Save the Planet
Kill Yourself
A CONVERSATION WITH LARRY WESSEL
Damon’s Steakhouse
Mother’s Day 2002

A more endearing-and enduring- aesthetic terrorist I have yet to meet. Southern California native Larry Wessel has plumbed the depth of that region over the course of his three decade-plus career as a filmmaker. His crazed passion for art in all its various forms eclipses your average devotee. A perusal of his list of loves and hates is in itself an undertaking, as that list is several yards long.
I became aware of his work as a teenager, reading old issues of the Film Threat Video Guide. But we were not to meet, nor was I to experience the artworks themselves, until roughly a decade later. Larry bought a videocassette I’d advertised on eBay, and the name rang a bell. “Are you Larry Wessel the filmmaker?”, I asked.
Within a week, Larry’s documentaries, among them Taurobolium (perhaps his most notorious) and Song Demo for a Helen Keller World, showed up in my mailbox. I watched them, and immediately realized what Larry Wessel represented: the freedom to express one’s world-view through the moving image, at almost no cost. That package was followed by another, with Ultramegalopolis, Sex Death and the Hollywood Mystique, Tattoo Deluxe, Sugar and Spice, and Carny Talk.

Wessel is also an accomplished collage artist, having assembled some of the most graphic and unnerving technicolor spectacles since Francis Bacon. His work in this medium has appeared in countless publications (most notably Hustler- where Larry was a regular freelance contributor), and provides a view of the human id as potent as anything by Joel-Peter Witkin or David Lynch. These hellish masterworks are based primarily on themes of sex, death, psychosis, disease, and ultra-violent rage. A few pieces come to mind which evoke a sense of psychological violation. The cover of this very book is a fine example, but outright tame compared to his assaultive meditation on the red light district of Tijuana, Mexico.

The films are micro-budget documentaries, mad, voyeuristic, and unflinching studies of low-life aberrants in Los Angeles (with the exception of Taurobolium, which showcases Tijuana bullfighting). Larry is obsessed with images, more so, I’d assume, than with literature or music, and his compassion for his subjects knows no bounds. I contacted him after watching several of the films, about the time and place of the interview. I was living in the LA suburb of Glendale (without transportation), while Larry resides in the South Bay, at least an hour and a half away. He graciously chose Damon’s Steakhouse, only a five minute walk from my home, and it was there that we embarked upon a heated discussion which was to leave us both exhilarated and ejected from the premises.

Gene Gregorits: When did it first occur to you that you were going to go ahead with an idea to make documentary films, despite the fact that you didn’t have very good equipment?

Larry Wessel: I started shooting video when this artist approached me. His name was Raymond Pettibon. A mutual friend of ours introduced us. He came over and I was living in a guest house at the time. And he wanted to see my films. I had made short films prior to that. He said that he had written screenplays, and he was very curious about the kinds of films I made and stuff. So he had heard about them, and I had some of these things that I had already transferred into VHS. These are things I shot in 16mm and Super 8 when I was a lot younger. I showed him these things and he just laughed his ass off. We had a really good time. And he told me that I have to shoot these two screenplays he had written. That he was going to buy a camcorder and everything, so we could shoot them. So what he did was, he went out and he bought a VHS camcorder. This was approximately 1986. The screenplays he had written weren’t really screenplays as such. They were just dialogue. They were just batches of dialogue, that he had written. One of them was called Weathermen 69/The Whole World Is Watching.

GG: YOU did that?!

LW: I didn’t do the one that you’ve seen.

GG: I never saw it.

LW: Well anyway I did the one that nobody’s ever seen. The other film I did with Raymond was called Sir Drone. The Weathermen dealt with the terrorist group, from the 60s. A real, very real terrorist group. And the other one was an LA punk band. It was supposed to be the story of a punk band. A comedy. Anyway, he said “man we’re gonna make these!” I had never shot video before. This is how I dove into it. For the next year and a half, I shot these two films, simultaneously. The Weathermen was completed first.
Somewhere down the line, Raymond got really impatient with how long it was taking. He decided to bail out. I just kept shooting. Then he told me he wanted to collect all of the videocassettes and edit the thing himself. He didn’t trust me to edit the films. I thought that was really strange. He approached me. He had never made a film before. And I had spent almost my whole life making movies. I started when I was 11. So I very reluctantly put all the videos in a box, when I was done shooting. Gave him the collection of tapes. Then I hated myself for doing it. For the next several days I was really pissed off that I had relinquished to him all of these tapes, that I figured he was probably just going to tape over or destroy. I was also really uncomfortable with an amateur dealing with all of this really great material. And so one day I decided that I’m gonna go over there and get these tapes back. So I went over there, knocked on his door, and luckily he wasn’t there that day so I didn’t have to confront him. His mother was there, and I told him I came to pick up the videocassettes, and she gave me the whole box. I ran off with them, grabbed them and took them home. Got a telephone call at work the next day from Raymond. He was really pissed off and wanted the tapes. When Ray came down to the set of the films, he would stand there and never say anything. I just thought he was really quiet, a real sullen guy. Later, a lot of the other people in the film reported to me that he was a hardcore heroin addict. And he was loaded on heroin the whole time. That’s why he was so quiet, why he sweated all the time. I was just very naïve and didn’t realize that, thought he was just an introverted artist.

GG: (laughing)

LW: But I respected him, I looked up to Raymond, and I thought that this would be a good thing, hooking up with Raymond. Thought this might pull me into the limelight a little bit, get me some attention. But the exact opposite happened. He ended up hating me. Anyway I got the original footage, and he re-cast the films, re-shot them in just a few weeks. He did a quickie job, released them both, very quickly, and so I was stuck with all this unedited footage of two films that, to this day, I still haven’t put together because of the bad memories associated with them.

GG: Did you ever shoot another fiction film after that?

LW:Yeah. I shot this little thing called Lipstick Liz, which is like a music video based on a poem by Robert Service. I shot that. Mainly I wasn’t very interested in fiction after shooting the Raymond things, I started thinking in terms of documentary. At that point I borrowed a really crappy camera…it was a compact VHS camcorder that I got from a schoolteacher that I lived next door to. And I started shooting stuff in Los Angeles. That’s how I shot the Robert Williams video. That’s why it looks so awful. But I’m proud of the fact that it’s a very entertaining video and the budget was five dollars.

GG: (laughs)

LW: I spent an hour with Robert Williams and ended up with an amazing tape. That originally was going to be an opus, entitled Yucky Secrets. I had gathered these amazing people. A prostitute had told me all these great stories about her past. Williams. Transvestites. All these great people. It was going to be a six hour opus. Then I decided it was absurd to make a film that was six hours long. The only really great storyteller I had met was Robert Williams, so I decided to weed out everybody else and just release it as Robert Williams telling stories. It started with that. The look of the Robert Williams film was so awful that I started saving money. At the time, see this was 1990. The best formats I could afford were Super VHS and Hi8. I had heard that Hi8 degraded really easily, and that scared me so I bought a SuperVHS camcorder and started videotaping kids doing graffiti art. One day I was visiting my friend Brendan Leech, and he was showing me these photographs he had taken while watching the bullfights in Tijuana. That made me decide, completely, that I wanted to do a bullfight documentary. That I wanted to go to Tijuana. For the next three years, that’s all I did. I went to every single bullfight for three years in a row, in Tijuana. I sat everywhere in the arena. I went all over, including the slaughterhouses. I documented everything that happens at the bullring. I became totally obsessed with bullfighting, and that was truly my whole world. I joined Los Aficionados de Los Angeles, which was like the oldest bullfight club in America. It’s in Los Angeles. Every book I read was about bullfighting. I ended up with a vast library of books on bullfighting. All the ephemera. The posters. The music. The paintings. Anything having to do with bullfighting, I had to have it. It was a total obsession until I finished editing the documentary, and then I…quickly lost interest in it. That seems to be a recurring thing. As soon as I finish what I’m doing, I move on to the next thing. I become obsessed with something else. (booming, demented laughter)

GG: (laughing) You told me you drain the life out of all your favorite albums, too. How long does it take for a record to wear out for you?

LW: It depends upon the strength of the record. This happens to me every time the Cramps put out a new record. It becomes my favorite record. I listen to the goddamn thing, and that record becomes the soundtrack of my life. On the average, with a record, a solid two months will be spent listening to it while I do artwork, drive my car, or whatever.

GG: I’m exactly the same way. Hey, about Pettibon, those films that came out…there were really…crappy, right?

LW: Oh, totally awful! I think his films are totally the opposite of what good cinema should be. GARBAGE! They’re unwatchable. He has absolutely no sense of how to direct actors, he doesn’t use real actors, he uses his musician friends. That’s a real mistake. I thought his album covers were well rendered. Now he’s a successful and popular artist, and just quickly, arrogantly, knocks these babies out. Makes money. I don’t know how he gets away with it. I went to a gallery showing of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art. There were 500 pieces in the show and I failed to see one that I liked. In fact, it fired me up so much that I had a drawing he had done. I bought it from him when we were friends for $150. I went directly to his dealer and sold it to her for $2250.00. A really good investment as far as I’m concerned. That money went right into that bank, towards my Macintosh G5 and Final Cut Pro.

GG:This tape is fucking up.
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GG: You know this is essential for me. I’m taping over Eddie and The Hot Rods.
LW: (laughs)
GG: You know who they are?
LW: I sure do. I didn’t know they made more than one record. I have their first record.
GG: Teenage Depression!
LW: Yup.
GG: (long, inexplicable laughter)
LW: Well, I kept it! I still have it in my collection. I never throw anything away.
GG: You gave me a list of your favorite movies here. But I’ve lost it already.
LW: I wanted to give you that because you always ask people about their favorite movies.
GG: Have you seen Spider-Man yet?
LW: (laughs) No. But it’s funny-I’m a directory assistance operator, and we give out movie showtimes. And that’s all people want to see! Spider-Man. Every other call, literally, is a Spider-Man call!

[Gene and Larry begin laughing very loudly. Heads are turning and the manager of Damon’s Steakhouse is staring at me.]

LW: See, usually that indicates that it’s gotta be really awful. I don’t know. I’m worried now.

GG: You should see it. It’s great. Or maybe I was just really desperate that day.

LW: As far as all the comics go, I was never really into them as a kid. But of all the superheroes, I always liked the Spider-Man comics the best, because the compositions of the Spider-Man comics were so beautifully done. They were like film storyboards. Have you seen The Loved One?

GG: Not yet. Had it for over a year. One of many, many, many films I’m dying to see.

LW: Jonathan Winters is in it. Liberace is in it! They’re all morticians. Just incredibly wonderful and dark. My favorite comedies are all dark comedies.

GG: Your documentaries are all dark comedies too.

LW: It’s true. Even the horror films I made when I was a kid-I always do them straight, seriously, knowing that people are going to find great enjoyment and laugh. But I never set out to get laughs. Ever. It just ends up that way. People laugh, and a lot of times out of nervousness! (laughs) But I never set out to be humorous or to do anything as a joke.

GG: Ultramegalopolis kind of worried me.

LW: Yeah. Ultramegalopolis is almost too dark. I went into a really serious depression after making it. It really put a spell on me that was very hard to shake. It’s a very grim look at Los Angeles. Well...it just propelled me into a Nietzschean abyss. I fell in, and almost wasn’t able to scramble out of it.

GG: Okay, let’s just start at the beginning of the film. It opens with one of the creepiest men I’ve ever seen in my life. This guy who’s doing some schmaltzy lounge act…what’s his story?

LW: He’s a very interesting street performer I met on the Third Street Promenade. At the time, I was shooting on the streets of LA., that’s where all the great street performers were at, and where they were making money. He was one of them. And he was doing these really dark song parodies about Los Angeles. I thought, “man, this guy is just made for my movie.” And when he did the OJ song, I didn’t have my camera with me at the time. I said “Listen, I gotta get your OJ song!”-which is done to the tune of “Mack The Knife”.

GG: Hahahahahaha!

“Juice The Knife” is his version of it. I said, “I gotta get that on tape!” I’d been trying to figure out how to open the film and I decided I had to open it with that. The OJ case was a national and international obsession. I was obsessed with it too! That’s all I wanted to watch was OJ. I followed the case every day. I had to put that in there. And he said, “well, I’m going to be performing for an old folks home on Fairfax” and he welcomed me to film him doing his performance. And that song, man [starts laughing]…he saved that song for the very end. I shot his whole performance, and gave him the tape, but I kept that one song, to open Ultramegalopolis.

GG: That is followed by a scene which really gave me the creeps, which was like a New Wave Freako Dance Jam Luncheon Party. Or something like that. It was just really unpleasant and weird and ugly. I was bothered by it!

LW: It is a scene of people dancing to the song by Soft Cell called “Sex Dwarf”. Which has always been one of my favorite songs. The bride was a porno actress who went by the name of Lakeeli. And she and all of her friends were these porno actors who were doing these punk rock porno films. She actually made a living doing these bondage films, being a punk extra in movies, and stuff like that. I really admired her. When she invited me to her wedding, I knew it would be full of very colorful characters, and I was really, really glad I did. It is one continuous shot that I’m really proud of, because it keeps pulling focus, and then focusing on another insane character. Almost everywhere I pointed my camera, I was rewarded with this incredible image of decadence and beauty. That was how the film opened before I found the OJ guy. In a way, I got the idea by watching a film by a San Francisco filmmaker…ummm…

GG: Charles Gatewood.

LW: Charles Gatewood! I saw this Charles Gatewood film that began with a dance scene. I always thought of dance as a celebration of life. I thought it would be great to open and close the film with a dance. He did this very effectively in one of his films. I forget which one. I copied him.

GG: I noticed that in a lot of your films, you tend to let the camera roll for extremely long periods of time, without cutting. Some of the shots in the John Trubee film are just unbearably long, they just go on and on. What’s your idea behind the extra-long shot?

LW: In my mind, my films are an antidote to the short attention span. I find that today’s youth, due to a lot of television programming and MTV, especially video games…

GG: Don’t forget Requiem For A Dream!

LW: Well, Requiem For A Dream is an exception because I think it is really, really, really well crafted. I really admire the editing of that film. That’s a particular movie I know that you have problems with, but I really super-enjoyed it. But there are exceptions to everything, and I don’t think I can generalize about everyone having a short attention span, even. But- I don’t have a short attention span and if I’m observing something-the sight of a beautiful woman, or the sight of a man with no arms and no legs breakdancing, I am frozen in my tracks and I become hypnotized by it. I think that there are moments in life where we need to be still. And observe, to soak up this kind of energy. I know what you’re saying, about shots-in the John Trubee movie especially-being overly long…well, no, I don’t know what you’re saying! What shots are overly long in the John Trubee film?

GG: A lot of them! Shots of the mixing board, or the control panel go on and on. It’s almost like a raw tape. It was like a raw, continuously rolling tape of a practicing session. Was that the intent?

LW: The thing is, it isn’t just raw footage. It was actually edited believe it or not from about-I don’t know how many Trubee hours I have, but with that one, it was shot over the course of 7 or 8 days. I had maybe 20, 22 hours of footage. It’s a 2 hour film. I think that a lot of feature films are 2 hours and people are willing to sit in a movie theatre for two hours, and see some hogwash, some emotional pornography from a director like Steven Spielberg…why can’t they sit through one of my films. But the thing with John Trubee…

GG: I like him! Everybody else hates him. I thought he was extremely funny and extremely right on.

LW: I do too! He’s a really good social commentator. For me, I was completely enraptured with the whole recording process, because I’d never seen it before. I had never been inside a recording studio. The whole intent of the movie, besides documenting John Trubee-a relatively unknown underground presence- and me wanting to preserve his act on video, was my interest in the creative process. A lot of people, I think, when they hear a recording, they don’t appreciate all the hard work that goes into the music. It’s the same with a film, or painting, or anything else. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. I wanted to show that. But maybe I showed too much of it. I don’t know. I was happy with it when I finished it. That’s the way I am. I’ll leave it alone.

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LW: What did you say that pissed off Harry Dean Stanton?

GG: You’re interviewing me now?

Waitress: Did I wake everybody up?

LW/GG: Yes.

Waitress: I apologize.

LW: I’m a little confused about the salad. Didn’t it used to be the bowl on the table, and…

Waitress: It is!

LW: Well, then someone took it, because that bowl is empty.

Waitress: You ate it.

LW: (pointing at me) He didn’t get enough salad.

GG: Hey, it’s fine. Nevermind. Drop it.

Waitress: If you want more salad, you have to pay for it.

LW: (indignant) Oh reallllly?

Waitress: Yes. It’s not an endless, you know…

LW: Oh, it’s not a bottomless salad bowl?

Waitress: No.

LW: Oh, I thought it was. Okay.

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GG: Actually, it was Hubert Selby. I kept asking him stupid questions or something. That night I got into a fight with another guy, which was pathetic. Kelly Dessaint said, “Gene is the ultimate master of extreme hyperbole and vociferous pontification”. Selby said, “Oh, you mean he’s an asshole?” I’m thinking, “Kelly, I just made a jerk out of myself in front of Hubert Selby Jr. You’re not helping.” I’m thinking this, right? Not saying it.

LW: (laughs)

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GG: Have you ever made a jerk out of yourself in the presence of a Great and Famous Man?

LW: Well, when I was 18 years old, I got to meet my hero in life, who is Alfred Hitchcock. I was going to film school. USC. Sophomore. I found out that Hitchcock was going to be a guest speaker, and that I would have to join the cinema fraternity to be able to see him, because he was speaking for them. Any non-member would not be admitted into this meeting with Hitchcock. I didn’t want to miss it so I joined the goddamn club. I never joined anything in my life. I don’t like clubs and groups and things. I joined just so that I could meet my hero. I bought myself a really nice pad and paper, a really nice illustrator’s pen, and I went to Universal Studios, where he was going to present an award to Albert Whitlock, who was the guy who did the matte paintings for some of his greatest films.
So as I’m approaching Universal Studios, I see this dark green limousine, and I knew that it was Alfred Hitchcock’s limousine. He was afraid to drive, he had a paranoia of the police, and that’s why he never got a driver’s license. So he was driven around in this dark green limo. I was so excited that I was right behind his limo at Universal Studios. I didn’t follow him too closely or anything, and the limo pulled off, then I pulled off in another direction. When I wound up in the banquet hall, where Hitchcock was going to give his speech, and present Whitlock with an award, I saw him at the end of this really long room and he was drinking Screwdrivers in rapid succession. I saw him drink about three screwdrivers just standing there. Gawking at him. Mind you, I’m only 18 years old and I’m really enamored with Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve seen all of his movies at least twice at that point. I walked right up to him and just before I got to Hitchcock another person approached him and started talking to him, and in my youthful arrogance, I interrupted their conversation and I said “Mr. Hitchcock, you’re my favorite director! I’ve seen all of your movies at least twice, could I please get your autograph?” Because I knew that he would draw a picture of himself, the logo that you see at the beginning of the Hitchcock Presents show…I knew he did that for an autograph and I just had to have one of those. I asked him if I could shake his hand. He held out his hand, and I grabbed his hand, and he clutched it, he put a death grip on my hand and slowly pulled me towards him. And it was like a tracking shot! A slow tracking shot in a Hitchcock film! And I started trembling, and I got closer and closer to his face, and he said “Allllll right. But I hope I NEVER… have to do….another…one…of…theeeeese.” He drew this portrait of himself and handed it to me. Right at that moment I was ready to completely piss my pants. I took the picture and scurried away, so happy that I had met him and got his autograph. That was really the most embarrassing encounter I have had with a celebrity. I don’t think I left a very good impression on Hitch. (laughs)

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GG: What was that you just said about Pettibon?

LW: I mentioned being disappointed. Celebrity disappointment. If you could call Raymond Pettibon and John Gilmore celebrities, and I guess they are as far as the underground pantheon of gods go, I guess they would be two. Two that are known. My relationships with both of them turned out to be very disappointing.

GG: Gilmore was in Sex, Death, And The Hollywood mystique. In fact, he is the centerpiece, the connecting thread of the film. Gilmore was very cool, it seems, during the making of the film.

LW: Oh yeah. Initially he was really friendly and he flew me out to Albuquerque, to talk about the subjects of all his books. In fact, the whole thing started with a telephone call from his publisher, his LA publisher, Stuart Swezey. He called me up and he asked me if I would like to do a documentary about John Gilmore. I had just gotten into reading his book Cold Blooded, about Charles Schmid, The Pied Piper of Tucson. And Schmid immediately became my favorite murderer. Of all the serial killers, he had such an amazing story! And I think Gilmore did a really good job of chronicling this guy’s story. I was excited about the prospect of doing a film about this writer.
The next thing I know, I’m getting faxes from John Gilmore that “the books are on the way!” He’s gonna send me a pile of his books to read, and sure enough I get his books in the mail, I read them, really enjoyed them. I sent him my documentaries, and he tells me how much he enjoys my documentaries. He told me we’re on the same wavelength and that me and him fit like a glove and that this is going to be great. I’m pretty happy and positive about the whole thing and the next thing you know, I’m on a plane out to Albuquerque, and I’m shooting John Gilmore. It seemed to go great for a while. He came out to LA, and I shot a lot of stuff of him in Los Angeles.

GG: Like in the Hollywood Forever cemetery. You interviewed him with two girls groping and kissing right behind him. That was funny. A very tabloidal touch, those punk girls kissing, I thought.

LW: Yeah, I was looking for a new direction, to do something different with documentary filmmaking and the documentaries I had done previously. I also wanted to get away from that whole cinema verite thing that I was hooked on. I was trying to weave a little fantasy into the doc. I thought it would be good to have a lesbian encounter spontaneously occur in the cemetery.

GG: DURING THE COURSE OF THE INTERVIEW!
LW: Yeah, yeah!
GG: Ha ha ha ha!
LW: I thought it would be great, you know?
GG: Sure.

LW: Of course, this was happening throughout the course of the film, and I think it’s really enjoyable, and fun. John did too. He was really into it. I later suggested that we shoot in the Angeles Crest Forest, which is the dumping ground for all the serial killers in LA. He thought that was great and that we should find somebody who he could come across, just walking though the forest. A pretty, dead girl. I happened to know a beautiful blonde. We did a scene with her in the forest, which was just a knockout. That’s how I ended the film. Not to ruin my own movie, but the film ends with John digging a shallow grave for this prostitute who you see throughout the course of the film. Her story is told simultaneously with John’s.

GG: Kelly.
LW: Kelly Monroe.
GG: What happened to her in real life?

LW: She basically cleaned up her act. She’s no longer hooking, or doing drugs. She’s got a very respectable job now. She’s totally happy with the film. She’s grateful that I changed her name to protect her anonymity, and her reputation. I even told her that if she wanted me to remove all of the footage, that I’d be totally happy to do that. Because I had no intention, and I never do have any intention of hurting anybody when I make a film. I never do a hatchet job on anybody. I try to stay out of the film as much as possible. In her case, I didn’t want to embarrass her, or cause embarrassment to her family. So I changed her name to Kelly Monroe. She gets a big kick out of the movie, and considers it almost like a past life of hers. She considers it to be a totally different person than she is today.

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GG: Sex Death and the Hollywood Mystique was originally going to be a documentary about John Gilmore. When did it blow up into a more widespread overview look at Hollywood?

LW: Well, the thing was…and this is really critical to John Gilmore’s getting pissed off at me-

Waitress: Everything alright here?

LW: Yeah. Great. But I always felt that during the course of the film that I had total artistic license to do pretty much whatever I wanted. That was John’s attitude throughout the filming. That he liked my previous work, and was totally happy with whatever I did. And I felt free to do whatever. And so I had a lot of issues with Hollywood, myself, that I wanted to explore, that I felt would make the whole film much more interesting than just keeping the camera on John the whole time. To be honest with you, I don’t think that John is the most enigmatic of all authors when it comes to live readings. For example, William S. Burroughs had a definite personality. It’s enjoyable. Matter of fact, it’s almost more enjoyable to hear Burroughs reading Burroughs than it is to read Burroughs alone. It’s even better. It’s the same with Henry Miller. I can think of a number of different writers who actually have wonderful personalities. Who are actually able to add color to their own words. Well, John isn’t one of these writers. He’s great on the page, but when he starts reading his own work, for me, it became boring. So, when we’re dealing with the subject of fame, and Hollywood, and celebrity, you’re really dealing with subject matter that is bigger than just one person. It’s an entire industry. During the course of shooting John, I started shooting other people. Particularly this prostitute friend of mine, and Forry Ackerman, and the filmmaker Curtis Harrington. Their stories all merge together at a certain point, and I realized that I could tell four simultaneous stories and in the end have them all come together. And it would be much more than just telling one person’s tale. It would be a much bigger thing. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to just say it all about Hollywood, in one big swoop, then move on to the next thing. Because I didn’t want to have to deal with Hollywood again. So that’s my film about Hollywood. Which is bigger than John Gilmore. In fact, John did a lot of writing about Hollywood but never was able to break through as an actor, and that’s one of the central tragedies of John Gilmore. And of a lot of people who live in Hollywood.

GG: Back in the sixties, and maybe sometimes now, even male actors faced the casting couch, in that cliché sense. Even guys have to fuck for their roles.

LW: I find all of that to probably be very, very true. I’m always reminded by the comment that Rock Hudson made when the press started asking him questions about AIDS and homosexuality and everything. What Hudson said was that you could count the straight people in Hollywood on one hand. So what he was suggesting was that 95% of everybody in Hollywood is queer. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know if that’s an exaggeration. I assume that that is an exaggeration. I think that maybe John hooked up with the wrong crowd, and maybe he was exploited by this meat rack situation. That’s really too bad. I can’t digest the idea that 95% of everyone in Hollywood is homosexual! To me, that is unimaginable. I think that has more to do with the sour grapes of somebody who didn’t make it.

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LW: It’s threatening, that whole concept of having your agent get on you, about anyone that gave you an audition coming on to you, that must have been awful as…

GG: As a young man!

LW: (laughing)

TAPE CUTS

LW: Hahahahahaa!

GG: No, let me finish! Your films really have been an inspiration to me because…I didn’t realize that you could make a good film with totally amateur equipment. Your cameras sucked for the first couple of movies you did, and yet they’re still entertaining, they’re still cool. There’s this illusion that you have to have top of the line stuff to make a watchable film. Sometimes you haven’t got a choice, you use what’s available and it’s good to be reminded of that fact. YOU COULD MAKE A MOVIE WITH PIXELVISION IF YOU HAD TO!

Guy behind me: HEY! Lower your voice, would you?

LW: I absolutely agree with you! I really think it’s a pretty shabby excuse, and I hear it a lot, that people need a certain BUDGET, and have to have a CERTAIN ACTOR in their movie in order to make a film. They spend their whole lives wasting time.

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GG: Okay, you said the most important thing of all is to just get out there and start shooting.

LW: Absolutely! Don’t wait for the gravy train to come and don’t wait for investors. That’s nonsense. You just have to make due with what you have. Even if it requires stealing. Werner Herzog stole his first camera from a German television crew to make his first film. You just have to do whatever it takes to make movies, and just to shoot material. Eventually, you’ll get great footage for your documentary. (laughs) Or whatever you want to do! I don’t think waiting around for money is a good idea. In fact, money has never been an issue with me. I’ve been poor my whole life. I’ve had to work a fucking 9 to 5 job since I can remember and it’s never really bothered me. I hate to think that I’ve acquiesced into this 9 to 5 existence…but for me, the small amount of money I make as a telephone operator is enough to get by on. Luckily, I did work for a wealthy woman, who gave me a very expensive-in fact two very, very expensive digital cameras. So I’m the proud owner of a Canon XL1 now and a little Sony digital videocamera. Using that, I am able to shoot incredibly sharp images, and I’m so happy about that. But still, four thousand bucks…that’s a lot of money. But at the same time, it really isn’t a lot of money. If you look at it in the context of Hollywood, it might be somebody’s lunch expense or something like that. Four thousand dollars for a camera…I think everybody could save for a while and buy one of those. Buy a Canon XL1 or a Sony VX2000. Get a three chipper, you know! Shoot sharp and true! Then you don’t want to do anything else. It’s great!

GG: You’re trying to get a G5 computer?

LW: Yeah.

GG: That’s great because right now, your movies have to be dubbed off on decks, right?

LW: Yeah.

GG: When everything is digitized, you can put your stuff on DVDs.

LW: Yeah! I’ll be able to release everything on DVD, and release perfect images. And I won’t have to worry about generation loss or any of that nonsense. So, we are in the digital era right now. I think that even the one chip cameras shoot really sharp! And there’s really no excuse for anybody to not do their own thing digitally, I think. At one time, when I was going to film school, I was really snobby about film vs. video. I thought video sucked, and that film was the way to go. But as I went along and got older, I slowly realized that it is just so fucking prohibitive and expensive to shoot film that I saw very little point in choosing this expensive medium. It’s like sculpting in gold when you could just sculpt in wood. You have to fit your budget! It’s still going to be a great work of art, no matter what you make it out of.

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GG: What’s the first documentary you ever saw?

LW: I remember seeing Nanook Of The North as a kid. I remember really enjoying every minute of Nanook of The North, which is considered one of the very first feature length documentaries. By Robert Flaherty. To this day, it’s just an amazing documentary. There’s a lot of films that I’ve seen, that aren’t even documentaries really. I don’t know if you’ve seen-well, I’m sure that you have, Gene…the R.Bud Dwyer footage…

GG: Aw man! Why’d you have to bring that up? Yeah, and I RUE THE DAY!

LW: This man held a press conference for his own suicide, and it was shot by all the media but they refused to show it on the air!

GG: I used to live in a room not even two blocks away from the building where he blew his brains out. LW: (laughs) Amazing! That piece of footage circulated around the underground pretty fast, and this was long before I got a copy of it. I remember the shock and total fright of seeing that for the first time, and then after that…

GG: Well, you see that, and after you can’t say or do ANYTHING! You just sit there. And it’s quiet. For quite a while.

LW: Oh YEAH! (laughing hysterically) It’s a total crowd pleaser as far as I’m concerned. What I really like is that this cameraman zoomed in and got the details. He didn’t just turn his camera off or do what he was told, to walk away. He got in there and he showed what was important to show. And when you see the blood draining out of poor Bud’s nose, you realize…

GG: Like a goddamn water faucet on full blast!

LW:Oh my god! You realize that suicide is really a spectacular thing! And it’s even more spectacular than any motion picture depiction of it! Especially any Hollywood depiction you’ve ever seen. So that piece of footage, to me, is a real document, and to me, is an extraordinary documentary in it’s own right. And it’s just a simple series of images of a guy committing suicide.

GG: What did you learn from that as a filmmaker? Or I should ask, what films shaped you as a documentarian?

LW: There were two things that I grew up watching…on PBS, incidentally. This is during the late 60’s and early 70s. And one of them was an amazing television series called “An American Family”. And it involved a family in Santa Barbara called the Louds.

GG:Lance Loud and the Mumps. Maaaan. (laughs)

LW: (laughs) Right. You kind of remind me of Lance Loud. (laughing) You have this Lance-look.

GG: You’re crazy. (laughing)

LW: I also noticed that your fingernails are bitten down to the blood like his were.

GG: (giggling like a mongoloid)

LW: There’s something about your personality-

GG: -what personality?

LW: -that initially reminded me of Lance Loud. Anyway I became totally fascinated with the cinema verite documentary about the Loud family. At the same time, every single year, a documentary by a guy named Frederick Wiseman would come on the television and these were films that were just so bold and unnerving and shockingly violent, it made everything else pale in comparison. There was a film called Hospital, that took place at a New York metropolitan hospital, and you’re watching people dying in the waiting room! While they were being asked to fill out their insurance papers with chopped off fingers and this kind of thing.

GG: I’m eating, Larry.

LW: INCREDIBLY VIOLENT! INCREDIBLY VIOLENT AND FUCKING REAL!

Guy Behind Me: I’m getting the manager.

LW: And to me, this was like the real stuff! I became addicted to reality. Wiseman was a filmmaker who didn’t narrate his films. He didn’t add music. And he didn’t quick cut to prove a point, or to grind an axe. He just really wanted to show institutions for what they really were. By hanging out long enough, he would get these amazing scenes that would play out in front of him. They’re all dramas. They’re all these beautifully constructed dramas that have the illusion of being reality. And that’s the beautiful part of watching a Frederick Wiseman film. And he is the MASTER! A lot of people use that term cinema verite, and they don’t even like to. It’s a phrase that causes a lot of derision. I attended a retrospective of Herzog’s stuff, and I really liked Herzog’s documentaries, and his films. But he just absolutely loathes cinema verite! He came on stage saying that he wanted to be the pallbearer of cinema verite! He wanted to bury it. And he was really passionate about how much he hated it! I just shrank in my seat. I’ve always loved what Frederick Wiseman has done, what they call cinema verite. But what he does is so far and above and beyond and better what anybody else does…I think there must be a…

GG: …category separate from verite for him.

LW: There really should be! And I think he’s a master of it. I would watch his films, and I could only see them once. This was before videotape. And even now you can’t get his stuff on video. If you want it on video, you have to tape it off the television, or pay some amazing amount of money for a 16mm print. You can rent them for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

GG: Or you can just buy a bootleg.
LW: I don’t know who’s selling bootlegs of these babies, but I’ve never bought a bootleg.
GG: Oh I don’t mess with those things either, you know. That’s very wrong.

LW: I have taped them off TV, for my own enjoyment. His masterpiece is Titticut Follies, which I saw at a psychology class at USC when I was a student. It just blew my mind. It’s his most extreme. The most extreme Frederick Wiseman documentary. His films, they’re all about hospitals, the military, asylums. He did a film called LAW & ORDER about the Kansas City police!

GG: (laughing)

LW: It beats COPS by about 20 years. COPS never shows you police brutality or anything. It doesn’t show interrogations or what really goes on at police departments. But Wiseman showed it! And it was GREAT to see this stuff in the 60s when everything on television was a lot less censored! PBS was actually really exciting! It had a lot to do with me being young and impressionable and all that, but it really seems to me that PBS has gotten totally conservative. They’ve self-censored a lot of really good material. It is very rare that you see something as awe inspiring as that on PBS today. There’s another film he did called Near Death which is very good. Near Death is to me, among his better later films. Titticut Follies is the first film he ever made.

GG: I’ve seen half of Titticut Follies. It is impossible to sit through.

LW: Oh god! It is relentlessly TERRIFYING!

Guy behind me: HEY!

LW: From beginning to end! By the end of it, you feel like you are trapped in a mental institution and you can’t get out! And you’re next in line for the electro-shock treatment! It’s just horrendous! And it is so horrendous that it was banned by the state it was filmed in. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the only way the film could be shown-this is in 1967-to the general public, was if they took a psychology class at a major university. That was the only way you could see the film. As luck would have it-

GG: (laughs)

LW: -I went to USC, and the film studies were a joke, but I took an Introduction To Psychology course taught by Dr. Scott Frasier.

GG: From the TV show?

LW: And he was a GREAT psychologist! He did a lot of pioneering studies. His lectures were fascinating and humorous. He made everybody watch Titticut Follies. After that course, I was completely enamored of him. (laughs) Another film that he showed, and I would like to get my hands on this…I don’t have the title of it, maybe you’ve seen it…it’s a film that he showed us which demonstrated the power of hypnosis. There is a film out there, it’s for medical students, in which a woman is hypnotized into singing “Row row row your boat” while she gets a caesarean section. The whole thing is filmed. People were passing out in the audience. It was AMAZING! Also one of the most powerful documentaries I’ve ever seen.

GG: Unbelievable. Let’s get a...fuck, what were they? That drink you know the one. They make it so good here.

LW: Oh. Well, we’re here at Damon’s. They make Mai Tais from scratch. They’re just absolutely delicious.

GG: Let’s get one.

[Note: I turn to slide out of my booth, and blocking my route to the urinals, at the end of the table, is The Old Hag.]

THE OLD HAG: Sexual crap!

LW: Excuse me?

GG: What?

TOH: You’re PERVERTS!

LW: Are you our waitress?

TOH: No I’m NOT! I’m at that table over there! I saw him talking with his mouth open! You two are talking trash, while eating! And he was chewing with his mouth open! What kind of talk is that?

GG: We’re sorry, we’ll keep it down.

TOH: What is this? I don’t understand how you can…

GG: He’s a filmmaker. I have to do this for a magazine. I’m interviewing him.

TOH: Sexual CRAP! I’m going to see the manager!

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GG: We freaked them out. We should get out of here.

LW: Oh Gene, that horrible old HAG! Oh, am I talking too loud?

GG: Yeah, come on, let’s just get out of here.

LW:Yeah, why can’t people mind their own damn business? That’s one of the central problems of our modern age. People don’t mind their own fuckin business!

GG: Shhhh!

LW: That’s 99% of the reason I despise all of humanity. But William Burroughs talks about this. See, that’s one of the first rules of being a Johnson. The first rule of being a Johnson is to mind your own business.

GG: In order to be a Johnson and not a Shit.

LW: Yeah, that’s right! See, she was a perfect example of a Shit. An anti-Johnson.

GG: She can hear you.

LW: Oh fuck, man. They’re long gone. They split. I think they got fed up. Did we have anything about sex in our conversation at all?

GG: No, not at all.

LW: As long as we don’t talk about the FIST FUCK movie, we’ll be-

GG: SHHHHHH!

LW: -okay. (laughing) I was trying to think, when I was in the bathroom back there, if there was any sexual content to our conversation. I don’t recall even mentioning the FIST FUCK movie I saw when I was a kid.

GG: SHHHHH! You’re going to get us thrown out of here!

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Ummmm…okay. Look. You guys have to keep it down. People are complaining.

GG: People are complaining?

RM: That’s what I said.

GG: Okay, well that’s fine. Because, the thing is, I am trying to do an interview, and those people out there-

RM: Yes?

GG: -are too loud.

RM: What do you mean?

GG: I mean, we’re going to need a quiet table. This is intolerable.

RM: Yes, I understand you’re-

GG: Right. This is for a magazine.

RM: Right. But you really have to lower it.

GG: We’ll keep it down.
LW: We’ll keep it down.

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GG: Alright, don’t you think we should- (laughing)

LW: Unbelievable.

GG: She saw you chewing with your mouth open.

LW: This reminds me of another incident. Oh wait, nevermind. Gene, listen, this great film I just saw, it’s called Nil By Mouth. Gary Oldman directed it, and he purposefully did not put himself in it because he wanted the film to be very, very realistic. This is one of the most brutal and extremely violent movies I’ve ever seen. I thoroughly enjoyed it so much, that just out of nervousness, I would burst out laughing. And the audience was just intensely quiet and disturbed by the film. I remember this guy sitting in front of me threatening me every time I would break out laughing. It was such an awkward situation. The girlfriend I was with insisted that we stay. I just couldn’t help myself. I’d just burst out every time something brutal and violent would happen, just out of nerves! It was an extremely intense film! So you see, this kind of incident always happens to me and it’s one of the primary motivations for me to stay home and just not go out in public. I really don’t enjoy the GENERAL PUBIC at all!

GG: Shhhhhhh!

LW: You know?

GG: I rarely go out myself. Never. Some things are just purely sick and evil, and going out too often is one of them.

LW: That’s the way to be! (laughing) One of the things I never learned in life is to think before I speak, and I hate to think that I’m one of these people that have diarrhea of the mouth. I have no control, you know what I mean? I just let it flow and whatever happens, happens. People, they get upset! They want to kill me! So be it.

GG: You shouldn’t say diarrhea in a restaurant.

LW: Well, William Faulkner used to piss people off in bars and he would hang out with Ernest Hemingway. When people were ready to beat him up, he would just turn to Hemingway and say, “Deal with him Ernest!”

GG: (laughs) Well don’t look to me. Your new film is about collectors and you have a lot of Bukowski-related footage.

LW: Yeah.

GG: Hey you know what? That reminds me, you met Bukowski.

LW: I was lucky enough to have met Bukowski on two occasions, and one was a reading of his at Cal State Los Angeles. It was wonderful. He brought an 8-pack of Budweiser with him to the reading. At the time, they had an 8 pack. I don’t think they do anymore. Bottles. He just laid the pack on the lecturn he was standing at, and said, “As soon as these are gone, I’m out of here.” And he goes, “Watch, they’re all going to laugh.” And he opened up one of the bottles, jerked his head back, and drained the entire beer. Until it was totally empty. He looked at the crowd and said “This is going to be a short reading.” Everyone exploded with laughter. I love Charles Bukowski. He is definitely one of the gods in my personal pantheon, and I’ve read all of his books. He made a big impression on me when I was 16, and incidentally, Gene…and this is how I met you too! Well, should I even mention-shit, I shouldn’t even mention that.

GG: That would be very bad for me.

LW: Well, that also led me to this film I caught on PBS, who I shouldn’t mention because I hate that organization. (laughs) Back in the 60s and 70s, they were alright. But they showed this Bukowski documentary by Taylor Hackford that really shook me up. At the time, I was reading Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales Of Ordinary Madness. The City Lights collection. That made an enormous impact on me Gene. And I almost immediately became an alcoholic! He was just so romantic about drinking. I was definitely ready, and I take full responsibility. But Bukowski made it easy. I admired his style so much, and the brevity of his prose. He was a genius. None of my friends who are writers and who are publishers have any respect for him. Not many people I know like Bukowski. It’s refreshing that we share a common interest in our favorite writer. Also, we share the same birthday.

GG: You were born on November fifth?

LW: No, Bukowski and I were both born on August 16th. Which I really enjoy. If anyone ever asks me if a celebrity was born on my birthday, I tell’em that Charles Bukowski was born on my birthday, and Elvis Presley died on my birthday. So every time my birthday comes around, I stay home and watch television. The only thing that’s on are old Elvis movies all day. Oh yeah, and pilgrimages to Graceland.

GG: (laughing)

LW: It’s weird that they never report on those pilgrimages to Green Hills Memorial Park where Bukowski is buried.

RESTAURANT MANAGER: Excuse me, but…
GG: Again?
RM: I’m afraid so.
GG: Let’s get out of here.

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DUFFY’S PUB

GG: That was a close call. We’re lucky they didn’t get nasty.

LW: They’re lucky we didn’t get nasty.

GG: You’ve been watching The Wild Bunch.

LW: I love that film.

GG: I know that is kind of your special place here in Glendale. Will they ever let you back in there? What was it called?

LW: Oh, Damons. Yeah. I’m very disappointed in them, because I’ve taken some good dates there, and never been given the bum’s rush before. But tonight…man, that was just another matter.

GG:THANK YOU! Could I get a coffee with this? So, you were telling me about Tijuana…

LW: Like I said, I spent three years going to all the bullfights in Tijuana, but I never went to the red light district. It never occurred to me. I was so obsessed about bulls. I wasn’t thinking about sex!

GG: (laughing)

LW: Well, one of my sidelines is that I’m also an artist. And I got an assignment from Hustler magazine to illustrate an article about the red light district in Tijuana. I had to see for myself. I read the article and said, “THIS IS AMAZING! I’ve been going there for three years and didn’t know about this?” So I went down there with a camera to photograph all of the signs, the cantinas have these almost low budget Vegas signs, these cheap signs that indicate all the bordellos in the red light district. I went down there to photograph them for the illustration that I did for Hustler, this article about Mexican prostitution. Of course, I knew I would have to sample the prostitutes there.

GG: Jesus Christ, man.

LW: This one bar, Adelita’s it’s called. If you’re on the internet and you do a search on Zona Norte and Tijuana, you’ll learn all about Adelita’s. It’s the most wonderful cantina and bordello in Tijuana. That is a place where a man who likes to drink, doesn’t ever want to leave. A man who likes beautiful women never wants to leave. A man who likes music, never wants to leave. Ever. It reminds me of…

GG: I…won’t go there. I’d die!

LW: It is so wonderful! It gives you a whole Under The Volcano feeling. You will become John Huston as you drink your third Tecate and your third shot of Tequila. Sam Peckinpah! And it’s heaven. The combination of the loud music, the dancing, the beautiful girls, the booze. You DON’T want to leave. The outside world just isn’t as good…as the interior of Adelitas. Especially if you love Mexican women.

GG: They’re that good, huh?
LW: Never had one?
GG: Not that I can remember.
LW: Well, you’re married now.
GG: That’s right.
LW: I’m sorry.
GG: (laughs)
LW: But aren’t you married to Lydia Lunch?
GG: That’s right.
LW: I mean, well, shit…you can’t have it any better than that.
GG: That’s right.
LW: She is the sexiest human being on Earth.
GG: That’s right.
LW: (laughs)
GG: You sir, will be the ruination of my good fortune. Don’t take me to Adelita’s. They’ll haul out a corpse! (laughs)

LW: No no no. I don’t want to interfere with your marriage. Believe me, and I will not give you any more enticing descriptions of the heaven I found south of the border. I’m sorry Gene. I don’t want to tamper with your domestic bliss. At all. I could only report that I am a very lonely son of a bitch myself, and very horny all the time. And I love Mexican women. I love Mexican culture. Music. Booze. I might wind up in Mexico at the end of my days. I don’t know. But I fantasize about that all the time. Have you seen Under The Volcano?

GG: I started reading the book, by Malcolm Lowry. I don’t think I will finish that book now you bastard. Anyway, it was once the property of a man who died. It may be haunted.

LW: It’s one of the few times in the history of film where you see a good adaptation of a book that you like. That’s one of them. It’s a very romantic film about the Day Of The Dead in Mexico.

GG: Doesn’t the protagonist of the book die of alcoholism? Didn’t the author commit suicide?

LW: Yeah, see? It has all the great elements of romanticism.

GG/LW: (laughing)

GG: FAT CITY! Have you seen Fat City?

LW: Oh yeah. Fat City is one of the greatest films of all time. John Huston is the only filmmaker I can think of who hasn’t made a bad film. They’re all perfect. My personal favorite is Treasure Of the Sierra Madre. When I met Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, he confided to me that it was one of his favorites as well.

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GG: Now look. We mentioned him before but I got sidetracked by…the Old Hag, I think. John Trubee. I want to go back to him. People HATE this guy. Why is that?

LW: Well, take that song for example. “Many Whores Copulate For Money” is one of his new songs.

GG: “Many Whores Copulate For Money.” (laughs) Does he mean opposed to whores that copulate for free? I haven’t met any of them.

LW: Yeah, see? It’s a line that doesn’t quite make sense. (laughs) And I have a big problem with it, because of course, as you well know, I love whores. And I don’t have a problem with whores copulating for money because that’s basically the deal, isn’t it?

GG: (shrieking, repulsive laughter)

LW:The only true relationship you can have is the relationship between john and whore. That’s a relationship I’ve certainly had with a number of prostitutes and believe me, I think it is the most honorable profession that there is. John Trubee, what he is getting at is something else, but I have problems with that lyric. It’s really interesting when you read these accounts of serial killers, how they really hate prostitutes and they go after them. Their victims are prostitutes. And I always thought that those people should get the worst kind of death penalty because to prey on a prostitute, to me, is just the most horrible of all crimes. They do civilization a great service. They do. To me, the whore is holy. And people like Mother Theresa are the most unholy. And the opposite of what I like in a woman.

GG: Christopher Hitchens wrote a book called Missionary Position, a book about Mother Theresa, who was the Ghoul Of Calcutta.

LW: Of course. And I would put Princess Di in the same boat. Anybody who puts on that “good guy” badge. I just assume the opposite right off the bat. And it’s just unconscionable to think that they would be against birth control and things that would really improve every situation in civilization, especially with the poor. LA is just getting more crowded and the freeways are obsolete. And to think that there are forces in the world that promote pregnancy and breeding, to me is EVIL in and of itself.

GG: It is extremely sick, I agree with you. “The sickest of all sick things” as Bukowski might say. (laughs)
LW: Yeah. (laughs)

GG: And let’s not forget the great Bill Hicks who remarked upon the miracle of childbirth, and any “miracle babychild”. “25,000 sperm to one egg? Gee, what are the fuckin odds?” What a great miracle, really.

LW: Another fucking hydrocephalic, blocking traffic. God. People are just so fucking stupid. And ugly. There is, there really is this unspoken law of averages, and it really seems like 95% of just everything I can think of is just garbage and should be gone. The Earth would be better off for it. That includes humanity who are basically mealworms. It’s really a shame that people take up so much space and that’s part of the reason why I make art, and films. I need to give my life meaning and without that, it would have none. I would just have nothing.

GG: Well, yeah and then what would you do? What would I do? We’d have to commit suicide! (laughs)

LW:Well of course I’d have to commit suicide, which is totally an honorable thing to do. My father is a big fan of Kevorkian , and you know, I think that he is just one of those ghoulish people too. I think he enjoys killing people. I’m really glad that the fucker is behind bars. Suicide should be a choice. It should not be made for you. And to me, he crosses that line. Suicide is the last freedom that you have. It is totally a personal freedom, and if that is taken away from you, this is not a society worth living in.

GG: Why don’t you make a movie about it?

LW: (laughs) Yeah, suicide would be a great subject for a film. Totally depressing, and nobody would want to see it! (laughs) That’s a subject that nobody likes to talk about.

GG: If you get the right people for the film, you never have to worry about getting sued, because they’ll all be dead.

LW: People talk about it being a cowardly act and I never understand when they say that. It’s natural to want to check out when you can’t…okay, Hemingway killed himself when he couldn’t create anymore. What’s wrong with that? He couldn’t do it anymore. That’s what he lived for. The written word.

GG: I had plenty of reasons to take myself out, but I always thought, what a stupid thing to do when your enemies are still alive.

LW: It’s better that you stay alive, because it’s just a thorn in the side of all those who hate you. Think of the enjoyment you will have creating pain for them.

GG: Believe me, I truly love it.

TAPE CUTS

LW: I don’t want to get married.

GG: Gee, I never woulda guessed that about you.

LW: When I saw Eraserhead, that was the final nail in the coffin. Any fantasy about getting hitched and having kids, that movie really did it to me. I watched it over and over again. Lynch doesn’t like talking about his movies, he wants them to remain mysteries. I go along with that too. There’s a great Belgian artist by the name of Magritte and he felt the same way! He distanced himself. Even though he is considered a surrealist, he distanced himself from all the other surrealists, because they all liked to psychoanalyze their own artwork, and talk about the subconscious. At the time, Freud was considered the pioneer of psychology, so they all looked to Freud to the answers to their creativity. Magritte didn’t want to talk about any of that nonsense. To him, his paintings were to be left mysterious. He believed in mystery and magic and there’s something to be said for that. I kind of go along with that too.

GG: It gets more the opposite all the time. There’s almost an international ban on mystery and respect for things in that sense. You are forced to see every detail, in everything. From a woman, to nature, to anything. Nothing is ever left to the imagination anymore. That bugs the shit out of me. I hate that porno is so big. I hate that every single fucking act and speck of flesh has to be shown. Whatever happened to modesty?

LW: (laughs)

GG: I’m dead serious.

LW: Well, it’s like these men’s magazines. The men’s mags up until the seventies were highly erotic! Women weren’t given gynecological examinations of their cervixes in full color. All of that is very interesting medically, but erotically doesn’t really do much.

GG: Well, hardcore porn is supposed to be erotic. All of it is supposed to have some power. To me, I have to be demented on coke to even watch that shit. It’s really fucking ugly and sickening.

LW: It’s a turn-off.

GG: It’s a BIG turn-off because it strips beauty out of sex and that’s what most people want, being immune to anything that’s actually meaningful in the first place.

LW: Another thing is that I have always fantasized about going to New Orleans, and it’s been a big thing since I was a kid. I always wanted to do the Mardi Gras thing. Well, I started renting these “Show your tits” videos, trying to get my interest level up, and it did the opposite! You see so many tits, after a while, what you do, you start to criticize the tits! Not all of them are that attractive, and it becomes a let down after a while. Pretty soon, I put the kabash on the whole trip. I’m not even going to go to Mardis Gras now. If I go at all it won’t be for “show your tits”, it’ll be for the architecture, or for the cemetery tours. Maybe a tour of the jazz clubs or something like that. The idea of being around a huge crowd of college students, and just everybody in the world showing their tits off, is to me, more horrible sounding than enticing.

GG: Drunk college students. There’s a turn-on. About as sexy as rectal cancer.

LW: Yeah, I agree. The death of everything good in a child is when they go to college. There really was a conspiracy to destroy my creative spirit at USC. I thought that I had to go to film school, I thought that was the next step to Hollywood. I believed with all my heart that I was doing the right thing. I got three scholarships. Now, I think it was the biggest mistake of my life! I totally got de-railed by it. I think the only good I got out of my college education were the other courses I took outside of film. I had seen all the movies that they were showing in film school. I’d already made films. I knew how to make a film. So it was no big thing to make a film with other students. But there was always coercion involved in collaborating and emphasizing this collaborative process of film. And that just BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. Because I envied my best friend, who went to art school in San Francisco, who would actually sit down in class where there was a bag of marijuana on a table. In drawing class. The students would chip in to buy pot and then smoke it in class! I thought, “this is amazing! This is going on in art school and I am learning to collaborate with all of these knuckleheads who don’t know anything about movies!” I thought, “man, I took the wrong path. I should have gone to art school.” I should have gone to San Francisco where everyone was getting high and having fun, getting laid, instead of being with these spoiled rich brats at a major institution where the professors were all engaged in this horrible conspiracy to destroy anyone and everyone’s creativity. Individuality was [smacking his hand] not to be tolerated. It was like going to church. It was HORRIBLE! My folks didn’t raise me in any kind of religion, so I didn’t like that kind of mob mentality in a supposedly creative environment. I was taught to be a free-thinker. From the beginning. I was never baptized. Their attitude was, if I want to get caught up in religion, that’s up to me. I could find it on my own. But they weren’t going to force any shit on me. Or any kind of “ism”.

GG: I consider any college, and especially big schools such as USC and NYU to be the absolute death of individuality and creative thought. People are aghast when I say that, because the opposite is supposed to be happening there. But college students are the most disgusting, mediocre, pretentious, dry, dead people I’ve ever met.

LW: Absolutely! Captain Beefheart said it best. “The smart fish leaves the school.”

GG: Rick Strange said, “Schools are for fish”. There’s never been a truer sentiment passed around. Take “ART SCHOOL” for example. That, to me, is an oxymoron.

LW: And it’s true. You are the masturbator of your own fate, and you can discover all the books you want to read on your own. Anybody can research what interests them. And that’s what I’ve been up to my whole life. I don’t need anyone else telling me what to do. And this whole collaborative process of filmmaking to me, is just a sham! And also this idea of the “independent filmmaker” and these “independent films”. What is that? Those are just like low-budget Hollywood movies. And they’re high budget, they cost millions of dollars!

GG: Low budget Hollywood, or expensive indie, what’s the fucking difference?

LW: They’re wearing this badge that says they are independent, but it’s utter bullshit.

GG: Hal Hartley and Todd Solondz, SUCK MY DICK!

LW: (laughs) It’s odd, you know. The films I make are true independent films. I’m the only one making them. I am the director, I am the cameraman, I’m the editor, I write the thing, I interview everyone. I do everything myself, you see. There’s no one else involved. It should be that way.

GG: Well Larry, you can NOT make movies that way. Maybe your films you can. Maybe documentaries can be made that way. But you can’t make a feature length fiction film that way. That’s absurd.

LW: Yes, and that’s why I make documentaries.

GG: Larry Wessel, the Misanthropic Cameraman.

LW: I can’t deal with other people and I can’t deal with anyone messing with my creative thought. I’m more of an artist than a filmmaker and I can’t imagine anybody…like a committee getting together with Picasso to decide that he shouldn’t put a third eye in the middle of a woman’s forehead if he doesn’t fucking want to. It’s absurd, this idea of somebody guiding his hand as he makes a painting. I don’t see that. I see one guy, one canvas, one vision. The minute you collaborate, you infuse your project with the evil entity known as compromise.

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GG: In Ultramegalopolis there’s a great story…one of your interview subjects saved Charles Manson’s life. He also vividly describes going up to a prisoner, who is being escorted out of prison, with the guards all around him. He goes right up there, right behind, and begins to stab the guy until he stops breathing. He seems like such a nice guy.

LW: (laughing) This is part of the reason I do documentaries. Anything can happen. You just have to be patient enough and keep shooting until something great happens. And these miracles happen all the time. This is another instance of what keeps me going. I was visiting the Goddess Bunny, who is this amazing polio stricken transsexual, and she always lives with hustlers. They help her pay her rent so she can spend her welfare checks on booze and live a lavish lifestyle.

GG: Yeah. That sounds faaaaaabulous, honey.

LW: I was visiting her, videotaping the Goddess, and this hustler who was sitting next to her, kept interrupting the conversation. He had some really amazing things to say about the California Youth Authority. So I turned my camera on him, and just let him go off. He was great! I had no idea that it was leading up to this, but he ended the whole dialogue by telling me that he saved Charles Manson’s life. That he was cellmates with Charlie Manson. And he was in an art class with Charlie when a Hare Krishna prisoner walked up to Charlie, splashed him in the face with a flammable liquid, and torched him with a Bic lighter. Manson was on fire. Andrew, my new friend who I was videotaping, told me that he covered Charlie with a blanket, smothered the flames. And saved Charlie’s life. Anyway I got this amazing confessional from him, just because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. It’s these sort of situations that I find myself in, that make me continue being a documentary filmmaker, because these wonderful things happen when you least expect them. In a way, Lynch has described the creative process as fishing, and I look it the same way. You must have the patience of a fisherman to catch those big ones. If you sit around long enough, the big ones will nibble on your line and bite eventually. It’s worth it in the end. And the only way you can afford to do that is to shoot miles and miles and hours and hours of footage.

GG: And that is only videotape.

LW: That’s the beautiful thing about videotape. You can do that.

GG: My last question. Is there ever a topic you wanted to cover but couldn’t? Is there anything that was not within your means to document, even with video?

LW: There are actually two things I would love to do, but they would definitely require investors.

GG: And maybe a crew. You never know.

LW: And I do have proposals for these, written up in the event that they ever happen. But I would love to do a documentary about Mexican murder magazines, to hang out with the Mexican police and newspaper crews, who show up at crime scenes. I find that endlessly fascinating. I’m a big collector of Mexican murder magazines.

GG: I saw that image on that Brujeria CD cover, from a Mexican death mag. The severed head. See, that cover, and all that Mexican gore, there’s just a certain kind of death that happens in Mexico that repulses me more than death in any other culture. I went to that hideous Museum Of Death once, in Hollywood, and I saw those pictures from Central and South America, and it was about the most negative, pointless, disgusting morbid, nihilistic and completely negative fucking display I’ve seen in my life. That’s one thing I do not enjoy looking at. It’s like staring at road kill, only the faces are uglier.

LW: But on the other hand, Gene…I don’t think that everything is yin and yang and has two sides, because I believe there are more than two sides to a coin. In Mexican culture, death is part of life, and I think a more realistic look at death will make you realize that it is indeed part of life, and there is no life without death, and they can co-exist. They can not exist without each other.

GG: Yes, but the excrementality of it is uglier and messier in those magazines. Yes, we know that rotted bodies stink. Everybody knows you shit your pants when you die. This is all pointless and morbid shit, why wallow in something that is completely wretched?

LW: I am opposed to censorship of any kind, especially when it involves death. Death is a very important subject to deal with and one of the essential problems with our culture is that we fail to deal with the realities of death. We see it every night played out in the form of these fictional cop shows on television, where people are getting shot constantly, and people like to bitch and moan about that. But we never really see actual death. Case in point is the R. Bud Dwyer suicide. Viewers never saw him bleed. You saw him pull the gun from the brown paper bag and that was the end of the broadcasted footage. To me, although it may initially be unpleasant, it is very, very important in society.

GG: The thing is, death in Mexico, as shown in those magazines, is uglier than American death, because in Mexico, you may not get shot in the head, you may be hacked to death by three or four swinging machetes. Death in Mexico is often a brutal and uncivilized death. To get shot in the head is America is civilized by comparison to Mexican and South American brutality.

LW: If you can’t afford a gun, you use a machete. It’s poverty that you object to.

GG: You don’t have to be an animal just because you’re poor.

LW: Oh Gene, poor people are so filthy and disgusting and dirty that you don’t want to look at them!

GG: That’s not true. What are you talking about?

LW: (laughing) This thing of being hacked up with a machete….I fail to see the difference between being hacked up with a machete and being shot execution style in the head with a bullet.

GG: There’s a BIG difference!

LW: But the end result is the same, is it not?

GG:Look, death is ugly, and the only places that can make it even uglier than it is…are places like Mexico where human life is cheap and there is no dignity in death. I can deal with death, but I’d rather not see the pornography of death, which is something that…

LW: (laughing) No, no. Go ahead.

GG: What? You’re shaking your head, making faces at me. Am I drinking too much?

LW: No, you’re saying things that I totally, violently disagree with. You’re making value judgments about Mexico. You’ve made so many rapid fire denouncements, that I would have to have you rewind the tape to disagree with each point. But I disagree. I see more honesty in the reportage of violence south of the border. I see more comfort in death. I see an acknowledgement that death is a way of life in Mexico, and that’s absent in America. Here everything is so sanitized and I think it’s really dangerous to hide death from people. I mean, for instance, kids in America grow up today thinking that a hamburger comes from a hamburger patch in McDonaldland. I think that’s incredibly dangerous.

GG: I agree with you about that. I have nothing against Mexico! I wasn’t making an anti-Mexico statement. But selling the pornography of death there makes the entire culture appear creepy and violent. It makes it seem to me, as someone who knows this gorenography that you’re talking about, that it would be impossible to die a dignified death in Mexico! Death does not have to be getting beaten to death with a hammer or taken apart by a nail gun. But this is the visual commodity that sells the stuff you’re so interested in.

LW: Let’s go back to the part about it being totally undignified. I totally disagree. It couldn’t be more dignified than it is in Mexico. They have a Day of the Dead in Mexico, where the dead are totally deified, and treated like one of the living. They are given meals in the cemetery. Families have picnics in cemeteries in Mexico. They totally respect death.

GG: What’s dignified about shots of severed heads being carried around by the hair, like on that Brujeria album cover?

LW: Brujeria is the product of an artist who lives in San Francisco! That’s a white middle class guy!

GG: You’re kidding?

LW: No I’m not kidding. That is not real! I mean, I love it, but it’s like a transvestite. It’s a totally manufactured conceit. Brujeria does not come from a cocaine cartel south of the border. It’s some cat in S.F. who’s having fun with the iconography of drug violence and Mexican tabloids and everything.

GG: Yeah but the gore and hideousness on those tabloids comes from deaths which are often drug related and in a country whose economy is hugely supplemented by money which comes from narcotic sales. Drug money.

LW: Yeah, because they have to be.

GG: Drug related deaths are often the ugliest. In a country where drugs are an essential part of the economy, you run into the worst ways to die, the scariest and most gruesome kinds of dying.

LW: And all the Mexican reporter does is report what he sees. To hide that from the public is more pornographic to me, than to show it. And to equate the truth with pornography is really wrongheaded. I don’t think you really mean it, but pornography is something that’s done in order to make money. Steven Spielberg is the biggest pornographer of all, because he’s an emotional pornographer. All of his films are completely without soul, without life.

GG: Are Mexican death mags not the pornography of death?

LW: Well, it could be argued that yes, the tabloids exploit death in order to make money. You could criticize all yellow journalism and throw it all away. But they also report death uncut on the news. You’ll see the body that got hit by the train on network television. And on Mexican news in Los Angeles. It’s part of the reason why I watch that news.

GG: But eventually, it just becomes an end in itself. “How much meat and gristle can we show before the lens gets wet.” I’m not in the habit of poking dead animals with a stick just to see how many bugs come out.

LW: But Gene, Gene, Gene! We’re all made up of blood and bones, that’s what we are. There’s nothing ugly to me about a corpse or a dismembered body. To me, that’s what we’re all made of. It is what it is. It’s not pornographic, it’s reality.

GG: Yeah, we are made of flesh. Living flesh.

LW: Yeah.

GG: Not a pile of rotting shit. People aren’t piles of rotting shit. Well, actually, most of them are. They just don’t know it. You’re right. I give up. But I won’t succumb to an attitude which respects putrefaction and rot. And another thing-fuck it. No more tirading. I’m sorry.

LW: (laughing)

GG: So anyway that was one project you wanted to do.

LW: I’d love to do that but it would be very dangerous and perhaps a suicide mission for me to even consider it. Another thing I want to do…maybe someone out there will do it for me so I don’t have to and can just enjoy watching it…but I would LOVE to document all of the amazing violent amusement parks in Asia. They support all of the temples. I don’t know if you know about this or not, but there are these bizarre low budget Disneylands all over Asia, that depict all the torments and tortures of the afterlife. And they’re just phenomenal! You can see a little of this in Shocking Asia and a few Mondo films, but nobody’s ever done a comprehensive documentary on the way that hell is depicted in these theme parks, for children!

GG: I know, I’ve seen those Hell comics by…

LW: Hideshi Hino?

GG: Yeah! Panorama Of Hell. You know it?

LW: I love it. I loved Guinea Pig too.

GG: Ehhhhhhhhh! Why’d ya have to mention fucking Guinea Pig?

LW: One of the people you interviewed in Sex & Guts 3 criticized Guinea Pig. But I absolutely love it to death.

GG: GORENOGRAPHY!

LW: I have a good story about that.

GG: The one about Charlie Sheen?

LW: Oh no, fuck Charlie Sheen. He’s an idiot. But the same thing happened to me. I got invited by a group of Narcotics Anonymous kids to show six hours worth of gore films at one of their raves. I don’t know why they wanted to do this, but they asked me to show the most explicit and violent footage I had. These kids were all ex-junkies. They were all sober so they were drinking JOLT cola. They wanted to see something really wild, and I have a reputation for having underground videos and everything. I put together a compilation for their rave. And it included Hideshi Hino’s Guinea Pig.

GG: Whoah. Wait a minute. Hideshi Hino did Guinea Pig? You’re fuckin kidding.

LW: Yeah he made those and he starred in one as well.

GG: Wait, he plays the samurai, who dismembers that girl?

LW: Yeah! That’s Hideshi Hino. That’s his first film. In fact, that’s the most popular one, the one that everybody likes.

GG: The Flower Of Flesh and Blood.

LW: That’s it. It’s really well documented in a great book called Killing For Culture.

GG: It’s a supremely depressing book. I love it but…well, you know my attitude.

LW: They covered my film Taurobolium in the book, which I’m really proud of. So I thought nothing of putting Guinea Pig on the reel, along with raw bullfight footage I had shot and other things. I forgot what else was on there, but pretty innocuous stuff, as far as I was concerned. Anyway, the very next day I get a call from the police department telling me that somebody had complained, at this party I had shown films at, that I was showing snuff movies. I couldn’t help but laugh. At the time, that German case hadn’t happened yet. There has been a documented case of a real snuff tape in Germany, but at the time, it was still urban myth.

GG: What about Charles Ng?

LW:Him and Leonard Lake made those movies for their own personal enjoyment.

GG: Technically not snuff because it wasn’t meant for the public.

LW: Technically not snuff, no. Just home movies for themselves. They weren’t made as pornography for distribution. Snuff has always been an urban legend. I’ve studied a lot of police psychology and forensics, and I know a lot about the police. They’ll believe anything. There’s a lot of nonsense in police literature. One of their mistakes used to be the belief in the existence of snuff films. There has never been a case, ever, until very recently, in Germany, involving a snuff movie. Anyway, the cops accused me of showing a snuff movie, and “did I know what this guy was talking about?” I said “yeah, I probably know what you’re talking about. It’s a film called Guinea Pig, by a Japanese manga artist named Hideshi Hino. He says, “will you loan it to me”? I said I’d gladly loan it to him but I wanted the copy back. I lied to him. I made a copy of it because it was hard to get at the time and I was afraid they’d confiscate or lose it. At the time, it was banned all over Japan. You couldn’t get this film anywhere. That was because of a serial killing in Japan that was blamed on this film because it was found in the collection of the killer. They blamed his crimes on this film. Anyway the cop wanted to see it. I made him a copy and brought it down to the police department. I got a call a couple days later. “Is this Larry Wessel?” “Yeah.” “We have your film, you can pick it up now Mr. Wessel.” Before he could hang up, I said “hey wait a minute. What did you think of the special effects in that film? They’re pretty amazing, huh?” He said, “yeah, they were pretty amazing alright.” He says, “they were too amazing. Personally Mr. Wessel, I have a real problem with you showing this film to the general public and I would appreciate it if you would never show this film to the public again. You got me?” I said, “yes sir!” Then I went over there and I picked up my movie. But I just couldn’t help but laugh to think that this guy, or anybody would be fooled by this movie.

GG: Well…it’s raw. It’s shot on video. The effects are completely convincing, why wouldn’t they think it was real snuff? I had to watch it once just to see it, but as far as entertainment, it was like watching the Operation Channel. It was nauseating. It’s by no means entertainment.

LW: Gene, I HAVE TO disagree with you! I found it highly entertaining, full of dark humor. There’s all kinds of really funny shots in it, where he’s using a really rusty hammer and chisel, and the blood is hitting him in the face. There’s a lot of really dark humor. The very fact that Charlie Sheen would be fooled by it and call the FBI and complain about a snuff tape at that party is absolutely hilarious.

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LW: You know about Reverend Steven Johnson Lebya?

GG: You do love the creepy stuff don’t you? Anyway, I’ve seen his pictures but I have even more scars than he does. Here, see?

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LW: I hate to say this, Rev., but I just met a guy, and…well, you’ve met your match now! [Hysterical laughter]

GG: Just so I don’t end this on a self indulgent note, let’s try and get back to you for a quick second, if that would be okay?

LW: (still laughing)

GG: You know, it bein’ the LARRY WESSEL INTERVIEW and all? It’d be nice, thanks, if we could do that.

LW: Well, I’m finding you more fascinating by the minute. After seeing this amazing constellation of scar tissue on your chest-

GG: Yes, I’m very talented, I know. Could we talk about the bulls now please?

LW: My curiosity is totally piqued to the max. Maybe if you agree, we could do a documentary about you! (laughing uncontrollably at me)

GG: Larry, Larry, Larry. You got me all wrong. I’m actually a decent guy. I believe in taste and decency, you know. Not all this death stuff. I’m serious. I’m one of these, ah…

LW: (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) It’s…hahaha…it’s very interesting to see this guy completely covered in scars, self inflicted scar tissue complaining about Mexican murder magazines and Guinea Pig. I love you even more Gene, and I’m totally fascinated with your world views.

GG: This country’s going down the tubes, Larry.

LW: Well, thank god that we have Sex & Guts, to warn everybody and to shine a light on our dire situation.

GG: I’m wondering now. Is that a political, social, or artistic light. Personally, me, speaking as myself, I think it would be all three of those.

LW: Let me just add something to this. I certainly hope that those self inflicted wounds are not a precursor to suicide because I like the good work that you’re doing and I want to see you continue to do it and live to be a very old man. Like myself. We’ll have lots to discuss and laugh about when we do finally decide to let them pull the plug on us. (laughs)

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LW: He’s a real artist, you know.

GG:Hubert Selby?

LW: Oh my god, I wish I had one novel in me. And…and this is a really odd thing to say, but I think of the films I do as novels. I think of them as a new way of looking at something and I’m always trying to make the great American novel. And I think that I did something with bullfighting, which you haven’t seen yet, but I urge you to see my film Taurobolium. I am the first person ever to document bullfighting the way it really is. There are fictional accounts of it that are really good, like The Bullfighter & The Lady, for instance. But yeah, I’m the first person to document real bullfighting.

GG: Even though Hemingway was a great writer, it is hard to get a total sense of it in The Sun Also Rises.

LW: Hemingway did it in writing. The Sun Also Rises is a great novel. Especially his book Death In The Afternoon, a book I read in the third grade. I was eight years old. So I’ve been fascinated with bullfighting ever since I was a child. And I never got to see a live bullfight until 1990. But I used to see them on television all the time. They used to show them, live from Tijuana. Then they put the kabash on it. They made a deal with the FCC to stop showing bullfights on television. There’s been active censorship involved in the depiction of bullfighting in America. Across the world, there’s an active effort to end bullfighting. I’m totally opposed to that. I consider myself someone who believes in animal rights, but to a degree. I eat meat, I wear leather, I use products that are tested on animals. Without animal testing we wouldn’t have great breakthroughs in medicine. We must do that.

GG: But which kinds of animals? When it comes to that, it’s like why rabbits as opposed to dogs. Why dogs as opposed to gerbils. LW: To me, people would be the perfect animals to experiment on. I have no qualms with that.

GG:This isn’t about either of us being a misanthrope here. It’s like this: you take an animal, and you torture it, you do whatever you do to it. Anything that doesn’t feel good to an animal, terrifies it. It doesn’t understand pain, which makes that trauma twice as hideous for it. Anything that hurts, will confuse and warp an animal, dysfunction it, because it has no sense of context, reason, or motive. That, to me, is worse than torturing a human being, who at least knows why. So this woman is stabbed to death, so this man dies in the hospital, so this little boy falls off a fucking cliff and breaks his neck. At least any of these three human beings would know that they were being attacked, that they were sick, that they fucked up. An animal doesn’t know what’s going on around it when it’s being poked and shaved and the sick shit scientists do in test labs. Again, you’re walking along and a van stops, a guy with gloves and a mask grabs you, as a human being, you may know that you’re fucked. Unless you’re fucking stupid, you know that the world is a bad place and that these things happen. Sure it sucks if they happen to you, BUT…I’d prefer that to being a small creature trapped and not understanding why these things are happening to me, why I am in this cage, and why I can’t be left alone. To me, that’s infinitely scarier than what people do to each other. You know what I mean? That’s why human beings are better to test products on. One, they are evil, and two, things can, at the very least, be explained to them. “We’re going to put this shit in your eyes, and it’s going to hurt. But we’ll give you a thousand dollars and a lifetime supply of shampoo.”

LW: I can think of several people I’d like to have eye tests performed on. But getting back to bullfighting…

GG: (laughs) Sorry.

LW: I think that the animal rights groups are misdirected. They should really be going after McDonalds, and they should really be going after the people who produce meat. To me, that is the ultimate in evil as far as abuse of animals is concerned. I mean, the destiny of a bovine is pretty bad no matter how you look at it. A cow does not have a decent life. However, in the bullring…and believe me, my film Taurobolium can be enjoyed by bullfight enthusiasts and anti-bullfight crusaders alike. Because all it is, is a depiction of what it really is. I’m not glamorizing the act either way. But bulls that make it to the ring actually live twice as long as those that get ground up into Big Macs. And to me, the way bulls and cows alike get treated…we have these fairy tale ideas of what farms are like, but they’re not like that at all.

GG: No. They’re torture chambers.

LW: They’re like concentration camps.

GG: Especially if you’re a veal. You’re locked in a cage and you have shit being forced down your throat until your belly is swollen and you’re sick, then they’re back in ten minutes doing the same thing. They’re force fed. This is going to be a very pleasant interview for the public.

LW: And I shudder to think about what gets ground into those meat patties. These animals live their entire existence penned up and crowded together in these horrible confines, and a bull that makes it to the arena for a bullfight, has been raised on open land. Gets to eat what it wants to eat. It lives twice as long. So my question to the animal rights activists is, whose destiny is preferable? The fighting bull or the meal bull? Personally, I’d rather be a fighting bull and be given the opportunity to kill a human being.

GG: Makes sense to me. If this interview could possibly end on a redeeming and uplifting and socially acceptable note…I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian! Soon.

LW: I tried eating only vegetables and I’m on a very strict diet now. I only eat fish, chicken, and turkey, in combination with vegetables and fruit. I’ve been losing weight drastically. I think all red meat should be abolished. It causes cancer. But I have to say to these animal rights people, please, stop going after the bullfights. This is an ancient tradition and should continue. I actually was very much on the fence about bullfighting until I finished the film and realized what an amazing thing it is. I promote it as an art form and respect it as such.

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GG: Let’s end this with a quote. Do you have a favorite aphorism, or quote?

LW: Ernest Hemingway said, “Watching a bullfight is like having a front row seat in a war.” Pablo Picasso said, “A good Spaniard goes to church in the morning, goes to a bullfight in the afternoon, and to the whorehouse at night.”

GG: It’s all bullfights with you, isn’t it?

LW: Pretty much, Gene.