and they just haven't found the bodies yet. He tried to kill people and yet you really care and you understand right yeah and that it's so organic and he's allowed to rest transparently on the grace that gave him rise and and the lack of moralization right and i just thought okay because i i have no filters

all right just people you've got jt's truth and there's mine. I didn't make a mistake telling JT's story. Savannah, all the time. She once said that JT was from South Virginia. And what I realized is it didn't matter. It's like Peter Sellers. She could say anything and they weren't paying attention because the felt authenticity of the work carried them through. So we were on the cloud and the cloud was built by,

like, it's like Hogwarts, okay? So it's all make-believe. You're finding the portal to Hogwarts and the train station, and it doesn't matter what the fuck she says. So when he came, and I recognize that he's someone that I can completely give everything away to because I didn't have anything edited. The tapes were made for me to,

I would tape because my mother was on quiz shows, like I said, and she had won an eight to eight, I mean, a reel to reel track. And she would sit me in front of it and I would let, I always did accents and voices and things like that. And let me say this about the speedy, bad accent. I have a very good ear

and I will absorb whatever i hear but it's a short life okay it's like it's like um it's like the battery from when you know two two giga whatever now yeah so anyway so so it slides all the time so what i did to cover it was speedy was not just british she was from south and she was from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, she'd lived, and just to fuck things up, Israel. You just covered yourself. Because sometimes she puts in the Yiddishisms and everything, so her accent could slide the flock all over the place.

It was sloshy. Well, look. Yeah. Obviously, we could talk forever. I like you a great deal, and I like the books, and I'm just happy that you came out of the hole and you trusted Jeff. He's great.

Doesn't it mind your, I mean. Yeah, it's great. And I'm just like, I want the books to have another life. From your lips to God's ears, as they say. Thanks for talking to me. Thank you for, what the fuck i tell you man after we talked i you know i had to put myself back together so look i would definitely see the doc uh author the j J.T. LeRoy story, but also get these books,

especially The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things and Sarah by J.T. LeRoy, who spoke through Laura Albert and wrote through her. And Laura, I hope she writes that memoir. Man. All right, so don't forget, you can still get my comedy special more later on WTF Pod powered by Squarespace.

There's a link on the homepage and the merch section. Okay, so good. Good? All right. I'll play a guitar for a minute. guitar solo boomer lives it's a night for the whole family be a part of kids night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

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