WEBVTT - Flea: Acid For the Children 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:14.159 Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.120 all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.200 which you can find a link to in the show 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.959 notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:28.200 in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.960 enjoyed the episode. A few bands represent the eclectic nature 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.240 of Los Angeles, as well as The Red Hot Chili Peppers. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.000 Their blend of punk, funk and rap that they perfected 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.400 on nineteen ninety one Blood Sugar, Sex Magic felt like 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.640 it could have only come from southern California. That album, 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.960 by the way, is produced by Broken Record host Rick Rubin, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.160 one of his first projects after moving from New York 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.760 to LA. The secret to the Red Hot Chili peppers 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.360 funky sound was their dexterous bass player of Flee, a 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.440 prodigious bassis with massive stage presents whose charm landed him 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.920 roles in movies like The Big Lebowski and Queen and Slim. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.000 His talent was incubated in Los Angeles that doesn't exist anymore. 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.319 He writes about it vividly in his book, a memoir 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.880 of his adolescence called Acid for the Children. Flee discussed 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:10.960 the book recently with Malcolm Gladwell in front of an 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.759 audience at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles. They also 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.600 talk about Flee's upbringing and how he developed his distinctive 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.040 style of bass playing. It was our very first live 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.440 taping of the podcast, and we partnered with case or W, 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:23.760 in my opinion, the best music station in LA to 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.000 get it done. So here's Malcolm Gladwell and Flee live 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:59.600 in conversation. I noticed no one's chanting. Yeah, Malcolm, it's 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.880 a pretty much you guys know we're here to talk 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.960 about books, right. I was trying to think, you know, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.120 this is a great thrill. First of all for me 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.160 to be here. I think you're the I is trying 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.560 to figure this out backstage, the third most famous person 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:21.200 I've ever met. It's pretty I mean it's really good. 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.320 Number three, Wait, you're saying I'm the third most person, 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.320 most famous person you've ever met. I bet Obama once. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.079 You're not. I mean you're very famous, you're not that level. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.280 And number two I met Oprah once. I think you're 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.120 three behind Obama and Oprah in my in my book. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:45.920 So so it's very very exciting. So where I, uh, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:50.200 we're going to discuss your book, which, by the way, 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.960 is really lovely. Thank you. And I say that in 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.480 all sincerity, not as a and I think that's the 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:04.639 right word. There's there's something incredibly heartbreaking and beautiful about it, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.600 and that's where I wanted to start. One of the 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.560 one of the many unexpected pleasures of this book is 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.280 the picture that you paint of Hollywood in the seventies, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.000 and I wanted to start there because it's a Hollywood 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.800 that doesn't mean may be wrong, doesn't really exist anymore, 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.000 is that right? It doesn't exist in the slightest And 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.919 I actually had written extensively lamenting the loss of that 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.440 time and just how the city has changed. And I 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:37.640 took it out because I kind of got into grumpy 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.240 old man territory. But I thought it was kind of 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.640 some of the best writing that I did, and I 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.880 sort of would like to release a special little grumpy 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:47.800 old man book of the stuff that I took out, 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.080 just because it was a love note to a Hollywood 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.560 of yesteryear that now exists on the tip of a 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.840 real estate agent's tongue in describing you know that this 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.800 was where Charlie Chaplin kept his woman or something, you know. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:05.800 But Hollywood was obviously, you know, its whole heritage coming 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.720 up as the beginning of the film industry. But in 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.000 the seventies when I got there, it was this place 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:18.240 that was so I mean, in one way, very dangerous 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.400 and predatory and kind of revelling in the free love 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.880 of the sixties, and that being exploited and turned into 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:32.120 money and created a really seedy, mean spirited, dangerous casting 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.520 couch type of vibe which was really gross and disgusting. 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.360 And as a young boy in Hollywood, I was, you know, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.960 I dealt with that. And also a young boy who 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.680 was unwatched and a street kid and wild and out 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.920 till five o'clock in the morning on the Hollywood streets 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.880 when I was twelve years old, came into many a 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.880 scary encounter. But also it was alive with a wildness. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.400 It was like the wild West, man, I mean it 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.920 was there was so much art and so much music, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:05.160 and it was so untamed and ferrell and its way, 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.280 and there was so much money. I mean, it was 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.039 just a weird, wild I mean glam You you move 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.840 here from New York and you're how old at that point, 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.360 I was just turned eleven years old, and your family, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.160 you and your mom and your stepfather and your sister, 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.760 moved first to where to Koreatown? Is that? Am I remember? 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.000 We lived in a miracle mild districal mile. Yeah. And 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.520 then you and then you moved from there to where 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:39.480 exactly Hollywood, to Willoughby and Laurel in Hollywood. Yeah. And 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.320 there's a I wanted to get into a little a 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.800 little bit more. One of the things I remember you 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.839 talk about when you went to high school, this sort 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.520 of what is now a curious fact which would not 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.760 have been curious to you at all back then, which 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.720 is in that era, a public high school was still 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.880 a place where everyone went, so they were You had 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.040 friends whose parents were prostitutes, and friends whose parents were 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.280 rich and lived in the absolutely and middle school too. 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.960 And when I was in sixth grade, I mean back then, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.919 public school you just went where you lived, and it 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.960 had every economic class, every racial class, every ethnicity, everybody together. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.920 And I don't know if the standard of education was 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.400 higher than or not, but it was like private school 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.400 was much more rare than I didn't hear about kids going, 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.840 but I you know, I came across every kind of 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.960 person from you know, gang members to rich kids who 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.760 had lived with a wealth unlike anything I had ever 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.360 encountered to, you know, kids who were like trading switchblades 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.960 and bags of weed in seventh grade. You know, it's 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.800 really the last moment in this city's history where you 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.840 had that kind of full integration in the public school system. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.040 I mean, it's it's really odd. I mean, this is 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.240 a race of nerdy sociological point to begin with. But 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.960 I wonder, I think ultimately, well, I wonder whether it's 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.920 connected to the kind of art that was coming out 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.520 of the schools at that time. Like you you describe 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:14.200 you had a friend Freddie Gold, yeah, who lives in 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.200 the fancy house above Sunset. Yeah, and like so in 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.920 the same in your same friend group you were living 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:26.560 in under I guess your family had we're all right, 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.000 I mean right, yeah, we're we're We actually had it 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.080 like a pretty nice little spot. I mean, we were 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.160 just getting by, but but we did find it wasn't 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.960 like we were. Someone of your economic background today does 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.640 not have a school friend named Freddy Gold who lives 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.520 You're kind of no. Now, if you're rich, you're going 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.200 to a private school, and it really speaks to where 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.440 we're at now, like the devisiveness and the haves and 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.280 have nots, and this gulf becoming wider, and the have 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.200 nots being this entire new strata of society that is 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.160 living on the street and sleeping in their own ship, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:04.400 you know, and being in Los Angeles. It's so prevalent 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:09.560 and so intense. It's difficult to understand it. You know. 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.320 Back then, when when I walked around the streets of 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.320 Hollywood in the seventies, when you saw a homeless person 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.120 was like, oh, there's a bum, there's a guy eating 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:18.840 out of a trash can. It was a rare thing. 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.560 And now it's just a huge segment of society, and it's, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.480 you know, part of the divisiveness of the country that 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.600 we live in. To describe, tell us the touch points 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.800 of your you know, your adolescent world in Hollywood. So 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.600 you would go, where were you playing basketball? Where were 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.880 you when you're you're thirteen or fourteen year old self? 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.400 Tell me all your hangouts thirteen fourteen, I was hanging 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.600 out at Laurel Elementary School. I was hanging out at 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.040 Carthay Elementary School. I was hanging out at West Hollywood Park, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.840 shooting hoops. I was hanging out like around Hollywood Boulevard 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.840 and Sunset and stuff because there were just so many 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.319 little hustles that I had with my friends to get money. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.839 We used to me and my friend j D used 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.960 to sit up on Hollywood Boulevard with kazoos and trash 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.280 can lids and do songs, you know, play songs to 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.080 get money. It was all about the hustle when I 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.360 was a kid, because from a very young age. It 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.920 wasn't that I was ever a homeless kid or anything 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.839 like that, but I was completely unwatched and I was 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.040 a street kid I got, you know, from that age. 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.560 Home was just a place to crash. Sometimes I came home, 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.400 sometimes I didn't, and I just got into everything that 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.200 I could. But there were so many little hangouts you 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.200 know that we found, like found older people that would 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.120 get us high, so we'd go over to their house, 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.920 you know, anywhere where. One of the things the first 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.440 half of the book is about your childhood, and although 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.280 you talk a lot about your stepfather, that point you 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.880 just said about how you were unwatched is the striking 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.880 you know, to a twenty nineteen year Yeah, the striking 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.440 fact is where in God's name are his parents did? 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.600 But none of you have friends seemed to have. I think, well, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.840 I think I met kids that fit into, you know, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.240 my social plan, you know, other kids that had that 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.040 sort of freedom as well to varying degrees and form. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.600 My parents, you know, my stepdad, who was the main 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.079 father figure around, was in and out of substance abuse 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.200 and just wasn't paying attention. My mom had her own, 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.320 you know, relationship problems and problems. They were just too 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.680 involved in their own their own pain and their own 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.880 difficulties in their own like struggle to navigate their way 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.120 with your life to watch me, you know. And I 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:37.920 know that they loved me, but they just didn't have 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.000 the skills and the tools to translate that. Leven too 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.920 being present and paying attention. Did your sister take care 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.079 of you? Look? Well, no, she was wild. We were 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:52.240 both wild, me and my sister. You know. Yeah, no 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.680 because I no, no, uh. Because The weird the kind 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:03.520 of fascinating paradox about the book is as you describe 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:08.880 your childhood, you're describing chaos and mayhem one on the 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.679 one hand, and you at the same time you seem 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.480 to have had an extraordinar amount of joy as a child. Yeah, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.200 I did. I you know, It's funny like I've always, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.720 in general, had a thing inside of me that yearned 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.000 so much to you know, to connect and to love, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.520 and to find things and to believe in, find things 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.080 to believe in, like when it's a kid. I just 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.240 I loved literature. When I discovered music, it changed my life. 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.320 I loved the music, but the fact that I was 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.000 unwatched and the fact that I was a wild street kid, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.440 even though it made growing up very difficult because I 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.520 didn't have the structure and I didn't have, you know, 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.280 my parents guiding me into growing up and becoming a 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.679 man like that, that transition from being a kid. But 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.840 by that token, I had freedom, you know, and it 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.360 got me into a lot of trouble. I was a thief, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.800 I was aug user. I was out of control. I 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.560 had to make huge mistakes to learn. I had to, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.000 you know, to to A lot of the book is 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.319 my search for moral for my moral compass, but as 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.800 well it's I looked from my family in the street. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.600 I looked from my family with my friends. And when 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.479 I connected with my friends, it was it was profound 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.360 and it was where I found, you know, extreme love 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.680 and connection. The unhealthy part about it was I looked 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.640 to my friends to fulfill roles that parents are supposed 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.719 to fulfill, and you know, fourteen year old boys you're 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:39.240 getting high with can't do that, you know. So that 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.720 was difficult for me and kind of left me in 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.920 an a raw and vulnerable, uncomfortable position many a time. 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.920 But at the same time, it's you know, no accident 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.439 that someone like me and the friends that I made 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.280 as a kid ended up starting a band that was 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:57.280 able to connect with people. Because any connection that any 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.080 musician ever has with anyone is equal proportion to the 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.200 connection that they can have with one another when they're 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.600 playing together, or that if they're a solo person, the 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.199 connection that they have with the divine voice of music. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:13.840 You know, it's it's equal. And oftentimes, like people talk 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.360 about talent, you know, like, well you've got talent because 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.960 you can do this, it's like, I don't know, you 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:20.800 know what I mean? And sometimes I think like in music, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.440 the best talent is no talent because you might not 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.600 have a natural feeling for rhythm or harmonic progression or whatever. 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:28.560 But because you don't have it, you come at it 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.680 from your own complete, your own way, and you invent 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:36.080 something you know that is really unique, and yeah, yeah, 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:37.760 I want to come back to that, but I just 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.880 wanted to dwell for a moment on this paradoxical happiness. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.400 And there's a passage in your book and I'm going 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.559 to make you read a little bit of it, but 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:51.200 you're describing November twenty first, nineteen seventy eight. So how 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.640 old are you in nineteen seventy eight years? Is this 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.559 that the day that I'm happy? The happy day, happy day? Yeah? Well, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:03.760 you know, I think I'm fourteen. Yeah, you're like, you're like, yeah, 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.480 and I you know, I had described so many sad situations. Yeah, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.480 and I only put things in the book that shaped me, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.000 Like I had many a wild tale that probably would 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.520 have been the most exciting stories for people to read, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.400 and probably would have been the headlines and anything writing 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.440 anybody about the book, in any article about the book. 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:25.960 But it was important to me to not write things 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.200 for entertainment values, but just to be honest to things 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.160 that actually changed me and opened me up. So amidst 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.240 all these like traumatic things and melancholy things, I was like, 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.960 you know what I had beautiful days too, So I 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.840 think that's so. This is this beautiful day you described, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:47.840 you walk a mile to school bouncing your basketball, and 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.040 I love this little thing about the piece sign I 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.440 drew in my ball popping up between potholes and sloping sidewalks. 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.760 By the way, there's so much lovely language in this book. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.040 But anyway you get to I'm gonna have you to 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:02.520 set up the little party I want you to read. 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.200 So you get to class and you play. You played 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.560 basketball before school. Then you sit in social studies class 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.400 and you deliver an or report on the composer Hector 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:19.800 Bosio Symphony fantastic. You get an A plus. You eat pizza, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.520 you you flirt with a girl that you have a 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:28.840 crush on, and then just start reading by shot after 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.320 after school, just read that last little bit. Shot more, 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:40.480 Uh okay, shot more hoops? Okay away, I shot my hoops. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.760 Oh yeah, shot more hoops? After school? My shot was 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:51.200 so on. Then ran home ah the house, all to myself, 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.280 practice trumpet out of my urban book, The Trumpeter's Bible, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:00.240 the classical melodies resonating through my cranium and echoing around 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.840 my bedroom. Then cooked myself a delicious spaghetti dinner, lay 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.280 on my bed, satiated and content, reading Richard Box, Jonathan 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.920 Livingston Seagull watch the Laker game, happy and cozy before 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:19.240 falling into a deep and restorative sleep. So it's like, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.160 but it's to my point, this is this description of 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.080 this perfect day as a fourteen year old, and there's 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:32.040 no mention of any adult. Yeah, well right, it's it's 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.200 kind of fascinating. Yeah, and it's about and also it's 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.120 but it's about you find It's about you seeking out 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:44.080 and finding things that bring you pleasure. Like you the 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.360 book you read, the game you watch, the present, the 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.160 music presentation you give, the basketball you take with you 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.480 to school, the all you had to create this environment 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.080 for yourself. I thought it was sort of such a 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.280 striking contrast to the life of a contemporary fourteen year old. Yeah, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:05.960 I guess for me as a kid and really writing 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.040 about this book, like, I learned a lot about myself 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:11.600 and I wrote a lot of things I wrote about. 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.280 I was like, holy shit, why didn't anybody talk to 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.119 me about this stuff? Like earlier on when my parents 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.760 split up. You know, when I was a kid, my 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.000 father worked for the Australian government and he wore a suit, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.159 had a briefcase, went to work every day. We had 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.720 dinner at seven o'clock at night. He played golf on 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.000 the week. As it was, he ran a very tight ship. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.480 It was structured. It was almost like militantly so. And 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:37.840 we came from Australia to America because my father got 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.080 an assignment to New York at the Australian Consulate. We're 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.520 supposed to be in New York for four years, then 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.240 go back to Australian continue on in our very normal, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.760 proper life. But my mom, my wild ass mom, and 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.800 all her heart following wildness left. My dad took up 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.680 with a junkie jazz musician who lived in his parents' basement. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.359 And you know, my dad went back without us and 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.560 we moved in with this new man who was a 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.800 drug addict who lived in his parents' basement. And that's 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.560 when everything just went crazy. And when I look at 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.399 that in particular, and I had never really like I 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.960 knew all this stuff that happened, but I had never 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.119 really like looked at it with any real degree of objectivity. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.800 And when I wrote about it, it was very emotional 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:23.919 for me to look at it and kind of like 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.679 that was one of the times I was like, jeez, Mom, dad, stepdad, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.639 Like you never ever sat down and talked to us 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.320 about it. And when I first kind of realized that 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.720 I had a tanty, for a minute, I was fucking angry. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.919 And then I, you know, as time went by, I realized, like, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:40.639 you know, they did the best they knew, they just 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:47.119 didn't know. But but oh sorry, But just to your 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:51.800 question and your comment, I was really lucky as a 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.960 kid to fall in love with books and the time 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.639 that I had with any book, and since I was 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.639 a little boy, and even when I was the wildest, 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.560 out of control, drug shooting, freak out, criminal ass motherfucker, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.359 I read every day unless I was too high to 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.720 do it, you know, and I and even then I 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.200 would probably make some you know, bumbling attempt, but I 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.640 got so much joy and felt so much hope and 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:20.959 saw that there was a life like even if it 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.120 was a fantasy life, it was something that was beautiful, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.359 and the same thing with music. It opened up these 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.960 doors and these feelings of this limitless possibility that was 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.359 so beautiful and beyond anything that I understood in a 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.600 world that often seemed you know, hypocritical, and cruel that 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.480 I did have, that I created those things for myself. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.159 But you're the first person to mention and that beautiful 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.240 day that there's no parents around, And I never thought 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:49.040 of that, but I realized that outside of like with 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.960 my friends and the love that I got from sports, 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.800 like playing basketball in particular, and the thing that I 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.080 loved about it was an unspoken connection, you know, that 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.359 sort of telepath thing you have with people, and the 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.440 same thing playing music, and the same thing kind of 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.560 with a writer when you're reading their book. You're connecting 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:12.360 in this way and the things the magic of my solitude, 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.960 with those things that gave me hope are really that's me, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.680 Like those are the pillars of the best of me. Yeah. Yeah. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.960 On the parental theme as well, what's interesting is that 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.480 this book is full of kind of pathology and loss 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.119 and dysfunction, but it's almost all adult. So you have 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.959 a count, did I am I counting correctly? Three pedophiles, 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:44.159 three adult suicides. I mean, it's like you're surrounded by 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:50.240 all of these deeply screwed up adult figures who are 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.960 making your life incredibly difficult and sad and complicated, and 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.920 the simple and beautiful pleasures seems to be the are 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:00.439 the ones that are kind of peer play measures as 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.720 opposed to that's the kind of right well, I guess 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.400 for me, like simple and beautiful, like it's also profound 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.760 and complex and layered and and infinite. But in terms 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.600 of the adults, uh, there are three pedophiles in there. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.480 There's a there's a guy you look up later he 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.480 turns out to be a pedophile. Oh yeah, there's the 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.639 guy who lies down next to you. You go to 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.080 his house and he you met you miraculously escaped. And 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.800 then there's another pedophile. I was keeping track, but after 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.159 a while there's a there's like a lot of it. 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.760 This is like Holly and the Seven very stuff. Man. 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:45.120 But I you know, when writing about it, I there's 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.080 different things I've had in life, Like I'm glad I 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.040 never became a junkie and when I did shoot up 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.240 drugs like a moron, I'm glad that I never owed 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.600 eed and died or you know, got a deadly disease. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.399 And I feel like there's, man, there's some protective angel 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.040 like looking out for me. Because also growing up with 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.800 like I put myself in situations a million times growing 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:11.680 up in Hollywood as a little kid, where I could 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.359 have really been hurt, like this, will you tell that 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:18.240 crazy story about the swimming pool that you guys would 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:23.800 jump Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I would have thought it 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.120 was burnt that. You're right, you were like you struggled 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.560 to find out which of the swimming crazy swimming school 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.000 stories I was referring to. Yeah, yeah, this is the one, 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:35.600 because there's two swimming stories. One is like late at 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.640 night we would go sneak into pools of apartment buildings 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.240 to swim. I'm talking about when we jumped off the roofs. Yeah, 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:47.399 well that was you know, Anthony and I, as you know, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.040 when we met when we were fifteen, it was very explosive. 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:55.520 We met, and it was antagonistic right from the first second. 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:59.560 And also literally from the first second. I looked at 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:01.560 him and I knew that this was a person I'd 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.080 be hanging out with for the rest of my life. 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.440 And there was no doubt I knew. And it was intense, 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:10.040 And you know, my mom said to me, my mom's 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.240 passed away, but I remember her telling me like kind 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.200 of towards her later years, She's like, Michael, I remember, 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:18.880 you know when when you came home when you were fifteen, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:21.280 and you walked in and you were a lit You 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:26.760 were glowing with something, something that I hadn't seen in 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.200 you before. And you said, Mom, Mom, I finally found 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:32.560 someone I can talk to. And that was the day 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:36.280 that I'm in Anthony, And I remember like that week 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.520