WEBVTT
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..:: Presented By ZarFilm Website ::..
.:: www.bolboljan.net ::.
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I think every time you do something
like a painting or whatever,
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you...
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you go with ideas.
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And sometimes the past
can conjure those ideas and color them.
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Even if they're new ideas,
the past colors them.
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I was born in Missoula, Montana.
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Then my parents got a house
in Sandpoint, Idaho,
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and I lived there for two years.
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So, I remember Sandpoint, Idaho.
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Little Dickie Smith, my friend,
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he and I
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sat in a mud puddle under this tree.
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My mother dug a hole, or my dad did,
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that we could sit in in the hot weather,
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and they'd fill it with, you know,
water from the hose,
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and we'd sit in this mud puddle.
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It was so beautiful.
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And you get to squeeze mud
and sit with your friend
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under the shade of this tree?
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Forget it.
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And then they moved
to Spokane, Washington.
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In those days,
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my world was very, very small.
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It extended up to this grocery store
in one direction
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and down to a friend's house,
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which was, like, two houses down.
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And then the other direction
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down to my friend Bobby's house.
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Mostly, we played outdoors all day
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and we made our own guns
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and we would play war.
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And I would draw rifles and pistols
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and airplanes and knives
and things like that
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'cause the war
was still kind of freshly over
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and, you know, somehow we all got into it.
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Because I was always drawing,
my mother did...
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This is the greatest thing she did.
One of the greatest things.
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She refused
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to ever have me have coloring books.
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She did not do that
for my brother or my sister.
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Somehow,
a really beautiful thing came to her
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that those would be restrictive...
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and kill some kind of creativity.
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And she did not...
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ever tell any off-color jokes.
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She was totally against any racism.
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She was religious,
but not preachy about it.
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She was a, what you call,
a very warm and good person.
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But she wasn't demonstrative.
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She wouldn't grab your cheeks
and kiss you.
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Not in a million years.
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But you knew that she loved you
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and wanted the best for you
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and expected you
to, uh, live in a certain proper way.
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I never heard my parents argue ever
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about anything.
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They got along like Ike and Mike.
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Super happy household.
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You know, as I look back,
I didn't think anything of it,
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but I had tremendous freedom.
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Nobody was overbearing.
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It was as if there was
just a foundation of love,
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and off we went, you know,
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each in our own direction.
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One night,
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I kind of have the feeling
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it was in the fall and it was pretty late.
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Usually, my father would go outside
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and yell,
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"John?
David?"
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And that would bring us home.
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But this night, it must've been,
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I don't know, close to that time.
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It seemed to be pretty late.
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I don't know what we were doing,
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but from across Shoshoni Avenue...
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out of the darkness
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comes this...
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like, uh, kind of like a strangest dream.
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Because I've never seen
an adult woman naked.
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And she had beautiful, pale, white skin...
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and she was completely naked.
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And I think her mouth was bloodied.
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And she kind of came strangely...
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walking strangely across Shoshoni
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and came into Park Circle Drive.
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And it seemed like
she was sort of like a giant.
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And she came closer and closer,
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and my brother started to cry.
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Something was bad wrong with her.
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And I don't know what happened,
but I think she sat down on a curb, crying.
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But it was very mysterious,
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like we were seeing
something otherworldly.
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And I wanted to do something for her,
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but I was little.
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I didn't know what to do.
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And I don't remember any more than that.
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Like I said, maybe, you know,
my world was no bigger
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than a couple of blocks...
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up until high school.
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Really no bigger than a few blocks.
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And that's why I say huge worlds
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are in, you know, those two blocks.
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Huge.
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Everything's there.
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Everything.
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And you could live in one place
and have everything.
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The night before we left Boise...
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it was a summer night,
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but it wasn't, uh,
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a joyful summer night.
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There's a triangle of grass
between our house and the Smiths' house.
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And at the base of the triangle,
there's a tree.
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And... I must have said good-bye
to everybody.
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The whole family was out there.
My dad was out there.
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I think my brother and sister
were out there.
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I don't know if my mom was there.
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She might've been just inside the house.
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And the Smiths were all out.
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We were just out there.
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And Mr. Smith came out.
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And...
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I can't tell the story.
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I just... I never talk to Mr. Smith...
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hardly ever...
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but, boy...
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Then we went to Virginia,
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and the day I started school,
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there was a huge hurricane.
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And the rain was coming down.
You couldn't hardly see the school.
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It was, like, dark almost.
It was so thick, this storm.
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There were two other guys
starting school...
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and those two guys became my friends,
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but...
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they were not the friends I should've had.
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See, Boise, Idaho...
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seemed like sunshine...
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green grass, mowed lawns.
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Such a cheerful place.
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Such a great place.
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Virginia seemed like always night.
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And...
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I developed spasms of the intestines.
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I was... It was total turmoil.
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I was smoking cigarettes...
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uh, going into DC and drinking...
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and sneaking out of the house at night.
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It was, um...
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It was like... It was almost like...
I couldn't...
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control it, you know?
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It just... It just
was what was happening.
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My mother's
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main saying to me a lot
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was, "I'm very disappointed in you."
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I was real busy...
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not doing what she wanted,
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especially when I was in the ninth grade.
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I got in with a bad bunch
and got into a lot of trouble,
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but I... I was really
living in hell.
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I had to live two different lives,
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and I always felt
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that she thought...
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And I don't know why she thought this,
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and I don't know where this thing came in,
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but I had the feeling
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she thought
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I had something really good in me,
you know, like a high potential.
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So the reason that she would say
she was disappointed in me
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is when she didn't see that thing.
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Not as an artist,
but like just some kind of thing.
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I don't know where she latched onto that,
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but I kept kind of letting her down.
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I never studied.
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I never did anything.
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I hated it so much.
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I hated it, like, with powerful hate.
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The only thing that was important
is what happened outside of school,
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and that had huge impact on me.
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People and relationships,
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slow-dancing parties,
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big, big love
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and dreams.
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Dark, fantastic dreams.
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Incredible time.
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I had a girlfriend named Linda Styles.
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And one night...
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And it was about 9:30 or 10:00.
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Somehow I was on the front lawn
of Linda Styles' house
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and I'm meeting this kid, Toby Keeler,
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who didn't go to Hammond High School.
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He went to private school.
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And Toby told me his father was a painter,
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and that, you know, kind of realization
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that you could be a painter
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popped... You know...
blew all the wiring.
00:22:33.103 --> 00:22:36.313
And that's what I wanted to do
from that second.
00:22:55.792 --> 00:23:00.382
So I begged him to take me
to his father's studio.
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And at that time, Bushnell Keeler
had a studio in Georgetown.
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And I only actually saw it once,
that next weekend.
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I went... Toby took me,
introduced me to his father.
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And I saw his studio.
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And it was the classic studio.
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I mean, it was so beautiful.
00:23:19.274 --> 00:23:21.574
Bushnell could really set up a studio.
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Um, many areas set up
for, like, drawing and for painting
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and for different kind of experiments.
00:23:30.535 --> 00:23:34.075
And, uh, it was just
00:23:34.164 --> 00:23:36.674
what you would call, you know,
the art life,
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you know, right before your eyes.
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I don't know when I started
using the term 'The art life',
00:23:57.020 --> 00:24:02.980
but one of the things Bushnell did
besides, uh, just being a painter
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and living it...
Living life as a painter.
00:24:06.696 --> 00:24:10.866
He gave me the Robert Henri book,
The Art Spirit.
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And I loved that book.
00:24:14.954 --> 00:24:16.964
I can't remember much of it now,
00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:20.750
but I... we used to carry it around
00:24:20.835 --> 00:24:23.125
and The Art Spirit
sort of became the art life
00:24:23.213 --> 00:24:27.883
and I had this idea that you drink coffee,
00:24:27.967 --> 00:24:30.967
you smoke cigarettes and you paint.
00:24:31.930 --> 00:24:33.560
And that's it.
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:38.480
Maybe girls come into a little bit
00:24:38.561 --> 00:24:40.061
but basically,
00:24:40.146 --> 00:24:42.266
it's the incredible happiness
00:24:42.357 --> 00:24:44.857
of working and living that life.
00:25:18.393 --> 00:25:21.273
The reason we moved to Virginia
in the first place
00:25:21.354 --> 00:25:24.654
is my dad got, uh, promoted,
00:25:24.733 --> 00:25:29.903
um, basically to a desk job
in Washington, DC.
00:25:31.239 --> 00:25:34.529
So we lived in Alexandria, Virginia,
00:25:34.617 --> 00:25:36.487
and my father...
00:25:38.913 --> 00:25:43.133
instead of taking a bus
or driving to work,
00:25:43.209 --> 00:25:47.549
would, many days,
wear his forest service uniform
00:25:47.630 --> 00:25:49.880
and a ten-gallon cowboy hat...
00:25:50.633 --> 00:25:56.313
and walk out the front door
and walk into DC.
00:25:56.389 --> 00:25:59.349
It was so uncool to me...
00:26:00.310 --> 00:26:06.780
uh, to see him going off in this, uh,
cowboy hat and this uniform.
00:26:06.858 --> 00:26:10.898
But then later,
as it always happens with kids,
00:26:10.987 --> 00:26:15.487
uh, now it seems, uh, supercool.
00:26:15.575 --> 00:26:18.535
And he was his own guy, you know.
00:26:18.620 --> 00:26:22.750
He didn't give a shit
about what was going on.
00:26:22.832 --> 00:26:25.422
This was what he was.
00:26:30.632 --> 00:26:32.842
Since my father grew up on a ranch,
00:26:32.926 --> 00:26:36.046
and you had to...
00:26:36.137 --> 00:26:38.557
if something's broke, you have to fix it.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:42.440
And we were always building things.
00:26:43.645 --> 00:26:45.685
Always projects.
00:26:45.772 --> 00:26:51.402
Always, you know, working
on one thing or another on the weekends.
00:26:51.486 --> 00:26:54.656
So this kind of goes into your brain
00:26:54.739 --> 00:26:58.369
that you can do these things,
and they're fun.
00:26:58.451 --> 00:27:02.081
It made all this work really fun.
00:27:05.959 --> 00:27:12.379
And he was, uh, a research scientist.
00:27:13.258 --> 00:27:16.678
Meaning, he was, uh, looking into things.
00:27:18.638 --> 00:27:22.678
There's a lot of... things,
00:27:22.767 --> 00:27:25.647
like when you punch a pin into a bug,
00:27:25.729 --> 00:27:29.479
there's incredible textures
00:27:29.566 --> 00:27:31.776
just to a little bug.
00:27:33.611 --> 00:27:36.531
Incredible legs on insects,
00:27:36.614 --> 00:27:38.994
and wings
00:27:39.075 --> 00:27:41.485
and innards.
00:27:42.162 --> 00:27:44.462
It's unbelievable.
00:28:20.658 --> 00:28:24.078
I wanted to get a studio
in Bushnell's studio,
00:28:24.162 --> 00:28:25.792
a room he was renting me.
00:28:25.872 --> 00:28:28.082
I think it was 40 bucks a month.
00:28:30.001 --> 00:28:34.841
And my father, bless his heart,
said he would pay half if I paid half.
00:28:34.923 --> 00:28:37.883
So I got a job at Hurley's Drugstore
00:28:37.967 --> 00:28:40.347
delivering prescriptions at night.
00:28:42.263 --> 00:28:46.393
One time I came in during the daytime,
00:28:46.476 --> 00:28:51.856
and I went to the soda fountain
to get a Coke.
00:28:52.899 --> 00:28:57.609
And Jack Fisk was the soda jerk.
00:28:57.696 --> 00:29:02.116
And so he said,
'I hear you have a studio."
00:29:02.200 --> 00:29:03.620
And I said, "Yeah."
00:29:03.702 --> 00:29:08.962
He said, "Uh, you want somebody else
to share the rent with that?"
00:29:09.040 --> 00:29:12.460
Then pretty soon, Jack was painting
all the time down there with me,
00:29:12.544 --> 00:29:14.174
and it was too small.
00:29:14.254 --> 00:29:19.344
So then Jack and I got
three more different studios.
00:29:24.180 --> 00:29:29.100
And I knew, uh, my stuff sucked.
00:29:31.187 --> 00:29:33.817
But I needed to burn through...
00:29:33.898 --> 00:29:37.188
I needed to find what was mine.
00:29:38.278 --> 00:29:41.318
And the only way to find it
00:29:41.406 --> 00:29:45.196
is just to keep painting and keep painting
00:29:45.285 --> 00:29:47.365
and keep painting
00:29:47.454 --> 00:29:49.544
and see if you catch something.
00:30:13.104 --> 00:30:17.114
My father wanted me home
at 11:00 on school nights.
00:30:17.192 --> 00:30:19.192
I didn't wanna come home at 11:00.
00:30:19.903 --> 00:30:22.283
All I wanted to do was paint.
00:30:22.364 --> 00:30:24.784
So we had a big fight.
00:30:24.866 --> 00:30:27.076
And we never had fights.
00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:31.330
But this particular time,
it was really bad.
00:30:31.414 --> 00:30:35.254
And I remember, like, you know,
it was terrible.
00:30:36.169 --> 00:30:39.799
And I said I wanted
to stay out later than 11:00,
00:30:39.881 --> 00:30:43.721
and I might have said something like,
'well, I'm going to stay out later than 11:00."
00:30:45.512 --> 00:30:48.102
And my father said, "fine,
00:30:48.723 --> 00:30:51.983
you are no longer a member
of this family."
00:30:54.479 --> 00:30:56.859
And he just left the room.
00:30:58.316 --> 00:31:03.906
And this hit me like
a, you know, sucker punch.
00:31:03.988 --> 00:31:05.408
You know, just really.
00:31:05.490 --> 00:31:08.080
And I went up to my room.
00:31:08.159 --> 00:31:12.789
And I remember I just was,
like, you know, devastated.
00:31:13.790 --> 00:31:16.790
But then Bushnell called my father.
00:31:18.294 --> 00:31:20.674
'Cause I explained to him,
you know, what it was.
00:31:20.755 --> 00:31:23.085
And he said to my father...
00:31:23.174 --> 00:31:28.184
He said, "I don't wanna interfere
with any of your business,
00:31:28.263 --> 00:31:32.563
but I would like to let you know
that every day,
00:31:32.642 --> 00:31:34.942
David comes down here and is painting.
00:31:35.020 --> 00:31:37.440
He's not goofing around.
00:31:37.522 --> 00:31:42.782
And I wish my son
had something that he loved to do
00:31:42.861 --> 00:31:44.991
and, you know, was working like this.
00:31:45.071 --> 00:31:48.031
I just think it's important that you know
he's real serious about this
00:31:48.116 --> 00:31:50.196
and he's really working."
00:31:50.285 --> 00:31:54.785
And so this went a long way with my dad.
00:31:54.873 --> 00:31:59.173
And I think after that,
I could come home any time I wanted,
00:31:59.252 --> 00:32:01.092
and it was totally cool.
00:32:13.016 --> 00:32:16.016
You really couldn't ask
for a better father.
00:32:18.355 --> 00:32:23.565
He didn't have
any kind of deviousness in him.
00:32:23.651 --> 00:32:26.531
He was really pure
00:32:26.613 --> 00:32:29.573
and he was super fair,
00:32:29.657 --> 00:32:32.537
just naturally honest and fair.
00:32:32.619 --> 00:32:36.659
Whenever I wanted anything,
his first thing was,
00:32:36.748 --> 00:32:38.538
"meet me halfway."
00:32:38.625 --> 00:32:41.705
I'd have to do something,
and he would do something.
00:32:41.795 --> 00:32:45.915
And I just, um, saw that
00:32:46.007 --> 00:32:49.587
as a super good, you know, thing.
00:32:50.387 --> 00:32:53.467
I would be able to get
what I wanted with his help,
00:32:53.556 --> 00:32:55.266
but I had to do something too.
00:32:59.062 --> 00:33:01.692
Are you ready?
00:33:59.914 --> 00:34:01.544
Oh, shit.
00:34:21.644 --> 00:34:23.064
Oh, fuck.
00:34:25.315 --> 00:34:27.275
Oh, you motherfucker.
00:34:41.456 --> 00:34:45.496
In the tenth grade,
the sunshine starts coming back.
00:34:45.585 --> 00:34:48.125
Then I made a whole bunch
of different friends,
00:34:48.213 --> 00:34:50.013
and that started a good turn.
00:34:50.090 --> 00:34:55.180
Now, all those new friends,
we would go into DC all the time,
00:34:55.261 --> 00:34:57.641
but it wasn't the same dark vibe,
00:34:57.722 --> 00:35:02.602
so I still was living,
like, maybe three lives now
00:35:02.686 --> 00:35:06.976
because I had those friends
and I would do stuff with them,
00:35:07.732 --> 00:35:11.322
I had my home life
and would do stuff there,
00:35:11.403 --> 00:35:13.663
and then I had the, uh, studio.
00:35:17.575 --> 00:35:23.245
So you act and speak and think one way
00:35:23.331 --> 00:35:25.291
in this environment,
00:35:25.375 --> 00:35:30.665
then you act and speak and think
in this other environment totally different.
00:35:31.339 --> 00:35:35.639
And then another way of acting
and speaking and thinking in the other one.
00:35:35.719 --> 00:35:40.429
For instance, my girlfriend,
who was a beautiful, wholesome,
00:35:40.515 --> 00:35:42.555
wonderful person,
00:35:42.642 --> 00:35:44.602
I never brought her home.
00:35:45.395 --> 00:35:48.975
I never brought any friends home,
if I could help it.
00:35:49.774 --> 00:35:54.994
And I kept things very separate.
00:35:56.573 --> 00:36:00.543
And I did not want my parents
to go to my graduation,
00:36:00.618 --> 00:36:02.288
but they went anyway.
00:36:02.370 --> 00:36:06.460
I just, um, was afraid
of what would come out
00:36:06.541 --> 00:36:08.841
if everybody got together.
00:36:46.623 --> 00:36:49.833
For some reason,
00:36:49.918 --> 00:36:53.128
I always liked the idea
of going to Boston.
00:36:54.881 --> 00:36:59.891
And it just sounded
like, uh, a good place.
00:37:01.471 --> 00:37:06.641
And my father helped me
move everything in,
00:37:06.726 --> 00:37:09.846
and then he took me to the supermarket,
00:37:09.938 --> 00:37:14.068
and we stocked up on a lot of stuff
00:37:14.150 --> 00:37:16.860
and brought it back to the apartment.
00:37:16.945 --> 00:37:19.855
And then I walked out with my dad
00:37:19.948 --> 00:37:21.868
and said good-bye to him on the street
00:37:21.950 --> 00:37:24.870
and watched him drive off.
00:37:24.953 --> 00:37:26.963
Then I went back in my apartment.
00:37:28.373 --> 00:37:31.633
And I never left.
00:37:31.710 --> 00:37:34.750
It was two weeks before school.
00:37:34.838 --> 00:37:38.128
I had a transistor radio,
00:37:38.216 --> 00:37:41.546
so I sometimes listened to music,
00:37:41.636 --> 00:37:44.756
but I ended up sitting in a chair.
00:37:45.682 --> 00:37:47.732
And the only time I got out of the chair
00:37:47.809 --> 00:37:51.649
was to, uh, pee or eat.
00:37:52.814 --> 00:37:56.784
And the batteries
went down and down on the radio,
00:37:56.860 --> 00:37:59.570
so I had to hold it to my ear to hear it,
00:37:59.654 --> 00:38:01.954
and then it went dead.
00:38:02.032 --> 00:38:07.202
And so I was just basically
really unable to do anything
00:38:07.287 --> 00:38:10.497
and definitely unable
to leave the apartment.
00:38:12.959 --> 00:38:15.379
And I say it took all my strength
00:38:15.462 --> 00:38:17.672
to go to school the first day.
00:38:19.215 --> 00:38:22.675
So, it was something
I needed to go through, I guess.
00:38:23.720 --> 00:38:28.350
But I still, um, would
much rather stay at home.
00:38:28.433 --> 00:38:33.733
And there is, uh, always, um,
00:38:33.813 --> 00:38:36.323
nervousness of going out.
00:39:21.486 --> 00:39:23.816
See you, Mary.
00:39:33.039 --> 00:39:35.709
I don't get out much.
00:39:35.792 --> 00:39:38.632
Come on.
00:39:39.838 --> 00:39:41.338
Come on.
00:40:09.242 --> 00:40:13.502
My father, uh, told me, you know,
I could get this place,
00:40:13.580 --> 00:40:15.620
but I had to take a roommate,
00:40:15.707 --> 00:40:20.497
and my roommate later turned out
to be Peter Wolf
00:40:20.587 --> 00:40:22.707
of the J. Geils Band.
00:40:22.797 --> 00:40:24.297
He's a great musician.
00:40:24.382 --> 00:40:27.642
And he knows the blues.
00:40:27.719 --> 00:40:30.389
But he didn't ever lift a brush.
00:40:30.472 --> 00:40:34.852
And the first night, there was, um,
00:40:34.934 --> 00:40:38.484
another guy named Peter
who had a pickup truck.
00:40:38.563 --> 00:40:44.443
And the three of us, uh,
got in his pickup truck
00:40:44.527 --> 00:40:50.907
and drove back down
to, uh, New York City, in Brooklyn.
00:40:52.827 --> 00:40:55.827
And it was on that trip
00:40:55.914 --> 00:41:00.384
that I smoked, um, marijuana
for the first time.
00:41:00.460 --> 00:41:02.880
And then it was my turn to drive.
00:41:02.962 --> 00:41:06.262
So I was driving on a freeway
00:41:06.341 --> 00:41:09.261
and pretty soon I hear, "David?"
00:41:10.762 --> 00:41:12.262
And I said, "what?"
00:41:12.347 --> 00:41:15.017
And they said, "David."
00:41:15.100 --> 00:41:18.020
I said, "what?"
00:41:18.103 --> 00:41:21.313
"David!"
00:41:21.398 --> 00:41:23.978
"You stopped on the freeway, man."
00:41:24.943 --> 00:41:27.203
And I had stopped right in the...
00:41:27.278 --> 00:41:29.698
Not the right lane, but in the middle.
00:41:29.781 --> 00:41:32.121
'Cause I was watching these white lines
00:41:32.200 --> 00:41:35.620
and then it got slower and slower,
it was such a dream.
00:41:57.475 --> 00:41:59.635
And the next time I smoked dope...
00:42:01.229 --> 00:42:03.729
uh, Bob Dylan was playing, you know,
00:42:03.815 --> 00:42:06.315
at this big place right down the street.
00:42:06.401 --> 00:42:09.401
And so, lo and behold,
00:42:09.487 --> 00:42:12.697
out of thousands of people
in this, you know,
00:42:12.782 --> 00:42:15.412
auditorium kind of thing
which was real steep.
00:42:15.493 --> 00:42:18.293
I was way in the back.
00:42:18.371 --> 00:42:20.831
Out of all those seats, when I sat down,
00:42:20.915 --> 00:42:25.875
there was this girl sitting next to me
that I'd just broken up with.
00:42:25.962 --> 00:42:30.012
Then Bob Dylan came out on the stage
00:42:30.091 --> 00:42:33.801
and I couldn't believe how little he was.
00:42:33.887 --> 00:42:37.097
And I measured him
with my fingers on my knee,
00:42:37.182 --> 00:42:43.652
and I said to her,
'his jeans are only this big."
00:42:43.730 --> 00:42:48.190
And then I measured his guitar
and I says, "his guitar is only this big."
00:42:50.403 --> 00:42:54.203
And I wasn't even digging the music,
it was so far away.
00:42:54.282 --> 00:42:57.832
So I wanted to get out of there
really bad.
00:42:57.911 --> 00:43:01.791
Then when the concert was over,
Peter came back with a bunch of his friends.
00:43:02.957 --> 00:43:05.537
He said, "nobody walks out on Dylan."
00:43:05.627 --> 00:43:10.127
I said, "I walk out on Dylan.
Get the fuck out of here."
00:43:10.215 --> 00:43:14.005
And, um, so that was the end
of Peter as my roomie.
00:43:20.058 --> 00:43:23.438
I just didn't wanna be,
00:43:23.520 --> 00:43:25.560
you know, anywhere in this world.
00:43:25.647 --> 00:43:28.067
It was, you know, now my world.
00:43:55.301 --> 00:43:57.141
I hated Boston.
00:43:57.220 --> 00:44:00.600
Boston Museum School was kind of like...
00:44:00.682 --> 00:44:03.892
to me like going back to high school.
00:44:03.977 --> 00:44:08.977
I didn't like anything inside that building
except the sculpture department.
00:44:10.191 --> 00:44:15.321
They don't do anything
except make you do these exercises.
00:44:15.405 --> 00:44:19.025
And it's just drudgery.
00:44:19.117 --> 00:44:24.407
And they want the exercises
to be a certain way,
00:44:24.497 --> 00:44:26.877
and if your way isn't that way,
00:44:26.958 --> 00:44:31.048
you're just gonna, you know...
You're gonna flunk out of art school.
00:44:32.005 --> 00:44:33.625
It's a joke.
00:44:33.715 --> 00:44:37.295
And then no kids
were serious about painting.
00:44:37.385 --> 00:44:40.755
So, it was just, uh,
a kind of a waste of a year,
00:44:40.847 --> 00:44:42.767
and I quit going to school.
00:44:42.849 --> 00:44:47.559
And then I heard from Jack.
He was fed up with Cooper Union.
00:44:47.645 --> 00:44:51.355
I was more than fed up
with Boston Museum School.
00:44:51.441 --> 00:44:54.691
And we decided we're gonna go to Europe.
00:44:56.404 --> 00:44:58.494
So, we started making plans,
00:44:58.573 --> 00:45:01.913
and we found out this guy,
Oskar Kokoschka,
00:45:01.993 --> 00:45:05.833
had this class in Salzburg, Austria.
00:45:10.210 --> 00:45:12.800
So we decided we were gonna go do that.
00:45:12.879 --> 00:45:17.089
But it was, like, not even half-baked,
these ideas.
00:45:18.385 --> 00:45:22.135
So we were gonna go for three years.
00:45:22.222 --> 00:45:23.522
And...
00:45:24.557 --> 00:45:27.057
But we came back in 15 days.
00:45:34.651 --> 00:45:37.491
So Jack was, really, my best friend.
00:45:37.570 --> 00:45:41.830
But when Jack and I came back from Europe,
00:45:41.908 --> 00:45:44.538
we had a pretty big falling out.
00:45:44.619 --> 00:45:49.539
Next thing I hear is he's up at
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
00:45:49.624 --> 00:45:51.924
which made me really happy for him.
00:45:53.003 --> 00:45:55.593
But... Bushnell
00:45:55.672 --> 00:45:58.472
and some of the painters in that area...
00:45:59.092 --> 00:46:02.552
I would go to Bushnell's and have
coffee with him, you know, every day.
00:46:02.637 --> 00:46:06.097
And so he got this idea that he said,
00:46:06.182 --> 00:46:09.352
"Let's all snub David.
00:46:10.103 --> 00:46:12.903
Let's make life miserable for him.
00:46:12.981 --> 00:46:15.821
And then maybe
he'll wanna go back to school."
00:46:16.693 --> 00:46:20.163
And that's what they did.
I'd go over there, they'd hardly talk to me.
00:46:21.156 --> 00:46:25.036
And I just, I'd get this strange feeling,
00:46:25.118 --> 00:46:27.498
and Jack telling me how good it was.
00:46:27.579 --> 00:46:32.329
One day, I said, "Bush, I think
I'm gonna go to... back to school."
00:46:32.417 --> 00:46:34.587
And he said, "well, bully for you."
00:46:34.669 --> 00:46:38.299
He wrote a letter, secretly, to the school,
00:46:38.381 --> 00:46:41.301
a really powerful
letter on my...
00:46:41.384 --> 00:46:44.394
I did never know about it till way later.
00:46:45.764 --> 00:46:48.604
When I went up there to school,
00:46:48.683 --> 00:46:50.483
they not only accepted me,
00:46:51.394 --> 00:46:54.154
but they put me in advanced classes.
00:46:55.065 --> 00:46:56.975
And it wasn't anything to do with my work.
00:46:57.067 --> 00:46:58.857
It was Bushnell doing it.
00:46:58.943 --> 00:47:00.613
It was great.
00:47:18.129 --> 00:47:21.719
First of all,
yeah, I wanted to go up there
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:23.970
'cause Jack said it was good.
00:47:24.052 --> 00:47:30.432
But Philadelphia was one of the last places
in the world I ever wanted to go.
00:47:30.517 --> 00:47:33.847
There's something about Philadelphia
that I didn't like,
00:47:33.937 --> 00:47:36.607
and so when I got...
00:47:36.690 --> 00:47:40.530
I forget the way the bus goes,
but you're not in Philadelphia,
00:47:40.610 --> 00:47:43.070
and then you go across a bridge
00:47:43.154 --> 00:47:45.994
and that bridge takes you.
00:47:46.074 --> 00:47:48.124
So, on the bridge, I was saying,
00:47:48.201 --> 00:47:51.711
"I'm not in Philadelphia, I'm not
in Philadelphia, I'm not in Philadelphia."
00:47:51.788 --> 00:47:53.958
Then I got halfway over the bridge
and I said,
00:47:54.040 --> 00:47:56.960
"I'm in Philadelphia, I'm in Philadelphia."
00:47:57.043 --> 00:47:59.253
And I just couldn't believe it.
00:48:54.684 --> 00:48:56.354
Philadelphia...
00:48:57.312 --> 00:49:01.322
was kind of a poor man's New York City.
00:49:02.525 --> 00:49:04.275
So it was a weird town.
00:49:04.361 --> 00:49:06.651
It was a kind of a mean town.
00:49:09.574 --> 00:49:12.204
One woman, who was my neighbor,
00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:15.579
reeked of urine.
00:49:16.998 --> 00:49:20.588
And she was a complete racist.
00:49:22.504 --> 00:49:24.424
There was another woman
00:49:25.423 --> 00:49:28.843
who was totally crazy.
00:49:29.969 --> 00:49:33.469
She was a neighbor,
lived down the street with her parents.
00:49:35.183 --> 00:49:40.403
And she would go around the backyard
on her hands and knees
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:42.860
and squawk like a chicken
00:49:43.817 --> 00:49:46.397
and say, "I'm a chicken, I'm a chicken"
00:49:46.486 --> 00:49:48.236
and squawk and squawk
00:49:48.321 --> 00:49:52.741
and go around and around
in this tall white grass in her backyard.
00:49:53.451 --> 00:49:56.751
She came up to me one day on the street...
00:49:58.206 --> 00:50:01.706
and she said, "Oh, my nipples hurt!"
00:50:01.793 --> 00:50:06.213
And she was squeezing her breast and
00:50:07.048 --> 00:50:10.298
standing in front of me,
squeezing 'em and shaking 'em...
00:50:10.385 --> 00:50:12.345
"my nipples hurt!"
00:50:13.471 --> 00:50:17.481
Then there is, uh, that person
I walked by, you know,
00:50:17.559 --> 00:50:20.149
going to the store
to get some smokes or something.
00:50:20.228 --> 00:50:21.808
I'm walking down the street.
00:50:21.896 --> 00:50:26.226
There's a very nice lady
with her little boy...
00:50:26.317 --> 00:50:30.487
her little baby on her lap
out on the stoop.
00:50:30.572 --> 00:50:32.452
I'm walking by.
00:50:32.532 --> 00:50:34.332
I say, "how you doing?"
00:50:34.409 --> 00:50:36.749
"how you doing? How you doing?"
00:50:36.828 --> 00:50:38.748
She turned to her baby and said,
00:50:38.830 --> 00:50:41.370
"You grow up like that
and I'll fucking kill you."
00:50:45.670 --> 00:50:49.170
There was a thick,
00:50:50.175 --> 00:50:52.005
thick fear
00:50:52.093 --> 00:50:54.553
in the air.
00:50:55.513 --> 00:50:59.523
There was a feeling
of sickness, corruption...
00:51:00.852 --> 00:51:03.232
of racial hatred.
00:51:05.523 --> 00:51:08.993
But Philadelphia
was just perfect to spark things.
00:51:12.989 --> 00:51:15.369
And the students were great,
00:51:15.450 --> 00:51:17.160
and they were workers.
00:51:18.203 --> 00:51:23.423
And we had a kind of camaraderie,
00:51:24.209 --> 00:51:29.629
and it was like the art life,
uh, the art spirit was alive and well.
00:51:39.474 --> 00:51:44.234
Philadelphia was what started...
00:51:46.189 --> 00:51:48.779
started, uh...
00:51:50.068 --> 00:51:52.198
It was so good for me.
00:51:54.030 --> 00:51:56.490
Really, really good.
00:52:03.248 --> 00:52:05.578
Even though I lived in fear,
00:52:06.876 --> 00:52:11.756
I've kind of, um, uh...
00:52:13.383 --> 00:52:15.013
It was...
00:52:17.971 --> 00:52:19.351
thrilling...
00:52:20.473 --> 00:52:24.193
to live the art life
in Philadelphia at that time.
00:54:04.994 --> 00:54:06.584
I...
00:54:08.081 --> 00:54:12.421
had some kind of a cubicle set up
00:54:12.502 --> 00:54:16.722
in this painting studio at the academy.
00:54:19.009 --> 00:54:21.639
And when I went into my little cubicle,
00:54:21.720 --> 00:54:23.600
it was very private.
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:27.889
And there were other cubicles
like that around.
00:54:27.976 --> 00:54:30.846
But people could work in privacy.
00:54:30.937 --> 00:54:33.357
And I was painting a painting
00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:37.190
about four-foot square.
00:54:39.070 --> 00:54:41.160
And it was mostly black,
00:54:41.239 --> 00:54:46.789
but it had some green plant and leaves
00:54:48.121 --> 00:54:50.211
coming out of the black.
00:54:53.168 --> 00:54:58.208
And I was sitting back,
probably taking a smoke and looking at it.
00:55:00.008 --> 00:55:03.218
And from the painting
00:55:03.303 --> 00:55:05.723
I heard a wind.
00:55:05.805 --> 00:55:08.725
And the green started moving.
00:55:10.852 --> 00:55:13.152
And I thought, "Oh!
00:55:13.229 --> 00:55:17.319
A moving painting, but with sound."
00:55:20.236 --> 00:55:23.616
And that idea stuck in my head.
00:55:27.911 --> 00:55:29.911
A moving painting.
00:56:37.480 --> 00:56:39.110
One night...
00:56:40.567 --> 00:56:45.027
I met the man
who was the night man at the morgue
00:56:45.113 --> 00:56:47.413
at Pop's Diner,
00:56:47.490 --> 00:56:51.870
and I said, "I sure would like
to come over there and...
00:56:51.953 --> 00:56:54.043
and, uh, see...
00:56:54.748 --> 00:56:56.708
And he said, "Let me know."
00:56:56.791 --> 00:56:58.841
Uh, you know, "Let me know."
00:56:58.918 --> 00:57:04.218
And so I went across over there,
midnight, rang the bell.
00:57:04.883 --> 00:57:06.593
This guy lets me in.
00:57:06.676 --> 00:57:09.426
In the front was a kind of like, uh...
00:57:09.512 --> 00:57:11.512
had, like, those square tiles,
00:57:11.598 --> 00:57:14.178
green and kinda white,
00:57:14.893 --> 00:57:17.693
and it had a cigarette machine,
a Coke machine,
00:57:17.771 --> 00:57:20.361
some couches and a desk.
00:57:20.440 --> 00:57:24.940
So it was kind of like
a lobby room in the front.
00:57:25.028 --> 00:57:30.158
Then there was this big door
with a glass pane in it and wire in the glass,
00:57:30.241 --> 00:57:32.541
and a doorknob, a brass doorknob or something.
00:57:32.619 --> 00:57:35.709
You open up that, go down this corridor,
00:57:35.789 --> 00:57:40.839
and now you're in, you know,
the back room where they do everything.
00:57:40.919 --> 00:57:44.209
But nobody was working
'cause it's night.
00:57:44.297 --> 00:57:48.717
And I went into the cold room
and, you know
00:57:48.802 --> 00:57:50.932
He closed the door behind me.
00:57:51.596 --> 00:57:56.266
And, um, so I'm in there sitting,
uh, kind of on the floor
00:57:56.351 --> 00:57:58.941
and there's these, like, bunk beds.
00:57:59.020 --> 00:58:01.860
All these people dead
00:58:01.940 --> 00:58:05.030
you know, bodies all around me,
00:58:05.110 --> 00:58:08.860
and, um, I just sort of sat there
00:58:08.947 --> 00:58:11.367
and, uh, felt it.
00:58:12.158 --> 00:58:13.618
It was...
00:58:13.702 --> 00:58:15.502
It was strange.
00:58:17.038 --> 00:58:19.918
And then I went home.
00:58:28.174 --> 00:58:34.014
The thing that gets you is that
you wonder the story of each one.
00:58:34.097 --> 00:58:36.767
You wonder the story.
00:58:36.850 --> 00:58:40.810
Who they were, what they did,
how they got there.
00:58:40.895 --> 00:58:42.895
Just makes you think.
00:58:44.315 --> 00:58:45.815
And...
00:58:51.406 --> 00:58:53.776
it makes you think of stories.
01:00:02.435 --> 01:00:06.555
This was 1967...
01:00:07.774 --> 01:00:10.694
and I was living
01:00:10.777 --> 01:00:13.567
at 2429 Aspen Street.
01:00:18.910 --> 01:00:23.040
Peggy had, at that time,
01:00:23.123 --> 01:00:27.043
sort of started moving in to 2429.
01:00:27.961 --> 01:00:31.881
And I get a call
01:00:31.965 --> 01:00:34.335
that my father had to make a trip
01:00:34.426 --> 01:00:38.506
from California
out to, say, DC or something,
01:00:38.596 --> 01:00:43.436
and he would like to come up
and visit, uh, in Philadelphia.
01:00:43.518 --> 01:00:45.808
So I said, "Oh, my God."
01:00:47.272 --> 01:00:49.192
I had to make arrangements.
01:00:49.274 --> 01:00:51.864
Peggy had to move out.
01:00:51.943 --> 01:00:54.653
Uh, not move out, but not be there.
01:00:54.738 --> 01:00:56.448
And...
01:00:58.033 --> 01:01:02.083
I picked up my dad and brought him
back to 2429 Aspen Street
01:01:02.162 --> 01:01:04.042
and we had a visit.
01:01:04.122 --> 01:01:07.332
And just near the end of the visit I said,
01:01:07.417 --> 01:01:10.797
"Oh, I gotta show you some stuff."
01:01:10.879 --> 01:01:14.549
And, uh, I took him down to the basement,
01:01:14.632 --> 01:01:17.892
which was, like,
01:01:17.969 --> 01:01:21.889
earthen floor, really old.
01:01:21.973 --> 01:01:25.693
Cobwebs and stuff
all around the ceiling level.
01:01:25.769 --> 01:01:28.519
And dirty basement windows.
01:01:28.605 --> 01:01:31.015
But I'd set up these little tables,
01:01:31.107 --> 01:01:36.357
little, like, platforms
out of wood and stuff,
01:01:36.446 --> 01:01:39.446
and I had all these experiments going.
01:01:39.532 --> 01:01:43.412
Like, I wanted to see what fruit
would do after a long period
01:01:43.495 --> 01:01:47.615
different stages of fruit
and how it would decay.
01:01:47.707 --> 01:01:52.917
And I had some dead birds
and I had my mouse in plastic
01:01:53.004 --> 01:01:56.134
and I had, you know,
a bunch of stuff I'd collected.
01:01:57.467 --> 01:01:59.587
So I wanted to share this with my father.
01:01:59.678 --> 01:02:01.848
So I took him down to the basement.
01:02:01.930 --> 01:02:04.560
And it's pretty dim light.
01:02:04.641 --> 01:02:07.731
And looking at these things
I'm sharing with him, right?
01:02:08.645 --> 01:02:10.895
And he's looking at them.
01:02:10.980 --> 01:02:12.690
So then we went back up,
01:02:12.774 --> 01:02:16.074
and we were on the stairway,
and I was ahead of him,
01:02:17.070 --> 01:02:19.910
and I was smiling, uh, to myself.
01:02:19.989 --> 01:02:23.159
It was great that he got to see this.
01:02:23.243 --> 01:02:25.873
And I kind of turned with a smile.
01:02:25.954 --> 01:02:30.004
As we were going up the stairs
I turned back toward him,
01:02:30.083 --> 01:02:35.343
and I see this pained expression
on my father's face,
01:02:36.256 --> 01:02:38.876
which he was hiding from me.
01:02:40.135 --> 01:02:42.045
Then I got back in the truck
01:02:42.137 --> 01:02:46.427
and we were driving back
to the, uh, railroad station,
01:02:46.516 --> 01:02:50.266
and it was in that truck
01:02:50.353 --> 01:02:53.903
driving back, uh, to the station
01:02:53.982 --> 01:02:56.072
that he said to me, "Dave?"
01:02:56.151 --> 01:02:57.741
I said, "Yeah?"
01:02:57.819 --> 01:03:01.779
"I don't think you should
ever have children."
01:03:06.327 --> 01:03:09.207
He was worried about me.
01:03:10.290 --> 01:03:14.090
But inside me
I felt there was nothing to worry about.
01:03:14.169 --> 01:03:17.259
But I still understood why he said it.
01:03:17.339 --> 01:03:20.969
He misunderstood, um, my experiments
01:03:21.051 --> 01:03:23.801
for, um...
01:03:23.887 --> 01:03:26.217
some kind of, uh...
01:03:27.098 --> 01:03:30.558
like, diabolical, you know,
01:03:30.643 --> 01:03:34.653
man who needs serious help,
01:03:34.731 --> 01:03:36.901
mentally and probably emotionally.
01:03:58.004 --> 01:04:02.804
The ironic part of this is,
01:04:02.884 --> 01:04:06.184
unbeknownst to me and my father,
01:04:07.347 --> 01:04:10.807
Peggy, at that very moment, was pregnant.
01:04:14.145 --> 01:04:16.725
So, uh, that...
01:04:16.815 --> 01:04:20.275
that's... uh, interesting.
01:05:11.870 --> 01:05:14.290
I started doing a...
01:05:15.373 --> 01:05:17.633
kind of a split-screen...
01:05:18.918 --> 01:05:20.168
thing,
01:05:20.253 --> 01:05:23.513
and it was gonna be Mary Fisk
01:05:23.590 --> 01:05:26.010
dancing on one-third of the screen
01:05:27.218 --> 01:05:28.718
and...
01:05:30.472 --> 01:05:34.482
on the other two-thirds an animated thing.
01:05:35.643 --> 01:05:41.233
So I animated that thing for two months.
01:05:41.983 --> 01:05:45.033
And I had a hundred feet of film
in the camera.
01:05:46.488 --> 01:05:49.698
And I didn't know technically
what I was doing really,
01:05:49.783 --> 01:05:54.253
but I took the hundred-foot roll
out of the camera,
01:05:55.163 --> 01:05:57.003
took it to the lab,
01:05:57.082 --> 01:05:59.882
and a couple of days later I got it back.
01:05:59.959 --> 01:06:01.749
And I was standing in the doorway
01:06:01.836 --> 01:06:06.336
'cause I opened the door
so I could get sunlight and just
01:06:06.424 --> 01:06:09.894
I just wanted to check the first part,
make sure everything was okay.
01:06:09.969 --> 01:06:13.519
So I unspool, there's a lot of liter on it.
You know, and I unspool some more.
01:06:13.598 --> 01:06:16.228
And I can't find anything.
I unspool some more.
01:06:16.309 --> 01:06:17.979
And it dawns on me
01:06:18.061 --> 01:06:23.271
that this entire roll of negative is a blur.
01:06:23.358 --> 01:06:25.108
And Peggy...
01:06:26.111 --> 01:06:29.741
Her recollection is that I was really upset.
01:06:31.199 --> 01:06:35.449
But... in a strange way...
01:06:36.830 --> 01:06:41.920
I wasn't that upset because...
01:06:42.794 --> 01:06:47.474
I must have been getting an idea
for something more.
01:06:48.258 --> 01:06:52.678
And I wanted to do
live action and animation both.
01:06:52.762 --> 01:06:55.392
That's when I made The Alphabet.
01:07:41.978 --> 01:07:46.648
So, accidents or destroying something
01:07:46.733 --> 01:07:49.243
can lead to something good.
01:07:51.237 --> 01:07:53.737
It can lead to something good.
01:07:53.823 --> 01:07:57.243
Very controlled things,
01:07:57.327 --> 01:07:59.907
not being open to...
01:08:01.331 --> 01:08:03.251
You know, just like being...
01:08:03.333 --> 01:08:07.173
like these boundaries,
they just screw you.
01:08:08.004 --> 01:08:12.134
And you have to sometimes make a huge mess
01:08:12.217 --> 01:08:14.837
and make big mistakes
01:08:14.928 --> 01:08:16.888
to find that thing
01:08:18.139 --> 01:08:20.479
that you're looking for.
01:09:24.914 --> 01:09:28.174
Right after The Alphabet was finished,
01:09:29.127 --> 01:09:30.957
right after it was finished,
01:09:32.088 --> 01:09:35.298
we must have moved up
to 2416 Poplar Street.
01:09:38.762 --> 01:09:41.772
It must have been right around then...
01:09:43.808 --> 01:09:46.308
that we needed money.
01:09:47.145 --> 01:09:49.145
And...
01:09:51.858 --> 01:09:55.318
I was sawing wood in the dining room.
01:09:56.780 --> 01:09:59.530
And it was like...
01:10:00.867 --> 01:10:04.947
You know, the sweetness of freedom
01:10:05.622 --> 01:10:08.172
was just going.
01:10:09.417 --> 01:10:11.497
But I loved sawing that wood.
01:10:11.586 --> 01:10:14.456
It was my last free night.
01:10:14.547 --> 01:10:17.047
And then I started this job.
01:10:17.133 --> 01:10:21.933
And I'd go there, you know,
five days a week.
01:10:46.037 --> 01:10:50.787
When I was printing for Rodger LaPelle,
01:10:50.875 --> 01:10:54.795
Jennifer was, like,
two or three or four months old.
01:10:55.547 --> 01:10:58.007
I had applied for a grant
01:10:58.091 --> 01:10:59.761
to the American Film Institute,
01:10:59.843 --> 01:11:01.933
an independent filmmakers grant.
01:11:02.762 --> 01:11:06.772
The winners of the first group
were announced.
01:11:06.850 --> 01:11:10.810
And when I read the names of the winners,
01:11:11.730 --> 01:11:13.650
I knew I wouldn't win,
01:11:13.732 --> 01:11:18.702
'cause they were all really
well-established underground filmmakers.
01:11:19.779 --> 01:11:23.029
So, and they had their bios
and all the stuff with them,
01:11:23.116 --> 01:11:26.036
so I just gave up.
I mean, I didn't really give up.
01:11:26.119 --> 01:11:28.579
I just said, "There's no fucking way."
01:11:28.663 --> 01:11:31.673
So I would go to work printing,
01:11:31.750 --> 01:11:34.540
and Philadelphia, you know,
was, like, already...
01:11:35.545 --> 01:11:39.715
just suck your happiness away
01:11:39.799 --> 01:11:44.099
and, um, fill you with
a sadness and a fear.
01:11:44.929 --> 01:11:48.679
So, you know, I didn't have
any time, really, to paint.
01:11:49.809 --> 01:11:53.269
But Rodger would give me $25
01:11:53.355 --> 01:11:56.145
to come out on Saturday and paint,
01:11:56.232 --> 01:11:58.152
and then paid me for printing.
01:11:58.234 --> 01:12:00.454
And that's what kept us afloat.
01:12:34.354 --> 01:12:37.444
One day, a few months later,
01:12:38.400 --> 01:12:41.320
I said to Peggy,
"call me if anything exciting happens.
01:12:41.403 --> 01:12:43.663
I'll call you
if anything exciting happens."
01:12:43.738 --> 01:12:46.658
And I headed out to print.
01:12:47.617 --> 01:12:49.287
That day...
01:12:50.328 --> 01:12:53.748
First I think Peggy received a phone call.
01:12:53.832 --> 01:12:58.342
Because the phone rang and Rodger
came downstairs from upstairs
01:12:58.420 --> 01:13:00.260
sort of smiling
01:13:00.338 --> 01:13:02.258
and said, "The phone is for you."
01:13:02.340 --> 01:13:07.100
And it was George Stevens Jr.
and Tony Vellani on the line,
01:13:08.054 --> 01:13:11.184
and they said, "David, we're..."
01:13:11.266 --> 01:13:14.346
Something like,
"we're very happy to tell you
01:13:14.436 --> 01:13:17.056
that you have won a grant
01:13:17.147 --> 01:13:19.607
from the American Film Institute."
01:13:21.317 --> 01:13:23.067
And, you know...
01:13:24.154 --> 01:13:25.744
It just...
01:13:28.450 --> 01:13:31.450
Total life-changing phone call.
01:13:44.299 --> 01:13:46.629
In the house,
01:13:46.718 --> 01:13:51.098
I kind of had started to have a setup.
01:13:51.181 --> 01:13:55.811
And when I made the film,
I had all these rooms
01:13:55.894 --> 01:13:58.194
to shoot the film right there.
01:13:58.271 --> 01:14:00.821
I only had a couple of scenes outside.
01:14:01.900 --> 01:14:03.740
It was just...
01:14:03.818 --> 01:14:05.818
It was just perfect.
01:14:45.235 --> 01:14:50.565
Tony Vellani came up to Philadelphia
on the train
01:14:51.574 --> 01:14:54.294
and we filmed The Grandmother.
01:14:56.121 --> 01:14:57.961
Tony flipped out.
01:15:01.334 --> 01:15:04.344
I drove him back to the train station,
01:15:06.172 --> 01:15:09.092
and on the way he said,
01:15:09.175 --> 01:15:12.755
"David, I think you should go
01:15:12.846 --> 01:15:17.726
to the Center for Advanced
Film Studies in Los Angeles."
01:15:20.353 --> 01:15:21.733
Well...
01:15:23.398 --> 01:15:26.358
I almost died and went to heaven,
01:15:26.443 --> 01:15:28.453
just him telling me that.
01:15:29.070 --> 01:15:33.120
I'd seen this booklet of the mansion
01:15:33.199 --> 01:15:35.579
and all the stuff going on there,
01:15:35.660 --> 01:15:38.750
and I would just look at this booklet
01:15:38.830 --> 01:15:41.580
and dream about this place,
01:15:41.666 --> 01:15:44.376
and here is somebody telling me, you know,
01:15:44.461 --> 01:15:46.921
basically he's gonna help me get there.
01:16:24.376 --> 01:16:26.376
You want a round cake?
01:16:26.461 --> 01:16:28.671
- A round cake.
- Okay.
01:16:28.755 --> 01:16:31.125
Can you make a dot?
01:16:36.554 --> 01:16:38.224
A cake with a candle.
01:16:38.306 --> 01:16:39.766
Cake with a candle.
01:16:40.642 --> 01:16:42.732
Hot dog!
01:16:49.150 --> 01:16:50.900
Here are the babies here.
01:16:50.985 --> 01:16:52.645
There are the babies.
01:16:52.737 --> 01:16:55.447
And there's the cookies for the babies.
01:16:55.532 --> 01:16:57.282
Little tiny cookies.
01:16:57.367 --> 01:17:00.247
Little tiny. Yum.
01:17:00.328 --> 01:17:01.708
I thought...
01:17:03.123 --> 01:17:06.963
When I got married I said,
okay, that's it.
01:17:08.044 --> 01:17:09.714
That's it.
01:17:13.174 --> 01:17:17.304
In some way, your life is over.
01:17:18.847 --> 01:17:20.387
But...
01:17:20.473 --> 01:17:23.483
it was actually the best thing
that could've happened to me.
01:17:24.602 --> 01:17:27.562
Because, you know,
01:17:27.647 --> 01:17:30.647
there are certain things that come along
01:17:31.693 --> 01:17:33.153
that get you off the dime.
01:17:33.236 --> 01:17:35.236
You know what I mean?
01:17:35.321 --> 01:17:37.621
And...
01:17:37.699 --> 01:17:40.869
I didn't think of where I would go
if I wasn't in Philly,
01:17:40.952 --> 01:17:44.872
but it seemed like I was gonna be there.
01:17:46.583 --> 01:17:48.503
'Cause to get up and move...
01:17:48.585 --> 01:17:51.875
I had that huge house.
It was such a setup.
01:17:52.964 --> 01:17:57.184
But I didn't know.. It wasn't
that I was miserable at all
01:17:57.260 --> 01:17:59.640
It's just, um...
01:17:59.721 --> 01:18:03.391
It seemed... like...
01:18:11.483 --> 01:18:14.363
No, I wasn't miserable...
01:18:15.862 --> 01:18:17.492
It just...
01:18:22.369 --> 01:18:25.619
I don't know what would've happened
if I hadn't gotten that grant.
01:18:26.331 --> 01:18:27.871
I really don't.
01:18:41.262 --> 01:18:45.932
So when we drove out, we went, um, to...
01:18:46.017 --> 01:18:50.437
down Sunset
and turned left on San Vicente,
01:18:50.522 --> 01:18:53.022
parked the big truck,
01:18:53.108 --> 01:18:55.358
and the next morning
was that first morning
01:18:55.443 --> 01:18:58.283
I experienced California sunshine.
01:18:58.363 --> 01:18:59.743
Unreal.
01:18:59.823 --> 01:19:03.493
I just stood in the street
and looked up at the sun.
01:19:03.576 --> 01:19:04.986
It was unbelievable.
01:19:05.704 --> 01:19:08.294
And it was a kind of a thing where...
01:19:09.624 --> 01:19:13.294
it was pulling, uh,
01:19:13.378 --> 01:19:15.048
fear out of me.
01:19:22.012 --> 01:19:27.602
You know, imagine coming
from Philadelphia and that world
01:19:27.684 --> 01:19:29.734
out to LA
01:19:30.478 --> 01:19:34.018
and being shown
01:19:34.107 --> 01:19:36.277
where you're gonna go to school
01:19:36.359 --> 01:19:40.359
a 55-room mansion on the top of a hill
01:19:40.447 --> 01:19:43.867
in the best part of Beverly Hills.
01:19:43.950 --> 01:19:47.200
And the stables were given to me.
01:19:48.663 --> 01:19:51.713
And it wasn't like anybody else
even wanted them, you know.
01:19:51.791 --> 01:19:54.631
It was just they were sitting there,
01:19:55.587 --> 01:19:57.507
and I was able to get them.
01:19:57.589 --> 01:20:00.339
It's just unbelievable.
01:20:00.425 --> 01:20:02.885
What a gift that was.
01:20:02.969 --> 01:20:05.349
Unbelievable.
01:20:05.430 --> 01:20:08.560
For four years I had those stables.
01:20:09.976 --> 01:20:13.686
And able to build down there,
live down there, eat down there.
01:20:13.772 --> 01:20:15.572
It was incredible.
01:20:24.741 --> 01:20:27.991
Go.
01:20:28.078 --> 01:20:29.698
Play it, Fred.
01:20:31.539 --> 01:20:32.749
Go.
01:20:37.921 --> 01:20:40.221
I just love being in that mood.
01:20:41.132 --> 01:20:45.182
Sometimes I would sit
on the sets at night.
01:20:46.388 --> 01:20:47.848
I'd be working or something,
01:20:47.931 --> 01:20:53.061
and I could imagine a whole world outside
01:20:53.144 --> 01:20:55.114
that doesn't exist.
01:20:56.147 --> 01:21:00.937
But it really would be such a world.
01:21:05.532 --> 01:21:08.872
Around me was the factory neighborhood,
01:21:08.952 --> 01:21:11.162
and I would imagine it,
01:21:11.246 --> 01:21:13.366
and it was so real.
01:21:13.456 --> 01:21:16.206
And sometimes it would rain,
01:21:16.292 --> 01:21:19.302
and I'd hear this rain,
01:21:19.379 --> 01:21:22.299
and I'd be in this room,
01:21:22.382 --> 01:21:26.182
and I knew what the streets
were like out there, and the diners.
01:21:27.387 --> 01:21:29.257
It was really dark
01:21:29.347 --> 01:21:32.807
and filled with smoke
01:21:32.892 --> 01:21:36.192
and big factories,
01:21:36.271 --> 01:21:38.361
huge smokestacks,
01:21:38.440 --> 01:21:41.480
fire and smoke and steel.
01:21:41.568 --> 01:21:47.618
And these homes with little doilies
and stuffed chairs.
01:21:47.699 --> 01:21:49.239
And hot inside,
01:21:49.325 --> 01:21:53.865
and pipes kind of leaking,
and all these things.
01:22:16.519 --> 01:22:20.359
I was divorced from Peggy
01:22:22.692 --> 01:22:24.902
and living at the stables,
01:22:24.986 --> 01:22:29.946
and my brother was visiting
out in Riverside.
01:22:31.159 --> 01:22:34.789
And my brother and my father
wanted to talk to me.
01:22:35.997 --> 01:22:37.537
I sit down.
01:22:37.624 --> 01:22:40.424
I remember it was dark in the living room.
01:22:40.502 --> 01:22:43.302
Then the whole thing was,
01:22:43.380 --> 01:22:47.050
"Give up this film
01:22:48.051 --> 01:22:49.971
and get a job,
01:22:50.053 --> 01:22:53.973
because your...
you got a child, and
01:22:54.057 --> 01:22:56.937
this film isn't getting made,
01:22:57.018 --> 01:22:59.688
and you're wasting your time."
01:22:59.771 --> 01:23:01.361
This kind of thing.
01:23:02.649 --> 01:23:04.569
And it got me...
01:23:05.777 --> 01:23:09.107
It got me really in a deep, deep way.
01:23:09.948 --> 01:23:11.868
'Cause they didn't understand
01:23:11.950 --> 01:23:16.000
and I just couldn't believe it,
what they were saying to me.
01:23:16.079 --> 01:23:18.539
And they were totally serious.
01:23:19.874 --> 01:23:22.634
And so I left there and I went back,
01:23:22.711 --> 01:23:25.091
and my sister was in the back bedroom,
01:23:25.171 --> 01:23:27.011
and I started crying.
01:23:27.090 --> 01:23:31.260
But, um, it was...
01:23:34.347 --> 01:23:36.677
it was just one of those things...
01:23:38.935 --> 01:23:40.725
where, um,
01:23:40.812 --> 01:23:43.982
there was no way I was gonna do that.
01:23:47.110 --> 01:23:49.240
See, what I wanna do is have the...
01:23:49.320 --> 01:23:53.780
mainly the look on Henry's face...
You know...
01:23:53.867 --> 01:23:56.037
It's so real. I feel like he's here.
01:23:56.119 --> 01:23:58.039
But anyway, um, uh...
01:23:58.121 --> 01:24:02.251
The look on Henry's face just when he's
getting ready to cut. You know, the big cut.
01:24:06.171 --> 01:24:08.971
Eraserhead,
01:24:09.049 --> 01:24:11.589
to me, was one of my greatest,
01:24:12.969 --> 01:24:15.969
happiest experiences in cinema.
01:24:17.390 --> 01:24:21.100
And what I loved about it was the world
01:24:22.645 --> 01:24:26.065
and having it be my own little place
01:24:27.067 --> 01:24:31.907
where I could build everything
and get it exactly the way I wanted it
01:24:31.988 --> 01:24:33.908
for hardly any money.
01:24:34.741 --> 01:24:36.741
It just took time.
01:24:39.329 --> 01:24:43.919
It just, uh, was so beautiful.
01:24:44.668 --> 01:24:46.538
Everything about it.
01:24:51.633 --> 01:24:53.473
Everything about it.
01:24:53.497 --> 01:25:13.497
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