Man in Camo (2018) - full transcript
Man in Camo takes a close look at the life of visual artist, writer and filmmaker Ethan Minsker and his drive to create and crusade the making of art. Through the lens of old photographs ...
- Hey, come on in.
When you were born,
it was 25 hours of labor.
When they pulled you out,
you had the umbilical
cord around your neck.
- I was born in Boston in 1969.
A year later, my
parents got married.
They were both hippies.
They met up in the
universities up there.
My father later became a
lawyer for Richard Nixon
and worked for him
for the next 30 years.
We're all Democrats.
That's just how it is in D.C.
You work for the Republicans
because they have the money.
- So the doctors took you away,
put you an an incubator
so I never held you
until three days later.
My mother
was organizer
and draft evasion counselor
for SDS, Students for
a Democratic Society.
- You had these
little turtle eyes
and you kind of looked
at me like who are you?
- I'm dyslexic.
- We went to New York.
We went with this
group that specialized
in testing dyslexia and
developing exercises
that would help you progress.
They just remembered
sitting in this office
and they came up with
these silly exercises
telling you to
crawl on the floor
and it would be
embarrassing to you.
Then we'd crawl and
I didn't think we had
confidence that it was
helping in any way.
In retrospect, that was not
a particularly good idea.
Sad business.
- Your dyslexia has
been one of the most
formative factors of your life.
Diagnosed at a very young age
and the whole way you
interact with the world
has been through the way your
brain processes information.
It's cording who you are.
- I'm not sure where
dyslexia comes from.
In fact, nobody really knows.
I suppose if I had to guess,
it would be from having
the umbilical cord
wrapped around your
neck when you were born
and cutting off oxygen.
- When you're a kid and
you're anything different,
you're ostracized, you're
picked on, called stupid.
People in my school
wondering why this seven
or eight year old kid
was falling asleep
in all of his classes
and it was mostly because
every night I would go
home to a screaming match.
When my parents finally
did get divorced,
they decided to stay in
the District of Colombia.
♪ Burden child
♪ I'll see when I'll smile
1977 so it was kind of close to
the end of the Vietnam War.
Every night when my
father would come home,
he would turn on
the nightly news
and there would be images of
war and death and violence.
Asked my mother what
did it mean to die.
My mother said, people
have different beliefs.
Some people believe
you die and then
you go to heaven or hell.
Some people believe
when you die,
you're reincarnated and
I looked into her eyes
and I was like, well,
what do you believe?
My mother was everything.
This was like the center
of knowledge for every kid
and my mother said,
oh that's it, the end.
When you die, it's
like a switch going off
so it's just a
void of blackness.
And for me at like that age,
I was like, what the hell?
I was afraid to go to sleep,
I was afraid to go out.
I mean, I didn't want
to meet this void
because I was terrified of it.
A seven year old kid really
can't comprehend that.
After that, I went
through this whole period
of being afraid to go outside.
I would stay home
and watch movies
so this is right around
the same time that
Betamax came out.
We had one of the early
first Betamax decks.
I would stay home and watch like
three or four movies a night
and I did this for maybe two
years or something like that
until I finally said,
I can't take it anymore
and instead of hiding from
things that might hurt me,
I ran head long into it.
You are now
watching Russian TV.
This is no way influenced
by the government.
- Good morning
fellow Russianers.
Today in the weather,
there will be
60 percent chance of showers.
Hell, I can't take anymore,
it's hell.
- Oh my god.
- You okay?
- That is a film from
when I was 14 in 1984.
My background in film is
that I started making movies
when I was seven years
old and never stopped.
I never signed up killing
myself a lot in these videos.
This is shot on
Betamax before VHS
and this is me playing
myself in both roles.
I play the two guys.
It's upstairs guy
versus downstairs guy.
Because I'm the only one,
I have to keep
coming to the camera
and turning it off by hand.
I knew exactly the timing
so I could turn it on,
get in the frame in the position
and walk towards the
camera and turn it off.
Not good aiming,
a lot of shooting.
This is the big
finale coming up.
Did you have
a happy childhood?
Did I have a what?
- Turn it on, oh.
- Film was like a
salvation for me.
♪ Once upon a time
there was a dream ♪
♪ Biggest in the world
♪ You know what I mean
My grandfather gave me
his old Super 8 camera,
which was a hand crank
and you had the cartridge
you had to put into
it and you had to get
the film developed.
The first time I
got that film back
and projected it on a wall,
it was just splashes of
light and I was hooked.
♪ Castle by the flame
♪ She said I'll
show you something ♪
♪ Like you've never
known before ♪
Then once camcorders
came into reality,
I started shooting these videos
and the videos were
one Betamax tape
containing three hours
of skits and shorts
and I would spend
probably about six months
every day shooting
these little videos.
In my mind, these were epic
movies that I was making.
- Hey Bobs, what's
happening, man?
Hey yeah, it's a really
nice day, isn't it.
- Yes it is, Bob, yes it is.
It's a real nice day,
it's just terrific.
- Yeah, I raped your
girlfriend, you know.
- What?
Oh my god, no no no.
Freeze, asshole.
- Wait, wait Bob, wait Bob.
I was only joking, Bob.
- Doesn't matter,
doesn't matter.
You're fucked man,
you're really fucked.
- I was joking, man, I was joke.
- I went to a private
school for kids
with learning disabilities
and at a certain point,
I outgrew the school.
Then I had to be in
a special ed class.
We're gonna send you to just
go look at this public school.
I went into audit the class
and these were
kids that were like
severely physically and
mentally handicapped
and the teacher really
didn't teach so much
as acted like a nurse,
made sure they were eating
and using the bathroom
and all of those things
and the teacher at the end
was like, look, you
really can't go here.
Just go anywhere else but
you're not suited for this.
My mother basically
had tricked me to go to
a boarding school in Boston.
- I completely deny that.
- Every weekend I wanted
to go into the city
because that's where
the punk rock shows were
at this place called the Rath.
I started dying my hair black
and dressing more punk rock
and this was a school
with a dress code
so I had to come back to school
and then hide everything.
You know, put it under a
bandana when I had a mohawk
and all of this.
Oh.
God, I hate morning.
Shit.
Going to school, god damn.
- We put in a lot of hours.
I guess that, comes with
being a lawyer in D.C.
Ethan!
- I became very depressed.
One night I was
with my girlfriend
and we had just come
from seeing a show,
Hayden Hall in Boston
and we were walking back
to her neighborhood
in Brookline.
That night I had been
drinking a fair amount
as I did every time
to get the courage
to go to these punk rock shows
and the car was
driving up the street
and I ran and I dove
in front of the car
but I was so drunk instead
of going in front of the car
I actually landed right in
the door and the car stopped.
The guy was like
opening his door
and then I got up and
started screaming at him,
like, you fucking asshole,
why didn't you hit me?
I started kicking the door and
the driver looked at me like,
what the fuck?
This kid's totally
crazy and drove off.
I was 16 years old.
After I had an epiphany
and you're gonna die
so why would I give
the satisfaction
to the rest of the world
by ending my life early?
Why wouldn't I just
sit here and try to
do as much damage
and make as much art,
put myself out there
as much as I can,
and after that, it
made me more aggressive
about pursuing what
I wanna do in life.
I'm not recommending
it to anybody else,
but that's what it did for me.
- You had blond curly hair,
wholesome looking
teenager and I went to
the airport to meet you
and then this creepy
looking kid gets off.
He's got a Mohawk,
chains around his neck,
looked like he hadn't
had a bath in weeks,
and I'm thinking to myself,
oh, his poor parents.
Can you imagine having
that kind of kid?
And all of the sudden I
hear from behind me, hi mom,
and I turned around and that
creepy looking kid was you.
My first impulse was
to take my raincoat
and throw it over your head
so no one would see you,
but you were my son,
so I gave you a big hug
and said, welcome home.
- Film me, I'm gonna
have to hurt you.
Why, it's your camera?
You should be.
- I don't wanna be filmed.
Really
think about it hard.
- A lot of the reason
I got into punk rock
at such an early age was
because of my parents' divorce.
My mother moved to
Georgetown in Washington D.C.
which is a neighborhood
where there was
a lot more alternative stores,
there was punk rock
kids hanging out.
♪ Can't do something
just don't get it ♪
On M Street, there was a
record store called Smash
and in there, I would
go ask the clerk,
what do you think is a
really good record to get
and then I would run
home and then play it
over and over again.
♪ Dead end's best
♪ Just like the rest
Part of helping me learn
to become a better writer
is I would take
the lyrics sheets,
'cause every punk rock
record has a lyric sheet
and I would hand copy
out every word for word
onto a cassette tape
and make mix tapes
that I would then give
out to my friends.
♪ Down and everyone here
♪ Trying to do something
they just don't get ♪
Prior to punk, everything
was what you can't do.
If you can't read,
you're inferior.
Punk rock was that key that said
none of that matters.
It was like Occam's razor.
It leveled the playing field.
It was a sign on
the door that said
there are no boundaries.
You can kick this door in,
you can walk through this door,
you can open other doors.
- Fuck you, man, fuck
you, fuck your family.
♪ Fuck this town
and everyone in it ♪
♪ Trying to do something
and they just don't get it ♪
- Once we became teenagers,
it was pretty much
us on our own.
We didn't really see
any adults until later
in the evening and just
did what we wanted.
- My house became the place
where everyone hung out
and everyone was
drinking and having sex
and doing whatever
and me and my sister
basically raised ourselves
like feral little animals
that we are.
This is a day of a
normal boy's life
driving through the
suburban neighborhoods.
And this is my brother.
- Go away.
- One of the very first
creative things I did,
I started making
silk screen shirts.
♪ 20 dollars it's all I got
♪ 20 dollars and
it give me a lot ♪
When I went back
to Washington D.C.,
I started printing these shirts.
I just wanted people to see it.
I wasn't trying to make a profit
and I didn't realize I
was ripping off the artist
who designed the flyer
and I didn't realize
I was ripping off the
band the Bad Brains
which was also a D.C. band
and I started selling
these shirts in Smash.
I had put my name Ethan M on
the bottom of every shirt.
The owner off Smash
coming up to me,
going like, look, your
shirts are really great
but you got to do
me a favor, kid.
Take your name off
of that because Daryl
from the Bad Brains has been
coming in looking for you
and he is pissed.
I stopped making
shirts after that
and that's when I
noticed the fanzines.
We're here
with Project Nerd.
- See, this guy's got it.
Speaking of this guy,
this is Ethan joining us
for a very special
episode of the Nerd Cast.
So what is a zine?
- You have fan, a fan
of something specific,
and magazine.
Put the two words
together, fanzines.
Magazines that are
independently published,
sometimes Xeroxed, but
the one thing they're not
is polished.
I would look at these
zines and go like hey,
this is all kind of a mess and
I think I could do this too
and I really got into it.
- It's a passion project.
Nobody makes money, it's
just artists who want
people to see their artwork.
- How many of you
were born before 1988,
anybody in here?
Okay, this is me in high school.
My fanzine developed from
a music centered zine
to something that was
more focused on the arts.
♪ Let's go get lost somewhere
♪ Where only love
is in the air ♪
People started recognizing me.
It gave me confidence
to keep trying
to pursue something
creative because
it was the first time
that not only was I
able to express myself,
but I felt like I was
affecting the
community at large.
- If he was a boss, I would
find this very difficult
but since we were friends
before we did this,
we can both call each
other on our shit
and that's how we
talk to each other.
- I've never read
a single fanzine.
I've distributed
them at coffee shops everywhere,
but I've been in them.
I don't think I've
ever really read it.
- Slightly irritated at the way
people sometimes misuse words
or they won't use the
proper form of a word
and so maybe part of the reason
that I helped
selfishly is because
it reduces irritation
when I read these stories
that I wanna read.
- He handed me a zine,
and I think that was
his way of hitting me
and now we're married.
Bye!
- For me personally, my
parents are both workaholics.
My father would sit at
the office every night
'till about 9 or 10
o'clock at night,
so that meant after school
I was taken to his office
and would be put into
a conference room.
In that, they would
bring me a pad of paper.
They would bring me
pencils, staplers,
you know, stuff in the office
and I would make artwork.
I would put them
into little books.
I would go over to
the copy machine,
I would make copies
and make multiples.
At age seven, I was
technically making zines.
I'd bring them into school and
on the school bus or whatever
I'd give them out to my friends.
- Every issue has a
different artist on the cover
and has their bio on the back.
It inspired me to
do my own zine.
- You're gonna go through
the art world and community
realizing that every time
you try to do something,
there is somebody in between you
and getting to success.
There is going to
be art directors,
there's gonna be curators.
The fanzine side
steps all of that,
just like your portfolio
and then you can leave
that anywhere in the world.
The good thing about
doing a fanzine
opposed to doing a blog,
accessing people you would
never have contact with
a lot of times happens
through a fanzine.
We leave it on the
seat of a train,
we leave them in banks,
we leave them in coffee shops.
By leaving it in
a random location,
somebody who picks that up who
knows nobody in your circle
is not interjected into what
you're doing automatically
and that's a really
powerful thing.
- Every issue of the zine we've
got one artist of the issue
that we award that title to.
It's that person
that gets the cover.
- I did this cover
photo for the zine.
That zine sat in front
of the right person
who then hired me and then
it was like a chain effect.
It led to me photographing
for several magazines.
Wow, damn, things just
changed right after that.
- What's your best zine story?
- There was Faction Five
and Maximum Rock and Roll
and all of these zines
that used to review zines
and I would put
free for prisoners
so I would mail it.
I'd have to from
the publisher's meet
because that's the only way
a lot of the zines would
get into the prison system
would get letters from
prisoners all over the world.
I started receiving letters
from a gentleman named
John Wayne Gacy, notably
known as a serial killer
who killed I think 32 people,
buried them under his house.
My roommates at that
point were like, hey,
do you mind never putting
our address on the zine
because we have serial
killers writing you letters.
♪ I would blame
you so much more ♪
I've hand stapled, I
don't know, 100,000 zines.
I've gone through staplers,
like had to buy new ones
'cause I've worn them out.
I got into writing,
I got into doing art,
I got into everything flowed
from doing these fanzines
because if you feel like
you are lonely and isolated,
it's a great way to
bring you out of that
and connect with others.
The fanzine helped
out a lot of people
but for me personally,
I think it took me
as far as I could go.
I'll always make the fanzine,
but at a certain point, I
wanted to do something bigger.
I wanna reach a large
number of people
and affect change
in a greater sense.
At this point, I was willing
to try everything and anything.
For the
man in the family.
- See, so apply old fart
for that man in your family.
- Got a call in the middle
of the night from you
and you were in a panic.
You told me you had
just attacked somebody
with a machete.
- We had a show in Rhode Island
and I had a pin on my shirt.
I was very excited
about the show.
I jumped on Ethan's back
and accidentally stabbed him
with my pin which must
have been pretty painful.
Next thing I know,
I'm kind of just being
suspended off the ground
in a choke hold from Ethan
and he's, don't ever
stab me again, what the.
After like two
seconds, he realized
that I didn't mean to do it
and he was the look of sheer
fear of my own life
and he let me go.
- My first question was,
well, were they dead or alive
and you said alive.
Said, okay good.
And then you described that
you were having a party
and there was a, I guess
a drunk football player
from Colombia who was
being very obnoxious
and so you threw him out.
He came back with buddies
and at that point,
you took out the old
machete that I gave you
when you were 10.
- Basically mugged him.
Went to get his wallet but
couldn't get it back easily
so ended up just taking the
kids pants off completely
and then took the
wallet
and told the kid that
when he came back
with the money that he owed us,
he could have his wallet back.
But he was too humiliated to
ever come back in the bar.
- Chopped his arm, not
off, but cut him up.
Bleeding, he fled.
You called me as not your
mother, as your lawyer
and asked what you should do.
I said, okay, if he's
alive, call the police.
Report a home invasion
and when the police come,
explain what happened.
Whoever gets to
the police first,
the police is gonna believe.
- One day, two detectives came
to the door looking for him.
Apparently he busted
some kids tooth.
They went to the bar
and arrested him.
- Do I think you're a tough guy?
No, you're a marshmallow.
- Later on, you called me back,
and I said, well, how'd it go?
And you said, they wrote
it down as a home invasion
and then you said as a
young cop was leaving
he turned around and he
said, did you get him good?
And he said, yeah.
- I was two blocks away
when Ronald Reagan got shot.
I was three blocks
away when a guy
tried to blow up the
Washington monument.
I lived in this world
where I always thought
at any moment I could
get blown up or killed
by some nut bag or
some foreign power.
I got into a lot of violence.
Got in fights, got arrested.
I had a reputation as being
someone who was violent
and in the high
schools and I remember
there were a lot of people
who were afraid of me.
But I came to this
realization that
all of that posturing
was related to
this fear, this deep seated
fear of getting physically hurt
or dying and then I started
looking at all of these
other tough guys around and
I started realizing that
wait a minute, all these
guys that are really tough
are actually
completely terrified.
I know they're just like me.
They're frightened little
boys who were afraid of
the big black void.
Ethan.
- Hey bud.
Is it on?
Turn it off 'cause we're
gonna get a fire extinguisher.
Okay, say
your last words.
Look, there's
cars behind you.
Bye.
- The violence in D.C.
sort of had rules to it.
You'd be put in
violent situations
but you weren't doing drugs
or you weren't
in-confrontational
that the rules sort of applied
that you wouldn't get hurt.
Very time you stepped
across that line,
then you would be in a
world of extreme danger.
I know people who
were shot and killed.
- The thing about
the punk rock scene
during the time period was a
collision also of crack cocaine
hitting the city and
violence escalated.
I had one friend and
somebody went to his house
and he let the person in
and the person shot him
six times and executed him.
The killer then calmly closed
the door behind him and left.
A girl who was my
friend's older sister,
she was gang raped and strangled
and left on the side of a road
and it was her aunt
that found her car
and then found her body.
Christina, she was an older
punk girl from the scene.
She was known to
be pretty tough.
She carried brass
knuckles around with her.
She went to Boston and then
started dating this guy
who she broke up with.
He went and executed her
and then killed himself.
Rob, I ran into him
in New York and then
three hours later, he had
shot six bags of heroin
and overdosed.
My friend Matt, almost
like my brother,
him and his wife were separating
and the wife got a gun
and walked into his work
and shot him like six times,
leaving his daughter
without a dad.
- Your friends death.
I remember I put
my arm around you
and sitting down and
talking with you about
because you were terribly upset.
- I've had probably
a dozen friends die.
The violence and the bad things
that have happened in my life
is one of the major things
I use to push me to
do something creative
because when you get
into those dark moments,
you have choice.
You can go and be
more destructive.
You can sink into a dark hole,
or you can use that as
something that allows you
to do something to
better yourself.
To make art was a way to cope.
There was no reason to
have a fear of failure
because I knew I'd be dead soon.
I was contemplating my options.
I had the choice of
either going to art school
or staying at home.
If I had stayed home,
I'd probably be dead now.
- We are destination downtown
and we're documenting the
stories of these amazing people.
Located to the Lower East
Side from Washington D.C.
and he is an artist
and a film maker,
one of the founders of
the Antagonist Movement.
- But the concept of
coming to New York
and knowing a couple of things
and one was like The Warriors,
the movie The Warriors,
so I was like,
I'm gonna come, I'm gonna
have to join a gang.
I'm gonna be knife
fighting with everybody
and then the other
part is my family,
we live, we have
relatives in Rhode Island
so we'd take the train
from D.C. to Rhode Island
and in that passage,
all you would see is the
very worst parts of New York
like just rubble and
burnt down buildings
and all of this
stuff and I was like,
my god, New York
City is a wasteland.
I knew a lot of
the local gang kids
that were much tougher than me
so the very first
week I was there,
I saw this kid walking
our of Mona's Bar
and crossing the
projects on 11th Street
and just kids from
those projects
throwing 40 ounce bottles
at him and him running away
and me going like, oh my god.
This guy is covered in tattoos,
he's way tougher than me,
local Puerto Rican kid,
there's no chance
I'm gonna make it.
Two days later, I was
walking out of my building
and another friend of
mine that I had known
from the punk scene
drove up in his car
and he's like, oh you
know, how you doing?
Blah blah blah and
I'm like I'm good
but I'm a little nervous
about the neighborhood,
like am I gonna get
murdered in my sleep here?
And he's like, no, no one's
ever gonna bother you here
and I go, why's that?
He goes, well I happen to
be in this time period,
you're pretty much like
the only white guy here
and I'm a parole officer
and I'm all of these
guys' parole officer,
so look at the corner.
And like all the kids
were watching us.
And they're like, yeah,
they think you're a cop now.
And I was like,
oh okay, great.
After that meant not only
did I ever have a problem.
None of those kids
ever talked to me ever.
I came from a place
where violence and death
was something that was normal.
Still to this day when I
walk into a restaurant,
I have to have my
back to the wall
and my eye on the door
because I don't want somebody
sneaking up behind me.
That carries over to
what I do creatively.
I have anger and
violence that simmers
just below the surface.
A little bit dangerous,
a little bit rebellious
and maybe a little bit criminal.
- When you were about, must
have been seven or eight,
we took you to a
psychiatrist who wanted
to put you on Ritalin
because the psychiatrist said
that you were hyperactive,
which I completely disagreed.
If you were interested
in something,
you would sit there for
hours and work on it.
So I told the psychiatrist
that I absolutely refused
and she kind of
went into a god like
how dare you disagree with me,
you're a bad parent,
this is like child abuse.
I said, well, that's
the way it is.
This child is not
gonna be on drugs
and that's the end of it.
- Say no to drugs and
that is probably because
I don't drink or use drugs.
- Your dyslexia which
I think is more severe
than people realize
in unmanageable on
alcohol or drugs
and I think you like
to be in control.
- In order to be the
best version of himself,
I think Ethan's got to stay
sober for the most part.
- It was 1990 in New
York and I started
working in the bars and that's
when the big change happened.
There was one night
I was bartending
and in front of me was an
actor who wasn't acting,
a musician who didn't
play any music,
a painter who didn't paint,
and a writer who didn't write
and these were people
I saw day after day,
week after week.
They were there
'till the bar closed.
They stayed there
after hours with me.
The one thing they
have in common is that
they're here in the bar
drinking all night every night.
You have to be willing
to give up something.
- There was a
point in time where
a lot of people that we
knew were doing drugs,
specifically like a lot
of people got into heroin.
Few of those people died.
Ethan's reaction to
that was super worried
and did whatever he could
to convince those people
that they should stop doing it.
I'll kick your ass,
I'll steal your drugs,
I'll call your
parents, et cetera.
- The stories you hear of
artists having addictions
and those addictions
actually helping their art,
a fallacy.
The reality is most people are
hobbled by their addictions.
I just wasn't
willing to risk that.
- Not everybody
died, so I guess it,
maybe it worked
with some of them.
- I remember being in a
hotel with Ethan in Nashville
and watching MTV and
all of the sudden
there was this video that
I had written music for
and Ethan had directed
and it was so exciting.
I remember sort of jumping
around in a hotel room.
Thank you
for watching the film.
I'm gonna say I'm recording now
so you kind of get this thing
that I record
everything in my life.
- There was always like a
strange Hitchcock almost cameo
where Ethan shows
up mostly semi nude.
He's usually washing some part
of his anatomy or the other.
- It's unfair because
he always ambushes you.
I have to film this thing by
this date tomorrow morning
at 7 a.m. I will film you.
You will be filmed by me.
I am Ethan Ethan
Minsker.
But now you're
in a bunch of films.
Let's talk about
that, the films.
- It's weird.
He kind of brands it Ethan
and then the artist Ethan.
He puts himself a
lot into movies.
I don't think it's bad.
There was nobody else
doing it at the time.
He was the only
one that showed up
with his camera every week
and would edit it religiously
and most people would have
given up after the first flop.
On tonight's
program, we're first showing
a film by Ethan Minsker.
- We're here down on
the Lower East Side.
- I'm taking myself very
seriously as a collector.
- I went to New York
and went to art school
and then switched to film.
I made a documentary
called Anything Boys Can Do
which covered the women
bands on the Lower East Side
between 92 and 94.
- When I first saw Anything
Boys Can Do, I was blown away
that a film made in
the 90s and a film that
showcased rampant sexism
in the music industry
could still be so
relevant today.
- It played in over 50
festivals around the world.
It was my first time of
having any taste of success.
- Ethan's films aren't about
stories that are contrived
or follow some mold.
I mean, they're, all of his
films are very personal.
♪ Any fool can tell
what's happening ♪
♪ When you're caught
without your friends ♪
He is going to make
something with the community
that he's built.
It's going to be about
building spiritual currency
and raising other people
up and creating art.
- All these movies have
the same cast of characters
so for the past 16 years,
I'm in whatever it is,
five, six films.
- The things that
I talk about today,
I'm not necessarily
saying that you should
follow what I'm doing because
what we have done before
could possibly land
you in jail or prison.
There are local gang
members in this,
so we pretty much use
our whole community.
Once we started making the film,
we had people coming
up to us saying like,
I hear you're making a
film, I wanna be in it.
I'm like, all right.
Some of these guys were like,
we got to put them in the film.
We can't cut them out.
Using guns in New York
City in this time period
and still today you
have to have a permit
to be able to rent a
prop gun from the store.
The permit means you
have to have insurance
and insurance is $2,000.
This budget of the
entire film is $2,000.
That money went to
drugs and a limo rental.
That said, I had provenance
from when I was a kid.
The criminal element that
I kind of mentioned before,
we show up and be like, well,
I've got this sawed off shotgun.
Why don't we use that?
And I'm like, all right, well
now we're using real guns
in the streets of New York.
Two weeks before that,
a gentleman was shot and
killed pulling his wallet out
in front of the police,
so the whole neighborhood
downtown was on edge.
We literally had people
standing on corners going, cops!
And then we would break up.
Everyone put the equipment away.
The criminal with the gun
would then take the bag
and go another direction.
It was just like we
were dealing drugs
but were dealing art.
It was filmed in
one scene two weeks
before September 11 happened,
two blocks away from
the Twin Towers.
The neighborhood shut
down below 14th Street
for three months.
We still kept shooting.
We kind of agreed to it.
♪ Isn't it right
- Ethan works, he
works a full time job.
He earns enough money
to pay his bills,
and then he films.
It takes him quite a
while to finish his films
because they're not financed.
- I worked in the film industry.
I did grip and electric.
I would do assistant
editing for cable networks
and the thing I would
find most common
is that the projects I worked on
were predictable and cliche.
I will never be that
theatrical success.
I'd prefer to make
my little odd films
that are geared towards
like minded individuals
documenting subcultures
and unknown artists.
It inspired me to wanna
get more involved,
to have a bigger influence.
I just really wasn't sure
how to go about doing that.
The dynamic of
living in New York
is everybody moves
here because they wanna
do something creative.
If you don't wanna move
here because of that,
you're moving here
because you wanna be
around people who are
doing something creative.
Unfortunately, the rents
make that very hard
because you become
a slave to your job
so you're stuck in a
cycle of having to work
to pay your rent and not doing
what you're doing creatively.
The dynamics of the bars
is they want people there
and they wanna make
money, so we said, hey,
you got this room in
the back of the bar.
Why don't we do one
night art shows.
We did that for 11 years.
We showed over 3,000 artists
and the reason it worked
is because you were
giving people a chance
without having to worry about
the economics of a gallery.
There was huge room
for experimentation
so you couldn't say
that those same elements
didn't exist in other
cities, they did.
There were other cities
all over the world
where there was cheap rent,
but they didn't have
as many art movements
birthed out of them
as New York City did,
as Punk Rock, as Hip
Hop, as the Beatnik.
The thing about New
York that's unique
is that it brings
everybody together
and those people who
have diverse perspectives
can come up with
something unique.
♪ Art talk
♪ Just doing some
good old art talk ♪
♪ With your host Ethan Minsker
If you're trying to
do something creative,
you have to look
at the resources
and assess your situation
in your environment
and New York is uniquely suited
to doing creative things.
All of those materials
and elements are there
and if you become crafty enough,
you can figure out ways
you can do these projects
for little or no cost.
New York had all of
the creative elements
that I would need to be
able to pursue my dreams.
It's a city full of
people just like myself
who are desperate
to do something.
♪ Not just a new idea but
Building a community like that
was the birthplace for starting
the Antagonist Art Movement.
We try to go into the
community, engage the community,
and then build our larger
community through outreach.
What kind of
advice would you give
to those people listening?
- I'd say the
major thing with us
is that artists in
general are solitary
and by working
together as a group,
it gives you a lot
more options open up.
I'm the head curator
and organizer
for a group called the
Antagonist Art Movement.
We're based out of New York City
but we work with artists
around the world.
Part of our mission statement
is to create venues
and projects that allow
unrecognized artists to
develop their talent.
Our goal is to act
as a laboratory
to allow people to
experiment without
the ramifications
of the economics
that are associated
with the art market.
- It's known the art world now.
It's just a place,
it's about money
and moving and shaking
and it's not really about
discovering artists or
any of that anymore.
So as artists, we
have to carry on
in our own sort
of collective way.
- Ethan hasn't just
built an organization
that's helped so many
people and so many creatives
in the Lower East Side,
but he's helping to
uphold the legacy
of the Lower East Side
and the creative history
of his neighborhood.
- We were gonna do our own thing
and actually create things that
are interesting and unique.
- Antagonist Movement was
my gateway to New York City.
When I moved here, I had
nothing and Ethan got me a job.
- Huge part of my 20s and
my development as an artist.
- He got me writing.
- The Antagonist art
movement is a family to me.
And kind of a cult,
let's be real.
- Comparing it to some of the
other artistic communities
which to me were
much more elitist.
- In a strange place where
you never find a leader,
we
found Ethan Minsker
or he found us, I don't know.
- The art market, overwhelming
percent of artists
that are successful are
from the same economic class
that owns and runs
the galleries.
They go to the same few
select master programs.
We select art purely based on
the content quality of the art.
We separate the concept
of who the artist is.
The antagonist is the one
who pushes the protagonist
to action so we're not
trying to be the hero.
We're trying to get the hero
to go off and do the adventure.
I worked at galleries
and art handler
and it's a very
closed off system.
How can a gallery
afford this space
to pay my salary
and everybody else
is that they have to have
artists that can cover that.
It was 2003 when
we met Arturo Vega.
Arturo was the artistic
director for the Ramones.
He did their t-shirt design,
they rehearsed in his loft.
He was a mixing spoon
where he would take people
from different elements
and backgrounds
and introduce them to each other
and try to get them
to collaborate.
Our art movement and all the
work I've personally done
has been always
referencing punk rock
so when you have
somebody like Arturo
who comes along and isn't
just passing through
but takes notice of
what you're doing,
gets involved, and wants
to push you to do more
and become friends
with us is massive.
Arturo would curate
shows for us,
he would mentor
artists, advise us,
but for me personally, he
was like the artistic father
that I never had.
Arturo brought us Richard
Hambleton who showed with us
in the pop up gallery we had
in the basement of a bar.
He hadn't shown in
more than 20 years
so that was kind of
a big deal for us.
- If we were to stare.
We love you
Arturo, we love you.
Who's the cutest?
- I think an Antagonist is
not about being beautiful.
It's about being beautiful
and getting away with it.
- Arturo died suddenly in 2013.
It broke my heart but
Arturo would have been
the first one to tell
you that you don't mourn
someone's death,
you celebrate it.
There are times when I
felt like slowing down
I could feel this kind of voice
in the back of my head.
What you're doing is good,
it's good for the community.
When you get in
this conversation,
like how do we know each other?
Oh yeah, you don't remember?
Arturo introduced us.
He was bringing us
these lost puppies
but all the lost puppies
is really what made up
the bulk of our group.
- And those people
eventually got careers
and became established
and some of them became
world recognized.
There are a few people
that have become successful,
Jonah Hill.
- 'Cause I'm a moron, dude.
My shit's not very
well spoken at all.
Trust me, I'll be
the first one to say.
- He was a kid off the street
that came in and started
reading in our group.
We moved him up to headliner.
Dustin Hoffman's kids
came in and said,
I want you to meet my dad.
He's doing a movie called
I Love the Huckabees
which was Jonah
Hill's first movie
and then took off.
The whole point is to try
to make it something unique
that changes everything so
if we make into mainstream
status, that's fine
as long as you keep
the integrity of
what you're doing.
We had done so many
shows in New York
and felt like we weren't
really getting anywhere
so we decided to
do shows overseas.
- I actually find you guys
really easy to deal with
since you've done a lot of
these exhibitions
internationally.
There was a lot of
encouragement there.
I like the fact that you
guys do antagonize me
'cause when you've got a
year to work on a show,
you tend to sort of be
a little bit laid back,
especially if you're Australian.
- I was brought to
this project by Ethan.
Conversation started
about over a year ago.
I met Ethan through some friends
at a barbecue in New Jersey
in the Hoboken of all
places.
- The overseas projects, we
would work with local artists
in tandem to come
up with a theme.
- Back in 2007 in
Berlin I met Antagonist.
We did an art show
there together.
They influenced us
to do these art shows
where everyone can show.
I'm living in New York
and the Antagonists
helped me find jobs.
- By doing those, we
would make connections
that would last for years.
- I came to New York
and they introduced me
to a lot of people
and opportunities.
Then I started working
on some of their projects
like zines and
films and art shows.
Now I'm trapped forever.
- October we're doing
the Dwelling Project
in Sydney, Australia.
We're asking people
to make buildings
out of recycled materials
and then we'll construct
a city in the gallery.
Half the buildings
and works you see here
are a performance art.
I will come in as
Godzilla and destroy it
because I love doing that.
The deeper part of
it is that it's about
the loss of your
home and how people
all around the world constantly
there's someone
losing their home
and a lot of people
watch it on the news
and don't really
feel it personally.
♪ Lemonade lemonade
♪ Lemonade lemonade
gimme gimme lemonade ♪
♪ Lemonade lemonade oh
- One of my first shows
I've ever done as an artist
kind of gave me an early sense
of a feeling of community.
I designed the latest
Antagonist movement logo
and traditionally, the
logo itself has been
designed by a different
artist every couple of years
keeping the same
theme of a ninja
inside of a black circle with
Antagonist Movement around it.
- If you get that
collective Antagonist stuff
in enough different spots,
somebody will discover it.
♪ Places will be hard to find
- This neighborhood
really represented
this sort of spirit
of independent art
and making something
that was new.
When I came here, I was
like, I wanna start a group.
I wanna make something new.
All I wanna do is at
least be the liner note
in somebody else's
story where we're like,
we helped that person
make something huge
and change everything.
The Antagonist Movement
for me was a school.
It taught me how to
work with other artists.
It gave me a greater
and deeper understanding
of all of the possibilities
of art out there
and not to be limited by
just trying out one genre.
It gave me the courage to
try things that were risky
and in doing so, it sharpened
and honed my ability.
- Affecting individual
peoples' lives in New York
which is such a
dehumanizing place at times.
- And I think it's
good because I think
we're some of the last
left in the Alamo.
- In 2011, we lost the space
where we did our events.
It's not really about
the actually shows.
It's not about the physical art.
It's about the connections
and the personality
of the people we work with
and those connections
are what are really
the fundamental crux of
the Antagonist Movement
because those carry on
much longer than the show.
- I think his strongest talent
is building communities.
- It started with me
reading Ernest Hemingway
and Henry Miller books.
There's these parts
where they talk about
going to the beach
and vacationing
with a group of artists
of different backgrounds.
♪ Words that calm me
It would be the starting
place for new concepts
and ideas so once a year,
I would get a bunch of artists
and we would save up some money
and split the rental
cost of a house.
There was something
about getting outside
of your environment
that led to new concepts
that it gives you
more opportunity
because you're tapping
into the knowledge
of all of the different people.
Over the years,
the artist retreat
morphed into the art brunch
and the art brunch now is
something we do once a month.
I think as an
artist it's easy to
get stuck in your projects
so you should have something
built into your routine
that is a social element.
All of my friendships
and socializing
are done through
what I do creatively.
The art brunch is a
place where people can
give me critical
feedback on my projects.
I started trying to
think of what could be
the next step that could
supplement those things.
- In 2011, Ethan and his family
and the Antagonist Art Movement
sent me back to NYU to study
philanthropy and fund raising.
From there, I learned
how to do grant writing,
accounting, budgeting
and everything
under the sun for
non-profit organizations.
With these
art projects we do,
we go to other countries
and then we search out
kids from disadvantaged youth,
hard backgrounds and we try
to teach them in workshops.
The thing I found amazing
about that is you see
these kids who maybe are
not interested in writing
or not interested in art
but are very creative
and once you show them that
sort of avenue of expression,
then it flips everything around.
Like the same thing with myself.
- Shannon, Ethan, and
I are all directors
on the board for the non-profit
Citizens For The Arts.
- In 2013, we were
granted non-profit status.
- This is the next step.
It's opened a
number of opportunities.
We don't only do art projects.
We do things that are kind
of in a humanitarian realm.
- When you feel that you've
been doing the same thing
for a certain amount of years,
you have to actively go
out and try to do something
that you're not
comfortable with.
- There is a lot of
challenges that we're facing.
- I had this idea in my head
that once we became a non-profit
that everybody would just
start throwing at us,
but it's like hard to get
five dollars out of somebody,
let alone 500 or 5,000.
- You went from having
a large base of people
but at the end of the day,
there's only three
people doing it
so it's starting at square one
and we end up putting
our own money into it.
I think we've done quite well.
- You're never going to progress
if you just stay
in the same place.
Hello.
Today on Film Festival,
we'll have a couple of boys
trying to make
fools of themselves.
Now, let's go and watch.
I think as an artist you
also should be a collector.
It's a good way not only for
you to collect great work
but it's also a way for
you to get your work
injected into somebody
else's collection.
I use my hallways
like a mini gallery
and this reflects the
work from all of the
one night art shows
we did for 11 years.
Come on in here.
When we used to do
the pop up gallery,
one of our things was doing
group shows based on a theme.
For this painting, it
was obscure dictators.
Normal people portrayed
as great dictators.
And over here is a
painting from our great
Caffeinate and
Decimate show which was
the combination of mixing
caffeine and handguns.
- Oh god, it's so narcissistic.
Who would make the
film about themselves?
What I find
frustrating today
in making art is that
it's this celebrity cult that is
the fascination
of making success,
especially within the media.
If I write a book and
try to get a publisher
or an agent to pick it up,
the first thing they
wanna know is, well,
who did you kill or
who did you fuck?
Do you have an
Instagram account?
- Ethan is like the
most horribly obnoxious
self promoting person I know.
- Hashtag us, join
us on Instagram,
join us on Facebook, tell
your friends, spread the word.
We're famous for four blocks
on the Lower East Side.
Outside of that, nobody
seems to know us.
- Why is anyone going to
pick my book off the shelf?
Here there's always a choice,
so if we don't self promote,
I don't know how anybody
discovers our work anymore.
- Because I don't expect
anybody to come down
and save my ass.
If I don't do it myself,
it ain't gonna happen.
- You have to embrace the
egotistical side of making art.
If the average person
picked up a Picasso
and looked at it, they would go,
what the fuck is this shit?
But Picasso was an expert
at making sure that
people believed it
was the absolute
best art that ever
graced this earth.
So did Andy Warhol.
You have to have the
personality behind it.
I'm ready for combat.
This is apart of the
outfit I'm wearing
is actually like my event suit
so I have to show this part too.
Oh, very nice.
- I feel art is combat.
You have to be ready for war.
Here you go, sorry Mis.
Most people are consumers.
I personally would
rather be a producer.
♪ Take my winter
When people see me
in my camo suit,
this is a reference
to writers like
Truman Capote or Mark Twain.
Even though their
suits were white,
your outward appearance
is an extension of
your creative expression.
I decided I would start focusing
on my personal projects.
I'm never gonna be satisfied
with what I do creatively.
That's probably at the same time
the part of the machine
that makes me keep
taking on new projects
and trying new things.
I just have to learn to
give up the concept of
mainstream success but it would
be nice to have a paycheck.
- As long as I've known you,
it seems like your
whole style of creation
has always been collaborative.
I don't know how you get
so much fucking shit done.
It's crazy and you don't
care if it's not perfect
right away, you just make it
and that's admirable to me.
- I wanted to try
to make a book.
The first book I wrote was
Rich Boy Cries for Momma.
- You weren't able to find
a conventional publisher,
so you resorted to
self publishing.
- He self publishes
his own writing
but he goes to great
lengths for the quality of
every zine and
book that he does.
He gets great people
to do the artwork
and to help him design the
book, to edit the book,
so in the end, what he
has is just a really great
piece of art in itself.
- This one is about
the D.C. punk scene,
about some of my friends
getting murdered,
but it's a comedy too.
And Barstool
Prophets, that's about
the New York City bar
scene and all that.
- I read Barstool Prophets
and just thought it was great.
It was a great introduction
to the city of New York,
especially the East
Village because
it takes place between
1993 and about 2014
and you get to see all
the changes that go on
through the eyes of a bartender
and of course, bartenders
have the best stories, so.
- I just knew that he wrote
and I knee that he was dyslexic
but I hadn't really considered
what the two of those
things meant until after I
started editing his raw work
and then I was like, shit,
this has to actually
be a struggle.
I admire that you
still choose to do it.
I would have to
read everything out loud
so that he could hear,
visualize and edit in his mind.
- Being dyslexic
and writing a book
is on the level of a
blind man painting.
It's a thorough
process of editing
and normally a
book has one editor
and has a copy editor
while I have six people
who help me edit the book and
dozens and dozens of people
who read over it.
It's a collaborative effort.
I'm never gonna be able to just
take a typewriter
and write out a book
without a lot of supervision.
- His work is a lot
like the films he makes.
Everything is within the frame.
- Making my art, I
recognize I'm making
a deal with the devil
and in the details of
that contract state
is that you have to be willing
to put more of your private self
out into the greater world.
You risk being
criticized and ridiculed.
The art
world is full of bullies
just like any other
part of society.
- Now I've been
getting criticized
since I've been a kid.
It's one of the byproducts
of being learning disabled.
I've collected the
criticism and bad reviews.
I call them my little
family of enemies
and I keep them around
and use them as something
that motivates me because I
need to prove them all wrong.
- Ethan is always ready
for the consequences.
Actually, he's
looking for the fight.
- It pushes my art to be better.
I don't think any artist starts
out polished and perfect.
It's in your failures
that you become better.
This man is
up here 30,000 feet
above the World Trade Center.
Sir, do you have life insurance?
What?
I guess he didn't.
- When September 11
happened, I got a phone call
at nine in the morning.
My phone never rings
at nine in the morning
and when I came out
into the living room,
after the buildings had fallen,
you could see ash right
outside this window.
Picking up my camera
and filming gave me
the illusion of control.
It was a way of
processing the events
that were unfolding around me.
By me is where the World
Trade Centers used to stand.
It's now been a week.
I don't have the ability
to suppress emotions
so I have to figure out ways
I can work through them
and doing something creative
has always been that key for me.
It's the one thing that
keeps my sanity in check.
Those were tapes I hadn't
looked at in 17 years.
It was just something
I filmed and put away.
Couple of the people that
used to come in the bar
are definitely now missing or,
I guess the word
isn't missing anymore.
They're dead.
I was nervous about doing
the performance art.
Once I started, I fell
into this meditative state.
There's a feeling I derive
from the work that I do,
a mixture of comfort
and satisfaction
and that feeling can
be a very powerful
and addictive force.
You can't help thinking about
the people who lost their lives.
I understand when they're
watching the performance art
it's going to look
very childish,
it's going look like a
kid just having fun again.
I want the viewer to
have that disconnection,
not to understand
the real kind of
personal emotion behind it.
Maybe later if
they see this film,
their concept of what
they saw will change.
Living in New York right now
is just like living in a war.
♪ Stay
♪ Trading laughs again
Okay there's a story
you like to tell
about me over and over again.
- We were walking from the
9:30 Club to D.C. Space
which was a smaller club
a couple of blocks away
down a dark street and a
crack head comes up to us
with his hand in his jacket
as if he has a gun
and Ethan says,
you don't have a fucking gun
and you better
fucking have a gun
if you're gonna pull that shit
and I'm just terrified because
if I was that crack head,
I would have just shot Ethan,
but the reality was, the
guy didn't have a gun
and when Ethan challenged
him, he just said,
yeah, I don't have a
gun and turned around
and walked away very
matter of factly.
- I've had guns pulled
on me three times.
The project I've been
focusing on in the last year
has been Ghost Guns and
the concept is related to
a lot of my friends who died
as a result of gun violence
and I wanted to make
these paper mache guns
that act as a memorial to
the victims of gun violence.
The thing in the
United States is
everyone feels it's
impossible to do anything
about handguns and
I don't believe
rolling over and giving
up is the answer.
♪ They say
I enjoy shooting guns but
if it meant saving one life,
I'd be happy to give up
that right in a moment.
As a kid, you watch these movies
where the gun is always
presented as the catalyst
for action and adventure
but the reality is
is when you become an adult,
you can see the gun being
unmasked for what it truly is,
a tool of death,
destruction, and sadness.
I'll always incorporate
guns into my artwork,
but its symbolism has
changed from being
the hero to the villain.
♪ Who denounces all of you
♪ Bad manner round me
My bed and my
shelving I designed.
This is based on Frank
Lloyd Wright and his designs
but the funny thing is is
that Frank Lloyd Wright,
he did storage, so almost
every one of his houses
was build without any storage
so what I did is I
built storage units
based on his
aesthetic and design.
It's pretty rude, right?
- Any project that he
does, it drives me insane
because the space is very small
and he takes up the whole space
whether it's the
kitchen, the living room.
- In here's where I put
my shitty paintings.
The latest works I've been
doing have been called
A Boy's Dream where
I make a variety of
different war scenes
where there's like
battleships from
all different eras
and tanks from all
different eras.
- I get claustrophobic and
this shit is everywhere.
- This wall is a
collection of all the weird
sort of things that
have inspired me
and then just pieces
that I've worked on
and then ended up on this shelf.
- It's like I'm living
in an art studio.
It doesn't feel like a home.
- Seven years old,
I made this box.
How did you make it?
Wood and paint
and then stripped off
many layers of paint.
- It just feels like somebody
vomited art everywhere.
- Any good tips
for good parenting?
- You only have two functions
as a parent in New York
and every parent
should learn it.
As long as your kid
does not join gangs
and does not become
a drug addict,
you've done a great job.
That's it.
♪ Turned on the light
when I needed the dark ♪
- He was a little reluctant
to become a family man.
I think he's worked through that
and he's kind of the best
version of himself now
because of it.
♪ Took a swim when
I needed to drown ♪
- My father was
one of the greatest
workaholics of all time.
Your mom and I would say
that was one of the things
that led to our breaking up.
The expectation that we would
equally divide the work up
then that's involved
with the care of children
and your mom thought
that I didn't participate
in my share and she was right.
I was so wrapped up in my career
and working for the firm
and succeeding on my cases
and I neglected to spend
time with you and Natasha.
♪ Took a walk but
I needed to run ♪
- When I first met Ethan,
one phrase stuck with me
and he told me that he's
never going to stop creating
no matter what and
I thought, never?
That's crazy.
After we started dating,
I saw how incredibly
persistent he was.
I admire him tremendously.
I didn't want him
to stop making art
but after we had the baby,
I hoped that he would
be more involved
with taking care of the kid
'cause when you have a baby,
you got to sacrifice some stuff
so it really annoys
me, irritates me
that he's constantly making art,
but at the same time, I see
that he is making art now
with his daughter so that
it became their project,
not just his project.
That's pretty amazing.
♪ There are times
in your songs ♪
- I like bed that you made.
Do you wanna see it?
Come.
- Yeah.
So who's the best dad ever?
If your kid is afraid of
monsters under the bed,
you know what you got
to put under there?
Lights.
Lights under the bed.
Yeah.
Yeah, why?
- So the monsters won't,
the monster will go away.
- Because if you're a monster
and you're hanging out
under a bed then you
better have sunblock
'cause this is a
darn bright bed.
- Yeah because you can't add
it like at the light store.
- Yeah and before you
skeptics out there say,
yeah, but you're gonna catch
your kid's bed on fire,
these are LED and
they're not hot
and they don't put
out a lot of energy
so energy efficient
keeps the monsters away.
Any last words?
- Yeah and it puts,
LEDs explodes the monsters.
But now we
spend a lot of time
under the bed, right?
Yeah and now
we can explore it.
- Okay so best dad
ever, yeah, right here.
My very first girlfriend,
I was like deeply
in love with her
and it turned out she
slept with basically
everybody I knew.
It was hard to really
trust anybody thoroughly
after that had happened to you.
I didn't date anybody
that I didn't like.
I think my major problem is that
I always felt like I was
going to be abandoned
so if I had the opportunity
to fall in love with somebody,
I would.
The problem is is
that I've probably
fallen in love with too many
people at the same time.
I don't think I ever
did anything really bad
to the girls I dated.
I really did care for
every single one of them,
but I dated multiple people
and feelings were hurt.
My friends who
worked in the bars
were always saying, like look.
If you have a kid, it's
definitely gonna be a girl
and you're gonna
suffer the consequence
of all the things you've done
to these women you've dated.
As a kid I was watching
PBS and there was
a documentary on an animator
who worked on the
Betty Boop shows.
The guy just seemed
to emanate happiness
and then the name comes up
on the bottom of the credits
and his name was Grim,
the most depressing name
you could ever have on a person
is name your son Grim.
I had this thought like, well,
there's so many
people that I know
that are named Happy and Smiley
and they're all
miserable fucking people
so if I'm gonna have a kid,
I'm gonna name it something sad
but I'm not gonna call him Sad
and I'm definitely not
gonna call him Grim,
so Blu was a name
that I came up with
because Blue represents sadness,
it represents color.
It could potentially be
the name of a stripper,
but for my daughter,
I felt if I gave
the Johnny Cash name A Boy
Named Sue element to it
and name her
something that's sad,
she'll have a life
filled with joy.
♪ You're walking with
an angel going home ♪
You look silly.
You should look at yourself.
When I did have a daughter,
I had this first instinct
of like all these boys
are gonna do such horrible
things to my daughter.
Then I said, wait a
minute, that's ridiculous,
and in fact, I'm gonna give
her all of the knowledge
of what it's like coming
from a boy's perspective.
If anything, I think
I'm gonna have to be
pulling aside that little boy
and saying like,
I'm really sorry
whatever my daughter's
about to do to you.
- I'm sure having a
kid changed your world.
I'm sure on a certain level,
not that you weren't serious
about your art before,
you were probably
serious as death,
but this is a different
kind of seriousness.
It's a more mature
kind of seriousness.
Bigger pressure.
♪ Took a smoke
'cause I needed one ♪
- I want the door.
- All right, now flat.
I want the
door to be open.
Okay
here, here you go.
Lie down and flat.
Okay, where should I lie down?
- Here.
That one.
- Blu sits in a bed and
her father sits next to her
reading a book.
You know, I spend a lot
of time reading kids books
and the majority of
them are horrible
so yeah, I'm gonna make a
kids book with my daughter.
♪ Someone has told me
Oh no.
How many kids out
there can say that
they actually have
a book about them?
I don't see a difference
between parenting
and being an artist.
My daughter is the
greatest art project
I've ever made.
- One of Ethan's gifts
and I'll give him this
begrudgingly because
he doesn't deserve
any praise whatsoever is that
his entire life from when
he wakes up in the morning
from the very first
moment he opens his eyes
'till the moment
he closes his eyes,
he's thinking about ways
he can challenge himself
and his cohorts
into being creative
and do acts that transcend
the banality of daily life.
This is
the third year here
and we're trying to
build community really of
the avant garde and
conceptual artists
and creative people
that have made
major contributions to
the scene that we know.
He's the box artist.
He's a writer, an artist.
- I would just like to
say that I wasn't sure
if I sure put the
switchblade on there.
I think I did right by that.
♪ Over the horizon we go
♪ Over and over let's go
♪ Ghosts of all I've
known have let go ♪
It's hard to reconcile
that my own desperation
might have helped somebody else.
We did become a starting
place for a lot of artists.
We gave a lot of
people opportunities
and more importantly, it gave
myself a lot of opportunities.
Being able to travel around
the world and make art
if it wasn't for the
Antagonist Art Movement
and that wouldn't have happened
if I didn't do the fanzines
and in some regards, that
wouldn't have happened
if my parents
didn't get divorced
and if my mother didn't tell
me about the big black void
and if they didn't
discover I was dyslexic.
One thing leads into another.
It's all over.
I hope more people go out there
and make films just like
this 'cause I'll watch it.
Unless you're boring.
- When you're
interviewing people,
do you have to be naked
behind the camera?
Why am I wearing this
fucking camo suit?
♪ Letting go of my ego
- There is a message
behind this film.
I didn't make it for the people
who were already inspired
or those who need
to be inspired.
This is for all the
naysayers in your life,
all the people who told you
you couldn't chase your dreams,
that you needed to grow
up and to get a real job,
that your work had no value,
so lean in, open
your ears and listen.
Fuck you!
Don't forget to grab
fanzines, I have them.
♪ My love
♪ Real love
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ Real love
♪ Easy love
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ To find love
♪ Real love
♪ Cherish love
♪ for yourself
♪ Find love
♪ Real love
♪ Find love
♪ for yourself
♪ for yourself
♪ for yourself
- That's all, folks.
When you were born,
it was 25 hours of labor.
When they pulled you out,
you had the umbilical
cord around your neck.
- I was born in Boston in 1969.
A year later, my
parents got married.
They were both hippies.
They met up in the
universities up there.
My father later became a
lawyer for Richard Nixon
and worked for him
for the next 30 years.
We're all Democrats.
That's just how it is in D.C.
You work for the Republicans
because they have the money.
- So the doctors took you away,
put you an an incubator
so I never held you
until three days later.
My mother
was organizer
and draft evasion counselor
for SDS, Students for
a Democratic Society.
- You had these
little turtle eyes
and you kind of looked
at me like who are you?
- I'm dyslexic.
- We went to New York.
We went with this
group that specialized
in testing dyslexia and
developing exercises
that would help you progress.
They just remembered
sitting in this office
and they came up with
these silly exercises
telling you to
crawl on the floor
and it would be
embarrassing to you.
Then we'd crawl and
I didn't think we had
confidence that it was
helping in any way.
In retrospect, that was not
a particularly good idea.
Sad business.
- Your dyslexia has
been one of the most
formative factors of your life.
Diagnosed at a very young age
and the whole way you
interact with the world
has been through the way your
brain processes information.
It's cording who you are.
- I'm not sure where
dyslexia comes from.
In fact, nobody really knows.
I suppose if I had to guess,
it would be from having
the umbilical cord
wrapped around your
neck when you were born
and cutting off oxygen.
- When you're a kid and
you're anything different,
you're ostracized, you're
picked on, called stupid.
People in my school
wondering why this seven
or eight year old kid
was falling asleep
in all of his classes
and it was mostly because
every night I would go
home to a screaming match.
When my parents finally
did get divorced,
they decided to stay in
the District of Colombia.
♪ Burden child
♪ I'll see when I'll smile
1977 so it was kind of close to
the end of the Vietnam War.
Every night when my
father would come home,
he would turn on
the nightly news
and there would be images of
war and death and violence.
Asked my mother what
did it mean to die.
My mother said, people
have different beliefs.
Some people believe
you die and then
you go to heaven or hell.
Some people believe
when you die,
you're reincarnated and
I looked into her eyes
and I was like, well,
what do you believe?
My mother was everything.
This was like the center
of knowledge for every kid
and my mother said,
oh that's it, the end.
When you die, it's
like a switch going off
so it's just a
void of blackness.
And for me at like that age,
I was like, what the hell?
I was afraid to go to sleep,
I was afraid to go out.
I mean, I didn't want
to meet this void
because I was terrified of it.
A seven year old kid really
can't comprehend that.
After that, I went
through this whole period
of being afraid to go outside.
I would stay home
and watch movies
so this is right around
the same time that
Betamax came out.
We had one of the early
first Betamax decks.
I would stay home and watch like
three or four movies a night
and I did this for maybe two
years or something like that
until I finally said,
I can't take it anymore
and instead of hiding from
things that might hurt me,
I ran head long into it.
You are now
watching Russian TV.
This is no way influenced
by the government.
- Good morning
fellow Russianers.
Today in the weather,
there will be
60 percent chance of showers.
Hell, I can't take anymore,
it's hell.
- Oh my god.
- You okay?
- That is a film from
when I was 14 in 1984.
My background in film is
that I started making movies
when I was seven years
old and never stopped.
I never signed up killing
myself a lot in these videos.
This is shot on
Betamax before VHS
and this is me playing
myself in both roles.
I play the two guys.
It's upstairs guy
versus downstairs guy.
Because I'm the only one,
I have to keep
coming to the camera
and turning it off by hand.
I knew exactly the timing
so I could turn it on,
get in the frame in the position
and walk towards the
camera and turn it off.
Not good aiming,
a lot of shooting.
This is the big
finale coming up.
Did you have
a happy childhood?
Did I have a what?
- Turn it on, oh.
- Film was like a
salvation for me.
♪ Once upon a time
there was a dream ♪
♪ Biggest in the world
♪ You know what I mean
My grandfather gave me
his old Super 8 camera,
which was a hand crank
and you had the cartridge
you had to put into
it and you had to get
the film developed.
The first time I
got that film back
and projected it on a wall,
it was just splashes of
light and I was hooked.
♪ Castle by the flame
♪ She said I'll
show you something ♪
♪ Like you've never
known before ♪
Then once camcorders
came into reality,
I started shooting these videos
and the videos were
one Betamax tape
containing three hours
of skits and shorts
and I would spend
probably about six months
every day shooting
these little videos.
In my mind, these were epic
movies that I was making.
- Hey Bobs, what's
happening, man?
Hey yeah, it's a really
nice day, isn't it.
- Yes it is, Bob, yes it is.
It's a real nice day,
it's just terrific.
- Yeah, I raped your
girlfriend, you know.
- What?
Oh my god, no no no.
Freeze, asshole.
- Wait, wait Bob, wait Bob.
I was only joking, Bob.
- Doesn't matter,
doesn't matter.
You're fucked man,
you're really fucked.
- I was joking, man, I was joke.
- I went to a private
school for kids
with learning disabilities
and at a certain point,
I outgrew the school.
Then I had to be in
a special ed class.
We're gonna send you to just
go look at this public school.
I went into audit the class
and these were
kids that were like
severely physically and
mentally handicapped
and the teacher really
didn't teach so much
as acted like a nurse,
made sure they were eating
and using the bathroom
and all of those things
and the teacher at the end
was like, look, you
really can't go here.
Just go anywhere else but
you're not suited for this.
My mother basically
had tricked me to go to
a boarding school in Boston.
- I completely deny that.
- Every weekend I wanted
to go into the city
because that's where
the punk rock shows were
at this place called the Rath.
I started dying my hair black
and dressing more punk rock
and this was a school
with a dress code
so I had to come back to school
and then hide everything.
You know, put it under a
bandana when I had a mohawk
and all of this.
Oh.
God, I hate morning.
Shit.
Going to school, god damn.
- We put in a lot of hours.
I guess that, comes with
being a lawyer in D.C.
Ethan!
- I became very depressed.
One night I was
with my girlfriend
and we had just come
from seeing a show,
Hayden Hall in Boston
and we were walking back
to her neighborhood
in Brookline.
That night I had been
drinking a fair amount
as I did every time
to get the courage
to go to these punk rock shows
and the car was
driving up the street
and I ran and I dove
in front of the car
but I was so drunk instead
of going in front of the car
I actually landed right in
the door and the car stopped.
The guy was like
opening his door
and then I got up and
started screaming at him,
like, you fucking asshole,
why didn't you hit me?
I started kicking the door and
the driver looked at me like,
what the fuck?
This kid's totally
crazy and drove off.
I was 16 years old.
After I had an epiphany
and you're gonna die
so why would I give
the satisfaction
to the rest of the world
by ending my life early?
Why wouldn't I just
sit here and try to
do as much damage
and make as much art,
put myself out there
as much as I can,
and after that, it
made me more aggressive
about pursuing what
I wanna do in life.
I'm not recommending
it to anybody else,
but that's what it did for me.
- You had blond curly hair,
wholesome looking
teenager and I went to
the airport to meet you
and then this creepy
looking kid gets off.
He's got a Mohawk,
chains around his neck,
looked like he hadn't
had a bath in weeks,
and I'm thinking to myself,
oh, his poor parents.
Can you imagine having
that kind of kid?
And all of the sudden I
hear from behind me, hi mom,
and I turned around and that
creepy looking kid was you.
My first impulse was
to take my raincoat
and throw it over your head
so no one would see you,
but you were my son,
so I gave you a big hug
and said, welcome home.
- Film me, I'm gonna
have to hurt you.
Why, it's your camera?
You should be.
- I don't wanna be filmed.
Really
think about it hard.
- A lot of the reason
I got into punk rock
at such an early age was
because of my parents' divorce.
My mother moved to
Georgetown in Washington D.C.
which is a neighborhood
where there was
a lot more alternative stores,
there was punk rock
kids hanging out.
♪ Can't do something
just don't get it ♪
On M Street, there was a
record store called Smash
and in there, I would
go ask the clerk,
what do you think is a
really good record to get
and then I would run
home and then play it
over and over again.
♪ Dead end's best
♪ Just like the rest
Part of helping me learn
to become a better writer
is I would take
the lyrics sheets,
'cause every punk rock
record has a lyric sheet
and I would hand copy
out every word for word
onto a cassette tape
and make mix tapes
that I would then give
out to my friends.
♪ Down and everyone here
♪ Trying to do something
they just don't get ♪
Prior to punk, everything
was what you can't do.
If you can't read,
you're inferior.
Punk rock was that key that said
none of that matters.
It was like Occam's razor.
It leveled the playing field.
It was a sign on
the door that said
there are no boundaries.
You can kick this door in,
you can walk through this door,
you can open other doors.
- Fuck you, man, fuck
you, fuck your family.
♪ Fuck this town
and everyone in it ♪
♪ Trying to do something
and they just don't get it ♪
- Once we became teenagers,
it was pretty much
us on our own.
We didn't really see
any adults until later
in the evening and just
did what we wanted.
- My house became the place
where everyone hung out
and everyone was
drinking and having sex
and doing whatever
and me and my sister
basically raised ourselves
like feral little animals
that we are.
This is a day of a
normal boy's life
driving through the
suburban neighborhoods.
And this is my brother.
- Go away.
- One of the very first
creative things I did,
I started making
silk screen shirts.
♪ 20 dollars it's all I got
♪ 20 dollars and
it give me a lot ♪
When I went back
to Washington D.C.,
I started printing these shirts.
I just wanted people to see it.
I wasn't trying to make a profit
and I didn't realize I
was ripping off the artist
who designed the flyer
and I didn't realize
I was ripping off the
band the Bad Brains
which was also a D.C. band
and I started selling
these shirts in Smash.
I had put my name Ethan M on
the bottom of every shirt.
The owner off Smash
coming up to me,
going like, look, your
shirts are really great
but you got to do
me a favor, kid.
Take your name off
of that because Daryl
from the Bad Brains has been
coming in looking for you
and he is pissed.
I stopped making
shirts after that
and that's when I
noticed the fanzines.
We're here
with Project Nerd.
- See, this guy's got it.
Speaking of this guy,
this is Ethan joining us
for a very special
episode of the Nerd Cast.
So what is a zine?
- You have fan, a fan
of something specific,
and magazine.
Put the two words
together, fanzines.
Magazines that are
independently published,
sometimes Xeroxed, but
the one thing they're not
is polished.
I would look at these
zines and go like hey,
this is all kind of a mess and
I think I could do this too
and I really got into it.
- It's a passion project.
Nobody makes money, it's
just artists who want
people to see their artwork.
- How many of you
were born before 1988,
anybody in here?
Okay, this is me in high school.
My fanzine developed from
a music centered zine
to something that was
more focused on the arts.
♪ Let's go get lost somewhere
♪ Where only love
is in the air ♪
People started recognizing me.
It gave me confidence
to keep trying
to pursue something
creative because
it was the first time
that not only was I
able to express myself,
but I felt like I was
affecting the
community at large.
- If he was a boss, I would
find this very difficult
but since we were friends
before we did this,
we can both call each
other on our shit
and that's how we
talk to each other.
- I've never read
a single fanzine.
I've distributed
them at coffee shops everywhere,
but I've been in them.
I don't think I've
ever really read it.
- Slightly irritated at the way
people sometimes misuse words
or they won't use the
proper form of a word
and so maybe part of the reason
that I helped
selfishly is because
it reduces irritation
when I read these stories
that I wanna read.
- He handed me a zine,
and I think that was
his way of hitting me
and now we're married.
Bye!
- For me personally, my
parents are both workaholics.
My father would sit at
the office every night
'till about 9 or 10
o'clock at night,
so that meant after school
I was taken to his office
and would be put into
a conference room.
In that, they would
bring me a pad of paper.
They would bring me
pencils, staplers,
you know, stuff in the office
and I would make artwork.
I would put them
into little books.
I would go over to
the copy machine,
I would make copies
and make multiples.
At age seven, I was
technically making zines.
I'd bring them into school and
on the school bus or whatever
I'd give them out to my friends.
- Every issue has a
different artist on the cover
and has their bio on the back.
It inspired me to
do my own zine.
- You're gonna go through
the art world and community
realizing that every time
you try to do something,
there is somebody in between you
and getting to success.
There is going to
be art directors,
there's gonna be curators.
The fanzine side
steps all of that,
just like your portfolio
and then you can leave
that anywhere in the world.
The good thing about
doing a fanzine
opposed to doing a blog,
accessing people you would
never have contact with
a lot of times happens
through a fanzine.
We leave it on the
seat of a train,
we leave them in banks,
we leave them in coffee shops.
By leaving it in
a random location,
somebody who picks that up who
knows nobody in your circle
is not interjected into what
you're doing automatically
and that's a really
powerful thing.
- Every issue of the zine we've
got one artist of the issue
that we award that title to.
It's that person
that gets the cover.
- I did this cover
photo for the zine.
That zine sat in front
of the right person
who then hired me and then
it was like a chain effect.
It led to me photographing
for several magazines.
Wow, damn, things just
changed right after that.
- What's your best zine story?
- There was Faction Five
and Maximum Rock and Roll
and all of these zines
that used to review zines
and I would put
free for prisoners
so I would mail it.
I'd have to from
the publisher's meet
because that's the only way
a lot of the zines would
get into the prison system
would get letters from
prisoners all over the world.
I started receiving letters
from a gentleman named
John Wayne Gacy, notably
known as a serial killer
who killed I think 32 people,
buried them under his house.
My roommates at that
point were like, hey,
do you mind never putting
our address on the zine
because we have serial
killers writing you letters.
♪ I would blame
you so much more ♪
I've hand stapled, I
don't know, 100,000 zines.
I've gone through staplers,
like had to buy new ones
'cause I've worn them out.
I got into writing,
I got into doing art,
I got into everything flowed
from doing these fanzines
because if you feel like
you are lonely and isolated,
it's a great way to
bring you out of that
and connect with others.
The fanzine helped
out a lot of people
but for me personally,
I think it took me
as far as I could go.
I'll always make the fanzine,
but at a certain point, I
wanted to do something bigger.
I wanna reach a large
number of people
and affect change
in a greater sense.
At this point, I was willing
to try everything and anything.
For the
man in the family.
- See, so apply old fart
for that man in your family.
- Got a call in the middle
of the night from you
and you were in a panic.
You told me you had
just attacked somebody
with a machete.
- We had a show in Rhode Island
and I had a pin on my shirt.
I was very excited
about the show.
I jumped on Ethan's back
and accidentally stabbed him
with my pin which must
have been pretty painful.
Next thing I know,
I'm kind of just being
suspended off the ground
in a choke hold from Ethan
and he's, don't ever
stab me again, what the.
After like two
seconds, he realized
that I didn't mean to do it
and he was the look of sheer
fear of my own life
and he let me go.
- My first question was,
well, were they dead or alive
and you said alive.
Said, okay good.
And then you described that
you were having a party
and there was a, I guess
a drunk football player
from Colombia who was
being very obnoxious
and so you threw him out.
He came back with buddies
and at that point,
you took out the old
machete that I gave you
when you were 10.
- Basically mugged him.
Went to get his wallet but
couldn't get it back easily
so ended up just taking the
kids pants off completely
and then took the
wallet
and told the kid that
when he came back
with the money that he owed us,
he could have his wallet back.
But he was too humiliated to
ever come back in the bar.
- Chopped his arm, not
off, but cut him up.
Bleeding, he fled.
You called me as not your
mother, as your lawyer
and asked what you should do.
I said, okay, if he's
alive, call the police.
Report a home invasion
and when the police come,
explain what happened.
Whoever gets to
the police first,
the police is gonna believe.
- One day, two detectives came
to the door looking for him.
Apparently he busted
some kids tooth.
They went to the bar
and arrested him.
- Do I think you're a tough guy?
No, you're a marshmallow.
- Later on, you called me back,
and I said, well, how'd it go?
And you said, they wrote
it down as a home invasion
and then you said as a
young cop was leaving
he turned around and he
said, did you get him good?
And he said, yeah.
- I was two blocks away
when Ronald Reagan got shot.
I was three blocks
away when a guy
tried to blow up the
Washington monument.
I lived in this world
where I always thought
at any moment I could
get blown up or killed
by some nut bag or
some foreign power.
I got into a lot of violence.
Got in fights, got arrested.
I had a reputation as being
someone who was violent
and in the high
schools and I remember
there were a lot of people
who were afraid of me.
But I came to this
realization that
all of that posturing
was related to
this fear, this deep seated
fear of getting physically hurt
or dying and then I started
looking at all of these
other tough guys around and
I started realizing that
wait a minute, all these
guys that are really tough
are actually
completely terrified.
I know they're just like me.
They're frightened little
boys who were afraid of
the big black void.
Ethan.
- Hey bud.
Is it on?
Turn it off 'cause we're
gonna get a fire extinguisher.
Okay, say
your last words.
Look, there's
cars behind you.
Bye.
- The violence in D.C.
sort of had rules to it.
You'd be put in
violent situations
but you weren't doing drugs
or you weren't
in-confrontational
that the rules sort of applied
that you wouldn't get hurt.
Very time you stepped
across that line,
then you would be in a
world of extreme danger.
I know people who
were shot and killed.
- The thing about
the punk rock scene
during the time period was a
collision also of crack cocaine
hitting the city and
violence escalated.
I had one friend and
somebody went to his house
and he let the person in
and the person shot him
six times and executed him.
The killer then calmly closed
the door behind him and left.
A girl who was my
friend's older sister,
she was gang raped and strangled
and left on the side of a road
and it was her aunt
that found her car
and then found her body.
Christina, she was an older
punk girl from the scene.
She was known to
be pretty tough.
She carried brass
knuckles around with her.
She went to Boston and then
started dating this guy
who she broke up with.
He went and executed her
and then killed himself.
Rob, I ran into him
in New York and then
three hours later, he had
shot six bags of heroin
and overdosed.
My friend Matt, almost
like my brother,
him and his wife were separating
and the wife got a gun
and walked into his work
and shot him like six times,
leaving his daughter
without a dad.
- Your friends death.
I remember I put
my arm around you
and sitting down and
talking with you about
because you were terribly upset.
- I've had probably
a dozen friends die.
The violence and the bad things
that have happened in my life
is one of the major things
I use to push me to
do something creative
because when you get
into those dark moments,
you have choice.
You can go and be
more destructive.
You can sink into a dark hole,
or you can use that as
something that allows you
to do something to
better yourself.
To make art was a way to cope.
There was no reason to
have a fear of failure
because I knew I'd be dead soon.
I was contemplating my options.
I had the choice of
either going to art school
or staying at home.
If I had stayed home,
I'd probably be dead now.
- We are destination downtown
and we're documenting the
stories of these amazing people.
Located to the Lower East
Side from Washington D.C.
and he is an artist
and a film maker,
one of the founders of
the Antagonist Movement.
- But the concept of
coming to New York
and knowing a couple of things
and one was like The Warriors,
the movie The Warriors,
so I was like,
I'm gonna come, I'm gonna
have to join a gang.
I'm gonna be knife
fighting with everybody
and then the other
part is my family,
we live, we have
relatives in Rhode Island
so we'd take the train
from D.C. to Rhode Island
and in that passage,
all you would see is the
very worst parts of New York
like just rubble and
burnt down buildings
and all of this
stuff and I was like,
my god, New York
City is a wasteland.
I knew a lot of
the local gang kids
that were much tougher than me
so the very first
week I was there,
I saw this kid walking
our of Mona's Bar
and crossing the
projects on 11th Street
and just kids from
those projects
throwing 40 ounce bottles
at him and him running away
and me going like, oh my god.
This guy is covered in tattoos,
he's way tougher than me,
local Puerto Rican kid,
there's no chance
I'm gonna make it.
Two days later, I was
walking out of my building
and another friend of
mine that I had known
from the punk scene
drove up in his car
and he's like, oh you
know, how you doing?
Blah blah blah and
I'm like I'm good
but I'm a little nervous
about the neighborhood,
like am I gonna get
murdered in my sleep here?
And he's like, no, no one's
ever gonna bother you here
and I go, why's that?
He goes, well I happen to
be in this time period,
you're pretty much like
the only white guy here
and I'm a parole officer
and I'm all of these
guys' parole officer,
so look at the corner.
And like all the kids
were watching us.
And they're like, yeah,
they think you're a cop now.
And I was like,
oh okay, great.
After that meant not only
did I ever have a problem.
None of those kids
ever talked to me ever.
I came from a place
where violence and death
was something that was normal.
Still to this day when I
walk into a restaurant,
I have to have my
back to the wall
and my eye on the door
because I don't want somebody
sneaking up behind me.
That carries over to
what I do creatively.
I have anger and
violence that simmers
just below the surface.
A little bit dangerous,
a little bit rebellious
and maybe a little bit criminal.
- When you were about, must
have been seven or eight,
we took you to a
psychiatrist who wanted
to put you on Ritalin
because the psychiatrist said
that you were hyperactive,
which I completely disagreed.
If you were interested
in something,
you would sit there for
hours and work on it.
So I told the psychiatrist
that I absolutely refused
and she kind of
went into a god like
how dare you disagree with me,
you're a bad parent,
this is like child abuse.
I said, well, that's
the way it is.
This child is not
gonna be on drugs
and that's the end of it.
- Say no to drugs and
that is probably because
I don't drink or use drugs.
- Your dyslexia which
I think is more severe
than people realize
in unmanageable on
alcohol or drugs
and I think you like
to be in control.
- In order to be the
best version of himself,
I think Ethan's got to stay
sober for the most part.
- It was 1990 in New
York and I started
working in the bars and that's
when the big change happened.
There was one night
I was bartending
and in front of me was an
actor who wasn't acting,
a musician who didn't
play any music,
a painter who didn't paint,
and a writer who didn't write
and these were people
I saw day after day,
week after week.
They were there
'till the bar closed.
They stayed there
after hours with me.
The one thing they
have in common is that
they're here in the bar
drinking all night every night.
You have to be willing
to give up something.
- There was a
point in time where
a lot of people that we
knew were doing drugs,
specifically like a lot
of people got into heroin.
Few of those people died.
Ethan's reaction to
that was super worried
and did whatever he could
to convince those people
that they should stop doing it.
I'll kick your ass,
I'll steal your drugs,
I'll call your
parents, et cetera.
- The stories you hear of
artists having addictions
and those addictions
actually helping their art,
a fallacy.
The reality is most people are
hobbled by their addictions.
I just wasn't
willing to risk that.
- Not everybody
died, so I guess it,
maybe it worked
with some of them.
- I remember being in a
hotel with Ethan in Nashville
and watching MTV and
all of the sudden
there was this video that
I had written music for
and Ethan had directed
and it was so exciting.
I remember sort of jumping
around in a hotel room.
Thank you
for watching the film.
I'm gonna say I'm recording now
so you kind of get this thing
that I record
everything in my life.
- There was always like a
strange Hitchcock almost cameo
where Ethan shows
up mostly semi nude.
He's usually washing some part
of his anatomy or the other.
- It's unfair because
he always ambushes you.
I have to film this thing by
this date tomorrow morning
at 7 a.m. I will film you.
You will be filmed by me.
I am Ethan Ethan
Minsker.
But now you're
in a bunch of films.
Let's talk about
that, the films.
- It's weird.
He kind of brands it Ethan
and then the artist Ethan.
He puts himself a
lot into movies.
I don't think it's bad.
There was nobody else
doing it at the time.
He was the only
one that showed up
with his camera every week
and would edit it religiously
and most people would have
given up after the first flop.
On tonight's
program, we're first showing
a film by Ethan Minsker.
- We're here down on
the Lower East Side.
- I'm taking myself very
seriously as a collector.
- I went to New York
and went to art school
and then switched to film.
I made a documentary
called Anything Boys Can Do
which covered the women
bands on the Lower East Side
between 92 and 94.
- When I first saw Anything
Boys Can Do, I was blown away
that a film made in
the 90s and a film that
showcased rampant sexism
in the music industry
could still be so
relevant today.
- It played in over 50
festivals around the world.
It was my first time of
having any taste of success.
- Ethan's films aren't about
stories that are contrived
or follow some mold.
I mean, they're, all of his
films are very personal.
♪ Any fool can tell
what's happening ♪
♪ When you're caught
without your friends ♪
He is going to make
something with the community
that he's built.
It's going to be about
building spiritual currency
and raising other people
up and creating art.
- All these movies have
the same cast of characters
so for the past 16 years,
I'm in whatever it is,
five, six films.
- The things that
I talk about today,
I'm not necessarily
saying that you should
follow what I'm doing because
what we have done before
could possibly land
you in jail or prison.
There are local gang
members in this,
so we pretty much use
our whole community.
Once we started making the film,
we had people coming
up to us saying like,
I hear you're making a
film, I wanna be in it.
I'm like, all right.
Some of these guys were like,
we got to put them in the film.
We can't cut them out.
Using guns in New York
City in this time period
and still today you
have to have a permit
to be able to rent a
prop gun from the store.
The permit means you
have to have insurance
and insurance is $2,000.
This budget of the
entire film is $2,000.
That money went to
drugs and a limo rental.
That said, I had provenance
from when I was a kid.
The criminal element that
I kind of mentioned before,
we show up and be like, well,
I've got this sawed off shotgun.
Why don't we use that?
And I'm like, all right, well
now we're using real guns
in the streets of New York.
Two weeks before that,
a gentleman was shot and
killed pulling his wallet out
in front of the police,
so the whole neighborhood
downtown was on edge.
We literally had people
standing on corners going, cops!
And then we would break up.
Everyone put the equipment away.
The criminal with the gun
would then take the bag
and go another direction.
It was just like we
were dealing drugs
but were dealing art.
It was filmed in
one scene two weeks
before September 11 happened,
two blocks away from
the Twin Towers.
The neighborhood shut
down below 14th Street
for three months.
We still kept shooting.
We kind of agreed to it.
♪ Isn't it right
- Ethan works, he
works a full time job.
He earns enough money
to pay his bills,
and then he films.
It takes him quite a
while to finish his films
because they're not financed.
- I worked in the film industry.
I did grip and electric.
I would do assistant
editing for cable networks
and the thing I would
find most common
is that the projects I worked on
were predictable and cliche.
I will never be that
theatrical success.
I'd prefer to make
my little odd films
that are geared towards
like minded individuals
documenting subcultures
and unknown artists.
It inspired me to wanna
get more involved,
to have a bigger influence.
I just really wasn't sure
how to go about doing that.
The dynamic of
living in New York
is everybody moves
here because they wanna
do something creative.
If you don't wanna move
here because of that,
you're moving here
because you wanna be
around people who are
doing something creative.
Unfortunately, the rents
make that very hard
because you become
a slave to your job
so you're stuck in a
cycle of having to work
to pay your rent and not doing
what you're doing creatively.
The dynamics of the bars
is they want people there
and they wanna make
money, so we said, hey,
you got this room in
the back of the bar.
Why don't we do one
night art shows.
We did that for 11 years.
We showed over 3,000 artists
and the reason it worked
is because you were
giving people a chance
without having to worry about
the economics of a gallery.
There was huge room
for experimentation
so you couldn't say
that those same elements
didn't exist in other
cities, they did.
There were other cities
all over the world
where there was cheap rent,
but they didn't have
as many art movements
birthed out of them
as New York City did,
as Punk Rock, as Hip
Hop, as the Beatnik.
The thing about New
York that's unique
is that it brings
everybody together
and those people who
have diverse perspectives
can come up with
something unique.
♪ Art talk
♪ Just doing some
good old art talk ♪
♪ With your host Ethan Minsker
If you're trying to
do something creative,
you have to look
at the resources
and assess your situation
in your environment
and New York is uniquely suited
to doing creative things.
All of those materials
and elements are there
and if you become crafty enough,
you can figure out ways
you can do these projects
for little or no cost.
New York had all of
the creative elements
that I would need to be
able to pursue my dreams.
It's a city full of
people just like myself
who are desperate
to do something.
♪ Not just a new idea but
Building a community like that
was the birthplace for starting
the Antagonist Art Movement.
We try to go into the
community, engage the community,
and then build our larger
community through outreach.
What kind of
advice would you give
to those people listening?
- I'd say the
major thing with us
is that artists in
general are solitary
and by working
together as a group,
it gives you a lot
more options open up.
I'm the head curator
and organizer
for a group called the
Antagonist Art Movement.
We're based out of New York City
but we work with artists
around the world.
Part of our mission statement
is to create venues
and projects that allow
unrecognized artists to
develop their talent.
Our goal is to act
as a laboratory
to allow people to
experiment without
the ramifications
of the economics
that are associated
with the art market.
- It's known the art world now.
It's just a place,
it's about money
and moving and shaking
and it's not really about
discovering artists or
any of that anymore.
So as artists, we
have to carry on
in our own sort
of collective way.
- Ethan hasn't just
built an organization
that's helped so many
people and so many creatives
in the Lower East Side,
but he's helping to
uphold the legacy
of the Lower East Side
and the creative history
of his neighborhood.
- We were gonna do our own thing
and actually create things that
are interesting and unique.
- Antagonist Movement was
my gateway to New York City.
When I moved here, I had
nothing and Ethan got me a job.
- Huge part of my 20s and
my development as an artist.
- He got me writing.
- The Antagonist art
movement is a family to me.
And kind of a cult,
let's be real.
- Comparing it to some of the
other artistic communities
which to me were
much more elitist.
- In a strange place where
you never find a leader,
we
found Ethan Minsker
or he found us, I don't know.
- The art market, overwhelming
percent of artists
that are successful are
from the same economic class
that owns and runs
the galleries.
They go to the same few
select master programs.
We select art purely based on
the content quality of the art.
We separate the concept
of who the artist is.
The antagonist is the one
who pushes the protagonist
to action so we're not
trying to be the hero.
We're trying to get the hero
to go off and do the adventure.
I worked at galleries
and art handler
and it's a very
closed off system.
How can a gallery
afford this space
to pay my salary
and everybody else
is that they have to have
artists that can cover that.
It was 2003 when
we met Arturo Vega.
Arturo was the artistic
director for the Ramones.
He did their t-shirt design,
they rehearsed in his loft.
He was a mixing spoon
where he would take people
from different elements
and backgrounds
and introduce them to each other
and try to get them
to collaborate.
Our art movement and all the
work I've personally done
has been always
referencing punk rock
so when you have
somebody like Arturo
who comes along and isn't
just passing through
but takes notice of
what you're doing,
gets involved, and wants
to push you to do more
and become friends
with us is massive.
Arturo would curate
shows for us,
he would mentor
artists, advise us,
but for me personally, he
was like the artistic father
that I never had.
Arturo brought us Richard
Hambleton who showed with us
in the pop up gallery we had
in the basement of a bar.
He hadn't shown in
more than 20 years
so that was kind of
a big deal for us.
- If we were to stare.
We love you
Arturo, we love you.
Who's the cutest?
- I think an Antagonist is
not about being beautiful.
It's about being beautiful
and getting away with it.
- Arturo died suddenly in 2013.
It broke my heart but
Arturo would have been
the first one to tell
you that you don't mourn
someone's death,
you celebrate it.
There are times when I
felt like slowing down
I could feel this kind of voice
in the back of my head.
What you're doing is good,
it's good for the community.
When you get in
this conversation,
like how do we know each other?
Oh yeah, you don't remember?
Arturo introduced us.
He was bringing us
these lost puppies
but all the lost puppies
is really what made up
the bulk of our group.
- And those people
eventually got careers
and became established
and some of them became
world recognized.
There are a few people
that have become successful,
Jonah Hill.
- 'Cause I'm a moron, dude.
My shit's not very
well spoken at all.
Trust me, I'll be
the first one to say.
- He was a kid off the street
that came in and started
reading in our group.
We moved him up to headliner.
Dustin Hoffman's kids
came in and said,
I want you to meet my dad.
He's doing a movie called
I Love the Huckabees
which was Jonah
Hill's first movie
and then took off.
The whole point is to try
to make it something unique
that changes everything so
if we make into mainstream
status, that's fine
as long as you keep
the integrity of
what you're doing.
We had done so many
shows in New York
and felt like we weren't
really getting anywhere
so we decided to
do shows overseas.
- I actually find you guys
really easy to deal with
since you've done a lot of
these exhibitions
internationally.
There was a lot of
encouragement there.
I like the fact that you
guys do antagonize me
'cause when you've got a
year to work on a show,
you tend to sort of be
a little bit laid back,
especially if you're Australian.
- I was brought to
this project by Ethan.
Conversation started
about over a year ago.
I met Ethan through some friends
at a barbecue in New Jersey
in the Hoboken of all
places.
- The overseas projects, we
would work with local artists
in tandem to come
up with a theme.
- Back in 2007 in
Berlin I met Antagonist.
We did an art show
there together.
They influenced us
to do these art shows
where everyone can show.
I'm living in New York
and the Antagonists
helped me find jobs.
- By doing those, we
would make connections
that would last for years.
- I came to New York
and they introduced me
to a lot of people
and opportunities.
Then I started working
on some of their projects
like zines and
films and art shows.
Now I'm trapped forever.
- October we're doing
the Dwelling Project
in Sydney, Australia.
We're asking people
to make buildings
out of recycled materials
and then we'll construct
a city in the gallery.
Half the buildings
and works you see here
are a performance art.
I will come in as
Godzilla and destroy it
because I love doing that.
The deeper part of
it is that it's about
the loss of your
home and how people
all around the world constantly
there's someone
losing their home
and a lot of people
watch it on the news
and don't really
feel it personally.
♪ Lemonade lemonade
♪ Lemonade lemonade
gimme gimme lemonade ♪
♪ Lemonade lemonade oh
- One of my first shows
I've ever done as an artist
kind of gave me an early sense
of a feeling of community.
I designed the latest
Antagonist movement logo
and traditionally, the
logo itself has been
designed by a different
artist every couple of years
keeping the same
theme of a ninja
inside of a black circle with
Antagonist Movement around it.
- If you get that
collective Antagonist stuff
in enough different spots,
somebody will discover it.
♪ Places will be hard to find
- This neighborhood
really represented
this sort of spirit
of independent art
and making something
that was new.
When I came here, I was
like, I wanna start a group.
I wanna make something new.
All I wanna do is at
least be the liner note
in somebody else's
story where we're like,
we helped that person
make something huge
and change everything.
The Antagonist Movement
for me was a school.
It taught me how to
work with other artists.
It gave me a greater
and deeper understanding
of all of the possibilities
of art out there
and not to be limited by
just trying out one genre.
It gave me the courage to
try things that were risky
and in doing so, it sharpened
and honed my ability.
- Affecting individual
peoples' lives in New York
which is such a
dehumanizing place at times.
- And I think it's
good because I think
we're some of the last
left in the Alamo.
- In 2011, we lost the space
where we did our events.
It's not really about
the actually shows.
It's not about the physical art.
It's about the connections
and the personality
of the people we work with
and those connections
are what are really
the fundamental crux of
the Antagonist Movement
because those carry on
much longer than the show.
- I think his strongest talent
is building communities.
- It started with me
reading Ernest Hemingway
and Henry Miller books.
There's these parts
where they talk about
going to the beach
and vacationing
with a group of artists
of different backgrounds.
♪ Words that calm me
It would be the starting
place for new concepts
and ideas so once a year,
I would get a bunch of artists
and we would save up some money
and split the rental
cost of a house.
There was something
about getting outside
of your environment
that led to new concepts
that it gives you
more opportunity
because you're tapping
into the knowledge
of all of the different people.
Over the years,
the artist retreat
morphed into the art brunch
and the art brunch now is
something we do once a month.
I think as an
artist it's easy to
get stuck in your projects
so you should have something
built into your routine
that is a social element.
All of my friendships
and socializing
are done through
what I do creatively.
The art brunch is a
place where people can
give me critical
feedback on my projects.
I started trying to
think of what could be
the next step that could
supplement those things.
- In 2011, Ethan and his family
and the Antagonist Art Movement
sent me back to NYU to study
philanthropy and fund raising.
From there, I learned
how to do grant writing,
accounting, budgeting
and everything
under the sun for
non-profit organizations.
With these
art projects we do,
we go to other countries
and then we search out
kids from disadvantaged youth,
hard backgrounds and we try
to teach them in workshops.
The thing I found amazing
about that is you see
these kids who maybe are
not interested in writing
or not interested in art
but are very creative
and once you show them that
sort of avenue of expression,
then it flips everything around.
Like the same thing with myself.
- Shannon, Ethan, and
I are all directors
on the board for the non-profit
Citizens For The Arts.
- In 2013, we were
granted non-profit status.
- This is the next step.
It's opened a
number of opportunities.
We don't only do art projects.
We do things that are kind
of in a humanitarian realm.
- When you feel that you've
been doing the same thing
for a certain amount of years,
you have to actively go
out and try to do something
that you're not
comfortable with.
- There is a lot of
challenges that we're facing.
- I had this idea in my head
that once we became a non-profit
that everybody would just
start throwing at us,
but it's like hard to get
five dollars out of somebody,
let alone 500 or 5,000.
- You went from having
a large base of people
but at the end of the day,
there's only three
people doing it
so it's starting at square one
and we end up putting
our own money into it.
I think we've done quite well.
- You're never going to progress
if you just stay
in the same place.
Hello.
Today on Film Festival,
we'll have a couple of boys
trying to make
fools of themselves.
Now, let's go and watch.
I think as an artist you
also should be a collector.
It's a good way not only for
you to collect great work
but it's also a way for
you to get your work
injected into somebody
else's collection.
I use my hallways
like a mini gallery
and this reflects the
work from all of the
one night art shows
we did for 11 years.
Come on in here.
When we used to do
the pop up gallery,
one of our things was doing
group shows based on a theme.
For this painting, it
was obscure dictators.
Normal people portrayed
as great dictators.
And over here is a
painting from our great
Caffeinate and
Decimate show which was
the combination of mixing
caffeine and handguns.
- Oh god, it's so narcissistic.
Who would make the
film about themselves?
What I find
frustrating today
in making art is that
it's this celebrity cult that is
the fascination
of making success,
especially within the media.
If I write a book and
try to get a publisher
or an agent to pick it up,
the first thing they
wanna know is, well,
who did you kill or
who did you fuck?
Do you have an
Instagram account?
- Ethan is like the
most horribly obnoxious
self promoting person I know.
- Hashtag us, join
us on Instagram,
join us on Facebook, tell
your friends, spread the word.
We're famous for four blocks
on the Lower East Side.
Outside of that, nobody
seems to know us.
- Why is anyone going to
pick my book off the shelf?
Here there's always a choice,
so if we don't self promote,
I don't know how anybody
discovers our work anymore.
- Because I don't expect
anybody to come down
and save my ass.
If I don't do it myself,
it ain't gonna happen.
- You have to embrace the
egotistical side of making art.
If the average person
picked up a Picasso
and looked at it, they would go,
what the fuck is this shit?
But Picasso was an expert
at making sure that
people believed it
was the absolute
best art that ever
graced this earth.
So did Andy Warhol.
You have to have the
personality behind it.
I'm ready for combat.
This is apart of the
outfit I'm wearing
is actually like my event suit
so I have to show this part too.
Oh, very nice.
- I feel art is combat.
You have to be ready for war.
Here you go, sorry Mis.
Most people are consumers.
I personally would
rather be a producer.
♪ Take my winter
When people see me
in my camo suit,
this is a reference
to writers like
Truman Capote or Mark Twain.
Even though their
suits were white,
your outward appearance
is an extension of
your creative expression.
I decided I would start focusing
on my personal projects.
I'm never gonna be satisfied
with what I do creatively.
That's probably at the same time
the part of the machine
that makes me keep
taking on new projects
and trying new things.
I just have to learn to
give up the concept of
mainstream success but it would
be nice to have a paycheck.
- As long as I've known you,
it seems like your
whole style of creation
has always been collaborative.
I don't know how you get
so much fucking shit done.
It's crazy and you don't
care if it's not perfect
right away, you just make it
and that's admirable to me.
- I wanted to try
to make a book.
The first book I wrote was
Rich Boy Cries for Momma.
- You weren't able to find
a conventional publisher,
so you resorted to
self publishing.
- He self publishes
his own writing
but he goes to great
lengths for the quality of
every zine and
book that he does.
He gets great people
to do the artwork
and to help him design the
book, to edit the book,
so in the end, what he
has is just a really great
piece of art in itself.
- This one is about
the D.C. punk scene,
about some of my friends
getting murdered,
but it's a comedy too.
And Barstool
Prophets, that's about
the New York City bar
scene and all that.
- I read Barstool Prophets
and just thought it was great.
It was a great introduction
to the city of New York,
especially the East
Village because
it takes place between
1993 and about 2014
and you get to see all
the changes that go on
through the eyes of a bartender
and of course, bartenders
have the best stories, so.
- I just knew that he wrote
and I knee that he was dyslexic
but I hadn't really considered
what the two of those
things meant until after I
started editing his raw work
and then I was like, shit,
this has to actually
be a struggle.
I admire that you
still choose to do it.
I would have to
read everything out loud
so that he could hear,
visualize and edit in his mind.
- Being dyslexic
and writing a book
is on the level of a
blind man painting.
It's a thorough
process of editing
and normally a
book has one editor
and has a copy editor
while I have six people
who help me edit the book and
dozens and dozens of people
who read over it.
It's a collaborative effort.
I'm never gonna be able to just
take a typewriter
and write out a book
without a lot of supervision.
- His work is a lot
like the films he makes.
Everything is within the frame.
- Making my art, I
recognize I'm making
a deal with the devil
and in the details of
that contract state
is that you have to be willing
to put more of your private self
out into the greater world.
You risk being
criticized and ridiculed.
The art
world is full of bullies
just like any other
part of society.
- Now I've been
getting criticized
since I've been a kid.
It's one of the byproducts
of being learning disabled.
I've collected the
criticism and bad reviews.
I call them my little
family of enemies
and I keep them around
and use them as something
that motivates me because I
need to prove them all wrong.
- Ethan is always ready
for the consequences.
Actually, he's
looking for the fight.
- It pushes my art to be better.
I don't think any artist starts
out polished and perfect.
It's in your failures
that you become better.
This man is
up here 30,000 feet
above the World Trade Center.
Sir, do you have life insurance?
What?
I guess he didn't.
- When September 11
happened, I got a phone call
at nine in the morning.
My phone never rings
at nine in the morning
and when I came out
into the living room,
after the buildings had fallen,
you could see ash right
outside this window.
Picking up my camera
and filming gave me
the illusion of control.
It was a way of
processing the events
that were unfolding around me.
By me is where the World
Trade Centers used to stand.
It's now been a week.
I don't have the ability
to suppress emotions
so I have to figure out ways
I can work through them
and doing something creative
has always been that key for me.
It's the one thing that
keeps my sanity in check.
Those were tapes I hadn't
looked at in 17 years.
It was just something
I filmed and put away.
Couple of the people that
used to come in the bar
are definitely now missing or,
I guess the word
isn't missing anymore.
They're dead.
I was nervous about doing
the performance art.
Once I started, I fell
into this meditative state.
There's a feeling I derive
from the work that I do,
a mixture of comfort
and satisfaction
and that feeling can
be a very powerful
and addictive force.
You can't help thinking about
the people who lost their lives.
I understand when they're
watching the performance art
it's going to look
very childish,
it's going look like a
kid just having fun again.
I want the viewer to
have that disconnection,
not to understand
the real kind of
personal emotion behind it.
Maybe later if
they see this film,
their concept of what
they saw will change.
Living in New York right now
is just like living in a war.
♪ Stay
♪ Trading laughs again
Okay there's a story
you like to tell
about me over and over again.
- We were walking from the
9:30 Club to D.C. Space
which was a smaller club
a couple of blocks away
down a dark street and a
crack head comes up to us
with his hand in his jacket
as if he has a gun
and Ethan says,
you don't have a fucking gun
and you better
fucking have a gun
if you're gonna pull that shit
and I'm just terrified because
if I was that crack head,
I would have just shot Ethan,
but the reality was, the
guy didn't have a gun
and when Ethan challenged
him, he just said,
yeah, I don't have a
gun and turned around
and walked away very
matter of factly.
- I've had guns pulled
on me three times.
The project I've been
focusing on in the last year
has been Ghost Guns and
the concept is related to
a lot of my friends who died
as a result of gun violence
and I wanted to make
these paper mache guns
that act as a memorial to
the victims of gun violence.
The thing in the
United States is
everyone feels it's
impossible to do anything
about handguns and
I don't believe
rolling over and giving
up is the answer.
♪ They say
I enjoy shooting guns but
if it meant saving one life,
I'd be happy to give up
that right in a moment.
As a kid, you watch these movies
where the gun is always
presented as the catalyst
for action and adventure
but the reality is
is when you become an adult,
you can see the gun being
unmasked for what it truly is,
a tool of death,
destruction, and sadness.
I'll always incorporate
guns into my artwork,
but its symbolism has
changed from being
the hero to the villain.
♪ Who denounces all of you
♪ Bad manner round me
My bed and my
shelving I designed.
This is based on Frank
Lloyd Wright and his designs
but the funny thing is is
that Frank Lloyd Wright,
he did storage, so almost
every one of his houses
was build without any storage
so what I did is I
built storage units
based on his
aesthetic and design.
It's pretty rude, right?
- Any project that he
does, it drives me insane
because the space is very small
and he takes up the whole space
whether it's the
kitchen, the living room.
- In here's where I put
my shitty paintings.
The latest works I've been
doing have been called
A Boy's Dream where
I make a variety of
different war scenes
where there's like
battleships from
all different eras
and tanks from all
different eras.
- I get claustrophobic and
this shit is everywhere.
- This wall is a
collection of all the weird
sort of things that
have inspired me
and then just pieces
that I've worked on
and then ended up on this shelf.
- It's like I'm living
in an art studio.
It doesn't feel like a home.
- Seven years old,
I made this box.
How did you make it?
Wood and paint
and then stripped off
many layers of paint.
- It just feels like somebody
vomited art everywhere.
- Any good tips
for good parenting?
- You only have two functions
as a parent in New York
and every parent
should learn it.
As long as your kid
does not join gangs
and does not become
a drug addict,
you've done a great job.
That's it.
♪ Turned on the light
when I needed the dark ♪
- He was a little reluctant
to become a family man.
I think he's worked through that
and he's kind of the best
version of himself now
because of it.
♪ Took a swim when
I needed to drown ♪
- My father was
one of the greatest
workaholics of all time.
Your mom and I would say
that was one of the things
that led to our breaking up.
The expectation that we would
equally divide the work up
then that's involved
with the care of children
and your mom thought
that I didn't participate
in my share and she was right.
I was so wrapped up in my career
and working for the firm
and succeeding on my cases
and I neglected to spend
time with you and Natasha.
♪ Took a walk but
I needed to run ♪
- When I first met Ethan,
one phrase stuck with me
and he told me that he's
never going to stop creating
no matter what and
I thought, never?
That's crazy.
After we started dating,
I saw how incredibly
persistent he was.
I admire him tremendously.
I didn't want him
to stop making art
but after we had the baby,
I hoped that he would
be more involved
with taking care of the kid
'cause when you have a baby,
you got to sacrifice some stuff
so it really annoys
me, irritates me
that he's constantly making art,
but at the same time, I see
that he is making art now
with his daughter so that
it became their project,
not just his project.
That's pretty amazing.
♪ There are times
in your songs ♪
- I like bed that you made.
Do you wanna see it?
Come.
- Yeah.
So who's the best dad ever?
If your kid is afraid of
monsters under the bed,
you know what you got
to put under there?
Lights.
Lights under the bed.
Yeah.
Yeah, why?
- So the monsters won't,
the monster will go away.
- Because if you're a monster
and you're hanging out
under a bed then you
better have sunblock
'cause this is a
darn bright bed.
- Yeah because you can't add
it like at the light store.
- Yeah and before you
skeptics out there say,
yeah, but you're gonna catch
your kid's bed on fire,
these are LED and
they're not hot
and they don't put
out a lot of energy
so energy efficient
keeps the monsters away.
Any last words?
- Yeah and it puts,
LEDs explodes the monsters.
But now we
spend a lot of time
under the bed, right?
Yeah and now
we can explore it.
- Okay so best dad
ever, yeah, right here.
My very first girlfriend,
I was like deeply
in love with her
and it turned out she
slept with basically
everybody I knew.
It was hard to really
trust anybody thoroughly
after that had happened to you.
I didn't date anybody
that I didn't like.
I think my major problem is that
I always felt like I was
going to be abandoned
so if I had the opportunity
to fall in love with somebody,
I would.
The problem is is
that I've probably
fallen in love with too many
people at the same time.
I don't think I ever
did anything really bad
to the girls I dated.
I really did care for
every single one of them,
but I dated multiple people
and feelings were hurt.
My friends who
worked in the bars
were always saying, like look.
If you have a kid, it's
definitely gonna be a girl
and you're gonna
suffer the consequence
of all the things you've done
to these women you've dated.
As a kid I was watching
PBS and there was
a documentary on an animator
who worked on the
Betty Boop shows.
The guy just seemed
to emanate happiness
and then the name comes up
on the bottom of the credits
and his name was Grim,
the most depressing name
you could ever have on a person
is name your son Grim.
I had this thought like, well,
there's so many
people that I know
that are named Happy and Smiley
and they're all
miserable fucking people
so if I'm gonna have a kid,
I'm gonna name it something sad
but I'm not gonna call him Sad
and I'm definitely not
gonna call him Grim,
so Blu was a name
that I came up with
because Blue represents sadness,
it represents color.
It could potentially be
the name of a stripper,
but for my daughter,
I felt if I gave
the Johnny Cash name A Boy
Named Sue element to it
and name her
something that's sad,
she'll have a life
filled with joy.
♪ You're walking with
an angel going home ♪
You look silly.
You should look at yourself.
When I did have a daughter,
I had this first instinct
of like all these boys
are gonna do such horrible
things to my daughter.
Then I said, wait a
minute, that's ridiculous,
and in fact, I'm gonna give
her all of the knowledge
of what it's like coming
from a boy's perspective.
If anything, I think
I'm gonna have to be
pulling aside that little boy
and saying like,
I'm really sorry
whatever my daughter's
about to do to you.
- I'm sure having a
kid changed your world.
I'm sure on a certain level,
not that you weren't serious
about your art before,
you were probably
serious as death,
but this is a different
kind of seriousness.
It's a more mature
kind of seriousness.
Bigger pressure.
♪ Took a smoke
'cause I needed one ♪
- I want the door.
- All right, now flat.
I want the
door to be open.
Okay
here, here you go.
Lie down and flat.
Okay, where should I lie down?
- Here.
That one.
- Blu sits in a bed and
her father sits next to her
reading a book.
You know, I spend a lot
of time reading kids books
and the majority of
them are horrible
so yeah, I'm gonna make a
kids book with my daughter.
♪ Someone has told me
Oh no.
How many kids out
there can say that
they actually have
a book about them?
I don't see a difference
between parenting
and being an artist.
My daughter is the
greatest art project
I've ever made.
- One of Ethan's gifts
and I'll give him this
begrudgingly because
he doesn't deserve
any praise whatsoever is that
his entire life from when
he wakes up in the morning
from the very first
moment he opens his eyes
'till the moment
he closes his eyes,
he's thinking about ways
he can challenge himself
and his cohorts
into being creative
and do acts that transcend
the banality of daily life.
This is
the third year here
and we're trying to
build community really of
the avant garde and
conceptual artists
and creative people
that have made
major contributions to
the scene that we know.
He's the box artist.
He's a writer, an artist.
- I would just like to
say that I wasn't sure
if I sure put the
switchblade on there.
I think I did right by that.
♪ Over the horizon we go
♪ Over and over let's go
♪ Ghosts of all I've
known have let go ♪
It's hard to reconcile
that my own desperation
might have helped somebody else.
We did become a starting
place for a lot of artists.
We gave a lot of
people opportunities
and more importantly, it gave
myself a lot of opportunities.
Being able to travel around
the world and make art
if it wasn't for the
Antagonist Art Movement
and that wouldn't have happened
if I didn't do the fanzines
and in some regards, that
wouldn't have happened
if my parents
didn't get divorced
and if my mother didn't tell
me about the big black void
and if they didn't
discover I was dyslexic.
One thing leads into another.
It's all over.
I hope more people go out there
and make films just like
this 'cause I'll watch it.
Unless you're boring.
- When you're
interviewing people,
do you have to be naked
behind the camera?
Why am I wearing this
fucking camo suit?
♪ Letting go of my ego
- There is a message
behind this film.
I didn't make it for the people
who were already inspired
or those who need
to be inspired.
This is for all the
naysayers in your life,
all the people who told you
you couldn't chase your dreams,
that you needed to grow
up and to get a real job,
that your work had no value,
so lean in, open
your ears and listen.
Fuck you!
Don't forget to grab
fanzines, I have them.
♪ My love
♪ Real love
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ Real love
♪ Easy love
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ Find love for yourself
♪ To find love
♪ Real love
♪ Cherish love
♪ for yourself
♪ Find love
♪ Real love
♪ Find love
♪ for yourself
♪ for yourself
♪ for yourself
- That's all, folks.