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Captain Bootleg, the bootleg captain sent ya.
Why do you keep referring to himself in the third person?
Good night. Stop with the stupid voice now. I'm not sure why you made me want to sound like a pirate.
Oh, so that was a fake voice.
Aw, yucko!
I didn't realize it was just a pretend voice. Oh, okay.
I'm excited about this because I thought it would be the one piece that I'd be able to give the bootleg scene the most, an autobiography of you.
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. I mean, as I recall, you proposed five episodes.
Yeah, interspersed amongst, like, we'll let yours drop throughout all the interviews.
Why so many?
I think I liked the decade split up. That was most enticing to me.
Because I think you have the ability, if you want to make it shorter, I'm more than happy to.
No, no, no. I'm more, I'm happy to talk. I mean, to be honest with you, I'm kind of flattered that you think I'm interesting enough to talk about myself for five fucking hours.
Well, I think what is crazy, so I've seen you on lives, we've talked on the last episode that you were on, and we've talked about some of the stuff that you've been going through.
It's almost like a reinvention almost, or like a coming up from the ashes type situation that we've talked about.
And so I think that because of that, because of your toy career, because we haven't heard much about you as a child in many interviews, I think all of those things led me to just say let's give you as many episodes as I think this could work.
Okay, I mean I can do it. And I like breaking it up by a sort of time period end or category.
I don't know if you know, do you have in front of you or do you remember what I sent you like five topics? Can you just remind me what those were?
Yeah, the first one, the golden age of Star Wars, number two, sex, drugs and action figures, three, supervillainy and bootleg toys, four, TV superstar and toy lord, five, rise, fall and resurrection.
Okay, well we're still working on the fucking resurrection part.
So, but yeah, okay I can work with that and I guess this being the first one, we'll just talk about, you know, the early days.
Yeah, which I'm excited for. This is less of an interview for those that are listening. It's going to be more of storytelling with intermittent questions that I'm going to have, obviously, because I'm interested in the beginnings of you as an interesting person.
Okay, so how to begin, should I just...
Early family, let's talk about them. Okay. Okay, so, all right.
I'm going to say that I would not exist if it were not for comic books. My parents met through comic books, both my parents were children in the early 1940s, and this is before television.
And my mother lived in Brooklyn, she's a descendant of Italian immigrants who came to New York City at the turn of the 20th century, and lived on Baxter Street in Little Italy, which is not far from where I live right now.
And her parents moved to Borough Park Brooklyn after they got married.
And she was an avid reader of EC Comics, you know, Vault of Horror and all that shit. And I guess back in the day, they had what they called pen pals, you know, where you would just like, make, find a friend that lived somewhere far away, and you would exchange letters like
Charlie Brown, remember he had his pencil pal, with a riff on that. It was like this is something kids did before the internet and television and anything, they would write letters and exchange letters with kids all over the world.
And for whatever reason, my mother was some sort of Anglophile, you know, she was just like a little Italian girl growing up in Brooklyn, you know, surrounded by Guineas and, you know, working class people.
And my father was from London. And I guess she was looking through these directories of kids addresses that she could write to. And she saw that there was this guy named Francis Phillips who lived in London and so she wrote to him, and they had an ongoing
relationship with him for a good chunk of their childhood. And then I guess they became teenagers, they got a little older and they fell out of contact. And then my father, you know, all my family are working class people, my father didn't finish high school.
They pulled him out of high school, he had, he went to the army for a couple years and then he got out, and he was going set to work in a tool and die shop. He was, this is all my manualism comes from my father, you know, he was he's an engineer and he's a, you know, he's always been
really good with his hands, and he was going to go work in a tool and die shop. And he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to stay in in London there was no opportunities for somebody like him he didn't want to just be like a, you know, like a grunt for the rest
of his life so he beat cheeks and he moved to Toronto, Canada. Yeah. And he didn't know anybody in the entirety of North America, except my mother Rosemary Continelli. So he resumed correspondence with her, his old pen pal.
And then he started driving down to Brooklyn on the weekends to hang out with her. And she wanted to get the fuck out of her parents house she's this is an Italian girl in the 50s.
And you don't move out of your parents house in the marriage getting married. Yeah, right and my mom's gay. So, my mom was having this long term love affair with with a famous Broadway actress named Gwen Verdon that's where that's where that's
where her interests lie, but she met my father, and they got along pretty well as friends and she saw him as sort of the opportunity to get out so she married him.
And he wanted to move to Long Island, and have an all American life, you know, house picket fence, a wife that stayed home and cooked and cleaned, and while he would go out and make money.
He was an electrical engineer at the time. And she was like fuck that she wanted to be a bohemian, and she railroaded him like in everything to move to Greenwich Village to go to go, you know, live around the beat next, and the jazz musicians
and the artists so they moved to a little apartment on Christopher Street.
And I guess it wasn't like the most ideal marriage because my mother had no interest in being married.
You know they got along fine as friends but there was no real romance there and I guess my forefather was feeling a bit railroaded. And he wanted to have kids and do what normal people did when they got married, and she had no interest in having kids and my mom is a is a real
Machiavellian type.
And you can, I do an interview with both of them on the suck our podcast if you want to hear them tell the story in their own words it's kind of funny.
And he was really really nagging her to, you know, to have kids and she was not interested in that. So she timed her menstrual cycle to so she was pretty convinced that you know she knew when she was ovulating and when she was not, and she, she offered
her love to him right after her period and get him off her back. Yep, and she's like all right you want to have a kid here's your shot, shoot your shot.
So he's thinking that it wasn't going to take. So he took a shot, and somehow he must have had the super sperm or she must have made a mistake in calculations because I was conceived.
And
I was born in 1969 in Greenwich Village, and I guess my mother came around to the idea of having a child once once I was once I manifested. And so I was raised in the village it was my father my mother and my, my mother's mother came so I had a daughter in
Italian grandmother and my mom and my father.
And then, as you know, the early 1970s were a great time for for pop culture. Yeah.
And, you know, the economy was good and like, you know, working people could make money so I had all the toys I ever wanted.
I had all my earliest, I watched. Now I watched the moon landing on television, I don't remember it but there's a photo of me when I'm three months old watching the moon landing on on TV which I think is kind of telling that that's that's like one of that's that's
like where history was when I came into the world you know the space age had begun and it turns out to me in the space space sucks now but at the time it was like a time of great I idealism.
And I talk about this on madman when like when the guy when like what's his name dies you know right at that time. And it was a real dividing line I think for a lot of people and it was like the beginning of the new world so there I was.
And also that was the year that Sesame Street came out. And that was that was some of my earliest memories was watching Sesame Street at the biggest crush on Susan.
I was into the Fisher price little people, you know, little peg people. That was my shit. And I was pampered up and down the block it was an only child. And we moved to West 11th Street a few blocks away when I was four years old.
And then that's when this, you know, I was into schoolhouse rock all the Saturday morning cartoons this was the great AIDS I was into the Jackson five cartoon. And the main thing that I was really into was the fucking Osmond Brothers.
And I'm my mom I was having a birthday party, and my mom went to crazy Eddie's to buy some records, and just like ask the guy like what are kids into these days and she bought the record crazy horses by the, the Osmond Brothers, yeah, and I was fucking blown off
my fucking feet with that shit I mean it was really just like a, like a really watered down Led Zeppelin you ever heard that song crazy horses. Love it. I mean I still listen to some of that stuff now I mean it's like it's you know it's sugar.
It's like bubble gum music, but that record had a little some some grit to it. Yeah, and.
And that was my shit and I had the little guitar and I used to, you know, do little shows on my, you know, little stage I would set up all the stuffed animals, and I would, and I would play my little fake guitar and I would lip sync to all the Osmond songs and
this was like what I was into.
And then, in 1977.
And, you know, maybe you've heard of it. And, yeah and everybody was just over the moon about it you know it was like an instant instant. It was, it went from nothing to like all pervasive, like it seemed like, you know, not everybody was alive or was caught, it was like
I was, I guess, eight years old at the time. And it was suddenly everywhere, you know, t shirts trading cards fucking magazine covers everything was so it was everywhere. No toys yet but and and I could give a fuck about it.
I was never that type of person even when I was a kid to give a shit about what was popular I was into what I was into and I was into the Donnie and Marie show. And everyone in school was yammering on about fucking have you seen stars have you seen stars and I had no interest that
didn't want to see it didn't fucking care. And my dear old father forced me to go. I guess for some reason he was just, he just knew that this every kid needs to see this that was just sort of what the the attitude was.
And he begged me to fucking Lowe's Astor Plaza on Times Square.
And, you know, I didn't really want to go I didn't know what I was getting into. And suddenly, from the moment that it died.
And then the fucking start as soon as that Star Destroyer passed over. I never thought about fucking Donnie and Marie ever again.
I became completely enveloped in this world, my entire personality became Star Wars, and it was useful for me because I was not the most social or outgoing brave kid you know I was pampered at home I was an only child.
And when they put me and I had got everything I wanted when I was home I even got my ass literally got my ass wiped whenever I wanted it. No, my grandmother used to just daughter over me endlessly and I was super soft, and I was short and I was quiet
and I was spoken, and I didn't do well around other kids very much you know they I found them to be loud and gruff and aggressive and pushy and I just didn't have the sort of like thick, the thick skin or the outer shell to really like socialize well so I kind of
kept to myself.
And it may you know it was awkward it was very awkward but everybody was so obsessed with Star Wars and I just, I was so smart and I had just this like great brain and my parents were so good to me and they bought me everything
I read every detail about anything you could possibly know about Star Wars they took me to Star Wars time and time again, so I could recite the movie by memory.
And then, you know that that's what where my social currency came from being a kid in class that had all the Star Wars shit that knew everything about Star Wars.
I was Mr Star Wars and and that was how I sort of like built myself up. This is something that I apparently have continued to do into my 50s.
But, so, and that and that was that was it that that was that became my life and then Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. And I was in sixth grade at the time and my mom pulled me out of school, along with like maybe five or six of my other classmates
and we would see it on the very first day, which would become a tradition. So she, and she cut the line and there had been people lining up since four o'clock in the morning outside the movie theater to see so can you believe it four o'clock in the morning
instead of like three months in advance, you know like they did for the prequels, but we'll get to that in another episode. And, and we went and we bought the tickets and we saw Empire Strikes Back and actually got interviewed on TV is first time I was ever on
TV is eyewitness news came around and they were interviewing people outside, you know, the theater, and, and they stuck the mic in my face and I was boasting I seen Star Wars 2021 and a half times.
And then she asked me, you know, did you did you think you're going to like this movie and I'm like, Oh, well, I already read the book I already like I ruined Empire Strikes Back for myself by reading the book in the comic book.
Before I saw the film, I didn't care.
And, and that and that was that.
And this was also about one year after Boba Fett had come out. Yeah.
And this was kind of like a real turning point for me because the holiday special came out in was that 1978 right and that's we saw Boba Fett on the cartoon.
And then I think was the year after that.
They.
They produced the mail away figure. Yeah, now this this the, this, this, the Cantina, this is when the Cantina figures came out. It was so funny because I had all the shit I had the 12 figures.
I had the TIE fighter the x wing.
The, the, the Lance beater, and then they had that like little and then they announced all the new shit, you know, like the job that cardboard jousting qualer, you know, and they've had the little catalog and they had the little insert that had those pink pages for some
reason. They had that you know you would buy the x wing, and it had like little catalog that showed all the other toys those blow up lightsabers and all that other stupid bullshit that they made.
And there was an addendum to the catalog where they stapled in an insert that was all pink and it showed all the prototypes of all of all the new shit coming out.
But, wait, no, wait a minute, that that came out back that happened later what happened was I didn't even know about thought I had all 12 of the fucking figures.
And that was the end.
And we used to go to Toys R Us to just get shit I was into micronauts I was into my mom bought me everything she was a fucking saint all the Battlestar Galactica toys the ones where you shoot the thing that killed that choke the kid that the kid died from.
I had those when the missile still shot. And, you know, one day this was such a profound experience because like one day we've going into Toys R Us and like there was no internet and you know the commercials were not regular and like you didn't know what was
going to happen you didn't know I was nine years old. And then I go into the boys island and suddenly there's like eight new Star Wars figures. Yeah.
And it's the weird ones it's Greedo it's hammerhead it's fucking are five D for these characters that were just on screen for fucking two seconds and I was just like, my fucking head exploded seeing that shit just because I didn't know they were going to make it
the cat that little catalog that came out that that came with all the new shit, but I had no idea any of this shit was coming out and I just like literally like levitate it off the ground to like read to just grab the shit on the fuck from the top of the pegs
it just almost completely pulled down that shelf of figures on and Toys R Us just trying to get at those things. And they were $1.97 at the time if you can fucking believe that.
And that's what really, and then to this day, I still have dreams where I'm wandering around in some toy store and then I walk into the aisle and there's like Star Wars figures are figures of things in my dreams they don't make any sense but there's just like new figures and new stuff and just like,
we interrupt this broadcast of toys on top to bring you this.
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Somehow just like being hit in the head with that shit like that just that set me that that burned in my mind a certain way of looking at things and receiving joy that ultimately became my art practice.
Yeah.
How quickly did you when you saw those new figures how quickly before you had them like days instantly. Okay, instantly she just bought them on the spot. I don't know where the fuck she got the money from.
Well, no, she was, I don't I mean we'll get into the nipple clamp business later, but instantly my mother bought everything from you I don't know how I had every single can anything that came out related, anything that came out I got.
If I wanted it I got it. I mean stuff was a little cheaper at the time.
And I guess I don't remember when month when did my parents my parents got divorced in like 19 right around this time my parents got divorced around 1977. I was so into Star Wars I didn't even care about my, my parents divorce.
It didn't faze me at all. Looking back at that was it messy or did it change you a little bit when they got divorced in that time.
No, not at all. It wasn't messy at all. I mean I guess it was messy between them. Yeah, but they did a good job of not letting that. I don't think it was messy I mean I think they were never supposed to be together in the first place and I guess they
finally realized it, and they maybe stayed together for me but then I guess they perceived that I was fine and my father only moved a few blocks away. And it was not acrimonious at all and they remain friends and I didn't, it didn't disrupt my life at all, you know, I mean
I had a small apartment anyway and it was like my grandmother lived there and both my parents and me and was too many people. So he moved out I saw him all the time.
Didn't matter. It didn't matter at all.
And, but after that what happened was my mother needed to make money.
My mother wasn't making that much money and he didn't want, he was good she was gonna. He didn't really have the money to pay alimony. And so my mother started a business with her girlfriend, you know she was she had been dating women the entirety of their
relationship, he knew he couldn't do anything about it. He tried to get in on the action here and there didn't work out for him. He was better off on his own anyway he had a great time he fucked so many girls.
He can't he really came into his own after after.
So you describe it as like an open relationship, they both knew but wouldn't admit it.
No, she didn't give a fuck.
She didn't give a fuck he just lived with it. You know she did whatever the hell she wanted. She would go out with her friends I think maybe he just didn't ask any questions or he knew what was going on I don't I don't remember, he didn't seem.
I don't really remember what happened to be honest with you but he, he, he didn't get it he wasn't getting any action, and he was happy to have a son.
And I've greatly disappointed him before by failing to reproduce to something that's bothers me makes me feel bad a lot you know that I didn't give my parents, any grandkids but they shouldn't have produced me and made me this way if they if they wanted
to have grandkids they should have maybe made a couple more just of me just to be safe, because I was never that type. You know I'm too. And was like I'm very much like my mom I just want to do my own thing I don't want to have kids I don't want to grow up.
Yeah, my mom was forced into it because she got pregnant, but I'm I dodged that bullet, I look at I look at the way my all my friends who are my age that have kids and I look at all the compromises and sacrifices that they have to make and I know if I had to
do that it would kill me. It would absolutely kill me and I also know that if I had kids. I know I have these deep deep nurturing parental instincts which, thank God, are laying dormant because if I had a child.
I would change so much, and I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing anymore. I would become obsessed with being a father, and I would give I would probably just not care about any anything else.
I would probably be over overbearing parents to be honest with you. So, I'm glad I avoided that maybe someday a nice lesbian couple will want to take my sperm and, and, and keep it keep this beautiful DNA in the world.
And then I can just act as sort of this like sort of remote, you know occasional uncle that Joe's shows up from time to time. But, you know, we'll see I have to have that I have to have my sperm looked at before I even begin to even consider that as a possibility
because I don't even know what my reproductive viability is at this point, but we're getting off the subject. My mother needed a way to make money and she was dating this woman that lived in Brooklyn Heights.
And she was an artist and they were trying to find they didn't want to get jobs. They wanted to sell sell shit they wanted to make and sell shit. And so they started making all these like kitschy things, you know they would go down a canal street and just buy
these little pieces of this brick a bracket, and cobble together these little accessories like it was like punk was like coming into fashion like punk this punk that, you know, and like, they were trying to cash in on that so they had like these bandoliers with
water guns riveted to them and all these, you know, because back in the day on Canal Street they had all these surplus stores and plastic stores and rubber stores and you can just go buy all these little bits and pieces and findings and tubes and plexiglass
and little plastic shapes and all kinds of junk and, you know, weird shit so they would just go there and buy shit and cobble things together and then they would go around and try to sell it you know they went to Macy's and tried to sell shit there then
they went around and they had this thing where they had these two little alligator clips that were attached together by like a chrome chain and I guess the idea with the design was that like oh it's like a chain that you can attach to your leather jacket and move it around
and that was what that was what the idea was it was a way to just like a convenient way to take chains and move them around on your clothing, and they took them around and they took them to one of the stores down down over there in the in the village.
You know there were a lot of sex shops down there and there was this place that's still there called the pleasure chest, and they sold all kinds of like you know kinky stuff.
And so they showed them all their stuff and he didn't, the guy there didn't care about any of that except this little chain clamps on the chain, and he's like, oh nipple clamps will take two gross of these.
And my mom looks at a girlfriend like, what are nipple clamps.
And then, and I guess my mom was the smarter one and she was just like, you got a deal, and her friends like what what what's going on she's like shut up.
And so what happened was apparently there was this very vibrant subculture of gay men that were into nipple torture. Yeah, and that, and that you know there's part of like the SMM leather world, you know, and this is before AIDS, and we're living in Greenwich village,
and then like, you know, this, these, these, these, these people were were everywhere, you know, and they were very open about it and was like, you know, we had that they had the products the pride parade and all and everything was like it was a very gay gay.
The village was truly very gay at the time and they had the vault.
And then there was the club all the SMM clubs the vault the hellfire club and there was the manhole. And so like my mom had a basic understanding of what this was. And so she, you know, she read up on it she brought a couple of the magazines it was this magazine
called drummer magazine which they wound up advertising in which was, you know, the magazine that catered to the you know to the people with these proclivities.
And she made a lot of toys based on this shit later on in life but she studied up on it, and they figured out how to make these, you know, to mass, you know, to manufacture these things they had she had a little workspace in Brooklyn, and they set up a little
workshop where they would buy the clamps, you know bulk clamps and chain and would cut the chain and attach it with rings and everything like that.
And most of the nipple clamps that were out at this time, we're kind of chintzy and like fly by night not not not very well made and, you know, they, they wanted to make something a little better than that.
And because my father was such a good engineer.
And because he didn't want to pay alimony my mom made a deal with them. And she's like you help me, you know, mastermind, you know the perfect nipple clamp. Yeah, and you're off the hook.
So he so he got involved and none of this interested him at all, but he was very good with his hands very technical great with tools you know and just could figure all this shit out.
And they came up with this idea to make the clamps adjustable because you know you see you've seen an alligator clamp right it's just like a spring loaded thing with these jagged teeth on it.
You put that on your nipple it's going to tear it off. Yeah. So what they figured out was they got they bought these little rubber tips that could slide over the teeth, but you had the option to remove them or not.
And then the real brilliant thing was, they put a set screw in it, they drilled a little hole in the clamp, and then put this little nice little chrome screw, you know that you could adjust the tension of the jaws so you had like put it on very lightly and then
you can ratchet up the tension as you go and this was an innovation at the time. And now you look at all the nipple clamps that ever anywhere, all have this feature, but this was a feature that my father invented.
And that my mother marketed. So they are trying to make that well they did. And they don't even like they don't partake in this stuff so how are they trying to like, gather what it's supposed to feel like and all that.
Well I mean you know what feels like what it feels like I guess they tried it on, or, you know, I don't, I don't know my mom just is a brilliant genius. Yeah, you know so she was able to just like sort of read a bunch of the magazines and read this.
There's this book called the Leatherman's Handbook which I happen to have here that just like goes deep into the psychological aspects of all this stuff so she was just able to figure out how to, how to present it and like kind of got what what the market
demanded, you know she was she understood that what what people wanted from this stuff. They wanted classy high end shit. You know like they take this stuff seriously. Yeah, and, you know, this is their lifestyle this is their identity.
And so they, she was able to figure out how to create this quality stuff. And it's sold like crazy. I mean, it blew up I mean it paid for all the Star Wars toys I could ever wanted I mean they didn't become rich.
You know you couldn't patent this stuff. Yeah, because like it's, it's considered an assemblage. It's not you haven't really invented anything new you're just taking things and putting them together so that's not really, they tried they couldn't do it.
So everyone else copied them and like they would have that big part of the business was like outdoing their competitors, you know, and that's where like the branding came from and I think without even really realizing it, how much of my own business was modeled after
this, you know, it's like a cottage industry being done in like the home or just like a small studio. And it was really all of and you know it was like the thing is the thing, but it's the story that you tell around it is what makes it stand out, aside from the
quality and like an example of like, why my mother was so smart, is that she you know you're gonna, how many nipple clamps can you fucking make without distinguishing them in some way. And so they made these little small ones, tiny little light ones that like
could fit under your clothing. And it's like okay but why would you need to do that. And the story spun around that it's called the executive.
And what it is. It's a nipple clamp that like guys that are into this stuff could wear under their white collar shirt when they go to their straight job, you know because, you know, this is the 70s a lot of people, you know, we're still halfway in the closet
you know like on the weekends or whatever they would let it all hang out but you go to your like regular nine to five job.
And you gotta play it straight. Yeah, you can. People don't know you're a leather daddy at your job, or that you're a sub or like you like you're into nipple torture, but in order to like maintain that part of yourself while you're, you know, sort of selling out to do the job
you wear these little clamps under your shirt.
And you go to your office and nobody knows. And, and you get to be you and my mom gets to sell nipple clamps and I get to have the Millennium Falcon. So, you know, so that's that's that's that's how that that that was the environment that I was growing up in and I
were I mean I saw all the magazines I knew everything that was going on I thought it was hilarious. And like they she had me in their cutting chain and like you would, I would put the screws in the clamps you know you'd have to dip it in a, you know, you have to
put the gasoline and screw it in. And then she would take me we would drive across country and she would go visit all this was all mail order business you go into all these different stores along the way like in San Francisco we went to all the sex shops and she would
do business and schmooze with the owner and I'd be looking at all the porno and all the dildos and everything was this all normal to me. And that was the environment that what hold you in this, in this time period.
I mean, I was born in the 90s from when I was about eight to 13 or 14. Okay, so all this is being awakened and it's almost like a new social currency that's added to your Star Wars stuff with friends right like well what Dix and nipple clamps.
Yeah, there was a lot of porno around and we were all into that I mean you know my mother was didn't give a shit if I wanted a hustler magazine she bought it for me.
I don't care. And that's, yeah, you know, this was like, I mean the thing is I had like two different groups of friends. I had like, like I like when I was in school, you know and everyone was my own age I was kind of the smallest shortest kid I sucked at sports
and like I was definitely part of the nerd world, you know, and like I was the king of the nerds, you know, but, you know, and but at home. I had a bunch of kids friends like kids that lived in my building and kids around the block that were all a couple of years younger
than me. And I could boss them all around and I could do whatever I want and they did they played all the games that I wanted to play and I was the big brain and I, I came up with all this, but the shit we would do and I had a great imagination and all, and I had all
the toys and I had all the stuff all the kids would come over there, and I was the unquestioned leader.
And I still like to be that I still like that role I still, I do better when people just shut up and do what I say then if I have to be like a team player. But anyway, that that that's the world the Star Wars the nipple clamps and everything
else that was going on at the time you know I remember my mom had to drag me to go see fucking Cheech and Chong I didn't want to see that either. My mom dragged me to go see Cheech and Chong and the movie theaters.
I mean this is New York in the 70s it was different. And then later on I got into like Saturday Night Fever and shit like that.
But back to Boba Fett.
And in 1979 when the mail order figure came out, you know the mail away for sending the four Prusa purchases from the figure pack, and you can get a free figure of this new villain called Boba Fett.
Who the hell is this guy. He just looked so fucking cool, and you didn't know anything about him and I wish that was still the case, but
I'll talk about that later. Um, and for whatever reason, they released the Halloween costume. This is a year before Empire Strikes Back came out, and they the Don, was it Don Paul the Ben Cooper used to make those shitty little costumes with
the mask with the rubber band. Yeah, and then that little like vinyl jumpsuit that had the picture of the character on it. And that was the costume so my I got that and the first edition of it coincidentally, what the mask was silver Boba Fett is green,
for whatever reason. This was that glorious era of Star Wars before everything was like, held to these strict standards. One of my favorite errors of Star Wars is between Empire and Star Wars where they didn't realize what a hit that they had,
and it wasn't this machine like it is that it became like they the approval process of doing licensed Star Wars shit was a lot looser, and a lot of shit that didn't make any sense came out like you look at those cantina
figures. They don't look anything like like gritos wearing these like these like turquoise platform boots. Yeah, and and walrus man has these flipper feet, and it just they don't make any sense he's tammer head is wearing this, this like blue smock I mean what
the fuck it doesn't look anything like the characters, and that's my favorite era of Star Wars because so much weird shit came out that they could never make today. And, um, so I had this silver Boba Fett costume, and then I augmented it I got like little I made
these cardboard knee pads and I put on these like galoshes for the boots and I, and I like wrap the back of my head in tin foil and I made like I had the stormtrooper gun. And we would go marching the Halloween parade which is a little parade that used to go through
the village that the Halloween parade still exists actually it's like a major to do and it goes down Sixth Avenue, but back in the day was called the village Halloween parade and was the smaller affair, and they would walk, you know block away from my house
and just join the parade. So I'd be walking around in the parade with this little Boba Fett costume feeling big, you know, it just made me feel like having the mask on and just, you know, just nobody knew who I was and I was and I thought he you know I just
inhabited this character so then for like the Empire came out, finally got to see Boba Fett in the movie that was, I was disappointed how little of the movie he was in, but it already stuck with me so year after year after year, I would just upgrade the costume
and it got to the point where I was launching smoke bombs and then like walking through this cloud of smoke, walking in the parade this is when you can still buy fireworks and in Chinatown.
You know my mom used to take me down here over to Mott Street which is where I live now, and you'd go in the basement and there'd be this like, you know, 14 year old Chinese kid like yo fireworks fireworks, and you'd go in the basement and they'd have it was
you know you could, you know, you buy all this shit buying smoke bombs and we used to, you know, just like launch them, you know problems shooting bottle rockets at each other or firecrackers it's all illegal now.
But back then, you know I mean it's like it was illegal then but they didn't give a fuck now they do and you know they just have, you know they just here's parade here and it's like there's nothing it's like people have those stupid things where you pull it and the
party shoots out. Back in the day used to come down here and you'd be like ankle deep and fucking firecrackers spent firecracker shells, you know just all the time just fucking.
Anyway, so that was it I just the Boba Fett costume gave me this powers. Okay, I didn't otherwise have because I was a little fucking nobody.
And that that was that you know and then whatever everything everything Indiana Jones, fucking goonies ET rocky jaws. All of it, all of it, all of that shit was coming out jaws to I saw jaws to before jaws, and I loved it all, my mother didn't hold back on anything
and I got to do all of it. And then, you know, return of the Jedi came out. I was fine. And then, and then he man of course I was obsessed with he man I had Castle Grayskull I had attorney I had all this stuff we interrupt this broadcast of toys on top to bring you this.
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And at some point I started to lose interest.
I was so immersed in this stuff for so long.
And it was so much of my identity. And it was really a golden age of, of that of this stuff you know this stuff now that people my age are just constantly revisiting you know people.
And they their whole artwork is like painting Star Wars figures in the Masters of the Universe color schemes, you know, things like that. I mean it's also interesting to me just how this stuff is just permanently there.
Like, the, the US, if you were of that generation and even a little little younger.
I mean everything now today is so different. I don't even know how it's like I can't imagine what it's like being that age. Now, it's so different. This is all we had and was like enough. Now also all the fucking GI Joe's all of it I had all of it.
You know most of it now I've destroyed, I kept it, my mother wouldn't let me throw anything away which was another great thing.
She, my mother had the experience where she got a little older. And she had the whole collection of EC comics the original ones, you know before that got before they got banned.
And her, my mom was maybe like 13 years old, and her mother. One day just decided she doesn't need these anymore and she just threw them in the trash.
And then my mom goes looking for her old comic books is like, Ma, where are the comics and he's like well yeah I threw them away you don't need those anymore. And she was devastated.
You know, so like she would, and she was insistent that I would not.
That wouldn't happen to me to the point that she wouldn't even let me throw the shit out myself.
And I was like I don't want this toy anymore and she was like, keep it. Keep it. I remember when I was like in high school I had this big box of Smurfs. She had the Smurf mushroom houses everything and we used to babysit this little girl.
And I get I was 15 and I gave I was over this shit at the time and I gave them to her.
And her mother was like, Don't do it. I you couldn't tell me nothing at 15. Yeah, and I gave away all my Smurfs and I fucking regret it she was right. She was fucking right.
And anyway so I had this fucking store shit. And when I started making, making my artwork. I would always go back to my mom's house and there would just be this vault of just vintage toys that I could just put through the meat grinder and turn into whatever
pieces that I make.
So, with that kind of access to toys and everything you ever wanted. Right. So, with all the different toy lines.
Would you look back and see that as an unintentional escape for you, growing up like were you trying. Did you immerse yourself so heavily in these things trying to escape from something, or was it just pure joy.
Oh, who knows probably both. I mean I don't know really what I mean yeah I guess I mean I didn't do well, I didn't do that well with other kids and and as we got older and we started getting into puberty and stuff like that it got harder.
Yeah, like I just grew up a lot slower than the kids around me.
And I was those those were safe spaces. I mean granted they were fun and I was like really good, good at playing with shit. You know like I was very like I wouldn't just act out the movie I came up with my own stories and it would get complicated I didn't
I mean I did bash everything together but no I would I would I would develop the characters you know and I had like narratives going and like, was just like I could set up the whole world I would have like Castle Greyskull and one side of the house and then all the other side would be Snake
Mountain, and like the whole house would become this world. And my mother didn't give a fuck she'd sit there and read books and listen to the watch hockey.
And, and we would just tear the fucking place apart and we're the Shogun warriors and we're just like shooting missiles all over the place we would just like take the mattresses off the bed and like just ride them down the staircase and do anything it's like, I think
I think also in that day like parents were a little little more hands off. Yeah, no we just run around and do whatever we'd ride around the corner on our fucking big wheels and stay out all evening, nobody fucking worried about anything.
You know we used to bash each other with fucking plastic swords and shields and on all that you know of course I had the Atari, and we would just sit there and we played video games for hours and hours and hours and nobody ever wondered is this detrimental.
I mean and it was like I don't know if I at the time I realized I was escaping from anything but it was just like there was nothing else to do and all this fun shit was right there so it's like of course I'm going to get into it.
And then the cable, you know they would have like we used to have the old cable box with the buttons on it. And sometimes my mother would go away for the weekend and leave me home alone I mean maybe I was a little older at this time maybe 12 1314.
And then they would have the little box where you press the buttons and the cable channels all had letters at the time. And there was this channel Jay was where all the smart was yeah like at night they would have the midnight blue with Al Goldstein, you know the publisher
of screw magazine, and he would just come on and there would be montages of tits and ass and then he would come on and just talk about all kinds of fucked up shit he didn't give a shit I mean he used to trash Ed Koch and he used to just have porn stars on there
and he would smoke cigars it was just great. You could just watch this on TV, you know and just talk shit talk about ass fucking would just go and like and just like, this is life you know there was nothing else to do.
And I had my little friends that did whatever I wanted and we'd sit there and we would like, you know, have the blanket over us and we would all be like jerking off individually, you know we would have, we had the my father bought me a VCR and like 1980.
VHS first came out. He bought a VCR was this gigantic fucking piece of furniture must have been like, two and a half feet long and was heavy and it had these big massive like analog buttons, you know, go, chung, you know when you press play with boom
like this big switch, and then he bought a camera that went with it. Like it was like, it was like you couldn't take it anywhere. They had like a special kind of. If you wanted to take the camera you had to buy a special kind of VHS that you would carry around
in this big saddle bag. So you got this like huge heavy camera and this big bag I didn't have that so we would just set the camera up in the living room, plug it into the VCR and just do shows we would just like make up movies and just do plays and just then was all just
like all this violence and torture and bashing things and shooting things with laser guns and you know we'd have the record player and we'd put like the Star Wars soundtrack on and then fight, and there was some attempt at making a story still have all of these tapes.
And someday I'm going to maybe publish it but there was nothing, whatever I was escaping from was worth escaping from because this was great, you know every I had everything I wanted and there was no internet.
When you, your mom is in making nipple clamps and things. Looking back, do you think that you had witnessed because I know like currently right you've been to the AVN awards, you are into making you've begun your process into making.
Yeah, do you think that you got invited into that environment, maybe too early into the porn type worldview. What do you mean by too early.
I don't know because it's the years are a little murky there so it could be between eight and maybe 11. Do you think you're too young for that. No, not at all. I mean I started looking at Playboy magazine when I was five.
Okay, that was the first time I ever saw a naked picture of a naked girl is that I was at my grandma's house in Brooklyn, and her her, my grandfather died.
When I was five and he, but you know they didn't all his shit was still there and he had this little stack of Playboys.
And so we would look at that and I instantly knew I knew instantly that I loved it.
And I don't think so I mean to be honest with you I have a pretty healthy attitude towards sex as an adult.
And I know I think I don't know if my exposure to pornography helps that I don't feel like damaged at all like I mean my only hang ups about sex was just like I was worried that girls didn't like me.
That was the only problem and it turned out that they did a lot. And unfortunately it took me to later in life to like really accept that.
But, um, no I mean I have a pretty healthy sex sexual attitude.
And I think, I think, I think withholding that type of stuff from kids is probably more detrimental than like letting them see it.
I mean I don't think there's anything wrong with it, and it's like it's it's an essential part of being a human being.
And our sexual minds are complicated and weird. And I feel like I've always been able to deal with the ambiguities of it because I feel like I was very well educated and very just aware of just like the manner in which people express these parts of themselves.
And, you know, I'm not a judgmental person at all.
I'm very open and accepting with people and especially, you know, in intimate situations like anything goes and I, you know, people and when I find myself in sexual scenarios of like people, people tend to open up with me because of the, of the atmosphere
that that that I that I operate in because of that. Yeah, no, I don't think it hurt me at all. Nice.
Yeah, I think you always hear about the issues that people will bring, they're like, oh, this is damaging or whatever but it's interesting to hear different dynamic that it created almost a healthier aspect that you've used sex through.
Sure, I mean I don't know if this is true of anybody I'm only just talking about I mean I'm just talking about my own personal experience but also you know I come from a very nurturing family.
And so there was like all kinds of other factors involved you know and that's I also think just like growing up in New York at that time.
You know you were just exposed to a lot of stuff, and I know a lot of people that I grew up around didn't do well, you know, I mean, and I don't think it was because necessarily because of this pervasive, you know, because of certain pervasive attitudes
and I know a lot of kids that were having sex, maybe too young, and not that having sex per se is bad when you're in your teens I didn't I didn't lose my virginity till I was 20.
But, you know, I know a lot of kids especially young women that just like started getting involved with older guys and led to like you know drugs and things like that and just like growing up a little too fast and getting into trouble and like sort of like
going down a path that didn't end up great for them I mean some of the people that I was friends with as kids you know when we got into middle school, like I definitely when you say, maybe I was escaping it was maybe like I definitely know when we started getting into
virginity. I did not want to go. I remember all my, I remember praying to God, like I didn't want to, I was afraid of having I didn't want to have a wet dream that was a big thing wet dream.
You know like that was supposed to like you know girls had their period and boys would have their wet dreams. I didn't have my first wet dream till I was like in college, but I would pray to God please because I knew once I had a wet dream that I was that I was
it that I was going to be a teenager and that all those things were going to have to come up and I was absolutely not prepared for it. And I used to pray to God please don't let me have a wet dream, and he answered my prayers, and I like I just matured a lot slowly
slower than all my peers, like all my friends were losing their virginity and growing tits and you know growing pubic hair and you know going out and you know and fucking around and I was still playing with him and toys I mean I still had my human toys in like 10th
grade. Yeah, you know I didn't start losing interest in this stuff till around the time the turtles came out.
At some point, it just it I lost interest I mean Star Wars kind of ended in 85 like Jedi came out in 83, but they were still making toys for it.
And then all the Indiana Jones movies were coming out and like goonies and back to the future. I was really still into that and then I just somewhere in the first year of high school because I went, I was in junior high school for ninth grade.
I was really into getting interested in girls but I was such a geek, you know that I didn't know what to do with myself and like all the hot sluts, you know we're already, you know, fucking and dating older guys and giving blowjobs and everything I was privy to all this
information, but I wasn't prepared for any of it. And but they used to fuck with me you know they used to try like grab my dick and like put their tits in my face and sit on my lap and kiss me and make out with me and I loved it but I always felt like, Oh, this isn't
for me like oh I'm not, you know, it's like I just felt like such a, I felt like such a baby, you know, and they were, you know, I wish I had been just a little bit more savvy because I could have really fucking cleaned up, but I just wasn't prepared and another thing
was that, um, I wasn't circumcised.
I was like my father's British, and they don't circumcise people in Europe, you know it's an American thing. And there was a question when I was born of like whether or not they were going to circumcise me and my father didn't want to do it he was afraid that
it would hurt me and he didn't see the need for it. And so, as I was growing up I was just like kind of acutely aware that there was something different about my dick, and nobody ever explained it to me.
And so, I always felt a little weird about that part of my body and always felt a little alienated from and I didn't want anybody to see it. So when all these like young, you know, girls are coming into their sexuality and all these kids are experimenting with sex and
everything I was like, Oh, don't include me in this, you know, like we used to play that game run catch and kiss. And I used to run and not get caught the whole point is to get caught and to kiss and I would never let them catch me and I would like always was just being
included and all that stuff. And then, you know, it wasn't until like I got into like middle puberty, where I was like suddenly realizing holy shit I need to catch up here. Like I just remember the turtles was the last thing that I had.
Like I had all the humans. I had all the GI Joe's and then the turtle started coming out. And I had like Donatello and Michelangelo, Ace Duck, Casey Jones, Shredder and Bebop and Rocksteady.
And I didn't want anymore. I didn't ask for them anymore. I just didn't want them. What I really wanted was a fucking circumcision. Yeah, you know, and I didn't know how to go about that. Like, I was afraid to ask my parents for all the sexual exposure that I had when it came to my own, you know, around me all the porn around me when it came to my own sexuality, I didn't, I felt very awkward about it.
You know, I always felt like I was exposed to this stuff, but I was always apart from it. And when I realized like hey I need to start messing around with girls, you know, and I had to get my dick fixed, and I had no idea how to go about it and I would like call I called up like there was this place called the door, you know, where they used to give out contraceptives to underage kids and stuff like that and I called them up and asked them like how do I get a circumcision it's like oh that's a surgical procedure you know, and you're a minor you know you got to ask
your parents and I just could not bring myself to do it. And then one day, thank God my fucking father just inquired, you know, because I guess when you're when you're when you're uncircumcised you have to do some kind of some maintenance shit.
Yeah, you know you have to learn how to roll the skin back and clean underneath it and all that stuff. And I didn't know what to do I mean I was already jerking off like we first time ever came finally, it must have been like 14 or 15 they used to have those phone sex lines I know we're supposed to be talking
about action figures here but this all of this informs my toy practice, trust me, get back around to it. You used to have these like 976 numbers where you dial it and like for like a couple of bucks that would put on your phone bill and some recording of some woman
talking dirty would come on, and I used to like you know jerk off and like my pre my uncut days where I would just like sort of rub the foreskin up and down and then this little would come out, and it terrified me of course when it first happened.
But you know once it started happening and I got comfortable with it, you know I was fine with it and I was like jerking off three or four times a day to like that to the like little titty pictures and like National Lampoon magazine and whatever smut
I was able to get, and I had an older friend who used to buy used to go and buy the magazines and the video tapes and all that shit we had like Devil and Miss Jones and Debbie does Dallas and all of those, all those behind the green door all those classics on
the tape and whenever nobody was around I would jerk off to them, but I didn't. I knew I wasn't going to show that that foreskin to any of the women that I girls that I knew because I was the only guy in my entire friend group that that that was uncut.
And it just seemed that the girls at that time weren't were kind of grossed out by that so finally my dear old dad asked me about it. And, and I told him in whatever way I could I want to get a fucking circumcision, and he made it happen, you know, so he took
me to the hospital and you have to be knocked out and, and they, the urologist does the bris, and you know wake up, you know, and I've got, and I look at my dick and it looks like fucking the Frankenstein monster it's got all these stitches in it, and was
dead and swollen it was like, oh my god, and it was like, you know, he was like, don't get an erection for a week. Tell the kid that telling a 16 year old kid, you know, don't get an erection, you know, and so I did the best I could because if I got and I went for a couple
of days. And then I just couldn't stand and it's like I got it not I got it not I got it not so I tried to do it as carefully as possible.
And I pop one of the stitches, and there's still a little scar on the side of my penis from that.
And I came but it was also those it was, whatever but it was one of those kind of, I know I'm going into best detail I'm sorry.
One of those, one of those type of those stitches that that are made out of like a type of protein and they sort of just evaporate over time. So, so it went away and I was finally circumcised and then that was like sort of the beginning of my manhood and it's funny
because I remember. I know there's like a lot of like indigenous tribes and people in Africa I remember in roots. There was that scene where they take all the boys out into the out with the shaman, or the, you know, and they, and when they're of age, and they
circumcise them, you know, and I remember that scene in the video and I just always sort of identified with that meaning like this is that was the beginning of my adulthood. In a way like that foreskin was in a way the sort of like protective outer coating of my childhood,
and my childlike nature, and then, you know, finally having it removed. I was now exposed because I remember, and it's metaphorical in a way because the glands underneath extremely sensitive.
It took a while before I was even able to really handle it or touch it because it was like raw skin under there because I was never able to roll it back and expose it so it was just like I'm exposed now.
But that's what began my, my, my, the next phase of my adventures which I guess we'll talk about in the next episode.
It was, it was just weird in a way now I don't regret it, because in some ways, when I was a kid, I was like exposed to a lot of adult stuff.
But in a lot of ways I was also protected from a lot of it and I feel like I was able to carry forward certain childlike qualities into my later life because of that, like all my friends around me were in such a rush rush to grow up and like some
of the kids in me told me to hold it. Yeah. And, and in, in holding it. I feel like I was able to smuggle it out, and it's still here with me now.
And it's like what informs my work as a as a 50 year old man, you know, like I never lost any of those gifts. I think Jimi Hendrix said and I paraphrasing it like a musician is somebody that hasn't been handled much by the world.
I think that somehow carried with them, and was able to hold on some of the stuff that comes from the, from the netherworld that that we live in before we come into this physical place.
And a lot of keep a lot of people lose it. Yeah, because the because of the way the ways of the world just like rough them up and force them to be a certain way and if you can sort of avoid that.
You, you hold on to great gifts. And I feel like somehow I managed that.
And then I got into, and then I started getting into high school shit and drugs and all that other stuff but I feel like that subject matters, things that we're going to talk about in the next chapter.
Yeah, I have a question about your mom and dad.
You. Once they split.
Your dad moves down the street and you're with your mom and you're helping her with nipple clamp business and all of that and you're just traveling around with her.
But we didn't talk about much about if you stayed with your dad at times or how often you saw him. Oh I saw him frequently in fact maybe the last final story is kind of about that because, um, I mean yeah he was very involved and he used to take me into
trips I mean he took me to California and we went to Disney and Universal Studios, and all of that stuff he was, I mean he was very engaged. And he, he taught we had like these giant electric trains that we used to play with I mean he was there all the time.
But the real interesting thing about my parents is that my father was is such a genius when it comes to working with his hands and taking things apart like he taught me how to use.
Power tools and build things and hammers and nails and screws I'm so I'm so natural with all of that stuff I can take anything apart. I can, whatever comes to my mind I can figure out how to execute it, how to make it, whereas, but he's not extremely
creative in other ways, you know, he's, I mean as a smart spiritual guy but he's not an artist, you know he's a he's a he's a he's an engineer, whereas my mother can't even figure out how to turn the TV on, you know, my mom can't do anything, but she's so brilliant
and she can just what the way her mind works and she can just conceive of anything and just like think to such degrees of abstraction, you know and just like this unfettered imagination which was also encouraged in me, and sort of both of those two things came together
and I made it so I can, I'm able to come up with these.
Anything might never suffered creatively I've never ever had creative block ever. You know I can anything I can imagine just comes to me with ease. And I have the skills to be able to execute it.
At the same time, you know, which is my father's gifts, you know if I can think of something and then I can take it from my mind and pass it through my hands into the world.
I was fortunate in that regard that my parents were so different in that regard, and that they were mature enough and just kind enough and compassionate enough and did love each other enough to like, not make it weird.
Yeah, you know, for me, you know, and they, and they, you know, they, my mom, parents are both still friends I'm going to see both of them tomorrow I have to go to my mom's house and help my father redo the floor over there.
I mean, in the 1980s. Yeah, that is that dynamic, I mean, because I did not experience as a kid but that dynamic where they're still friends and able to co parent is incredible. But also, what is so interesting is you said that your dad had to, like he dropped out
of high school. So all these things. He got pulled out I mean right. Yeah. So all these things that he picked up with being an electrical engineer and tools and being handy, did he just learn that all on his own.
I don't really remember to be honest with you I mean I think he had natural, natural talents and I think when he was in the army. He started on that path I guess we went into the army when he was 18 and he wasn't like necessarily like an, he wasn't like an alpha
man. So he wasn't necessarily the guy they were going to give the gun and sent to the front line. He was more, you know, he was acting you know more on the back end and the support side I don't know exactly what he did I think he was fiddling around with
radios and stuff like I think he was like a radio technician or like, he was good at taking, he was just good at that shit and I think he was groomed for that in the army. And then when he when he when he got out of there they were going to send them to a tool and
die shop which I don't know exactly what he was going to be doing but that's like, you know, making metal molds and like a factory that makes, makes screws or something like that you know or just a factory that makes nails and I guess you have to have the
machinery to make those nails I mean what he did was and there's like actually, there's a whole other topic that is informed my my attitude my worldview for good and bad and that's that of class.
Yeah, you know like both of my parents. My mom didn't go to college.
And both coincidentally both of my grandfather's work for the post office. My mom's father were worked in the post office in Brooklyn and again here's the weird the weird duality.
He was this weird introvert he hated people who was a germaphobe, you know, so he worked in the back he would like sort the mail, you know, put it on you know when you actually have to you know back in the day when the letters would come and you would have to
have to manually look at the zip code and then put it in the right slot and he would do all the shit in the back end because he didn't want to deal with people where and I have that side to myself.
Definitely. Yeah, and then there's the my dad's father worked walked the route, like he would deliver the mail, and he loved to be out there and gossip and get all the news and he was very social and I think he actually had a few mistresses on his
side about, you know, and so he would like, but these are like working class jobs, you know, and I guess because my father, you know, because there was there doesn't see because of like, because of class my father was no reason for my father to go to high school
and he wasn't going there was no need to have a degree. He was, he was a worker, he was like poor. He wasn't going to get those kind of jobs, you know he wasn't going, he wasn't being groomed for, you know, an executive position or anything like that or to be a business
owner or anything like that he was going to be a worker. And that's, that's what the lot that he was born into, and he carried with that that with him his whole fucking life.
You know he worked for this company called SNS. And they were a company that made machines that made boxes. So like, you know, they have these big industrial machines that would like you know you'd feed raw cardboard into it, and it would chop it
and stamp your company logo on it and these like manual these companies like Dole pineapples for example, would buy one of these machines, and then they those machines would crank out the boxes that they would use to ship out their fucking pineapples.
And these boxes would be specifically designed to put pineapples in and would have Dole's branding printed on it and there was like, some guy had to build these fucking machines and maintain these machines.
And he was that guy, he was like, he was part of like I guess the executive he was the executive engineer at this company, whereas like he was like of all the brains and all the people that dealt with the money and all the men all the managers and all the
the bosses he was, you know, the CEO the CFO, he was the chief engineering officer, and they in his mind and maybe it's true they always kind of look down on him, you know, because when the machine would break or something would go wrong they would all be standing
around with their thumb in their ass, where he could roll up his sleeves and get in there and fix the machine.
And to most people with any sense that person is superior to those people because he actually is smart and has practical knowledge, but in his experience he always felt that the guy that works with his hands is lesser, and is looked down upon and works
for the guys with the brains, and the guys that are come from the, the, the work, the, the sort of more risk that I wouldn't say, not aristocratic because that doesn't apply in America, but like the sort of more upper class like if you were an executive.
You don't work with your hands, you get somebody else to do that for you you pay someone to do that for you. And he was always so pissed off which is it was just as smart as anybody else in the room if not smarter, but because he didn't go to college and because he worked with
his hands. It was always this per feeling of inadequacy, you know, or just this feeling of resentment and this feeling of just not being able to get to a certain level, because of that, and I think in a lot of ways.
I've absorbed that same attitude, you know, and it's like, that's in a way that's why my work is the way it is it's like I was never able to get to the point where I could just like draw a picture and send it off to a toy company and have them make it for me.
I got to make it myself with my own two fucking hands. And on one hand I think I'm superior because I can do that where all these other assholes all they can do is make a picture and illustrator, where I can actually bring a toy into physical existence.
By my own by my own volition. But on the other hand I think it makes the work seem a little less classy or just like it's something there's something crude about it or there's something.
There's something about the work that because it's handmade it's less than. Yeah, and, and I don't know if this is just the perception or this is just the sort of like resentment or just sort of like, you know, just these sort of feelings of inadequacy or just sort of
like, I don't know what people have this class in this class feel but I definitely feel it. And it's always been hard for me to like, think outside of that, and see myself as a person that bossed other people around, you know, or just had other people do the work,
I'm the guy that does the work. Yeah, and, and it's like, I feel in some ways it's a gift and in other ways it's like left me out of things. And it's all my it's all happening in my own head the world doesn't really give a fuck.
And it will take you at your own estimation of yourself that's that's my belief, but you can internalize this stuff, and the way you behave and the way you carry yourself and the way you sell yourself comes across.
And I think some of these resentments just live deep inside of you, and they're almost subconscious in a way and they they they affect how you deal with people and how how people look at you, and, and I think the end you know my mother doesn't give a shit about any of this stuff
you know but it was like I just I definitely feel that this, that's a that's a huge part of what colored me, you know we never had any money ever, and that's something I've always struggled with it's always been the biggest biggest boogie man of my wife, wife,
even more than women is just like the money hustle and working for the check, the living hand to mouth, you know, it was just never able to cultivate the consciousness to like accumulate wealth and I think that's like, that's a working class attitude,
and it's like being a working class person you don't think about investments you don't think about growth you don't think about that you think about like how many widgets can I fucking make.
Yeah, and, and that's where I'm at with the work right now. And I haven't figured out how to get out of that crypto bro crypto crypto yeah equalizer.
I think that's what crypto is a cast system to in a way. Yeah, and I think that that's such an interesting way to look because both your parents, one working with his hands and dealing with that struggle in his own head and his eyes and people like vocalizing
and being this book, like more bohemian person, like also seen as lesser to some, and so, coming from that. I can't imagine you would have any other mentality than what you have now.
It makes sense.
I think in a lot of ways, it's what sort of informed that my sort of supervillain. Yeah, persona is just like there, you do have this that disgruntled feeling and you see that a lot in the comic books like Cobra commander, and like guys like the Green Goblin
and Dr. Doom all these like sort of, you know, people that know that they're smarter than everybody else because of where they come from and who they are. They're not accepted and it turned, and they get resentful.
And they have something to prove, you know, and sometimes if things don't go right and if that feeling is allowed to fester it, it, it, it metastasizes into villainy, which sometimes can be on unhealthy.
Yeah, man, which is, which is dark, and as a side note, the villain of the suck Lord and the villainy that you have created in that, and knowing that its representation is like has it comes from Boba Fett and all that stuff, and then
seeing the show and he doesn't look like a villain anymore. That's disheartening.
It is, I mean, maybe we're, this is sort of where this whole thing was supposed to end at the last episode but we I guess it's where I'll talk about it. I mean it is very interesting and weird and kind of amazing and is to see new Boba Fett shit coming out
at this stage of my life, you know, because I feel like I've definitely had my Sarlacc moment and and I have lost my armor and was wandering around the desert, you know naked for a long time.
And that's some of the stuff I feel like happened to me on the TV show.
But, you know, after that but we're talking that's not till Episode four I don't think but it is it is interesting what trying to watch a super villain try to reinvent himself as a more benign character and seemingly not to succeed at it.
I don't know how I'm a little disappointed with the writing on the show but I'm still giving it a chance but it's just like I can understand why he might want to grow.
And I can understand that how being. I mean I've experienced that like, like putting on that mask as a kid and then putting the mask on again when I was entering the toy game, because again, I was entering the toy game from a point of resentment because for years
and years and years I couldn't get anybody to make my toys. Everybody from kid robot on down told me to take a hike, and I only started making these toys myself.
And I started putting them under and using a master because I had to, you know, they forced me to do that. And so yeah my early works, and even now came with a healthy attitude of fuck you.
Yeah, you know something having something to prove being mad at them, you know for not recognizing my genius and and demanding that respect through whatever means necessary.
And now, you know, there's diminishing returns there because then you're stuck in that mode. And then, if you try to grow, like you're, you're letting go of some of that power and what are you replacing it with like this nice agreeable guy.
It's like, I don't understand, you know, it's like and how are you going to play the game how are you how are you going to play the crime game. How are you going to play the hustle game.
And you're playing it honestly. Yeah, you know it's just, it's, these are questions that I'm still trying to unpack. But I think we should maybe and just trying, even though it's done in a sort of hamfisted way and I don't even know if they're doing it intentionally.
I think they seem to be playing out on the show in a certain way and I don't know how it's going to go. But it's just, it's just really really fucking as bad as the show is it's still resonating with me in that in that regard.
And I think maybe we'll leave it at that for now. So, and, and, and, and pick it up.
Next time we're going to talk about drugs and things like that. Yeah, so, as, which is awesome I like this as a first episode. Do you want to plug things that you're working on things that you have coming, or do you want to leave it with just your stories.
No, I mean, you know I, I make things all the time. There's always something to plug. I have a web store, super suck store that calm there's always something to buy there.
I have an only fans there's not much up there right now but I'm going to be adding to that and that's just support on only fans it's 660 a month if you want to watch me fuck a flashlight.
And I'm going to put the sex scenes up there later once I get them edited. And then I have an open see where I sell NFTs and Instagram and Twitter suck Lord if you want to keep up I post shit all the time.
And there's like all, you know, we'll guess we're going to talk about music and all that stuff later, which are those things are also available. I have a sound cloud with all my rec with all my old records on there.
All of it is all suck it suck Lord or psychedelic.
I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for saving money having to go to a therapist.
New from toys on tap.
Next episode.
It's great. It's amazing. You're going to want to listen to it.
It's not right now though you're going to have to wait till the next episode to listen to it. Oh, what's that the next one. Cool toys on tap.
The next one is going to be good too. So stay tuned.
And listen to that.
Awesome.