1 00:02:20,716 --> 00:02:23,176 If I don't draw for a while, I get really crazy. 2 00:02:23,260 --> 00:02:27,931 I start feeling really, like, depressed and suicidal if I don't get to draw. 3 00:02:29,099 --> 00:02:32,393 But then some nights when I'm drawing, I feel suicidal too, so - 4 00:02:32,478 --> 00:02:34,479 What are you trying to get at in your work? 5 00:02:34,563 --> 00:02:36,481 Jesus. 6 00:02:38,108 --> 00:02:39,609 I don't know. 7 00:02:41,237 --> 00:02:44,864 I don't work in terms of conscious messages. I can't do that. 8 00:02:44,949 --> 00:02:48,284 It has to be something that I'm revealing to myself while I'm doing it... 9 00:02:48,369 --> 00:02:50,286 which is hard to explain. 10 00:02:50,371 --> 00:02:53,623 Which means that while I'm doing it, I don't know exactly what it's about. 11 00:02:53,707 --> 00:02:57,043 You just have to have the - the courage or the - 12 00:02:57,127 --> 00:02:58,586 to take that chance, you know. 13 00:02:58,671 --> 00:03:01,756 What's gonna come out? What's coming out of this? 14 00:03:02,925 --> 00:03:04,842 I enjoy drawing. That's all. 15 00:03:04,927 --> 00:03:08,388 It's a deeply ingrained habit. It's all because of my brother Charles. 16 00:03:10,891 --> 00:03:14,561 Hello, Mother? I'm in Philadelphia. 17 00:03:14,645 --> 00:03:20,108 I'm gonna give a talk at the - at the art school downtown tomorrow. 18 00:03:20,192 --> 00:03:23,736 So Terry and this film crew are here with me. 19 00:03:23,821 --> 00:03:28,199 So, um, they'd like to come over and drop me off there... 20 00:03:28,284 --> 00:03:31,911 and talk to - possibly to Charles... 21 00:03:31,996 --> 00:03:35,623 about maybe filming him if you're not up - 22 00:03:35,708 --> 00:03:37,625 He doesn't wanna do it? 23 00:03:37,710 --> 00:03:39,210 Hmm. Okay. 24 00:03:40,754 --> 00:03:42,797 All right. 25 00:03:42,881 --> 00:03:46,092 That's okay. Doesn't matter. 26 00:03:47,678 --> 00:03:50,805 No, if you don't want him to, I certainly won't - not gonna - 27 00:03:50,889 --> 00:03:53,349 Okay. 28 00:03:53,434 --> 00:03:55,435 All right. Bye. 29 00:03:59,023 --> 00:04:01,608 Well, that's that. 30 00:04:09,658 --> 00:04:11,701 I, uh, start with this one... 31 00:04:11,785 --> 00:04:15,747 because it's most probably the thing that I'm most well known for in the world. 32 00:04:15,873 --> 00:04:20,877 - And you could see it for a long time on truck mud flaps. 33 00:04:20,961 --> 00:04:23,463 I don't know why it caught the popular imagination. 34 00:04:23,547 --> 00:04:27,300 It caused me nothing but headaches for 10 years after I drew it. 35 00:04:27,384 --> 00:04:30,845 Lawsuits and I.R.S. problems. It was a nightmare. 36 00:04:30,929 --> 00:04:33,473 Just because of this stupid "Keep on Truckin'." 37 00:04:33,557 --> 00:04:36,934 So don't anybody ever come to me and say, "Hey, R. Keep on truckin'." 38 00:04:38,562 --> 00:04:41,189 This is probably the next thing I'm most well known for. 39 00:04:41,273 --> 00:04:44,484 I'm just trying to, you know, hook you into the way I am here. 40 00:04:44,568 --> 00:04:46,486 This sold millions of copies. 41 00:04:46,570 --> 00:04:51,616 I got $600 from CBS Records in 1968. 42 00:04:51,700 --> 00:04:54,577 And they kept my artwork. They stole my artwork. 43 00:04:54,662 --> 00:04:57,330 Those... bastards. 44 00:04:57,414 --> 00:05:03,086 And I heard recently that the original of this sold at Sotheby's for $21,000. 45 00:05:06,173 --> 00:05:09,509 This is the third thing I'm the most well known for... 46 00:05:09,593 --> 00:05:12,845 because this was made into a major full-length animated cartoon... 47 00:05:12,930 --> 00:05:16,641 which was an embarrassment to me for the rest of my life. 48 00:05:16,725 --> 00:05:19,018 And I have to say I had nothing to do with the cartoon. 49 00:05:19,103 --> 00:05:22,855 I didn't want them to do it. I thought they were schlockmeisters. 50 00:05:22,940 --> 00:05:24,857 And they just rolled right over me. 51 00:05:24,942 --> 00:05:29,153 So I had this character killed in a later story I did. 52 00:05:29,238 --> 00:05:32,699 I had a female ostrich stab him in the head with an ice pick. 53 00:05:36,036 --> 00:05:37,704 When I first met him, he never talked. 54 00:05:37,788 --> 00:05:39,997 He just drew the whole time. He was, like, catatonic... 55 00:05:40,082 --> 00:05:42,625 and the only voice he had was his pen. 56 00:05:42,710 --> 00:05:45,044 He was very productive, but he was, like, really - 57 00:05:45,129 --> 00:05:47,130 My mother thought he was retarded when she met him. 58 00:05:47,214 --> 00:05:49,340 She said, you know, "Some people like cripples. 59 00:05:49,425 --> 00:05:52,677 Some people like retards. " What could I say? 60 00:05:52,761 --> 00:05:55,388 She thought I was a real creep when she first met me. 61 00:05:55,472 --> 00:05:57,557 But soon as we lived in one place for a long time - 62 00:05:57,641 --> 00:06:00,309 he's known the same people for a long time - he's more comfortable. 63 00:06:00,394 --> 00:06:02,311 He's a little bit more communicative. 64 00:06:02,396 --> 00:06:04,814 But still, you know, he clams up. 65 00:06:04,898 --> 00:06:08,568 He really gets stilted in his conversation around anybody he doesn't know really well. 66 00:06:08,652 --> 00:06:10,945 That's why I'm such an exciting subject for a movie. 67 00:06:11,029 --> 00:06:12,780 Yeah, right. 68 00:06:19,830 --> 00:06:21,289 Watch out with those weights. 69 00:06:21,373 --> 00:06:23,750 Don't hit me with those things. 70 00:06:23,834 --> 00:06:26,377 Don't go behind me. 71 00:06:26,462 --> 00:06:28,379 These rich rednecks have moved out here... 72 00:06:28,464 --> 00:06:32,091 and built their dream homes on top of every single hill. 73 00:06:32,176 --> 00:06:36,262 There used to be nothing over here, and then these people bought this property - 74 00:06:36,346 --> 00:06:38,639 - Shh. They might hear you. - and built this house. 75 00:06:38,724 --> 00:06:40,641 - Shh. Not too loud. - Right above our house. 76 00:06:40,726 --> 00:06:43,644 So that it looks right into Robert's studio. 77 00:06:43,729 --> 00:06:47,482 - Quiet. - I don't care if they hear me. 78 00:06:47,566 --> 00:06:49,901 Couldn't be any ruder than them putting their house right above mine. 79 00:06:49,985 --> 00:06:51,986 - Tone down. - What do I care? 80 00:06:53,405 --> 00:06:56,949 I guess not. Since we're moving to France, what do you care? 81 00:06:57,034 --> 00:06:59,243 Now they have a plan to widen this road... 82 00:06:59,328 --> 00:07:01,579 and put it right through where these trees are. 83 00:07:01,663 --> 00:07:04,290 There was a big "X" here that the surveyors sprayed on here... 84 00:07:04,374 --> 00:07:06,292 and I erased it the other day. 85 00:07:06,376 --> 00:07:10,171 And I took out their sticks from the other side of the road over there. 86 00:07:10,255 --> 00:07:15,259 They're gonna widen this road and take a big chunk of land out of that side with all these trees... 87 00:07:15,344 --> 00:07:17,512 and put 12 dream homes back in there. 88 00:07:17,596 --> 00:07:20,473 Me and Aline decided we would chain ourselves to these oak trees over here... 89 00:07:20,557 --> 00:07:22,266 if they try and take 'em out. 90 00:07:22,351 --> 00:07:25,645 Look. Our house is so humble. It's nestled against a hill. 91 00:07:25,729 --> 00:07:27,355 - It's tasteful. - It's tasteful. 92 00:07:27,439 --> 00:07:30,399 All these other houses are orientated to look down at our place... 93 00:07:30,484 --> 00:07:34,403 because it's like a backdrop for their air-conditioned nightmare houses. 94 00:07:34,488 --> 00:07:36,697 Each hilltop can view each other hilltop. 95 00:07:36,782 --> 00:07:38,115 The schmucks. 96 00:07:50,087 --> 00:07:55,007 I'm drawing some portraits of girls that I had crushes on in high school in Milford, Delaware. 97 00:07:55,092 --> 00:07:57,260 This one I'm drawing now is Winona Newhouse... 98 00:07:57,344 --> 00:08:00,471 affectionately known among the boys as "The Shelf "... 99 00:08:00,556 --> 00:08:03,558 'cause she had this, like, phenomenal rear shelf. 100 00:08:03,642 --> 00:08:06,018 She was nice, too, actually. She was kind to me. 101 00:08:08,230 --> 00:08:11,399 This one here - Naomi Wilson - is this cross-eyed farm girl... 102 00:08:11,483 --> 00:08:13,359 that wore homemade clothes to school. 103 00:08:13,443 --> 00:08:17,113 I secretly had a crush on her. I was very sexually attracted to her. 104 00:08:17,197 --> 00:08:20,366 And of course you never dare admit it openly... 105 00:08:20,450 --> 00:08:24,120 that you liked this funky girl that had B.O. and hairy legs. 106 00:08:25,998 --> 00:08:29,166 And this Jean Strahle - I liked her too. She was also considered a dork. 107 00:08:29,251 --> 00:08:32,378 I remember she was kind of a bookwormy type that talked with a lisp. 108 00:08:32,462 --> 00:08:34,297 Shapely, powerful legs. 109 00:08:34,381 --> 00:08:36,424 I never actually had any contact with these girls... 110 00:08:36,508 --> 00:08:39,385 except I used to play footsie with this one. 111 00:08:39,469 --> 00:08:42,388 Ah, where are they now? 112 00:08:42,472 --> 00:08:44,682 It was 30 years ago. Thirty years ago. 113 00:08:44,766 --> 00:08:48,269 They're all middle-aged housewives now. Jesus, what a thought. 114 00:08:50,022 --> 00:08:51,939 Winona. 115 00:08:52,024 --> 00:08:55,610 I wish she was here now - the 17-year-old Winona - 116 00:08:55,694 --> 00:08:58,446 instead of this film crew. 117 00:09:07,664 --> 00:09:09,749 When I listen to old music, it's one of the few times... 118 00:09:09,833 --> 00:09:13,210 when I actually have a kind of a love for humanity. 119 00:09:13,295 --> 00:09:17,298 You hear the best part of the soul of the common people, you know. 120 00:09:17,382 --> 00:09:23,220 It's their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it. 121 00:09:23,305 --> 00:09:25,306 Modern music doesn't have that. 122 00:09:25,390 --> 00:09:29,644 It's a calamitous loss that people can't express themselves that way anymore. 123 00:09:59,049 --> 00:10:02,551 ♪ The last kind word ♪ 124 00:10:02,636 --> 00:10:06,973 ♪ I heard my daddy say ♪ 125 00:10:07,057 --> 00:10:13,437 ♪ Lord, the last kind word I heard my daddy say♪ 126 00:10:16,608 --> 00:10:19,944 ♪ I went to the depot ♪ 127 00:10:20,028 --> 00:10:24,240 ♪ I looked up at the stars ♪ 128 00:10:24,324 --> 00:10:27,618 ♪ Cried, some train don't come ♪ 129 00:10:27,703 --> 00:10:30,496 ♪ There'll be some walking done ♪ 130 00:10:33,542 --> 00:10:36,961 ♪ My mama told me ♪ 131 00:10:37,045 --> 00:10:41,048 ♪ Just before she died ♪ 132 00:10:41,133 --> 00:10:45,219 ♪ Lord, precious daughter♪ 133 00:10:45,303 --> 00:10:47,346 ♪ Don't you be so wild ♪ 134 00:10:50,350 --> 00:10:53,728 ♪ When you see me comin' ♪ 135 00:10:53,812 --> 00:10:57,982 ♪ Look 'cross the rich man's field ♪ 136 00:10:58,066 --> 00:11:01,444 ♪ If I don't bring you flour♪ 137 00:11:01,528 --> 00:11:04,280 ♪ I'll bring you bolted meal ♪ 138 00:11:24,468 --> 00:11:27,636 ♪ What you do to me, baby ♪ 139 00:11:27,721 --> 00:11:31,849 ♪ It never gets out of me ♪ 140 00:11:31,933 --> 00:11:35,144 ♪ I may not see you ♪ 141 00:11:35,228 --> 00:11:38,105 ♪ After I cross the deep-blue sea ♪ 142 00:11:57,167 --> 00:12:00,586 So I guess, late 1948, when I was about five years old... 143 00:12:00,670 --> 00:12:02,963 we moved to this section of Philadelphia. 144 00:12:03,048 --> 00:12:06,050 This is this project that we lived in right here. 145 00:12:06,134 --> 00:12:09,595 I can't remember which of these places we lived in. They all look the same. 146 00:12:10,722 --> 00:12:12,765 Jesus. It's grim here. 147 00:12:12,849 --> 00:12:16,268 Oh, my God. This is where we used to go to the market right here. 148 00:12:16,353 --> 00:12:19,105 There was a little dime store that sold toys there. 149 00:12:19,189 --> 00:12:23,609 We used to buy candy and stuff in there. And comic books. 150 00:12:23,693 --> 00:12:28,280 Also, we - just the three brothers, me and Charles and Maxon - hung around together a lot. 151 00:12:28,365 --> 00:12:33,327 We used to rummage around this dump sometimes looking for stuff. 152 00:12:33,411 --> 00:12:36,789 One time, my brother Charles brought this thing back from the dump. 153 00:12:36,873 --> 00:12:41,293 It was this beautiful wooden truck - like an ice cream truck made out of wood. 154 00:12:41,378 --> 00:12:44,421 I wanted that thing really bad, and he wouldn't let me touch it or anything. 155 00:12:44,506 --> 00:12:46,674 He was real spiteful that way. 156 00:12:46,758 --> 00:12:48,717 So I made a big fuss, and I told my mother. 157 00:12:48,802 --> 00:12:51,345 She said, "Charles, let him play with that when you're through. " 158 00:12:51,429 --> 00:12:53,139 Then he said, "Okay. " 159 00:12:53,223 --> 00:12:55,141 So about 15 minutes later, he came in the house and said... 160 00:12:55,225 --> 00:12:57,852 "Okay, Robert, I'm through with it. You can play with it now. " 161 00:12:57,936 --> 00:13:02,439 So I ran outside, and he had smashed it to smithereens against the wall of the house. 162 00:13:18,540 --> 00:13:20,749 So, Charles, you read any good books lately? 163 00:13:22,878 --> 00:13:24,795 I guess I have. I don't know. 164 00:13:26,756 --> 00:13:28,424 You seem to be kind of, like... 165 00:13:28,508 --> 00:13:31,010 recycling a lot of these books you've read. 166 00:13:31,094 --> 00:13:33,804 - What do you mean by recycling? - Like, you're kind of reading - 167 00:13:33,889 --> 00:13:36,724 I mean, you read 'em all 20 years ago. Now you're reading them all again. 168 00:13:36,808 --> 00:13:40,311 I'm reading them again, yeah. 169 00:13:40,395 --> 00:13:42,354 I do that because there's nothing else to do. 170 00:13:42,439 --> 00:13:45,733 You've read 'em all. You ever read anything new? 171 00:13:45,817 --> 00:13:50,112 - I haven't read Kant yet or Hegel. - Do you have any interest in that kind of stuff? 172 00:13:50,197 --> 00:13:53,449 Maybe I'll eventually get around to reading them. I don't know. 173 00:13:53,533 --> 00:13:55,993 You read any recent writers? 174 00:13:56,077 --> 00:13:59,371 - Not really, no. - Not interested in them? 175 00:13:59,456 --> 00:14:02,708 Most of them aren't that good. Most of them aren't that interesting. 176 00:14:02,792 --> 00:14:06,045 They're not nearly as interesting as the old Victorian writers... 177 00:14:06,129 --> 00:14:10,424 of the late 19th century. 178 00:14:10,508 --> 00:14:15,679 I always kind of envied your life in a way, 'cause my life has become so hectic and - 179 00:14:15,764 --> 00:14:18,557 Why? Because I was so detached from the human race? 180 00:14:18,642 --> 00:14:20,559 Is that one of the reasons why you envy me? 181 00:14:20,644 --> 00:14:22,686 This cloistered environment with your books and - 182 00:14:22,771 --> 00:14:25,898 Believe me, it's nothing to envy. 183 00:14:28,401 --> 00:14:31,695 Charles is the one that started this whole comic thing in the family. 184 00:14:31,780 --> 00:14:34,949 He was completely obsessed with comics when we were kids... 185 00:14:35,033 --> 00:14:37,618 and had absolutely no other normal kid interests. 186 00:14:37,702 --> 00:14:41,163 He wasn't interested in toys or games. He didn't play sports. 187 00:14:41,248 --> 00:14:44,625 He didn't do anything but read comics, draw comics... 188 00:14:44,709 --> 00:14:46,919 think comics and talk 'em. 189 00:14:47,003 --> 00:14:50,923 I mean, I liked drawing, but I have other drawing interests besides comics. 190 00:14:51,007 --> 00:14:54,510 I like to draw realistic scenes and, you know... 191 00:14:54,594 --> 00:14:57,179 just pictures of buildings and cars and stuff. 192 00:14:57,264 --> 00:14:59,598 He wasn't interested in that at all. It was only the comics. 193 00:14:59,683 --> 00:15:02,893 This is the earliest one that still exists that I have. 194 00:15:02,978 --> 00:15:05,229 Charles drew this one. 195 00:15:05,313 --> 00:15:08,816 That's supposed to be me, and that's him. 196 00:15:09,943 --> 00:15:12,778 He made me feel absolutely worthless if I wasn't drawing comics. 197 00:15:12,862 --> 00:15:16,156 I don't think I would've done that. I don't think I was as far gone as that. 198 00:15:16,241 --> 00:15:17,950 It was, like, insidious. 199 00:15:18,034 --> 00:15:21,287 Maybe I was just unconsciously imitating the old man. 200 00:15:23,373 --> 00:15:25,291 What was he like when you were growing up? 201 00:15:25,375 --> 00:15:28,377 What, my father? He was an overbearing tyrant. 202 00:15:28,461 --> 00:15:30,963 Yes, he was. 203 00:15:31,047 --> 00:15:35,509 Maybe I was unconsciously imitating him when I forced you to draw comic books. 204 00:15:37,887 --> 00:15:41,473 There's still a kind of sibling rivalry going on between me and Robert... 205 00:15:41,558 --> 00:15:44,560 like there was when we were little kids and he was still living at home. 206 00:15:44,644 --> 00:15:49,315 I think it's - I think, basically, that Robert and I are still competing with each other. 207 00:15:49,399 --> 00:15:54,403 It's, like, when I'm drawing comics, I still think of Charles's approval when I'm drawing... 208 00:15:54,487 --> 00:15:56,280 and whether or not he's gonna like 'em. 209 00:15:56,364 --> 00:15:59,158 Charles had everybody drawing comics in the family. 210 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:02,828 The Animal Town Publishing Company. 211 00:16:02,912 --> 00:16:05,414 That was a kind of club we had as little kids... 212 00:16:05,498 --> 00:16:08,083 where we sat around and talked about comics. 213 00:16:08,168 --> 00:16:10,169 I was usually the president... 214 00:16:10,253 --> 00:16:13,005 and Robert was usually the vice president. 215 00:16:13,089 --> 00:16:15,799 Carol was usually the secretary. 216 00:16:15,884 --> 00:16:19,178 And Sandy was the treasurer, and Maxon was the supply boy. 217 00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:26,060 And he still resents that. 218 00:16:26,144 --> 00:16:30,397 He still resents the fact that we imposed the role of supply boy on him. 219 00:16:49,959 --> 00:16:51,919 Max Crumb in Room 310? 220 00:17:03,223 --> 00:17:05,015 Maxon was the scapegoat in the family. 221 00:17:05,100 --> 00:17:06,809 Oh, don't talk about it. 222 00:17:06,893 --> 00:17:08,852 There was five kids... 223 00:17:08,937 --> 00:17:11,397 and he was definitely on the bottom of the heap. 224 00:17:11,481 --> 00:17:13,899 Well, just to explain is that we had these meetings... 225 00:17:13,983 --> 00:17:16,693 for this club that Charles put together called the - 226 00:17:16,778 --> 00:17:19,113 Animal Town Comics Club. 227 00:17:19,197 --> 00:17:21,573 Yeah, it had something to do with comics and all that stuff. 228 00:17:21,658 --> 00:17:26,829 Everybody had their different job - a secretary and a president and a vice president. 229 00:17:26,913 --> 00:17:30,749 I was supply boy. 230 00:17:30,834 --> 00:17:34,211 I got it a little more heavy, you know, direct than Robert did or something. 231 00:17:34,295 --> 00:17:38,173 It was the whole thing. It was this incredible crazy sibling thing... 232 00:17:38,258 --> 00:17:41,093 between me and Charles and Robert up in this little room upstairs. 233 00:17:41,177 --> 00:17:43,971 And the whole rest of the world didn't know what the fuck was going on. 234 00:17:44,055 --> 00:17:48,600 It's like these three primordial monkeys working it out in the trees. 235 00:17:48,685 --> 00:17:53,105 Me and Maxon slept in the same bed together until we were 16 or something. 236 00:17:53,189 --> 00:17:56,817 Very intimate, you know, close situation. 237 00:18:02,490 --> 00:18:05,159 Charles was real inspired by the Disney movie... 238 00:18:05,243 --> 00:18:07,744 where Robert Newton plays Long John Silver. 239 00:18:07,829 --> 00:18:12,291 After we saw it on TV in 1955, we started playing pirates. 240 00:18:12,375 --> 00:18:15,627 You know, like normal kids do. We'd go out and pretend - 241 00:18:15,712 --> 00:18:19,047 We made this ship out of an old refrigerator carton and everything. 242 00:18:20,216 --> 00:18:24,052 Charles would walk around town dressed up like Long John Silver. 243 00:18:24,137 --> 00:18:27,055 He had this old coat of my mother's, this long green coat. 244 00:18:27,140 --> 00:18:29,933 And he made himself a three-cornered hat out of some woman's hat. 245 00:18:30,018 --> 00:18:34,104 He had a crutch, and he'd tie up his leg and go around town that way. 246 00:18:34,189 --> 00:18:38,942 I didn't realize till years later how fixated Charles really was on this Treasure Island thing. 247 00:18:39,027 --> 00:18:43,822 This thing dominated our play and our fantasy for six or seven years after that. 248 00:18:43,907 --> 00:18:46,658 We drew these comics about Treasure Island... 249 00:18:46,743 --> 00:18:49,161 and it became this real baroque, elaborate thing... 250 00:18:49,245 --> 00:18:52,789 way beyond the original Disney film. 251 00:18:52,874 --> 00:18:55,292 This is one of Charles's. 252 00:18:55,376 --> 00:18:57,211 This is one of our two-man comics... 253 00:18:57,295 --> 00:19:00,422 in which he would draw some of the characters and I would draw some of them. 254 00:19:00,507 --> 00:19:02,633 We'd have them interact with each other. 255 00:19:02,717 --> 00:19:06,345 That was also a great school of cartooning for me - 256 00:19:06,429 --> 00:19:10,474 was having to come up with clever retorts to him. 257 00:19:10,558 --> 00:19:14,019 He was actually much cleverer and funnier than I was. 258 00:19:14,103 --> 00:19:19,024 It actually got kind of tiresome, but you had to do it. He was in charge. 259 00:19:19,108 --> 00:19:21,777 I had this very definite, bad problem about Charles. 260 00:19:21,861 --> 00:19:23,904 Sometimes I think a lot of it had to do with my - 261 00:19:23,988 --> 00:19:27,199 an overly morbid sensitivity to the guy or something too. 262 00:19:27,283 --> 00:19:31,078 As well as his natural affinity to get in there and profit off it. 263 00:19:31,162 --> 00:19:33,372 Robert, of course, was somewhat of a middleman. 264 00:19:33,456 --> 00:19:36,083 It had this way of, like, restricting... 265 00:19:36,167 --> 00:19:40,003 or causing this terrible self-consciousness and restriction in me as a kid. 266 00:19:40,088 --> 00:19:42,214 I was morbidly modest about my body. 267 00:19:42,298 --> 00:19:44,216 Sex was, like, completely removed. 268 00:19:44,300 --> 00:19:47,678 When it became time for me to become sexually aware... 269 00:19:47,762 --> 00:19:51,598 when I was in puberty, sex was nowhere near my life. 270 00:19:51,683 --> 00:19:53,850 - Just absolutely nothing to do with it. - Repressed. 271 00:19:53,935 --> 00:19:57,980 I was so heavily repressed, naturally I had a feeling that's why the seizures started. 272 00:19:58,064 --> 00:20:02,192 I have these seizures - A seizure's like a point where your behavior becomes - 273 00:20:02,277 --> 00:20:06,321 I'd have to get into the whole sex trip which is an awful involved topic. 274 00:20:06,406 --> 00:20:11,076 That's all I thought about when I was in my late teens and early 20s - was sex. 275 00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:15,414 And I masturbated about four or five times a week. 276 00:20:15,498 --> 00:20:17,708 How frequently did you - I don't masturbate anymore. 277 00:20:17,792 --> 00:20:20,627 My sexual desires are completely dead now. 278 00:20:20,712 --> 00:20:24,047 Like I told you the other night, I can't even get an erection anymore. 279 00:20:24,132 --> 00:20:27,342 Oh, my God. 280 00:20:27,427 --> 00:20:31,680 I don't know whether it's one thing, or maybe it's a combination of things. 281 00:20:31,764 --> 00:20:35,809 Maybe it's a combination of the medication and the lack of external stimulation. 282 00:20:35,893 --> 00:20:38,645 And maybe approaching old age, too, has something to do with it. 283 00:20:38,730 --> 00:20:40,647 All those things probably. 284 00:20:40,732 --> 00:20:44,776 I mean, you need some external stimulation to keep up your interest. 285 00:20:44,861 --> 00:20:46,862 I don't know. Now that my sexual desires are gone... 286 00:20:46,946 --> 00:20:49,448 I'm not so sure I want them back again. 287 00:20:51,784 --> 00:20:53,327 My earliest sexual memories? 288 00:20:53,411 --> 00:20:56,121 Well - 289 00:20:56,205 --> 00:21:01,293 Actually, I remember being, like, four years old and getting erections - 290 00:21:01,377 --> 00:21:04,713 I think it was my aunt or my mother's sister... 291 00:21:04,797 --> 00:21:08,091 and kind of humping her legs and her shoes under the table. 292 00:21:08,176 --> 00:21:10,177 I remember going into my mother's closet - 293 00:21:10,261 --> 00:21:13,639 she had these cowboy boots that she wore when it rained - 294 00:21:13,723 --> 00:21:15,641 and humping those in the closet. 295 00:21:17,268 --> 00:21:19,645 And singing while I was doing it. Singing - 296 00:21:19,729 --> 00:21:22,564 ♪ Jesus loves me This I know ♪ 297 00:21:22,649 --> 00:21:25,108 ♪ For the Bible tells me so ♪♪ 298 00:21:28,237 --> 00:21:32,699 When I was about five or six, I was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny. 299 00:21:32,784 --> 00:21:38,205 And I cut out this Bugs Bunny off the cover of a comic book and carried it around with me. 300 00:21:38,289 --> 00:21:42,376 I carried it around in my pocket and took it out and looked at it periodically. 301 00:21:42,460 --> 00:21:45,671 It got all wrinkled up from handling it so much... 302 00:21:45,755 --> 00:21:49,883 that I asked my mother to iron it on the ironing board to flatten it out. 303 00:21:49,967 --> 00:21:52,469 And she did, and I was deeply disappointed... 304 00:21:52,553 --> 00:21:55,764 'cause it got all brown when she ironed it, and brittle, and it crumbled apart. 305 00:21:57,392 --> 00:21:59,476 - What was it about Bugs Bunny that got you excited? - I don't know. 306 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:03,772 I had this sexual attraction to cute cartoon characters. 307 00:22:03,856 --> 00:22:07,484 You tell me. I don't know. 308 00:22:10,196 --> 00:22:13,865 That all changed when I turned 12 and I became fixated on Sheena. 309 00:22:17,120 --> 00:22:19,371 Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. 310 00:22:19,455 --> 00:22:22,290 A TV show around, like, '55, '56. 311 00:22:28,214 --> 00:22:30,549 I became totally obsessed with Sheena. 312 00:22:30,633 --> 00:22:33,969 I went to bed every night thinking about the things I wanted to do with Sheena. 313 00:22:41,144 --> 00:22:44,396 Robert was very hung up on sex when he was a little kid... 314 00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:46,732 even more so than I was. 315 00:22:46,816 --> 00:22:48,817 I was? Do you think so? 316 00:22:48,901 --> 00:22:53,321 Yeah. I think you were more inhibited as a child than I was. 317 00:22:53,406 --> 00:22:55,323 Even sexually. 318 00:22:55,408 --> 00:23:01,037 I think you were more afraid of women than I was, as a young person. 319 00:23:01,122 --> 00:23:03,498 When I was in high school, I had a few dates with girls. 320 00:23:03,583 --> 00:23:07,836 When you were in high school, you didn't have any dates at all with anybody. 321 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:09,921 You were actually sort of good-looking and everything. 322 00:23:10,965 --> 00:23:14,301 I was a handsome, good-looking chap when I was a teenager. 323 00:23:14,385 --> 00:23:17,888 But there was just this something that was wrong with my personality. I don't know. 324 00:23:17,972 --> 00:23:19,890 The teachers hated him. The kids hated him. 325 00:23:19,974 --> 00:23:24,770 High school was an absolute nightmare. 326 00:23:24,854 --> 00:23:27,147 I was the most unpopular kid in the high school. 327 00:23:27,231 --> 00:23:28,899 Why? 328 00:23:28,983 --> 00:23:31,485 People were always picking on me and beating me up... 329 00:23:31,569 --> 00:23:35,113 and the girls wouldn't have anything to do with me. 330 00:23:35,198 --> 00:23:37,908 They treated me like I was the scum of the earth. 331 00:23:39,035 --> 00:23:42,704 So, in this strip, I'm talking all about my problems with women... 332 00:23:42,789 --> 00:23:45,749 starting with high school where I learned a lot about women. 333 00:23:45,833 --> 00:23:49,085 Because there was this guy named Skutch - this guy here - 334 00:23:49,170 --> 00:23:53,465 who was, like, the - kind of this mean bully. 335 00:23:53,549 --> 00:23:57,594 But he was also very charming, and all the girls liked him. 336 00:23:57,678 --> 00:24:01,973 He was the dreamboat, but he was also a bully. 337 00:24:02,058 --> 00:24:07,521 And my brother Charles was one of the guys he singled out for particular attention. 338 00:24:07,605 --> 00:24:13,527 And he had this gang of flunkies that hung around with him - this guy Skutch. 339 00:24:13,611 --> 00:24:15,904 I just remember this scene where they - 340 00:24:15,988 --> 00:24:19,324 Skutch punches out my brother in the hallway at school. 341 00:24:19,408 --> 00:24:23,453 That was a very sad sight for me to see. 342 00:24:23,538 --> 00:24:26,581 Charles gave up trying to be popular or have girlfriends or anything... 343 00:24:26,666 --> 00:24:31,002 after everybody saw that he couldn't fight back and was beat up by Skutch. 344 00:24:31,087 --> 00:24:33,755 I've been living at home since I graduated from high school. 345 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,717 I made a few feeble attempts along the way. 346 00:24:37,802 --> 00:24:41,429 In a funny way, you're no worse off than people that are out there in the world... 347 00:24:41,514 --> 00:24:43,515 that have to deal with the fuckin' world all the time. 348 00:24:43,599 --> 00:24:47,310 - You gotta take into consideration the fact that I'm taking tranquilizers. - That's true. 349 00:24:47,395 --> 00:24:51,189 - And that makes it a lot easier than it would otherwise be - - That's true. 350 00:24:51,274 --> 00:24:54,442 by taking these tranquilizers and antidepressants. 351 00:24:54,527 --> 00:24:56,695 If it wasn't for them, I'd probably go completely crazy... 352 00:24:56,779 --> 00:24:58,989 living here at home with Mother. 353 00:25:00,867 --> 00:25:03,285 I have to walk on eggs when I'm around her. 354 00:25:03,369 --> 00:25:05,704 - Oh, yeah. You do. - Yeah. 355 00:25:05,788 --> 00:25:08,164 You can't tell my mother the absolute truth. 356 00:25:08,249 --> 00:25:10,667 She's in a heavy state of denial about a lot of things. 357 00:25:10,751 --> 00:25:13,211 I don't think we should be talking about this. 358 00:25:13,296 --> 00:25:16,047 - Where are my kitty cats? - Also about our mother, she's - 359 00:25:16,132 --> 00:25:19,467 Oh, my God! What's that thing? I've looked in the house, and they're gone. 360 00:25:19,552 --> 00:25:21,344 She doesn't like you to talk about her - 361 00:25:21,429 --> 00:25:23,138 - Charles! - What? 362 00:25:23,222 --> 00:25:26,474 - There's a person in the hallway. - What? 363 00:25:26,559 --> 00:25:29,561 - Fix that thing in the hallway. - What thing? 364 00:25:29,645 --> 00:25:32,647 - The window. - What's wrong with it? 365 00:25:32,732 --> 00:25:34,816 It's some film equipment or something. 366 00:25:34,901 --> 00:25:37,402 It's some kind of film equipment, Mother. 367 00:25:37,486 --> 00:25:40,780 - Where are my kitty cats? - I don't know. 368 00:25:40,865 --> 00:25:42,574 Don't worry about it. It's all gonna be out of here. 369 00:25:42,658 --> 00:25:45,785 It'll all be back to normal. 370 00:25:47,997 --> 00:25:49,998 - All the crap goin' on. - Uh-oh. 371 00:25:50,082 --> 00:25:53,335 And here it shows all these girls talking about how one of their friends... 372 00:25:53,419 --> 00:25:57,088 got a date with Skutch and how envious they all are. 373 00:25:57,173 --> 00:26:00,383 And this is how I felt about it. 374 00:26:00,468 --> 00:26:03,094 I'm a little bitter about it as you can see here. 375 00:26:03,179 --> 00:26:05,764 Then I show here how I thought that most teenage boys... 376 00:26:05,848 --> 00:26:08,308 are very cruel and aggressive and everything like that... 377 00:26:08,392 --> 00:26:12,395 and if girls could see that I was more kind and sensitive, they would like me more. 378 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,357 They're kind of impressed by the fact that I could draw, but - 379 00:26:15,441 --> 00:26:19,736 I couldn't understand why they liked these cruel, aggressive guys and not me. 380 00:26:19,820 --> 00:26:22,989 'Cause I was more kind and sensitive and everything more like them. 381 00:26:23,074 --> 00:26:27,118 I was more like them. I didn't realize that they didn't want you to be like them, basically. 382 00:26:27,203 --> 00:26:30,455 I felt very hurt and cruelly misunderstood... 383 00:26:30,539 --> 00:26:32,791 because I considered myself talented and intelligent. 384 00:26:32,875 --> 00:26:35,835 Yet I was not very attractive physically. 385 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,673 But I didn't think those things really mattered. It was what's inside that was important. 386 00:26:40,883 --> 00:26:45,220 When I was 13, 14 and trying to be a normal teenager, I was really a jerk. 387 00:26:45,304 --> 00:26:48,431 I mean, just - I tried to, you know, act like I thought they were acting. 388 00:26:48,516 --> 00:26:50,642 It just came out all wrong and weird. 389 00:26:50,726 --> 00:26:54,771 So then I just stopped completely and just became a shadow... 390 00:26:54,855 --> 00:26:56,564 and I wasn't even there. 391 00:26:56,649 --> 00:26:59,317 People weren't even aware that I was, you know... 392 00:26:59,402 --> 00:27:01,945 in the - in the same world they were in. 393 00:27:02,029 --> 00:27:06,116 And that kind of freed me completely, because I wasn't under those pressures to be normal. 394 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,159 So I got interested in old-time music... 395 00:27:08,244 --> 00:27:10,829 and went to the black section of town, knocking on doors... 396 00:27:10,913 --> 00:27:13,623 and looking for old records and things like that... 397 00:27:13,708 --> 00:27:17,836 that would be unthinkable if you were gonna be a normal teenager. 398 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,840 Starting about age 17, I started being driven by that obsession... 399 00:27:21,924 --> 00:27:24,884 that I'll go down in history as a great artist. 400 00:27:24,969 --> 00:27:26,678 That'll be my revenge. 401 00:27:26,762 --> 00:27:30,515 This is my image celebrating Valentine's Day. 402 00:27:30,599 --> 00:27:33,518 "February 13, 1962. 403 00:27:33,602 --> 00:27:36,938 "I decided to reject conforming when society rejected me. 404 00:27:37,023 --> 00:27:39,858 "I've heard all that 'be yourself ' stuff. 405 00:27:39,942 --> 00:27:42,569 "When I'm myself, people think I'm nuts. 406 00:27:42,653 --> 00:27:46,656 "Guess I'll have to be satisfied with cats and old records. 407 00:27:46,741 --> 00:27:49,409 "Girls are just utterly out of my reach. 408 00:27:49,493 --> 00:27:51,411 They won't even let me draw them. " 409 00:27:54,707 --> 00:27:57,584 Yeah, all that changed after I got famous. 410 00:28:08,846 --> 00:28:11,139 No, I absolutely - I would love to pose for you. 411 00:28:11,223 --> 00:28:12,891 Oh, excellent. Excellent. 412 00:28:12,975 --> 00:28:15,351 Anytime you wanna come by and visit, that would be really nice. 413 00:28:15,436 --> 00:28:17,145 Excellent. 414 00:28:17,229 --> 00:28:19,606 I always wanted to see you again, so - 415 00:28:29,033 --> 00:28:32,452 Some of the early Weirdo collages. 416 00:28:33,454 --> 00:28:37,957 And also some publications. We managed to track them down. 417 00:29:15,871 --> 00:29:18,206 I think Crumb is - Basically, he's the Brueghel... 418 00:29:18,290 --> 00:29:19,916 of the last half of the 20th century. 419 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:21,709 There wasn't a Brueghel of the first half... 420 00:29:21,794 --> 00:29:23,378 but there is one of the last half... 421 00:29:23,462 --> 00:29:25,713 and that is Robert Crumb. 422 00:29:25,798 --> 00:29:30,718 Because he gives you that tremendous kind of impaction... 423 00:29:30,803 --> 00:29:34,806 of lusting, suffering, crazed humanity... 424 00:29:34,890 --> 00:29:38,977 in all sorts of bizarre, gargoyle-like allegorical forms. 425 00:29:39,061 --> 00:29:42,730 He's just got this very powerful imagination which goes right over the top a lot of the time. 426 00:29:42,815 --> 00:29:44,816 But it very seldom lies. 427 00:29:44,900 --> 00:29:47,026 To me, he's Mr. Natural. 428 00:29:47,111 --> 00:29:50,738 He accepts women how they really are... 429 00:29:50,823 --> 00:29:53,158 and makes them even more beautiful than they really - 430 00:29:53,242 --> 00:29:55,160 I mean, like that woman. 431 00:29:55,244 --> 00:30:00,957 I mean, she's really - She's got energy and form and drive. 432 00:30:01,041 --> 00:30:03,001 These women - you can't push these women around. 433 00:30:03,085 --> 00:30:04,669 They're not wimps. 434 00:30:04,753 --> 00:30:06,796 He gives power to women. 435 00:30:06,881 --> 00:30:10,049 He made it okay for me to have a butt. 436 00:30:10,134 --> 00:30:13,136 He did a drawing of me, which I really liked a lot. 437 00:30:13,220 --> 00:30:14,929 It was really me. 438 00:30:15,014 --> 00:30:17,182 It showed my thighs as they really are. 439 00:30:17,266 --> 00:30:18,725 He helped me change my self-image. 440 00:30:18,809 --> 00:30:21,269 I had felt so inadequate before. 441 00:30:21,353 --> 00:30:23,813 It was like I didn't know having a butt - 442 00:30:23,898 --> 00:30:25,857 Believe me, you're adequate. 443 00:30:25,941 --> 00:30:27,442 Oh, you're so adequate. 444 00:30:29,111 --> 00:30:32,322 I feel that Robert's work is one of the... 445 00:30:33,490 --> 00:30:38,203 most pertinent social portraits of an era... 446 00:30:38,287 --> 00:30:41,915 touching issues related to politics... 447 00:30:41,999 --> 00:30:45,418 to sex, to drugs, to religion... 448 00:30:45,502 --> 00:30:48,880 um, to the fine arts. 449 00:30:48,964 --> 00:30:53,593 And I would say that Robert is the Daumier of our time. 450 00:31:03,479 --> 00:31:05,772 I think he's a very remarkable artist indeed. 451 00:31:05,856 --> 00:31:10,068 The tradition that I see him belonging to is essentially the one of, you know... 452 00:31:10,152 --> 00:31:13,154 graphic art as social protest, social criticism... 453 00:31:13,239 --> 00:31:15,573 which, of course, has extremely long roots and goes back to - 454 00:31:15,658 --> 00:31:17,575 There are elements of Goya in Crumb. 455 00:31:17,660 --> 00:31:21,454 Goya's sense of monstrosity comes out in those... 456 00:31:21,538 --> 00:31:24,040 menacing bird-headed women of Crumb's, for instance. 457 00:31:25,626 --> 00:31:29,462 - Robert. In front of all these people? - In front of all these people. 458 00:31:29,546 --> 00:31:31,756 Robert! 459 00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:33,758 Down this way. Quick. 460 00:31:43,310 --> 00:31:45,853 Looks like the undergrounds are alive and well. 461 00:31:45,938 --> 00:31:47,230 A whole industry sprung up. 462 00:31:47,314 --> 00:31:50,066 They're still reprinting the early ones. 463 00:31:50,150 --> 00:31:51,567 Number two. 464 00:31:51,652 --> 00:31:53,361 Number four. 465 00:31:53,445 --> 00:31:56,197 God only knows how many of those have been printed by now. 466 00:31:59,910 --> 00:32:02,495 Puke & Explode. 467 00:32:02,579 --> 00:32:05,290 - What's this called? - It's called Puke & Explode. 468 00:32:05,374 --> 00:32:07,458 - That's new. Who put that out? - These kids today. 469 00:32:07,543 --> 00:32:09,794 I don't know about these kids today. 470 00:32:09,878 --> 00:32:13,131 So I guess you really started all this. You created this whole thing. 471 00:32:13,215 --> 00:32:16,134 You're responsible. 472 00:32:16,218 --> 00:32:18,219 I don't like to take credit for that, Don. 473 00:32:18,304 --> 00:32:20,888 Some of this stuff, I know. Yeah, nobody would, but, um - 474 00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:25,977 Hey, Robert, I'm a really big fan of yours. 475 00:32:26,061 --> 00:32:29,897 I'm wondering if there's any chance I can get an autograph from you. 476 00:32:29,982 --> 00:32:33,234 I don't think so. I don't believe in giving autographs. 477 00:32:35,612 --> 00:32:38,031 Okay, well. Thanks anyway. 478 00:32:40,075 --> 00:32:43,286 Have you, uh - When are you actually moving? 479 00:32:43,370 --> 00:32:45,621 - Couple months. - Couple months? Wow. 480 00:32:45,706 --> 00:32:48,499 France isn't, you know, perfect or anything... 481 00:32:48,584 --> 00:32:53,838 but it's just slightly less evil than the United States, I think. 482 00:32:53,922 --> 00:32:55,923 But that's not why I'm moving, of course. 483 00:32:56,008 --> 00:32:59,093 Talk to my wife if you want to know why I'm moving. 484 00:32:59,178 --> 00:33:02,305 We do have something here that we wanted to show you though. 485 00:33:02,389 --> 00:33:04,098 - Oh, yeah? - Yeah. 486 00:33:04,183 --> 00:33:06,934 From 1967- rock concert poster. 487 00:33:07,019 --> 00:33:08,770 - Extremely rare item. - Yeah. 488 00:33:08,854 --> 00:33:11,856 It's my only rock concert poster I ever did. 489 00:33:11,940 --> 00:33:14,609 There's this legend that I keep hearing all the time. 490 00:33:14,693 --> 00:33:16,194 People telling me, yeah... 491 00:33:16,278 --> 00:33:18,696 "Somebody told me you used to live with the Grateful Dead... 492 00:33:18,781 --> 00:33:20,782 "down here in the Haight-Ashbury... 493 00:33:20,866 --> 00:33:24,035 and, you know, you hung around with Jerry Garcia. " 494 00:33:24,119 --> 00:33:27,955 I never had anything to do with those guys. I hated that music. 495 00:33:29,458 --> 00:33:32,210 I went to a couple of those rock concerts and just fell asleep. 496 00:33:32,294 --> 00:33:35,088 It was completely boring, that psychedelic music. 497 00:33:37,424 --> 00:33:40,468 I've got something for you. I wanna tell you a little secret. 498 00:33:40,552 --> 00:33:42,470 It's called Om mani padme hum. 499 00:33:51,980 --> 00:33:55,024 This is where I get recognized more than any other place in the world... 500 00:33:55,109 --> 00:33:57,110 still, is on Haight Street. 501 00:33:57,194 --> 00:33:59,904 - It's amazing. - I know. These are my people. 502 00:33:59,988 --> 00:34:02,156 Yeah. 503 00:34:02,241 --> 00:34:03,825 People come up to me and say, "R. Crumb. Ah!" 504 00:34:03,909 --> 00:34:06,077 Sometimes some guy will come and sit with me... 505 00:34:06,161 --> 00:34:08,621 and chew my ear off about all his hopes and dreams. 506 00:34:08,705 --> 00:34:13,000 'Cause usually it's some, like, broken-down hippie pest guy. 507 00:34:13,085 --> 00:34:16,504 You know. It's never a beautiful, young 20-year-old girl or nothing. 508 00:34:17,673 --> 00:34:21,300 But it's just so interesting to come down here and draw people. 509 00:34:21,385 --> 00:34:23,886 That's the main reason I come here, just to watch people. 510 00:34:28,142 --> 00:34:31,769 This girl was sitting here one day. Beautiful girl. 511 00:34:31,854 --> 00:34:33,479 And I drew this other girl. 512 00:34:33,564 --> 00:34:36,399 She came up and wanted the drawing, so I cut it out, gave it to her. 513 00:34:36,483 --> 00:34:39,694 - Ah. Good way to meet girls. - Right. 514 00:34:39,778 --> 00:34:42,196 I drew this girl, and she invited me to her house. 515 00:34:42,281 --> 00:34:44,740 - Wow. - Unfortunately, she wasn't very attractive. 516 00:34:44,825 --> 00:34:46,742 You kept the picture, I see. 517 00:34:49,413 --> 00:34:52,665 You know, it's kind of ironic that you're so identified with the '60s. 518 00:34:52,749 --> 00:34:57,837 But at the time, it didn't seem like you really fit in with that whole flower child thing. 519 00:34:57,921 --> 00:34:59,630 God knows I tried. 520 00:34:59,715 --> 00:35:04,135 I used to come up here every day and try and be one of them and - 521 00:35:04,219 --> 00:35:06,804 My main motivation, of course, was, you know... 522 00:35:06,889 --> 00:35:09,140 to get some of that "free love" action... 523 00:35:09,224 --> 00:35:11,434 but I wasn't too good at it. 524 00:35:11,518 --> 00:35:13,478 People would ask, "Are you a narc"? 525 00:35:13,562 --> 00:35:15,646 They would move away from me at the love-in. 526 00:35:15,731 --> 00:35:17,815 I looked the same as I do now, basically. 527 00:35:17,900 --> 00:35:22,069 Exactly. You're, in fact - You did have kind of a costume, but it wasn't the same kind - 528 00:35:22,154 --> 00:35:23,863 It wasn't the right costume. 529 00:35:23,947 --> 00:35:26,657 I remember Janis Joplin giving me this piece of advice. 530 00:35:26,742 --> 00:35:29,327 She said, "Crumb, what's the matter with you? Don't you like girls?" 531 00:35:29,411 --> 00:35:31,370 I said, "Of course I like girls. What do you think?" 532 00:35:31,455 --> 00:35:34,874 She said, "Well, look, just, you know, let your hair grow long... 533 00:35:34,958 --> 00:35:38,544 "and get one of those satin billowy shirts, a velvet jacket... 534 00:35:38,629 --> 00:35:40,922 "some bell bottoms and platform shoes. 535 00:35:41,006 --> 00:35:42,965 You'll do all right. You'll do okay. " 536 00:35:43,050 --> 00:35:45,760 I just can't - I couldn't do that. 537 00:35:45,844 --> 00:35:48,137 The whole thing was just too - too silly to me. 538 00:35:48,222 --> 00:35:49,931 I couldn't get with it, you know. 539 00:35:51,934 --> 00:35:53,935 Here's a real beautiful one. 540 00:35:55,270 --> 00:35:57,271 I should get - 541 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:03,444 The work in this book - the art, the feelings - it's what made me fall in love with Robert. 542 00:36:03,529 --> 00:36:06,906 The way he saw colors and the way he saw women. 543 00:36:06,990 --> 00:36:11,244 When I was 17 years old, I looked a lot like that. 544 00:36:11,328 --> 00:36:13,663 So I was what he had been drawing. 545 00:36:13,747 --> 00:36:16,916 I was the embodiment of what he had been drawing for years. 546 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,545 It's such a sweet, romantic vision of things. 547 00:36:20,629 --> 00:36:23,548 He did this book. It took him, I think, a year. 548 00:36:23,632 --> 00:36:25,675 That was his life. 549 00:36:25,759 --> 00:36:29,637 And he had just finished the book, like, days before we met. 550 00:36:29,721 --> 00:36:32,765 My parents were always fighting, and I used to say I'm never getting married. 551 00:36:32,849 --> 00:36:35,726 My father said, "Eh, you'll marry the first one that comes along. " 552 00:36:35,811 --> 00:36:38,312 He was right. 553 00:36:38,397 --> 00:36:42,567 Robert always had a sketchbook or two going and - 554 00:36:42,651 --> 00:36:45,152 Nothing - He was constantly drawing. 555 00:36:45,237 --> 00:36:47,822 If we were in a restaurant, he'd draw on the place mat. 556 00:36:47,906 --> 00:36:50,324 If we were on the bus, he'd draw on his bus ticket. 557 00:36:52,286 --> 00:36:56,747 I had this big change in 1965 and '66. 558 00:36:56,832 --> 00:37:00,084 And it was visionary, you know. 559 00:37:00,168 --> 00:37:05,381 Very powerful, kind of "knock you on your ass" kind of visionary experience. 560 00:37:06,383 --> 00:37:10,761 This is my sketchbook for 1966 that covers that period. 561 00:37:10,846 --> 00:37:13,222 I took this very weird drug. 562 00:37:13,307 --> 00:37:17,018 Supposedly it was L.S.D., but it had a really weird effect... 563 00:37:17,102 --> 00:37:20,479 where it made my brain all fuzzy. 564 00:37:20,564 --> 00:37:22,315 This effect lasted for a couple of months. 565 00:37:22,399 --> 00:37:25,818 I started getting these images, these kind of cartoon characters like this... 566 00:37:25,902 --> 00:37:29,030 that I'd never drawn before, with these big shoes and everything. 567 00:37:29,114 --> 00:37:34,201 I let go of trying to have anything like a coherent, fixed idea about what I was doing... 568 00:37:34,286 --> 00:37:39,707 and I started being able to draw these stream-of-consciousness comic strips. 569 00:37:39,791 --> 00:37:41,959 Just kind of making up stuff. 570 00:37:42,044 --> 00:37:44,962 It didn't have to make any sense. It could be - It could be stupid. 571 00:37:45,047 --> 00:37:47,048 It didn't make any difference. 572 00:37:47,132 --> 00:37:49,717 All the characters that I used for the next several years, I thought up - 573 00:37:49,801 --> 00:37:52,762 all came to me during this period. 574 00:37:52,846 --> 00:37:55,264 These things fit into this vision I was having. 575 00:37:55,349 --> 00:38:01,062 It was a revelation of some seamy side of America's subconscious. 576 00:38:01,146 --> 00:38:04,440 I remember, when I was drawing this, there was this young girl there. 577 00:38:04,524 --> 00:38:06,984 She was like, "Oh, isn't that cute!" 578 00:38:07,069 --> 00:38:11,364 And to me, it was all like a horror show, this whole thing. 579 00:38:11,448 --> 00:38:13,908 And she just thought it was really cute and happy-looking. 580 00:38:13,992 --> 00:38:18,579 To me, it was just, like, a drawing of the horror of America. 581 00:39:02,874 --> 00:39:07,586 There were all these hippie underground papers starting up in '66, '67. 582 00:39:07,671 --> 00:39:09,588 Every town had one or two of 'em. 583 00:39:09,673 --> 00:39:14,635 They would print anything if it was related to the psychedelic experience or the hippie ethic. 584 00:39:14,720 --> 00:39:19,390 So I started submitting some of these L.S.D.- inspired comics... 585 00:39:19,474 --> 00:39:23,102 that I had been doing in my sketchbooks to these papers, and they liked them. 586 00:39:23,186 --> 00:39:26,647 Then this guy came along who suggested I do a whole issue of his paper. 587 00:39:26,732 --> 00:39:30,025 It was called Yarrowstalks. So I did that, and that went over big. 588 00:39:30,110 --> 00:39:33,154 Then he said, "Why don't you just do psychedelic comic books? 589 00:39:33,238 --> 00:39:34,864 And I'll publish them for you. " 590 00:39:34,948 --> 00:39:39,201 So I set to work, and I did two whole issues of Zap Comix. 591 00:40:54,528 --> 00:40:58,322 Crumb was incredibly exciting and incredibly hot. 592 00:40:58,406 --> 00:41:00,825 There were just really a handful of us... 593 00:41:00,909 --> 00:41:04,995 doing this - this new form of comics. 594 00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:09,458 And what he was doing was just more innovative... 595 00:41:09,543 --> 00:41:13,045 than what any of us had even thought of. 596 00:41:15,465 --> 00:41:18,926 It was fun to be a part of that and to see Zap suddenly everywhere... 597 00:41:19,010 --> 00:41:23,138 from this concept of Robert's, this fantasy of doing his own comic book... 598 00:41:23,223 --> 00:41:25,099 with a glossy cover and actually printed... 599 00:41:25,183 --> 00:41:29,520 to seeing it start turning up in all the windows on Haight Street, windows around town... 600 00:41:29,604 --> 00:41:31,647 hearing people talk about it... 601 00:41:31,731 --> 00:41:35,317 having the other artists show up at a certain point and wanting to be a part of it. 602 00:41:35,402 --> 00:41:37,319 It happened very quickly. 603 00:41:37,404 --> 00:41:40,072 It seems to me, in retrospect, it happened in a matter of weeks. 604 00:42:02,554 --> 00:42:05,139 Crumb generously gave the ownership of Zap... 605 00:42:05,223 --> 00:42:06,390 to all the artists. 606 00:42:06,474 --> 00:42:07,850 Basically, there was no editor. 607 00:42:07,934 --> 00:42:09,560 There was a certain point where it seemed... 608 00:42:09,644 --> 00:42:12,396 as though underground comics... 609 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,107 could kind of get into the big time... 610 00:42:15,191 --> 00:42:19,570 and Crumb almost seemed reluctant to push that sort of thing. 611 00:42:19,654 --> 00:42:21,655 They were offering him 100,000 bucks... 612 00:42:21,740 --> 00:42:24,241 just off the top of the bat... 613 00:42:24,326 --> 00:42:26,327 just to start talking. 614 00:42:26,411 --> 00:42:29,038 Robert turned it down in two seconds. Actually, he turned it down. 615 00:42:29,122 --> 00:42:32,541 Aline screamed in the background, "What are you doing, Robert? We need money. " 616 00:42:32,626 --> 00:42:36,128 Forget it. I'm not going on Saturday Night Live. 617 00:42:36,212 --> 00:42:38,422 The Rolling Stones wanted me to do an album cover. 618 00:42:38,506 --> 00:42:41,800 There was a couple other deals like that. I just don't know. 619 00:42:41,885 --> 00:42:43,928 This is not something you see every day in America... 620 00:42:44,012 --> 00:42:46,263 where selling out is kind of everybody's ambition. 621 00:42:46,348 --> 00:42:50,601 After about a year of recognition and all the bullshit of fame and all that... 622 00:42:50,685 --> 00:42:52,269 I just said fuck it. 623 00:42:52,354 --> 00:42:57,483 And I started drawing the dark part of myself again in the comics... 624 00:42:57,567 --> 00:42:59,568 which I'd always kept hidden before. 625 00:42:59,653 --> 00:43:03,155 I was used to what he had been doing... 626 00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,866 which was really quite sweet. 627 00:43:05,951 --> 00:43:11,538 Then he did this one that was just incredibly hostile to women... 628 00:43:11,623 --> 00:43:13,540 very sexually hostile. 629 00:43:13,625 --> 00:43:16,794 I wasn't expecting it, and it was really - 630 00:43:16,878 --> 00:43:19,838 I was really shocked and just taken aback. 631 00:43:19,923 --> 00:43:21,840 And really just kind of like - whack! 632 00:43:21,925 --> 00:43:23,842 It's hard for me to believe... 633 00:43:23,927 --> 00:43:28,389 that he can't just channel himself into doing better work. 634 00:43:29,933 --> 00:43:34,645 I like a lot of his work, and certainly I don't miss the satirical aspect of it. 635 00:43:34,729 --> 00:43:35,938 Then I find myself having... 636 00:43:36,022 --> 00:43:37,731 a completely different reaction... 637 00:43:37,816 --> 00:43:39,650 perhaps one of being really turned off... 638 00:43:39,734 --> 00:43:41,443 and disgusted. 639 00:43:41,528 --> 00:43:46,156 And you know, this - this cartoon, Joe Blow... 640 00:43:46,241 --> 00:43:49,785 is one that I thought about, um, a lot in that light. 641 00:43:49,869 --> 00:43:55,541 On the one hand, it's a satire of a 1950s - the healthy facade of the American family. 642 00:43:55,625 --> 00:44:00,087 And it kind of exposes the sickness under the surface. 643 00:44:01,423 --> 00:44:07,302 But at the same time, you sense that Crumb is getting off on it himself in some other way. 644 00:44:07,387 --> 00:44:10,014 And on another level, it's an orgy. 645 00:44:10,098 --> 00:44:13,892 It's a self-indulgent orgy, um, in a fantasy. 646 00:44:13,977 --> 00:44:18,814 And the fantasy- Specifically, this story is a story about a father... 647 00:44:18,898 --> 00:44:22,359 who commands his daughter to give him a blow job. 648 00:44:22,444 --> 00:44:24,862 And she does, and they wind up having sex. 649 00:44:24,946 --> 00:44:29,033 And the little sort of Leave It to Beaver type brother character comes running in... 650 00:44:29,117 --> 00:44:31,493 and sees the father and his sister, and he's shocked and upset. 651 00:44:31,578 --> 00:44:33,495 He goes running to the mother to tell her. 652 00:44:33,580 --> 00:44:38,917 And Mom comes out of a closet wearing a sort of S-and-M kind of getup. 653 00:44:39,002 --> 00:44:41,045 And the little boy says, "Oh, cool. " 654 00:44:41,129 --> 00:44:44,173 The next thing, Mom and son are having sex. 655 00:44:44,257 --> 00:44:47,468 The whole panel ends - The whole cartoon ends with the parents saying... 656 00:44:47,552 --> 00:44:51,305 "Gee, we should spend more time with the kids. ” Or something like that. Very funny. 657 00:44:51,389 --> 00:44:56,143 Um, so, you know, you read something like this... 658 00:44:56,227 --> 00:44:59,229 and I think that it has gone over the line... 659 00:44:59,314 --> 00:45:04,985 from a satire of a 1950s, hygienic... 660 00:45:05,070 --> 00:45:08,405 you know, family in denial... 661 00:45:08,490 --> 00:45:12,785 into something which is just Crumb producing pornography. 662 00:45:12,869 --> 00:45:16,080 And I think this theme in his work is omnipresent. 663 00:45:16,164 --> 00:45:19,458 It's part of an arrested juvenile vision. 664 00:45:19,542 --> 00:45:24,421 Crumb's material comes out of a deep sense of the absurdity of human life. 665 00:45:24,506 --> 00:45:26,548 At a certain kind of psychic level, there aren't any heroes... 666 00:45:26,633 --> 00:45:29,009 there aren't any villains, there aren't any heroines. 667 00:45:29,094 --> 00:45:31,804 And even the victims are comic. 668 00:45:31,888 --> 00:45:36,391 And, um, I think it's this which people in America find rather hard to take... 669 00:45:36,476 --> 00:45:39,895 because it conflicts with their basic feelings - 670 00:45:39,979 --> 00:45:44,108 that sort of mixture of utopianism on one hand and Puritanism on the other... 671 00:45:44,192 --> 00:45:47,361 which is only another kind of utopianism. 672 00:45:47,445 --> 00:45:52,074 Which has given us the kind of messy discourse that we have today. 673 00:45:52,158 --> 00:45:56,787 So, naturally, Crumb, like all great satirists, is something of an outsider in his own country. 674 00:46:21,604 --> 00:46:25,524 - ♪♪ - ♪ Females on my tip, and it ain't funny ♪ 675 00:46:25,608 --> 00:46:28,277 - ♪ Why ♪ - ♪ I don't know, probably 'cause I got money♪ 676 00:46:28,361 --> 00:46:30,904 ♪ Don't want me Just want my riches ♪ 677 00:46:30,989 --> 00:46:34,158 ♪ Things like that keep stitches on my britches ♪ 678 00:46:34,242 --> 00:46:36,201 ♪ I wear all 501 s ♪ 679 00:46:36,286 --> 00:46:38,787 ♪ Many wear Adidas but I have none ♪ 680 00:46:38,872 --> 00:46:40,581 ♪ Filas, I'm coolin' ♪♪ 681 00:49:14,527 --> 00:49:16,570 Jesus! This fucking raging... 682 00:49:18,406 --> 00:49:21,950 epithet music coming out of every car, every store... 683 00:49:22,035 --> 00:49:24,202 every person's head. 684 00:49:27,623 --> 00:49:30,542 If they don't have noisy radios, they got earphones on, like... 685 00:49:30,626 --> 00:49:33,045 "Motherfuckin', cock-suckin' son of a bitch. " 686 00:49:33,129 --> 00:49:36,089 That's a lot of aggression. A lot of anger, a lot of rage. 687 00:49:36,174 --> 00:49:37,924 - ♪ Just callin' to the motherfuck♪ 688 00:49:38,009 --> 00:49:41,094 Everybody walks around - They're walking advertisements. 689 00:49:41,179 --> 00:49:44,306 They've got advertisements on their clothes, you know. 690 00:49:44,390 --> 00:49:47,934 Go walking around with "Adidas" written across their chest... 691 00:49:48,019 --> 00:49:50,270 or, you know, "49ers" on their hat. 692 00:49:50,355 --> 00:49:53,315 Jesus. It's pathetic. It's pitiful. 693 00:49:53,399 --> 00:49:55,817 The whole culture's one unified field... 694 00:49:55,902 --> 00:49:59,571 of bought, sold, market-researched everything. 695 00:49:59,655 --> 00:50:02,449 It used to be that people fermented their own culture. 696 00:50:02,533 --> 00:50:06,495 It took hundreds of years, and it evolved over time and, you know - 697 00:50:06,579 --> 00:50:09,748 And that's gone in America. 698 00:50:09,832 --> 00:50:14,044 People now don't even have any concept that there ever was a culture... 699 00:50:14,128 --> 00:50:17,381 outside of this thing that's created to make money. 700 00:50:17,465 --> 00:50:21,093 Whatever's the biggest, latest thing, they're into it, you know? 701 00:50:21,177 --> 00:50:23,470 You just get disgusted after a while with humanity... 702 00:50:23,554 --> 00:50:26,390 for not having more, kind of like... 703 00:50:26,474 --> 00:50:29,601 you know, intellectual curiosity... 704 00:50:29,685 --> 00:50:33,939 about what's behind all this jive bullshit. 705 00:50:52,375 --> 00:50:54,960 Charles and I talk quite a bit about things. 706 00:50:55,044 --> 00:50:57,546 - We don't really talk that much. - Yeah, we do. 707 00:50:57,630 --> 00:51:00,298 We hold aloof from each other for the most part. 708 00:51:00,383 --> 00:51:03,176 You spend all your time down here watching television... 709 00:51:03,261 --> 00:51:05,595 and doing your crossword puzzles. 710 00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:09,391 - I don't watch television all the time. - I spend most of my time in my room reading books. 711 00:51:09,475 --> 00:51:11,518 I turn it on because it puts me to sleep. 712 00:51:14,021 --> 00:51:16,398 It's a good way to get to sleep. 713 00:51:16,482 --> 00:51:18,775 We're two recluses living in the same house. 714 00:51:18,860 --> 00:51:21,194 I wake up at 3:00 in the morning, and it's still on. 715 00:51:21,279 --> 00:51:24,698 You do most of the talking in the relationship, Mother. 716 00:51:24,782 --> 00:51:27,033 There's no doubt about that. 717 00:51:27,118 --> 00:51:28,910 You told me that even though you take those medications... 718 00:51:28,995 --> 00:51:31,746 that you still feel nervous and depressed sometimes. 719 00:51:31,831 --> 00:51:36,293 Yeah, but not as much as I would if I wasn't taking the medication. 720 00:51:36,377 --> 00:51:38,295 Jesus. 721 00:51:38,379 --> 00:51:40,505 What do you think would happen if you stopped taking that stuff? 722 00:51:40,590 --> 00:51:43,133 I don't know. I tried it a couple of times... 723 00:51:43,217 --> 00:51:45,343 and I didn't like what was starting to happen to me. 724 00:51:45,428 --> 00:51:47,137 - Jesus. - He gets insomnia. 725 00:51:47,221 --> 00:51:50,098 I felt as if I were becoming gradually unhinged. 726 00:51:50,183 --> 00:51:53,143 - Oh, man. - So I got back on them again in a big hurry. 727 00:51:55,563 --> 00:51:58,398 I tried this a couple of times - about two or three times. 728 00:51:58,483 --> 00:52:00,650 Do you still think they're picking my brain, Mother? 729 00:52:00,735 --> 00:52:02,694 Yeah. 730 00:52:07,867 --> 00:52:09,993 You have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. 731 00:52:10,077 --> 00:52:12,662 You're a good - He's a good person. 732 00:52:12,747 --> 00:52:16,124 People like Charles. No, I mean - You know. 733 00:52:17,376 --> 00:52:20,086 Some people like me, and some don't. 734 00:52:20,171 --> 00:52:23,965 I'm a very quiet, well-behaved citizen. 735 00:52:24,050 --> 00:52:27,886 - I've gone from one extreme to the other. - You've gone in a complete circle. 736 00:52:27,970 --> 00:52:30,180 You used to make trouble on the streets. 737 00:52:30,264 --> 00:52:32,516 One of the last times I went out with you, we were walking around... 738 00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:34,684 and you just went up to some old lady on the street... 739 00:52:34,769 --> 00:52:39,356 and started, like, drilling her about her spiritual life. 740 00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,859 And she just got really frightened and threatened to call the police. 741 00:52:42,944 --> 00:52:47,906 Charles goes up to these strangers on the streets and starts raving at them. 742 00:52:47,990 --> 00:52:49,741 He was just a kid having fun. That's all. 743 00:52:49,825 --> 00:52:53,620 - This was when he was about 30. - No, he wasn't! 744 00:52:54,622 --> 00:52:59,292 He's still doing that kind of stuff, but now he doesn't even leave the house anymore. 745 00:52:59,377 --> 00:53:02,212 - He always got in trouble whenever he went out. - No, he didn't. 746 00:53:02,296 --> 00:53:05,298 Will you give me one good reason for leaving the house? 747 00:53:05,383 --> 00:53:10,053 At least he's not out taking illegal drugs or selling illegal drugs. 748 00:53:10,137 --> 00:53:12,806 - No, he's taking legal drugs. - I'm taking legal dope. 749 00:53:12,890 --> 00:53:16,017 Or being married and making some woman miserable. 750 00:53:16,102 --> 00:53:18,395 This is true. This is true. 751 00:53:18,479 --> 00:53:22,315 One thing that kind of runs - I spent all this money. 752 00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:27,279 And he's got these $200 teeth upstairs, and he won't wear them. 753 00:53:27,363 --> 00:53:29,364 - They're too uncomfortable. - They are at first. 754 00:53:29,448 --> 00:53:33,952 You gotta kind of leave them in there. After a bit, you don't even know they're there. 755 00:53:34,036 --> 00:53:36,288 - What does he need 'em for? - I never go anywhere. I never see anybody. 756 00:53:36,372 --> 00:53:39,666 What does he need 'em for - to chew food, or what? 757 00:53:39,750 --> 00:53:41,459 Just pride in his own appearance. 758 00:53:41,544 --> 00:53:44,337 He never goes out. What does he care what he looks like? 759 00:53:44,422 --> 00:53:46,923 I take a bath about once in six weeks. 760 00:53:47,008 --> 00:53:50,594 I believe in having a certain pride in yourself - 761 00:53:50,678 --> 00:53:55,307 in a way not that your ego gets out of hand or you're an egomaniac - 762 00:53:55,391 --> 00:53:59,227 Pride can't exist except in relation to other people. 763 00:53:59,312 --> 00:54:01,229 Yeah. That's right. 764 00:54:05,151 --> 00:54:09,195 I don't know. Your hygiene habits are pretty good. 765 00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:11,948 You're not - You have - 766 00:54:12,033 --> 00:54:14,826 I'm never constipated. That's about all I can say for myself. 767 00:54:20,041 --> 00:54:22,792 Oh, Charles. 768 00:54:22,877 --> 00:54:25,920 - That's something. You don't have hemorrhoids? - That's a lot, you know. 769 00:54:26,005 --> 00:54:27,464 He doesn't have hemorrhoids. You're doing good. 770 00:54:27,548 --> 00:54:30,216 Your father used to have trouble that way, with constipation. 771 00:54:30,301 --> 00:54:33,178 With the bowels, yeah. He was constipated all the time. 772 00:54:33,262 --> 00:54:35,180 You were really obsessed with - 773 00:54:35,264 --> 00:54:37,349 I could say something, but I won't. 774 00:54:37,433 --> 00:54:39,809 When we were kids, you were always giving us castor oil. 775 00:54:39,894 --> 00:54:41,645 You were obsessed with constipation. 776 00:54:41,729 --> 00:54:45,940 When all you kids were real little, I used to have to take care of you by myself. 777 00:54:46,025 --> 00:54:49,152 Remember that period where you tried giving us all enemas? 778 00:54:49,236 --> 00:54:53,073 - That didn't work out too good. - I never gave you any enemas. 779 00:54:53,157 --> 00:54:54,324 Somebody - 780 00:54:54,408 --> 00:54:57,452 You would always threaten to give us enemas if we didn't behave properly. 781 00:54:57,578 --> 00:55:01,581 - No, I did not. - Somebody tried to give me an enema. I don't know who it was. 782 00:55:07,713 --> 00:55:10,382 - She wouldn't admit it, but - - The house is weird? 783 00:55:10,466 --> 00:55:12,008 It's not just a regular suburban house? 784 00:55:12,093 --> 00:55:14,427 It's a suburban house that's, like, you know - 785 00:55:14,512 --> 00:55:17,222 looks like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane or something. 786 00:55:17,306 --> 00:55:19,099 What do you mean? She has weird trinkets around? 787 00:55:19,183 --> 00:55:21,059 She has weird blankets on the walls. She has cats. 788 00:55:21,143 --> 00:55:23,436 The whole place smells like pee and everything. 789 00:55:23,521 --> 00:55:25,939 Don't say that on the film. 790 00:55:26,023 --> 00:55:28,525 - She doesn't want people in the house. - Oh. 791 00:55:28,609 --> 00:55:33,947 The next thing my mother knows is this whole crew is filing in the door. 792 00:55:34,031 --> 00:55:37,617 She says, "Oh, no. No pictures! No pictures. No way, Jose," she says. 793 00:55:40,162 --> 00:55:43,707 Terry says, "No, no. We're just going upstairs. We're gonna do it up in Charles's room. " 794 00:55:43,791 --> 00:55:48,086 Of course, naturally, then she got into it, and after a while, you couldn't even shut her up. 795 00:55:48,170 --> 00:55:52,340 She just talked on and on. She chattered on and on. It was awful. 796 00:55:52,425 --> 00:55:56,928 - Let's see. What year is this? 1970. - '70. I'd just met you. 797 00:55:57,012 --> 00:56:02,058 This is when I first met you in 1969. That's me. I remember that. 798 00:56:02,143 --> 00:56:06,438 - This doesn't look like me. - You're right. It's not good. Let me touch it up. 799 00:56:06,522 --> 00:56:11,735 - The nose is too bulbous. - The eyes are too far apart also. 800 00:56:13,237 --> 00:56:17,240 It's too late now, really. This was 18 years ago. 801 00:56:17,324 --> 00:56:20,201 - God, it just - - How about this drawing of you? 802 00:56:20,286 --> 00:56:21,995 I remember we were in this restaurant. 803 00:56:22,079 --> 00:56:25,749 This is ridiculous. Oh, God! 804 00:56:25,833 --> 00:56:27,959 - I'm still rolling. - She almost fell off the roof. 805 00:56:28,043 --> 00:56:31,254 But she can't see the notebook. That's me? 806 00:56:31,338 --> 00:56:33,298 - I look like - - That's you with your hair dryer. 807 00:56:35,134 --> 00:56:38,428 There's Terry. 808 00:56:40,681 --> 00:56:43,057 That's me. I like that drawing. 809 00:56:43,142 --> 00:56:45,643 - That's one of the few drawings I liked. - This is what you said. 810 00:56:45,728 --> 00:56:49,105 So you're going to sell these books, and I don't get a percentage? 811 00:56:49,190 --> 00:56:51,900 Yeah. This whole case of sketchbooks here... 812 00:56:51,984 --> 00:56:55,361 I'm giving to this guy for a house in France. 813 00:56:55,446 --> 00:56:58,114 I had a lot of drawings here. What do I get out of this? 814 00:56:58,199 --> 00:57:01,117 - What drawings? - Several. I drew that. 815 00:57:01,202 --> 00:57:03,620 - No, Aline drew those. - You sure? 816 00:57:03,704 --> 00:57:04,746 Yes. 817 00:57:04,830 --> 00:57:06,748 - I drew that. - No, Aline drew those. 818 00:57:06,832 --> 00:57:08,333 Really? 819 00:57:09,335 --> 00:57:11,419 That's Aline when I first knew her. 820 00:57:11,504 --> 00:57:14,798 You went from this page, where I was on it... 821 00:57:14,882 --> 00:57:17,926 and, like, two pages later, it's Aline? 822 00:57:18,010 --> 00:57:20,678 - How did that happen? - It was a crazy period. 823 00:57:20,763 --> 00:57:23,515 That's disgusting. 824 00:57:24,725 --> 00:57:25,934 Horrible. 825 00:57:26,018 --> 00:57:28,311 That's you, and that's Aline. 826 00:57:28,395 --> 00:57:31,815 - Oh, Jesus. - You really, really hated women then. 827 00:57:31,899 --> 00:57:34,651 You think it's improved, um, since then? 828 00:57:34,735 --> 00:57:37,195 Yeah. I hate them a little bit less now. 829 00:57:46,622 --> 00:57:50,208 Guys like me, I like certain kinds of women's legs. 830 00:57:50,292 --> 00:57:52,460 - I'm not masochistic. - But you don't like feet. 831 00:57:52,545 --> 00:57:56,005 - You're not heavily into feet. - I'm not fixated on feet, but I can get into it. 832 00:57:56,090 --> 00:58:00,176 I can - You know, I can have an orgasm... 833 00:58:00,261 --> 00:58:03,388 in playing with someone's foot, but - 834 00:58:03,472 --> 00:58:07,183 It's not just, you know, a real narrow fixation or anything. 835 00:58:10,688 --> 00:58:15,149 It's just that the way the mind of the person who's interested in legs and feet... 836 00:58:15,234 --> 00:58:17,861 is very different from the mind of the person who's interested in breasts. 837 00:58:17,945 --> 00:58:20,613 Breast men tend to be aggressive, outgoing, athletic. 838 00:58:20,698 --> 00:58:22,615 - Whereas people who like the lower body - - She's so frightening. 839 00:58:22,700 --> 00:58:24,701 She has all these types. She's got 'em all categorized. 840 00:58:24,785 --> 00:58:29,289 People who like the lower body tend to be frightened, introverted. 841 00:58:29,373 --> 00:58:34,043 It all has to do with being down on the floor when you were a scared little child... 842 00:58:34,128 --> 00:58:38,089 and looking up at that big tower of Mommy. 843 00:58:38,173 --> 00:58:42,051 What's down there? The feet and the legs. That's where the security is. 844 00:58:42,136 --> 00:58:45,179 Women go around feeling victimized by men all the time. 845 00:58:45,264 --> 00:58:47,015 They feel like the men have the power... 846 00:58:47,099 --> 00:58:51,060 and the area where women can take the power from men is through sex. 847 00:58:51,145 --> 00:58:55,523 Men - because they have that fetishistic twist to their minds... 848 00:58:55,608 --> 00:58:59,819 because they have that ability to concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of all else - 849 00:58:59,904 --> 00:59:03,406 can really be manipulated sexually, where women are not as susceptible. 850 00:59:03,490 --> 00:59:06,326 You are so frightening. Jesus! 851 00:59:06,410 --> 00:59:10,622 Women are susceptible to power. That's what I find. 852 00:59:10,706 --> 00:59:15,251 Any display of power and - "Oh, he's so interesting! 853 00:59:15,336 --> 00:59:18,296 "Gee, who's that man over there who's being so obnoxious and arrogant? 854 00:59:18,380 --> 00:59:19,797 He's so interesting. " 855 00:59:19,882 --> 00:59:21,257 I'm a career pornographer. 856 00:59:21,342 --> 00:59:22,967 I've been at it for 16 years. 857 00:59:23,052 --> 00:59:25,053 And it was really, I think... 858 00:59:25,137 --> 00:59:26,763 what I was always destined for. 859 00:59:26,847 --> 00:59:28,222 I always loved pornography. 860 00:59:29,767 --> 00:59:32,769 I took my birthday money when I turned 18- 'cause I was now legal - 861 00:59:32,853 --> 00:59:35,688 and went to the adult bookstore and bought pornography. 862 00:59:35,773 --> 00:59:39,943 I went along through some other jobs, but I always sexualized 'em... 863 00:59:40,027 --> 00:59:43,154 so finding pornography was just right. 864 00:59:43,238 --> 00:59:48,159 I'm the editor of Jugs, Leg Show and Bust Out right now. 865 00:59:48,243 --> 00:59:52,455 I was also the creator of Big Butt magazine. 866 00:59:52,539 --> 00:59:55,041 We've arranged with Robert to do a photo shoot today... 867 00:59:55,125 --> 00:59:57,502 which will appear in Leg Show magazine. 868 00:59:57,586 --> 01:00:01,506 We're going to have four or five women who we think Robert will like... 869 01:00:01,590 --> 01:00:04,133 but there's never any telling with Robert Crumb. 870 01:00:04,218 --> 01:00:06,803 Here's a girl I wish I could've gotten for the Crumb shoot. 871 01:00:06,887 --> 01:00:10,598 This is a mother-daughter dominance team from out in L.A. 872 01:00:10,683 --> 01:00:15,019 "Mother taught me to smother" is this girl's motto. 873 01:00:15,104 --> 01:00:18,982 We're doing this for the Christmas issue. The mother's wearing a little red outfit. 874 01:00:19,066 --> 01:00:21,526 As you can see, we wanted them to do something festive. 875 01:01:42,733 --> 01:01:46,569 He's definitely a person that would rather be a brain in a jar than a person in a body. 876 01:01:46,653 --> 01:01:50,490 He's, like - So, basically, we both focus on my body sexually. 877 01:01:52,034 --> 01:01:56,412 You know, Robert's not too oriented towards, uh, normal sex... 878 01:01:56,497 --> 01:02:00,041 so there wasn't much in the way of normal sex in our relationship. 879 01:02:00,125 --> 01:02:04,587 But lots of piggyback rides and, uh, wrestling around... 880 01:02:04,671 --> 01:02:07,757 and he liked to sit on my shoe a lot. 881 01:02:07,841 --> 01:02:09,759 He never takes his shirt off. 882 01:02:09,843 --> 01:02:12,929 He just likes to sort of, like, you know, not exist. 883 01:02:13,013 --> 01:02:16,516 Robert is an admitted compulsive masturbator. 884 01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:19,310 He masturbates four, five times a day. 885 01:02:19,394 --> 01:02:23,439 He has told me that he masturbates to his own comics. 886 01:02:23,524 --> 01:02:26,567 I'm sure Picasso did. Um - 887 01:02:26,652 --> 01:02:29,028 I think probably, um - 888 01:02:30,572 --> 01:02:32,990 Yeah, I think probably some do. 889 01:02:33,075 --> 01:02:36,119 But I don't think that many artists... 890 01:02:36,203 --> 01:02:40,373 give you such a wide range of masturbatory possibility as Crumb, you know? 891 01:02:41,375 --> 01:02:43,501 That is, if you like what he likes. 892 01:02:43,585 --> 01:02:45,503 Does he actually do that? 893 01:02:45,587 --> 01:02:48,339 Robert doesn't exaggerate anything in his comics. 894 01:02:48,423 --> 01:02:50,716 The women are exactly the way he wants them... 895 01:02:50,801 --> 01:02:53,970 and he really accurately portrays himself... 896 01:02:54,054 --> 01:02:59,350 as the skinny, bad posture, myopic man he is. 897 01:02:59,434 --> 01:03:03,020 Some people wonder if he doesn't exaggerate the size of his penis... 898 01:03:03,105 --> 01:03:05,481 which always appears awfully big in the comics. 899 01:03:05,566 --> 01:03:08,067 Robert does not exaggerate anything. 900 01:03:08,152 --> 01:03:11,529 He is endowed with one of the biggest penises in the world. 901 01:03:14,575 --> 01:03:17,618 Why do I have my particular sexual proclivities? 902 01:03:17,703 --> 01:03:19,620 I don't know. 903 01:03:19,705 --> 01:03:21,998 Ask a psychiatrist. I don't know what it's about. 904 01:03:22,082 --> 01:03:24,000 Well, the thing about Robert is... 905 01:03:24,084 --> 01:03:26,836 I think I always just thought he was kidding about them, that he was trying - 906 01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:29,255 - You thought I was kidding? - I mean, I - 907 01:03:31,258 --> 01:03:33,551 That he was trying to be funny, and - 908 01:03:33,635 --> 01:03:36,304 Yeah, that's right, Kathy. 909 01:03:36,430 --> 01:03:40,766 - I couldn't imagine how anyone could really be serious about these things. - You weren't laughing. 910 01:03:40,851 --> 01:03:45,021 - What do you think? - It was just complete chaos, this relationship. 911 01:03:45,105 --> 01:03:48,608 I mean, the crying and all the fighting started pretty soon actually. 912 01:03:48,692 --> 01:03:51,736 I think you cried, like, the third time I'd been with you, or something. 913 01:03:51,820 --> 01:03:56,073 Well, what's so horrible about crying? Why - Why is that so painful to you? 914 01:03:56,158 --> 01:03:59,160 I think, oh, my God. What am I - How can I deal with it? What should I do? 915 01:03:59,244 --> 01:04:01,370 She's crying. I don't know what to do. 916 01:04:01,455 --> 01:04:05,750 So what you're saying is, 20 years later, you still had no idea... 917 01:04:05,834 --> 01:04:09,086 what you were doing that could've contributed to that? 918 01:04:09,171 --> 01:04:11,088 No, I guess I don't. 919 01:04:11,173 --> 01:04:14,842 It was confusing because he was totally irresponsible. 920 01:04:14,927 --> 01:04:17,011 - Well. - He would call me up and say... 921 01:04:17,095 --> 01:04:20,389 "I love you. I miss you. I can't wait to see you. " 922 01:04:20,474 --> 01:04:23,643 And then this was - He was supposed to be 200 miles away. 923 01:04:23,727 --> 01:04:25,728 He said, "I'll see you in a week or two. " 924 01:04:25,812 --> 01:04:29,732 And then I'd go out to buy some groceries two hours later... 925 01:04:29,816 --> 01:04:31,859 and I'd see him with another woman. 926 01:04:31,944 --> 01:04:35,404 And then he'd wonder why I kicked him or got mad. 927 01:04:35,489 --> 01:04:38,824 - Do you think I'm sadistic? - Yeah - 928 01:04:41,453 --> 01:04:44,789 Yeah, I think he - he would always, um, you know, act... 929 01:04:44,873 --> 01:04:47,917 like he was passively a victim. 930 01:04:48,001 --> 01:04:51,837 I used to call it his Ashley Wilkes routine... 931 01:04:51,922 --> 01:04:54,257 that he would pull - 932 01:04:54,341 --> 01:04:58,719 where he was just this passive victim of circumstance, you know... 933 01:04:58,804 --> 01:05:00,930 in other people's desires... 934 01:05:01,014 --> 01:05:05,559 when really he was just trying to get away with whatever he could get away with... 935 01:05:05,644 --> 01:05:07,603 and walking all over people. 936 01:05:07,688 --> 01:05:11,107 I walked all over people? Like who? Like you? 937 01:05:11,191 --> 01:05:15,945 You think that you were a good guy, you were a nice boyfriend to me at the time. 938 01:05:17,489 --> 01:05:21,200 I think maybe I'm just not a very romantic person. That's all. 939 01:05:21,285 --> 01:05:24,954 I've never been, like - I don't think I've ever actually, if I really think about it... 940 01:05:25,038 --> 01:05:26,956 ever been in love, you know. 941 01:05:27,040 --> 01:05:31,002 Oh, I have many letters where you said "I love you" hundreds of times. 942 01:05:31,086 --> 01:05:34,088 Yeah, I was just abusing the word, you know. 943 01:05:34,172 --> 01:05:36,465 - I had this overpowering - - I'm leaving. 944 01:05:36,550 --> 01:05:38,718 No, I - I was very fond of you. 945 01:05:40,762 --> 01:05:42,680 I was very fond of you... 946 01:05:42,764 --> 01:05:46,475 and I certainly had the most overpowering lust for you that you could possibly imagine... 947 01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:49,562 but I wouldn't say that I was in love. 948 01:05:49,646 --> 01:05:51,564 I just don't - don't have it in me. 949 01:05:51,648 --> 01:05:54,942 - I've never been in love with any woman, never been jealous. - That's horrible. 950 01:05:55,027 --> 01:05:59,155 The only woman I've ever been in love with is Sophie, basically, my darling daughter. 951 01:05:59,239 --> 01:05:59,280 Hey. 952 01:05:59,281 --> 01:06:02,199 Hey. 953 01:06:03,243 --> 01:06:05,411 You made me mess up. You provoked me. 954 01:06:07,331 --> 01:06:09,248 Look out. Yeah! 955 01:06:27,517 --> 01:06:31,020 I did a bunch of books in the early '70s that were really self-deprecating. 956 01:06:31,104 --> 01:06:33,356 My self-hatred was really intense then. 957 01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:36,233 Did you ever see this one? This one's Twisted Sisters. 958 01:06:38,195 --> 01:06:40,404 Nice cover. I show myself on the toilet. 959 01:06:40,489 --> 01:06:43,949 It got no recognition. Nobody bought it. 960 01:06:44,034 --> 01:06:46,077 I asked the publisher, you know, how it was doing. 961 01:06:46,161 --> 01:06:50,790 He said he was using it for insulation in the walls of his barn. 962 01:06:52,376 --> 01:06:55,378 What's the gist of your comics? What are they like? 963 01:06:55,462 --> 01:06:59,131 They're all about me - my sex life, my phobias... 964 01:06:59,216 --> 01:07:02,551 you know, what a disgusting human being I think I am. 965 01:07:02,636 --> 01:07:05,346 - You know, I hope - - But your mother's featured in it a lot too. 966 01:07:05,430 --> 01:07:08,391 Yeah. Yeah. It's the way I can tolerate my mother - 967 01:07:08,475 --> 01:07:11,102 is by drawing really hideous drawings of her... 968 01:07:11,186 --> 01:07:13,771 like - like this, for example. 969 01:07:13,855 --> 01:07:17,149 This is after Sophie was born. My mother came to visit me. 970 01:07:17,234 --> 01:07:20,027 She was so irritating and so unhelpful. 971 01:07:20,112 --> 01:07:23,864 She just talks about how she couldn't hold the baby 'cause she'd just had her nails wrapped. 972 01:07:23,949 --> 01:07:27,910 My mother yells really loud in the restaurant, "Got any Sweet'N Low, dear?" 973 01:07:27,994 --> 01:07:32,331 A real quiet sort of fern-bar restaurant in San Francisco. 974 01:07:32,416 --> 01:07:34,834 And every single person turned around to look, you know? 975 01:07:34,918 --> 01:07:39,463 She came to the airport with an Afro, dressed up to the minute in this completely trendy outfit. 976 01:07:39,548 --> 01:07:42,133 And Robert and I looked like immigrants just off the boat. 977 01:07:42,217 --> 01:07:44,552 That's your father there in the middle, on the bottom there? 978 01:07:44,636 --> 01:07:47,888 That's my mother's husband, yeah. She had him dressed in a leisure suit. 979 01:07:47,973 --> 01:07:51,267 When she first met him, he used to wear, like, baggy brown suits... 980 01:07:51,351 --> 01:07:53,853 and he had, like, short hair, and he was kind of fat. 981 01:07:53,937 --> 01:07:57,106 And she put him on a diet and put him in, like, safari outfits... 982 01:07:57,190 --> 01:07:59,150 and made him grow sideburns. 983 01:07:59,234 --> 01:08:01,235 But he was still real schlubby. 984 01:08:01,319 --> 01:08:05,906 He had, like, schlubby posture and everything, but he was real trendily dressed. 985 01:08:05,991 --> 01:08:08,492 And kind of follow along after her like that. 986 01:08:08,577 --> 01:08:11,245 - What does she think about your comics? - She doesn't see them. 987 01:08:11,371 --> 01:08:14,832 - She also - She's not interested. - She never asked to see them? She doesn't know you're a cartoonist? 988 01:08:14,916 --> 01:08:19,712 No, unconsciously, she must know there's some things she doesn't want to know about. 989 01:08:19,796 --> 01:08:24,175 And the other thing is that she doesn't really take in very much about anybody anyway. 990 01:08:24,259 --> 01:08:26,177 She's not too interested. 991 01:08:26,261 --> 01:08:29,555 She came here and she saw this painting and a bunch of other paintings around... 992 01:08:29,639 --> 01:08:32,141 and she said, "Those are nice paintings. Who did them?" 993 01:08:32,225 --> 01:08:35,227 I said, "I did. " She said, "I didn't know you painted. " 994 01:08:36,730 --> 01:08:39,273 I mean, she sent me to art school. 995 01:08:39,357 --> 01:08:42,193 She just changed the subject. "What are we having for dinner?" 996 01:08:47,365 --> 01:08:51,285 One thing you've obviously already learned is the importance of black. 997 01:08:51,369 --> 01:08:53,204 - That's good. - Thanks, Pop. 998 01:08:57,709 --> 01:09:00,294 Okay, okay. Enough. 999 01:09:01,379 --> 01:09:04,965 So why this figure? Why'd you choose this one in particular? 1000 01:09:05,050 --> 01:09:08,177 I like these photos. They're powerful photos for some reason. 1001 01:09:08,261 --> 01:09:10,846 - This one was easy to draw too, I felt. - Right. 1002 01:09:10,931 --> 01:09:13,432 But I only pick the attractive ones. I didn't do the - 1003 01:09:13,517 --> 01:09:16,560 Some of them are ugly, you know. Her - she's a mess. 1004 01:09:16,645 --> 01:09:18,562 I know. She is, yeah. 1005 01:09:18,647 --> 01:09:21,690 The text talks about her being, like, an alcoholic reprobate. 1006 01:09:21,775 --> 01:09:23,692 They picked her up off the street, threw her - 1007 01:09:23,777 --> 01:09:25,694 This one - Oh, God! 1008 01:09:25,779 --> 01:09:28,531 Really a monster. Eeh. 1009 01:09:28,615 --> 01:09:32,201 See, in my drawing of her, I made her cuter than she really is... 1010 01:09:32,285 --> 01:09:35,746 because I acquired the cuteness curse when I worked at American Greetings... 1011 01:09:35,830 --> 01:09:38,123 - which I can't shake. - You see that? 1012 01:09:38,208 --> 01:09:40,543 You got the tilt of her head right. 1013 01:09:40,627 --> 01:09:43,254 - I just noticed that. - That's hard. That's hard to do. 1014 01:09:43,338 --> 01:09:47,007 You have to really, you know - Actually, the proportions of this to this. 1015 01:09:47,092 --> 01:09:49,677 You know, is that the same, or is it shorter? 1016 01:09:49,761 --> 01:09:52,638 I did a lot of erasing in pencil at first. 1017 01:09:55,976 --> 01:10:00,729 What you haven't learned yet is how to cheat, though, to get the desired effect that you want. 1018 01:10:00,814 --> 01:10:03,065 Like what - draw over the top of a Xerox or something? 1019 01:10:03,149 --> 01:10:08,070 Well - I mean, what you want is, like, capture a certain thing about this woman's face. 1020 01:10:08,154 --> 01:10:10,698 A certain defiance or whatever it is you see in there. 1021 01:10:10,782 --> 01:10:12,408 Yeah, I didn't get it. 1022 01:10:12,492 --> 01:10:15,703 Exaggerate those little things that give her that look, you know. 1023 01:10:15,787 --> 01:10:20,332 Like the way her teeth are slightly showing, like she's got a slight sneer, you know. 1024 01:10:20,417 --> 01:10:22,835 I sort of try to do that, but it's hard with pencil. 1025 01:10:22,919 --> 01:10:25,212 Just exaggerate it a little bit. You know, cheat it a little bit. 1026 01:10:25,297 --> 01:10:28,757 Like the tilt of the head and the sneer, you would just make, you know - 1027 01:10:28,842 --> 01:10:31,093 emphasize that. 1028 01:10:31,177 --> 01:10:33,095 You kind of almost have to do it consciously - 1029 01:10:33,179 --> 01:10:36,515 make a decision of what you want to bring out in this person's face. 1030 01:10:36,600 --> 01:10:38,851 I did that here, but it still didn't work out. 1031 01:10:38,935 --> 01:10:42,605 Well, it's very subtle in that photo. It's very, very subtle. 1032 01:10:42,689 --> 01:10:45,065 My drawing doesn't capture the hate. 1033 01:10:45,150 --> 01:10:47,610 It kind of does in a way. You've got the open mouth. 1034 01:10:47,694 --> 01:10:50,946 - That's sort of the key to the whole thing. - That sneer, you know? 1035 01:10:51,031 --> 01:10:53,824 - Baring the teeth. - Yeah. That's key. 1036 01:10:53,908 --> 01:10:58,162 You know they obviously ordered her to sit down and don't move. 1037 01:10:58,246 --> 01:11:02,166 They're gonna take her picture, and just, you know - "Sit there. " 1038 01:11:02,250 --> 01:11:05,169 You can see that she really doesn't like it. 1039 01:11:05,253 --> 01:11:09,173 It'd be good, actually, if you could take life drawing. I think that'd be really - 1040 01:11:09,257 --> 01:11:12,593 You didn't go to art school, and look, you're rich and famous. 1041 01:11:12,677 --> 01:11:14,345 Geez. 1042 01:11:14,429 --> 01:11:18,641 We're not talking about rich and famous. We're talking about learning how to draw. 1043 01:11:18,725 --> 01:11:21,727 A lot of my recent works appear in this Weirdo magazine. 1044 01:11:21,811 --> 01:11:24,021 These are the kind of guys who read my work. 1045 01:11:24,105 --> 01:11:26,899 It's kind of an ode to the Weirdo reader there - 1046 01:11:26,983 --> 01:11:31,820 the hurt, sensitive kind of guy who doesn't fit in with the normal people. 1047 01:11:31,905 --> 01:11:33,822 Like these people back here. 1048 01:11:33,907 --> 01:11:36,992 She's saying, "I always hated the Three Stooges. " 1049 01:11:37,077 --> 01:11:40,162 Of course, he loves the Three Stooges. 1050 01:11:41,498 --> 01:11:44,124 This is my source material here. 1051 01:11:44,209 --> 01:11:48,504 I couldn't find any pictures in magazines of ordinary, modern... 1052 01:11:48,588 --> 01:11:50,506 street scenes in America... 1053 01:11:50,590 --> 01:11:53,050 so I persuaded this guy that I know in Sacramento... 1054 01:11:53,134 --> 01:11:55,135 to spend a day with me driving around - 1055 01:11:55,220 --> 01:11:57,805 'cause I don't drive, so couldn't get around and do it myself - 1056 01:11:57,889 --> 01:12:02,101 just to take snapshots of ordinary street corners in modern America. 1057 01:12:02,185 --> 01:12:04,478 This has been indispensable to me. 1058 01:12:04,562 --> 01:12:06,480 You can't remember these things... 1059 01:12:06,564 --> 01:12:09,108 to draw these modern light poles and all this crap... 1060 01:12:09,192 --> 01:12:13,070 all this junk that's on every suburban street. 1061 01:12:13,154 --> 01:12:15,155 I've used it in a lot of places. 1062 01:12:16,825 --> 01:12:19,743 It's background here. Stuff like that. 1063 01:12:19,828 --> 01:12:23,414 All this back here. In my story in here, I used it also. 1064 01:12:25,500 --> 01:12:30,379 This whole background, all this stuff, I put it right over here. 1065 01:12:30,463 --> 01:12:33,841 You can't make up this crap. You know, it's too complicated. 1066 01:12:33,925 --> 01:12:38,220 On this cover here, I used a bunch of photos to take that stuff. 1067 01:12:38,304 --> 01:12:42,015 In the real world, this stuff is not created to be visually pleasing. 1068 01:12:42,100 --> 01:12:45,144 It's just accumulation of the modern industrial world. 1069 01:12:45,228 --> 01:12:48,564 People don't even notice. They block it out. 1070 01:12:51,025 --> 01:12:52,943 How about if you play that? 1071 01:12:56,406 --> 01:12:58,407 Robert and Sophie, come on. Dinner's ready. 1072 01:12:58,491 --> 01:13:00,409 - Okay. - Hurry up. 1073 01:13:03,079 --> 01:13:05,080 - Oh! - Go sit down. Get out of here. 1074 01:13:05,165 --> 01:13:07,124 - Who, me? - No, her. 1075 01:13:07,208 --> 01:13:09,209 She's helping me. 1076 01:13:09,294 --> 01:13:11,462 Now she's break-dancing. Get out of here. 1077 01:13:16,384 --> 01:13:20,429 Come on, Soph. Come over here and get your plate. 1078 01:13:20,513 --> 01:13:23,140 How's that? 1079 01:13:23,224 --> 01:13:26,894 Okay, then - Give me the gum. I'll trade you the gum for the plate. 1080 01:13:34,194 --> 01:13:36,445 Gotta have my starch and my fat. 1081 01:13:36,529 --> 01:13:38,530 ♪ Whoopee-dee-doo ♪ 1082 01:13:39,657 --> 01:13:41,575 Ew. Look at all this food. 1083 01:13:41,659 --> 01:13:41,825 It's fun to eat supper with your family - 1084 01:13:41,826 --> 01:13:44,870 It's fun to eat supper with your family - 1085 01:13:44,954 --> 01:13:48,207 especially when there is good food on the table. 1086 01:13:48,291 --> 01:13:50,709 Chuck, at least you could manage to be on time. 1087 01:13:50,794 --> 01:13:53,295 Your mother goes to all the trouble to prepare a fine meal. 1088 01:13:53,379 --> 01:13:56,089 It's - It's only common courtesy, Chuck. 1089 01:13:56,174 --> 01:13:59,510 I know, but I couldn't help it. I was late home from school. 1090 01:13:59,594 --> 01:14:02,304 Once I reached adolescence, it was the late '50s... 1091 01:14:02,388 --> 01:14:06,683 and everybody I knew, their families had nothing to do with the advertisement for itself... 1092 01:14:06,768 --> 01:14:09,978 that the culture was presenting on the TV screen. 1093 01:14:10,063 --> 01:14:12,022 Why not? 1094 01:14:12,106 --> 01:14:15,734 - Do I have to have a reason? - But all your friends will be there. 1095 01:14:15,819 --> 01:14:19,446 - I don't care. I'm not - - Chuck! Don't talk with your mouth full. 1096 01:14:21,115 --> 01:14:25,077 Chew your food well. Chew and chew. 1097 01:14:25,161 --> 01:14:27,996 Doesn't it taste extra good that way? 1098 01:14:29,082 --> 01:14:31,583 The whole thing was just a big false front... 1099 01:14:31,668 --> 01:14:35,504 that was just suffocating and so dreary and depressing. 1100 01:14:36,673 --> 01:14:39,091 Okay, they grew up in the depression. All right, all right. I understand. 1101 01:14:39,217 --> 01:14:43,178 They went through the war, and they just wanted this thing that was so tight and unthreatening and flat. 1102 01:14:43,263 --> 01:14:45,180 And they wanted a dull lifestyle. 1103 01:14:45,265 --> 01:14:47,266 So they wanted Perry Como... 1104 01:14:47,350 --> 01:14:50,435 and this Ozzie and Harriet shell that we grew up in. 1105 01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:55,899 The whole thing had this kind of creepy, nightmarish, grotesque quality to it. 1106 01:15:02,240 --> 01:15:05,242 This here is the first issue of Zap Comix... 1107 01:15:05,326 --> 01:15:07,494 that I did in late 1967. 1108 01:15:07,579 --> 01:15:11,707 It was, like, you know, the beginning of all this underground comic nonsense. 1109 01:15:12,917 --> 01:15:15,377 It was all very L.S.D. inspired. 1110 01:15:15,461 --> 01:15:18,964 And a lot of these are things I redrew from sketchbooks. 1111 01:15:19,048 --> 01:15:21,758 This Whiteman character. 1112 01:15:21,843 --> 01:15:24,469 A lot of this stuff, I didn't realize when I was doing it... 1113 01:15:24,554 --> 01:15:27,848 what it was really about or, you know, what it was connected to in my mind. 1114 01:15:27,932 --> 01:15:31,435 And I realized afterwards, this is really about my father. 1115 01:15:31,519 --> 01:15:35,314 This rigid, kind of, uh... 1116 01:15:35,398 --> 01:15:38,066 gung-ho American kind of a guy. 1117 01:15:38,151 --> 01:15:42,237 But you know, it's a typical World War II generation man. 1118 01:15:43,323 --> 01:15:45,240 When my father died in '82... 1119 01:15:45,325 --> 01:15:48,577 my aunt gave me all the stuff that my father had sent her over the years. 1120 01:15:48,661 --> 01:15:52,748 One of the things was this book that he wrote, Training People Effectively. 1121 01:15:52,832 --> 01:15:56,084 So - I'm not sure what he did for a living in the last years of his life. 1122 01:15:56,169 --> 01:15:58,670 It had something to do with, you know, employee motivation... 1123 01:15:58,755 --> 01:16:00,923 for this corporation that he worked for. 1124 01:16:01,007 --> 01:16:04,134 Here's a photo. 1125 01:16:04,218 --> 01:16:08,430 I was reading recently about this syndrome in Japan now that Japanese businessmen have. 1126 01:16:08,514 --> 01:16:11,433 It's something about some smiling disease... 1127 01:16:11,517 --> 01:16:15,896 where they have this, like, fixed smile on their face all the time. 1128 01:16:15,980 --> 01:16:17,940 I think my father had that. 1129 01:16:18,024 --> 01:16:20,442 The article said it was a sign of deep depression. 1130 01:16:20,526 --> 01:16:22,778 He didn't smile when he was home. 1131 01:16:22,862 --> 01:16:25,614 The smile dropped as soon as he came home. 1132 01:16:25,698 --> 01:16:28,116 He was a grim guy. He fought in the war and everything. 1133 01:16:28,201 --> 01:16:31,453 He just had a real hard-ass attitude about life... 1134 01:16:31,537 --> 01:16:36,541 and thought that my mother was mollycoddling all of us, which she was. 1135 01:16:36,626 --> 01:16:41,296 All three of his sons ended up being wimpy, nerdy weirdos. 1136 01:16:41,381 --> 01:16:45,258 It kind of broke his heart, I think. He wanted at least one of us to become a marine. 1137 01:16:47,470 --> 01:16:50,555 My father was real hotheaded, and he'd just blow his stack... 1138 01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:54,393 and just lash out and just hit you real hard. 1139 01:16:54,477 --> 01:16:58,313 When I was five years old, on Christmas, he - This whole thing happened... 1140 01:16:58,398 --> 01:17:02,484 where he blew his stack at me, and that's when he busted my collarbone. 1141 01:17:02,568 --> 01:17:04,486 - When you were five? - Yeah. 1142 01:17:05,738 --> 01:17:08,657 I think Charles had a penchant for getting in trouble. 1143 01:17:08,741 --> 01:17:11,451 He was very diabolical as a kid. 1144 01:17:11,536 --> 01:17:14,496 And my father would, like, beat him unmercifully... 1145 01:17:14,580 --> 01:17:17,833 for these things that he was always do - these crimes he was always committing. 1146 01:17:17,917 --> 01:17:19,918 It just made him worse, I think. 1147 01:17:20,003 --> 01:17:23,130 - I had this subconscious desire to be punished. - Why? 1148 01:17:23,214 --> 01:17:26,008 I don't know. I think it had something to do with the old man. 1149 01:17:26,092 --> 01:17:30,262 I think it had something to do with my being brought up by a sadistic bully. 1150 01:17:32,348 --> 01:17:34,725 I know there's some connection there between the two of them... 1151 01:17:34,809 --> 01:17:38,854 although I'm not really sure what it is. 1152 01:17:38,938 --> 01:17:41,231 What was your mom like when you were a kid? 1153 01:17:41,315 --> 01:17:43,275 She was an amphetamine addict... 1154 01:17:43,359 --> 01:17:46,862 and these amphetamines would make her act real crazy... 1155 01:17:46,946 --> 01:17:49,448 and do and say all these really crazy things. 1156 01:17:49,532 --> 01:17:53,744 It had an absolutely devastating effect, I think, on all five of us kids. 1157 01:17:53,828 --> 01:17:55,328 - Do you? - Yeah. 1158 01:17:55,413 --> 01:17:59,249 It certainly had a devastating effect on me anyway. 1159 01:17:59,333 --> 01:18:01,543 How did your parents get along? 1160 01:18:01,627 --> 01:18:04,588 They got along fairly well up until the time I was nine or 10 years old. 1161 01:18:04,672 --> 01:18:08,800 But after that, when Beattie started taking amphetamines to keep her weight down... 1162 01:18:08,885 --> 01:18:10,802 they had a terrible time. 1163 01:18:10,887 --> 01:18:13,972 They were screaming and yelling at each other all the time - 1164 01:18:14,057 --> 01:18:16,433 morning, noon and night. 1165 01:18:16,517 --> 01:18:19,144 - She'd scratch at the old man's face. - It was an absolute nightmare. 1166 01:18:19,228 --> 01:18:21,146 Till it looked like ground hamburger. 1167 01:18:21,230 --> 01:18:23,648 He used to put makeup on when he went to work... 1168 01:18:23,733 --> 01:18:27,402 in an attempt to cover up the scratches on his face. 1169 01:18:27,487 --> 01:18:29,738 The old man came to me one afternoon and said... 1170 01:18:29,822 --> 01:18:33,992 "If you don't go out and get a job, Charles, I'm gonna make your life a hell on earth. " 1171 01:18:36,162 --> 01:18:40,832 And that's exactly what he started to do - he started to make my life a hell on earth. 1172 01:18:40,917 --> 01:18:45,087 So to get him off my back, I took up this job as a telephone solicitor... 1173 01:18:45,171 --> 01:18:47,089 for the Philadelphia Inquirer. 1174 01:18:48,508 --> 01:18:50,675 The reason I stuck it out for a whole year... 1175 01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:54,137 is because I was afraid of what the old man might do to me if I didn't. 1176 01:18:54,222 --> 01:18:56,681 That's the last time you held a job though, right? 1177 01:18:56,766 --> 01:18:59,267 Yeah, and it only lasted for about a year. 1178 01:18:59,352 --> 01:19:01,311 That was back in '69. 1179 01:19:01,395 --> 01:19:04,940 The old man was always trying to make productive citizens out of us. 1180 01:19:05,024 --> 01:19:08,360 Even when I was a teenager, he forced me to use my drawing talent... 1181 01:19:08,444 --> 01:19:10,946 to go out and draw pictures of houses... 1182 01:19:11,030 --> 01:19:13,281 and then ask the people if they wanted to buy the pictures. 1183 01:19:13,366 --> 01:19:16,201 - That was mainly the old man's idea, wasn't it? - It was completely his idea. 1184 01:19:16,285 --> 01:19:18,453 He made me do it. He told me I had to do it. 1185 01:19:18,538 --> 01:19:21,790 It was a hateful job. 1186 01:19:21,874 --> 01:19:24,835 When I first got well known, he was kind of proud of me. 1187 01:19:24,919 --> 01:19:29,297 You know, he heard that I was getting well known for my work, but he never saw it. 1188 01:19:29,382 --> 01:19:32,467 - I never - - I don't think he would've approved of your work. 1189 01:19:32,552 --> 01:19:35,679 - Finally somebody - - He would've disapproved of it on so-called moral grounds. 1190 01:19:35,763 --> 01:19:38,807 Somebody told me that someone at work showed him one of my comics... 1191 01:19:38,891 --> 01:19:41,601 and that's when he stopped talking to me. 1192 01:19:41,727 --> 01:19:45,981 He wouldn't speak to me after that, after he actually saw some of that stuff I was doing in the early '70s. 1193 01:19:53,573 --> 01:19:56,950 The story in here I had most trouble with is this one, "A Bitchin' Bod!" 1194 01:19:57,034 --> 01:20:00,120 I got two pages into it and I thought, "Oh, this is just too - 1195 01:20:00,204 --> 01:20:02,581 "This is too negative, it's too twisted, it's too upsetting. 1196 01:20:02,665 --> 01:20:04,374 I gotta stop this. " 1197 01:20:04,458 --> 01:20:08,962 So I quit working on it, and I threw the pages in the garbage can. 1198 01:20:09,046 --> 01:20:12,340 And at some point, Aline came into my studio for something... 1199 01:20:12,425 --> 01:20:16,136 and I decided, well, I'll show her this and see what she thinks about it. 1200 01:20:16,220 --> 01:20:20,265 So I pulled 'em out of the garbage can, and I said, "Aline, this thing - 1201 01:20:20,349 --> 01:20:23,268 "What do you think about this? I threw it away. 1202 01:20:23,352 --> 01:20:27,689 I decided I didn't want to continue it. It's just too weird. It's just too disturbing. " 1203 01:20:27,773 --> 01:20:30,692 She read it and said, "You have to finish this. 1204 01:20:30,776 --> 01:20:34,487 You just have to do it, obviously. You've got to see this through. " 1205 01:20:34,572 --> 01:20:39,534 I said, "Well, okay, she's a woman. She said I have to do it, so I'll do it. " 1206 01:20:39,619 --> 01:20:43,246 So Flakey Foont answers the door, and there's this girl's body standing there. 1207 01:20:43,331 --> 01:20:45,832 But what you see is Mr. Natural's head and his beard... 1208 01:20:45,917 --> 01:20:48,210 over the front of her where her head should be. 1209 01:20:48,294 --> 01:20:49,836 That's how it starts. 1210 01:20:49,921 --> 01:20:52,589 Flakey Foont, he's very confused by that. 1211 01:20:52,673 --> 01:20:58,011 And, uh, Mr. Natural comes galloping in... 1212 01:20:58,095 --> 01:21:00,180 riding the girl around the room. 1213 01:21:00,264 --> 01:21:03,475 Her body's very frisky, and you don't see her head at all. 1214 01:21:03,559 --> 01:21:07,812 You just see Mr. Natural's beard over where her head should be. 1215 01:21:07,897 --> 01:21:12,234 Then she lands in a split... 1216 01:21:12,318 --> 01:21:17,697 and, uh, Mr. Natural starts talking about what an amazing body this woman has. 1217 01:21:17,782 --> 01:21:20,116 But the head was always a problem... 1218 01:21:20,201 --> 01:21:22,911 'cause she had such an obnoxious personality. 1219 01:21:22,995 --> 01:21:25,413 Flakey Foont is shocked and horrified... 1220 01:21:25,498 --> 01:21:28,708 when he sees that she actually doesn't have a head. 1221 01:21:28,793 --> 01:21:30,669 And - 1222 01:21:30,753 --> 01:21:34,881 Mr. Natural explains, "Let's face it. She was obnoxious, so I just got rid of the head. 1223 01:21:34,966 --> 01:21:37,259 "You always wanted her, you always lusted after her. 1224 01:21:37,343 --> 01:21:39,344 Now you can have her because her head's missing. " 1225 01:21:39,428 --> 01:21:42,180 Then he starts explaining how he took the head off... 1226 01:21:42,265 --> 01:21:45,517 and topped the neck with this little cap... 1227 01:21:45,601 --> 01:21:49,187 and that he - Mr. Natural says he found out - 1228 01:21:49,272 --> 01:21:53,525 he discovered that there was - that she had a second, smaller brain in her butt - 1229 01:21:53,609 --> 01:21:57,570 and that that's what's making the body function. 1230 01:21:57,655 --> 01:22:00,448 And then he gives Foont directions on how to feed her. 1231 01:22:00,533 --> 01:22:03,702 You take this cap off, and you put this funnel down her neck. 1232 01:22:03,786 --> 01:22:06,746 Mr. Natural pulls out this mannequin head and says... 1233 01:22:06,831 --> 01:22:09,332 "If you take her outside, you got to put this head on her... 1234 01:22:09,417 --> 01:22:12,919 so people aren't shocked and horrified by a headless girl walking around. " 1235 01:22:13,004 --> 01:22:17,299 And then Mr. Natural leaves and says, "Don't say I never did anything for you. " 1236 01:22:17,383 --> 01:22:21,553 He gives the girl to Foont, and Foont's kind of getting excited. 1237 01:22:21,637 --> 01:22:24,389 He's got this frisky, wondrous girl body all to himself... 1238 01:22:24,473 --> 01:22:26,433 to do with whatever he wants. 1239 01:22:26,517 --> 01:22:30,395 He says, "I like it better with just the cap. " He knocks the fake head off. 1240 01:22:30,479 --> 01:22:32,480 He's leading her over to the wall... 1241 01:22:32,565 --> 01:22:36,109 and she accidentally steps on the fake head and smashes it. 1242 01:22:36,193 --> 01:22:38,695 He pushes her against the wall, pulls her clothes off... 1243 01:22:38,779 --> 01:22:41,281 and he's admiring her firm and solid butt. 1244 01:22:41,365 --> 01:22:43,950 This is the part where I get excited when I'm working on it. 1245 01:22:44,035 --> 01:22:46,036 I really enjoy drawing the female form. 1246 01:22:46,120 --> 01:22:48,163 I always make a lot of fuss and bother... 1247 01:22:48,247 --> 01:22:50,582 to make sure the figure comes out just the way I want it. 1248 01:22:50,666 --> 01:22:53,543 The males, I don't care what they look like that much. 1249 01:22:53,627 --> 01:22:56,421 So he starts to fuck her. 1250 01:22:56,505 --> 01:22:59,341 He penetrates her from behind, and he's getting really excited. 1251 01:22:59,425 --> 01:23:01,593 At the same time, he feels somewhat guilty. 1252 01:23:01,677 --> 01:23:04,846 And then he's - While he's in the middle of coming... 1253 01:23:04,930 --> 01:23:09,726 he imagines her severed head... 1254 01:23:09,810 --> 01:23:12,812 and then her face condemning him. 1255 01:23:12,897 --> 01:23:15,774 She says, "You little shit!" 1256 01:23:15,858 --> 01:23:18,318 Cut to Mr. Natural. He's home, phone's ringing. 1257 01:23:18,402 --> 01:23:20,862 He's saying, "Well, I got home an hour ago. " Yeah, it's Foont. 1258 01:23:20,946 --> 01:23:22,947 Yeah, he's feeling guilty. 1259 01:23:24,825 --> 01:23:28,495 Foont wants to bring her back over. He wants to get rid of her. He can't handle it. 1260 01:23:28,579 --> 01:23:30,872 So Mr. Natural says, "Okay, bring her over. " 1261 01:23:30,956 --> 01:23:34,459 He says, "Make sure you put the head back on before you take her outside. " 1262 01:23:34,543 --> 01:23:37,045 So he goes to get the head, and he realizes it's been smashed. 1263 01:23:37,129 --> 01:23:39,089 He doesn't know what to do. 1264 01:23:39,173 --> 01:23:41,716 Actually, a lot of these poses in these panels... 1265 01:23:41,801 --> 01:23:45,345 I took from freeze-framing the Fly Girls on In Living Color. 1266 01:23:47,098 --> 01:23:50,475 So he ties up a T-shirt into a ball and puts it on top of the cap. 1267 01:23:50,559 --> 01:23:52,477 Then he puts a hat on. 1268 01:23:52,561 --> 01:23:54,729 He pushes her in the car. 1269 01:23:54,814 --> 01:23:56,731 Then we cut to Mr. Natural's house. 1270 01:23:56,816 --> 01:23:59,567 Mr. Natural's saying he's going to regret it if he doesn't keep her. 1271 01:23:59,652 --> 01:24:03,571 But Mr. Natural says, "All right. Forget it. Forget it. We'll put the head back. " 1272 01:24:03,656 --> 01:24:07,492 Mr. Natural unscrews the clamp, pulls this pipe out of her. 1273 01:24:07,576 --> 01:24:09,494 Then he reaches in there. 1274 01:24:09,578 --> 01:24:12,664 This is probably the most sickening, disturbing panel in the whole story. 1275 01:24:12,748 --> 01:24:15,583 Aline says this is the most disturbing part of the whole thing. 1276 01:24:15,668 --> 01:24:19,212 He's pulling real hard, and he pulls her head back out by her tongue. 1277 01:24:19,296 --> 01:24:22,590 Her head was actually inside her body all the time. 1278 01:24:22,675 --> 01:24:26,594 Again, Foont is very shocked, but then he's relieved that her head is back. 1279 01:24:26,679 --> 01:24:30,390 Mr. Natural says, "Yeah, old African witch doctor stuff. Nothing special. " 1280 01:24:30,474 --> 01:24:33,059 And she just says, "That was so weird!" 1281 01:24:33,144 --> 01:24:34,769 Mr. Natural says, "Yep. " 1282 01:24:34,854 --> 01:24:38,440 Then they both realize the head's back, the trouble's back. 1283 01:24:38,524 --> 01:24:42,235 She says, what happened to her and what did Mr. Natural do to her... 1284 01:24:42,319 --> 01:24:45,405 and where does he get his crazy ideas? 1285 01:24:45,489 --> 01:24:49,826 At this point, Foont, he feels so guilty, he starts apologizing to the devil girl... 1286 01:24:49,910 --> 01:24:53,955 for having, like, done the deed to her when she didn't have her head. 1287 01:24:54,039 --> 01:24:56,082 She says, "What are you saying?" 1288 01:24:56,167 --> 01:25:01,421 She suddenly realizes that Mr. Natural had handed her over to Foont for him to play with. 1289 01:25:01,505 --> 01:25:05,717 She says, "You gave me to that shmuck to play with as if I was a piece of meat?" 1290 01:25:05,801 --> 01:25:08,470 He says, "Aw, what the hell's the difference?" 1291 01:25:08,554 --> 01:25:10,763 So he tries to get away, and she's chasing him. 1292 01:25:10,848 --> 01:25:13,600 In the end, she's raging with anger and she says... 1293 01:25:13,684 --> 01:25:17,103 "Where's a butcher knife? I'm going to cut both your heads off!" 1294 01:25:17,188 --> 01:25:19,397 Typical comic book ending. 1295 01:25:19,482 --> 01:25:23,985 I see a - a theme running through his work... 1296 01:25:24,069 --> 01:25:26,070 that - that is very frightening... 1297 01:25:26,155 --> 01:25:30,700 and it's the woman with her head either cut off or somehow distorted - 1298 01:25:30,784 --> 01:25:33,995 something done to it so that nothing is left but the body. 1299 01:25:34,079 --> 01:25:36,998 And the body, of course, you can have sex with. 1300 01:25:37,082 --> 01:25:39,751 When, for instance, Crumb draws... 1301 01:25:39,835 --> 01:25:42,337 that little monster, Mr. Natural... 1302 01:25:42,421 --> 01:25:46,341 doing things that you or I would not normally contemplate doing with a headless woman... 1303 01:25:46,425 --> 01:25:48,134 in that the, uh - 1304 01:25:48,219 --> 01:25:52,430 It is not intended, I imagine, to be a sort of apologia for beheading... 1305 01:25:52,515 --> 01:25:54,849 or an apologia for rape or anything like that, no. 1306 01:25:54,934 --> 01:25:57,852 But it is an acknowledgement that these kinds of fantasy... 1307 01:25:57,937 --> 01:26:01,189 actually do dwell in Homo sapiens - they're there. 1308 01:26:01,273 --> 01:26:05,193 I'm saying that it's very irresponsible... 1309 01:26:05,277 --> 01:26:10,573 to put dangerous sexual fantasies... 1310 01:26:10,658 --> 01:26:12,575 on paper... 1311 01:26:12,660 --> 01:26:15,995 and make them available to the public. 1312 01:26:16,080 --> 01:26:20,667 It's important for women to not just run in horror from pornographic images... 1313 01:26:20,751 --> 01:26:24,462 and immediately think that they represent oppression... 1314 01:26:24,547 --> 01:26:27,924 and the power of men to degrade women... 1315 01:26:28,008 --> 01:26:32,679 and to think, sometimes, about the fact that they often are - 1316 01:26:32,763 --> 01:26:35,265 They're fantasies of having power. 1317 01:26:35,349 --> 01:26:38,893 They're fantasies of being able to dominate, um... 1318 01:26:38,978 --> 01:26:42,939 that come out of a fear of precisely the opposite - 1319 01:26:43,023 --> 01:26:46,818 fear of not being able to be attractive to women. 1320 01:26:46,902 --> 01:26:49,070 Impotence fears. 1321 01:26:49,154 --> 01:26:53,241 And, uh, fears of powerlessness in general. 1322 01:26:53,325 --> 01:26:55,910 How do you feel about the way he depicts women in his comics? 1323 01:26:55,995 --> 01:26:59,622 Well, he just depicts his id in its pure form, I think. 1324 01:26:59,707 --> 01:27:03,293 You know, the dark side of human nature is in every person. 1325 01:27:03,377 --> 01:27:05,461 That's what I was drawn to in his work to begin with - 1326 01:27:05,546 --> 01:27:09,465 that he just, like, really could illustrate that really clearly. 1327 01:27:09,550 --> 01:27:12,760 It's really unusual to see it. I think it's always there, you know? 1328 01:27:12,845 --> 01:27:15,638 - Does any of that bother you? - No, he's really - 1329 01:27:15,723 --> 01:27:19,100 He's not like that in other ways, as a person. 1330 01:27:19,184 --> 01:27:22,270 - He gets it out in his artwork. I mean - - He fools around with other women. 1331 01:27:22,354 --> 01:27:25,106 - How do you deal with that? - I fool around with other men. 1332 01:27:26,692 --> 01:27:29,652 I have these hostilities toward women. I admit it. 1333 01:27:29,737 --> 01:27:33,573 I'm - It's out in the open. I have to put it out there, you know? 1334 01:27:33,657 --> 01:27:36,451 Sometimes I think it's a mistake. I should never have let it out. 1335 01:27:36,535 --> 01:27:39,495 I'd be, you know, more well-loved, and I'd be just - 1336 01:27:39,580 --> 01:27:43,249 The whole thing would be a lot simpler and easier and cleaner if I didn't let it out. 1337 01:27:43,334 --> 01:27:46,753 But it's in there, and - and it's very strong... 1338 01:27:46,837 --> 01:27:50,381 and it ruthlessly puts - 1339 01:27:50,466 --> 01:27:53,134 forces itself out of me onto the paper, you know... 1340 01:27:53,218 --> 01:27:55,470 for better or worse. 1341 01:27:55,554 --> 01:27:58,806 When I was, um, about nine or 10, my brother used to collect Zap Comix. 1342 01:27:58,891 --> 01:28:03,353 And when I saw those, they really deeply, deeply terrified me. 1343 01:28:03,437 --> 01:28:05,480 Oh, Jesus. Oh! 1344 01:28:05,564 --> 01:28:09,233 I was deeply upset, and I looked at them and thought, you know, on some level... 1345 01:28:09,318 --> 01:28:12,820 "This is what I - This is adulthood? This is what adult women are? 1346 01:28:12,905 --> 01:28:14,822 This is what I grow up into?" 1347 01:28:14,907 --> 01:28:16,908 - And it was horrifying. - Oh, my God. 1348 01:28:16,992 --> 01:28:20,495 And I wonder if you think about the effect on people who read it... 1349 01:28:20,579 --> 01:28:23,748 or what you're validating for boys, or- 1350 01:28:23,832 --> 01:28:28,670 I just hope that-that somehow revealing that truth about myself is somehow helpful. 1351 01:28:28,754 --> 01:28:31,798 I don't know. I just hope that it is. But I have to do it. 1352 01:28:31,882 --> 01:28:34,008 Maybe - Maybe I shouldn't be allowed. 1353 01:28:34,093 --> 01:28:37,095 Maybe I should be locked up and my pencils taken away from me. 1354 01:28:37,179 --> 01:28:40,390 I just don't know. I really can't say, you know? 1355 01:28:40,474 --> 01:28:42,392 I can't defend myself. 1356 01:28:42,476 --> 01:28:45,478 You know, like, my daughter Sophie was watching Goodfellas. 1357 01:28:45,562 --> 01:28:47,480 We bought a videotape of it. 1358 01:28:47,564 --> 01:28:50,608 The violent part horrified her so deeply, she started getting a stomachache. 1359 01:28:50,693 --> 01:28:52,694 I shut it off, wouldn't let her watch it. 1360 01:28:52,778 --> 01:28:55,071 Although I think it's a great movie, truthful movie. 1361 01:28:55,155 --> 01:28:58,866 I got a lot out of seeing it. It's obviously not for a kid, you know. 1362 01:28:58,951 --> 01:29:02,578 Sometimes, you know, certain harsh realities of life are - 1363 01:29:02,663 --> 01:29:05,790 You know, you've got to kind of protect your kids a little bit from that. 1364 01:29:05,874 --> 01:29:09,168 They don't understand a lot of things yet. Not everything's for children. 1365 01:29:09,253 --> 01:29:11,379 Not everything's for everybody, you know. 1366 01:29:11,463 --> 01:29:17,051 Have you gotten criticism about the way you sometimes draw black people? 1367 01:29:17,136 --> 01:29:20,555 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But it all came from white liberals. 1368 01:29:20,639 --> 01:29:25,059 Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about in "Ooga Booga. " 1369 01:29:25,144 --> 01:29:28,146 It's actually a mockery of black people. 1370 01:29:28,230 --> 01:29:32,442 It's sort of a vomiting up of Crumb's own racism... 1371 01:29:32,526 --> 01:29:37,530 his own deepest, um, hostilities and fears. 1372 01:29:37,614 --> 01:29:40,783 Of course, if you have a knee-jerk reaction, and that's as far as you get... 1373 01:29:40,868 --> 01:29:43,077 then you say he's a racist. 1374 01:29:43,162 --> 01:29:46,914 But once you start thinking about how he's toying with that... 1375 01:29:46,999 --> 01:29:50,334 and how he's shoving it in your face... 1376 01:29:50,419 --> 01:29:52,837 you start to think about your attitudes... 1377 01:29:52,921 --> 01:29:55,882 and you start to think about the stereotypes - how they came about. 1378 01:29:55,966 --> 01:29:57,884 You know, it gets very complicated. 1379 01:29:59,595 --> 01:30:01,929 All that stuff I did in the late '60s... 1380 01:30:02,014 --> 01:30:04,807 I didn't really know what it was about when I did it. 1381 01:30:04,892 --> 01:30:06,559 It was all very instinctive. 1382 01:30:06,643 --> 01:30:08,644 Somehow, the L.S.D. liberated me in this way... 1383 01:30:08,729 --> 01:30:13,399 that allowed me to just put it down and not worry about what it meant. 1384 01:30:13,484 --> 01:30:16,110 I had some vague idea that it meant something... 1385 01:30:16,195 --> 01:30:20,782 but it's only later that I'd look at it and kind of analyze it and see what it's about. 1386 01:30:20,866 --> 01:30:25,912 Somehow, the term "nigger hearts" just came into my mind... 1387 01:30:25,996 --> 01:30:27,914 as a product, you know? 1388 01:30:27,998 --> 01:30:31,250 It's like it's some black, deep thing... 1389 01:30:31,335 --> 01:30:34,462 in American, you know, collective mind or something... 1390 01:30:34,546 --> 01:30:39,175 that has to do with turning everything over for a buck. 1391 01:30:39,259 --> 01:30:42,887 I don't know. I'm not sure exactly, but it has some message like that. 1392 01:30:42,971 --> 01:30:44,972 Quite a number of people these days... 1393 01:30:45,057 --> 01:30:47,600 would like this sort of nice, milky vision of culture... 1394 01:30:47,684 --> 01:30:50,645 in which it's all rather improving and leads us all towards... 1395 01:30:50,729 --> 01:30:53,648 this sort of nice little pie-in-the-sky moral heaven... 1396 01:30:53,732 --> 01:30:56,734 where nobody's nasty to anybody else. 1397 01:30:56,819 --> 01:30:59,821 But the only thing is that, you know, literature, culture, art... 1398 01:30:59,905 --> 01:31:03,574 isn't put there in order to have that pleasant, normative effect. 1399 01:31:03,659 --> 01:31:08,246 You know, conservatives like to think that great works of art lead us towards democracy. 1400 01:31:08,330 --> 01:31:09,997 Bull, you know. 1401 01:31:10,082 --> 01:31:14,293 I mean, there are speeches in Shakespeare that are so full of hatred for the mob. 1402 01:31:14,378 --> 01:31:17,255 They're passionately elitist, passionately antidemocratic. 1403 01:31:17,339 --> 01:31:20,174 What do you do with somebody like Céline, who was a Nazi sympathizer... 1404 01:31:20,259 --> 01:31:22,176 but at the same time a great novelist? 1405 01:31:22,261 --> 01:31:24,804 What do you do with - Well, what do you do with practically anybody... 1406 01:31:24,888 --> 01:31:28,683 who's got a vision of the world that doesn't accord with the present standards of Berkeley? 1407 01:32:22,404 --> 01:32:26,240 They're all wearing Raiders and 49ers jackets. 1408 01:32:26,325 --> 01:32:31,245 - Sophie wants us to get her a 49ers jacket. - She does? 1409 01:32:31,330 --> 01:32:33,831 Why do you want to live in the midst of it? 1410 01:32:33,916 --> 01:32:36,792 Like Hamlet, I'm too scared to kill myself. 1411 01:32:36,877 --> 01:32:40,212 So you're gonna move to the south of France. You gonna miss all this? 1412 01:32:40,297 --> 01:32:44,342 I'll be out of here in a couple more months. I can't live in it. 1413 01:32:44,426 --> 01:32:47,845 I can't take it. 1414 01:32:47,930 --> 01:32:49,847 Oh! My God. 1415 01:32:51,183 --> 01:32:55,102 They can't wait to have the money to get their hands on this stuff. 1416 01:32:55,187 --> 01:32:57,772 - iAy caramba! - iAy caramba! 1417 01:33:00,192 --> 01:33:02,109 iAy caramba! 1418 01:33:05,113 --> 01:33:07,031 It's a beautiful world. 1419 01:33:14,539 --> 01:33:17,291 So you gonna finish this one pretty soon? 1420 01:33:17,376 --> 01:33:21,295 I don't know. It depends on when I'm gonna have a chance to pick up an oil brush again. 1421 01:33:21,380 --> 01:33:23,839 - You worked on this recently, right? - Uh - 1422 01:33:23,924 --> 01:33:26,968 - Did you do something to this recently? - I don't know when was the last time I painted. 1423 01:33:27,052 --> 01:33:29,261 When I was actually working on that, I was actually thinking of Dian Hanson - 1424 01:33:29,346 --> 01:33:32,139 that portrait of a New York floozy you were running with. 1425 01:33:32,224 --> 01:33:34,642 Oh, gosh. 1426 01:33:34,726 --> 01:33:39,146 - This one here? - Yeah. This is a portrait number, you know. 1427 01:33:39,231 --> 01:33:41,649 I keep putting things together and watch the paint do stuff. 1428 01:33:41,733 --> 01:33:43,734 How come you put that metallic-looking brassiere on her? 1429 01:33:43,819 --> 01:33:46,278 It has something to do with her personality was like that. 1430 01:33:46,363 --> 01:33:49,824 She has, like, a very hard, armored personality. You know. 1431 01:33:49,908 --> 01:33:51,909 And she was a broad underneath it. 1432 01:33:51,994 --> 01:33:55,538 I think that she would find that really disturbing - that thing you put on her there. 1433 01:33:55,622 --> 01:34:00,167 It actually just reflects the personality - sort of icy, almost crazed expression in the eyes. 1434 01:34:00,252 --> 01:34:03,671 But there's, like, a warmth and reluctance in the smile or something. 1435 01:34:03,755 --> 01:34:05,673 - You know what I mean? - Ah. Interesting. 1436 01:34:05,757 --> 01:34:07,758 - She's in therapy now. - She is? 1437 01:34:07,843 --> 01:34:10,302 Yeah. She doesn't need therapy. 1438 01:34:10,387 --> 01:34:12,596 She fucks too hard. How do you cure that except by death? 1439 01:34:15,600 --> 01:34:19,061 You start from a blob. When you do ink work, you start from a line. 1440 01:34:19,146 --> 01:34:22,189 Somehow, being fixated with - 1441 01:34:22,274 --> 01:34:25,901 Like that one over there. And this is also an example of being fixated with line. 1442 01:34:25,986 --> 01:34:28,654 I started, like, getting these very detailed - 1443 01:34:28,739 --> 01:34:33,909 You can see a very distinct line thing, you know, in the character of it. 1444 01:34:33,994 --> 01:34:36,245 You're pleased with this when you look at it now? 1445 01:34:36,329 --> 01:34:38,164 I like this style a lot. 1446 01:34:39,249 --> 01:34:42,877 This is Van Gogh shooting himself in a cornfield. 1447 01:34:42,961 --> 01:34:44,920 What's the corn? What's that about? 1448 01:34:45,005 --> 01:34:47,465 It's like that Walt Whitman line. 1449 01:34:47,549 --> 01:34:50,551 "Quintillions ripen'd and the quintillions green. " 1450 01:34:50,635 --> 01:34:55,556 He was out picking fruit, or picking - He was a transient picker. 1451 01:34:55,640 --> 01:34:58,934 He just, like, came to this realization. It was an abundance of the farm thing. 1452 01:34:59,019 --> 01:35:01,812 The abundance of plant growth. 1453 01:35:01,897 --> 01:35:04,231 He wrote this line. "Quintillions ripen'd and the quintillions green. " 1454 01:35:04,316 --> 01:35:08,194 - The same thing with corn. - This is a stylized Van Gogh painting. 1455 01:35:08,278 --> 01:35:10,362 Corn has, like, infinite ability, like primal nature. 1456 01:35:10,447 --> 01:35:13,157 What's with Van Gogh shooting himself? 1457 01:35:13,241 --> 01:35:18,579 His mind went to the place where there's this infinite abundance, like in an ear of corn. 1458 01:35:18,663 --> 01:35:21,582 - He blew his - - This is the first oil painting you ever did, isn't it? 1459 01:35:21,666 --> 01:35:23,584 - Huh? - Isn't this the first oil painting you ever did? 1460 01:35:23,668 --> 01:35:25,211 That's the first oil I ever did, yeah. 1461 01:35:25,295 --> 01:35:28,422 You never drew before, and it suddenly just came out. 1462 01:35:28,507 --> 01:35:30,966 - It was like something was released inside of you. - Something like that. 1463 01:35:31,051 --> 01:35:33,010 I had that first epileptic fit. It was in the sixth grade. 1464 01:35:33,136 --> 01:35:36,555 - I was drawing this picture of my face with charcoal in art class. - Really? 1465 01:35:36,640 --> 01:35:39,850 I said, "Hey, man, you can draw. Look at this. " It started working out. 1466 01:35:39,935 --> 01:35:42,520 It's the first time I had this artistic experience, you know. 1467 01:35:42,604 --> 01:35:45,940 But it was so violent to me that I had a fucking seizure or something. 1468 01:35:46,024 --> 01:35:49,026 Ended up in the hospital the next day or something. 1469 01:35:50,237 --> 01:35:53,781 This is probably one of the last comic covers Charles ever did. 1470 01:35:53,865 --> 01:35:56,492 It might even be the very last one. 1471 01:35:56,576 --> 01:35:59,120 His psychotic bunny rabbits. 1472 01:35:59,204 --> 01:36:01,247 In our late teens, I persuaded Charles... 1473 01:36:01,331 --> 01:36:04,792 that we should send away for the Famous Artists Talent Test. 1474 01:36:04,876 --> 01:36:08,254 They used to have these ads in magazines. We each sent away for this test. 1475 01:36:08,338 --> 01:36:11,382 I did mine completely legitimately, the way you were supposed to. 1476 01:36:11,466 --> 01:36:13,968 But Charles couldn't help himself. 1477 01:36:14,052 --> 01:36:17,805 You were supposed to, uh, complete the outline figure by drawing a costume on it. 1478 01:36:17,889 --> 01:36:20,141 But he put these pasties on her tits... 1479 01:36:20,225 --> 01:36:24,353 and then started drawing these weird, psychotic characters in the background. 1480 01:36:24,437 --> 01:36:26,480 Psychotic Mickey Mouse. 1481 01:36:26,565 --> 01:36:29,316 They had an outline of this barn and this tree. 1482 01:36:29,401 --> 01:36:32,903 You were supposed to, you know, draw in textures and surfaces. 1483 01:36:32,988 --> 01:36:36,240 They give you suggestions on how to fill in the textures and all that stuff. 1484 01:36:36,324 --> 01:36:39,201 That's his interpretation of that. 1485 01:36:39,286 --> 01:36:42,621 And here was your ability to arrange elements in a picture. 1486 01:36:42,706 --> 01:36:45,249 They give you objects. You're supposed to make an arrangement. 1487 01:36:45,333 --> 01:36:47,585 So he did this and this. 1488 01:36:48,587 --> 01:36:50,504 "Your imagination as an illustrator. 1489 01:36:50,589 --> 01:36:54,341 Complete the picture by adding whatever other figures and objects you think are necessary. " 1490 01:36:54,426 --> 01:36:57,011 So he drew this girl here and this - 1491 01:36:58,680 --> 01:37:04,018 A week after this came in the mail, this salesman showed up to grade our tests. 1492 01:37:04,102 --> 01:37:06,896 If you got a good grade on the test, then you got the privilege... 1493 01:37:06,980 --> 01:37:10,357 of paying $400 to take the course. 1494 01:37:10,442 --> 01:37:13,694 And he just looked at Charles, and was, like - 1495 01:37:13,778 --> 01:37:16,363 at Charles's - at what he had done, and he was speechless. 1496 01:37:16,448 --> 01:37:18,365 He didn't know what to say. 1497 01:37:18,450 --> 01:37:22,161 He told me mine was very good and I had a lot of potential and I should take the course. 1498 01:37:22,245 --> 01:37:24,997 But Charles, he wouldn't even speak to him. 1499 01:37:26,124 --> 01:37:28,542 He was, uh... 1500 01:37:28,627 --> 01:37:30,711 pretty far gone at that point already. 1501 01:37:32,547 --> 01:37:35,716 This is some of his later work after he - 1502 01:37:35,800 --> 01:37:38,302 sort of the end of his comic period. 1503 01:37:38,386 --> 01:37:40,638 It's from 1961. He's about 18. 1504 01:37:40,722 --> 01:37:44,475 He started developing this weird wrinkle technique in his drawing... 1505 01:37:44,559 --> 01:37:47,228 and it became stranger and stranger. 1506 01:37:47,312 --> 01:37:50,272 Had nothing to do with the outside world at all. 1507 01:37:50,357 --> 01:37:53,400 Became more and more ingrown in this way. 1508 01:37:53,485 --> 01:37:57,321 It had to do with his increasing alienation from the world. 1509 01:37:57,405 --> 01:37:59,323 Isolation. 1510 01:37:59,407 --> 01:38:01,408 He never went to pen and ink either. 1511 01:38:01,493 --> 01:38:05,537 Never got beyond pencil and crayons, you know. 1512 01:38:07,749 --> 01:38:11,126 This is some of the last Treasure Island stuff he did. 1513 01:38:11,211 --> 01:38:13,212 This is, like, late ‘61. 1514 01:38:16,007 --> 01:38:20,844 It's sort of beautifully drawn, except the wrinkle stuff really gets out of hand here. 1515 01:38:21,846 --> 01:38:25,182 He got more and more obsessed with that. 1516 01:38:26,685 --> 01:38:29,770 It gets real dark-lookin'. 1517 01:38:29,854 --> 01:38:31,981 He had this fascination with the relationship... 1518 01:38:32,065 --> 01:38:35,901 between the kid and Long John Silver, the pirate character... 1519 01:38:35,986 --> 01:38:38,696 which he elaborated on endlessly. 1520 01:38:41,032 --> 01:38:44,952 This is one of our two-mans. You can see that he's gradually added more and more text. 1521 01:38:45,036 --> 01:38:48,956 More and more - The writing takes over. Look at that. 1522 01:38:49,040 --> 01:38:51,125 He just lost interest in drawing... 1523 01:38:51,209 --> 01:38:54,336 and then he just went to this loony writing. 1524 01:38:59,092 --> 01:39:03,887 There's a certain phase of Charles's life that he had this compulsive graphomania. 1525 01:39:03,972 --> 01:39:07,766 He did dozens of these notebooks. He gave me a bunch of them. 1526 01:39:07,851 --> 01:39:10,644 People kind of found them fascinating. The writing - 1527 01:39:10,770 --> 01:39:13,564 - This is upside down, though it doesn't make any difference. - Really? 1528 01:39:13,648 --> 01:39:16,984 I don't know whether it's upside down or right side up. 1529 01:39:17,068 --> 01:39:18,736 This is an early one - 1530 01:39:18,820 --> 01:39:21,572 It started out, when he first started doing it, it was readable... 1531 01:39:21,656 --> 01:39:24,325 and then it became gradually less and less readable. 1532 01:39:26,411 --> 01:39:30,581 What I definitely need is some kind of external stimulation... 1533 01:39:30,665 --> 01:39:34,168 to sort of rejuvenate me and get me going again. 1534 01:39:34,252 --> 01:39:37,838 But I don't know how I'm going to be able to arrange this eventually. 1535 01:39:37,922 --> 01:39:39,548 I don't know. 1536 01:39:39,632 --> 01:39:42,092 I guess I'll have to start doing that in a mental hospital. 1537 01:39:44,929 --> 01:39:48,015 I remember this time we were at Neal's house, and Mary was there. 1538 01:39:48,099 --> 01:39:50,100 Mary said, "I'm bored. I'm gonna go take a bath. " 1539 01:39:50,185 --> 01:39:53,228 So she got up and she went in the bathroom and - and - 1540 01:39:53,313 --> 01:39:56,357 I told her not to do it. I told her not to do it. 1541 01:39:56,441 --> 01:39:59,526 Maxon's eyes just sort of glazed over, and he got all kind of red. 1542 01:39:59,611 --> 01:40:02,529 He just got up as if he was in a trance, and he went and he - 1543 01:40:02,614 --> 01:40:04,740 he went up to the bathroom. 1544 01:40:04,824 --> 01:40:07,534 I said, "What are you doing?" He pushed the bathroom door open. 1545 01:40:07,619 --> 01:40:11,205 Mary was standing there naked, and she screamed. 1546 01:40:11,289 --> 01:40:13,290 Maxon? She slammed the door. 1547 01:40:13,375 --> 01:40:16,960 I said, "Maxon, come away from there. " I tried to pull him away from the door. 1548 01:40:17,045 --> 01:40:20,672 He was, like, completely in a trance. He pushed the door open again. 1549 01:40:20,757 --> 01:40:23,592 Mary yelled again, and then Maxon fell on the floor... 1550 01:40:23,676 --> 01:40:26,053 and had, like, about an eight-minute seizure. 1551 01:40:27,639 --> 01:40:31,683 So what's with these Oriental women that you were into at this phase? 1552 01:40:31,768 --> 01:40:34,812 You were particularly attracted to Oriental women. 1553 01:40:34,896 --> 01:40:37,231 Yeah, I was, when I first started doing this. 1554 01:40:37,315 --> 01:40:39,233 When you were in that phase. 1555 01:40:39,317 --> 01:40:43,195 The phase of molesting women and getting in trouble with cops and all that stuff. 1556 01:40:43,279 --> 01:40:45,197 Were you actually raping these women? 1557 01:40:45,281 --> 01:40:47,116 No. I didn't get that much into it. 1558 01:40:47,200 --> 01:40:48,867 He'd just tweak them on the street and run away. 1559 01:40:48,993 --> 01:40:53,414 You've got to do a lot of molesting before you get to rape. But if you do a couple years of molesting, you'll get to rape. 1560 01:40:55,708 --> 01:40:57,709 I started molesting when I was, like, 18. 1561 01:40:57,794 --> 01:41:01,213 I started with Chinese women for some crazy reason, on subways in Philadelphia. 1562 01:41:01,297 --> 01:41:04,216 Then I went through different periods of it, you know. 1563 01:41:04,300 --> 01:41:06,260 But I'm out of it. It's kind of like - 1564 01:41:06,344 --> 01:41:08,762 I don't know. It's too much passion, it's too much animal. 1565 01:41:08,847 --> 01:41:12,099 Didn't they put you in some kind of - in a psycho ward for a few weeks? 1566 01:41:12,183 --> 01:41:15,978 For a couple of weeks. Oh, man. Two weeks on Haldol will cure anything. 1567 01:41:16,062 --> 01:41:19,398 You'll do anything they tell you after two weeks on Haldol. 1568 01:41:19,482 --> 01:41:22,234 For a sensible person, it's just terrible. 1569 01:41:22,318 --> 01:41:25,070 You get heavy into molesting, it's a violent thing, like a crime thing. 1570 01:41:25,155 --> 01:41:28,449 So I get to the point where I start pulling girls' shorts down. 1571 01:41:28,533 --> 01:41:32,161 I'm walking around this certain district by the marina, this little shopping district. 1572 01:41:32,245 --> 01:41:35,831 There's this really beautiful Jewish-looking girl... 1573 01:41:35,915 --> 01:41:38,041 with just, like, obscenely brief shorts on. 1574 01:41:38,126 --> 01:41:40,127 She goes into this, uh - 1575 01:41:40,211 --> 01:41:42,963 She goes into this drugstore, you know. It's like I'm in a fit. 1576 01:41:43,047 --> 01:41:46,300 I gotta do this to this broad. She's just too much, you know. 1577 01:41:46,384 --> 01:41:51,263 I gotta do something. I gotta risk my whole life just to do something to this broad. 1578 01:41:51,347 --> 01:41:54,308 So I go in there - cold sweat all over the place. 1579 01:41:54,392 --> 01:41:57,978 She doesn't know what's - She's just casually looking over some shampoo. 1580 01:41:58,062 --> 01:42:00,731 I'm walking around there, trying not to be obtrusive in this cold sweat. 1581 01:42:00,815 --> 01:42:02,858 She finally goes up to the counter. 1582 01:42:02,942 --> 01:42:05,652 It's like total complete, like, personal struggle... 1583 01:42:05,737 --> 01:42:08,822 - about this moment I gotta pull this risky trip. - Oh, my God! 1584 01:42:08,907 --> 01:42:12,117 So I walk up behind her while she's paying for this fucking shampoo. 1585 01:42:12,202 --> 01:42:15,120 So I grab the bottom of her fuckin' shorts and I just go - 1586 01:42:15,205 --> 01:42:20,167 Go all the way down, and her ass pops out like a ripe peach. 1587 01:42:20,251 --> 01:42:24,171 - Oh, God. - "Oh, Jesus Christ!" she says. "There's someone" - 1588 01:42:24,255 --> 01:42:29,009 Maybe 15 or 20 years from now, I'll be more willing to talk about it, but not now. 1589 01:42:29,093 --> 01:42:31,553 - I told Maxon about it. - I've still got too many scruples. 1590 01:42:31,638 --> 01:42:34,973 - Did you tell Maxon about them? - He just thinks you're putting it on. 1591 01:42:35,058 --> 01:42:38,310 Said, Charles confessed to me when we were adults... 1592 01:42:38,394 --> 01:42:41,522 that there was a while when we were teenagers that he had to stifle the urge... 1593 01:42:41,606 --> 01:42:43,565 to stick a butcher knife through my heart. 1594 01:42:43,650 --> 01:42:45,651 Like, he'd be laying in bed at night... 1595 01:42:45,735 --> 01:42:49,363 fighting the urge to go down to that kitchen and get a knife out. 1596 01:42:49,447 --> 01:42:53,867 Or go down to the basement, get an ax and bash your skull in with it. 1597 01:42:55,453 --> 01:42:57,621 I told Maxon this, and he said, "Aah, I don't think so. " 1598 01:42:57,705 --> 01:43:01,166 - He didn't believe it. He thought it was all part of the act. - He thinks it's part of an act. 1599 01:43:01,251 --> 01:43:04,211 - He thinks the whole thing's an act. - He thinks my whole mental sickness is an act. 1600 01:43:04,295 --> 01:43:07,381 He thinks you've really got it made, that you really have a cushy position in things... 1601 01:43:07,465 --> 01:43:10,217 because you got the mother's love and he didn't. 1602 01:43:10,301 --> 01:43:12,261 That's what he thinks. 1603 01:43:12,345 --> 01:43:15,889 He must think I have certain reasons for putting on this act. 1604 01:43:15,974 --> 01:43:18,350 What does he think those reasons are? 1605 01:43:18,434 --> 01:43:22,646 I don't think he thinks it out too deeply. He's just reacting. He's in a state of reacting. 1606 01:43:22,730 --> 01:43:26,775 He still has all this anger and resentment because he wasn't loved by the mother. 1607 01:43:26,859 --> 01:43:30,237 - I know what the homicidal tendencies stem from now. - You do? 1608 01:43:30,321 --> 01:43:33,407 It stemmed from an excessive degree of narcissism. 1609 01:43:33,491 --> 01:43:38,203 It seems to me that all I have to do is overcome this excessive degree of narcissism... 1610 01:43:38,288 --> 01:43:40,914 and my homicidal tendencies will go away. 1611 01:43:40,999 --> 01:43:44,334 - You still have these tendencies? - No, they're pretty well gone by now. 1612 01:43:44,419 --> 01:43:46,253 You think it's the drugs, or what? 1613 01:43:46,337 --> 01:43:50,591 What's the connection between narcissism and the homicidal tendencies? 1614 01:43:50,675 --> 01:43:54,177 Well, when narcissism is wounded... 1615 01:43:54,262 --> 01:43:56,763 it wants to strike back at the person who wounded it. 1616 01:43:56,848 --> 01:43:59,433 - Did I wound your narcissism? - Many, many times. 1617 01:43:59,517 --> 01:44:02,477 - Oh! Oh, God. - Many, many times. 1618 01:44:27,712 --> 01:44:30,547 Uh, I made this bed of nails 'cause I've developed myself in meditation... 1619 01:44:30,632 --> 01:44:32,883 to the point where I have to use a bed of nails. 1620 01:44:32,967 --> 01:44:36,470 I'm not a very great expert at the nails, so I cover a portion of the nails... 1621 01:44:36,554 --> 01:44:40,057 with this very thin old bandana so it's not too painful to me. 1622 01:44:40,141 --> 01:44:44,478 I have to sort of like regulate the amount of pain that I take with it. 1623 01:44:55,198 --> 01:44:57,658 How long can you sit on those at a time? 1624 01:44:57,742 --> 01:45:01,119 I can sit a couple of hours like this. This is quite easy. 1625 01:45:01,204 --> 01:45:03,955 So the cloth sort of cleans your intestines out on the inside. 1626 01:45:04,040 --> 01:45:07,959 Or else you might say that it gratifies your intestines. 1627 01:45:08,044 --> 01:45:12,756 Every six weeks, very regularly, I have to pass it through my entire body. 1628 01:45:12,840 --> 01:45:14,800 And, uh... 1629 01:45:14,884 --> 01:45:18,345 it takes three days for it to come out the other side. 1630 01:45:18,429 --> 01:45:20,681 You don't take the nails out on the street, right? 1631 01:45:20,765 --> 01:45:24,351 They're prejudiced against people - like, in the financial district and stuff like that - 1632 01:45:24,435 --> 01:45:26,770 against someone praying in the street. 1633 01:45:26,854 --> 01:45:30,023 You go out with your beggar bowl, like, just about every day? 1634 01:45:30,108 --> 01:45:33,568 I do that every day. I do it every day, once a day. It's, like, part of my whole thing. 1635 01:45:33,653 --> 01:45:36,363 At a certain time of day, I have to go out and meet the public. 1636 01:45:36,447 --> 01:45:38,865 - Put the bowl down, lock in and do it. - It's your job. 1637 01:45:38,950 --> 01:45:40,617 Yeah, it's a job. It's a dirty job. 1638 01:45:40,702 --> 01:45:44,871 - How long has he had this bed of nails? - A couple years. 1639 01:45:44,956 --> 01:45:48,375 He sits on it how many times a day? About three or four times a day? 1640 01:45:48,459 --> 01:45:51,378 - About once a day for a couple hours. - Does he ever sleep on it? 1641 01:45:51,462 --> 01:45:54,214 No. It's not big enough to sleep on. He just sits on it. 1642 01:45:54,298 --> 01:45:57,551 - Where did he get this bed of nails? Did he buy it at some store? - He made it. 1643 01:45:57,635 --> 01:46:00,387 - You can't buy a bed of nails. - Just a minute. What is it? 1644 01:46:00,471 --> 01:46:02,514 - What? - How you holding up? 1645 01:46:02,598 --> 01:46:05,142 Not too badly. 1646 01:46:08,312 --> 01:46:11,314 Remember, Mother, I'm under the influence of medication. 1647 01:46:12,984 --> 01:46:16,903 And that's probably helping me through this thing to a certain extent anyway. 1648 01:46:16,988 --> 01:46:19,823 - When did you start taking medication? - About 20 years ago. 1649 01:46:19,907 --> 01:46:23,243 If only it would do something about the inner anguish and pain. 1650 01:46:23,327 --> 01:46:26,246 Wasn't that after you attempted suicide, you started taking those drugs? 1651 01:46:26,330 --> 01:46:29,082 Yeah, I started taking it after one of my suicide attempts. 1652 01:46:29,167 --> 01:46:32,919 - You drank a bottle of furniture polish. - Yeah. That was the first time. 1653 01:46:33,004 --> 01:46:37,799 I drank a bottle of furniture polish and took an overdose of sleeping pills. 1654 01:46:37,884 --> 01:46:40,886 But then I chickened out at the last minute and went downstairs... 1655 01:46:40,970 --> 01:46:44,973 and asked my mother to take me to the hospital so I could have my stomach pumped. 1656 01:46:45,057 --> 01:46:47,559 Jesus! 1657 01:46:50,021 --> 01:46:52,814 There were about two or three other attempts besides that one. 1658 01:46:52,899 --> 01:46:55,984 This morning, you were talking about getting a lobotomy. Jesus Christ. 1659 01:46:56,068 --> 01:46:59,404 - Yes, well - Why not? - Why not? 1660 01:47:00,948 --> 01:47:02,866 God. Grim. It's grim. 1661 01:47:02,950 --> 01:47:08,455 Charles told me - He confessed to me that when he first saw Treasure Island in 1950... 1662 01:47:08,539 --> 01:47:13,251 he developed this crush on Bobby Driscoll, and it never went away. 1663 01:47:13,336 --> 01:47:15,962 Bobby Driscoll's the kid who plays Jim Hawkins. 1664 01:47:16,047 --> 01:47:20,801 And the root of this whole obsession was this kid that was in the movie. 1665 01:47:20,885 --> 01:47:25,388 He was drawing this Bobby Driscoll, this kid, you know, endlessly. 1666 01:47:26,390 --> 01:47:28,642 And when he told me this, I was shocked. 1667 01:47:28,726 --> 01:47:31,436 I had no idea that's what it was about. 1668 01:47:31,521 --> 01:47:34,648 I guess it's caused him a lot of torment in his life, you know. 1669 01:47:34,732 --> 01:47:39,319 He's never been able to have any real sexual life at all. 1670 01:47:39,403 --> 01:47:41,279 He's never had sex. 1671 01:47:42,281 --> 01:47:44,991 I don't think any of them got out, Mother. 1672 01:47:45,076 --> 01:47:47,661 The other night when she yelled out, "Get the hell out of here!" 1673 01:47:47,745 --> 01:47:49,871 and I said, "Who's she talking to?" what'd you say? 1674 01:47:49,956 --> 01:47:52,666 I said, "She's being pursued by invisible enemies. " 1675 01:47:55,253 --> 01:47:58,380 - Who does she think they are? - I don't know exactly. 1676 01:47:58,464 --> 01:48:01,883 - It's sort of hard to tell. - You - You get the residue of her - 1677 01:48:01,968 --> 01:48:03,635 - Charles! - What? 1678 01:48:03,719 --> 01:48:06,096 - Fix that curtain in the hallway. - Okay. 1679 01:48:09,559 --> 01:48:12,811 - Brought the whole thing down. You can't do that. - The curtain in the hallway. 1680 01:48:38,212 --> 01:48:40,130 - Come here. - What? 1681 01:48:40,214 --> 01:48:42,132 Come here. 1682 01:48:43,634 --> 01:48:45,552 Let me see that there, please? 1683 01:48:45,636 --> 01:48:47,554 Thanks. 1684 01:48:51,017 --> 01:48:53,018 Let me show you the - 1685 01:48:54,145 --> 01:48:56,146 I did that one, and I did that one. 1686 01:48:56,230 --> 01:48:59,774 - That looks good. - Let me show you what one it is. 1687 01:49:01,903 --> 01:49:03,820 Dad. 1688 01:49:05,656 --> 01:49:08,074 This is my character, Dad. 1689 01:49:08,159 --> 01:49:10,827 - That's your character? - Yeah, yeah. 1690 01:49:10,912 --> 01:49:12,913 - What are biscuit teeth? - Her dog! 1691 01:49:14,624 --> 01:49:16,583 Biscuit Teeth. 1692 01:49:16,667 --> 01:49:19,169 - That's her dog? - Yeah! 1693 01:49:19,253 --> 01:49:21,630 It's good the way it is. 1694 01:49:21,714 --> 01:49:24,716 - Give me a break. - There. Isn’t that a lot better? Look. 1695 01:49:25,760 --> 01:49:27,677 Much better. 1696 01:49:28,888 --> 01:49:31,973 Everything has to be black and white. Everything has to be old-fashioned. 1697 01:49:32,058 --> 01:49:36,353 No. It just looks better like that. 1698 01:49:36,437 --> 01:49:39,814 The old man, I think, took off pretty much for good... 1699 01:49:39,899 --> 01:49:44,110 when I was probably, I don't know, five or six years old, I guess. 1700 01:49:44,195 --> 01:49:47,113 I can't really remember that period of time very well... 1701 01:49:47,198 --> 01:49:49,658 but I didn't really see him too regularly after that. 1702 01:49:49,742 --> 01:49:53,411 You know, he was over here, really, for the most part. Madison, Dixon. 1703 01:49:53,496 --> 01:49:55,538 Kind of gone most of the time. 1704 01:49:55,623 --> 01:49:59,459 He has sort of - I think he has sort of a hard time emotionally. 1705 01:49:59,543 --> 01:50:01,461 You know, like he can't - I'll - 1706 01:50:01,545 --> 01:50:05,465 Sometimes I'll just feel like I want to express affection to the old man, you know. 1707 01:50:05,549 --> 01:50:09,177 Like I feel like I want to put my arm around him or shake his hand or something... 1708 01:50:09,261 --> 01:50:11,179 or get close in some way. 1709 01:50:11,263 --> 01:50:13,932 He can't do it, you know? He can't do that. 1710 01:50:18,020 --> 01:50:20,480 - How tight? - Uh, pretty tight. 1711 01:50:20,564 --> 01:50:23,066 Like that kind of thing? 1712 01:50:23,150 --> 01:50:25,360 What a disaster this is, taking these records out. 1713 01:50:25,444 --> 01:50:28,279 I was planning just to live here till I died. 1714 01:50:28,364 --> 01:50:32,409 I didn't want to move out of this place and move all these damn records. 1715 01:50:33,703 --> 01:50:35,662 That'll teach you to have a hobby. 1716 01:50:35,746 --> 01:50:39,833 Jesus. Be careful with those. You break 'em, I'll kill you. God. 1717 01:50:39,917 --> 01:50:43,211 Oy. My copy of Frank Bunch and His Fuzzy Wuzzies. 1718 01:50:46,257 --> 01:50:48,675 Put those over there on that futon. 1719 01:50:48,759 --> 01:50:51,261 Tight as you can. 1720 01:50:51,345 --> 01:50:53,680 Pull it out, and I'll cut it. 1721 01:50:53,764 --> 01:50:56,182 Jesus, that wife of mine. 1722 01:50:56,267 --> 01:50:59,436 Getting me to move to France, for God's sake. 1723 01:50:59,520 --> 01:51:03,356 But it's too late now. The die is cast. 1724 01:52:44,959 --> 01:52:47,710 A lot of the stuff is in here, and some of it's in there. 1725 01:52:47,795 --> 01:52:50,296 So I guess pulling up to here would be the best thing. 1726 01:52:50,381 --> 01:52:52,799 - Or I don't know. - Okay. We'll have to take a look. 1727 01:52:52,883 --> 01:52:55,552 - We got some plywood we can put right down here. - Okay. Good. 1728 01:52:55,636 --> 01:52:59,722 She's having a ball out there, telling those guys what to do. 1729 01:53:03,853 --> 01:53:07,564 God. Giant trucks are here, everything. 1730 01:53:07,648 --> 01:53:09,315 It's embarrassing. 1731 01:53:16,782 --> 01:53:20,910 You think those guys look like they're gonna be sensitive to my record collection? 1732 01:53:20,995 --> 01:53:23,788 Bunch of football jocks. 1733 01:53:23,873 --> 01:53:27,876 "What do ya got here? A bunch of old albums or somethin'?" 1734 01:53:32,214 --> 01:53:34,424 Is there anything you're gonna miss about this country? 1735 01:53:34,508 --> 01:53:38,344 A certain relaxed quality that people have here that Europeans don't have. 1736 01:53:38,429 --> 01:53:41,681 - They're much more formal and everything. - America's a big "slobville. " 1737 01:53:41,765 --> 01:53:46,102 Yeah. It's, like, I went up to get my friend's belongings up in Eureka. 1738 01:53:46,187 --> 01:53:49,397 It was at these people's house. I went through their living room. 1739 01:53:49,481 --> 01:53:53,568 They had this couch that - this chair that was a gold plastic football helmet... 1740 01:53:53,652 --> 01:53:56,196 with a red and blue padded seat. 1741 01:53:56,280 --> 01:54:01,242 They had, like, these double-wide couches and a four-foot TV screen with Nintendo. 1742 01:54:01,327 --> 01:54:03,244 It was a Ninja Turtle game on there. 1743 01:54:03,329 --> 01:54:07,123 This, like, giant, fat teenager was just sitting there, mesmerized at this TV set. 1744 01:54:07,208 --> 01:54:09,459 - You don't see too much of that in France. - Unbelievable. 1745 01:54:09,543 --> 01:54:11,294 Yeah. 1746 01:54:11,378 --> 01:54:14,214 Robert, how do you feel about leaving your family here? 1747 01:54:14,298 --> 01:54:18,509 I don't - I don't have any feelings about it one way or the other. 1748 01:54:18,594 --> 01:54:21,763 - What do I care? - Never see that mother or brother anyway. 1749 01:54:21,847 --> 01:54:23,890 - He talks to them, like, once a year. - Yeah. 1750 01:54:23,974 --> 01:54:25,892 But what about Jesse? 1751 01:54:25,976 --> 01:54:28,186 Jesse. He's kind of devastated that we're leaving. 1752 01:54:28,270 --> 01:54:31,606 But on the other hand, we told him he could come and stay with us over there... 1753 01:54:31,690 --> 01:54:33,691 so, you know, he's kind of thrilled about that. 1754 01:54:33,776 --> 01:54:38,112 We gave him $500 for plane fare, so he's going to come over there. 1755 01:54:38,197 --> 01:54:41,699 - How about Max? - Yeah? Max I feel kind of bad about... 1756 01:54:41,784 --> 01:54:46,037 'cause he doesn't have too many other people to talk to. 1757 01:54:46,121 --> 01:54:49,540 I'm probably his closest human relationship in the world. 1758 01:54:53,963 --> 01:54:56,506 - These all have records in 'em, huh? - Yes. 1759 01:54:56,590 --> 01:54:58,883 Those 78s you were talking about? 1760 01:54:58,968 --> 01:55:01,302 Yep. 1761 01:55:03,597 --> 01:55:06,599 So I got no patience for Hollywood bullshit. 1762 01:55:08,060 --> 01:55:11,604 Well, I - You know, I can't think in those terms. 1763 01:55:11,689 --> 01:55:16,192 I've already got so much of my life wasted with those people down there. 1764 01:55:16,277 --> 01:55:20,154 Animation? Forget it. No. I'm not interested in it at all. 1765 01:55:20,239 --> 01:55:24,284 There hasn't been a decent animated film made in this country since about 1940. 1766 01:55:24,368 --> 01:55:27,578 No, you're not - Cherry Poptart is an abomination. 1767 01:55:27,663 --> 01:55:30,623 Larry Welz is an idiot. It's gonna be a piece of garbage. 1768 01:55:30,708 --> 01:55:33,543 I'm not interested. All right. 1769 01:55:33,627 --> 01:55:35,545 So long. 1770 01:55:37,965 --> 01:55:39,924 Jesus. 1771 01:55:40,009 --> 01:55:42,802 That was a three-way conference call with this guy Charles Webb... 1772 01:55:42,886 --> 01:55:44,804 who's a friend of Dan O'Neill's. 1773 01:55:44,888 --> 01:55:47,223 They're putting together the Cherry Poptart film. 1774 01:55:47,308 --> 01:55:49,976 They got on the phone with some guy in L.A. 1775 01:55:50,060 --> 01:55:52,645 Some guy - "Hey! I'm your kind of guy. 1776 01:55:52,730 --> 01:55:54,897 Remember Tommy Toilet? I loved it!" 1777 01:55:58,736 --> 01:56:01,279 - Jesus. - They want to make a movie or something? 1778 01:56:01,363 --> 01:56:03,823 A Natural film, of course. 1779 01:56:03,907 --> 01:56:06,743 It's a go project. 1780 01:56:06,827 --> 01:56:08,745 Jesus. 1781 01:56:09,830 --> 01:56:15,043 This is how I felt after that last hell week of you filming me here. 1782 01:56:16,045 --> 01:56:19,672 "How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure. " 1783 01:56:19,757 --> 01:56:23,009 When I was a kid, if I ever started showing any enthusiasm for anything... 1784 01:56:23,093 --> 01:56:25,094 by brother Charles would always say... 1785 01:56:25,179 --> 01:56:29,057 "How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure. " 1786 01:56:29,141 --> 01:56:31,434 Always take the wind out of my sails. 1787 01:56:31,518 --> 01:56:34,395 Even though I don't see him often, whenever I'm with him... 1788 01:56:34,480 --> 01:56:37,607 it revives that real keen awareness of that... 1789 01:56:37,691 --> 01:56:43,196 of this being very removed or, you know, extremely separated... 1790 01:56:43,280 --> 01:56:45,782 from the rest of humanity and the world in general... 1791 01:56:45,866 --> 01:56:48,493 which I kind of like - I like that feeling. 1792 01:56:48,577 --> 01:56:52,455 "How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is. " 1793 01:57:25,906 --> 01:57:29,909 Fix it, Charles. Put that towel up the way I had it. 1794 01:57:29,993 --> 01:57:31,994 No, first put the towel up. 1795 01:57:33,789 --> 01:57:36,416 Watch you don't pull the shade all the way off the thing. 1796 01:57:36,500 --> 01:57:38,418 I won't. 1797 01:57:40,921 --> 01:57:44,257 Can't come in and disrupt people's house like this. 1798 01:57:44,341 --> 01:57:47,760 - Where are the babies? - I don't know. I think the little girl is in my room.