Stop the presses! A phrase that is now as outdated as rollerblades, I suppose, but I bring you great tidings of joy: Dimitry Elyashkevich is having a "grand re-opening" of his photo show at the Door Gallery (next door to the world famous Burgundy Room) in Hollywood, California. So, if you read the review earlier this week (unlikely) then here's a bonus interview with Dimitry on what exactly constitutes a "grand re-opening," as conducted by Rick Kosick, who, incidentally and technically, was Dimitry's boss while the two worked at Big Brother skateboard magazine back in the way back (or at least until Dimitry came up with his own job title: Executive Director of Photography). So come along… and enjoy! —Sean Cliver
Kosick: What made you want to do a photography show?
Dimitry: I’ve got a lot of stuff, and people always bug me about it. I have photos that no one has seen or someone has only seen once. What’s the point of taking a photo if you can’t share it?
Is this your first show?
This is my first show ever.
How many years have you been a photographer?
Well, I got my first camera back in 1989 or something… I think I was 14. I had one before that, but I broke it. I ran with a SLR, tripped, and smashed the camera. Then my cousin’s husband gave me a camera and I started taking pictures of my friends skating. I just followed them around on my 10-speed bike. Then I started skating and put the camera down. I wasn’t good enough to go any further on my board, but it was fun and I liked it so much that I still wanted to be a part of it, so I started shooting photos again.
When did your photography really start to take off for you?
They had a contest at the Brooklyn Banks in 1993. All the pros from LA came out. I didn’t know how it worked back then, so I shot a bunch of photos, printed them at school, and wrote “proof “ on the contact sheet with a Sharpie. I sent it toSlap, TransWorld, and Thrasher. I never heard shit from anyone then a couple months later an article comes out in Thrasherand there’s a photo that I shot of Tim Brauch—rest in peace—doing an inward heel-flip and it’s got Adam Wallacavage’s name on it. I was like, “What the fuck?! I know that’s my photo, I have the negatives.” I thought they scanned the photo and removed the word “proof” in Photoshop. But when I started getting my photos back, if you just rubbed your thumb across it would come right off. So I wrote a two-page letter to Bryce [Kanights], and sure enough, the next issue there was a little paragraph with an apology. I was like, “Damn, I’m the shit!” because I thought they jacked my photos. So that was the moment I realized I could make a living and see the best skateboarding and travel the world on someone else’s dime.
Did you have more fun taking pictures of the skating or the lifestyle that revolves around it?
It’s all one, dude. Skating is a lifestyle. But everyone has seen my skate photos. Everyone has seen the Peter Bici ollie at the World Trade Center… the Joey Alvarez switch heel at the banks. Everyone has seen that shit, but no one has seen these [in the show].
So lets talk about your show.
It opened last Friday. It’s connected to the Burgundy Room in Hollywood, which is a bar. The show is running every day until the end of the month from 8pm–2am. This Friday—because I’m still finding photos—there’s going to be a grand re-opening with at least a hundred more point-and-shoots. All of these photos are just prints that I already have, because I’d already committed to doing a show there and it was a matter of convenience. At first I was trying to figure out what to do and I was picking negatives thinking, “Oh, I’m going to get this printed and this printed… ,” like every other show, which is cool, you know, to see a print that’s big, but that’s expensive. Plus the show was supposed to be up the Friday before it opened, but I just couldn’t figure out what to do. So I was said, “Will, you have to push it.” Poor guy had taken down all of the art from the previous show and had to put it all back up—sorry, Will. I love you. Anyway, so I’m going through the point-and-shoots and I was like, “These are hilarious, they’re already printed, and there’s thousands of them. I can cut this down and put them on the wall with Sharpies hanging next to them and people can leave an Insta-comment.
So what were some of the comments that people left that you really liked?
There were a lot of good ones. Then there was some when people got mean, I would take it down. I’m pretty sure Mike Kassak is responsible for a lot of them. But there was one with Johnny Knoxville in a picture with Avril Lavigne from a time when all of us were in Miami for some MTV awards. Someone wrote, “He was a skater boy, blah blah blah, a skater boy, but oh, he doesn’t skate.” And there was one with Pontius as an old man smoking cigarette. Someone wrote, “Best man at my first wedding, solid dude.”
I had to take down a bunch of other stuff, because the first night it was open I had a spread of—and I’m not going to say his name—but it was like six photos of his dick. Some girls were like, “That’s too much dick,” and I was like, “You know what, you’re right.” So the show keeps changing and evolving.
So why do you keep changing your show?
Because I keep finding new shit. I’m still going through my shit.
But I feel like you’re still adding things during your show.
So what? Am I not allowed to do that? I’m trying to make it the best show possible. There’s more shit. I have ten-times the amount of shit that’s already up on the wall now, so why not? Do you want to see the best shit or what I was just rushing to put up? So it’s up until the end of June. If you don’t what me to do that then I won’t. Rick doesn’t want me to make the show better, everybody! Well, I don’t care. I’m making it better. So everyone come through this Friday for the grand re-opening and it’ll keep changing so you can come by and check it out any night.
Have thought about putting a book together?
For what?
So your friends can buy it.
My friends can go to the show.
But what if they want a nice coffee table book?
Well, they can print the photos and make their own damn book.
Don’t you think it would be cool to have a photography book, though?
Maybe later, but right now, what I really want is to hit up some of these corporate skate companies. This show would be so fun to take around the world to see what skaters in New York think of it, or London, or Brazil, or Australia, and have new mounting boards put up at each show so people can leave comments in their native language. It would be so sick!
So you’re seeing a vision of taking this show around the world to different countries?
Yeah, what up Nike, what up Adidas, what up corporate skate America?
Wouldn’t it be fun to do the show in Russia?
Yeah, everywhere. Tokyo, Russia, everywhere. I would rather do it in Minsk… that’s where I was born. I just went there for the first time since I left when I was 4-and-a-half-years-old. For me it was awesome. Shit was cheap, it was super clean, there were no fat people. There’s a bunch of shit to skate. If a book happens, it happens. I’m not worried about that. Right now, I’m just dealing with point-and-shoot film, but I also have slides. I want to do a show with slides, and then I have digital shit, like all of the Wildboyz shit is digital. Plus, there’s video for years that nobody has seen that’s in the vault because it’s incriminating. It’s endless.
So this is basically “Dimitry’s Last Call”?
What do you mean?
Like how we did in Big Brother magazine, the “Last Call” section, but this is “Dimitry’s Last Call.”
No, they’re art photos, and this is definitely not my last call.
Be it my lowly Wisconsin origins or an unfortunately shallow embankment of brain cells, I'm certainly not above a little journalistic Cheez Whiz. So it's without much care or concern that I make the widely clichéd Warhol-attributed reference, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," because anyone, really, could have a 15-minute photo show nowadays. Once upon a time, no lie, it used to be a real pain in the ass to be a photographer: dealing with all that pesky film stuff, the inherent frame limitations to a roll, not knowing what the hell you got or if you even got it until all that tedious developing and processing crap... let's just say it wasn't for everyone. Obviously, that's not anywhere near the current case, and it would probably be quite the mind-blowing statistic to know how many photos are taken the whole world over in the period of just one single second. Boom! Even in the act of pondering there went the last of my synapses for the day. One or two more vaguely constructed paragraphs like this and I'll need to shut down and recharge my neural capacitors to deal with tomorrow's daily struggle.
Left to right: Tremaine on what could have been any night in the mid-late ‘90s; Rick Kosick and Chris Pontius, full metal ninja turtles; Kosick and a gold lamé Dave Carnie, post-Russian strip club destruction on the eve of yet another ill-fated Big Brother-sanctioned event.
But there existed a window of time in the '90s, just prior to the digital age of chaos, when the consumer-grade point 'n' shoot film camera reached the apex of its soon-to-be-meteored evolution with the Yashica T4. It was a magical pocket device indeed, and both professional photographers and commoners alike snatched them up at a very affordable price. This was especially so in the world of skateboarding, where it serendipitously coincided with the height of decadence right before the industry's li'l butt pucker was ruptured by the mainstream and all the booby-traps and pitfalls that came along with the unholy coupling (once the term "athletes" was heard and used in all seriousness, it was Crystal Clear with Capital Corporate Cs that the end was nigh and the doomsday clock was two minutes to midnight for the fuck-all-show-it-like-it-is rag that was then Big Brother skateboard magazine). For a few priceless years, though, it wasn't uncommon to see everyone out in the bar with a beer in one hand and a T4 in the other.
Left to right: Mike Crum was a darling of the "Last Call" parade of party photos in Big Brother, all thanks to the omnipresent lens of Dimitry; Scott Johnston, Jeff Tremaine, Dimitry, and Sean Cliver—all cleaned up and ready for the post-Y2K world at a respectable, no-nonsense Chocolate premiere at the DGA theater on Sunset Blvd.
I only embark on such tangents, because the late great photo show of Dimitry Elyashkevich this past weekend at the Door Gallery in Hollywood not only embraced and celebrated this slaphappy snapshot period in skateboarding, but embodied it in spirit as well. If I heard correctly, the show was to open at 9pm, yet by 7:30 that night there was still nothing on the walls?! I walked in at 9pm, at which point the sweat was pouring and the first words—as well as probably the next 20 or 30 or so—to come out of Dimitry's mouth to me were, "NO PHOTOS. NO PHOTOS. SERIOUSLY, NO PHOTOS." Apparently, no one was supposed to take any photos of the photos on display, because there were indeed some that may not have even been run in the pages of Big Brother when they were taken at the time. And that's saying a fuck lot. It's not like anything was that incriminating, but 20 years have since passed and everyone within the swath of Dimitry's lens back then is now a legitimate grown-up with families and respectable jobs—none of which was the responsible case in the ridiculous span of globe-trotting and partying years showcased in his buckshot blast of 4 x 6 prints taped up on the wall with Sharpies hanging beside them for anyone and everyone to add descriptions, word bubbles, and random comments in general. On a hypothetical comfort level scale of 1–10, it's safe to say this one went to 11 (but probably could have gone to 13, knowing what he has in his vaults).
Left to right: The El Rey Theatre, circa 1997, hours before all sorts of shit hit the fan before, during, and after the premiere of the Big Brother video number two; Faces in the crowd of aforementioned premiere.
So yeah. You're not seeing any of the really hot shit photos here; just the few that Dimitry let us take to share a few innocuous looks at the way we were before everything else transpired in life. —Sean Cliver
This last one, of course, is more of an inside joke than anything, but if you happen to be a stickler for skate trash lore then you know at one point in 1993 I found myself on the wrong hand of the legendary Sean Sheffey—and not entirely by my own doing. The truth would have been exposed in the dumb Big Brother documentary on HULU, where in a previous rough cut there was a section talking about the more "physical repercussions" to occur with the magazine staff, the crown jewel of which being my face-palming incident with Sheffey over a caption that had been blamed on me (a situation akin to being sentenced to death for a crime you didn't commit). Anyway, at the end of it all, Tremaine admitted that he was in fact the one who wrote the caption and then stood silently by as I brushed with death, but the segment was cutting room-floored after a note from HULU that it seemed like an unnecessarily negative side street to go down and detracted from the zany chase of the story arc. However, please let the record show for all of Interweb eternity that I was in fact innocent in the matter—case fucking closed. Oh, this photo, incidentally, was taken years after the OG confrontation, maybe 5–6, give or take a drink or two, at one of those great gala DC/Droors holiday affairs of the late ‘90s.
Rick Kosick: So how does it feel to be in a movie with Johnny Knoxville again?
Chris Pontius: It felt great. I was so stoked that he asked me to be in it, because it’s the biggest role I’ve ever had in a scripted movie and just filming with any of the jackass guys is like the funnest thing in the world to do. If I could do it constantly I would. We got to go and film in South Africa and that added to the adventure of it. Being in Africa reminded of filming with the Wildboyz… you know, some exotic place, and there’s nothing better in the whole world.
What’s the character you play in the movie?
I play Benny the Lifeguard. I’m like this really irresponsible lifeguard, and the main character, DC, who’s played by Knoxville, is his best friend. I’m just totally irresponsible and reckless, but without trying to be. I’m just a nice guy and always getting into trouble. I was really stoked ’cause I don’t have a lot of people asking me to be in their movies, because I haven’t proved myself that I can act. They just think I jump off buildings and run around naked. I’m so thankful to have someone believe in me and have faith that I can do a good job.
When you were on set shooting, would you stick to the script or improvise?
Knoxville encouraged me to improvise. He said we would use the script as a guideline. I do my best when I’m thinking of stuff on the spot. Sometimes, when there are lines and you actually speak them, it looks right on paper but sounds different when you speak it. So I like it when they allow you to not stick to the script. Sometimes stuff falls from the sky and I get lucky and I think of great stuff on the spot.
What’s the backstory of your character in the movie?
The backstory is that you assume that Benny and DC have been friends forever. They’re pretty much brothers. In the movie, DC’s daughter comes to visit and stay with him. He hasn’t seen her in a few years and Benny has known her throughout her whole life. He’s like an uncle to her and part of their family. There’s a lot of heavy stuff in the movie and my character does a lot of the silly stuff. I’m not saying it’s a heavy drama movie, but it definitely has a lot of heart—it’s not just madness.
How was it filming this movie in South Africa?
Being in Africa was just awesome, like it’s a wild place. I love how Africa is still untamed. I went to Malawi during our break, and it was the most primitive country I’ve ever been to out of all of my travels. When you walk into an airport, you can tell how a country and their modernization is and it was hard to even get a rental car there. We visited Lake Malawi, a giant lake where the water is crystal clear and you can snorkel like in the ocean, and there was barely anyone there. To me it’s fun being somewhere you’re not around a bunch of white people, like I enjoy being the only white person in the country. It’s cool. I like going outside of my familiar places to see what happens and have adventure.
Were you close enough to go on a safari where you were filming?
A lot of the movie was filmed on this land 45-minutes outside of Cape Town. Like we would be filming and all of the sudden there would be zebras in frame in the background or an antelope jumping through the shot and someone would be like, “Cut!” because it just wouldn’t make sense. How awesome is that? It was wild enough that there were zebras running around where you’re shooting. There wasn’t like worries of lions mauling anybody on set out of nowhere, but there were a few instances where people almost stepped on a pit viper, which is a gnarly-like rattle snake and I think they have long fangs. So you had to watch out for them.
Did you interact with many of the other cast members?
In the downtime when we weren’t filming, the whole cast got really close. The characters who are called the Shitbirds—the young kids who are employees of Action Point and kind of like DC’s kids in the movie—they were all like in their twenties. So we all became really close and were like a little family because we were away from home.
Which one was your favorite?
I loved them all. One day we made a teepee near base camp, so in the downtime we’d hang out in there and make spears. Johnny Pemberton and I became really good friends. Josh [Hoover] was awesome and Conner [McVicker], a total trippy kid but so great. Brigette Lundy-Paine was so good. She’s on the show Atypical. She was such a good character on the movie and just an awesome person and a badass chick. There’s also this kid from England named Eric Manaka. I don’t know how Knoxville found him, but he’s this awesome 17-year-old skater kid. He found out I was friends with Andy Roy and he got really stoked because he loves Andy. He was just a badass kid to hang out with. We would all run around Cape Town together, and it was a really good group. While we were making the movie, you know it’s going to come out good if it feels good while you’re making it and having fun. I can’t wait to see it.
You haven’t seen the film yet?
No, I haven’t. I’ve only seen the little parts I had to do ADR voiceover stuff on. I have no idea what the movie looks like. I’m excited to see it, but I’m nervous. I just get nervous watching myself.
Explain what happened to Scott Manning.
The sun is really powerful in the southern hemisphere and Scott has pretty light skin. He’s not responsible about wearing sunscreen and he got burned super bad and basically had an allergic reaction to the ultraviolet light. He had to cover himself from head-to-toe where you could only see his eyes. He was also on steroids to help fight the sun infection, so that made him kind of aggro. The Assistant Director called him the Angel of Death. Yeah, that was kind of hard on Scott. You have to be careful in the sun when you’re down there; even black dudes cover themselves up because the ozone is so thin.
What’s Cape Town like once the sun sets?
It’s awesome. It’s one of the funnest cities I’ve ever been to with the best food out of anywhere—and its cheap. If you go to Nobu Sushi, you can eat a lavish meal for like 200 dollars, where if you where in London you would spend like 2000—it’s that much cheaper. But you had to watch your back if you went outside. There’s a lot of people who will jack you if you’re not careful. Nothing bad happened other than a few of the cast members getting mugged, but they were asking for it by walking around in a neighborhood by themselves where they shouldn’t have. Sometimes the girls would want Kentucky Fried Chicken at three in the morning after a night of being out, and I would volunteer to go and get food for them. I would walk and I was the only white dude from miles around. I always enjoyed it, because it’s an adventure, and I always have weapons—an axe or a knife or my expandable baton—so if I had gotten into trouble, I was ready for it. I think something about that gets me off, too.
Did Knoxville beat himself up pretty good making this movie?
Yeah, he got two of three concussions at least, and his eyeball popped out of its socket after the final concussion. He was filming this thing on the alpine sled where he goes flying off it and it was a pretty big jump. I think he was going to try and run out of it, but the first step he took he went right to his face, knocked himself out. We ran over to him and he didn’t know where he was. He asked if we were in California. He got a CAT scan, but he was okay. When we got back to the hotel, he sent me a text that said: “I sneezed and my eyeball popped halfway out, and I pushed it back in.” A few days later, we were walking back from dinner and I made him laugh and his eyeball popped out again. It was so awkward. But the stunts are awesome. There’s this one thing where he jumps out of a tree and lands on a shed, and the catapult was gnarly. The catapult stunt was something Knoxville wanted to do all through jackass, but we could never get a catapult or there was always some issue. But the guys built one and it was gnarly. It was powered by hydraulics and sent him into a barn. It was one of those stunts where it could be really bad—you know, the night before you are nervous just thinking about it. Luckily he was all right, but god, it was gnarly. It was up there with the rocket in jackass number two. When you make a machine to send your body hurling unnaturally… it’s just fucking gnarly.
Do you think he craves that kind of abuse?
I don’t think any of us on jackass are like adrenaline junky-types. It’s more like testing yourself, where maybe you’re scared but you do it anyway. That’s what it’s about. It’s not like we’re going, “Yeah! We’re so gnarly!” It’s more like, “I’m scared as hell, but I’m going to do it anyway.” I think a lot of what this movie is about is going back to the era like when we were kids, when our parents would probably let us do stuff that they would be frowned at today with everyone so concerned about safety. It was so much more reckless back then. There wasn’t as much entertainment. Kids didn’t have iPhones and a bunch of video games or other things to keep them busy, and when you’ve got nothing to do, that’s what got us all into skateboarding growing up. Being bored and not wanting to play football and finding something else to do with your energy. That’s what skateboarding and punk rock music was all about, and I think that is what’s missing in our society today. Everyone is so concerned about wanting to be safe, but really it's just an illusion… it’s more like people are into feeling like they’re safe. Or it’s about money—someone stubs their toe on a crack on the sidewalk and they sue the city. Just like when we were filming jackass the TV show. They started censoring us so much, because some mom blamed us for her son getting hurt doing something silly, saying he copied us, when really it’s just what kids do and have always done. I think people miss that a lot, and I think there’s something inside us that wants to go back to things being a little bit wild. That’s why all of these survival shows are popular on TV. At the end of the day, you take away all of our computers and phones and put us on a mountain—we’re going to go tribal really quick, and in a matter of hours we can go primitive, because we’re animals. So the spirit of the movie is all about that, going back to that time of not so many rules.
When does Action Point hit the theaters?
The movie comes out June 1st. You can buy tickets at your local ticket seller or you can contact me directly at ticketsfromchris.com.
You may have heard the rumors. You may have seen the eyepatch. Now hear it all from the man himself, Johnny Knoxville, who once again put his ass on the line for all your giggling enjoyment when Action Point opens in theaters this summer. So, without further ado, here's Rick Kosick to kick out the queries…
Rick Kosick: So what inspired you to make Action Point?
Johnny Knoxville: Well, I was sitting in my office one day, minding my own business like I normally do, and Derek Freda sent me an email but I was in a middle of a bunch of things. Derek is pretty laid back, so about 30 minutes goes by and he said, “Did you get my email?” I said, “I saw it, but I haven’t looked at it yet.” He goes, “You need to look at it right now.” I said, “Okay,” and it was a 14-minute documentary for Action Park, the theme park in New Jersey—and it’s amazing. There was this really dangerous theme park back in the ‘70s and ‘80s owned by the genius Gene Mulvihill. It was almost as if me and the guys had made a theme park—it was that dangerous. So that’s where the idea came from. We didn’t focus on their stories—the Mulvihill family—we focused on having a theme park like that and why it had to go away… and it was kind of the same reason for the downfall of the jackass TV show. Washington came down on MTV, then lawyers got involved and started ruining everything and it took away the fun. So that’s where we went with it.
How long did it take for you to get this movie off the ground and into production?
Three-to-four years. I can tell you right now. You want me to go through emails?
You don’t have to go through your emails, but it seems like you’ve been working on it for quite a while.
Yeah, it has been quite a while, since… what year is it?
It’s 2018.
So, yeah… I got an email from a conversation from me to John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, Mike Judge, and Derek back in April of 2014, when it was us just kicking things around.
What’s the overall premise of the movie?
It’s about my character, DC, trying to save his failing, hyper-dangerous theme park, and also salvage his relationship with his 14-year-old daughter in one summer—in 1979, basically, with the advent of class action lawsuits and the lawyers digging their heels into everything. It was kind of the last summer of fun before all that was taken away from us.
Did you hire a big-time Hollywood scriptwriter to do the story?
We did get some big-time scriptwriters. We had a number of writers. We started out with John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky who are great, and then we were lucky enough to get Robert Smigel to write a draft. He’s an absolute genius. Eventually I wrote the last four or five drafts, so it was a team effort.
Did you recreate any of the rides from the original theme park?
I think we had the power slide and the alpine slide, but most of them parks had an alpine slide back then. I think the one that was unique to Action Park was the battle tanks that shot tennis balls, but all the rest of the rides in the movie were found in any theme park back then.
How was it working with Chris Pontius on this movie, did he deliver the goods?
Pontius steals the movie, he’s hilarious. I mean, you know Pontius, he’s just as funny between takes. He’s amazing. You know how much he loves hatchets, right? So he plays the lifeguard in the movie, so of course the lifeguard has a hatchet because Pontius always carries around a hatchet—at least one or probably two. In between takes he was constantly making different type of weapons, like spears and things for people on-set like the makeup ladies, like they were dying to get a six-foot long spear. But he would hand it to them and put so much time and energy and love into it that they were very touched to receive a spear. But he’s so funny in the movie, and I just kind of let him go. I tried to write in his voice, but most of the time you give him his lines and whatever he says is going to be better than what I wrote for him. And oh my god, you should see his outfits. You will absolutely love them. He was a scantily clad lifeguard. A lot of midriffs, tight shorts, and you know how is butt wiggles when he walks—it’s a sight to behold.
So I heard you got injured a few times during the filming process, what exactly happened to you?
Yeah, you can say I got injured a few times during the filming process. Jesus Christ, I got injured on this more than any of the jackass movies—not combined, but just any one of them. I had four concussions, a broken right hand, a busted left knee, whiplash, and stiches on my head, lost two teeth, broke my orbital lambda bone in my face, and then I had a blow fracture in my left eye, so when I blew my nose my eye popped out of the socket. I think there’s some other stuff, but I can’t remember.
Were you able to do all the stunts you wanted to do or did you leave any on the table?
After doing the alpine slide where I got that terrible concussion and broke my face, there was another one I was supposed to do the next filming week but there was no way I could do that because I could have lost my eye. So we waited until I got back to Los Angeles to do it, because I still wanted to do it. Then we started editing the movie and realized we didn’t need another stunt, but we might need to do something else. So when we did some reshoots with me as the old DC character, I got my fourth concussion in the film and lost some teeth doing a chin-up on a bar that broke and came down and hit me in the mouth. Meanwhile, I landed on my head AGAIN.
You just love hurting yourself don’t you?
It’s not that I love it, I just want good footage and to get good footage certain things need to happen. And you know those things.
Why did you choose to film this movie in such a faraway place like South Africa?
We wanted to save a lot of money, and by doing this we saved a ton of money and built a theme park. We found a hillside in South Africa that had a nice bottom where you could put a bunch of rides, and the hill was perfect for the slide we built. When we got down there, we wanted to make South Africa look like New Jersey, but we didn’t have enough money. Then somebody said, “Hey, how about Los Angeles?” Now there you go! We can make it look as dry as it was. And just about the stunts, I asked the stuntmen to do them like I did them, like no cutting on the action and no pads. They were actually excited, because they never get to do that and it provided a great energy down there.
What was it like living in Cape Town for three months?
It was almost like four months. I don’t like being away from the family anymore. It was fun, I just don’t like being away from my kids that long. I think I am almost over that kind of travel for that length of time.
So who are the Shitbirds?
They are a group of juvenile delinquent kids I hired to work at Action Point. Basically they’re outcasts from the high schools they go to, and the only kind of place they fit in is at Action Point. We got a really great group of actors to play the Shitbirds.
Are you talking about some of the co-stars of the movie?
Yeah, Eleanor Worthington Cox plays my daughter Boogie in the movie and she’s wonderful. Johnny Pemberton, who’s great, plays a pre-vert named Ziffel. Bridgette Lundy-Paine plays Four Finger Annie and she’s fantastic. Josh Hoover plays a guy named Hot Head Pete. Dan Bakkedahl plays the bad guy and he is goddamn terrific. Matt Shulze is in it, too, and he basically plays himself: a gnarly dude who loves to fight. He loves it! And Eric Manaka plays Rodney, the voice of reason. I’d asked the casting director in London to go around to different skate parks to find someone who would fit the part of Rodney, and she found Eric. He was 16- or 17-years-old and he’d already been making his own films. He came in for an audition and was great. It was his first film he ever did and he was fantastic. I like giving someone that chance and they deliver.
So you brought JxPx Blackmon on as the shady prop master, but how would you rate his acting skills?
Haha… JxPx did an awesome job, as did Scott Manning and Charlie Grisham who was the stunt coordinator. Sean Cliver came down to shoot pictures for a while and he got some great shots for us. But JxPx as an actor? He was amazing! He played the shady janitor and Scott Manning and Charlie Grisham played cops since we were down in South Africa where most of the people had accents. They all did great, and it was so funny to have Scott as a cop because he’s so not a cop. He actually got sunburned really badly down there and I think his arm got infected or he’s allergic to the sun? So he would walk on set with his face covered and full sleeves and it was hot as hell. Poor guy. He worked his ass off though. Everyone did. Did I bring anyone else from our group down there?
No, you didn’t! And I don’t have any more questions for you, so when does the movie come out?
Friday, June 1st, and I hope everyone comes out to see it. If you like to see me get broke off, you’ll like this movie.
If you managed to catch the romcomdocudrama Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine on Hulu then there is absolutely no doubt in the world you were fascinated with one of the staff's most enigmatic characters: Earl Parker. Rick Kosick caught up with him recently at his place in Hollywood and this is a transcript of the ensuing conversation (and that's a fancy ass way of saying interview).
Kosick: What’s been going on with you lately?
Earl: Not really that much.
Why is that?
I do top secret stuff and I can’t talk about it.
You can’t give a little indication was to what you’ve been doing?
No, I can’t tell anybody.
So, what, just like roaming the streets taking photos, being a detective?
Ah, different types of stuff. Actually, I was taking a lot more photos in the past, and I would show them to people in the building and this old lady. I would just show her some pictures of random girls and stuff and this old lady asked me if I was looking for somebody.
How would you describe your photography style?
I haven’t been doing that lately.
Yes you have.
Not with my camera. Just with my phone.
So how would you describe your style of shooting with your iPhone?
I don’t know if there is one. I don’t really have much of a following with that kind of stuff… you would have to talk to somebody else.
Follow Earl, aka Alex, aka Thomas, on Instagram at @sheesh_capeesh.
I think you have a following. People just need to know more about you and what you are doing. Do you consider it to be like abstract or street life?
I guess so. It’s pretty boring and I don’t go many places. It’s just like around LA and stuff.
What other kind of cameras do you have?
I have two rangefinder cameras and a digital camera. I’m kind of losing interest in photography. There are so many cameras available that I just get tired of looking at pictures of them. I’ve been reading about cameras for a long time and I’m happy with what I have. I have everything all figured out, but then people have objections to what I’m into because everybody has a different idea of stuff. If you hang out with people they tell you to buy like a new camera and stuff and it goes on forever and I just don’t really care anymore. I’m just trying to give up on being interested in stuff like that.
With all the photography and writing you’ve done, do you have any heroes or someone you look up to?
Not really. I’m not that interested in America anymore. I want to go to some different countries and experience different types of cultures. I used to go over to Mexico. That’s really fun, but it can be kind of dangerous.
How’s Mexico dangerous?
I don’t think it is, but they say it is on the news. They were having drug wars for a while and people said don’t go there.
If you went to Mexico, what would you see yourself getting into?
I would just probably take pictures, eat tacos, and drink beer. Go to the bars in the afternoon with all the crazy drunks.
Maybe visit a brothel or two?
Ah, maybe, but I don’t go there for that reason. I’ve met people who are into that kind of stuff, but I would mainly go further into Mexico just to get out of places that have McDonalds everywhere. You have to go into central Mexico where it starts to get more exotic with different types of murals on the walls.
What’s the furthest you’ve traveled into Mexico?
I once sold an article to TransWorld publications and jumped on a bus through Texas all the way down the east coast of Mexico to Veracruz. It took two days and then I came up through the middle of the country and stopped at various cities and ended up in Tijuana with 600 dollars and I still had money when I came back. And then one time I didn’t have a place to crash, so I jumped on a bus and went to Calexico, California, which is straight east. You can walk over a bridge into Mexicali, which is the capital of Baja California. Pretty wild. The border towns are kind of sketchy. Groups of frat guys walk by and yell at you.
Have you every gone to Juarez?
I would never go to that place. You’re not supposed to go there. It’s not a nice place. But Cancun has problems too. I sit around and read the news all the time and I hear that people are getting sick at the resorts in Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Recently there’s something about the beer that is making people sick, which is kind of strange, because the only reason I go there is to get one dollar beers. I don’t know… the more I read the news the less interested I get in traveling. I used to be more into it and then terrorism has been getting really big and I felt like I wasn’t missing as much anymore.
Have you written anything good lately?
No, writing isn’t going very well, but I’m going to start making my own homemade magazine as a solution. If you have to rely on other people it isn’t always that fun.
Do you see yourself as being famous?
I don’t really feel like I live the lifestyle of a famous person. I guess the answer is no. I don’t feel I have a lifestyle of anything.
People know who you are. You’ve contributed to something that’s been recognized.
Well, I just think there should be more of a lifestyle with convertible cars. And they hang out with pretty women and go to movie screenings.
But you see yourself as a creative type.
Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know how rewarding it is.
But you have fun in the process of doing it, right?
It has its moments.
Do you still have an infatuation about Hollywood and what this town has to offer?
Somebody recently said to me that they thought I was fascinated with Hollywood. I guess I kind of am, I live around here because it has cheap rent. But that’s kind of an interesting question… I don’t know how much I’m into that type of stuff. Maybe it would appear that way because of the pictures I take of the Hollywood stars on the Boulevard. I’m sure there are scenesters that are more interested. You would think that’s what it would be—the stuff about the actors in Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe or something—but other people don’t see it that way and have different ideas about what they think of this place. Like some of them don’t care about the Hollywood type stuff. It’s kind of like the people who work at the liquor store down the street don’t seem like they realize their store is in Hollywood.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve come across while walking around the streets of Los Angeles taking photos?
I was walking down Vine Street past the Arclight theatre and there was a small curtain blocking the view from the street, but I was walking next to it and I saw a couple having sex behind the curtain. Yeah, homeless people have sex in the streets. I always hear stories about it.
Do you think people understand your sense of humor or where you’re coming from?
Yeah, that can be a tricky thing with the writing. Like some peoples’ writings have their own style. They can either turn out great and the people love it, or their own particular style they have makes it a less desirable thing where people don’t understand where they’re coming from and they don’t like it. It’s not to say it’s badly written, they just don’t get the idea of it because of the person’s writing style. I’m really tired of all that stuff. I’m just going to start doing it for myself again.
That’s what you should be doing in the first place. I’m doing this interview because I like you and I have history with you. You’re interesting. I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks, because I think you’re cool and I want to share that with people. I think you should do the same with your writing and the pictures you take. That’s from the heart. That’s what matters most. Did you like how the Big Brother documentary turned out?
Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was pretty cool. Some people right afterwards had some thoughts about it, but I don’t really see myself as one of them critic types.
Did you have a lot of people come up and say they saw you in that documentary?
No, I kind of stay home a lot and I don’t really get out as much as I should.
So the building you live in, it’s a historical landmark?
Yeah, it’s been here a hundred years. The Black Dahlia, that girl who had a famous death, lived here for a few months.
Do you see yourself as a free spirited kind of guy?
I used to be more like that, I don’t know as much anymore. I’m kind of integrated with everything now. I’m more into theories and talking to people and listening to what people have to say.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
I’m hoping there isn’t a bad earthquake. I think one is definitely coming. That’s what everybody says. The last big one, the Northridge in 1994, I was out of town so I missed it. And when I came back to LA I saw the devastation from it and it was pretty crazy.
There's a long story and a short story, but let's just simply say that through an old friend of ours (hello, Joselle!) we know Rich "Crazy Legs" Colon, an original member—and current President—of the Rock Steady Crew. We're talking some serious breakdancing roots from the heart of the Bronx in NYC (the overall illustrious gist of which you can learn more about here), but for now we're more concerned about spotlighting the phenomenal relief work he's been doing for Puerto Rico in the wake of destruction left by Hurricane Maria last year. Take it away, Rick!
Rick Kosick: When did your family migrate to America?
Crazy Legs: My father migrated sometime in the ‘50s from Puerto Rico. A lot of my uncles and my grandfather migrated at the same time. My mother was actually born in New York City, but she’s also of Puerto Rican descent.
Do you still have any family members living in Puerto Rico?
I have an uncle that goes back and forth. He has property there but also lives stateside. One of my great uncles was a two-term governor of Puerto Rico.
How did you feel when you heard the news about the destruction to Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria?
During the time Hurricane Irma happened, I was supposed to come down here to do some preliminary work on my upcoming festival happening this year. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it during that time, but I was still scheduled to come out here so I figured I’d go and do some relief efforts to try and support the community. But then Hurricane Maria came in right behind Irma, so I had to postpone my trip because there was no way I was going to be able to fly in at that point. I had another event I was doing in Holland, though, and while I was on that trip I was realizing the amount of destruction going on in Puerto Rico and losing contact with my friends. I was having people come up and ask for autographs and pictures, but my mind was all over the place and I wasn’t able to focus because I was seriously concerned about what was going on in Puerto Rico. Eventually it got to the point where I had to leave the event and go back to the hotel, where I was literally crying while looking at my computer.
So I reached out to Red Bull and basically said, “Hey, you guys are my most powerful ally and the only people I can go to with confidence. Can you please help out my people and what can we do?” And Red Bull—recognizing that I’ve been with them for a very long time, they know my heart is in Puerto Rico and a lot of their employees like to come to Puerto Rico to surf—Jeff Regis was like, “We need to help Crazy Legs and do our part to support him on this mission.” So they immediately set me up with Waves For Water, whom they’d recently done a documentary with. It was a big education for me, because I had no idea who Waves For Water was or what they did, but Red Bull had them teach me how to work these water filtration systems and then teach other people to use them so when I got on there we’d be ready to hit the ground running. And that’s exactly what we did. Since that point, whether it be water filtration systems from Waves For Water, Luci lights with MPOWER, or fundraising in general, we’ve been able to do a lot work more than I ever would have imagined I could make happen by one simple letter to Red Bull. I guess the authenticity and the emotion behind what I had to say resonated with them. It’s been an amazing ride.
Had you ever done humanitarian assistance before helping out with this situation?
Yeah, I’ve done things where Red Bull sent me out to Uganda, and before that just on my own in New York City, where I’ve done food drives and volunteer work, but nothing to this magnitude—not even close.
How did it feel to witness the destruction in person?
It looked like the whole island had been set on fire. Everything was brown. You’re used to coming to Puerto Rico and seeing everything looking lush—even when there’s a drought—but it looked like winter all over the island with a lot of heartache and pain… people feeling a sense of desperation because they didn’t know how to reach family members, they didn’t know what was happening with their lives or with their jobs. They weren’t able to access money from their bank and they were not able to get food or gas in a proper manner. People were going into survival mode and self-preservation. There was some crime, like there would be anywhere else, so there was an element of danger because people were getting desperate while waiting for supplies and someone to come help out—like the United States government or the FEMA system that taxpayers pay into over there—and it was nowhere to be found. People felt like, “Oh my god, I’m just keeping myself alive… I’m going to survive somehow even if I need to get a little grimy.”
So that was happening, and I was kind of concerned, too. I’m used to coming out here, they’re my people, but I felt like, “Wow, do I have to worry about my own safety?” But it was all good. We didn’t really need to worry. Red Bull chartered a flight and sent me down there with supplies and a camera crew to see what was going on and help with the situation. When we arrived, I found one of my good buddies at his home, where he was counting out the rest of his change on a table—they were gathering up change to survive. Since then, I’ve been back four times and it’s made a huge difference. From not knowing anything about what to do, I’ve learned about sustainable farming, the importance of how the deaf community has to be cared for, and a whole load of other things with the funding that we’ve done. We’ve donated over 20,000 dollars to independent farmers, because a lot of them are just waiting for help due to all the red tape and other things to be completed from other organizations that give them money. So we’re learning a lot and trying to make sure the moves that we make have a layered sustainable effect. It’s not just like, “Here’s a bottle of water and I feel good about helping and bye.”
Since the hurricane, do you think the people of Puerto Rico are getting the aid relief from America and other countries that they should be getting?
Puerto Rico, from the beginning, has never gotten what it was rightfully entitled to, and when it did arrive it wasn’t effective or enough. They weren’t moving swiftly to make a difference, and there was corruption on the United States and Puerto Rican sides, you now, government stuff.
For me, personally, I felt like I first came to Puerto Rico as a Puerto Rican concerned about his people, but based on the situation and when I left after my first trip, I felt like I went there as a Puerto Rican but I left as a human being. Because it’s greater than just being Puerto Rican—it’s about human lives. The politics of religion, no matter what your agenda is, should be put aside in a situation like this. So as humanity, how do we handle this?
I’ve read that Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, was going to send batteries and solar panels to install in the homes. Did you hear or see anything if they followed through on that?
Yes, we were actually doing an implementation of water filtration in Puerto Rico at this pump that was servicing about a thousand people, and Tesla was there to test one of their batteries on that specific pump because FEMA had dropped off a generator there that was too huge for a pump from the 1970s—it was decrepit, rusty, and seriously loud. So Tesla was going to replace it with something that was not only smaller but more effective and solar-powered.
"After my first trip, I felt like I went there as a Puerto Rican
but I left as a human being."
I’m happy to hear that Tesla followed though with their commitment.
Yeah, when they said they were going to do something, they did it. I think that’s a slap in the face to the US government for not being able to get their shit together in a timely matter.
You know there’s going to more hurricanes coming through the Caribbean in the future. How can the people of Puerto Rico learn from this disaster?
Number one—fight for an upgrade of the infrastructure, which was pretty bad prior to that, but you also need to be in a more powerful situation in order to do that. For this country to really be effective it needs to have laws like the Jones Act removed. The country needs to stop getting double-taxed on products. For instance, let’s say Tylenol is made here but it’s packaged in the United States. So when it leaves Puerto Rico, Tylenol gets an export tax from Puerto Rico. When It comes back after getting packaged, it gets taxed again because you are importing a packaged product. It’s crazy. And when it comes to produce, this country needs a self-sustaining agriculture, because Puerto Rico imports about 90-percent of its produce. There are so many things, but the United States has their foot on this country’s neck. They’re not able to thrive in those areas, because if you want to become a farmer they’ll put a tax on resale and try to discourage the farmers. Honestly, it’s one big cluster fuck of bullshit going on in Puerto Rico with the corruption going on with the United States and the locals over there. It makes it seriously hard for Puerto Rico to lift itself up.
If someone wants to make a donation and help out the people of Puerto Rico, how can they do that?
Just to be clear, there’s more than just Puerto Ricans here. There are expats, people from the United States that live here now and are not Puerto Rican but also affected. We help anyone, it doesn’t matter who you are. We use Go Fund Me—Rock Steady For Life. You can also reach out with a tax-deductible donation or reach out direct on Instagram at @CrazyLegsBx. I’ll respond immediately and help you out with how to make a donation. We’ve done a lot and the donation money goes right to the hands of the people over here. This is like no bullshit, no red tape. We are making an immediate impact.
Unlike pigs, time does fly; or, unlike Travis Pastrana, Johnny Knoxville does not backflip. Yes, unbelievable though it may seem, 10 years ago, maybe not to the day but close enough for idiomatic horseshoes and hand grenades purposes, our fearless leader rose to the Evel Knievel occasion and, well, fell considerably short, you could say. But not only did he fall short, a motorbike basically fell on his crotch in the stunt gone rightly wrong process. Typically this would be considered gold—at least in the footage sense—but it also resulted in a lot of blood as well. Not just any blood, mind you, but dick blood! Jesus. What a horrifying thing to type, much less happen for real, but happen it did and thus did Knoxville supply the closer to an oddball release that supplemented the kick-off of the unfortunately short-lived "jackassworld" site in 2008.
If you're unfamiliar with anything I'm talking about, it all began in very late 2007, when BMX legend Mat Hoffman pitched the idea of a “Tribute to Evel Knievel,” where a bunch of guys came together to break all sorts of hairball records with daredevil panache. Since this couldn’t be done live in New York City during the coordinated 24-hours-of-bad-ideas-on-MTV launch of jackassworld.com, a separate production company was hired to film a pre-taped special all unto its own on location in Oklahoma with Mat, Travis Pastrana, Trigger Gumm, Allen Cooke, Scott Palmer, Midget Mike, Mini-bike Spike, and a few others hell bent for bike leathers.
Of course Knoxville is never one to sit idly by on the sidelines of fun, so it wasn't long before he was getting a crash course on how to backflip a motorbike. The one thing Pastrana sternly advised him NOT to do under any circumstances, though, was to let go of the bike. But that’s exactly what Knoxville did once he finally made it to the dirt jump. Up, up, up the bike went, and then down, down, down it came straight onto his pee-pee. One pair of scary bloody long johns later, he was taken to the hospital with a torn urethra and rewarded with his very own piss-bag and catheter combo. And boy oh boy did he have lots of fun with that in the weeks (and years!) to follow, perhaps more fun than one man with an injured penis ever could… or should? Anyway, it was from this fateful accident that the wheels were set in motion for what would eventually become Nitro Circus, or at least the Dickhouse-partnered version that would leave one hell of a carbon footprint on MTV throughout 2009.
Want to know more? Buy the book! Or for pennies on the dollar you can own the DVD.
Do you to the YouTubes? If so, be sure to check out Jukka's new show Ultimate Expedition, debuting today on the YouTube Red label (not to be confused with John Lucero's Black Label). But that's just part of what you can read below, where Rick Kosick went into the depths of Dudeson psychology and the worldwide monster it grew into from its Finnish house party origins.
Rick Kosick: So what’s the life of a Dudeson like nowadays?
Jukka: Being 37 and being a Dudeson, you still have the same mentality and attitude you are born with that you do first and think later. Just kidding, but I still live off what always was my passion—to create something new, original, and unique and have fucking fun in life. Never forget that inner kid. I’m 37 and I think I’m the most childish person in my family and I've got a 5- and a 3-year-old.
So you’re always trying to out do your kids?
Jukka: I try to out do my kids and I always tell them that playing is a kid’s most important job. That’s my job, too. Actually, right before I came here, I spent the morning with my kids building a Batmobile out of cardboard boxes. So being a Dudeson there’s two sides to me: I’m going to constantly keep pushing my limits, keep learning new things and skills in life, and keep walking into every situation with the confidence I've always had. You know, I got this, and when I get to the place and I don't, I say, "Oh, I so didn’t have this." Haha... but that’s where humor comes from.
The other thing is, I’m running Rabbit USA here in the US, so we're producing a lot of shows. In Finland, we're the biggest independent production company. We do 15 shows a year. Outside the original and unique Ideas we do, we produce Saturday Night Live, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and Shark Tank Hollywood Game Night. Everything else is something we created and I take those shows and try to sell them here. We-re in post-production for the biggest non-scripted YouTube Red series, a show called Ultimate Expedition that will air in January.
Why did you decide to move to America, is this something you always wanted to do?
I’m from a small town in Finland that only has 500 people. My dad can’t read or write. I’m from a very poor family and I had never traveled before I was seventeen. I had this ambition inside me to do something big… I wanted to inspire people to live their life to the fullest and push their limits, and that’s what drove me to America. First of all, I’ve been traveling back and forth for 15 years now, and I spend more time every time I'm here. I just wanted to make something happen, because Finland isn't big enough for four crazy Dudesons. So I decided to move to the US and spearhead the Dudeson’s brand, running Rabbit USA here. You know, what’s actually scary, is you have a certain status, a successful company, great people working for you, and then leaving that all behind to come to the US and start from scratch and you take your family with you. But it’s worth it.
You were a big fish in a small pond in Finland and now you're in America.
It’s a fucking ocean and I’m not even a shrimp! Even though I have a shrimp—but not anymore. In Finland I had a shrimp, because it was so damn cold. Haha… but I love America. You know why? Every place has a good and bad side, that’s obvious, but I always concentrate on the positive. You come here, the dream still lives on, and it’s so freaking inspiring. Everyday you might meet somebody that can change your life. There are people who are self-made and had their dreams come true. You got Netflix, Google, and everybody in entertainment is out here. What I want to do is to make miracles. I want to preach about positive anarchy, so that the kids will know how to live their life and believe in their dreams. I think that comes from a skateboarding background. Skateboarders are so critical—that’s the biggest thing I got from being a skateboarder. Whatever somebody tells me, I don’t believe it. I challenge it. Until I see it myself, then I'll believe it. There’s so much BS people are trying to shove down your throat.
I always thought skateboarders were more creative, because they've always been on the forefront of fashion and what’s hip in today's culture. It always trickles out from there.
I think so, too. First of all, it’s a lifestyle. You go hang with your friends and you bust balls everyday skating at a mall. You constantly keep trying a trick and pushing your limits. You get hurt, but you get up and go again. That’s the mentality in life, because life will throw you down but you've just got to get up. Sometimes I thought skateboarders were a little too cool for school, but I see why. They don’t take shit. That’s what Iove about it. I had a blessing to grow up with one of the best skateboarders I know, Arto Saari. He was my next-door neighbor when I was thirteen. Later on, he bought a house for his mom across from my house. It was funny, he came over and knocked on my window like seven years ago. He goes, "Hey Jukka, I got a place for my mom across the way." Obviously he had way more skateboarding skills than me, but I was pretty good about falling off the board.
Let’s take a step back. How did the Dudesons get started?
The Dudesons have a similar growth story like jackass. We were a bunch of friends that all met in elementary school, but it’s the same cultural background we had coming from skateboarding and snowboarding that sort of made us film all the stuff were doing. We wanted to film and make something cool, like, "Look, this is what we're doing: we're blowing up mailboxes, we're pulled 80 mph behind a bus on a sled, pulling backside 360 flips on a snowboard, doing something at a ditch on a skateboard." So it’s a combination of all of that craziness and lifestyle. We were like the Power Rangers and needed all four of us to make that magic happen. Jarno filmed and edited all the footage, and every Friday when I was in high school we would throw a house party and get everybody around to show them what we did last week. That was our audience until '97 when we put out our first movie. We did it all ourselves and mailed the VHS tapes to all of the sporting stores, begging them to put it on their shelves, and ended up selling a few of them. Luckily enough, Jarno applied for a job at this small underground cable channel called Moon TV. It doesn’t exist anymore, but at the time he was like, "We've got to make our own show." So he threw out the idea, we sold the show, and it premiered January 2001.
Wow, that’s really cool. And then it snowballed into something bigger?
Yeah, the fun thing is, all these people started reaching out to us. These big producers in Finland said they wanted to produce the show. We were like, "No, we don’t want anybody to touch this," because we all came from that skateboarding background, saying, "No, we don’t take any advice. We're going to do it ourselves, because we know what the young kids want to see." When we first did the show, we thought, "Okay, it won't be the worst show on the network," and all the sudden it was a success on that little cable channel. The second season, Channel 4, the second biggest commercial channel in Finland, reached out to us and said they wanted the second season. From there it snowballed into where we should do something international. We started about the same time as jackass on TV in Finland, and we were like, "Jackass is doing this in English. We can speak good enough English. We should do something worldwide." The funny thing is, nothing was ever sold from Finland outside of Finland before—like nothing international had ever been sold. We were the first show ever to be sold outside of Finland. So we went to the biggest TV market in Europe and walked around with a trailer where I put my balls into a mousetrap. We would walk into Disney and I’m looking at a Mickey Mouse Club trailer playing in the background as I’m showing my trailer to the Disney executives. When they saw me put my balls in a mousetrap with all the aftermath and how much it hurt, right then they said, "We might not be the right home for this, but you should go talk to Viacom and MTV." So we just went around. We didn’t know what we were selling, but we wanted to get something out there. After a year, we sold the first season to Australia and 150 other countries.
How did you meet Jeff Tremaine?
First I meet Steve-O. And we knew Bam, because he loved Finland. We were doing live festivals at the same time, where we had a band playing in the background and I was shooting a shotgun with a bulletproof vest and other big, crazy stunts onstage. Steve-o was on his world tour then and he was coming to Finland, so I got ahold of him through his management. When Steve-O came to Finland to do press, we met up and shot a couple of things. We bonded and really liked each other. We were supposed to do a show the next day, but before doing that Steve-O flew to Sweden to do a show and was bragging about how he swallowed bunch of weed in Holland. The Swedish cops busted him and put him in jail, so the show never happened. We had all the footage we filmed with Steve-O, but I didn’t have any appearance release forms and we really wanted to put this in our new Dudesons movie. So I flew to LA and hit up Steve-O to show him what we wanted to use. He came to the motel I was staying at and he was like, "I love it, but I can’t really call the shots. It’s a Jeff Tremaine question." At the time, Jeff was editing a video for Turbonegro at Hollywood Sound and I had a DVD with me. I was like, "Can we go meet Tremaine?" This is how it felt for me being a 19-year-old little boy from Finland. So I came in and Steve-O introduced me to Jeff. I told him what I do and Jeff is like, "Let's watch the DVD." So I’m trying to make it play, but my DVD is in PAL mode and not NTSE, so it’s not working. Tremaine is standing on his ivory tower saying, "Time is money, boy." Finally I got it working and it’s a seven-minute presentation reel. When it was finished playing, Tremaine was like, "Hell fucking yeah. I love you guys, and go ahead, Steve-O." That’s when we got to use Steve-O in our DVD, and then we met Bam. Ever since then, Tremaine has become a dear family friend. He has definitely been a big inspiration, and it all started by meeting Steve-O. I love Steve-O. We’ve been friends for fourteen years now. I’ve seen him change and how he’s got that burning will to live and evolve as a person.
Now that you’re living in Los Angeles, do you miss seeing your fellow Dudeson brothers?
We all own the company together, so the Dudesons come here all the time. Jarppi just left, and Jarno was here just before that. So the way we look at is, I’m filming the Dudeson vlog for YouTube from my point of view, being the spearhead, and we try to have each guy come here for ten days throughout the year. So we still get to do things together, because it’s obvious we grew up together and can count on each other. There’s definitely a chemistry every time they come here. I do miss them a lot, but thank god I have the pleasure of having them come here as well.
That’s great. And it’s a good thing for them, too, because it’s warm.
Yeah, it’s warm. Palm trees, sunshine. Jarno lived here for a year. He came to help launch all this with me, but he moved back to Finland for family reasons.
So how gnarly is too gnarly? Are there any limits as to how far you will take a stunt?
You know what, it’s tough to judge beforehand… usually that’s a call I make too late. Haha... I don’t give up, I just always want to go at it. And if something is ridiculously stupid and will just kill you, you’re not going to go at it, but you’re going to change it in a way that you can do it. The most important thing is, whatever I’m going to do I believe in myself 100-percent, like "I got this." And rarely do I have it. Also, I think it's more about having a unique perspective or an original idea that you just freaking love, to go out there and do it in real life. Sometimes the funniest bits are the ones that won't end up breaking bones. Some of the things we’ve done, like during Dudesons in America, when Knoxville and Tremaine introduced us to bulls and bull-riding—walking into a bullring on stilts while wearing a red shirt was such a blast. You hear Gary Leffew, the legendary bull rider say, "Release the beast!" and you can see it eyeballing you. You can tell it’s thinking, "I’m going to take you down." Then it swept the stilts right out from underneath me and I fell on the ground. I could see the bull circle, and I’m like, "All right, here it comes." I just jumped a little bit, so he could give a little bump on my butt, but he ends up hammering me. I do a backflip over the bull and end up on my feet. If I didn’t end up landing on my feet, I would have been screwed—the bull would have done a headstand on me.
There are two things I love to do: one is where you need some kind of skills, like this year I set my goals to learn a double backflip and a full twist backflip on a trampoline, and I learned them at Tempest. So I love the things you need some skill, but I love also the fear factor, like on jackass 3D when I did the stunt with Johnny Knoxville where we climbed a huge tree while Jarppi and everyone else were sawing the bottom. We were waiting to fall down with the tree and I’m talking to Knoxville and I'd never seen him so scared. I asked him, "What are you afraid of?" He’s like, "Jukka, I don’t like heights. I like the kind of stunts where it’s not up to you if you screw it up, it’s just luck." So I love to go out of my comfort zone and take that leap of faith to do something crazy.
I also like to do creative builds. We duct taped an inflatable mattress on the side of a van and then I wore double-sided duct tape and I’m jumping on the trampoline waiting for the van to pass. Then I jumped on the mattress on the side of the van to see if it sticks, and it freaking stuck! That’s always crazy. Can we build a trampoline out of Saran Wrap and then jump from the roof onto the trampoline? There are certain times you are fucking scared, but then there’s that whole process of building it and seeing it come together and you're like, "All right, I’ll go for it."
With YouTube as big as it is now and kids creating content, making their own shows, how much can you make from doing this?
It's stupid money. If you’re successful on YouTube it’s ridiculous. First of all, I love YouTube in a way that I can shoot something today and post it tomorrow and everyone around the world will get it and the fans will comment on it. So I think the YouTube viewers are more engaged than anyone else. Plus, you get to see your product come out with a fast turnaround, rather than shooting a movie or a show and have it come out in nine months. Like you get to react to what you do and what people like and what you like. At the same time, so many people are doing it to be pranksters and I fucking hate the pranksters. They're just shocking the world for the sake of shocking and most of the shit is fake. What I love about jackass and how I grew up is let's keep shit real. Some of the YouTube videos aren't like that. I’ve heard people say things like, "Big influencers, why would we even try to do it for real, because fake shit does so much better for us." I was like, "Who said that and who do I punch in the face?" YouTube used to pay a thousand dollars per million views, but they want to become the next Netflix, so they went from paying not per view but minutes watched. So let's say you make a ten-minute video and 80-percent of your audience watches eight minutes of it. You’re going to make two- or three-thousand dollars per million views. So if Jake Paul did 400 million views, that’s almost a million dollars per month. That’s not bad for being a YouTube kid. I would say the rule is like if you get 50 million views a month you get between 50- to a hundred-thousand.
Maybe it’s because I’m older, but I just don’t think these new generation of YouTubers have a tangible quality and come off a little cheesy.
I think so, too. There are a lot of people that have potential, but there are even more people who have no charisma ad are used to talking to their cat. That’s the beauty of you and our upside, the strength in Rabbit USA and The Dudesons, we come from the 20th century of making content. We know how to tell stories from the beginning, middle, and end. We respect working with the crew, but we also understand how you have to do the digital content for the millennial audience, where you have to be intimate and talk directly at them. Whereas TV, you go directly to a lot of people, so how do you put those two things together? That’s the magic of it. I think a lot of these people have grown up with nobody telling them what to do, they just do their thing and found a niche audience and they're not willing to make any comprise. But they don’t even know how to work with a crew. They are very black and white, like TV is dead and YouTube is all there is. But they're also anal and going through the comments, looking at what somebody said negative and deleting. That becomes their whole little hamster wheel of living in that world and they’re not happy. They’re stressing because they have to put out content daily and the worst life they are living. I’m worried about that, all of the sudden, you have to tell a story in two or five minutes and the way you cut the footage in the first six seconds you have to have a cute butt and the next six seconds you have to have a funny face, where we're used to telling stories and giving something time to breathe. So I’m determined to find a way to make this work, and I think we just cracked it with this new YouTube show I did called Ultimate Expedition. I respect TV and the silver screen, and I know if you can reach that level of charisma you can have something successful. You’re set for life. These YouTubers will have an audience for a few years and then go away if they don’t have the charisma to step up to the next level.
So what can we expect to see from you in 2018?
We have a killer show coming out called Ultimate Expedition on YouTube Red. It’s a very organic show, where I take eight celebrities—all from the traditional world to digital influencers—to this mountain that’s 20,000-feet high. Eight people died trying to summit the mountain in the past, and all these celebrities have zero skills in mountain climbing. We got Steve-O, Chuck Liddell, the former UFC champion, Gus Kenworthy, the first openly gay athlete who is competing in the Winter Olympics… all of them trying to climb this mountain from zero to a hundred and every day only gets tougher. You’re so high up everybody is struggling with altitude sickness and running into the danger of getting liquid lungs and evacuated off the mountain. There are crevices and the possibility of avalanches.
This is the biggest non-scripted YouTube Red show they’ve ever done. It’s produced and shot in Peru, in the mountains called Tocllaraju, and I think that combines the filmmaking look. We have Emmy award-winning camera guys, a sound guy that sounded Mount Everest, and a great digital team that are building videos for Steve-O. They made 22 videos just for his channel, like getting choked out by Chuck Liddel to whatever, so he can have his own story. Throughout the ten weeks that each episode is coming out, the cast members are going to be uploading content on their own channels as well, so when you’re watching the show you can learn more about Steve-O and see what else he did during that episode. So it’s like this new ecosystem with the existing fans and the cast members feeding into the show and the show feeding into the cast members and collaborating with each other. It’s the first time YouTube has done something like that and I’m really excited on how the show looks.
I am a Dudeson for life and I believe in positive anarchy, but I also want to be the modern Indiana Jones that takes these people and keeps it real and pushes their limits with my own example. It was none of that Bear Grylls bullshit where he takes Ben Stiller to a jungle on a helicopter for a day and then they go back and stay at a 5-star hotel and then take a helicopter back the next day. On our show, everybody stays at the basecamp at 14,000 feet, struggling with sickness and everyone pooped at the same hole. What’s great about the show, we isolated everyone because there’s no cellphone service. You get away from today's noise and hecticness, you start asking yourself what you really want out of life. It really focuses you. You start asking yourself, "Am I happy?" Steve-O is battling with his addiction. Chuck Liddell, who’s retired from the UFC, needs a mental reset and wants to know what to do next. Then there’s Furious Pete, who had testicular cancer six months earlier and didn’t know if he was going to be alive. Then all of sudden he’s trying to summit a mountain, one of the most beautiful places Mother Earth has to offer. So the show is going to be quite an adventure.
On top of that, I’ll use the Dudeson’s vlog to set an example on how not to forget your inner kid. You can be 37-years-old and running a business, but stay fun! Laugh at yourself. You don’t have to become too serious, but at the same time push your limits. Learn new skills. I want to learn how to fly a plane this year and go diving with sharks. So I’m using my vlog as a vehicle to share the cool shit in life. At the same time, when kids are watching it, hopefully they get inspired and want to do something special with their life. I always say in my vlog, "What’s your Dudeson’s goal for the year. Say it out loud. What’s your dream? Say it out loud. What are you doing this week to get yourself close to your dream? How are you going to surprise yourself today or this week?" When they say, "I want to become a soccer player, or I want to learn how to play the guitar, or I want to put together a heavy metal band, or I want to learn a backflip," when they say that out loud, they are already part of the Dudesons and you're part of the family. You say, "What is a Dudeson?" A Dudeson is a feeling when you achieve something and feel alive—that’s what a Dudeson is.
I’ve been going to the Comedy Store for a couple of years now and it’s seriously my favorite place to go and hangout. You can catch me there just about every Monday and Tuesday night, and it all started because I would go and watch the Roast Battle. There’s something about these comedy shows that can be very captivating, like how these comedians have the ability to connect with the audience via their witty joke writing skills. At times, the energy in the room reminds me of a punk rock concert, but non-violent; or, maybe I’m just attracted to this world because everything I’ve done with my career has been about humor and making people laugh. It seems like a natural fit, right?
As time went on, I slowly started making friends with everyone who works at the Comedy Store. That’s what led me to meeting Tony Hinchcliffe, but our friendship didn’t really start until he moved into my building where I live in Hollywood—what are the chances of that happening? But it did, and I would see him walking around the building and in the courtyard. I would say hello and strike up a conversation—you know, small talk, being a friendly neighbor—but as time passed I'd see him sitting on his patio smoking cigarettes, kicking back, and that’s when we started getting to know each other. I'd walk over and talk to him through his wooden fence on the patio, just like on the TV show Home Improvement. He would always invite me to come see his Kill Tony show, and I eventually accepted his invitation. From the moment I first started going to his show, I instantly liked it. It’s a really funny! So I go just about all the time, and now that we’ve become friends, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for you to learn about Tony Hinchcliffe and his world of pure imagination. —Rick Kosick
Kosick: How did you get started as a comedian, was this something you always dreamed of doing when you where growing up?
Tony: I was always being a class clown, making fun of people—not really being a bully, but making fun just trying to make everyone laugh—and it’s probably from not having a dad growing up. He was around—in fact, I knew he was in the same city as me, he was just with another family. So it probably wired me to want more approval and acceptance from people… to be liked and loved or whatever. So I would always try to make people laugh as far back as I can remember, but I really found out about standup comedy between the 8th grade and my freshman year. Well, I knew about it from watching David Letterman and all of the amazing appearances from people, but between 8th grade and freshman year I saw the movie Man on the Moon. I love Jim Carry and I loved everything he had done up until that point, so when I saw that and the scene in the beginning where Andy is at the Improv and he’s getting fired, I was like, wait… I started putting it together through that movie that you can get paid to perform all the time and get better at performing while getting paid. I still didn’t think it was possible to do or how to become a comedian until I had already been out here in LA. I didn’t know you could just go to an open mic and perform just to get better. We didn’t have open mics where I was from.
When did you actually decide to try doing it?
I was like 21 and living with my brother out here in LA. I had a script and a half sort of written, but wasn't doing anything with it. Then one day at a Starbucks coffee shop I struck up a conversation with this old wizardly-looking man with a gigantic beard and big Afro hair. I told him that I’d written a movie and a half and how I always wanted to do standup comedy. He’s like, "You should do standup comedy." "Yeah," I’m like, "how do you do that?" He said, "You should go to an open mic at the Comedy Store." Turns out that wizardly old man was Shia LaBeouf’s crazy dad. So I’m like, if that’s Shia LaBeouf’s dad and his son went and performed at the Comedy Store like five or six years ago and just signed a five-picture deal with Steven Spielberg… trust me go to the Comedy Store, do it. I had no other guidance or any inspirations, but this wizardly old man sort of jolted my stomach and really made me get to it.
So I did. I started out at the Comedy Store instead of a smaller open mic somewhere. That’s a pretty big deal, because I built my entire foundation out of there and worked my way up for a decade and used that place as the backbone for all the work I do. It all comes right out of there on Sunset Blvd. where he told me to perform. But before I did that, I hyped it up and prepped for months for a single three-minute open mic spot, and when I got up onstage I blanked out. Completely. After all that prep and everything, I ended up saying, "Hello. Yep, I’m Tony Hinchcliffe, and I can’t remember anything I was going to say to you. Um, this is my first time onstage and I’ve been prepping for literally two or three months, sitting at parks, writing and editing stuff for this moment right now, and here I am and I don’t remember any of it." I was getting chuckles and laughs, because everybody had done jokes up until that point and I was completely different. It broke the wall of the entire room, because I was being so honest. I had nothing else. It was either say what was on front of my brain, or don’t talk at all. And so I talked and that’s what came out. The host, Ryan O'Neal, who's hilarious to this day and one of the funniest fucking people, loved it. He goes, "Wow, that was that guy's first time onstage tonight and he did better than everybody else that went up." I was like number 14 out of 16, or something like that. I couldn’t believe it. It was crazy. My brother was there and he was like, "Dude, you fucking did it." We didn’t know how the business worked—or how anything worked—so it was a celebratory type of night, because to me it was the world, crushing the Comedy Store. But I spent every set after that for months trying to get back up to that level of funny again, in the moment, raw and real.
When did you become a doorman at the Comedy Store?
I probably started 3 to 4 months later. At that time there was only one way to get a job at the Comedy Store and that was getting hired by Tommy, the talent coordinator trained by Mitzi Shore to make the lineups and do what she did. He would go to her house every week, get advice and tell her things or whatever for work, and they would talk about stuff. She was very sick at the time, so he would go to her house every week to get advice and tell her things or whatever for work. He was the last link to Mitzi. Tommy hired me, stuck by me, and gave me an incredible chance to expand. He had me start hosting the original room, making fun of comedians after they did three minutes of material, and sometimes throwing in a quick trick to fix their joke or give them a good piece of advice. Three or four years after that, I started my show Kill Tony. Tommy is almost completely responsible for the creation of Kill Tony, because he wanted me to be a host—he saw a host and he was right, because I love the chaos. I love moving pieces around and acknowledging what’s in the moment, which is exactly what happed on that first set.
So did you make a lot of sacrifices to make this work for you? Was it pretty tough?
Oh yeah, very tough. When I started, it was just my brother and I, and he had a really hot girlfriend at the time, so I always remember feeling like the third wheel. I was always just hanging out taking bong rips in the living room. Once I started standup, though, it was a race to get out of there. Two or three months later I moved in with a bunch of comedians… me, Matt Edgar, and Sandy Danto. They each had a bedroom and I was in the living room. We all wanted to pay less rent, because we were just door guys at the Comedy Store, so we moved in another roommate, then another roommate—there were three people in the living room and one in each bedroom. I moved out after six months to move in with a girl, and we lived together for a year in a studio apartment. Then I moved into a studio apartment with two comedians and one of their wives, so I was in a top bunk in a studio apartment with a couple underneath me, and another guy living on the other side of the room. That lasted about six months until I decided, "Fuck this. This is insane. I’m sleeping in a fetal position on a top bunk, and I’m working at the Comedy Store continuously doing spots and it’s all a machine." So I ended up sleeping in the backseat of my car during the summer. I would wake up in the back alleyway at the Comedy Store, because there was nobody there at the time, amd take a shower in the main room. I had everything folded up, saved up a bunch of money from doing that and working continuously until 5 or 6am. It was the craziest summer ever! Don Barris was going until six in the morning in the original room, we were doing a lip sync rock 'n' roll band called the Barris Kennedy Overdrive, which we did continuously for years, but during this time we were at our full phases. The Comedy Store doors would lock and we would play air instruments over the loud speakers and rock out to all of these different songs and Don had all of these tracks. That’s when I learned to improvise and learned comedy Jiu-Jitsu during those late nights. We would go eat food at 6am, get back to the Comedy Store at 7am, fall asleep for four hours in the backseat of my car, then wakeup and start answering phones all day at the Comedy Store. Once 4pm came around, I'd go shower, eat something, and then go work the door and try to do some spots or maybe try and hit an open mic before my spot at the Comedy Store started.
What year was this?
It wasn't that long ago… 2009–2010. I put all my focus, money, and energy into writing and performing, period. If it wasn’t that crazy the night before and I didn’t sleep in late, I would go get a newspaper, bring it back behind the Comedy Store, and start writing monologue jokes, which I've never written before professionally but it created the habit in me of writing, being able to do it when I was uncomfortable. So by the time 2010 came around, I was hosting and writing crazy jokes and making fun of the comedians when they weren’t doing good. When Jeff Ross approached me on the patio after seeing me do all of that, and I told him that I can write roast jokes, that it’s a dream of mine, and I’ve been making fun of people my whole life. He’s like, "Maybe you can help me with something," and we started writing jokes together for the roast of Quentin Tarantino.
So people were starting to recognize you and taking you under their wing?
Yeah, there wasn't that many people; in fact, there’s an interesting thing a lot of those guys that I was living with in the apartment… a lot of them had powerful mentors when they were coming up. This guy's got Jeff Garlin; this guy's got Pauly Shore. Man, I didn't get to open for anybody. To me, I was this white trash kid from an Italian gangster neighborhood in Ohio with a good fight but nobody backing me at all. So to look back and see how that storyline switched… it's incredible. It just goes to show you that sacrifice and keeping your head moving forward, to keep grinding and staying positive and not look at what everybody else has, because if I'd done that back then I would have been done. I would have quit. First it’s Jeff Ross, then it’s Joe Rogan… it’s incredible, I think when you love comedy you have a good eye for who else really loves it and who’s hungry. I think those guys recognized that in me.
Who are some of the people you look up to and influence you?
Quentin Tarantino is probably the reason I even came out here in the first place. Him and Roger Waters, learning from them that art was even a thing. I always listen to music and watch movies, but it was something about the way they were doing it, like, "Wow, I want to be able to do fucking that." Like what is that? They’re both pretty dark, and it’s something to create crazy and different, cool, raw, and real, but to sort of like appease someone’s appetite like they did for me when I was fresh out of high school and depressed and not knowing what to do? The big part of me coming out here to live with my brother was because I was depressed and there’s nothing going on in Ohio. I hated school. I was over it.
Didn’t you get the opportunity to meet Roger Waters in person?
Yeah, I got to see him all star-struck by the person I was hanging out with who took me there. Nobody was talking to Roger Waters, like it’s not a thing. Then some security guy came up to us and said someone would like to speak with you and took us into another fancy green room where I got to tell him, "Thank you. I’m an artist because of you," and he said, "Well, thank you, that’s very nice." It was crazy! Especially after watching this mind-blowing concert. His other two concerts I paid for and I was completely broke. I made a point to see him at the LA Coliseum in the very back at the top. Complete garbage seats. I remember the plane that comes in at the beginning of The Wall was hanging on top of a wire over my head where I was sitting. The time before that was in Cleveland, Ohio, seeing Roger Waters, and all I remember is this giant bar in front of me with a big ledge. It was horrible. A blip on the map and even farther then the time I saw him at the Coliseum. But this last concert, we picked up our tickets and just kept walking to the front. It turns out we were in the row he looks at when he’s zoned in when he’s singing, strumming the shit out of his bass guitar, and I was five rows and slightly to the left when the helicopter flies over and he’s like, "You, and yes you," pointing.
So it was pretty much a biblical experience.
Yes, in my own weird way, but I’ve gotten a lot of those already. By working with Dave Chappelle, working with Jeff Ross, meeting Don Rickles—to me, that’s three generations for roasters, a weird art form up until a couple of years ago.
You’re at the point now where you've been doing the Kill Tony show for a few years and it seems to be going really good. Are you happy to see how the show has grown and how its been cultivating some new legends in the comedy scene?
Yeah, I love it. I’m having the time of my life with it. It’s my most proud thing. With Kill Tony I like to think it’s almost a Tarantino/Roger Waters type of experiment, because I am working with a band of people who are all over the place. They’re all goofy, crazy, and creative, but there are also elements of seriousness throughout the show and elements of really funny stuff. Which reminds me of Tarantino, because his movies are so funny and I don’t think people realize how funny they really are sometimes. They are sort of funnier than some comedies, because the tension is built and then it breaks down and then it’s built and then it breaks down again. That’s something we definitely do on Kill Tony. I love it. Everywhere I go around the world, people are listening and watching it. They will come see me do standup and they come up and talk about Kill Tony after the show on their way out. They'll also mention their favorite characters—Ichabod, Aphrodite, Mystery Dan, or whoever it may be, like Tam Pham. We talk about Pat Regan or Jeremiah Watkins or what’s Joel Burg really like, what does Redban smell like?
I love it. It’s my favorite thing in the world. I think everybody should have one that’s ever listened to the show. One of the craziest things about the show is that it’s so fun every single week. It makes it naturally different than a lot of stuff, and I feel like we're always getting better. So when I see Ryan’s book it reminds me of everything we’ve been through and the expansion and it makes me happy because every single form of art flows through that show. It’s also a podcast and video podcast in 360 VCR. There’s all of these different ways it’s being consumed and that’s all art. The book is special, because it's the oldest school version of art, so we have the spectrum covered. I mean what podcast has a book? It’s literally my favorite thing I’ve ever seen.
It seems like you’re pretty hooked up now. You get to hangout with a lot of cool people, attend a bunch of Hollywood parties, and you get to travel around the country opening for Joe Rogan. Do you feel like you’ve made it or is there still room for growth?
I definitely haven’t made it, or what I would like to do at all. I mean I’m having fun, but this is all just growth. Even Rogan is the same way. To us, our mentalities, everything is just growth to another adventure. We don’t know what’s next. As far as old dreams and everyday, that goes on. I get over my old dreams and I’m ready for what’s next. I feel bad for my friends who are showcasing for the Tonight Show. Who’s watching and why there? What grandma do you want to come to your show in Tuscaloosa that you’re not reaching. Again, going back to Joe Rogan, he’s talking to who he wants and what he wants to talk about. He’s created a special way to communicate to comedy fans and his fans of positive living, happy thoughts, and learning. He’s got his thing. I’m also working on other things as well, and I still have some old dreams knocking off the list.
Do you have any plans for a second Netflix special?
I have plans for a second special, but I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go? I’m not a 100-percent positive on that yet… I might try something crazy with that, but yes, locked and ready to go.
So looking back at everything you’ve done so far, are you happy with what you’ve achieved?
Yeah, I’m happy, but not content. Like it’s fun, but I don’t know… I’m inspired by the guys I’m lucky to work with, so happy, yes. Aware, very much so. Everyday I’m reminded in some way about having my clothes perfectly folded in the trunk of my car. I thought about that earlier today, when I was rearranging some shit, going through some old clothes and getting rid of them. I’m still that guy, but I also know a bunch of cool things I want and still have crazy dreams.
This year, like every other for the past three to be precise, Tremaine locks down a location and rounds us all up from our various corners of the universe for a family-style night of drinks, food, and fun—the pinnacle of fun being a certain "White Elephant" gift exchange game that has only grown and amped up in energy over time. Catch LA was the restaurant of choice, and they wisely provided us with a room and bar all unto our own, thereby minimizing any collateral damage to other patrons of more intimate, eating minds and tolerances. But look at the photos, look at the silly little photos, and have yourself a good one this holiday season!
Please make note how all the photos are nicely composed and well lit, because it's not going to last long. This was still early in the evening, so Barry Smoler and Jen look pretty in black at far left; middlemen Wee-Man and Chris Pontius could be Dasher and Dancer; and Wayne and Shanna Newton came totally correct in their very formal party attire at very far right.
And it just wouldn't be a big time Hollywood night if Tremaine wasn't taking a call, so Sean Cliver and Mae Quijada adapted to the moment in kind at left, while Rick Kosick at right later caught him off the phone and in a shirt bearing his bang-a-gong likeness from jackass the movie!
Once the food hit the table, so did the people. At far left, Shad reflects upon his life choices and the watershed of reasons he doesn't allow people to comment on his Instagram profile, while Guch remains the eternal sage; Joe Oz ran the middle of the table in pitch perfect 1st AD form, while his next door neighbor David Siev made sure all the strings were orchestrated behind the scenes and running smooth, just as he does at the office; and then of course Amanda Adelson had to tell everyone to "Go To 15" via sign language amid an animated Spike Jonze, a bemused Kosick, and a confused Tremaine at far right.
Shanna and Spike eventually managed to coerce Amanda into not doing something unladylike for a photo at far left, while Lucky Pierre's Johnny Knoxville and Sean Cliver went the complete opposite direction. Wee-Man, on the other hand, grabbed the bull by the beef and filled his stomach accordingly at far right.
And so we finally arrive at the "White Elephant" game of thrills, where Dimitry Elyashkevich arguably came up on one of the true premiums of the night, a coveted #MAGA hat, at far left; or, did Shanna score the score of scores in the middle with Spike's original drawing of "Jeff and PJ Forever"? No, it was definitely Tremaine at far right who locked up the prize possession with some cockamamie if not outright disturbing Edward Scissorhands-esque straightjacket fresh off the racks of Hot fucking Topic.
Thanks again to Tremaine and Shanna for throwing down for the night of extended family fun. Thanks also to Kosick, Wee-Man, and Mae for having the presence of mind and wherewithal to take photos amid the revelry!
