WEBVTT - QLS Classic: Spike Lee (Part 1) 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.800 Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:09.360 classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.720 and Gentlemen. Welcome to QLs Classic Episode forty seven with 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:18.640 the Great Spike Lee August two, thy seventeen. A side note, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.919 our guest today deserves credit at least for inspiring the 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.720 Supreme Roque Hall theme song of our beloved show. Besides that, 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.360 Spike Lee is a provocateur, a visionary, a storyteller, great, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:34.239 a hustler, accentric soul. This episode came slightly before his 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:38.280 Oscar victory for Black Clansmen in twenty nineteen. But don't worry. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.959 We get it all out, all of his journeys, all 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.600 of our favorite movies. We get to ask him everything 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:49.000 right here on QLs Classic with the Great Spike Lee. 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:54.480 This is gonna be really awkward. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:02.000 Oh my god, Soma su Supremo role call Suprema Son 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:09.160 Sons Loving Albody, Suprema Son Son Supremo role called Suprema 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:11.120 Son Son Upbramo. 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.720 So I'm just gonna sit here, yeah and have the 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.800 call yeah and pray the Spike don't suit me. Yeah, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:19.360 we're stealing his song. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:27.000 Roll Call Supremo Supremo roll call, Subpremo son something Supremo 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:27.759 rod call. 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:33.039 My name is Fante, Yeah, dropping these flows, yeah, because. 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:43.360 A Supremo roll call, Supremo some Supremo road. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.880 My name is Sugar, Yeah, the inside man. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.040 Yeah, I've been with the roots. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.320 Yeah since the Bamboozles band. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.919 Rama Supremo roll call. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.960 Son some Supremo roll call Lee once was yeah boss 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:06.840 Bill's teen hero Yeah, but directing skills, Yeah, I had almost. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:15.200 Hero subprema so Supreme roll Suprema son Supremo role. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.160 I want to let you know. Yeah, I'm not just 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:18.639 for show. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:20.320 Yeah, will you let me go? 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:28.160 Oh god, Supreme roll explain that. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:35.160 After the roll. My name is Spike, yeah with the nickname. 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:35.560 Yeah. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.520 My mother said, yeah, I was out of his world. 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:51.200 Rolling Suprema something Supremo, roll call, Subprema something something Supremo role, 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.119 subframa son Supremo roll. 0:02:59.560 --> 0:02:59.760 Yeah. 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.120 One person clapping. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.280 I'm not just for sure. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.200 Yet what school day. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:18.520 Song written? Because her timing? Because she up, I didn't 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.959 It's hard, you know, Okay, now he hears the song 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:22.600 in everybody. 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:24.400 I didn't recognize the song either. 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.679 And did you recognize Wait, before I even introduce you 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.600 Spike Lee. Uh, he just did what is the history 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.400 behind uh your roll call? 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:37.640 Like? 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.000 I heard that at Morehouse? Oh so that's I didn't 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:42.440 make that up. 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.080 Isn't it like a warm up? 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:51.640 Like? So we just baby just going to school Morehouse, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.160 they had a roll call and we just incorporated into 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.960 uh school days and do it again? Did it again 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.880 when he got game? So that was in school days. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:03.920 It wasn't. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.520 Because I first and get on the bus on school 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:10.960 days too. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.240 I gotta watch it, watch it again again the gam Mites. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.920 Really yeah, when they first get in, when they first 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.680 come on and they walk down the gam Mites. 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.760 Oh, I gotta watch it again. Okay, wow, well ladies 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.200 three times. Okay, ladies and gentlemen. This is another episode 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.280 of Quest of Supreme. Uh introducing the fam This is 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:41.240 uh damn. I really wish uh fon tigelow Uh who 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.160 who was the the the bus driver of get on 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:51.279 the bus. And to my right we have Sugar Steve, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.400 who was one of the thugs in in Summer of sam. 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.440 That's what's up? Yeah? Yeah, what last your last name? 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:07.880 No, At the end of the vowel, I was around 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.920 back then, but it was I didn't do it. I 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.040 actually actually I have a similar last name to the 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:14.920 guy who did do it. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:23.120 Okay, uh yeah, and uh Boss Bills to my left 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.960 eacle Sandwich. Oh, he was one of the cornermen on 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:27.680 Do the Right Thing. I was going to ask to 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.799 be Bob Regular from Girls six Bob Regular. No, okay anyway, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.400 and we have Fresh from Crookland. 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:37.000 Ok. 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.040 Yeah, she was the girl making out with with was 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.800 also in Crookland. Y'all were making out with each other 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.039 and the and the until the beginning. 0:05:51.640 --> 0:06:04.960 Job. I hate Ticky, No Tacky go to Joe Cuba. 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.880 Yes, finally, uh it's It's taken some time, but I 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.720 will say that, at least for me personally, and maybe 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.920 I speak for most of the inhabitants of this room, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:22.640 that we we have the the director of our particular 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.600 generation with us right now. 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.520 Thank you very much, mister Spike. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:35.880 Sheldon Lee, New Yorker Film r Tour, political activists and 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:37.800 and and great human being. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.080 How are you. I'm good, I'm glad to be here. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.000 And we're in Electric Lady studios, so this is very historical. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:45.839 Wait somebody. 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.560 To say that, yes, I'm sorry, I've not been given 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:51.240 Electric Lady. 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:51.760 There props. 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.680 We're live in studio a where many a classic has 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.080 been born, A lot of. 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.360 Great spirits in here. Well we are right now. You 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:00.480 can feel it. Walk in the door. You could feel 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.080 the spirits. Well, Spike. 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.720 I know when when Spike agreed to do this, he 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.520 was like, so it's like forty five minutes. I was like, no, ninety, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:10.720 He's like, all right, so now right. I was like, no, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.120 Spike ninety. I tried to hint. I was like, well, 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.920 in the Jimmy Jam episode, it was seven hours. Spike 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:19.360 was like, nah, motherfucker. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.920 So I'm good. We had to let me go. Oh 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:33.120 you don't mean that. You don't mean that. Let me 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:33.720 lean back. 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.560 All right, So I'm gonna because we're we have so 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.320 much questions about your. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.920 Your film, decade to work, body of work. Yes for 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:47.240 thirty years. Yeah, you were born where in Atlanta, Georgia? 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.760 In Atlanta, Georgia, right, Really? I thought you were born 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:52.280 in New York. 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.280 No, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. My parents moved 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.640 to Brooklyn. We moved to Crown Heights when I was 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.520 like two years old. Move from Crown Heights doing the 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.880 first Black family Cobble Hill. Wow, that's where all my 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.120 Italian American thing comes back, because back then the cobble 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.640 Hills is stone Italian American. And then my mother says 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.400 Tony Patton rent. So we bought a brownstone in Fort 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.280 Green for forty five thousand dollars in nineteen sixty eight. 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.160 Wait, how is that even possible? 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.280 Sixty eight? What was that like? Pre gentrification? In fact, 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.000 the realtors wouldn't even list for Green, they would say 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.680 downtown Vicinity. So it's really been a trip that you 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.480 grow up in Fort Green, predominately black and Puerto Rican schools, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:41.079 no good garbage, never picked up, cops on around, and 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.240 those things aren't like that anymore with the change, and 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.800 they know they are not garage, just cleaned up. Public 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.240 schools are great on the cops or wrong. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:52.880 I was trying to explain to my New York daddy 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.000 what Dumbo was today. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.800 He was like, what I do? I don't know down 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:58.839 on the Manhattan Bridge, that's what it is. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:05.600 For the films that you've shot in Brooklyn neighborhoods, how 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:06.440 different are they now? 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.559 Like the do the right thing block? Like, what is 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.160 that now? Is that? Like it's counttainable, it's gentified. So 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.880 no more black families, no more brown but I gentify, 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.240 I mean Do the Right Thing was shot in bedstide 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.679 door died bephis diverson. But the great thing about that 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.040 New York City, that block we shot on, we shot 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.320 do on thing of one block. The summer nineteen eighty eight, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.719 that block has been renamed Do the Right Thing Way. 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.280 That's the first time a movie, a song has ever 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.439 been just named the name after that. So we take 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.440 our nest also where we have our Michael Jackson block 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:44.960 parties too, on the same block. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.320 So is that the block where I visit the office 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.160 and it's the office is further down downtown. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.559 My office in Fourth Green, Okay, so okay, that's not yeah. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:01.280 And the place where you when I visited your first store, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.600 like back in ninety one, is that still up. 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.920 That's called Chez Paulette, Okay. 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.719 But that's the new name of the block or the 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:13.360 new name of the. 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:19.240 It's a restaurant. But my office is on South South Elliott. Okay. 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:23.319 What the restaurant is is where the original Spikes Joint was, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.800 Oh okay, and I own that building to And so 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.400 when we did Jungle fever Us where halle Berry. We're 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.920 gonna put a plaque there where she stayed. Wow. Wait, 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.920 that's the scene where oh there's no scene, and that's 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.360 that's just where she stayed. Wash, she washed, she was 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:41.040 shooting the film. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.920 Oh damn, okay, that's not where the Ta Mahall scene was. 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.280 The wake up. Let's let's halle Berry's first film, too 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.959 Jungle Fever And did she really not shower for all 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.400 those days? And he goes the story, Wait, wait, wait, wait, 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:03.679 let's get to that. We can do it now. She think, uh, 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.040 Robbie Reid cast that film, and so she brought a 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:13.199 halle Berry came in five times mm hmm. And the 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.480 role is viving the two dollars crack hot, and the 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:24.120 first four times she was just too fun. Finally, some 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:26.640 must have told her, you can't kind of looking like this, 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.960 So she I think she's ben bayed for a week. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:31.880 And I didn't even recognize when she stepped in the room. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.959 And that's how she got the part. Wow. I just 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.040 did not see her finely she was. That's the opposite. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.600 I did not see it as being a two dollars 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.400 crack hot. Wow. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:46.200 Awesome. 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.600 She showed us, didn't she did so why, I mean 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:56.480 at a time where where the seventies and the upward 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:01.160 mobility and you know a lot of our you know, 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:06.199 the ways that black people expressed themselves creatively, usually through 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:07.800 sports or singing. 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.160 Right, why did you choose visuals? 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.120 Why did you choose I mean, was it that you 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.840 had a child experience where you saw like Gordon Park 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:17.880 Works And no. 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.719 It wasn't that. When people ask that question a lot 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.959 and I just say, a film chose me. I grew 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.520 up in a very artistic background. My mother taught us 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:31.959 great high school in Brooklyn Heights called Saint Anne's. She 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.280 taught black literature. My father's a great jazz musician, composed 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.000 a Bill Lee, And I just grew up in a 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:46.199 very artistic household. My mother had the vision, not that 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.560 she was going to be artists, but she exposed us, 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.559 just not just me, but all my siblings to the arts. 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.719 So she was dragging me the Broadway plays museums while 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:58.720 you know, and I didn't want to go. We went 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.000 kicking and screaming. Every single time we came home. We 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.960 would we would think it because that. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:05.880 Was that was fun. 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.839 Well, you're going to zoom going to plays like My 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.360 mother's one introduced me to Martin Squaresese. She took me 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.880 to see mean streets. My father hated movies. I mean, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.640 but I love sports. So my love of sports comes 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.760 from my father. There right, My love of movies comes 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.319 to my mother. I was my mother's movie date. 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.720 I was gonna ask, how how is one film buff 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:34.360 before the age of the remote control the rewind button? 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.719 Netflix? Uh yeah, and just cable because they had you 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.439 know a wait, I forgot the word from, but you 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.360 had the theaters has showed old films. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.720 So even back in the seventies they would still show 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.679 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean there was, but was it 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.000 film new are like now in the weekends, I know 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.680 eleven or twelve movie theaters in New York that will 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:57.439 show I mean. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.600 It's not get hotter, so it's the Saint Mark. I'm 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.240 begetting the theaters. But they were certain theaters. That's all 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.560 they showed was old films. And that's the only where. 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:12.920 I mean, this is room before DHS. Okay, So I 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.120 mean unless you stayed up, you know, watch with the 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:20.360 commercials on Channel che eleven, you went to these retrospective theaters. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.880 But was there film noir on the level, like, now, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.120 you know, I'll buy all the Criterion collection right stuff 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.480 and watch the you know, like what was that for you? 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.120 Like what was the director's commentary for you? I mean 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.080 that really seduced you into. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.240 But it wasn't like that. I mean I went to films, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.080 but I was not a film buff. I didn't want 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.600 to be a filmmaker. I wanted to play second best 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.160 second base for New York Mets, but genetics conspired against 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:54.240 that second baseman I have for short stop, but I 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.680 only played softball. But but here, here's the story though, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.120 and I said it many times and maybe audience hasn't 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.000 heard it. I went to Morehouse because I had to 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:08.640 go to Morehouse. My father and grandfather went to Morehouse, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.360 and my mother and grandma went to Spellman across the street. Third, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.720 I'm some educated Negroes. My father, my father was a 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.640 fresh and Morehouse. Doctor King was a senior Morehouse and 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.280 doctor King's son, Mark King, the thirty and I were classmates. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.600 Were in the class seventy nine and Morehouse also with 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.080 Jay Johnson used to be head of home Security. Oh, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.360 we were all the class saty nine and Morehouse. So 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.800 my first two years in Morehouse. I was a D 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:43.080 plus C minus student. It was because I wasn't smart. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.600 I just was not motivated. And right before it's time 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.560 to go back to New York, back to Brooklyn. At 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.720 the end of my sophomare, my advisor told me that 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.520 I had to choose a major. I said why, and 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:02.440 she said, because you've exhausted all the electives. It's like, 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:04.720 this is now, this is this key, this is this 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.080 historical because it's twenty years now, It's like, this is 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.040 a very important summer twenty years ago, summer seventy seven. 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:13.960 So I came back to New York and New York 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.640 City was broke. You couldn't get a job usually, you know, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.160 you get a job in the summer. Your newest New 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.440 York City was broke. And there's a famous daily news 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.560 front page it said Ford, this city drop dead, Ford 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:30.320 being president Ford. So I had nothing to do all summer, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:32.360 and I didn't want to, you know, sit in and 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.280 stoop and play drata matic baseball, you know. And so 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.280 I have a very good friend. Her name is Vianna Johnson. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.960 She was always smart. The top three, the top three 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.840 public high schools New York City are Stuyversont, Bronx Science, 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.560 Brooklyn Tech, and so you could take a test depend 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.600 on your grade. The tear is diversand's first Bronx Science, 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.440 then Brooklyn Tech. Brooklyn Tech is on the same block 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.600 where where of course street direct cross street from Spikes 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.680 joined on a block from my office now forty acres 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.720 on the mule. Anybody went over at this house. She's 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:11.040 always smart and went to Stuyvesant, went to Prince Undergrad 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.400 Harvard Med School. She always we always, she always knew 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.639 she's gonna be a doctor. So so one day, and 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.440 looking back on this, I understand it was not lucky. 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.000 It was the spirit. The spirit told me to go 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.880 see Vieta that day because I wasn't doing it. Damn 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.960 ship to do. So I go see vi Ata. She lived. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.000 Her lived on ashing place where University Towers is, right 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.440 across the street from l I U where the field is. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.920 And so we're sitting in the living room and it's 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.000 the box in the corner. I say, what is that box? 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.040 She said, that's super a camera. You can have it. WHOA. 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.360 And then I say, what's another box? She says, stupid, 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.840 that's the box. That's the that's the cartridge for the 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.840 Super Break film for the camera, she says, you know, 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:58.320 I don't need this shit. I'm gonna be I'm you know, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.920 I'm I'm gonna be a doctor. Right. This is his sister. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.719 She's a doctor in Chicago. Now, so now I had 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:13.480 something to do. So the entire summer nineteen seventy seven, 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.520 so I didn't have a job. I ran around New 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.439 York City with the Super eight camera. It was also 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.320 one of the hottest summers on record. That's why there 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.720 was a blackout when Conazen fucked up. Black folks Puerto 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.920 Ricans lost their mind, looting like mother. Right, I was 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:39.280 filming it Fifth Street, filmed it on, filmed it on 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.440 on on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Also, seventy seven was 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:48.639 the first summer disco, so all the DJs were hooking up. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.960 The wheels are still and to the turn to the 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.200 in the turrible speakers, the street lamps, so I was 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.359 still on the block parties. The dance was a hustle. 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:05.040 Also, the film from uh, the Off the Wall documentary, Yeah, yeah, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:06.080 that's where footage comes from. 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:14.720 So then we had this maniac called psychoed David Burkowitz. 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:22.840 Here's the thing that people forget about that summer, Black 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.360 and Puerto Rican people were now scared of David burke 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.080 Witz because this is this is before Gentification, and the 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.960 motherfucker David burke was to come into Harlem, to come 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.240 to South Bronx, to come to bedside do or die, 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.120 he would have been killed, right And it's not I'm 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.840 not making fun of us because people lost loved ones. 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.520 But the fact remains Black people, Puerto Ricans not. We 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.920 weren't worried about son of Sam So had this footage. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.800 Came back to school in the fall and declared my 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.600 major asked medications, but Morriston had that major. I took 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:11.000 the class from Majors across the street to Clark College Massifications, Film, TV, Radio, 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.000 print Journalism. I forget what the other thing is. And 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.440 there's a teacher there. He's still teaching that that. His 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.080 name is Professor Herb Eichelberger. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.120 Yes, doctor, I went to Clark You went to Clark Radio, 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:22.800 TV film, Doctor Eichelberger. 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:28.240 Was give it a u c AU center. So he 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.840 doctor her Biker who's still teaching there. He's the one 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.479 that encouraged me to be a filmmaker. He's went. When 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.639 I talk about this footge I had. I took the 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:42.080 footage back to the Atlanta That's what Morris says, but 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:43.240 I didn't know what I was gonna do with it. 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:48.200 He encouraged me to make a documentary and that documentary 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.040 turned out to be Last Hustle on Brooklyn. And there 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.920 are many times so her doctor Eichelberger called doctor e. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.600 He had the key to the film lab and two 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:04.640 or three times a week he would stay three four 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.240 hours so I could work on a film. He wasn't 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.280 getting paid overtime either. And it's been my maybe you 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.959 guys will experience in my experience. I've talked a lot 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.400 of people, and everybody talks about that one teacher they 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:23.920 had that saw something in you do youn't even see Wow. 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.040 And Herb Eichelberg was when he said, he said, you 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:32.560 know what. I started to think about the all this stuff. 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.040 Then it came back to me full circle. My mother 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:37.440 started was taking me to movies. I remember my mother 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.359 taking me East the Sun and see motherfucker Bye by Bertie, Wow, 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.200 and the openings. No people noticed the opening credit sequence 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.320 do the Right Thing Comes from Bye by Bertie and 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.480 Margaret That's where shit came from. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.440 Rosie Perez comes from Anne Margaret. I mean because she 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.439 dances her asshole though Ann Margaret, she. 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:00.320 Does, That's where it came from. Wow. So all these 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.920 things that happened started to spring up again. But my 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.480 mother got blessed her soul. If you saw a crooking, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:07.920 you know, you know. My mother died while I was 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:13.120 the sophomorehouse. All these things she planted, you know, bore 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.640 fruit many many years later. But I did not grow 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:17.840 up want to be a filmmaker. That just didn't happen. Yo. 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:19.600 Speaking of circles, I just want to mention real quick 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:21.639 in a strange circle. By the time I went to Clark, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.439 I believe Bill Nunn was a teacher at Clark Atlanta. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.400 I just wanted to that when he rest prest in peace. 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.600 Yeah. So Bill Nunn and Sam Jackson morehouse men. But 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.440 they had graduated before me. But they were still in 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.920 Atlanta doing local theater, and that's where I met them. 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:38.600 They were a couple of years ahead of me. 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:40.800 So can I ask you what is I mean now? 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:47.520 In my mind? Like Atlanta culture became cool mid to 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.119 late eighties, especially with music, migration and people coming down there. 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:56.439 But what was Atlanta like? Like, were you rolling your 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.400 eyes up in there? Like was anything cooler than New York? 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:01.560 Like, Nah, it was the coolest. 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:03.080 And when you went down. 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:08.439 And I can speak with authority if you went if 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.160 you were from New York and you went down South, 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:18.600 all these motherfuckers were bamas has bamas, and we were 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:25.040 very arrogant. I understand now they hated us that people. 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.399 From New York that conversation, seeing that the KFC in 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.679 school days was like a real that was typical of. 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:33.399 Well, that really was a New York thing. That's more 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:38.560 like college students, the local yokals versus that's real too. 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.920 Here's the thing though, because the aut centers it's called 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.119 and they called the buttom milk the buttermilk bottom, so 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:52.200 like even us seasonal hood yales and the but you 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:55.720 Southern cal is in the hood yales in the hood. 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.520 So you had these oasis in Colombia before they brought 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:06.480 up all motherfucking Harlem not so hot either. These real 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:08.880 estate motherfuckers they're trying, you know, they're trying to change 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:10.880 the name of Malcolm X Boulevard to read Avenue. 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:15.240 What Google happened to DC already our Malcolm X turned 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:15.920 to Meridian Hill. 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:17.680 They changed the name. 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.439 It's Meridian Hill Malcolm X Park. Nope, Meridian Hill. 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:25.760 Actually, are are the the I lived on Avenue Philis? 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:26.720