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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.
Let's do a refresher.
So you ended with the golden age and we had talked through you growing up, the parents separate, and then you going through, we talked nipple clamps,
we talked to your dad as like this genius engineer type, and we kept going.
And then we kind of ended more on like a meta note of the class system and like how that was, it's problematic that the class system,
like once you're born into a class, you can't get out of it, but you do what you can in that class.
So you're explaining how your dad and your mom didn't ever get out of it, but they taught you like those work hard ethics and all those things.
Interesting, because that does kind of play in a little bit to where this is about to go.
Not necessarily in a socioeconomic class, but like there's also a class system in high school.
Yeah.
And that's kind of where this is going to start to just to tie it up. I was the quintessential nerd, nerdy kid, the classic, you know, with the long greasy hair, the fucking glasses held together with tape.
My entire wardrobe consisted of high water jeans and Star Wars t shirts and had no interest in anything other than like my nerdy pursuits and I was very successful in that regard.
I was the king of the nerds. I had all the Star Wars toys. I had, you know, I had seen Star Wars more than anybody else and I had, and I was, I was so prolific in this area.
But then, this is around 1984, 85, you know, Star Wars was over.
It was like there was no more movies coming out. There was all kinds of other shit like GI Joe and He-Man and Ninja Turtles and all that stuff, but Star Wars was over. And this was also right about the time I'm going into high school, you know, and starting, you know, and I'm entering puberty now.
And suddenly, my old interests weren't doing it for me anymore, you know, and I was very aware that I was in the nerd cast, you know, that people liked me but I was definitely, I wasn't one of the cool kids.
And I had that in mind, there was a very distinct separation between the nerds and the popular kids. And I was like, I refuse to go into high school, and I'm being part of this sort of lower class.
I'm going to move into the cool kid category, somehow. Yeah, you know, and I made a very deliberate effort in doing that. I remember like I used to get teased a lot, you know, like because I wasn't
into like the cool music or anything like that. Like my idea of listening to music was like the Raiders of the Lost Ark soundtrack. And it was just so weird because I was growing up and it's such a seminal time in New York City, you know, the early mid 80s, you know, I remember like
breakdancing was first coming out, you know, where you would actually see the fucking Rocksteady crew like just out in outs out, you know, these are legendary figures now that were just out there, you know, with their little cardboard setup and I always thought this stuff was cool.
But I didn't, I didn't think it was for me, you know, graffiti the golden age of graffiti these legendary you know like gods of graffiti would just be on the subways, you know, like Dondie pieces would be rolling through and I and I knew these person by like two or three degrees of
separation by like kids I was going to school with, and I liked it. But it never felt like something that was for me. And you know downtown New York was popping like Andy Warhol was still alive and walking around Basquiat and places like the mud club and all these
legendary places I remember walking around in the subway and literally seeing Keith fucking herring in the middle of the day writing chalk on the fucking walls, and I'm thinking anything of it oh there's that guy might be read about in the New York Post or whatever don't care where's Star Wars.
No, like none of it mattered to me and like I couldn't, you know, but, and it was like always felt separate to me. And I'm going into high school now and I'm realizing like I have to have to get in on this, because I want to, I, you know, I want to be part of the fun.
And the first thing that really cracked the window was this was also the golden age of MTV, and was the Michael Jackson thriller video came out, and I was a big fan of American werewolf in London.
And so this video got me watching MTV and then I started finding myself you know liking culture club and Duran Duran and, you know, Billy idol. And then that's when I started being like okay I'm entering 10th grade I went to ninth grade and junior high school,
and then it's a 10th grade it's like 84 85. And it's like, I had been in there for like a couple of weeks as my nerd self and I'm just like I can't. So, I was like okay I'm going to do something about this.
And I don't know where I got my money from but I convinced my parents to get me contact lenses because I had to lose the nerd glasses and at the time in my mind.
The first thing is cool glasses, you know glasses was he I needed to remove all the symbols of my association with that world. So, I got you know I got the contact lenses.
I went to like a cool haircut place like I think I eventually started going to ask her, ask the place which was like the, the, the place to go to get you know all your punk cuts but this was just before that I went to some salon and I bought hair spray and
I was going this thing with my hair, and I would go down to the down into Soho and there was all these famous stores at the time was canal jeans antique boutique, and another place called unique, and then when they would do the airbrush shirts and I got together
I had money and I bought some like neon t shirts and some like Duran Duran collar shirts and like different pants and people were really into those Web Oh bracelets remember that they look like big rings, you know from a GI Joe figure, and people would
go to the arms of them, you know and I started going to eighth street, you know and going to all the cool little stores and buying all this jewelry and I got my ear pierced and I was like oh my god I could you know I felt so scared to go to school with this look,
I thought I was going to be rejected, you know and a couple of people teased me because it was instant was like Friday I left school, and I was a nerd, and then Monday came back and I was trying to be a cool kid so deliberate and obvious and you know I took a little bit
of a ribbing from it but nobody really fucking cared. And it's like okay I'm, you know, I'm, you know, and I and I, you know, and I started passing as a cool kid. Nobody really gave a shit, and I'm cool, I was always cool.
Yeah, I just didn't, I was the only person that had a problem with it.
So,
I'm sort of making it in this scene.
I had this one older friend this girl that I grew up next door to who's a little further along with me. And she was already into bad girl shit by like 1314 15 she was already having sex and taking drugs and running away from home and everything like that.
And she sort of took me under her wing, and like, I was been moving from that point, from just being like this sort of vague MTV New Wave poser into the local punk scene.
And the punk the punk scene was where it was that there was no way I was going to be a bboy but I could pass in the punk world. And like there was this whole scene on a street and St Mark's Place and Washington Square Park, where like all all these hardcore punk scene was
happening. And I was going to attempt to join that because I was starting to go out more and leave the house, and not, you know, not stay home anymore remember the, the very last thing I remember was like the Ninja Turtles, I'd like a couple of them I didn't
like the Ninja Turtles and I just didn't want them anymore and they just disappeared from my mind. And all I wanted to do was like, listen to punk and like I used to go to bleaker bobs and go dig through records and you know it was like listening to MTV shit
wasn't cool, and, you know, really, I wasn't really where it was that. And the thing is, in order to like be part of the scene you had to smoke pot.
That was a big deal for me. Yeah, because like I was a scaredy cat. And like I didn't know what it was going to do to me but I was intrigued by it and I kind of got the thought in my mind that like smoking pot was going to be my way in, like once I smoke pot.
And that's it I'm a bad kid now, you know, so I had to do it and I found, you know, it was no, no problem finding a way to do it because everyone I everyone I knew that wasn't in the nerd group was smoking weed like, and you know smoking weed outside of the outside
school on the stoops I was the big thing smoking weed on stoops in the village. Yeah, and so, you know, you go to the Washington Square Park and we used to buy the weed from like dudes in the park nickel bags and dime bags five and $10 little bags and would
always be like the worst swag is, yeah, shit, you'd ever find even if it even if it was, if it was weed at all, you know, and this was terrifying rite of passage for me to have to like, go out on like after school on Friday with my little $10 and go to Washington
Square Park and all these guys would be standing around going sess sess sess that's what it could sense of Mia was like the Jamaican term for a certain type of weed and like the sort of broken down street word for it was with sess or sheba or whatever you
know this was like, and we would go in, you know, to the park and some of the guys selling this stuff would be scary dudes. Yeah, you know, and you have to get them to make sure you're not getting ripped off you have to like open it and smell it.
And I was so terrified you know so many times we would buy these bags of weed, and it wouldn't be weed, you know, like they used to do this trick where they would take like dried leaves and roll it in airplane glue.
So clump together and make little buds. Yeah, and we would buy this shit we'd spend our last $10 on it, and then take it home. So my mom used to had a had a girlfriend outside of town so she I had the apartment to myself on the weekend so I could do all this
fucked up shit. And we'd smoke it and you know you're smoking airplane glue it's like, fuck and then you beat and you said and then you spent your money you got nothing to do you can't do anything.
And it was always like get the weed from the rosters, you know, get the weed from the rosters because they always had the good shit and they had much more of an honor system around, you know, around the smoke because, you know, you know, supposedly part of their
religion. And, you know, I remember the first time ever bought an actual bud, you know that wasn't just a bag of bag of green dust or dark green dust was like oh my god this is incredible.
And, and I took to that very well, because it had a nerdy aspects to it. Okay, so real quick. Okay, so are you fighting.
I think you ended right there with the had a nerdy aspect. Are you fighting this like inner turmoil of you remember who you were, and you're trying to be this other person.
Yes, absolutely because I remember as I was starting to become a punk rocker. There was this, there was this very, there was this the stigma of being a poser. Yeah, I was a word that gets tossed around a lot of poser somebody who was a phony or a pretender.
I was definitely a poser, I mean I was trying to fit in, but I was still I was so green. I was such a little frady cat and I just was very quiet, it's like, and I just wasn't, you know, and I just, you know, I didn't have the deep knowledge of things like I'd walk around
in like a cramps t shirt and I knew like one cramp song, you know, or just like, but, you know, I was trying my best and like I had these combat boots but they were like the wrong combat boots because they were like, emos I remember they were like, in the like, all the I kept getting
called out, like, like, someone saw these combat boots that I wore you need to get them at the surplus store I didn't know any, but I bought a new pair of combat boots, and someone was like yo those are emos I mean what do you mean emos or imitations they're not really
like army you know those are just reproductions like fuck, you know, or we had like you know skateboarding was also a big thing too and I bought a skateboard, but I didn't have a lot of money I couldn't get like a real skateboard with the power pyrotechnic
deck and the trucks and all that shit, you know, people were getting their skateboards custom assembled with the rat bones wheels this was like, you know, a little bit before like the shut skateboards era but this was like a sort of prototype skateboard
era in New York City where it was like very much like a street thing. And so we bought our skateboards at the at paragon sporting goods, you know, and it came like finished and wrapped and shrink wrap it was like a junkie skateboard but it worked, and they
were ironically called imposter. The skateboard was called the imposter and it said imposter on it and me and my two other geeky friends that I dragged into this life with me.
We just had those skateboards also we were known as the imposter crew, you know, and it just couldn't shake, shake that feeling you know as I so you know I was trying, I was trying the best that I could, you know, but I just really didn't fit in
as there was like committed people like I'm hanging out in Washington Square Park smoking park smoking pot with like 13 year old kids that had been run away from home years ago and we're living in the squats and alphabet city.
You know they were sneaking these kids into the shows at CBGB is, you know, in, in like in the drums like hide these, you know, and like this, like, like the chrome mags was like the big band the chrome mags the bad brains and everybody knew each other.
And like and there's all this going around CBGB is and everything and I'd never even been to fucking CBGB is I was like, you know, I was, I was a fraud.
You know, I tried like the first show I ever went to was Motorhead.
I went to this show myself. Yeah, and this was like probably 1985 first show ever went to with this place called the Ritz now it's called Webster Hall but it was called the Ritz at the time and this was like a, you know, mid sized venue where like a lot of these acts on
this level would play and went to see the chrome mags and and Motorhead and chrome eggs canceled. And I'm there, I'm by myself and wearing my little army jacket from canal jeans and these pair of Doc Martin boots that are one size too big.
And I'm trying to mosh you know I got in the mosh pit on, you know, you know, did the best I can and was like the mosh, the slam dancing culture was really tight at the time you know fall down they pick you up.
I was like, Hey, I'm out here I'm really doing it but I was there completely by myself and it didn't matter and the police came shut it down at five o'clock in the morning, because it was too loud but it was like, that was like probably like the only thing I'd ever did.
And then what really I gravitated towards in all of this was, was the weed smoking. I mean, you know, like I was making the scene like we would go down to St Mark's Place and my friend took me like manic panic.
The yellow hair dye and then for the next day, everyone called me piss head, you know, and then I had to dye my hair blonde because it looked ridiculous what we would do, you know, but the thing you know we would, it was always around the pot like we go by the weed in the, in the park and then we'd go to see like the
Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yeah, the eighth grade playhouse because you can smoke weed in the theater and that was like, that was like the biggest, that's like the most epic thing I ever you know did, but it was really the pot smoking that really captivated me because
it was a geeky attitude towards it you know I got into the paraphernalia and the bongs and all the different types of weed that you could get I mean, it wasn't like it is today but you know we knew the difference between I was like hash and we knew the difference between like good,
you know like you know like Jamaican weed and lamb's bread and all these different types of weed that was out at the time and all the different ways to smoke it.
And that really, I really got into that because I was a kid when I was a kid I was really into the Freak Brothers comic book.
And like they were, so I knew about drugs, a lot about drugs and I used to when I was a kid I had a cigar box full of candy. And I would be like all the Slim Jim's are my joints.
And like these the Mike and Ike's are like the reds and like you know the the jelly beans or the downers like I didn't really know what I was talking about but I had a mind for this shit. So it was really the weed smoking was what got me really.
We interrupt this broadcast of Toys on Top to bring you this.
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Involved in the in the in the counterculture scene.
Did it ever creep into other areas because I know this is the time when Quaaludes become huge right now.
And so does it ever creep kind of into that area.
Well, no, I don't remember ever being offered a Quaalude ever I remember as I went on in my drug explorations. People would talk about Quaaludes as this legendary thing, you know that was like that you that you know that was only unique to the 60s.
And what happened was, as I started getting more into the drug culture, the sort of punk stuff started appealing to me less like at the end of the day, it was aggressive, you know, and it was very just, you know, there was an anger there and there was just sort of like a
displacement and a lot of the, you know that I mean, see a lot of people that were a couple years older me that I knew were all dying and getting arrested and living living these very bleak lives and as much as I like the music it was like, it was, you know, was sort of like limiting.
And as I started really getting into the head that the pot was making for me I started being more attracted to wanting to take LSD. That was popular. And there was a lot of kids around me that were into that shit and finally like, just by being around and asking around I
was in 11th grade. I got a few people together and we got some blotter acid. Remember so distinctly they were called Escher's, because, you know, they still do this but the time you know the blotter acid had artwork on it.
Yeah, and this acid we got a little strip of like six hits.
With a drawing by MC Escher on it, you know, and it was just like this Mobius strip, black and white grayscale like Mobius strip with these spheres rolling on it. And I remember that image just stuck in my mind when I took took that shit and also was
like gray and it didn't look like hippie LSD, you know, and there's something about a New York acid trip. That's different than like a hippie acid trip just because you're in a very inorganic environment. It's dark it's gray and there's just like crazy shit going on.
And it was a tumultuous trip, but you know it opened my fucking mind up. And like it got me, you know, in the psychedelic mindset and I remember when I was going to sleep that night or trying to sleep and listening to the radio and cashmere by Led Zeppelin came on.
And like I didn't really wasn't that familiar with that Led Zeppelin because if you are a punk rocker you were supposed to hate Led Zeppelin. Yeah, you know there was a very distinct line between the metalheads and the punk rockers, you know they always hated each other,
and like the, and like Led Zeppelin was heavy metal and you weren't allowed to listen to that but you know listening to that song and all the seeing all these hieroglyphics in my head and everything's like wow this is really spoke to me.
And this is when I started getting into 60s nostalgia. You know I was just not into the world that the time that I lived in, which is a shame because it was a fucking classic time, but it just wasn't where my head was at.
And so I started taking more psychedelics, and just getting more into listening to that music like my mom had this whole record collection and it's like first time hearing like the white album and Sergeant Pepper and I started getting into all that stuff I became
obsessed with like Charles Manson and the secret messages and all the Beatle records and it just like, and I, my hair, I started growing my hair out, you know, and then so I went from like 10th grade being this little wannabe Duran Duran guy
to like a sort of Billy Idol clone to like a wannabe skinhead to like a full grown full blown hippie with long hair and linen glasses thrown peace signs feeling like I was born in the wrong time, you know, and
that's, that's, that's where I that's where I was I was still a virgin. I failed with women, all through high school I couldn't make it happen even though I had plenty of opportunities I just still wasn't there.
And it was going to take a lot more time to fucking figure it out but when I got out of high school, I was very much like I hate New York, and I don't want to be, and I'm like I'm a hippie and I got to get out of here somehow.
I was a terrible, absolutely terrible student. Yeah. I had like C average. I had no interest in anything other than smoking pot and like painting in fluorescent colors so I could set them up next to my lava lamp and my, and my, and my black
lights. Yeah. And I got into this fucking.
The only college that would take me was Buffalo State College.
Never even heard of it.
It's the city of Buffalo right yeah yeah it's famous for snow. Okay. And it's on the it's like on the western part of New York, and you know, it's like every state has like a university and then like every city, you know, of any note in America has like a university
and a state college. So I got picked to go to this random ass college, and I was a mess because I felt like not losing my virginity in high school, I was carrying this like albatross with me into college, you know I like had this vision of myself
of just being free and having all the sex but like the fact that I still hadn't solved that problem. Yeah, gave me a real complex. And like, I was like a little hippie. And like, I couldn't really, I wasn't, it was like a non event of a year the most sort of significant
thing that happened to me there was that I went in as an art major, you know, because I was into drawing and comics and, you know, I always had like a creative side to me. And I was like, I'm going to be an art major so I took this drawing class you know formal drawing
to the charcoal and all and you know having to make realistic drawings and I had no aptitude for it at all.
And I failed. What is okay. What is that feeling, because you you see yourself as a bit of an artist, and you see yourself as creative, but then the first class where it's like that kind of intentional stuff you fail what is that feeling like.
Well, I just remember feeling angry and resentful about, about it but I also realized that I deserve to fail because I didn't master the work I mean I was more for I wasn't so much frustrated about getting the F. I mean it didn't feel good and I thought the
art major was giving me a D, because I tried. I tried I just didn't. She was a little bit of a meanie I mean it wasn't like I didn't try just my brain and my I didn't work that way and I didn't have any talent for, you know, realistic drawing and I just
felt like I just felt like I had fucked up and then, but I was still young enough to like not really care is this like oh well I guess I'm not going to be an artist then fucking, you know, because I had also, I was also interested in music, and I had started took
into the bass, you know, like, like, I started just really getting like, I've got really really into Led Zeppelin. And that was the first time in music that I really paid attention to the bass guitar, you know, because john paul jones, you know
like you listen to punk rock, even stuff like the clash once in a while there'll be a song where there's like the bass stands out but most of the time, you know the bass is just sort of playing with the guitars playing, especially a lot of punk music.
It's very trebly. And so I'm listening to john paul jones and songs like ramble on we're like there's this melodic baseline with these warm bass tones and I'm like, Whoa, that just attracted me so I got myself a cheapie bass and started taking lessons and started learning,
and I figured all right I'm not really in college, I was only in college because I didn't know what else to do with myself I didn't give a shit at all.
And so I just figured like this is a way for my parents to give me money while I smoke weed and play my bass. Yeah, and try to get laid. So I was like okay I tried being a biology major I tried being a psychology major none of that, none of that shit worked out
so I just was majorless and I was just like, doing the bare minimum academically. And I'm in this place school in Buffalo, and I'm not really connecting with anybody I'm still a virgin.
And then towards the end of the end of the year I've fallen with this group of deadheads. Yeah, you know, and I didn't know much about the Grateful Dead.
And, but I had seen a lot of the imagery, you know the skulls and all the psychedelic shims like wow this must be some heavy shit right. So I started hanging out with these, these, these deadheads.
And I just remember, I spent a couple of weeks of the summer in Buffalo, crashing with a friend and I was so naive. I'm like just walking down the street.
Never been to a Grateful Dead concert or anything and only had a half notion of what they were about. And this car pulls up full of all these like hippies that I knew, and they were very much people I wanted to be in with because I was still very much on this hippie
group and I felt like these are my people, and they're like hey we're going to see the dead at the Ohio Raceway, you know, hop in.
And I was like okay so they're going to about to drive like 12 hours into like rural Ohio to go see this concert I didn't have a ticket, I didn't have any money.
I didn't have a change of clothes or a toothbrush, and I just got in the car, because like there was this mythology that you know that there was something magical about the Grateful Dead, and that like if you really just believed you were going to get this miracle
and it was just going to carry you along and all your needs would be met.
Right. So I figured okay I'll be taken care of you know it's the Grateful Dead and like I really believed all this shit and I believed in that hippie ethos that like, you know, like I didn't need anything except the clothes on my back and good friends and a doobie to
smoke and some good tins.
So I get in this crowded car and we're going and we're going and we're going and we're going and we drive through the night.
And I finally get there. And it's in this dust bowl of a racetrack, you know, and it's hot. It's like six o'clock in the morning we have no tent we have no nothing and the show doesn't start for like, you know, 12 hours.
And so, and I'm already covered in sweat and my socks are sweated through and I haven't brushed my teeth I have no money I have nothing to eat, and I'm smoking like a fiend.
And, and I just, I'm exhausted and I have this fucking just feel like what the fuck am I doing here. I couldn't sleep it's like a chaos chaos it's just all these people in this empty dust bowl getting high and doing whippets and it was like a very dark side to all of this
it was like a lot of very intense people, and I wasn't prepared for it and then we finally go to see the show.
And like I proceed to take every single drug that's possibly available to me I take like fucking ecstasy I smoke opium I take mushrooms I smoke hash weed and like by the time the show started I'm like laying on the ground I can't even get up.
And then the music starts playing and I'm like this sucks.
You know like what is this music like I thought it was going to be heavy Pink Floyd type shit, you know, and it wasn't, you know, it was like this sort of noodley country music and I'm like oh what the fuck is going on and I'm just trying to not lose my cool
because everybody's wanting knows this is my first show, and I didn't want to disappoint my friends by having a miserable time but it was absolutely suffering.
And then you know finally the show ends and I start to come down and I start to get my shit together and like, everyone gets in the car is like okay we're going to go drive to Philly now and see the next show.
And I'm like, wait, we're not going home.
And so they dragged me to like three more shows, you know, and like we don't have tickets to the show so we're out in the parking lot you know you hold your finger up when you when you need a ticket you walk around you have a sign that says I need a miracle, and you have
to hope that some kind person is going to give you a ticket and I was like please please don't give me a ticket so then when they go into the show I could go and sleep in the car.
And I got a fucking ticket. And I'm like up there in the balcony and I'm like sitting there for three hours just like dead on my feet, trying to dance because I didn't want to disappoint anybody and I wasn't ready to contend with the fact that I hated the
show. I didn't want anything to do with it. You know, anyway, it ended, you know, and I managed to get home. And I was like, something wasn't clicking, but I knew I didn't want to stay in Buffalo and I had an opportunity to transfer to Oregon,
a friend of mine was going to the University of Oregon and Eugene to me that was like the hippie Mecca that's where the good weed came from. And so I transferred to that school.
And I took all my hippie dreams there. And, you know, once once I got a good night's sleep I was, I was happy enough it's like okay I guess I'm a deadhead kind of, even though I was more into like Pink Floyd and shit like that like going to the laser shows
at the planetarium on LSD that was like my shit.
And, you know, still a virgin and I'm still like have this sort of very passive personality, this very hippie personality, and I go out to Oregon right. And then I'm really in it.
You know there's nothing but white people. There's not it's not really a city it's like a small city Eugene Oregon, and it's like a famous place it's like that's like actually the campus where they shot Animal House.
And also, Oregon, or, which is burned down to the ground is just a plaque where it used to stand. But, you know, in the surrounding areas it's famous because like Ken Kesey was was from there, and I actually got to go to Ken Kesey's compound and I saw the bus,
and I saw all this like legend and I got to rap it Ken Kesey's compound and I met Ken Babs and all these people and I managed to find all of that, eventually by being there. And like I, you know, I actually was in a band that opened up for the Grateful
Dead.
You know, and it was actually a great people dead but Grateful Dead canceled because Jerry Garcia had Odeid, and we had an opportunity to like stay needed to scramble to because it was like two days before the show.
And I was like, I'm going to rap about Jerry Garcia was a whole fucking thing, but getting a little ahead of myself. So I'm in this hippie environment, there's no white people, and it's like, you go a little bit outside of this, this sort of liberal Mecca and you're in rural Oregon,
white conservative racist, you know, racist, white supremacist place. And it was weird, it was fucking weird. And also the college is a very all American type college it had like a whole fraternal and sorority system which was completely alien to me,
and they became fascinated with that and I actually rushed the frats, and I was like a got jobs washing dishes and so I was trying to date sorority girls I'm like this little fucking long haired john lennon guy, and somehow infiltrated the sorority hitting on these Barbie
girls, you know, trying to like trade up, you know, and I guess I was so fascinated them because they were so unattainable. And I guess maybe on some way I was trying to avoid my sexual fears by like pursuing these women that I couldn't get, you know,
and anyway, I'm in Oregon for like a year or two years.
And then it's something's not and I'm starting to realize that there's something different about me.
Yeah, as a pause, are you doing art by like as your major right now at this point. No, I'm drifting through school, I'm just I'm drifting through school I have no major. I think I tried to be a psychology major because I was into head shit.
I remember when I was getting into all my I was still into my LSD shit and I was reading young and be here by now by Rom dos and you know all this Timothy Leary I was really into all of this stuff.
And so we was taking classes and Nietzsche and, you know, and young and all this stuff and I was really kind of thinking like maybe this can go somewhere and then they required you to take a class in statistics, and that's when I was like I can't do this.
I didn't have the mental wherewithal to, to really tackle anything overly academic you know I was a C students all the way through. And what I really was getting better at the base, and I was playing in bands like jam bands and, you know,
and I was just really coming out of my shell I did finally lose my fucking virginity. You know, was a stop and go affair with a lot of mistakes and errors and hookups regrettable hookups but I did finally managed to start having sex.
Okay, we got it, we can't just gloss over that, like, let's go into a little detail what happened, how did you get from not being able to close in high school, and a little bit of college to all of a sudden.
Well, I mean I would, I would eventually here and there.
A girl would take interest in me and that gets unfortunate like a lot of really awesome women were into me.
I just always talk myself out of it because I never saw I always felt like I was gonna I don't know I never felt adequate. Yeah, and I don't, I mean these are some of the regrets that followed me into later in life I don't give a shit now because whatever
I'm happy with where I am right now but you know like I would never I just couldn't I had so much sense of in anaphyse and inferiority that I couldn't, but every once in a while like a dorky little gal would show up that I felt was within my measure, you know,
and I would, you know, make out and fool around a little bit you know and I've little by little you know it starts to get my first blow job, you know, and like, but then I would always push them away.
You know because I had these unattainable crushes I had this year long obsession with the sorority girl, you know this blonde Barbie type she was friendly to me a little bit.
And we had a couple of interesting intellectual conversations so I became obsessed with her, you know, but I had no I was such a over the top you know dramatic romantic idiot like I would show up out of nowhere and make this big scene and give her flowers
and you know just like all the typical dumb shit that nerds who don't know any better. We interrupt this broadcast of Toys on Top to bring you this.
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I'm going to do. You know, but every once in a while these little grimy little art girls would like come into the picture and just little by little by little I started to get more sexual experience to the point where maybe I wasn't quite so worried about it anymore and I started like
waking up a little bit and what started to really make me think is because I'm hanging out with all kinds of different people but realizing now being from New York made me a little different.
And I like was never really I had put my New York self aside and really tried to be this hippie person, but after being out there for a couple years and seeing what it was really like I realized that maybe it wasn't for me.
And I was starting to realize that my sort of smart acidness was getting me more traction than, than my sort of peace love.
You know, hey it's all groovy man persona. Yeah, this right around the time Paul's boutique came out by the by the Beastie Boys.
I got caught up in the hoopla of license to ill, you know, because I was still in high school and that came out and we knew people who knew the Beastie Boys like harvests lived a few blocks away from me.
I was intimidated by him because I knew he was like a big deal. But like I would see him on the street it was like it was a big deal when the Beastie Boys came out because it was like something that came out of our world.
Yeah, like a downtown kids like made it big because that record was huge at the time, you know, and it was like a big deal and I liked it.
But then I grew out of it as my hippie vibe came out and I remember distinctly, I was at a party and I was DJing with cassettes, and I was playing. I don't remember what I was playing.
But I put on fight for your right to party. Yeah, and this was like that came out in 86. I put that on in 89, and it got booed resoundingly.
I was like, okay, and I fast forward to the tape and staying alive by the Bee Gees comes on and everyone's like yeah because this is when like the 70s revival was kicking in and people were I was getting into the crate digging and buying all these old soul records
that have already gone through the 60s shit. And then I started getting into all the black shit, you know, Funkadelic Parliament Parliament all the James Brown stuff my friends had me going on.
Miles Davis and all of this shit, and everybody was like hearing all this, you know, the 70s music was coming into vogue and Paul's boutique was all about riffing all that shit the Curtis Mayfield samples all of that.
And what I liked about it is because like I was over licensed ill but you could tell that the Beastie Boys had changed a little bit, like they still had that, that, that attitude that like, but it was a little toned down was a little more intellectual was a little more
down to earth. And there was something musically going on behind it that was so much more sophisticated than licensed ill. And so Paul's boutique became my persona.
It was like, like, this is how I'm going to get over out here in Oregon, you know by being like this, you know, and I had I got my drum machine and I started making little wraps and putting my own together beats together and started doing all these little
mixes and stuff like that I still have no major in school, like, and school is no one's not important to me at all. And, and I started succeeding with girls because I figured if you could push people's buttons a little bit and put people on their toes, you would become
intriguing. And like I just thought it's like I found a certain confidence in this affectation, and also because I was the only person from New York, nobody could call me a poser because they didn't know any better.
Like if I tried to pull this routine in New York.
You know like rapping and trying to like, you know, whatever.
They would call me out but in Oregon, nobody knew and I was able to like build up a personality around this, and I started succeeding.
But this is where I this is what happened was eventually I was forced to choose a major.
I was like inside like three years worth of college. And I was like taking like the minimum minimum credit load but eventually I started approaching my junior year, and I was like you have to have a major.
And I didn't I didn't have any ideas I thought the art was close to me. But I was still just taking classes for the fun of it, I never thought to become a music major because again it was too hard.
You know, like I didn't want to have to learn all the I can I was able to read and write music a little bit but I didn't want to get into the advanced shit.
As always once I get to the immediate intermediate stage of anything I cry crap out. But I was really into Led Zeppelin, I was really into the my into playing my bass.
And I wanted to make I was into the runes on Led Zeppelin for I was always so obsessed with all the cryptic secret messages I was playing I would be playing the record backwards and you can actually hear some part where he says, like, here's to my sweet Satan,
it's just the sonic coincidence but there is a definitive part of stairway to heaven where if you want to hear it, he says, here's to my sweet Satan, you know he'll give you 666 and I was like so obsessed with that ship, and I wanted to make a pendant of
the Paul Jones is rune from Led Zeppelin for. So I took a jewelry and metal smithing class specifically just to do that.
And I did it, and I made my little bronze Led Zeppelin medallion which I still have, I think, and I was fairly good at the metal work, like, I was good with making shit with my hands I couldn't draw but I could make, I could assemble shit I can solder and I
had some ideas and the teacher was this kind of younger, hotter milfy kind of woman and I had a good banter with her because I was doing my beastie boy schtick.
And she encouraged me. And I was like okay I guess I'm going to be a metals major. And so I became part I declared my major is like fine art metal metal work. It's like okay so I started doing that and then I had to take drawing again and all these other
classes but for whatever reason was a different time it was a different I had changed enough that I was able to skate through the formal drawing class because I was a metal major it didn't matter as much that I sucked at drawing, and I was able to skate through with
with like a C plus, and I was just very good at creating controversy like all my teachers love me because what I lacked in formal skill I would bring theatrics and you know I would, you know, I was very challenging I used to like to confront people and have
big debates and, you know, create stir the pot remember one time I was such an idiot.
Like, I was at a drawing class and there was like a nude model there, you know, we had to draw this nude model.
And I had to be Mr provocateur and she was up there and she was this outspoken, you know, hippie chick and she was like giving a shit about being pampered college students.
And I throw this at her I'm like isn't being a nude model just the same thing as being a prostitute. I mean after all you're selling your body aren't you, you know you're renting out your body for money which you know I guess maybe intellectually
isn't isn't untrue, but you know of course saints and saying something like that we're like nowadays you know sex work is just work just like anything else. But at the time it was an extremely provocative thing to have said especially in this sort of third wave feminist
environment, you know, and she started giving me shit about how none of y'all, you know, little pampered students have the guts to stand up here and, you know, get naked so I was like oh really.
No way. Yeah. Yeah, so I just took off all my fucking clothes and I stood there and kept drawing and and everyone started drawing me and her, and, you know, and after a while me and her were like, she was like, Oh, maybe you're not so bad after all but like that's the kind of stunt I used to pull.
And like it got me a lot of create it got me a lot of credence with my teachers, you know where I, where I sort of lacked and just like formal ability. And, of course, the metalsmith thing got to the second year and then suddenly it started getting harder.
Okay.
And, um, and I stopped, and I disappointed the teacher because the whole thing was designed that ultimately you're going to be a professional jeweler, sitting on the bench, working for some famous jewelry maker, and just flawlessly executing someone else's designs
for high end for a high end jewelry company that was what they were grooming you for it's like that's not what I want to do I just want to make whatever the fuck I want.
Yeah, and I, and I bailed and then I just became a general sculpture major and by that time I learned that I had no goals.
I really thought I was going to be a musician. And I had no art goals I was just staying in college so I because I had to finish it was very important to my parents that I finished and they were paying for it so I was like fuck it.
I all I get to do I do, I'd make art which I can fake. And I've carried all of this shit into my toy career by the way, I can fake my way through art. Yeah, it gives me plenty of time to smoke pot and party and play bass.
And so I just became a regular sculpture major.
And I managed to eat my way through, and at the final. The final year, it took me six years to finish school I was a I created I was all independent study. Yeah, and I found this old Jewish lady who was a teacher there to sponsor my independent study.
And I just got in my head, I want to make toys. I want to make our toys that art that is based on toys like it was always still part of my mind, and I wanted to be cheeky.
And I'm going to talk about this a little bit more in detail in the next episode which is going to discuss the toy, the toy business, but I made this thing called the action crack house play set.
So, yeah, I want to make, I want to make the point wasn't so much to make toys at the time it was more like I wanted to play with irony. So I wanted to make something that like looked like a kid's toy but had very dark undertones.
And I made this thing it looked like a little Fisher price place that, but it was like a crack house and my concept of the crack house basically came from Spike Lee's movie Jungle Fever, you know, so I just sort of made that and and somehow managed to pass and piss off
a lot of people in the process but I had a cool New York old Jewish lady as my teacher who went to bat for me, and just thought I was absolutely wonderful and passed me with a pluses and I managed to fucking somehow get out of college.
And I had no clue as to what to do. And I decided to stay in Oregon, and I moved into the art neighborhood, which was like a rundown little dump where all the meth heads used to hang out it was near the train tracks or all the transients who rode the
rails, used to come and there was like the alcoholics anonymous place and people were doing heroin and there were flop houses and, you know, and there was also some like hippie, you know bakeries there was all these people that were living off the grid.
And I lived in this neighborhood where all these all these sort of like the end of the road types would wound up and that's where all the artists were.
And so I lived in this neighborhood, and my goal was I'm going to play bass I had a band. At the time this group called the hairy mamas, you know, and was a rap group, and what it was it was like these these two gals that I knew from the, from the, from the West
Coast of New York, you know, in the 19th century and they were like these chicks from Baltimore, New York, but they were full hippies you know with the hairy armpits and you know and the vegetarian and like, you know, the collective parenting and, and the
whole, the whole, you know, contemporary hippie thing but they were also very East Coast, and they wrapped, and they wrapped about conscious shit that was relevant to the, to the times and I, and we had a little, I was a bass player had a drummer
and it was like a rollicking time never made any money, but like I was doing the music, and we made a demo tape and everything that was the first thing I ever put out that had the word psychedelic on it was the hairy mamas mixtape which is lost the time,
but, and, and I was going to do that and I was going to make my art, and then my art just was like little sculpty figures.
And needless to say, I suffered tremendously that year, because I couldn't make any money to save my life the music paid pennies, and it wasn't happening frequently enough how much money am I going to make selling cassette tapes to like a limited group of people.
I couldn't, there was nowhere to sell the artwork I had no concept really of what I was doing that was like the only type of art galleries there were like these like very traditional like selling, you know decorative art to 50 year old 60 year old rich white ladies,
or there was like the craft fair, and then or it was like a bunch of hippies, you know hanging up these like fucking amateurish, you know scrawlings in a basement, you know there was no money to be made and I just struggled I was on food stamps I had these loser jobs.
I was at the radio stay I was at the college radio station doing this quirky radio show. I was very immersed I'm doing I'm doing exactly the same thing I was doing, I'm doing now, but it a much more proto state and making no money.
You know, and I just, I couldn't, I couldn't make it the final thing I did out there was I made this rap tape. I was a rapper called MC milk toast.
And I used to, and was like this is before back. This is before the sort of ironic rapper, you know, and I was doing it's like I'm not a great rapper I'm not a tough guy you know it's just like at the time you know being a rapper had a certain image you had
like Wu Tang Clan had just come out, and like NWA, and I'm like this nerdy white guy I called myself MC milk toast to like take the piss out of myself.
And in a way you can kind of almost see the origins of the suck Lord in that, you know, the sort of self deprecation was sort of built into this, this burgeoning persona, you know, and so I made a tape.
And I poured myself into it I was had the mixer and the six track recorders like a four track you know recording a little cassette tapes and the drum machine.
I spent like a year making this tape and I made a music video for it. And I finally finally managed to eat out after much struggle like 20 cassettes, gave them to my friends, I thought the whole world was going to eat this thing up because it was so
heady and brilliant and all the deep cuts and if you listen to it 200 times you're going to hear all the shit you didn't hear before it was like, you know, it was this magnum opus and no one gave a flying fuck at all and then I just kind of realized toward the end of
the year that like I'm not going to make it.
This isn't going to happen for me. And I was like I decided I was going to go back.
Had to go back to New York. It was like I was either going to move to Portland and just fail on a bigger scale in the same way, or go go back to New York and I didn't want to leave because we had everything we had our music studio we had like all the vintage
stuff we had in the fender roads the world sir, like the whole beastie boys we were on that beast check your head. Now, you know, we were just like, making all that you know and just like but it wasn't going anywhere wasn't going anywhere and all my friends were
disappointing me because they didn't have the same level of passion that I did. And I was living in the slums, and like I was getting robbed by meth heads and just like it was just the bad is bad.
And so the last thing I did when I was making this tape this mix tape this MC milk toast tape. I was really into crate digging and like I was into putting dialogue into my beats, I could make these tracks, and then I would go and I had all these old storybook
records and dialogue and spoken word records and like the more obscure and weird it was the better.
And then moving through look I had this kind of robotic sounding clavinet beat with nothing on it and I was like, I'm not going to wrap on this I think I'm going to make this an instrumental had a little scratching.
And I pull out this record called the story of Star Wars.
Yeah, I was like oh wow Star Wars that's a deep cut. That's really obscure because you know, this is like 9192 and you know this has been years since since anyone really thought about Star Wars this was just right at the time when like, air of the empires
and all those new books like Star Wars was what these were what they considered the lost years of Star Wars. And so I thought wow this is really deep nostalgic shit. So I just took like the Death Star plans are not the main computer.
And I was like, oh this works this is cool hey you know it would be funny if I made a little video for this where it was just like a storm, a stop motion of a stormtrooper break dancing stormtrooper figure break dancing that's a good idea.
And then I fucking forgot about it and I high tailed it back to New York City moved back in with my mom, and had absolutely nothing going for myself.
I had no fucking skills I had nothing going on here I am in New York City of the year like 1994 2425 years old, living at my mom's house with absolutely zero going for me, whatever I'd achieved in Oregon as a rapper was not going to fly in New York,
I was well aware of that and I just hung that the fuck up. And like I had made a few fruit of efforts to like get into the art world, and I was so green I had no idea what I was doing.
And that was close to me so everything I was doing that was just suddenly done.
Like, and my mom's like well you got to make some fucking money you've got some student loans to pay off and you got to do something and like the goal was I'm not going to live at my mom's house forever I'm just here temporarily to get on my feet and then I'm going
to go out and look for a job and I could not find a fucking job to save my life, and I'm telling you I dodged the biggest bullet in my life because my mom got so fed up with me.
And she was working as an insurer in an insurance office, and just doing boring boring insurance at the nipple clamp stuff was over.
And she was angling to get me a job in the mail room.
At the same insurance company that my mom was working at.
And thank God, there was a guy working in the mail room this older Dominican guy who ran the mail room, and he got scared when he heard, God bless me, you know, he, he did something a little shady but he saved my life.
He was worried that this white young college educated dude was going to come into his job and and displace him. He was really worried that like I was going to disrupt the status quo that he had going for himself I mean he was poor he wasn't educated
he was older he had a family and he had a nice racket going on. Yeah, with whatever he was doing and he was the master of his domain and he felt that me being there was going to didn't even know me but just the idea that like a young white college educated
dude was going to come in, was going to displace him so we sabotaged it.
He went like around my mother's back and talk to the higher ups and sabotaged it. Thank fucking God he did that because who knows how many years I would have wasted in my life doing that pointless job right at the exact same time.
I was hired at this place called Canal Gene Company, which was one of the places I used to buy my punk clothes back in the day. They used to be on Canal Street and they were both mostly known for army surplus shit, because back in the day Canal Street was like a lot
of army surplus and you could buy you could use you buy decommissioned like missiles down there back in the day, you know there was this place called the trader Canal Street was weird, you know and you could buy all manner of junk and bric a brac.
And they hit the, they had got some success and they moved to Soho, and they had this big, you know, three story store.
And they had like in the basement was like the army surplus shit and the used jeans which they were very famous for. And then the ground floor was like club wear and vintage wear high and vintage shit and then the thing that was like a lingerie section, and
they had a Levi store. And then on top of that they had offices, and then they had a big warehouse on the fourth floor they would get these bales of clothes and they would sort from like goodwill and sort them and everything and then the top floor.
They had the art department, and I just managed somehow because of the just enough of my portfolio from college and because the guy running it was like this young gay guy, and I kind of charmed him a little bit.
And he gave me a chance so I managed to get work in the art department of fucking canal gene company.
And it was fucking great. I didn't pay shit, and it didn't give me the opportunity to move out of my mom's house when it was a perfect reintroduction into New York City.
So like 95, and like things had changed a lot like.
Johnnie and a lot of ways was a horrible mayor, and everybody, you know, he did a lot of things that people hated. And today he's unrecognizable as just this ridiculous crank.
But the one one thing he did do was that he, he broke the bone, he broke the back of the mafia.
You know he he fucked over the mafia, and by extension really need this even started when he was the Attorney General on fucked over a lot of like the whole that like the criminal element had over parts of the Lower East Side.
You know there was places like below canal below house and street on the east side like, you know, like, if you wanted to be a slumming artist you went to alphabet city, like the East Village alphabet city, and the Lower East Side was a whole other thing.
I mean of course you know like the Velvet Underground lived there a little bit back in the 60s but by the by the 80s, and the early 90s, it was, it was a, it was drug wars, that was nothing there there was no reason to go there.
And that changed. And then suddenly, this whole new area of downtown opened up, and all these new generations of creative people started moving in and setting up shop and, and, and then and canal jeans was like right on Broadway just just west of that area.
And coming into that place. For me it was great because I all my high school friends were were done I didn't wasn't friends with them anymore and canal jeans it was a, you know, it's full of like young gay kids and club kids that were kids from Chinatown that work there.
There were kids from like East New York like hood kids working their kids from the Bronx that were like young soho kids that were the children of famous artists, working there and it was just like a lot of queer people was just people a lot of immigrants
there was a lot of people from Africa, and people from the Dominican Republic and it was just great. And because I was in the art department I was technically all over the store, and I just made a whole slew of new friends and I started getting acculturated to this
whole new downtown New York energy that was coming coming about and what was great about being in this art department is they let you do whatever the fuck you want. You know, just like hey, hey, the vintage women's vintage needs needs a refresh, you know, go, go do
something to go there, like take all these broken mannequins it was great because they never threw anything away and they had all these mannequins that were in just these wretched states of repair that you could disrepair you could do anything to them was like I'm going to make a freak show.
Here's like Frankenstein, you know, wearing like the suits from the from the from the department and here's like someone with nails banged in their head with blood dripping off their face you know wearing the dress from the thing they didn't care.
And you know and I learned how to do a lot of shit that I didn't learn how to do an art school like graphic design and working with phone call and making signs and using spray paint none of this shit I learned in art school.
And you know, building and assembling and it was great. And, uh, but this job wasn't going to last because it didn't pay any fucking money. And it was a horrible place to work in some ways because the owner of this place was a maniacal tyrant he would completely
take away his money. You know, and he had more money than he knew what to do with and then he would occasionally show up at the end of the day and see all this stuff that he didn't approve of how that get there take that down and we'd all have to stay late, you know, executing
his whims that could have been avoided if he had just been present from the beginning it was just like, and like long standing beloved employees would like suddenly get fired for no reason.
And then one day they were just gone for some dumb reason it was just like I can't stay here I'm only making seven bucks an hour, never going to get out of my mom's house.
And at the time on the side. I was working on more music, because this was also the time of the bedroom DJ, like, like there was this sort of democratization of music where all this equipment became accessible affordable you needed like a little drum
machine a sampler maybe a turntable, and something to record it on and there you were you were a music producer, and all these on this all this whole scene in the city of just all these like independent DJs all this like the ill be in and drum and bass and jungle
and all these like sort of like homemade musicians were getting all this play and all these little indie record stores like breakbeat science and you know Kim's Kim's music where you could just walk in there and be like hey I made a cassette will you take it on assignment,
and be like yeah, and there was all these publications that would write about this you know like all these local magazines and like it was huge. I was like I'm doing this.
I had friends that were DJs I was like I'm going to make a record.
I was like, what am I going to make a record of, you know, I realized like the last record I had made was too personal. And like I need to make something that's going to catch.
And coincidentally, this was the time when the Star Wars revival was was coming back in. Yeah, like they had announced like oh there's going to be new Star Wars movies and the special editions and the Star Wars machine is gearing up.
And because it had been out for so long. It came back with this heavy nostalgia, you know where now Star Wars was like retro and like you were kind of cool if you knew what it was you know this was like, this was at the beginning of like sort of the mashup culture,
you know, where like everything old was being made new again and all these like deep cut references and remixes were becoming the thing and like Star Wars was just like, sort of just perfectly situated where it was nostalgic enough that it was didn't make you a nerd anymore
and I was like, I want to talk a little bit about Star Wars you were kind of cool I was like I can't believe this is happening. I cannot believe this is happening. So, and like it was also something was about to happen and like the toy industry was revving up and I was just
like I saw this huge opportunity for myself. It's like okay my record is going to be a Star Wars record. I'm going to make Star Wars break beats. I'm going to take that one little experiment I did with my last record and make a whole album of that shit.
And I started to build a drum machine on my sample and I started just making beats and loops and and taking samples from Star Wars and cutting it in and making all you know it was working it was playing it for my friends was working and I managed to get it out on a cassette.
And, and I had, you know, sold a couple of them. I got written up in Grand Royal magazine the Beastie Boys magazine they did a one page review of it like, I was like wow, think like things were happening.
And I was like wow this is fucking working.
And, and I also was like I got to get out of canal jeans. You know I was starting to realize like this record is what I'm going to do.
And I started realizing I had to go to events to promote this music. You know I had to start DJing I had to start showing up to places. And I was like, well, I can't just show up as Morgan Phillips with this face you know like, yeah, I need a
I need a character I mean this is Star Wars music I need to have that spectacle that goes along with it.
And so I was remembering how much I used to like to dress up as Boba Fett.
When I was a kid, I was like why don't I just do that, but I'll make it a hip hop Boba Fett.
So I got like the dawn post mask.
And I had a local graffiti artists like write all the bounty hunters names on it and graffiti. And, and I got like these Nikes with the fat laces and I had the utility, I just went and did exactly what I did when I was a kid.
You know I got the utility belt with the markers in it, and I had like the fake gold chain and I had all all the gear like to have to be that had a turntable for a backpack and I had all this gear that was going to make me like this hip hop Boba Fett character that was
going to make me look like. So, all I needed was the suit. I didn't know what else to what what to do. And in canal jeans. And I had already given my two weeks notice I actually got hired for 13 bucks an hour to go work in the display department
at FAO Schwartz. That's good money at that time. Good money at the time and it was just like, I need, and I needed it and I was just sick of, I was sick of working.
I was sick of working there I had like I had so much fun so many wild adventures and, but it was just, it wasn't going anywhere and I also decided I wasn't going to be one of these casualties that left this place and bitterness, you know, so I gave
my two weeks notice. And I worked diligently and honestly until the very last minute of that two weeks and everybody was astonished, you know, because no one ever did that in the history of that place was a type of place where people would just quit on the spot.
So, what happened was, I had set up this display in the basement was my crowning achievement it was like, it was like just for the vintage jeans and it was basically like a like a space environment they let me do whatever I want and I put all the star background
on the wall and these mannequins are up on these high shells. I made all these little planets out of little balls of foam that I painted and they had the Death Star in there I had the board ship, and I had all these characters dressed up like
Star Trek guys and bug men and and cyborgs I have photos of all of this shit was so cool. And there was this one guy he was dressed like an astronaut and he had this really dope like vintage flight suit, like a gray zip up, you know like Air Force thing, and it was
beautiful and it was exactly my size and was up on the mannequin. And I was like, that's what I need to finish my overfed costume. And so I asked the woman that was in charge of the of the display of the of the vintage department could I buy it.
And she didn't really know what it was and she didn't know how to price it and she was just didn't want to sell it to me. Yeah, and I was like, fuck that.
You know, and this is where the villainy began. Yeah, because I was like I was trying to do everything above board but it was like there was no way I wasn't going to take that and as much as I as honorably as I was trying to leave that job I still had a lot of
resentment and fuck you towards that place because it's just the way they treated people. So, my plan, and they used to search you, you know when you every time if you work there, every time you walked out, they would go through your shit.
You know, and, and, and look and make sure you wouldn't steal anything because most of this stuff had the little sensors on it, but like if you worked in the vintage department you had access to the unprocessed stuff where you could conceivably rip something off if you want
to and that's exactly what I was going to do. So it's like what do I do here. So, I went down to Canal Street on my lunch break, and went to this surplus electronics store space called Argo electronics or I used to buy a lot of the broken bits of mechanical ephemera
and my displays, and I bought a $5 VCR this shitty fucking VCR, and I took it up to the display shop on my last day, and I opened it up to Philip screwdriver and I took all the guts out.
I got the flight suit, I put it inside the VCR sealed it up and walked right out of the building. You know he was going through the security guards I his my last day man was great working here I'll see you another time.
He was great and I was like oh I also have this VCR and it's like okay cool walked out and I had my suit, you know, and I had left the job, having done a crime, and that made me feel great.
And I actually had the fucking balls to go to the canal jeans Halloween party after I quit wearing the fucking suit.
And I also managed at the same time to skewer some girl who broken my heart by bringing another girl and there's all these photographs of me making out with this one girl and it created all this jealousy with this other girl and I went out with a fucking bang.
You know when I had my Star Wars tape, and I had this new character, and I'm like, going into my new job. And it was like fucking everything was going great.
I got the job at fucking FAO Schwartz.
I fucking hated it. Yeah, they were, it was, it was so different, it was so corporate it was so miserable.
They had these ridiculous schedules it was freelance so it was unpredictable. And I fucking hated it.
And there was an opportunity, then at this time to do the same type of thing.
But for Hasbro.
Hasbro used to do these elaborate toy fairs over there on the on 23rd Street like there was the toy building, it was like a building where all the toy industries had their offices and we're doing every year during the annual trade show, they would show their
new stuff but Hasbro and Mattel had their own showrooms. And this was an opportunity to go work in the Hasbro showroom.
They had the Star Wars license. And my strategy at the time was I made the Star Wars break beats I had it on cassette, and the goal was I was going to pitch it to Lucas.
Like I thought like they're going to hear this record and they're going to think it's a fucking brilliant masterpiece.
And, and they're going to hire me to do this.
So I had friends with a guy that published Star Wars insider magazine, and he floated that record up to Lucas licensing.
And they were like, No, we can't do this. It's cool. They didn't understand it and it was like well you're sampling the actors voices you're sampling all this shit we can't clear this stuff I didn't know anything about how licensing
works. I figured it's Star Wars you own all of that shit. So, you. And I found that was more complicated than that. And then I but I didn't want to give up.
And I, and I figured like I want to sell this record. And what happened to my friends who work for Star Wars insider was that he had originally been putting out an indie magazine called Star Wars generation, which was just like a self published
zine about Star Wars and it got big. And Lucasfilm shut it down. And instead of putting him out of business they gave him a job. And they hired him to restart their fan zine which became Star Wars insider, and I was like, I'm going to do that.
I'm just going to put this record out myself. And it's going to become so funky fucking famous that
they're going to have to contend with me. So I redid it on CD I worked my ass off for years I'm working I worked at Hasbro for like two three years the hype towards Phantom Menace is like just cresting, and I have, and I'm working.
I'm working at Hasbro, and I'm trying to insinuate, I'm trying to address this from all fronts, because I knew that Star Wars this is in 1997. And this was when the special editions came down and this they were going to do this big product dump and Star Wars was
like their flagship thing everyone was betting big on this coming back strong, and I knew this is my area of expertise, and like if I can get in that Star Wars room and work on the Star Wars shit that'll put me next to people who are working for Lucas
and people that are working on the Star Wars team at Hasbro, and as soon as they see me they're going to fucking love me, and I'm going to ascend and I'm going to work for Star Wars. Yeah.
And they have this whole fucking room in there.
It's like it's set up like the bridge of the Star Destroyer. Right. And it's like they have these little windows with little dioramas in them there was like one from each movie that was like Endor forest scene, there was a hot scene and then there was the cantina, and I would go
there every day to check the progress and look at the figures and the people that were working now this is like my first year working there. And these are like their senior sculptors and their senior set designers and we're really going in on this and I was just this new kid who was
just asking a lot of annoying questions and being a pest. So the point where they had to tell me to get the fuck out. So get the go get out. Yeah, can't come back in here because they were all very touchy because you know, they really needed to impress the big wigs with
the
big wigs. So they sent me to my regular what I was doing which was working in the fucking Spirograph room. You know, and I was like putting up vinyl on the walls of Spirograph and working in Play Doh and doing all this boring shit and I was like, Oh man, because I knew the Lucas people were coming.
And I thought this is my only chance. My only chance, you know, so about an hour before the Lucas people came in I went in the room and I looked around I wasn't supposed to be there. And I looked at the cantina diorama.
And for LLM was in there. And I was like, you put a droid in the cantina. You got to take that out. You can't have like they had all the wrong figures in the dioramas they didn't know because this is because this is like right before the first look.
And these were the people that worked for the company. Like it wasn't we weren't working directly for Hasbro. We were a contractor that Hasbro hired. We were display company that Hasbro hired to do that their room.
So, the people that were doing the setup didn't necessarily know about Star Wars and they didn't know they were just product. They were just display and merchandising people. They didn't realize it mattered that much so they just put whatever wherever.
And they were like, oh, you got to put the four LLM goes here and there can't be droids in the cantina they were like, get out, you know, because we were working to like two three o'clock in the morning everybody was at the end of their wits, and like they, and I they'd already told me to get the
guys out. So I go I go back and I finally go home like oh my god there's droids in the cantina there's droids in the cantina, you know, and so the next day I go to work and it was the day that Lucasfilm was coming and everybody was on their fucking toes, and they were like, do not go in the fucking room,
disappear. Yeah. So I go back to Spirograph and I know they're there and I can feel it I'm like oh my god this is my chance this is my chance. And, and I guess there and I'm inspired graph cutting vinyl and doing this drudgery and I'm almost in tears.
And then the third they're doing a review and then I suddenly here over the intercom system, Morgan, go to Star Wars. I'm like what, you know, so I go running in there, and the Lucas people are there.
And, um, apparently, they had brought the people to task for putting droids in the cantina. And now suddenly like oh well, we have a Star Wars expert on our team, who's going to work on the room with you. And yes, yes, I made it.
You know, so then I got to do the fucking room and I got to do the thing, and I got to, I got to be a credible Star Wars person in that lane.
And I'm always going for the upsell, trying to get higher and higher and trying to, you know, give them my tape and trying to get them to just pay attention to my Star Wars work, you know and listen to my music, and it wasn't fucking happening it wasn't fucking
happening. And I was like I hired, I had, I hired a publicist, and I got this guy to send all these Star Wars CDs to the college radio stations, and I got it, and I spent a couple of thousand bucks to like get Star Wars break beats in the press and like you will
fucking notice me, you will fucking notice me. And it got on fucking NPR got like I did interviewed by Linda War timer on all things considered it got into the top 40 on the CMJ charts it got written about in all
the cool hipster underground music magazines that got written about and fucking a little mention in spin magazine it got really fucking far.
And I was like any day now Lucasfilm is going to call me, you know, nothing happened, nothing fucking happened.
And I spent the next like then Phantom Menace comes out and there's this big fucking, we're doing the Phantom Menace room now where I building this.
I was in charge now of building the wados junk shop display where they were going to roll out this just like glut of figures, and I was going down to canal street with thousands and thousands and dollars and buying all the surplus junk to set to set up the room
I was like a pig and shit I was so fucking that was loving and I was like, this is they're going to see how I've hooked this room up, you know, and it was like I got into this fucking fantasy in my head.
You know, like, I knew like I'm Anakin Skywalker, and I'm literally, I'm literally in wados junk shop, and people come by they're going to be like Qui gon Jin and the Jedi, and they're going to discover this genius living in obscurity and they're going to
elevate me I was like refused to give up this dream that I was going to work for Star Wars. And then the Lucas people came, came by again you know and by now I had known them a little bit and they were just a bunch of corporate stuff shirts and
anyway that didn't give a shit about anything, you know I was I was up for a rude awakening, you know because I'm this guy, this like smarmy fucking corporate guy was like hey he comes into wados junk shop, and he's like oh, hey look he points to me and it's like
here's wado himself. And I'm like, I'm Anakin Skywalker and I'm, you know, and I give him the whole spiel and it's like no, you're wado.
And then I knew I realized right then and there. This was a closed door. I'm not going to get to where I want to go from here. And by now I've been selling this record for like two years, and I was making money off of it.
And I knew I wasn't going to get Lucasfilm just wouldn't acknowledge it my friend managed to squeak in a tiny blurb in there in Star Wars insider about Star Wars break beats.
And then,
and then the suit came. And then I realized oh shit I guess I'm doing this now I guess I'm a record label now. And I had the whole suit, and I was going into the Star Wars celebration.
And, you know, they used to have the big line, you know, this is like before it kind of when the internet had just started, you know, and I had just got online this is like I was actually selling CDs for the first time on the internet through this record
called other music and they would like sell like $300 worth of CDs in a week. And I was like wow this is really popping off and like, I was blowing up as an independent music maker it was just Lucasfilm didn't care.
And so I was like okay I guess I'm doing this. I decided that wasn't going to work for me and I was like I'm a record producer now and I would go, they had the Ziegfeld theater, and like people lined up.
If you remember I don't I don't know how old you are but I remember there was a line for a month outside of the every major theater like the Chinese theater in LA and the Ziegfeld theater in New York all these die hard Star Wars fans were camping out outside the fucking
movie theater for like 30 days prior to the release of the movie and they bought the still had to buy your ticket at the box office. So they were literally lining up to buy.
And I was like every couple of days with the big boombox blasting my Star Wars music, selling the CDs and just getting my picture taken and getting on the fucking news.
And it was just like a discretion that was like okay this is my business now I guess fuck Lucasfilm, you know you're not going to hire me. I don't need you, you know, I can make it on my own.
And then, you know I had had everything going for me. And then the Phantom Menace comes out.
And then it wasn't that good. No, no it wasn't.
And then suddenly, it was like almost overnight because the hype for this movie had been building for like three fucking years, and I rode that fucking wave, you know, to the highest I could go highest that I've ever been in my whole life, and then almost within
days and weeks it completely crashed. It completely fucking crashed. And suddenly Star Wars was out of fashion. People had had a fucking enough of it.
And it was just nobody gave a shit. Yeah, and I couldn't get hired by Lucasfilm, nobody wanted to buy my record anymore. And I'm like, what the fuck am I going to do now.
And I had nothing.
You. I think what's so crazy were inches from this from these people.
And then all of a sudden just goes away so quickly.
Well I think my expectations weren't reasonable. I mean, what I what I would come to find much much later on. Now that I've established myself that I would have been absolutely miserable.
There was actually no position for somebody like me, working for Lucas and Hasbro, you know what with I was going to, I would have been lost in that, you know, I wouldn't have been able to do my own thing I would have had to tow the line, and I wasn't built
for that.
And I was so good at getting close to Star Wars. I got hired by this company called Golden Turtle, who had the license for the start they made calendars, and they and they had the Star Wars license and they hired me to like photo edit and write copy.
And I would go through the Cantina calendar, you know, and I would go through all these like these, these CD roms of all these photos that we could license from Lucasfilm to like pick the images and write the captions and the blurbs and then a graphic designer
would make it look good but I was more like the continuity editor and the writer, and, and all of this had to be submitted to Lucasfilm. And anytime I tried to embellish or add something or jazz it up a little bit, it would be immediately cut down.
And anytime I tried to innovate anything like they'd have these film outs of just like screen grabs from the movies and you know you've seen some of these images over and over and over again there's that famous one on the blockade one of like Darth Vader like pointing
to Princess Leia, but then they had on these discs like an alternate of that, you know, like it's that same shot that we know so well but here it is like a second later, you know, so I would always pick the B sides, and they would not go with the main
side, but everybody knows and I just kind of realized that they weren't looking for creativity. Yeah, they had like, and none of none of none of my, none of my aspirations and expectations were realistic, and would have had I known the way things
were for me I would have been happy with it but at the time this was like a real blow to me because I didn't. I didn't realize at the time that there was all there was a ceiling there. And that, you know, the only way to really enjoy being a creative making star
was just to be George Lucas, you know, otherwise you're just tilling in his vineyards, you know, so, and it was just like, it was disappointing and then on top of that.
And then the, the Indy shit collapsed.
At the same time, so I was fucked on both ends and Star Wars had just failed for me on all ends.
And this is the beginning of toys for you.
That's what happened immediately after. Well it seems that.
I've had conversations through art school and through being in Eugene and then being in like Portland area and then coming back and working and trying to find a job and like, you're having to do this over and over again this reinventing of yourself,
almost. It's that's what it feels like listening to the story where you're just.
The world around me a shit. So I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it my way I'm going to make sure that I make something up myself.
And it just seems like every instance, you're having to do that. It's still happening.
I mean, yeah that that is the case but that's, I don't know if that's like that for other people but that's just been the way my life has worked and it's actually.
I think the way that this episode's in is that you know, for, I think a lot of people who live as artists it's the yourself is the ultimate work. Yeah, you know the person that you make yourself into is really the work, and all the stuff you make is just sort
of the byproduct of that. The real spectacle is the is the is the is the is what you make of yourself I mean that's your, your most potent material is your humanity and your brain and your life.
And, you know, I was lucky that I was lucky that it all went this way it all felt like such a struggle the whole way through. It still does a little bit but, you know, thank you for the opportunity to get to just sort of try to lay it out in some sort of narrative
fashion because it makes it all sound really fucking heroic to me. Yeah, and I think the outside, the, the, the difficult part about the toy scene in general for some of us is that like, when we first enter.
We, we hear names like suck Lord healing made or dollars like like we hear these names.
And we see where you're at. And that's unrelatable.
Like I'm not going to be a suck Lord like I can't just join into something and be like your proud I can have that.
But hearing the story and hearing like, man, I struggled to get here. Like, this isn't just an overnight thing like I did this work.
That's what's relatable. That's what makes sense to us. Well, the thing is that I mean it's just so it's just funny to me because when I hear stuff like that when people look at me and see me as being the guy.
You know that they're trying to get to, and all my life, I've been the guy trying to get to the place, and there's always been something higher than me and beyond me that seems unattainable that I foolishly went after anyway, and just sort of by accident,
you know sort of became something, you know, like I never ever felt like I was enough. Yeah, I still don't, you know, but I guess that's not, it doesn't matter like it just, it's just interesting and I think what the takeaway.
Hopefully from all of this is aside from me getting glory and fame is that other people realize that it's anybody. Anybody could do this. Yeah, anybody could pursue them, you know just pursuing if you just make the decision to pursue yourself, or to go after
yourself, or to, you know, to, to, to fulfill yourself to actualize yourself, you know to make yourself into what it is you think you're supposed to be on their highest level of your expression as an individual and as a creative person.
Something's going to happen. Something's going to happen whether you become rich and famous off it or not is another thing. But like, you're going to at least be living in the middle of an interesting story at the very end of the day if that's all you get out of your
creative pursuit. Like I often tell myself sometimes when I'm having these epic picturesque experiences and doing these, having these monumental moments of just like self awareness and achievement and like living in the midst of something I'd only dreamed about
and I'm alone.
You know nobody's filming it, nobody's here sharing it with me and I'm having this epic experience I'm being like well wait a minute.
I'm getting to see this, like I'm the audience for this, like don't waste it, it'd be nice if this was on television but it's not and don't because it's not don't waste it, because you're not famous.
You're not famous enough it's like you are the, you are the person watching the show that is your life. If you're not being entertained by what's happening to you every single day well then jazz it up buddy.
That is good. I think, yeah, I, it's tough because you have, I was once told that everyone is someone's Banksy.
I don't know what that means. I don't fully know who my Banksy is I don't know who I'm a Banksy for. But the problematic piece is that we're always chasing something, regardless of what that is, and I think hearing like, you've had to change what you
were chasing several times.
And that's like that we don't always just have that one end goal once we get there it's done. Sometimes that one main and goal doesn't pan out and it seems like you've been switching that around a little well yeah yes and no, I think, on one hand, you're right when
you talk about a worldly object, acting as the perceived manifestation of that goal changes, but the, the, the intangible goal is always the same, like maybe you fixate on different things in the world that seem like achievable accomplishments
or access or projects or something that can be achieved in life and maybe that doesn't work out, like working for Star Wars was like a goal of mine, but why did I want to work for Star Wars.
What was the reason behind wanting to do that and even though it's not being fulfilled in working for Star Wars there's still the desire to fulfill that creative urge is still exactly the same.
Like my conclusion is, you're never going to work for Star Wars and you wouldn't have been happy working for Star Wars anyway the way to really succeed is to make your own Star Wars.
Yeah, you know, and like it may be took some time to realize that but that isn't any different than the original goal like working for Star Wars was never really the goal.
It was just the limits of my imagination at the time of what the fulfillment of my goal was but my true goal is to just be the ultimate expression of my creative passions, you know, and then those will better be served if I blaze my own path, rather
than following someone else's path and working in someone else's world. It's harder to work make your own world, but that's that I think the that passion has remained consistent all the way through, even though the means to getting there may have changed.
The intention is always exactly the same.
New from Toys on Tap. 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. Toys on Tap. The next one is going to be good too, so stay tuned and listen to that. Toys on Tap. Awesome.