Dr. Peter Weller
Appearances
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Sí, es lo que pasa. Pero prima, yo pensé en italiano, en francés, en todas las otras lenguas.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they're very kind about it. You can't do that, though, man. You got to go. I know.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, there's a piece of art that is really, and I can't overspeak it. You can't. Oversay it. I mean, there's an art historian that came along in the last five, 10 years who said this piece of art is the one piece of art that you can't impugn. And everybody from Rembrandt to Leonardo to Michelangelo to Picasso to Rothko. So they sourced this piece of art, and it's by a guy named Giotto.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'm Mexican. It's not as complicated. It's not as complicated as this guy. No, and it's so beautiful. But anyway, the point of this long-winded event is that I'm at this thing. And I asked Vittorio Storaro who his favorite painter is, right? An Italian, of course.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Chi è il suo preferito pittorio? And he says to me in English, he's just so condescending. He says, first of all, who's yours? And I said, you know, I like, at that time, you know, everybody's favorite jam, as you can bring it up, like Caravaggio, because Caravaggio's everybody's movie maker. That's hers. I love him. The thing is, that's a cliche.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's an honest cliche, because he's the first guy to really change lighting and light from the sides of more than.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Plus, he's a violent dude. I have to give a paper on him at the Mediterranean Society in about two weeks. Oh, really? But the thing is that you go to Caravaggio, you can go to, you know, Rembrandt derives out of him. And then I go to, like, I said, well, look, man, you know, I told Vittoria, I said, really, if you want to ask, really, my favorite of favorites might be...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Hans Hoffman, the New York school guy, or Larry Rivers. Because I was deeply into New York school guys. And he just nods his head. He's like blowing me off. And I say, who's yours? He says, look, have you been to Padua? I said, no. I've never been to Padua at this time. 1991 or two, whatever that was. He says, you've been going to Italy for how long? I said, 10 years.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He says, you've never been to Padua? Padua. I said, no. He says, you've never seen Giotto? I said, who? He says, Giotto. And Giotto and Padua. I said, okay. So Metta Boy knew who it was. Because Metta Boy's school. Jean Moreau knew who it was. Because she's smart, right? I didn't know who the F he was talking about.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he said the very first one, you know, by three, seven frames of narrative movie in depth, spatial height, width, depth, color. Feeling passion, tears, the first real attempt at spatial perspective in a narrative in a movie that goes around a 20-meter church, in front of which is Giovanni Pisano. You know who he is? No. No. He says, well, he's the first.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Him and his dad were the first realist medieval sculptors. They go to Siena. I go, yeah, once. He says, so you don't know Giotto, and you don't know Pisano, and you don't know. I said, no. He says, well, you know, then Peter, he takes his Versace scarf. If I could do an invitation, he flips it over his shoulder. He goes, we cannot talk about art. Oh, my God. What a diva. It blows me. Diva.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I chase the guy down to a corner. Oh, my gosh. He wanders away. And I say, se potenzioso. You're pretentious, man. He goes, no, tu se potenziosissimo. You're super pretentious. Como tutti americani. You know, to Rembrandt. And you can say Cy Twombly. You can say Jackson Pollock. You can drop, you know, all of the New York school guys. You can say Rothko. But all of these people source Giotto.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They all source Giotto. Picasso. All of them. Cara, Rembrandt, Caravaggio. They all say it, Peter. So if you do not know Giotto, you don't have any context. You don't know what you're talking about. Because you're like all the Americans I know, the movie guys who can drop all these hot names, you know, Warhol or whatever. But even Warhol knows who Giotto was and studied Giotto. So who are you?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I'm thinking, damn, man. I feel like historical idiot. And so my buddy Brian Hamill, arguably one of the great poster photographers ever, brother of the, it's nice that Mark Mara, I know he, not only him and his brothers, Pete Hamill and John and Dennis Hamill, the Hamill clan of true artists. But Brian is one of the, you know, the poster, De Niro in Raging Bull with the sweat. Okay, yes.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Manhattan. Yes. Well, yeah, it was Manhattan. Oh, yeah. The bridge, man. Redford with the natural. Okay. Gifted, gifted photographer, photographic artist.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And a longtime friend. And we all celebrate yesterday, right? And all my friends... Because I go to Venice every year for Christmas Hanukkah. All Christmas Hanukkahs I spend in Venice for the last... Since that day. Since Vittorio. Really? Yeah, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
G-I-O-T-T-O.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because from Japan, I went to... Venice, and I never looked back. And I told my mother, I said, I'm going to Venice. I'm in Venice today. I missed two out of the last 34 years. I missed two Christmases.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So Brian and I, we do that. We go to Venice, and we go to Padua. You know, we were initially not going to do it. We were going to go to St. Bart's. He broke up with a girlfriend, and I was doing a great movie, but it was a miserable time in northern Quebec. And he said, man, I don't want to go to St. Barts. I said, well, he says, let's go to someplace dreary, man. Yeah, Venice is horrible.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, Giotto. And he does this chapel that's about 20 meters long.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We hate Venice. We warn people. He says, yeah, let's go there, man. I'm feeling terrible. You're feeling terrible. Let's go to the worst place for Christmas. And that way, there will be no place to go but up.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Now, I wrote about this in Travel Leisure.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Google it. Peter Wallace Christmas Adventist. I don't hype this to you out of the hyperbole of ego, although I do have a preponderance of attitude, as I say, like this current administration does. I'm burying under this preponderance of attitude. But I tell you this, I say this to you, Travelugia Peter Wallace, because I want you to go. I want to go.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But you write articles for Cigar Aficionado, articles for Travelugia, whatever, right? And usually they'll edit them according to how many tourists they are applying to or how many foodies are going to read this, how many whatever, right? And they wanted me to write that thing about your Christmas event. And they said, we'll do an app.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Called the Cappella Scrovegni. Scrovegni, like G-N is pronounced like million in Italian.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We'll follow around with a camera for a second and have a little 45-second app. I said, I don't really want to do it because I know you guys are going to edit it. And it's not going to be, you know, my thing. They promised to give us 1,500 words. We won't edit it. And I said, well, it's just going to be this experience of what happens this year.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And so I highly recommend it because it does discuss me and Brian going. And Brian and I meeting in the old airport in Venice, you know, in order to be depressed.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Right. Because he says there will be no place to go but up. We'll start at the bottom. Right.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Venice is like, we hate Venice. And Venice in winter is like really dreary. And it's Don't Look Now. It's Nick Rogue, you know, with Donald Sutherland with the little red girls and the knives are going to kill you.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, it's all these horror stories or whatever. And Venice has got an evil thing to it, like New Orleans.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they know it, but they accept it, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Something about the canals. No, but they accept it. Look, look, look. They know it, and New Orleans accepts it. They go, yeah, that's part of our jam.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Like G-L is the same way, yeah. Scrovegni and that Cappella Scrovegni or Scrovegni Chapel or Arena Chapel, and the reason why they call it Arena Chapel in English, because it's right by an old Roman arena in Padova. And Padua is a beautiful city, the second oldest civic university. Oh, I didn't know that. Most universities are part of abbeys, like Oxford and Sorbonne and so forth.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. You know, we got voodoo here. We got the other gods here, too, man. And so when Brian and I landed, we landed about 45 minutes apart. It was like 5 o'clock. It was getting dark. And it's toasty, you know, and he's coming up from Sicily and I'm coming up from Quebec and we get in a taxi boat and we're looking at those lights flickering through the magenta sunset.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, because it's the air from the cool air hits the sea. It's like this gauze. And that turns that sun into, like I said, an orange. It turns it into like this magenta gold. It's bizarre. And all the great paintings are painted in winter in Venice because of that sun. Yeah. Because of that filter of the dispensing air, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And we're looking at that and the light's flickering, you know, in the bell towers. And I never forget Brian with his... Brooklyn Irish thuggery turned to me and says, Peter, I think this is going to be really good. And, man, it was 10 days of heaven.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We walked Venice soup to nuts, man. We discovered Venice. We got up at 7 every day, walked it one way, walked the other, walked it one way, walked the other for 10 days. And you know something? I turned to him at the end of it. We're going up to Paris for New Year's. I said, Brian, I'm spending every Christmas here, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is the most freeing, inviting, historical, weird, and inspiring place ever. And we went to Padua to see what Vittorio did. And those days you could smoke a cigar and walk over to the cappuccino. What are we going to see here? And Brian, you know, he's a photographer. And I'm a movie guy. And we walk in the front door. Nowadays it's hermetically sealed. It's been restored.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You've got 15 minutes. That's it. But this is something that da Vinci talks about. These are frescoes that Michelangelo sources. This is like... You know, it's true that everybody has sourced them. Vittorio Storo is correct. There's not a painter of the Western world that hasn't gone to there.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And this critic that came out about five years ago said, Giotto in the Cappella Scrovegni is the one event of Western art that you can't impugn. You cannot even criticize it. You can't even go there with, well, you know, as far as texture. Or one of these hoity-toity pretentious pieces of bullshit that people gauge art now. Because that is a jump off place. That's Neil Armstrong going to the moon.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You're going to criticize that? You're going to, well, you know, if I was Neil Armstrong, you know what I would have said. But that's what art critics do and art enthusiasts. That's not for me. And I know what I like. But to quote Gerns Gombrich, you don't know what you like. You like what you know. First of all, you've got to admit naivete.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And second of all, you've got to have somebody take you by the hand and walk you through.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And, you know, if you don't have somebody walking you through history for weirdos, it's always going to be weird.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But the thing is, if somebody walks you through and goes, look, see this here before? They're trying. See this fresco here from ancient Rome? Yeah. They had it down. It's lost. They're trying here in the Middle Ages. They can't do it. Okay, how come this guy can't?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, maybe because he's studying with this amazing mosaic guy, Pietro Cavallini, that we can see in Rome, who invents depth with pieces of glass. Depth with pieces of glass is his Cavallini. Maybe it's because he's studying with him. It sure as hell isn't because he's like, you know, studying with anybody.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Something comes off the chip and all of a sudden you walk into the Capella Scriveni and you go... holy cow, and Brian and I went, we gotta call Vittorio Storero and thank this guy, and then I've thanked everybody since then, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The oldest civic university, that means essentially licensed by a civilian, like Frederick Robert Rose, is Bologna. And it's in situ the oldest university in the world. The second one is Padua, because some of these teachers and students – Bologna's like 1170s, 80s. Padua's 1220s. Okay. Is that old enough for you? Yeah. Okay. I think so.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I've thanked everybody, you know, cinematographers, I mean, Brian was working with, and I had just worked with Carlo De Palma, who was Antonioni's guy, and then he was with Woody Allen, and we'd just done Mighty Aphrodite, and Carlo De Palma, and other guys as well, man. I mean, you guys never went there? I mean, you can't look at the Sistine Chapel without going there.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So enough being made fun of. That's your anniversary.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's your anniversary.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You got to go. By the way, you got to book it in advance.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Online. And you got to stand outside. And by the way, get a little book on it. You can't believe it. Because it's gorgeous.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You got to know what you're looking at. It's a story.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. Sometimes I can't get in. I do this golf tour with some real knuckle draggers. And they're fun, though, man. They are fun. Because we do golf, food. The whole gambit, yeah. Yeah, they're there for the art. I'm there for the golf because they say, okay, Weller, take us to the thing. And they're on the good foot. They're going, going, going, going, going.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I went to see three Caravaggios I'd never seen in Sicily. I actually went there to play golf. They wanted to see the three Caravaggios. And I think, oh, my God, I'm thanksgiving with these guys because the St. Lucie in Syracuse is a Caravaggio. Never saw it. Man, oof, killer, killer.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No. The embarrassment of Storaro.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You could say that the embarrassment of Storaro brings me into Renaissance. Because I did call Allie and go, Hey, Allie, you know, Vittoria Storaro just told me about Giotto. And, you know, we just want to see Giotto. And, you know, I'll give you a different term. She says, I did. I did. I did. You stopped at the Renaissance. You said it was too complicated. It was too filled with weirdos.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's too much weird science. It's science. It's told me. It's all the things. It's everything. It's political. It's wars. It's taxes. You stopped. I told you. But you blew it off. You were stuck in the contemporary people. So I said, okay, so if you want to say that's what took me into it, Yeah, that's what took me into it, Giotto. I start with the beginning.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
By the way, the book, Leon Battista Alberti. Now, dig this. On that note, let me hype this book.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, I get into the Renaissance. Mm-hmm. And you get into the Renaissance and you go to academia. You talk about history for weirdos, man. You know, academia is weirdos.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's so true.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because you can hear... Like, there's a great scene I directed in... A wonderful scene in Hawaii Five-0, right? Okay. And the nerd guy's interviewing an assistant nerd guy. And he's saying, look, let me get this correct. You got a problem with the moonshot. And the nerd guy... My guy says, what's your problem? And he says, well, it's really difficult. He says, why don't you explain it to me?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because I'm weird. So you can explain, you know, a weird thing to a weirdo. Let me guess. He says, you don't think that Neil Armstrong ever really set foot on the moon, right? And the guy responds, no, that's not my problem. Oh, what is your problem? There is no moon. What? And that's a scene I directed, man. And it's one of the most beautiful scenes ever. I love that.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because these guys totally underplay it. They just, they don't go, hey. They just kind of talk like, you know, there is no moon. Oh, really? And that's the history for weirdos.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So, anyway, you guys got to go on your... I don't know where I was going with that, but that's okay. I love it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Ah, on the moon. No. I'm doing this art. I'm doing this art. There's a great guy named Walter Liedtke who has passed away. He was in a train wreck going to Scarsdale in New York, but he's one of the heads of European paintings with Keith Christensen and Andrew Bayer at the Met. So some friends, Maria Canelli of the Fashion Institute, And later on, the American Folk Museum.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So Padua is a very culturally sophisticated place, and it's part of my book.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I met these friends in Italy. One of the things, I'm doing a movie for Dino De Laurentiis in 1987, 88. And I don't know anything. This is before I even know about Johto. And Maria, I pay her. at the American Academy and meet her to take me to Florence to walk me around these Jesus paintings, man. And by the time we're done, she's smart, but I'm, I have no interest in a man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I have no interest in Jesus, Moses throwing manna from the sky. Who cares? So that's when Giotto comes up four years later. I've got to go back. So I call up Maria Canelli. I say, hey, sorry, but would you turn me on? I'm kind of back into it. And then she takes me to the Met, and I meet Walter Lieke and so forth. And I go, look, we're going to do a deep dive on this.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they said, go to Syracuse. Take a 10-week course. They have a beautiful 10-week course. They have more investment programs abroad than anybody else. I said, okay. So I take it with a great guy who's a mentor to me, Gary Radke. And you go around Italy, and I'm with 12 19-year-olds. I'm 53, man, and we're 12, 19-year-olds. And they're fun. One boy and the rest girls. And they're fun, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
In this particular town, there's some astounding, game-changing art. that the art historians and the artists themselves know about and celebrate, except that the art movers and shakers of tourism don't talk about it so much because, you know, Paris has the Louvre and Florence has the Ninja Turtles, and that's all you want to know. And that's basically it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'm sure. Because about a third of them are there just spending old man's Amex, and about a third of them are there looking at their art. But they're just fun. They're not going to be as ruthless as the people I am going to study with. four 23-year-old girls, because what happens out of that is Radke invites me to do this very special program at Syracuse in Florence.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We basically do the whole thing in Florence.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You do a semester in Syracuse, then you go and you do a year in Florence. And you've got to teach, you've got to be a TA, you've got to be in front of the art, you've got to write, you've got to do calligraphy, you've got to study the documents, and you've got to do German, English, Italian, because essentially we've got to remember one of the great anomalies about Renaissance art is
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's Catholic art. It's Catholic. And indeed, there's some Old Testament or Tanakh, which is the Jewish Bible iconography. But it's essentially Catholic art. The people who revive it, because it's considered naive in the 20th century. This is the reason why I didn't want to go back to it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because in the 20th century, you got Cezanne and edging, and you got Cubism, and you got Juan Gris, and you got these guys who are like flying, Klimpton, flying off the wall, right? So this Catholic...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
biblical art is naive stuff so the people that reinvented the people go back to the docks and start go wow this is the first time everybody took documents of this thing talking about weird history are jews the great jewish scholars of the turn of the century in the cafe society centers intellectual centers of the world i'm talking about you know warsaw i'm talking about prague i'm talking about uh uh
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
krakow vienna budapest where berlin this is the explosion of intelligence coming you know this is uh and so and then of course you know the weimar republic falls and the and fascism takes over and everybody runs but these scholars i'm talking about i'm not talking about one or two i'm talking it doesn't matter whether it's uh Panofsky, Steinberg, Witkover, Krautheimer, on and on they go.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they go to England and they go to NYU as a large Jewish endowment. But those are the scholars that resurrect Renaissance art.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And somebody's going to do a dissertation on that, you know, that the salvation of – and there's a whole lot of, like, gentrified Christians out there going, that's not true. Yes, it is true.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The Jewish intelligentsia academia of the post-World War I scene, or actually pre-World War I scene, with Berenson and Duveen, who was the very first Dutch Jews, the first people who got the United States into collecting art, this is who gave us the Renaissance back, these people. So it's one of the great anomalies, incredible sort of sophisticated people weird pieces of history ever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And so the Renaissance is like, I'm jumping on this, man. I said, man, I got to learn this stuff. I got to learn this stuff. And so Radke takes me 10 weeks through this. And I said, look at these Jewish historians. Look at what Panofsky says about this. And look what this guy says about, you got to read German. You got to read this stuff.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He says, you know, you qualify for this very special program at Syracuse. where you do this entire master's degree, basically, in Italy. And I said, oh, great. I'll go over there. I'll do that. There was a strike in SAG after. Everybody's having a strike. I said, I'll go over there, man. You know what I'll do, man? I'll walk around. I'll dig some art. I'll learn some stuff.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then I'll go down to my house in Positano and groove. No. They'll get there and say, you have had no undergrad credits. You've got to audit these classes from 7 o'clock to noon. Then you've got to take this calligraphy, paleography, la, la, la, la, la, la.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, catch up, man. I was three weeks into this thing. My now wife and my mother come over to visit. I said, I'm out of here, man. This is too much shit. I'm an eight guy. I own a Ferrari. What the fuck am I doing this for, man? Oh, I'm walking to school. I'm listening to academics drone on. I have to take a fresco class. One of the greatest restorers in the world.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I have to learn how to do fresco. I don't want to learn that. I have to learn how to do egg tempura. I don't want to learn that. I have to stand on scaffolds and look at paint restoration. What the hell is this shit? Okay. My mother yells at me again. She's like, you don't quit nothing. We're standing on the Pont de Vecchio. She says, you don't quit nothing. You never quit. The Wellers don't quit.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is tenacity, baby. You stay. So it's funny. I'm 51 years old. Listen to a 79-year-old mom. Amazing. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But in this particular city of Padua, one of maybe my favorite places to go, and it's only, like I say, 10 minutes out of... by train out of Venice, is this Cappella Scovigni. And in it is a 20 meter long, unbelievably a preponderance of gift, In a narrative of the story of Mary and Jesus in a movie.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. My mom kept me grounded. Listen, my mom said to me, I hadn't seen her in two years. She comes to Venice, joins us in Venice, and walks off a plane. I didn't see her. I say, Mom! She goes, what's with your hair? Yeah. That's 55. Can't you get a haircut? You got the money? That's a mom, man. Moms never end being a mom. That is so true. Your daughters will be, you know, 28.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You'll be going, really? Come on. You got to really cut that necklace. It's horrible. So that's what I did. I stayed with it. I stayed with it. And then I found my jam, which is essentially violent images of Franciscanism. St. Francis was the first person to reinvent. Also, Joto. is a big Franciscan artist. And Francis, St. Francis, I'll tell you the side story of history for weirdos.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The idea of Christ, right, in the Middle Ages, was one of a savior who was a godhead, savior of the world, or going to live forever. And the images of Christ on a cross, which come to us from Greece, essentially, are what we call... It's images of Christ living. The Franciscans, because St. Francis is never a priest, but he preaches.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He's a tent revivalist, and he realized a rich boy in short order. In 1219, there's a war going on with Perugia, and he says, these people ain't got that. 1209, actually. These people are lost, man. All they're hearing is Christ is going to win, and we ain't. And somebody got to teach him this human story of Jesus. And that's what he does. He walks around talking about the human story of Jesus.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The walk of suffering and understanding everybody else is suffering in hell. But look, man, it's like a Zen dude, man. And he's never a priest, never does a mass, never whatever. But within a short amount of time, he's got a lot of people following. I follow the guy. If I'm hearing bullshit from a pulpit going, you're shamed and you're blamed and you're going to go to hell.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And that guy walks along and says, you know what? You don't have to listen to that, man. Just be kind to the guy in front of you. Help the people. Brother, son, sister, moon. Treat earth like it's heaven. He's the saint of peace. He's the saint of ecosystems, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Animals. All of it, man. We love St. Francis. How can you go wrong? Look, it's not BS about Francis. The guy was that. The guy preached compassion. Walking the human walk. Okay, this is not... Crazy. But by 1217, when he's given a permit, an order, by Innocent III, he's one of the toughest popes around because he's got a champion where he comes from in Umbria.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
it's like a quarter million people following this guy, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
By the time he dies, man, there's a half a million people in Europe, man. I'm talking about from Egypt to Israel.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's wild. And so when I was doing a PhD historiography class about art, a guy named Jeffrey Simcox, great guy, Oxford, UCLA, looks like Robert Redford. And he's doing a historiography, which is the history of history, you know, and I bring up Franciscanism and I go, You know, the transformation of imagery. Of imagery. Because it's the first time that Christ is painted in suffering. Dying.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Pietà. Dying on the cross. Not winning. You understand. Private images of devotion. Christ in pain. People in pain. You understand that. You're supposed to understand that. Because it's not necessarily just... you the penitent going, forgive me. But it's you identifying with world suffering so that you might go out and heal it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This sounds like hoity-toity, touchy-feely nonsense of the 21st century. This is what this guy was preaching. And by the way, you helped the person in front of you with kindness. This is Buddhist, man. Yes, very similar. Handle what's in front of you with kindness. The world will handle itself. So I bring this up with Simcox's class. I say, you know,
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
the biggest transformation of perhaps spirituality in the Western world, Franciscanism. And this woman down the way is an intellectual historian. She says, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. The biggest transformation? Are you kidding me? The biggest transformation, Weller? That's a little bit over the top.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
In fresco that goes around a room. Okay, it was started around 1302 and it's finished in 1305 on March the 25th. So yesterday was. Oh, my God.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And thank God Simcox steps forward because he is an intellectual historian as well as an image historian. And he goes, hang on. He's right. He's right. There has been nothing that has hit the Western world spirituality movement Like Franciscanism. And they all stop and go, what? And you can see it in the imagery. Look, St. Francis brings us the action movie. How so?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because people are in pain and they're twisted and they're in contortion and there's torsion and they're like, screaming or yelling or whatever. You understand this? Yeah. They're suffering. This changes. Also, there's a place in Pergamum.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
In ancient Greece, it does the same thing. Franciscus is the reinvention of it. You know, this ethos in the original classical age of Greece, the perfect Belvedere Apollo is standing with a perfect, the Venus de Milo, the perfect nude. You can divide it into squares and go, right.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, when's the first time you see somebody throwing lightning bolts through the sky or somebody ducking arrows or somebody twisting on a crucifix? That's St. Francis, man. That's all Franciscan art. That's all. So that becomes my jam. And that's what I do at Syracuse. And I must say, I was with five women. Two of them remained friends. But they all resented me. Why?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because I didn't have an undergrad degree. Oh. Because I was a weirdo. Yeah, you were. I was a total weirdo. Yeah, I didn't go to Rutgers, Harvard, Yale, UPenn, UMichigan, Johns Hopkins, any of these snotty places. I went to North Texas and played jazz, man. That's not art history.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
did you have any classes at McGonagall no I didn't but I came in through the back door and essentially thanks to Gary Radke and Alan McGraw and Walter Lee and a lot of other people in the tutorial etc and Rab Hatfield who mentored me there I learned some stuff and went on to get the master's degree and then applied for a PhD at UCLA and NYU got accepted to both and because I had a kid kid kid kid stayed at UCLA and got a PhD and became a real smarty pants so
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The 720th anniversary of the most important piece of Western art known. And by the way, not my opinion.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I get to say doctor yeah that ain't honorary because people meet actors yeah doctor look I got my PhD I was hooded two weeks later I'm on a golf course and there's a guy there he's like an investment broker yeah billionaire dude oh my god he says where'd you get your honorary degree in like it's not honorary and I'm standing there with a golf club I'm about to wrap it around his head and it was like ten years of my life I was about to say it takes at least seven and thank God my friend Brian Wozniak who was my first friend and student was a great guy he intercedes in my place and
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He goes, hey, Joe, that's not honorary. He's the real deal. Renaissance Italian art history calls this guy out. He goes, what? Renaissance Italian. Thank God I had a speaker there. Yeah. Because I'm sitting there with my arms crossed like, listen to him. You had your own Cicero at that moment. Yeah, exactly. Cicero. Speaking of Cicero, we could talk about him forever, man. Oh, yeah. All day.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So what do you want to ask me?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Opinion of a whole lot of people. From Carlo Carra, the guy who invented cubism, to Picasso, to Rothko, to on and on and on it goes. Okay? Two great cinematographers now. It doesn't matter. I was sent there by a cinematographer. So on your anniversary. You also got the Capella Scroveni. So your homework is to go see Giotto. And people are listening to this if they hear this.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yes. My wife says that, but... But then again, she loves me. I think. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But that's the thing about... But everyone, everyone doesn't think they can do it. I mean, you know, if you've got a one-track pony and you've got a 170 IQ like Albert Einstein or something like that, you know, one track, it's what you do and it's what you know.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
If you're Mozart, I never forget my friends from improvisational theater, Peter Riegert and David Roshan, some other great actors, when Amadeus came out, right? There's a great article in the New York Times. It says, you know, Leopold would tell Wolfgang Mozart, you know, there's three.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Get up and play your Bach. Get up and play your Bach. So there's very few people. And David Roche is a great actor, one of the great unsung funny actors ever. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Reminds me of my dad. He would say, get up and take your shoes out of the den. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I got. So very few people are Mozart, right? Most people are struggling along.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then you find your jam, and then you go do your thing. And when I realized I wasn't going to be Miles Davis, I was talking about this with Mark yesterday. I'm on a bandstand, just like Whiplash. Somebody's yelling at me. I'm not cutting this thing. There's a tune called Cloudburst, a great Basie tune. I'm not cutting a solo, man. I'm not cutting a sad thing. I'm not going to be Miles Davis.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'm not going to play on a bandstand the rest of my life for $49 a change. I got to find something to say out of Vietnam, but I thank God I go back to jazz. But at that time, I'm a jazz guy who's going, I can't do it, man. I'm not going to be the greats I went to school with, Bones Malone, Lou Mariniard, Dean Parks, or all these, these are savants, by the way, who played in every record you hear.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Bruce Fowler, these are guys, names you don't know, but Lou Marini was on the SNL forever and ever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But those are the guys who are like the top when I'm going to school, and I'm not going to be there. So I'm that guy who's figuring out what to do. I'm not multifaceted passionate. I'm looking for something to keep me out of Vietnam. Because my dad's back in Vietnam, my brother's back in Vietnam, and they're looking for my ass to go. Like, no, thank you. What am I going to do?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, the only thing I know how to do, I've done it for fun, is act. I've done it for fun. A great guy named Bob Yanni, who was the boy genius of Walt Disney, one of the guys who started the Mouseketeers and started Orlando and started Disneyland. Robert Yanni, like a P.T. Barnum for Disney, was drafted on a stage. He heard me sing once and put me on a stage. But I was doing it for kicks, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I didn't know. I wasn't going to sing. I wasn't going to act. But now I need something because I'm not going to Da Nang. I'm sorry. As a matter of fact, my brother and my father are over there. I'm against this war. This war is a nonsense, man. So what do I do? Okay, I'm going to act. So I changed my major to theater and English. So I'm finding my way along.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then I'm acting for kicks, but I don't know what I'm going to do. And then I'll never forget, I was watching my professor, Dr. Stanley Hamilton, a couple guys on stage. talking about what acting is. And then I said, you know what? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to act. This is all I got. This is all I got.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I hitched a ride down to visit my dad, who's now in law school. And this cat picked me up and said, what are you doing? I said, I'm an actor.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
A lot of people know who Giotto is. And they go, of course, it's Giotto. Okay, yours truly? I thought I was a smarty pants. I did not know who Giotto was. Okay, I just found out who he was right now. Yeah, but you didn't pretend. You weren't like the pretensioso. No, no, definitely not. Okay, listen.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I said, I couldn't believe it came out of my mouth. And then I got applied for a scholarship to an acting school, which was totally denigrated by my mom, who I thought, because she's the artistic artistic quotient. She's the artistic weirdo in the family, right? My dad is a straight ahead, like played by the book guy. She says, no, you're not going to New York. You'll never survive in New York.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
New York will kill you. I know New York. New York will eat you alive. You're going back to school, man. Your dad will never support you in New York. You're never going to make it in New York. New York is like a gladiator fight. And so... So I go to my dad. My dad's in his chambers. And I'm going to go to New York, man. I don't care if I have to. Take a loan. I'm going.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I got accepted to this acting school. So I knock on the door with my dad. Never forget this. I just told this yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind. But I tell my dad, he goes, I know why you're here. I said, what? Your mother called. I said, you want to go to New York? I said, I'm going to New York. She said, good. I said, good. She said, yeah, just, you know, that's what you want to do.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Do it, you know. Fail on your own time. I go, so you support? He says, what do you need from me? I said, I need about 600 bucks a month.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
uh to live on he said how long i said two years when you're gonna pay back give me two years after i finished the school he said okay done oh my god wow that easy i said really done he says listen that's what you want to do that's all i ever did i wanted to fly i didn't want to fly i wanted to be in law i didn't want to be like that's what you wanted to do it i'll give you some cheap advice stay out of bars okay adios shook my hand give me a hug and off i was
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, from the guy I thought was going, no, you ain't doing it, to sure done. From the mom who I thought was like the total artistic. She's a piano player. She's a jazzer. She's the person who can turn me on to art. She's the person who encouraged me about all this stuff, man. But that's the mom with the kid, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The 21-year-old kid's going to go to New York, really?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And die? Yeah. By the way, this is in New York. She's right. This is in New York where you have a white kid.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Forget about race. You know, a white junkie walk up to you on Fifth Avenue.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Anytime during the day. This is not the New York of sublime, no interference, you can't smoke at Central Park.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is the Wild West New York, man. This is right on the hinge of the Harlem Riots and stuff.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And by the way, the Knapp Commission is going on. Serpico hasn't even been shot yet. Right? Billy Friedkin's about to finish his film on French Connection. So this is a New York of cops who are dicey. And it's just the street. So I understand your dilemma with it, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The person that schooled me in art was the most beautiful, intelligent, gorgeous, wonderful friend to this day, Ali McGraw, who was a big-time movie star.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, I took the risk. You know something? I get weepy thinking about it because I took the risk. And then I got nothing but joy and support from my mom. And I think of her often. So, you know, there's an interesting thing about being a sober guy, which I am, is that in the midst of, and I was never really sober. a tank job, like wreck a car, get in a bar fight, end up in jail or whatever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
As a matter of fact, I got in bar fights, but I never ended up in jail and I never ended up killing anybody or hurting anybody willfully. But in spite of that, when one is playing as my friend Mark, another guy who doesn't indulge anymore, said, you know, we were outlaws. It didn't matter how much money you were making.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It doesn't matter if you were going to Studio 54 or how fast a car you were driving, whatever, man. if you're doing drugs in the late 70s, you're looking over your shoulder. I'm sure. Because there's a cop or a thug going to take you down that fast. So he said, do you ever think about that? About two years ago, I thought, yeah, man, we were like, we thought we were impervious. Why?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because we're white guys of money. And surely they're not going to mess with us. Oh, yeah, they are. And the lunacy of that, and thank God, you know, The spiritual identity or something rang my bell, and I got out of that. But the product of quitting that stuff, one of the great fallouts of it is, as much as one child is the father to the man,
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Big-time movie star, model in the 60s and 70s, whatever. And Allie still looks like she's like 28. I hate her for her looks. Yeah. Yoga every day and Pilates. Yeah, she is still beautiful. Oh, God. Yeah. A room rocker. But speaks five languages and is smart. So I did a movie with her. And then after the movie, she asked me to go see Sweeney Todd a week after it was open.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I've got this great, beautiful, and fantastic, intelligent academic friend who's the head of a department who's still got this bump with her mom. And the mom was one of those hands-on, and she will not go make it up with the mom. Okay, she's 45. How much time do you think you've got to make it up with the mom?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And the thing is that I realized this, that what sobriety gave me is that the child is the father to the man. We just sit there and expect your parents to come to you and say, once in a while that happens. Once in a while a parent comes and says, excuse me for paddling you when you were two or something like that. Now parents don't touch again.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
falsely blaming you for whatever or like sending you home too early whatever whatever the whatever the sin is once in a while a parent will do it but most times the parents are excoriating themselves for screwing up that's what most parents are doing and my dad did it with my brother and my dad thought he'd screwed up with me And, you know, I'm in the backyard. I'm shooting Robocop.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My dad's a federal judge, a made guy. And we're cleaning the slate. And my dad was, like, running down some strange stuff that I thought I was going to hold him accountable for. And he was actually thinking that I was accountable for a lot of it. And I was.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he said, you know, I'd like to say that it was my responsibility for throwing a motorcycle off a bridge and, you know, and getting busted, you know, for drinking beer on the economy and stealing, la, la, la, la, la. You know, breaking somebody's nose in a basketball fight. He said, did any of this ring a bell to you? And I went like, wait a minute, did I do that? He goes, yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, and I'm always thinking like, what did I do wrong?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I go, my God, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, because I pulled his chain about it. I'd just written him a letter using the I word. I'd certainly like to talk to you about this. Were you having a bad time? Were you whatever? But the child, I had to go to him. The child's got to go. The child's got to go up to the parent and go, hey, can you talk to me about this?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I know a guy that was a sober alcoholic and went up to his dad. His dad was very young. He slapped his kids. And then he went up to them when they were teenagers, when the dad got sober, and apologized to his two kids.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And the kids wouldn't accept it. You know, because they're in their teens. Yeah. Going, va fanculo, man. Yeah. We're not letting you off the hook. And they separated from the dad. Okay, now the dad goes on to lead a sober life, a healthy life. Can he get in touch with these kids who are now drinking? Who are now holding him accountable for all his shit? No. No.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And holding him accountable and holding him accountable. And so the dad has to go on his way and go, okay, I made my amends to the man, you know, when they were 17 and 18, but they ain't gonna let me off the hook. And then, thank God, one of them, by the time he turns like 48, goes... He's now sober. He goes, you know, Mike, I forgot it. My dad actually fucking apologized to me.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. And that's huge. Huge. That's giant. And I never let him off the hook.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then he goes and asks his dad. This makes me weepy, man. And he's told me about it. He goes and asks his dad forgiveness for holding his dad accountable for the accountability.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So I went to see Sweeney Todd on St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day was just a couple of weeks ago. So we always talk on St. Patrick's Day. And her birthday is on April Fool's Day. How about that? She is a class act. So she took me to the, and I was speaking with, can I bring up another podcast for fun? Oh, yeah, of course. So yesterday I was on with Marc Maron on his thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And that's maybe the thing that sobriety has given me the most is an objectivity. Look, speaking of history for weirdos, maybe the weirdest history that anyone can walk through is their own. Oh, we're clipping that for social media.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Yeah. Because I can talk about Cicero forever. Absolutely. Because Cicero. Who can't? No, but the great ego trip of Cicero, the great arc of him, like stepping in his own crap. I mean, he started off as a voice for the people and then. you know, winning with, you know, the hubris of fame and fortune.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And unbelievable stuff. And then people tell him to shut up about my game. No, no, no, no, man. The guy went after his dad. I'm going to go after him. Big mistake. Can you shut up? Yeah. Can you just shut up? No. He's going to go down. And all of a sudden, he gets a phone call. Hey, guess what? Mark Antony made a deal with Octavian, and they're both coming into Rome looking for your ass.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But then you got us walking through your own history, which is about as weird as it gets. Yeah. And the best thing I could do is sort of go to mom in my mind and dad in my mind and say, love you, forgive you.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Please forgive me for being an idiot.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No, it isn't. It's not. Especially when your dad calls you out. And you think it's all your dad. And your dad hates you. Does this ring a bell with your weirdness? Your own... fucking hysterical weird history? And you go, oh, really? Yeah, it's pretty weird. Yeah, my history with you is pretty weird, Dad. Thanks.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I should shut up then. No, no, please. No, no, keep going. I love it. You're a psychotherapist? Yes, yeah. Of what intelligence group or what gender or what?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Trauma therapy, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Like physical trauma therapy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My brother was sadly a victim of that.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Well, you know, my brother was a member of Mensa and the Genius and the Phi Beta Kappa and the Five Books in a Week and way ahead of his jam, man. And he did tours as a LERP, which is Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, at night, four guys, carry your own gun and do your own deal. And he went through many, many jobs when he got out, Agent Orange, all that stuff.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, he actually got to see this exhibition because in the 80s, there's a famous Picasso, huge painting called the Guernica. And the Guernica was sort of a sad celebration of the bombing of a village where Franco had called in Nazi help from Germany to, this village was in rebellion against Franco,
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But the thing is, he never sought that. He was too smart, you know, too smart for therapy, too smart for sobriety. That's tough. Too smart for God, too smart for – and that runs in the family, by the way, with certain people.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
If you've got – you know, everybody can't be Einstein.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Who essentially said – and I'm paraphrasing Einstein because I would like to have had a lunch with him, you know. So what's the difference between God and science? Basically, it's totally jamming on me. There is no difference, man. Science is just an attempt to explain God. Wow. Why are you guys dichotomizing this? Somebody's parables about when the earth was built, that's a parable.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's a lesson about building. Get off it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And like the great Leo Steinberg, I'm going to get back to this in a second, but Leo Steinberg, arguably my mentor and arguably the greatest art historian in the 20th century, the guy that defended the iconography of the greatest Baroque church in Rome and defended Picasso's formalism and, I don't know, the first guy to defend the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel and wrote on everything.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I couldn't meet him. It was like meeting Marlon Brando. Finally, I met him. And finally, I sat down because he smoked cigars, I smoked cigars. We'd go to the Grand Event in New York. I pumped this guy through dinner's form. Leo Steinberg. His father was Trotsky's secretary.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he escaped Stalinist Russia and went to Germany, changed his name, and then had to escape Germany.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because of the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis and fascism. And he said his father was a rabbi. I asked him about, like, okay, in psychology or in art history or in anything,
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
like Einstein trying to rationalize or tell people who are a lot dumber than him you know the intersection of science and God you know and that the books about God are just you know parables and attempts to explain you know their stories their life stories about right and how do you how do you rationalize that with you know your rabbinical background your dad's and
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
talking about art you don't meet many religious people talking about art and he said this thing that seared me which a lot of people are going to like throw stones about but he said we got into Einstein and he basically was saying yeah Einstein had a great point about the parables of books and he said listen my father would probably roll in his grave because he was a rabbi but I have to say this
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Is that the heralding, and I'm paraphrasing what Leo said, the heralding of any book is a violation of the first commandment.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
and the Nazis bombed it, and Picasso did this homage to its death called the Guernica, and he didn't want it in Spain, so they kept it at the Museum of Modern Art, and he said if Spain ever gets a, in short order, if Spain ever gets a social democracy, you know, please give it back to Spain. Okay, Franco dies, then there's a big hoon in the late 70s, and Juan Carlos the King, who
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Look, I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And that includes books, man. Or images or anything or sacrosanct objects or whatever. And the book is not the God. And I said, oh, Leo, how many Jews and Christians have you said that to? He goes, Peter, not many. Because it angers them. That's so interesting. He says there is no holy book.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The book is only the writing of the... So the next thing I do, I'm at UCLA at the time. By the way, the only reason why he called me is because he heard from the Met and all the hoity-toity people at the Met. Because he goes into the Met and said, oh yeah, Leo Steinberg. This is the Metropolitan Museum in New York. You understand? This is one of the apexes of sophistication of art.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
From Phoenician chariots all the way to whatever, to Vermeer. And Leo says, oh yeah, Leo will come in once in a while and he'll hold forth on someone. I go, what do you mean hold forth? He says, well, he'll walk about Duccio, who's a medievalist, Spatial Theory, to the figurative lines of Peter Paul Rubens. I go, oh my God. Was somebody going to call this son of a bitch for me?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And finally get a call. Is this Peter Weller? The actor who is working on PhD? And he asked me that question. I go back, do you think, how do you find your own jam with regards to many different passionate points. And my answer is this, what my dad said, A, stay out of bars. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Because bars will just waste you. It doesn't necessarily waste your time.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My brother decided to drink again and went to the bars. And he said, look, I'd rather spend time in bars with my Vietnam vet friends. So get off my back. That's his choice, man. And he died of alcoholism. So you know what? That's his choice. That's another thing. I can't save people Who are not looking for answers. Me, I'm looking for answers.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But that's just me. And so I say, A, find out what you're really passionate about. And by the way, that's written in Sanskrit. Find out what you really want to do and do that. That's not 21st century hypo blah. Find out what you really want to do and do that. And then when you're doing that, if you find out something else you really want to do, do that. But here's the other thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Jane Bolker, I never met Jane Bolker, but I certainly liked her, wrote a book called Writing Your Dissertation or Anything in 15 Minutes a Day. She interviews about 185 people. And I took her workshop because I was not going to finish a dissertation. Are you kidding me? I'm not going to. I got work to do, man. It's movies. I'm going to sit down and write a dissertation.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I got the ideas and I pitched it and I passed the exams and whatever. But to sit down and write it?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No way. Ugh.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Sit around and write 286 pages and 215 images. No, I'm not going to do that. And then somebody says, read this book. Okay, this is the thing about how to follow many passions. To get back to your point, Jane Bolker's book basically interviews, and this is a short form of it, the people that she interviewed, be it what you do, which is interview journalism.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
for whatever his later life sins were, I think as a hero, because he went in and basically said, this is a social democracy, people, and all you Guardia Civil guys got to get the F out, right? And so Picasso, so it was returned. But before it was returned, MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, had a five-floor exhibition of the biggest exhibit of Picasso, pardon me, known.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
be it what Casey does, whether it's social media journalism, whether it's like social studies or academics or film scripts or whatever, the people that she interviewed, and it was all based on the fact that she could not write a dissertation, and then she went to interview these people, like, what was your secret? They all got three things in common, almost every single one of them.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
One is, A, they write the second they get up.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Whether they get up at 6 a.m., okay... Or noon.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, so Leo wrote late and would crash late and watch TV, and he would get up at noon. Leo Steinberg was a noon guy. Boom! Right.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Maya Angelou, same thing, man. She's interviewed all the way. Okay, Gore Vidal, he liked to sip, and he would hit the hay by 9 o'clock. 5 o'clock, boom. My friend Barry Fonero, the writer of the Golden Girls, same thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
5.30.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Second you get up. No internet, no phone, no talk to the kids, no nothing. Into the room. Maybe you make the coffee. That's it. That's the only thing you let off for, man. That's A. B. You commit to a very small amount of time.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
15 minutes.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. I took the workshop. And this woman stands up, a Jane Bulker aficionado, and goes, commit to 15 minutes. She said, I'll tell you, 15 minutes will turn into 20 or 30 or whatever. But commit to 15 minutes. Get in there before you take the kids to school, before you do this, blah, blah, blah. Get in there and do your 15 minutes. And I mean, 15 minutes turns into an hour and a half in a second.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But the thing is, if I go look at the clock or look at this news or whatever, I'm not in it, man. Okay? And the last thing, these are like so simple. You think, come on. It ain't that simple. Yeah, it is. You cannot edit. And everybody from Luciano DiCrescenzo, one of the great Neapolitan formalist writers, funny guy, to Woody, to whatever. You write, write, write, write, write, write, write.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Some people call it zero draft. Some people call it draft one. Some people call it a blowout. There are all different names for it. But the second that you get into editing, no, let me go see what I wrote yesterday. You're cooked because then your left brain judgment takes over. Oh, it's all over it, man. Yeah. And you ain't ever finishing it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. First thing in the morning. That's really, yeah. And your right brain is flying. It's flying with invention. There's a friend of mine who has a friend who modeled for Salvador Dali. Wow. And he said Dali, he was a model. And he was a legit model. And he was a big cowboy looking guy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
my friend's friend was and dolly would have him dress up different costumes that he had and dolly would sit on a dais uh and he was in new york or at the essex hotel and sit on a dais with like um a hard rubber ball like a handball okay in front of a thing and would look at this guy i'd say move here move there move there and i said hold that And then you just stare at it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And Dali, this time in the 56s, 70s, right, would fade into, like, alpha state. He'd nap out.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The guy would hold this, right? And the second he'd nap out, he'd drop the ball.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Right? And the ball dropped, and he'd start drawing, like, a fool because that was his alpha state hallucinogenic...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And, you know, so Ali said, you got to go, you got to go. Ali and I are hanging out then. Ally's friends are not movie stars and not model around that. She was a stylist, you know, for a stylist is like the person who sets up the situation for photo shoots.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The brainwaves, yeah, man. And that's what we got to source.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, you're trying to source like, oh, I'll sit down for five hours a day during that. So the whole thing back to your thing about doing the passion thing. I have to get up and play the trumpet.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I quit trumpet and somebody said, get up and play it. It's interesting. When somebody got me back into the trumpet in the early 80s, They said, play it for 15 minutes, man. And they said, play it when you get up. Just like Jane Volker's thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It is, isn't it? So I get up and I play the trumpet for a minimum of 15 minutes right when I wake up and wake up my neighbors. But you got to do that when you get up and do it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then you got to do a little bit of it, a little bit of it, a little bit. And you're going to say, how did you write your PhD? How did you turn this into a book? I have no fucking clue. Except that I did it in 15 minutes a day.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Mm-hmm. And one thing led to another, led to another, and led to another.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because I didn't put it on the back burner and wait until Friday after the golf game and all that jazz, man. Right. And the other thing, you know, she does that. Jane Bolger has some other things. Like, you're walking through the thing and you get an idea because you'll get an alpha state idea. Like, oh, Casey Gates wants you to go to History for Weirdos. Write down the History for Weirdos thought.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Put it in your pocket. So you got some notes. So the next day you got a pocket full of notes. But basically, get up and do it. Small amount of time. Zero draft.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I can't believe how that works. Come on. Is that how it works? Yeah. That's how I learned a language. That's how I did things. Because I am not a real smarty pants. I'm a weirdo. I love that. I always say history for weirdos. I'm that guy. I'm not the guy who can stand up in front of a United States Congress and go, you're accountable for this. Screw up with Goldberg. I can't. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I can't do that. But I can do the weird version of it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We'll just come on and complain about it with you guys.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is amazing. It's funny how you know so much about Cicero.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Well, have you got a degree already?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
In finance, probably. Why did you go back, man?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, sure, when Peter Willer asks, you're going back. They wanted me to take a course, despite the fact that I spoke these languages by this time. They wanted me to take a course in German. I took it a night. I took a night course online. There you go. And qualified for UCLA.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
For Sikorsky, for Vogue, whatever. She was chosen by Diana Rieland of Vogue. It was a girl of the year. So it was Sylvia Plath. Great poet. I love Sylvia Plath. Diana Rieland would go walk around his Ivy League schools and pick some chick and say, okay, I'm going to groom you as a sophisticata. And so Allie was one of those. So Allie's knowledge... of language, of art, whatever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, so like my friend Michael, Bram Ball, who is my Latin teacher, my sister-in-law teacher at Catalina Conspiracy, who's now tenured at Tulane, is still a great friend and a funny teacher, man. is actually a Hellenist. How did he learn Greek? He did some of this, did some of this, did some of that. And you've got to do the Jane Bulker thing, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You've got to take the course. And then you finally end up taking the course. And by the way, if you want to know Greek and you want to become a Hellenist or a Latinist, That's not difficult, man. That is not difficult. Okay.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's also true. These are, look, here's where the predicate goes. Here's where the subject goes. Those are those languages. Grammar, yeah. They're not filled with idiomatic expressions like, you know, get your butt off the rock so I can, like, you know. Yeah, that's true. Ground my spirit. There's not a whole lot of that in it. You've got to do it. Also, you've got to read Edgar Watts' book.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I talked about it on the phone. Mortal Republic. The guy from UC San Diego wrote this. He wrote the most accessible book about the first century B.C. that I've yet read. And it's really saddeningly accessible. Saddeningly? Well, because the thing is that he doesn't structure it. I mean, he's a great scholar, Watts. Yeah. Right. But he's not structuring...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
the fall of the Republic in the ozone of academia, which is what I had to read it in. And then I had to go like, wait a minute, I got to go back to Cicero. I got to say, did he really screw this up this bad? Was his ego really that big? I mean, was Mark Anthony truly that much of a stud? I think he was, yeah. Oh, he was.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Well, I mean, and did he really want to militarize Rome, you know, and he did, yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Well, totally, and they knew he was, but it was the Republic... That serious? Like, it is not like... Look, man, my only bitch about our republic right now is that my dad is rolling in his grave as a Republican judge and my late twin brother, the Republican, he was a Republican, and the AUSA of the Fifth Circuit, they're rolling in their grave because the great thing about...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Eisenhower Republicans, as much as they were like, or Christopher, the great Christopher Lord's dad, who was one of the great supporters of Eisenhower, is that they could say when politics was harming people, The republic. Exactly.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And so when the head of the Senate, who's a Republican, said stand up and own this stuff that you let this garbage slip to, it doesn't matter whether it's classified or not, own it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And stop trying to go, well, Hillary did that. Who cares?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's not now. So the ownership of it, but we don't have that kind of republic right now. No. The republic is not more important than the ego. Now, Watts points out That's an amazing mistake of the Republic under Julius Caesar, essentially, and then Cicero and the Triumvirate and so forth. That the Republic could not get off its purple horse.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
She's very humble, but she talks a mile a minute, and she is incredibly good-looking, and you're hard-pressed to find a smarter dinner cafe. And I would go to these dinners with her, man. I'd be sitting next to Martha Graham. What the hell am I going to say to Martha Graham? You know, I'd take dance. Hey, Ms. Graham, yeah, I've gotten on the floor and done your exercises, you know?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And adapt to...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
What the change of the vibe was. Mm-hmm. That much of the world was going, hooray, Julia. You know, when you think of Julius Caesar, dictator. Right. Let's go history for weirdos, people. Yeah. Everybody's out there thinking Julius Caesar. Oh, yeah. You know, he went to Gaul and he conquered Gaul. La, la, la, la, la. No. He was a liberal. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolute. For the people.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
For the people. For the people. For tax revocations. For land for the soldiers. Everybody gets a break here, man. He was against the oligarchy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And let's enfranchise these people if they're going to work for Rome. Make them citizens. Yeah, they get to pay some taxes and stuff. Stop using them as like third world free labor. Anybody want to think about that?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But the dilemma that Watts' book is so brilliant at is that the... they won't get off the purple horse. I know. There's still this image of what the Republic is supposed to be. And that Republic ain't been there for 200 years. It's the Grockeye Brothers. Yes.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You did? Yeah. Me and this guy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I love the popularity. Way ahead of their time. Absolutely. They paid for it. They paid for it because they go, hey, got an idea. All these tribes and all these people that have been fighting for us for a long time, man. And, you know, they've been supporting us and so forth. Like, even the people where I live in the southern Italy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You got to remember, people, everybody thinks that Italy is Italy. No.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Those are Sam Knights, the Hoskins. Those are tribes, man. Exactly. Yeah. Let's enfranchise them. What? We're killing you for that? Yeah. Incredibly unpopular. Incredibly unpopular. Well, for those of you who don't know, the Gracchi are around the turn of the century, 100 B.C., around the time the Cicero and Julius Caesar were born. And, you know, Rome is expanding. Rome is expanding.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'm telling Casey this. And it's expanding because of the commerciality of it. Okay, and I'll give you a case in point. The Mediterranean has become its lake. That's what they call it. Lago Nosto. Why has the Mediterranean become its lake? Because in one couple of years, North Africa has been leveled. This is the third Punic War, and they just basically take over North Africa.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then there's a little kind of a revolt, a problem in Corinth in Greece. And they got to go put down that and everything. Everybody goes, okay, you run us. So now they got Greece. And the last thing, which is my jam, which I'm going to talk about at the Breakfast Club, is one of the great miracles of the Mediterranean is the western part of Turkey.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I want to talk about that really quickly for you nerds. Because this is what really changes art with Joto. Okay, so you got a guy who's maybe the most important guy in the history of the Western world, Alexander.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We know about him. Why is Alexander important? Because Alexander is the first guy to get this idea. First of all, he's taught by Aristotle. You know what's being taught by Aristotle? His dad, the thug, Philip II of Macedonia, who lives in the rocks. He's like the bad guy at the back of the room who wants to be a cool guy. That's exactly who he is.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, Alvin Ailey, I'm sitting next to George Plimpton, I'm sitting next to Truman Capote, I'm sitting next to Warhol. Those are her pals, you know? Wow. So, you know, and I say this over and over again because my mother spent a lot of time in New York and she was loud. She had read in the page three of the post, I see you're hanging out with Ali McGraw.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No, he does because you've got Corinth and Thebes and you've got Athens and they're all touchy-feely. They've got space and they've got articulation of theater and architecture and science and whatever. And this guy's a thug, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, man. He goes, come on, come on, man. I don't speak your Athenian Greek and all that stuff. No, man, you can't join. Sorry. Go play basketball or something, man. And he goes, you know what, man? I got a kid, and I'm going to hire Aristotle to come over and teach him. And supposedly there's a TV script at Paramount right now. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. And so that's like hiring Einstein.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
To come and teach a kid. Because Aristotle's renowned. Come and teach my kid. So he teaches him four years. So what do you got? A good-looking kid who's an athlete and a stud. And a warrior genius who's the smartest guy in the room. Oh, yeah. All in one. And what is this kid interested in? You know, I mean, his dad makes the deal with Corinth. He says, join with me against Thebes.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they go, sure. And he goes to Thebes and says, join with me against Corinth. His dad plays that game for a couple of days. And Spartacus is on his side. And then Athens goes, no, we're not joining you. And then he sends this kid in. And Alexander takes down Athens in about eight days or something like that, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Close to 18. Teenager. He's a teenager, and he takes that. Now, I'm going to paraphrase right now. The speeches that we don't have, but we have remnants of, by Demosthenes. He stands up, and he's the guy that tells Athens why you can't let Philip of Macedonia in. They're called the Philippics. Why can't you let Philip of Macedonia and his teenage smarty pants get in? Because we're Athens, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And we got Tomey, and we got math, and we got science, and we got architecture, we got plays, and we got theaters. That's us, man. We can't let this thug come in and take us over. And these are called the Philippics because they're anti-Philip.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Now, we don't have them. They're remnants of them. Okay. Cut to the chase. later, that's around 338 or something like that. Because it says later, okay, around 445, 443, Cicero against Antony is going to do the same thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I said, it's kind of fun, Mom, but I feel like a real dummy. She says, why? I said, you know, because I go to these things, and we're talking to Calvin Klein about, like, skirt design, and, you know, I meet Gore Vidal, who later became a great friend. You know, he's talking about this, like, you know, the theories of education that are folding. I said, I can't follow it, and... And she says, so?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's so crazy. He knows that Demosthenes loses. He knows that they... But the...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
principles of them are the same and they are we are a republic we have our own ethics we are the purple we have our own aesthetics we cannot kowtow to the likes of Mark Anthony who is a military stud who doesn't know his ass from his elbow about how to run a republic it's true and by the way and he's up there and we got Octavian who's going to take him down
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This kid who's the nephew of Julius Caesar who's gone off to take Mark Anthony down. And people just say, hey, Cicero, shut up for a second, man. Let Octavian take him down and then make the speeches. Why did you do that? No! I'm going to make the speeches now. Yeah. Two days of speeches based on Philip of Macedonia. Demosthenes. That's so interesting. And yes.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And read Edgar Watts because he's one of the greatest foolish events ever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, he really was. Greatest foolish events ever. And I'll tell you how foolish it gets because we're talking about history. I love this, man. This is like reading Edgar Watts just like, oh, God, man. Because he puts it like, oh, this is like a short film. Okay. Octavian. Smart kid. Teenager. Studied in Greece and so forth. Nephew Julius Caesar is the adopted son, Julius Caesar.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But Julius Caesar dies. Mark Anthony makes his speech and shit like that. And they sort of don't want Mark Anthony. And they get Decius Brutus and these guys to run him out. Octavian says, and Octavian has some troops. He comes from Spain at the point. He's got Lepidus and troops left over.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He says to Cicero and everybody else, hey, not for nothing, my uncle is now my dad, my law, and he left me some goodies. Not the shit that Mark Anthony says, you know, that Julius Caesar left the Republic.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But just some personal goodies, like a couple of houses and a whole bunch of money and some stuff. And I like them. And the purple Republic goes, okay, kid, you go with Lepidus and your soldiers from Spain and kill that asshole and we'll think about giving it to you. And he goes, okay, okay, you promise you'll give it to me? Yeah, sure.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So off Octavian goes with the General Lepidus to get Mark Antony. And they get him trapped up, you know, by Bologna. And they go, hey, we got him trapped. And the Republic, the purple, goes, not good enough. We said kill him or you're not going to get your stuff. And he goes, look, man, the stuff is rightfully mine, man. Julius said it. I want the yachts and the Ferraris, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Give me the shit, man. And they go, no. And he killed him. Okay, so it gets him even more trapped by this lake outside of what's now Bologna. And he says that... I love this. This is a short film. Some people say it's just one legionnaire, the guy who's head of a cohort. And I forget what the... And all my Latinists are going to go, Weller, come on. We told you who this was.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The guy that's head of 500, like his right-hand guy, right, is activist military general. Oh, I know what you're talking about. I forgot the word, too. I can't think what it is. So I like it's one guy. Some people say it was actually 10 or 15 guys, but I like the one guy. One guy rides into Rome, very articulate dude, and interrupts the Senate. And they go, you're interrupting.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He goes, yeah, but I got words from your friend Octavian. And they go, what is it? Guy walks in, right? You know, armed to the hilt with his helmet and his crew of his arm. He says, I'm going to tell you this, guys, all 900 of you, right now, Octavian wants his will executed now or you're going to be in deep shit. And they go, how dare you threaten us? He says, I'm just saying.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My mom said, well, I feel like the caboose at the end of the train. She goes, okay. I said, yeah, but I got nothing to say. My mom says, oh, don't say anything. Just shut up and listen. I go, duh, duh. If you're with some smart people. But my thing is, my ego always wants to intersect. Of course. You were talking about his history. I want to throw it in. So Ali takes me to this Picasso thing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He wants his will executed now. He's giving you two times. He's giving you two chances. This is his third chance, and you're out. So I want to go back and tell him that you're executing his will now. Right? Or is this going to be deep shit? And they say, get the fuck out of here. You can tell that kid to fuck off. We're the fucking republic. We're the fucking purple.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He goes, okay. And the next thing you know, they all get a phone call, including Cicero. Cicero's made his speeches against Marc Anthony. And guess what's happened? Octavian has gone over to Marc Anthony and goes, look, you're stuck in the Alps. I'm stuck down here. We ain't ever going to fight it out, man. Why don't we make a deal?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
you and me together, we'll include Lepidus, who's the general from Spain, and the three of us, just like my dad, just like Marcus Licinius Crassus, just like Pompey the Great, in 59, in Luca, we'll make a triumvirate right now. And all 500,000 or 250,000 of us will ride down to Rome and tell those fat cat bastards to give it up. And Mark Andes is done.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And so all those guys who told Octavian to blow off, you're a kid, you don't know shit, they underestimated his intelligence. This is Alexander again. This is a guy with a vision. This is a teenager with a total vision of the world like Alexander had. This is not a guy on a horse. You know, the Demosthenes thought it was just legions. No.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is a dude who wants to take all the Hellenic ideals and throw them like potato chip crumbles into the world so that we'll grow up with an idea of a republic, an idea of space, an idea of architecture, an idea of plays, of theater, of science, and so forth. There ain't nobody with visions like that too much, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
People say like, you know, this isn't a day when you can, not like Cyrus the Great who also did the same thing, but in a day when, speaking of history of weirdos, when you take a talk about conquest and disbursement and murder and get rid of them and enslave them. Yeah. No, that's not what Alexander was about, man. You don't enslave jack shit, man. You spread the culture in there and educate them.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yes. And they were with you. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, intermingle because you can't, afford slavery. Right, exactly. And not only is it morally oppressive, it's too fucking expensive. You know, it's better to educate a man and have everybody on the same side. Okay, that's what Octavian is doing. Octavian is telling him, okay, you know what? Let's go in. And man, that republic goes... And they call up Cicero and say, hey, Cicero... Guess what?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They made a deal. What? Oh, gosh. Yeah, those speeches we told you not to make against Mark Anthony, he's coming in and down. Yeah, you shouldn't have made them. And he's looking for blood. He's looking for blood, and they kill him. And you know what happens to Cicero, Casey? Mark Anthony personally cuts off his head and hands, personally.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And nails him in the forum to the roster.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
His head, boom, his hands. And said, this is this dick.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Cicero, this douchebag. Who's not a douchebag. He's one of the great guys. Everybody's ego got the better of him. Oh, absolutely.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's going to make a great miniseries. Absolutely. We would love that. In contemporary time.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Cicero.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Power, Lust, and Violence in a Republic Just Like Yours. Oh, my God. That is perfect. That subtitle is incredible.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'll put you to death. But you know something? Yeah, it's what it is. And me and a guy, I'm going to give it to Dan. Because me and a buddy of mine who's got a ton of things going on with YouTube already wrote the outline for it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, we're telling you. We never tell anybody about it because it's our little baby secret. I mean, Howard Gordon knows about it. But Cicero is the great story of... Of hubris, of winning, of the people, of failure, of espionage, of passion, of betrayal, and essentially undone. I mean, if you start with a guy who's got no entrance into... Rome, because he's like, you know.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I don't want to go to Curly Q's and look at the, no, this guy's a figurative realist. You start in the basement when he's 12 years old. And then he paints unbelievably, draws. It's not like a guy just started off doing the Guernica. with abstract impressionistic horses being blown up. You know, the guy's a realist. Then the guy's a cubist. Then the guy's an abstractionist. Abstract impressionist.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He's the novus homo, like the new man. He's the new man. That's like being a mercantile dude.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You're not of the purple.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You've got to work your way there. And to get the degree, he doesn't go to Greece and study that. And also to advise Julius Caesar, hey, you want to be a lawyer, man? Go to Greece and study that stuff. Study oratory. You know, and Julius Caesar does. And he's a great advisor to his friends. and a great pal, and then becomes the guy in Rome.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But starting as a people's guy, and then ending up, and supporting the end of domestic terrorism, and supporting the end of international terrorism with Pompey the Great taking down all the people who want to bomb Rome. And by the way, Rome is bombed in 69. Those Salesian pirates come in and blow up Austria. I mean, it's own 9-11, man. Yeah. Every single thing that's happening in this century.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I was just thinking.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know what I mean? Take him out of a toga and put him in Armani.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's the same deal, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And somebody says, no, you know what? It can't parallel it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You have corporatization. You've got corporatization. Yeah. Privatization of everything. Yeah. Privatization of all things. It's more relevant now, right? Absolutely.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Way ahead of its time. Ed Neumeier and Mike Miner, you've got to thank them, but then you've got to thank Verhoeven. Listen, it gets me absolutely really weepy, the gratitude that I have for those guys. Because I'm doing the movie, I know it's going to be brilliant because it's Paul Verhoeven. I've seen every one of his movies. I've conned my way into doing that part.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I've almost begged Verhoeven to just hire me. I never auditioned once for it. I moved around a room. I met him and met him and met him and him and John Davison, and they finally hired me. I had beefs with Verhoeven, you know, on the set. I wasn't quite sure about some of the dialogue. I had beefs with Ed, you know, on the set. And then all of a sudden, it just started to fall into line, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I worked for six months on that movement and had to throw the whole thing out. I had beefs with Rob Boutin, who designed that beautiful stuff, and Stefan DeBruyne did the makeup. But all in all, when all is said and done, every one of those guys are a genius. From Rob to Stefan to Paul to Mike to that cast. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're talking about Ray Wise or Kurt Wood.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It doesn't matter if you're talking about Ronnie or Dana Hurley, man. With Nancy, who I see frequently, that everything in it is like I look at it. You know, it's a tragedy, really, because Miguel Ferrer died and the guy with the Egyptian and The theater said, we're going to have a special screening of Robocop. Would you introduce it? I said, I'll do it if Ed does it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
When Miguel passed away, it was about 10 years ago, and Ed said, okay, I'll do it. He said, are you going to watch it? I said, it's a new 4K reconstituted director's cut of it at the... What's the theater across the street from the Egyptian that's part of it? Oh, the... The Arclight. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So at the Arclight, I said, I don't know, man, I don't know. So Ed and I go and we are...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The guy goes all the way through it. I go, okay, where do I start? She says, okay, pick up a book on impressionism. Monet. Monet, Monet. Those are the easiest guys to do. So I do that. I study Ford, Cezanne. I go through all these guys I like. Then you start going backwards. You end up with the Renaissance, man, and you don't know what the Renaissance is, brother. That's some history.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
introduce it, and then we sit through it. And then I turned to Anna and said, I can't watch this movie anymore because it's tragic. It is truly tragic in that the reason why Paul says he took it, I can't speak for, Paul's in LA right now, but because of the center scene is when he goes back and dives into his past and he has visions of it. And it's so upsetting.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, it's not upsetting when you're, 39 years old and you don't have a family. It's not upsetting when Paul Verhoeven says, you know, the most important thing is that when the dreams and so forth. And I'm thinking, like, why isn't that stuff happening before? You know, Robo, it's you. I know you. Paul McRae's life. And he says, Peter, it's not amnesia. It's not amnesia.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I don't know what the hell he's talking about. It's not amnesia, Peter. It's God. It's a spiritual thing. It's infinite. Paul, what in the fuck are you talking about? And we're in a suite. But it's Paul who studied medieval myth and has a degree in this stuff and Christian myth and Egyptian myth. Don't forget, I'm the dummy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We've been talking about contemporary art, but I ain't seen Johto at this point. I haven't done a dive into all this stuff. Later on, I'm going to talk until Paul's blue in the face. He wants to go home. But then I'm thinking, what is this? He said, Peter, look, look, it's the one thing they can't take.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The tragedy is that, and he's talking about tragedy, but when you're in the character, I'm not thinking this is tragic. You see the movie 20 years later, it's tragic. He says the one thing they can't, they've taken everything. But the most important thing is they've taken your identity. But the most important thing is they've taken your family. They've taken your wife and child.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they've taken your consciousness away from you. But they cannot take your soul.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And your soul wakes up on its own. And so I'm remembering that conversation in my suite. And I tell you, I could cry like that thinking about it. But when I listened to it, I thought it was the weirdest fucking thing. Like, I don't want to really hear about it. That, in spite of the fact that I was sober at the time, and I really had no serious spiritual program.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But to hear Paul talk about it then and talk about it now, and then when you see that the idea of resurrection, which, by the way, is the theme to that film. I asked people that. I love the film. I asked a kid the other day. He said, oh, you know, I grew up with that film. And it was at the World Renaissance Society, and here's this young academic. I grew up with that film.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
This is history for weirdos. You get back to the Renaissance. This ain't just the Ninja Turtles.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I said, what's the theme of it? And it's like great Elia Kazan said, my mentor Uta Hagen says, if you can't say what the theme of a work is in one word, all you're talking about is plot, story, significance, you know, resonance with whatever. It's all important. But what is the damn theme?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's resurrection. It's rebirth. Like all great stories. It's not war. It's not this. It's not that. It's like the theme of Chinatown. I got to tell Robert Towne, thank God, with John Milius when they were smoking a cigar. Thank God I got to tell Robert Towne. Listen, Chinatown is the, or one of the three, greatest pieces of visual rhetoric on America ever made. Ever made.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And because the theme of it is dynasty and incest. Now, people don't want to see that. People want to say, oh, it's power. No. Oh, it's water. No. Oh, it's land. No, it's not. What's the last thing John Huston does? Take that girl out of that car, say, come with me.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No. This is war, politics, taxes. This is accounting. This is intellectual history. This is humanism. It's the rebirth of. of Cicero, Marshall, that's the rebirth of science. And you go, I don't want to read this shit. Obviously you did, though. But you did, yeah. No, but I was embarrassed into it, man, because of your anniversary. This is to bring us around. We're all coming back. No, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
She's my mother.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I mean, she's my daughter. She's my sister. She's my daughter. She's my sister. She's my daughter. That's the theme of it. That that guy, like the Egyptians and everybody else, wants that dynasty.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Fuck the valley. That's the plot, man. So I get to say to Robert Towne this, and I said, you know, I was at Bob McKee's story analysis course, and everybody missed it. I'm sitting with Diane Keaton. I'm sitting with other famous actors, my friends. I'm sitting with the entire development team of Paramount Pictures, and Bob McKee's saying, what is the theme of Chinatown?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And people are saying power, water, land, blah, blah, blah. And McKee goes, no, it's not. It's the thing you don't want to look at. It's the most horrible thing in the world. It's fucking incest. It's dynasty. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's the Ptolemies. That's right. It's the fucking Ptolemies. And so I get to tell Robert Towne. I said, Robert Towne, bless his heart, man. I was sitting with John Milius. John Milius is a hero to me. And they're both going, yeah, yeah. Because they don't want to see it. They don't want to see it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Especially when it's an alien on your face. Speaking of beautiful stories.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Especially when it jumps out of the thing. It jumps on your face. No one would do that. So that's the beautiful thing about RoboCop. It's not about army. It's not about society. That's the stories in it. And all those ideas in it about trickle-down economics and privatization of this and militarization of whatever. Just for power. But it's not about that. That's what people want.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's about rebirth. You know, it's about finding, it's about resurrection, man. It's a theme that goes all the way back to the Egyptians.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And so I ask that all the time. I stand in classes and somebody will ask me about Robocop. You know, I got to give a thing for the LA Breakfast Club. Uh-huh. So, okay, what's the theme of this film? Uh-huh. Once in a blue moon, somebody will say, rebirth. And I say, thank you. And everybody goes, oh, how? Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah, because of what?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because of metaphysics, not because of any physical world. The beauty part of story is, as Casey's husband, who's an extraordinary writer, Dan, the beauty part is that you can encase a metaphysical or spiritual something and bury it in an incredibly entertaining plot arc, you've got lightning in a bottle, man. Because people won't even know why they love it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I venture to say, thanks to Paul Verhoeven's imagery that he puts in there, thanks to his drive of it, if you gave that to an average American action director, that movie would not be that movie. In spite of Ed Neumeier's and Mike Miner's gifts, in spite of whatever us actors lent to it, it would not be that movie without Paul. Without that vision of resurrection driving it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Right? It would be a nice action movie and funny and kind of cool and about America.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It is the soul of the movie.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Man, you know, I've got to watch that again. What's your name, Kid Murphy? What's your name, Kid Murphy? What's your name, Kid Murphy? Rebirth, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's right there in front of your face. But no, they want to make it about, no, it's about ethics. It's hard to do it. It's hard to get Cicero out of his fucking dungeon, man. It is, isn't it? It's impossible. Look, he's 64 years old and people say his wife has left him for fuck's sake. His wife is saying, look, you've got an ego. His wife goes to marry Salas, one of the great historians ever.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he's got a smart wife. Much younger than he is, though, too, right? Not that much younger. I mean, maybe like eight years, something like that. She's 23. She's like 15 or something like that. But in point of fact, I mean, let's talk about feminists for a second.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
In the Republic, in spite of the fact that they're not part of the politics, they are indeed part of the advice and the counsel and the.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I know Rauschenberg. I've had a beer with him. I know Warhol. He's taken my picture eight times. I'm a grease lightning with hanging out in New York, man. And all of a sudden, I'm at the International Film Festival of Japan with...
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
wisdom of rome that's their currency that's right and the currency and by the way they can get a divorce whenever they want yeah they could just go you know what i don't dig your jam anymore man i'm taking my money and i'm leaving yeah and that's great that's great that goes down in the middle ages no no one's going anywhere yeah the guy says that because the guy's in control but let's talk about another thing about history for weirdos yeah
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
How weak men are.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. It's so true. A guy doesn't learn that until he either gets married or he's 35.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
A lot of men don't. A lot of men can admit it. You know, I say to my wife, in case you don't know my wife, I'm lost. I tell my wife this. I say this, my daily chant is, I'm lost without you, baby. And you know what her response is? Yeah, I know. She goes, yeah, I know. I said, you know, a month ago I said, you know, Sherry, that's a compliment I'm giving you. She goes, no, it's not. It's a fact.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
A compliment is you like my lipstick or my manicure. That's a compliment. You telling me that you're lost without me, that's just, that's the way it is.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We've been together for 20... I was literally robbing a cradle when I met her. I was 49, she was 24. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, but she's much smarter than me. Much better looking. Much hipper. A dancer, an athlete, and all this stuff. Oh, wow.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But she's fun. But she's really fun. And... She's fun to travel with and fun to be with. I was hanging with her a long time and traveling with her a long time. And my oldest friend... who just cannot be around girly girls at all. And my wife is very girly and just very feminine, in spite of the fact she's a jock.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I was telling Mark this with the great Jean Moreau and Truffaut's actress and the great Mike Medavoy, producer extraordinaire, born in Shanghai, no less, and Vittorio Storaro. I was telling several people, I've got to remind people that Vittorio Storaro is, if I say films to you, like... The Last Emperor, Sheltering Sky, Apocalypse Now, Dick Tracy, Last Time Gone Paris.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But my dearest friend is one of the great antiquarian book dealers, Mark Himes, also the godfather, one of the three godfathers of my kid. But he said, how's your wife one day? And I went, what? And I didn't even live with anybody, man. I had a long relationship, but nobody moved in. I said, what? He goes, hey, I know she's not your wife, but she should be. And he got up and he left.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he walked out. And some months later, I say this all the time, because it was a bardo, what they call in Tibetan Buddhism, a chink in your linear reality where all of a sudden an epiphany goes, whoa.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You see a light.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I asked him months later, or actually years later, why did you say that and walk out? He says, I didn't know I was going to say it. He says, I have to tell you honestly, I didn't know that was coming out of my mouth. And it suddenly came out of my mouth. It blew my mind as much as yours. And you know what? And I didn't want to have a conversation.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, he didn't want to talk about it because I didn't know what I said. And I said, something just said, get out. And I said, well, you left me level. And you left me with one of the great gifts anybody's ever given me, which is that if you'd not have said that and left. See, if he had stayed, I would have had a conversation. It all gone.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Sure. But you have to feel it. You got to feel it. So in any case, that said, when one realizes that women or the female force or yin or whatever you want to call it or... the Trojan chicks or whatever they are, are more powerful.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
When I was very young, when I was 23, I was talking to a great guitar player, a studio rock country guitar player who just passed away, I'm sorry, who was 15, 16 years older than me. And I was having this time with this girl I had a crush on in New York. And she basically said, I don't know if I want to be with you. And I really want to be with her.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he goes, look, Peter, he's the first guy, the second person. Women keep score. More keeping score. Because you know you meet somebody, you have a feeling of whether you want to sleep with her or hang with her or have a romance with her in the Bahamas or whatever. Thunderbolt hits you or whatever, right? But men, especially young men, assume that women aren't keeping that score.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That there's sort of like the geisha effect. That they're just along for the ride. He said, but they're keeping a heavier score than you. And when this girl is saying she doesn't know, she is telling you the truth. Because she's actually admitting, I'm going to play. And I'm at the front of my own jam here, man. And I feel like playing, you know, you're the play thing, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I go, I am? He goes, yeah, yeah, but, you know, you're not going to see that until you're in your mid-30s.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because you keep thinking that, like, they're girls.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They're not. And don't think it's so. Thanks, Riley. Thanks for that. So the only thing I ever saw before that, because I get my stuff from movies and stuff, you know?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I watch a Tennessee Williams movie, which is my favorite play. The first play I ever wrote called Orpheus Descending.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I got to perform for Tennessee twice. My very first performance ever on stage. Sticks and Bones for Tony Award voting, which is a black comedy about Ozzie and Harriet written by David Rabe. Won the Tony Award. Father of Lily Rabe has gone on. Wow. Yeah. And married to Jill, a great actress. Unmarried woman and so forth. And I see this.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
movie called Fugitive Kind with Anna Magnani, arguably one of the most dynamic actresses ever in the history of time. and Brando, who, for my money and a lot of people's money, has changed the whole game, and there ain't nobody like him. Nobody inventive physically in a room.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The first guy to filter Technicolor. I was allowed to filter Technicolor because Technicolor, it was the mafia. You had to do your three-bath thing, and they checked your movie, and if they liked it, fine. If they didn't, no good. Well, they sold the lab to Rome, and Dario Argento, the great expressionist horror film, does a couple films with Vittorio, and they're off and running.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Nobody, even my wife or her generous, goes, okay, this sexiest guy, no matter if he's overweight or not, the stuff he comes up with and invents. Okay, he was asked to do the play with Anna Magnani. He didn't do it. It's the first play Tennessee Williams writes in 1940. It never gets published as a play until 1958 or something like that.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Sidney Lumet comes back and does it with Tennessee's original idea of a play with Brando and Anna Magnani as a film. And Brando and Anna Magnani are, there is no dynamic more powerful than them. This is the most dynamic, powerful, and she's not like the bee's knees good-looking chick. But a force of nature. And Brando is ethereal. And as Kazan said, Brando is a woman walking around in a man suit.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But his whole vibe, he said his power, Kazan said it, Kazan is essentially the guy that put him on a map, it's feminine. At the studio, Kazan, I come into the actor's studio, I ask him one time, what do you mean by that? He says it is feminine. He says, you see this cliche of him and a wife beater screaming Stella. And this is before VHS and all that stuff. You see it again. He's whining.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He's screaming like a two-year-old girl. He's not going pumping his biceps. He's got his hands over his ears. And he's whining like, if I may say the cliche, of a little girl screaming at her dad.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Or mom or whatever. And I go, God, man. A guy that powerful physically can allow himself to be that much of what men call a wimp.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Has got a power beyond dreams in him. So I see this movie. And it's Tennessee Williams. And Tennessee Williams is best friends with Gore Vidal. Gore Vidal is going to become my best friend on the Amalfi Coast and convince me to buy my house.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He writes my recommendation at a grad school, and he's a guy I could talk about endlessly because I had never met a smarter guy or a funnier guy in my life than Gore Vidal ever in planet history time. And one of the first guys to admit that he's gay, I'm queer, you know, like, had the balls, like Burroughs, like Jean Genet, like Pasolini, like several of them, to go, yeah, I'm queer. Mm-hmm.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because you guys have marginalized me, and I'm not of your gender, and I'm not of your jam, so fuck you. And those days you get shot for it. If not today, you get shot for it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Pretty dangerous. So Gore is friends with Tennessee, and Tennessee is gay. Tennessee, Dick Cavett tried to be a smarty pants in 1972. He said, are you homosexual? To Tennessee, right? He's smoking his cigarette. And you're going like, oh, my God. Is that the dumbest fucking thing from some jammed up Anglican Brit?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
To ask the granddaddy of theater poetics.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. You know, are you homosexual? And Tennessee goes, takes a puff off his cigarette and says, well, baby, let's just say I covered the water for you.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
incredible is that a class act oh my gosh I said you can't have no more poetry than that man I love that so when he writes this thing this dead and night scene about a guitar player Cajun escapee from New Orleans who's now down in the bayou somewhere in the tibido working in a shoe store for an Italian immigrant with a bastard husband who's upstairs and the dead and night she wants to know who he is you gotta google the scene man yeah look at it fugitive kind Anna Magnani Brando okay
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And Vittorio's a game-changer. with cinematography. He's a game changer with color. And he's born on my birthday, I'm happy to say. Really? He's 10 years older than me.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I'm paraphrasing this thing, but Tennessee is gay. And we don't know if he's ever been with a chick, but some of the most dynamic feminine characters ever written based on his mother and his sister, ever, ever written in the theater. See Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and shit. And she says to him, Anna Magnani says, Brenda, who are you? He says, I'm a bird. I'm a bird with transparent wings.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I fly so close to the sun, you can't see through these wings. You can't see me. She says, what do you know? And he says, I know a woman can burn a man down. A man can't burn a woman down.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. That's powerful. And he says, I can burn a woman down. But he can't because he's a bird. But a man can't burn a woman down. And I asked my friend.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
a great friend and academic, Bob Chambers. I remember I said, man, let's talk about that. Does that mean heartbreak? Bob, much smarter guy than me, not very vociferous, but he says, no, Peter, that's not heartbreak, man. Everybody goes through heartbreak. That goes back to legend. That goes back to the Greeks. Oh, yeah. That goes back to why women stop war.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
June 24th.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That goes back to why, as John Fowle said in the magazine, women see enough sons and husbands die, they stop it. Because they know that the only reason why men create war is to stop women from laughing at us. So I asked my mother that, I asked my wife that. Somewhere, are you giggling when you see the hot guy? In the back of your jam, are you laughing? And Cher goes, yeah, of course.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's coming up. Not March 25th. Not March 25th. I'm not that lucky. I'm not as lucky as you guys. But June 24th. And so anyway, Vittorio always wears Versace. Always wears Versace. Good taste. It's just so great that Francis Coppola, who's celebrating... a big picture thing at the Academy Museum and AFI. And he's a great dude. I don't know him well, but he's such a great dude.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, it's ridiculous. Love the posing. Love the abs. Love the butt. But come on. The whole thing? Stupid. Do you agree with that? I go, yeah. That's my mother, that. I said, mother, you used to look at those guys on the Maltese Coast, those boat guys with the hunches. Yeah, baby. I said, don't you find that, do you find that, like what Tennessee's saying, somewhere that's all like,
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's like lightweight. She goes, yeah. It's all posing.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It doesn't do our thing. Yeah. And I'm thinking, okay, wow. To stop women from laughing at us. And my friend Bobby says, Peter, the original piece of oral tradition literature in the world is the Iliad.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
What's going on there, man? Why are these guys killing each other for 10 years? Over a chick.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, and three chicks flying around. Oh, there's an idiot. Let's get him, the shepherd boy, to say which one of us is the coolest. And he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Right. I'll give you the most money. I'll give you the most land power. I'll give you the hottest babe. Oh, you're the best.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And you don't think that's about a woman burning a man down? Holy cow. And I'll tell you, nights ago, I'm in a diatribe with a lawyer about something. He's a lawyer for 20th century. His wife is astute feminist. And I'm talking about this thing, and I got to go up and preach this stuff about history for weirdos. Like the history is that women can burn men down.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And by the way, the Western world will tell you. And by the way, there's a ton of myths in... In Asian history, they tell you the same thing. You know, that Mother Earth will fly out of the sky and burn your ass, in spite of how powerful you think your biceps are. Right. And I hear her say to him, she says, yeah, but men go and get guns and kill us.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And the husband said, honey, what do you think makes them go get the guns? They're burned down. Mm-hmm. They got no other recourse except war. They have no leverage.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
What else could they do to get power? Yeah, they have no leverage for dialogue. They're done. And I'm thinking, if I remember that, I could sidestep a whole lot of marriage shit. And indeed I have.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I go like, okay, you know what? That's one of the things I learned. I'm going to win about 12% of this, and that's not one I'm going to win. The color of the kid's bedroom, I'm not going to win that one. No, I'm not going to win that one, no. What this, where this piece, I'm not going to, no.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. I love that. Whether we have a car on the, yeah. You got to pick your battles, man. And most of them, men got to go. Absolutely.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
That's what I told him that he had to learn how to say. So speaking of history for weirdos, why is it that you've got to be a weirdo to accept that fact that women own the dynamic?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Guys don't want to admit that.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Okay, so there's this TV show on that I am loathe to watch. Adolescence.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, I've heard about it. I haven't watched it. Well, the bill in front of the English Parliament that everybody's got to watch it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh. And the woman spoke out, and the head of the parliament, head of parliament two days ago, three days ago, said, absolutely. I think we ought to have a bill that everybody watches. We should watch it. So it's a four-parter. The four-parter, each one is a one-er, produced by the same guy who stars in it, and it's about a 13-year-old off the internet, kills a girl.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But Coppola said that Vittorio Storaro was the only guy who could spend two years in the jungles of the Philippines. in a white suit.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know he killed her right away.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And you go through the denial aspect of the problem, the psychological thing. For me, the entire jam of the young male dilemma striking back. I ain't seen it. Have you seen it?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, I do too, but I'm afraid.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Because I got a 13-year-old boy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So I'm talking to my 13-year-old boy about it, speaking of history for weirdos. Okay, he said that's for weirdos. I said, no, Teddy, why is it for weirdos? Because he was hanging out with two girls. One of them he likes a lot.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, I mean, you want to give him advice, but I don't. Yeah. But he's at this party, and the parents are cool. So what I said... I have a problem with this show called I Like. He's heard of it. He says, I'm not watching it. I said, yeah. He says, you know, I know it's about the kid who's watching the internet and it's violence against girls. I said, how are you doing with girls?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He said, I like girls. I like hanging with them. He was giving me a legit response. I'm praying in the back of my head that he's cool with it. Because I'm also going like I got no control over this because when you're a parent and you're a parent, don't you feel like the weirdo? Yeah. Like you'd only imagine. Yeah. Because especially kids that age, you're talking to drunks. Oh, yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Two and a four-year-old? No, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, and that's how elegant Vittorio is. Really? Wow. Vittorio is elegante, elegante.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You think they're going to make sense to you? Oh, no. And you're expecting sense?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You know, and her delightful daughters, I know they ain't making no sense, man. Oh, no way. And so at a 13-year-old, they are making sense. But they're not going to make my sense. And I don't know if I want to watch this show as I don't know if I want to be that upset because I know I'm going to be upset about it. And I know I'm going to probably do a deep dive in my own accountability as a dad.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He doesn't want to see it. You know, he said, I said, do you want to watch it? He goes, I don't want to watch it and I don't need to watch it because I know it is about someone who got disturbed off of watching violence off the internet. I don't watch violence. I said, but you watch violence with games, you know, and World of Warcraft and all this stuff. I said, I don't know if he can make it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
He says, well, that's the distinction between watching a game and actually acting out on it. And I go... Can I repeat you? Yeah. That's the distinction between watching the game and actually acting out on it? Because I never had that kind of articulation when I was 13. nor the smarts to make that distinction. I really wanted to blow up shit.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And he is, you know, an artist, a designer, a cinematographer, all sorts of stuff. So I ask him, because I'm like Mr. Pretentious, I'm at this film festival. And I've had Kobe beef with the Japanese people. And so I say, and I speak in French and some Italian.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No, I really wanted to take M80s and go into this tunnel and blow the hell out of this tunnel. Oh, that was me. Yeah, or stick it into the guy. Stick it into, like, my next door neighbor, I think his name was Andrew, but stick it in his apples. Stick tons of those M80s in his apples and blow the shit out of his tree.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So I didn't have the smarts in my kid, but I don't know about this, but speaking of weirdos, it is truly... The history of weirdos being a dad.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I can imagine. We're bringing it back to that. I know. Yeah, I can imagine. I pray that you have a kid.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I pray that you go through. The trauma and the joy of having a kid.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
She doesn't?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I do.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Where?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, what a great school.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Emerson's in Georgia? No.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Boston. Right.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
She's like 55. Something like that, yeah. Yeah, around there.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. But I'm like, they're expensive.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Our dog is expensive. The Latina.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
With your dad?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
What does your dad do?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. I know Big Dean's. You do? I know where it is, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're going to make him so happy. He's going to be so, so happy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Big Dean's is a famous bar, man. It is.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The plague. Yeah. Yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's been there, I don't know.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
It's a long time.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. That was the go-to place for a lot of us misbehaving.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Back in the day, as I say, back in the day.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Shay J's is also... Very well known joint.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I don't think so anymore, do they?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I haven't been in a little while. I thought the fire law told them to take that stuff up.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah. Yeah. What about your parents? Who are they? Enough about me. What about yourself?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Well, that's because of Allie. You know, Allie got me with a French teacher and I learned Italian.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Oh, yeah.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, there you go. Oh, really? Okay, you guys are real Southern California. Yeah. No, through and through.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I was invited to it, and I have no desire to go.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Have you ever been to a bullfight in Spain? No, and I don't want to. We're big animal lovers, too. I have to say two things. I went to Spain to do a movie by Ernesto Salvador, who was the great Argentinian existentialist freedom guy, called El Tunel, right after I finished Robocop. Robocop wasn't out. So I go over there to do this movie with Jane Seymour in Spain.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And it's at the time that Madrid is still ugly because they're using third world gas and the ecosystem's not up. It's 1986. And I go to finish the movie in Argentina. By this time, I have friends in Madrid who have turned me on to all four films. six forms of Sevillanas flamenco and Bolerias flamenco and I go to flamenco. And then I'm in love with the whole Andalusia jam and I'm just like done.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Five, not bad. That's incredible. I speak Japanese. If I can go over there and pick it up again and stuff.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I want to go back and dig the festival of Seville. The festival of Seville is a flamenco festival before a big bullfight. And there's a guy bullfighting there named El Spartaco, as part of his Saturday. No, but you don't want to see a bullfight, man. I know. Because I tell you, it is macho beyond belief.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And it is diabolically brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal and it's just part of Spanish ethic. It's part of Andalusian, Gitano ethic. Like flamenco is. Mm-hmm. But even the Plaza de Toros in Mexico Suidad is a big place for... Yeah. But I tell you, I cannot ever watch one again. I've never been to one. Never watch one again.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But, yeah, by the way, I never started until I was 40. Really? So everybody says, I wish I'd learned. You know what? It's easy. And Ali gave me the thing. I'm going to digress and tell you. Okay. You take the lesson every week.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I'm happy I saw one because it's a thing. But, man, I can't do it again. But! I did get to the festival of Sevilla, and the Flamenco Festival of Sevilla is the nuts, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But flamenco is jazz, and it's North African jazz, and it's their true machismo. It's not only of the women, but of the men, and the sounds, the dance, the power of it. And it only really starts... And Andalusia at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm not talking about the tourist shit. I'm talking about you go to Cadiz and you see a cat playing. He says, come to me.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Come to this bar at 3 o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden, man, there's like people get up and start dancing. And you think, they'd get hired anywhere.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they're dancing, man. And they're just like flying. And the guitar player is amazing. You never see him again. No, man, but that's just the power dynamic. And here's what I want to be when I grow up. I'm going to leave you with this.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So I go to this festival, and they say you'll never get a place to stay. You'll never get a place to stay. The Sevilla, the Sevillanos have their own clique, and you can't get in any tents unless you're a Sevillanos. You can't see any of the stuff unless you're a Sevillano. You can't do anything. It's like truly a festival of flamenco that is Serrano. But I go anyway, man. I drive down there.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You get a kid from a school, from an undergrad program at UCLA, USC, whatever, man. So you've got to pay them $75 a week or $50 a week or whatever the heck it is. But you don't miss the lesson, A, whether you've done the homework or not. You've got to hear that language every week. That's what she said. Don't miss the lesson.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I pull up in front of the Alfonso Tracy, the biggest hotel. I park my car on a sidewalk. I don't care if it's towed. I run in, and there's El Spataco going in there. And people ask for an autograph. I got my little Michelin guide thing, right? He signs my thing, right? And I go over to the concierge and I go, look, I got to get a room.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They go, oh, man, Weller, yes, you've sent us a thousand faxes, man. We got no rooms. I go, listen, I'll pay you cash. I'll pay you anything. And this one guy says, come over here. He says, we have a four-major, massive hotel in a basement. It's got one 10-foot high window that looks right even with the garden. So if you open it up, bumblebees will fly in. Oh, my gosh.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But it's got no air conditioning and no heat. But it's for the maids, but the maids don't stay here anymore. The rest of the things are taken for storage. It's got one cot and a sink. Bathroom at the end of the hall. I'll show it to you. I go down, man, it's got a cot half this big. The whole place is about from me to you. Oh my gosh. But it's got a sink, but this fantastic window.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And indeed, I can't open it. Because there's nothing but bees buzzing out there. I stay in there for 10 days, man. Oh, my gosh. And I bullshit my way into a dinner, a lunch, a couple of tents. I learned the first form of Sevillanas. Oh, my gosh. I go like, but here's what I want to be when I grow up. Can I just tell you what I want to be?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They are the original riding clubs. You got to remember the Andalusian Mustang, the horse, was brought.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
To the southern United States, and all the plains horses of the Comanches are the Andalusian, the Arabs, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
So these short Arab, they're like quarter horses, but they're Arabs. They got the big nose, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So I'm standing on a street corner, man, and you hear a flamenco. And then I see this. You can hear the horses, their hooves coming down because they're all shod, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
On the asphalt.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But they're not slipping and sliding.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And I look, and there's this guy. And with the black hair, you know, with the eyes, the four hours in the gym.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Riding a black horse with the spurs that big. I'm from West Texas. I'm a horse dude, man. Okay. But I ain't seen macho like this.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
With the black leather everywhere and one red shirt, right? And that flat sombrero. And on the back is the best looking woman I've ever seen with the mantilla and the hair up on the head. And they're sitting side saddle with one hand, one hand around a guy, man. They don't sit like straddle.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And if you have to go abroad, take your little stupid book and go, excusez-moi, je voudrais le verre d'eau, la, la, la, la, la. Raise your hand and be. And the second thing is you've got to make an ass out of yourself. You have to be willing to make an ass out of yourself. You have to be willing to be because Casey's got a two-year-old, four-year-old.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Side saddle.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And they've got the boots and the dress and the red and the curls, man. And the whole thing going on with the hair, man. And they got one hand free. Like this. And they're just waving and so forth and hanging on to the guy. And the horses are all like this. And they're in groups. Like five, six, seven. And I'm looking at the horse. Best horse I've ever seen. The guys, oh my God.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And then the chicks, okay. I give up. I give up. I give up. And I see for 10 days, you know, another girl. So I finally asked this wrestler, what the fuck is this? And they said, but those are the riding clubs of Sevilla.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Those are the... The Andalusian riding clubs. That's as indigenous to us as flamenco and dancing. The horse, right? I go, I'm never gonna be it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Anyway.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
When you see it, especially if you come from horses and you come from an idea of macho and motorcycles and me and the stuff that goes fast or race cars and whatever, man. I've never seen that entity. By the way, the horses might have one spot, but they're black. They're all black. You don't get a roan. You don't get a paint. You don't get a pinhole. You don't get nothing. They're black, man. Wow.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They want the black horse with the black leather and the red.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Right. What an aesthetic. I know. But listen, the aesthetics of the makeup of these women, it's got to be the reddest, reddest of red lipstick, man.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I mean, it's like blinding red. Wow. Fire truck red, man. And manicures all done in red with the silver and the mentina. Forget it, man. Ain't nobody can compete. Oh, no way.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The Feria Sevilla. It's the flamenco. Okay. There's the festival of the Mary and the cross later on. But go to the flamenco festival.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
And just walk it. I don't care if you just walk it and never go into a tent.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My pleasure. Andrew, Stephanie, pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Have a kid. That's all I've got to say. Oh, my gosh.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
My pleasure.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
You've got to be the two-year-old going, mama, scusi, I want.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, exactly. And that's how you learn a language.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
But most adults don't want to be that idiot, right?
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Now, the thing is you go to France and do that, which I did. I'd go, scusi, moi, je voudrais. And the waiter would go, oh, my God, man. Yeah. And walk off in Paris. Especially in Paris, yeah. Especially in Paris. In the south of France, they're a little more tolerant. Yes, more patient. But Paris, man. No. Paris has gotten better, I've got to say. Oh, really? Yeah, because they had a meeting.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They had a come to Jesus meeting. Really, they did. The culture administration had a call. But the waiters, because the waiters used to be friendly. Yeah. Back in the days of Max Ernst. My life has been as happy as the... as the waiters on the streets of Paris. Not in the 60s and 70s, bro. No. So now they're nicer.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Okay, so, but if you go to Italy, and I knew French before I knew Italian, and you go, scusi, voglio, and you get the waiter goes, momento, you stop, you stop. Just, And the whole kitchen is invited on. To watch you? Yeah. And then you feel like a total jerk. No, no, it's good. No, you do it. Do it again. Do it again. Oh, my God. And they love it.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Yeah, you're good to go. I want to ask you a question. So you're married? Oh, yes. Okay, Andrew and Stephanie are married.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
They're not making fun of you. They're encouraging you. No, but Americans have a self-consciousness. We do. We have a self-consciousness. Yes. We don't like to be embarrassed. Yes. And we feel entitled. We are the ugly American. Come on. I know. We don't want to know who George Bernard Shaw is or look at this painting and not know who John Singer Sargent came to Venice. Why? I don't care.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
I don't want to be the dummy. We don't want to be the dummy. Yes, exactly. And also, we can be the dummy in groups, getting off a bus or a ship. We do that quite easily. Yeah, but we don't want to be the dummy.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
The single dummy. You don't want to be historical dummy because Americans are... We're young. Exactly. We're young, man. And we are... I say that collectively because I was there. I was the guy. I was the guy in the store or the shop. And a guy would say... Do you want some help? No, I don't need any help. You know, I don't want to be talked down to.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
Happy anniversary. Thank you. Now I want to tell you something very interesting about history since we're talking about history.
History For Weirdos
Episode 150: Art, Ancient Rome, and Androids - The Weird World of Dr Peter Weller
We're going to bring this up. Sí. Sí. Sí. Sí. Sí. Cambia la cabeza es un problema para mí.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Okay, I got a question for you. Is that you playing the guitar sometimes in your breaks? Yeah. It's great. Thanks, man. Yeah. It's gotta be him, because then I hear some lead, then I hear some... Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich glaube, er ist einer der großartigen, ungesungenen, führenden Rocker. Ich kann den Mann hören. Ich bin ein Jazzist, aber ich bin ein Rocker.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Meine Mutter war ein Jazzist. As my mother said, all music is great. But Leslie West, I think, to me anyway, is one of those cats that I can pick him out when I hear... Yeah, it's that tone, yeah. And I think, oh my God, he's the great unsung... Hero of the riff. Driving... Yeah. Rock Riffs, man. Well, yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
So when I hear you, you know, I want to talk about cats and then I hear another podcast. No, I want to talk about politics. I can't get into that. Then I want to talk about music. Yeah. And then I hear... That's your life though, isn't it? Well, all that. Yeah, art. And then you talk about Rothko with somebody and I think, oh God, now I got to get on there and talk about Rothko. Yeah, sure you do.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And then... Ich war gestern mit dir zuhören, ich habe etwas von, weil ich die Katze liebe, ich habe ihn einmal bei Sony getroffen, W. Campbell Bell. Ja. Und du hast gesagt, dass es etwas war, das mich belasert hat. Ja. Ich verabschiede mich, du hast gesagt, du nimmst den Telefon, lest die News und dann hoffst du, dass dein Kind nicht kommt und sieht, dass du weinst. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, so I got a 13-year-old. Oh, yeah. And it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me and the worst thing that ever happened to me. Sure. Why is it bad? How do you guide them? Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. It's not going anywhere, man. I don't know, man. I got a couple of chapters left, brother.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Let's talk about visual art for a second. I got into visual art through film. I was sort of embarrassed into it. How's that? Well, my mother tried to turn me on to it. I didn't want to go to any fucking museum and sit around and look at squiggly lines and shit. Where'd you grow up? I grew up all over. My father was sort of a G2 intelligence helicopter pilot and a bunch of wars. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und er war einer der LBJs, Army One Piloten, Vietnam, Korea und all that stuff. Oh, really? So did he talk about it? No. And no, he, my dad was, and then he retired and became a federal judge. So you can understand the control freak that that guy was. On the same time, my mother was extraordinarily liberal and artistic and, Eine Pianistin und ihre Mutter und ihre Großmutter waren Pianistinnen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Mein Vater wurde in den 59ern an der US-Führungskonferenz in Europa geflogen. Und die Koldauer ist losgegangen. Und die kubanische Missilkrise ist losgegangen. Und Hard Bop ist losgegangen. Hard Bop ist losgegangen. Aber meine Mutter versucht, mich an den Hard Bop zu bewegen. Als ich neun war, habe ich eine Trompete gespielt. Ich spiele immer noch Trompete und Quintetten. Ich mag große Bands.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich mag Duke. Und dann später, und das ist da drin, weil das ist mein Miles-Davis-Diary. Ich habe ein Diary gehalten über meine Erfahrungen mit Miles. Und Rutledge hat mich gefragt, es in 5000 Wörtern zu editen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Haha, yeah, me too, man. And then I say I read it, and I skimmed it. But anyway, look, I want to celebrate today, because in this art jam, Ali McGraw, the great and beautiful, turned me on to contemporary modern art. I was doing a movie with her, we never hung out, after the movie we started hanging out, and people think of her as a movie star and a model, but what she really was, was a stylist.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
She was a graduate from Wellesley in art history and design and so forth, and Stylist für Diana Vreeland, Vogue and whatever. So when did you meet her? I did a movie with her called Just Tell Me What You Want. Sidney Lumet, who is sort of a granddad to me. Really? He is an amazing sort of mentor and friend. Oh, he's the best. So Allie...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
after the film, takes me to the largest Picasso exhibit ever, is when the Guernica, his sort of... At MoMA? At MoMA, before it went back to Spain. Yeah, I saw that. My mother took me to that.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
So you got five floors of Picasso. So whatever everybody thinks of Picasso, they forget that he's a great figurative artist, a figurative realist.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Kannst du in der Nacht in Tunesien spielen, ohne deine Bach-Inventionen zu wissen? Ja, du musst die Grundlage haben. Genau, richtig. Ansonsten bist du Jimmy oder jemand anderes. Ja, ja. Ich habe die Bücher nach vorne gekauft und dann nach hinten. Es ist zu viel. Es ist Krieg, es ist Politik, es ist Poesie, es ist Wirtschaft, es ist Betrachtung, es sind Steuern, es ist das, was du sagst.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Was bedeutet Kunst? Ist Kunst politisch oder nicht? Oder ist es möglich, revolutionär zu sein? Yeah, is it revolutionary? But dig, it's too much. So I stop. You stop what, looking at it? I stop. I don't want to study one my way back.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I want to become the smarty pants in the room who could talk about Cy Twombly or Frankenthaler or whatever, because I've jammed with Ali, who knows a bunch of these people, the MoMA people and all that. The guys who are still alive. Yeah, and I've had lunches and I've been... Hanging out, so forth.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
So, anyway, I am at the Japanese International Film Festival, Kyoto, with the great Jean Moreau, Truffaut's Jean Moreau, and Mike Medavoy, a great Orion producer, producer of many films, and Vittorio Storaro. And for those of the people listening to this who don't know Vittorio Storaro, if I said the movie is Apocalypse Now, Sheltering Sky, Last Emperor, Last Angle in Paris. DP? What is he?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, he's the guy that first filtered... Technicolor. Yeah. With Dario Argento, that's where he began with it. Yeah. Okay, so he's Visions of Light, he's a true... Ja. Ja. In Italien sage ich, wer ist dein Lieblingspainter? Er fragt, wer ist deiner Lieblingspainter? Ich sage, ich weiß nicht, ich drücke ein paar Namen. Er fragt, bist du jemals in Padova gewesen, um Joto zu sehen?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
In der ersten Narrative von 1x146 Framen von Depth, Gefühl, Farbe, Perzeption. narrative movie. Giotto. Giotto, yeah. G-I-O-T-T-O, yeah. And I go, who? And he says, Giotto. And so Metta Boy and Jean Moreau are watching this, so I don't want to eat shit in front of them. I said, Giotto, I said, I don't know who you're talking about, brother.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And he flips his Versace scarf and says, well, Peter, we cannot talk about art. And walks off, man. And dig, I run after this pretentious... And I say, I say, pretensioso, which means you're pretentious, fuck. And he goes, no, you are pretentious, because you're like most Americans, who can spout off these names. Jackson Pollock, whatever, Larry Rivers, whatever. But you've got no context.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Because if you don't go see Giotto in the Capella Scrovegni, which is only 20 yards long, in the very first narrative, by the way, everybody talks about him. Leonardo spricht davon, Michelangelo, Picasso, Rothko. Rothko schreibt einen ganzen Hommage zu dem Mann. Ja. Also, wenn du diesen Mann nicht kennst, hast du keinen Kontext. Ja. Keinen. Und ich fühle mich geschlagen. Ja, du warst.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und ich war, ja. Und ich rufe Ali. Ja. Und ich sage, hey Mann, was ist mit Giotto? Sie sagt, ich habe versucht, dich anzunehmen, aber du wolltest nicht zuhören. Du wolltest eine Kontemporärin machen. Es ist das Anniversarium dieser Kirche, die die Frescoes öffnet und herausstellt, welche eine bemerkenswerte Veränderung aller visualen Kunsttipps heute ist. Am 25. März 1305.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Wann hast du da rausgekommen? Oh, yeah. I had that poster. Yeah, and that's Brian. One of my oldest friends. I said, we gotta go, man. We gotta go to this place. It's like a beatnik adventure. It is. So we went to Venice and we took the train and we sat there in the days you could smoke a cigar and sit with a cappuccino. And Brian goes, oh my god, man, ain't seen nothing like it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
So I go every single December 24th now. Yeah, to look, to sit. To sit. Be present. Now you're only allowed 15 minutes because it's all hermetically sealed and restored. So that's Giotto It's called the Arena Chapel in English. So you dig Rothko's Chapel in Houston and you're rapping on Rothko. Rothko's whole square imagery of color comes out of Giotto. No shit. Yeah. Had to come from somewhere.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It all came. Carlo Carrà, maybe the guy who invented Cubism, comes from Giotto. Picasso.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It truly is, but you know, it's like what Ernst Gombrich said. You got through that book? What, Story of Art? Yeah. I keep it by my bedside, man. Like a Bible, man. Like, you know, some people read Torah. I read that shit. But I also read Torah, so what the hell. But it's all connective. And I dig what Gombrich said. Gombrich's the man.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, er hat gesagt, dass jeder cool sein will und sagt, ich weiß, was ich mag. Du weißt nicht, was du magst. Du magst, was du weißt. Wenn jemand dich mit dem Handtuch von Joto nach Rothko fährt, wirst du es mögen. Rothko kann nicht dein Lieblingsrad sein, aber du wirst es bekommen. Ja. Anstatt nur ein paar rote Schuhe zu sehen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, thanks a lot for laying that shit show on me, man. But you know something? Did it make sense? Yeah, it totally makes sense. Okay, good. Look, I got to... Another thing you talk about is sobriety. I'm sober. Yeah. So another thing is that you talk about... You had Sam Quinones on here. Yeah. Okay. I couldn't get through it, because all that drugs, those are my drugs. Oh, yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
You're a meth guy or dope guy? Meth guy. Yeah. Meth guy back in the 60s. Back when it was just like biker meth? No, real deal liquid desoxen shit, man. Yeah? Gies it, yeah. Yeah. You know what giesing means? No. That's the old William Burroughs term for shooting it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, diese Leute sind eine große Influenz für mich. Und danke Gott bin ich sauber. Aber die Sache ist, was du sagst, die Trash kommt aus einer Pipe. Ja. Wenn es nicht, wenn die Leute sagen, du weißt, das ist das andere Klischee über das Sehen sauber. Ja. Du weißt, ich danke Gott für meine Drogenaddiktion und meine und was auch immer, weil es mich nicht zu einem Ort führen würde, wo ich das genieße.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja. Der Scheiß kommt aus einer Drainage-Pipe und ich stelle mich darauf an. Oder ich sitze und jetzt mache ich Zen-Meditation. Und ich muss es machen. Wie geht das für dich? Ich muss es jeden Tag machen, Mann. Wie, zweimal, einmal? Ich sollte es zweimal machen. Ich mache es einmal. 15 Minuten? Nein, 25. Ja. Und nur um zu sehen, wie der Scheiß, der Garbage, rauskommt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, okay, also da ist die Metapher. Ja, ja, nein, nein, nein. Es ist wie, wer sich darauf stört, oder sich auf eine Wand stört. Es ist eine Erleichterung. Oder sich auf eine Blume stört. Oder Rothko. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
You want a response to that? Well, I mean, talk about jazz. Look, jazz is anger. Yeah. You read Leroy Jones. Yep. Wenn ich Jimmy höre oder... Leslie West, oder Miles, oder was auch immer. Ich höre Resurrection. Ich höre Ausbruch. Es bringt mich nie in einen Ort, wo ich alles akzeptieren kann. Es agitiert mich. Und diese Agitation allein ist das, was mich aufwacht. Ja. Musik ist Magie.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And it's also personal. And it's also upsetting. So I have, call me a glass half full guy, but as long as music is around, and by the way, there are certain times and certain cultures where it's been suppressed, I've hope. I've hope that somebody's gonna, the music, Look, Mark, from 63 to 73, that's not my idea. Music was on the cutting edge of all the arts.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It was on the cutting edge of poetry, plays, theater, doesn't matter what it was. From 63 to 73, there was an album, doesn't come out, whether it was Jimmy or Moody Blues or Otis or Aretha or Bob Dylan, like every other thing, you know, or Donovan or Cream or Zeppelin, for crying out loud. That was furious music. Yeah. Und es hat mich enttäuscht. In einem guten Weg. In einem guten Weg.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und wie Cheech Marin sagt, als Lüge, er sagt, wir hatten damals eine Grund, Drogen zu nehmen, weil es eine fucking Revolution gab. Er sagt, ich weiß nicht, warum Leute jetzt Drogen nehmen. Ich meine, das ist ein Quignones-Ding. Und ich stimme dazu, weil Musik der Agitator war. Musik war der Wachstumspfad. Ja. So long as I'm hearing it, I know I'm not dead.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I know I'm not impervious to saying, I hate this. This is immoral. This is cheap shit. I'm glad I still live in a country. A particular guy that you were quoting on a TV show seems a little bit passive about it. Ich bin froh, dass ich nicht in Nordkorea wohne, Bruder. Ich bin froh, dass jemand... Well, I don't know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Maybe I'm the cockeyed optimist, but I think as long as we got music, you know, that we got big inspiration, we got big hope. Good. As long as we got art, too. Okay, so that's better. Okay, there you go. Okay, the Nazis censored art. The Russians have censored art.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I gotta go back there. You know, you inspired me to go back there. I've only seen it once.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
True, but what are you taking away from the experience? Are you taking away the freedom?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja. Du hast mich inspiriert, zurückzugehen. Wenn ich dich inspirieren kann, in Padua zu gehen, in Sujoto... Yeah, yeah, no, I'll do it. You gotta go, man. Where is it? In Padua? Padua is about 15 minutes out of Venice. Okay. You go to Venice, you take the train. Padua is the second oldest civic university that we have after Bologna. Yeah. And it's one of the hippest cities, man. It's beautiful.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Theater in New York, ich habe mit Pacino gesprochen. Er ist wie ein Mentor für mich, er ist einer der tollen Leute.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
No, he's an inspiration to me when I was coming up. Yeah, in the theater? Well, Panic in Needle Park is the first thing I saw when I was starting off in the theater. And also he was a studio guy and a method guy and so am I. How did you end up in New York? Good idea. I went to North Texas State, a big jazz school, playing the trumpet, had my whiplash moment. I was sick of people yelling at me.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I wasn't going to be Miles Davis. I didn't know what to do. I had to stay out of Vietnam. My brother and my dad just came back. And so I switched to English and theater and then realized the only thing for me was to act.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Auf der Trompete? Ja. Ich sitze auf dem Bandstand, spiele einen Count Basie-Ton namens Cloudburst. Ja. Ich spiele, ich solo. Ja. Auf Cloudburst. Ja. Ein sehr schöner Mann, der die Band läuft, Leon Breeden, das ist 1 Uhr, die Leute in der 1 Uhr sind alle berühmte Leute, Bones Malone, Lou Marini, die sind alle... Lou Marini. Ja, das sind die Jungs, mit denen ich zur Schule ging. Lou Marini. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und Dean Parks, ein toller Stadion-Gitarrenspieler. Diese Leute sind in der 1 Uhr, ich bin in der 4 Uhr, in der 5 Uhr, aber ich sitze auf dem Bandstand, und der Mann schreit mich an, und er sagt, ich mache eine Transition, ich weiß nicht, von B-Flat-Minor oder was auch immer. Und ich sage... Es ist wie Whiplash. Es ist total wie Whiplash.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Der Kerl will mir ein Symbol schicken und ich will nicht mehr. Also sage ich, ich werde das nicht für 49 Dollar vergeben. Und ich werde nicht Miles sein, der in diesem Buch ist und mein einziger Hörer ist. Ich möchte nur sagen, I was with Miles the last gig he ever played in his life. Last person out of dressing room and walking to his car. 18 days later he was dead.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Der, den ich am meisten zurückkomme, weil ich ihn höre, jedes Mal, wenn ich in den Klinikum gehe, ist Bitches Brew. Ja? Ja. Für mich ist es in einer silbernen Art. Na, das ist genau vor Bitches Brew, Mann. Ich meine, das ist Joe Zavano. Oh, ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Keiner spricht darüber. Nein, ich liebe den Jack Johnson-Rekord. Oder On the Corner. Wenn ich die zwei... Du weißt, es ist hübsch, dass du das sagst. Weil die meisten Leute gehen zu Kind of Blue. Das ist Hack.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
They got no context. They got that and they stopped there. And then it's like what Keith Jarrett said, Miles, why don't you play those ballads anymore? It's just because I love them. Weil das alles Spiel ist. Ich liebe dich für das, Mann. Denn die meisten Leute bringen das nicht auf.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Er kommt nicht, Mann. Ich hatte ein paar Konfus mit ihm, Mann, über den großen Jazz-Influencer.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Du sagst, ich bin fertig mit dieser Scheiße. Und du sagst, ich werde agieren. Ich werde agieren, um aus Vietnam zu bleiben. Ich werde einfach so machen. Und dann plötzlich gehe ich nach Austin. How does that get you out of Vietnam? Well, I gotta stay in school. I gotta do something. Right, okay, stay in school. Yeah, I gotta stay in North Texas.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Otherwise, the second I jump out, I'm gonna be... Did you grow up... Was there a lot of years in North Texas? I grew up in San Antonio, your favorite town. I heard you talking about San Antonio. Das ist, wo ich aufgewachsen bin, Mann. Und dann in Denton, da habe ich drei Jahre gespart.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und dann habe ich gesagt, ich habe mich in Austin verabschiedet, mein Vater ist jetzt verabschiedet, er war in der Rechtsschule in Austin. Und ich habe mich verabschiedet und ein Mann hat gesagt, was machst du? Und aus meinem Mund habe ich gesagt, ich bin ein Schauspieler. Und ich habe gesagt, wow, das ist, was ich bin. Now, here's the interesting thing about parents.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
My dad, who does not get acting, jazz, music, nothing. My mother, who comes from that. I apply for a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I think, oh wow, my mother's going to be so happy. I'm going to go there, man. I'm going to do New York or whatever. Das ist, wo ich sein werde. Ich gehe nach Texas, nach Mineral Wells, Texas. Mein Vater ist jetzt Judge.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich sage, hey, Mama, schau mal, ich habe eine Scholarschaft in New York. Meine Mutter annihiliert mich absolut, Mann. Wirklich? Ja. Sie sagt, du gehst nicht nach New York. Ich komme aus New York. New York wird dich töten. Du wirst nie in New York kommen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Du bist ein Schauspieler. Du bist verrückt, Mann. Niemand macht es als Schauspieler. Dein Vater wird dir nie Geld dafür geben. Ich fühle mich absolut enttäuscht. Das ist von der kreativen Seite der Familie. Das ist das, was ich erwarten würde. Ja. Und ich gehe, um meinen Vater zu sehen, und er sagt, ich gehe nach New York. Er sagt, was willst du? Ich sage, ich brauche ein bisschen Lüt. Wie viel?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich sage, ich weiß nicht, etwa 600 Dollar pro Monat. Wie lange? Er sagt, zwei Jahre. Wann wirst du zurückgezahlt? Zwei Jahre nachdem, er sagt, fertig. Ich sage, wirklich? Er sagt, ja. Er sagt, das Einzige, was das Geheimnis der Leben ist, ist, was du tun willst. Also geh. Bingo. Das ist wunderschön, oder? Ist es nicht, Mann? Du hättest das nicht erwartet. Nein, nein, nein.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Du hättest das nicht erwartet. Das wird der Ende des Traums sein. Hier ist eine andere Sache. Ich möchte nur auf das hier wampfen. Hier ist eine andere Sache über Sobriety. Ja. Es ist nur so viele Jahre von off shit. Ja. Ja. Ja. They gave me in spite of the fact that my mother was a functioning alcoholic. My dad was a control freak.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, yeah. And then there's a little bit of give and take. So when did the drugs start for you?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
No. After? I never, like, performing or doing anything behind drugs or even being on a date. Yeah. I mean, speed's not a great art drug, I don't think. That's not the go-to to get deep. No, it's not the dreamland thing. No, that's a guy deal. Let's go out and get on a Harley Davidson and go 100 miles an hour. Interstate 35. You did that? Yeah. How was that?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Das war der größte Aufregung, den ich jemals hatte und ich bin wirklich dankbar, dass ich es gemacht habe. Ich bin 100 Meilen im Jahr und habe mit dem Harley Davidson gearbeitet. Aber ich bin auch froh, dass ich überlebt habe, weil es so viele Katzen gibt. Meine Frau fragt mich, wie ich lachen kann über diese Dinge. Ich lache mit dir.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und mein Freund Joe, der ist ein anderer Sobergeist, sagt zu Sherry, die keine Erfahrung damit hat, dass wir leben.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Because we lived through it. And there's so many people who are dead or in jail or whatever, you know, or maimed. Oh, you gotta laugh. We gotta laugh. Yeah. You pulled it off. Yeah. That's true. And don't you feel that? That we have to have some sort of... Oh, no, it's the best, dude.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja. Und mein Vater hat das gesagt zu meiner Mutter. Er hat gesagt, sag niemals deiner Mutter die dummen Sachen, die du jemals gemacht hast. Ja. Sag sie niemals an irgendeinem Alter. Ja. Und eine Zeit, als ich 55 war, war sie 80. Ja. In Italien sind es 15 Leute. Ja. Jemand bringt eine dumme Sache, wie das. Ja. Und sie verliert es an mir.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Why would you want to do that? I said, Mom, I was 19 years old. It doesn't matter. Are you stupid? I said, oh, my dad was right, man. You don't tell your mother nothing. So you go to New York kind of jacked up. Yeah. The American Academy, I start working right when I get out of there. Where did you move to? Where did you live? In New York? Ich lebte in 86 in Riverside, dann lebte ich 72nd, 2nd.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und dann fand ich einen schönen Job in 82nd zwischen Riverside und Weston. Immer in Uptown. Ja, immer in Uptown. Und du warst in der American Academy? Ich war in der American Academy und habe gemerkt, ich habe sofort angefangen zu arbeiten. Mit wem arbeitest du da? Ich habe ein Gig gemacht, dank Rick Nesita, meinem originalen Agent, mit C.A. William Morris.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Bill Esper war nicht bei der American Academy. Bill Esper war bei Neighborhood Playhouse. So, wer ist dein Typ? Okay, also ich bin bei der American Academy. Ich bin mit ein paar Leuten, aber das Ding ist, ich bin in einem Tony Award gewonnenen Spiel. Right out of the gate? Right out of the gate. Sticks and Bones, David Rabe. Oh, Rabe. I don't know that one. What's that one about?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It's about Vietnam. It's Ozzie and Harriet. It's a black comedy while Vietnam was going on. Who did Streamers? That's Rabe. I did that too. Yeah, dude. I did that when it came to New York and Nichols put me in it. Oh my God. And Mike Nichols remained another sort of godfather to my career and great friend.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
No, no, no. I just go audition for it. It's going to Broadway. Joe Papp is there. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Oder einfach der Prozess der Selbstbefragung als Schauspieler. Wie tief muss man gehen, wie tief muss man nicht gehen. Und es gibt eine Grenze, weil man es nicht in den Kopf nehmen will. Wie Zan sagte, nicht in den Kopf nehmen, sondern in dein Herz. Du kannst nicht aus deinem Kopf arbeiten.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Also gehe ich für Uda aus, sie verweigert mich. And then I go, okay, man, I don't know. What are you doing in the room? What are you doing in the room? Before the guy comes in with a gun, before the girlfriend comes in and says, I hate you. What are you doing in that room? What is the physical life? It is not business. It is life. It is a physical life.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
No one is standing around with their arms folded in a close-up. Nowadays, television is overloaded with it. It just drives me fucking nuts to see, can't you have that guy wash the Carbine. Und man sieht, dass die Künstler großartig sind. Vielleicht der größte Großartigste ist Brando. Niemand mag ihn. Aber was machst du in der Wohnung? Er ist gut mit dem Fidgeting. Niemand mag Brando.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Es geht nur um das Fidgeting. Das ist das, was Dustin gesagt hat. Siehst du das mit Maximilian Schell in The Young Lions? Wenn er Maximilian Schell sieht, nachdem er geschossen wurde.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, the cat, man. How about the glove scene with Eva Marie Sane and on the waterfront? Oh, yeah. He goes and sits on the swing and takes her glove. She drops her glove. That's his invention. Yeah, yeah. So what do you do in that room?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
70 Jahre alt. Also hat er alle Filme gemacht und jetzt gibt er sie zurück. Ja, jetzt gibt er sie zurück. Er gibt sie zurück zur Direktors-Unit. Wenn Lee nicht da ist, wird er die Schauspieler-Unit halten. Aber die Juden in dieser Audition waren furchtbar. Ich meine, du hast Eli Wallach und... But you got in. Yeah, and I got in, unanimously.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And then I did a couple of improvs with Kazan and Mindblower. Yeah. I mean, to do a 15-minute improv with a guy. Why was it Mindblower? Because the guy had a sense of what you wanted. und was Zeit, Ort, Charakter, Umstände definiert. Und das ist die Methode. Und wie man es lebt, besser als jeder, den ich jemals getroffen habe. Und jeder gibt ein Hommage.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich meine, LeMet hat es gemacht, Nichols hat es gemacht, und so weiter. Al wird es machen. They just go like, okay, that guy had a sense of reality. And he comes out of the group theater, which is the Russian, which is Corman. Odettes. Odettes, yeah, man. Odettes. Odettes. Wow, what a gift. Huh? Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Weißt du, die Geschichte, die er mir erzählt hat, er wollte Andy Griffith gar nicht. Ich glaube, er war in Sardis und der Agent brachte Andy Griffith zu ihm. Und Kazan, ich paraphrase diese Sache, aber er denkt, wie kann ich hier rauskommen, dieser Kerl ist falsch. Und er geht in den Bad, als Entschuldigung. Und Griffith hat ihn gekostet. In the kitchen, coming through the bathroom.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And goes into this rant about, I'm the guy, I'm the guy, I'm the guy. Mr. Kazan, you don't want anybody. Just by firing up in this... He needed to get it out of them. And then he said, he is the guy. Und manchmal sitzt du mit einem Mann am Tisch, der nicht der Mann ist.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, mit Jimmy Woods. What the fuck? I know. That movie's nuts. I know, man. Jimmy Woods, one of my oldest pals. These are all pals to me, man. I came up with these cats. Yeah, well, what do you know about that movie? Anything? No, I know nothing that he, it was his son's script and he shot it there.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja. Well, anyway, that's what New York gave me, all those people and the method and a process and gifts and some great directors.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Oh, der erste Film, den ich mit Cliff Robertson gedreht habe, hieß Man Without a Country. Es war ein TV-Film. Es hat fünf Läufe. Ich habe mich dazu eingeladen. Also du arbeitest nur. Ja. Aber das erste, was ich als Substanzen gemacht habe, war, dass ich Streamer war.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Gene Reynolds und Alan Burns, die Leute, die Mary Tyler Moore begonnen haben, haben mir diese Rolle gefordert, basierend auf einem echten Mann. That Showtime later did a movie of an Orthodox Jew disappeared out of high school and resurfaced in New York as the head of the Neo-Nazi American Party under George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell? George Lincoln Rockwell. That was the guy?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
George Lincoln Rockwell was the head of the Neo-Nazi American Party. This guy, true story, is a guy who was an Orthodox Jew, bullied, and then disappears for two years and resurfaces under a different name, working for George Lincoln Rockwell. How about that for a victim? He becomes a victimizer. It's like Wie Stephen Miller, der für Trump arbeitet. Ja, ich will das nicht ausdrücken, aber ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Also haben sie mir das gefordert und Rick sagte, dass sie mir nicht wirklich Sachen anbieten, um nach L.A. rauszukommen. Und ich habe es in der Fifth Avenue Bibliothek recherchiert und dachte, oh mein Gott, ich muss das machen. Also habe ich es gemacht. Ich und Brian Dennehy haben es gemacht und das war das erste, was ich gemacht habe. Und aus dem habe ich einen Film gemacht. Was heißt das?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It's the Lou Grant, first season of Lou Grant, it's the second episode, and I forget what it's called. Okay, got it. I was friends with Ed Asner forever, who was one of the great cats ever. Oh yeah, he's great, I talked to him. What a dude.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Good. Can you tell me what it's about? Because I don't know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, man. But you know, people forget the heads of that is don't be mean. Hey, don't be mean. Wherever you go, there you are. Because remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And those are all pals to this day. Lloyd and Lithgow and Goldblum. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
It's become a cult movie. We... It's become a unique film. It was indemnified into the Lincoln Center Library about some years ago. And Lithgow and I put on a tuxedo and went to celebrate it. He said, what are you going to say? I said, I don't know. I don't know what to say. And the guy introduced was Kevin Smith. Comes out in a New York Rangers hockey jersey.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Talks about it for 30 minutes about its racial divide with... Blacks and Rednecks and the social drip down of it. It doesn't feed you any genre. And it sort of plunges you into the middle of... And it defies its action. And Lithgow keeps looking at me going, I didn't know that. Did you know that? So we don't know what it is. But Dennis Haysbert said it's about love. Okay, I'll take that.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I just had an amazing time doing it. I'm so glad those cats are still friends. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
You know, Mark, the cliché that I saw, Olivier said the best thing that anything you can get out of this theater film is love. Yeah. It ain't the glitz and the glamour. Yeah. It's love. And truth? And truth? Well, I think love is truth. Yeah, sure. I think those are equanimous.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
So, when you're reading that at 23, and your eyes are on the gold, and your eyes are on, like, yes, to do good work and to be recognized by your peers, but also to make a buck, really, the best thing you take out of this is love? Come on, man, it's a little touchy-feely for me, man. I already just came out of this love generation shit, man. I'm in New York.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I want to get something harder than that going. Now, It's the truth. The best thing that ever happened to me in my entire career, it doesn't matter, the accolades, yeah, the money, sure, fine, okay, great. But the love, the friendships, the people that I retain, that I can say thank you to, are really the gold.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Kazan. Ich kann nicht zu diesen Giften sprechen. Oder Uta Hagen. Und Uta Hagen gab mir, diese Leute gaben mir nicht nur die Gifte der Epitome als Schauspieler, sondern auch die Epitome des Lebens. Ja. living your truth. Yeah. Well, I mean, can I give you a case of point? Yeah. Okay. I'm doing a scene for Uta in her graduate class from Franny and Zoe. You ever read that? Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And Uta was great at picking out scenes from books. Yeah. And go do that, because you could create the circumstances, time, place, whatever yourself. Yeah. And not necessarily dictate it like a script. Yeah. So I'm doing it with a really good actress. And I'm doing the part Zoe. I'm about 26. Zoe's supposed to be 25 in it. He's a commercial actor. The mom is painting the apartment.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
You know, Franny comes back and the brother Seymour killed himself. You know, if you read J.D. Salinger. And she's reciting this Jesus prayer over and over again. And they get in this rebop about what is important and what's not important. At the end of the scene, Uta says, Peter, I want to ask you something. What's your objective here? Ich sagte, um meine Schwester zu retten, um sie zu töten.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Sie sagt, ja, richtig. Warum? Und ich sagte, weil sie sich nicht mag. Und Udi sitzt da mit seiner Zigarette. Sie sagt, warum sonst? Ich sagte, ich weiß nicht, was du meinst. Ich bin hier, um sie zu retten. Sie sagt, warum versuchst du, deine Schwester zu retten? Again, I'm thinking, what am I missing? I said, because she doesn't like herself.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And she reaches across the desk and yells, and neither do you! That loud. Ich bin überrascht. Ich denke mir, oh mein Gott, Mann. Sie schlägt sich in diese Klappe und sagt, es gibt hier keine Hegemonie.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Es gibt keine, wenn du mit einem Art von Empathie, Kompassion, lalala infiziert bist, musst du wissen, dass Dramatik Dramatik ist und es basiert auf deiner eigenen Scheiße, die du versuchst zu lösen über dich selbst. Und ich dachte, oh Mann, das hat mir den Kopf in den Sand gesetzt. Und ich kam mit dem, Marc, als eine Veränderung. Ja, das war ein guter Moment, oder? Oh, Scheiße.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Aber manchmal, du weißt, es war ein Schlag in den Gesicht. Ja. Weil ich nie das Buch über Zoe, um sich selbst zu retten, auch nicht gelesen habe. Ja. Ja, sie sind panikiert. Ja. Die Familie ist panikiert über diesen Bruder. Ja. Also. Also, das war ein großer. Großartig. Also, wann schaffst du den Wall mit den Drogen? I hit the wall with the drugs the first time when I left Texas.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I left Texas, I'm going to New York. Okay, man, I can't do that shit no more. I don't. I never liked pot. I was always a go-faster guy. I never liked to slow down shit. What we call in Texas slobber drugs. You sit there with your head nodding on your thing.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, I was a go-fast guy. You just balance it a little with the booze. Yeah, that's right. That's the only reason why I drank. Keep the edge off. Dann gehe ich nach New York und New York ist großartig. Ich trinke ein paar Bier, verabschiede mich mit den Schauspielern.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Mein Vater sagte, bevor ich weg war, wenn er mir das Geld gegeben hat, er sagte, ich gebe dir etwas günstiges Hinweis, bleib aus den Bars. Das hat mich gehalten, aber ich war nicht aus der Bar. Dann mache ich einen Film, dann kriege ich ein bisschen Glitz, dann kriege ich ein bisschen Glamour und Studio 54 öffnet sich.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und es gibt ein unglaubliches Dokumentarfilm über Studio 54, das vor drei Jahren rausgekommen ist. Und es war der erste interpersonale, interkulturelle, intergenderische Film. Wenn du zu einer Cuban Bar gehen willst, gehst du zu einer Cuban Bar. Wenn du zu einer Salsa-Bar willst, gehst du zu einer Black-Bar.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Wenn du zu einer Gay-Bar willst, gehst du zu Hot Chicks, weil Hot Chicks aus Gay-Bars hängen. All of a sudden Studio 54 war alle zusammen. Alle zusammen hängen. Und da war für mich, und keine Entschuldigung für Studio 54, weil ich es liebte, war Kokain. Und so ist Kokain mein Deal. Und ein Freund meines meinte zu mir, ein anderer Soberkatz, He's about 10 years older than me.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
He says, have you ever realized, no matter how much money you had in your pocket, no matter how many times maybe you would go to LA, whatever, that you were an outlaw? That you were like the James Gang on the run? I go, what are you talking about? He says, weren't you always looking over your shoulder for a cop? Oh, shit. Natürlich, das ist sein Name. Er ist ein interessanter Kerl.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Aber anyway, so that was it and people started dying and then going to jail and then the light went off on me in 1983 and it was... That was the end?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, aber das wunderschöne daran ist, dass die Geschwindigkeit, die ich gemacht habe, was ein wirkliches Liquid war, eine Operation war. Das war, als würde man zum Arzt gehen. Man musste die Syringe und das Ding bekommen und bla bla bla. Und Blows waren plötzlich einfach, wow, man kann einfach auf dem Subway mit dem Scheiß reisen. Es war... Movable. Yeah, sure. It was a movable thing.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yes. Well, you know, that's why I couldn't... Those big pen caps were perfect. I could not listen to all of Quinones' thing. Yeah. It had me so back into the jam. Not that I'm worried about myself, but so many people of... Legend and so for their friends who died. And so I have not finished that episode of yours, but I will.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah. Training for the New York Marathon, vegetarian, sober. Oh, all in. Totally all in. Ja. Ja, aber wie auch Coñones sagte, diese Verwendung des Exercises und der Dopamin von Exercisen und... Besser essen ist besser. Das ist gut, ja, ich mache das. Das Leben ist managable.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Yeah, well, I don't know. I gotta smoke a cigar, otherwise I'm a curmudgeon. It's intolerable. What's your cigar? It's a couple Cubanos and a couple Fuentes.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja, also Robocop, ich habe das mit Sober gemacht.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Es war großartig. Ich bin froh, dass ich es gemacht habe und ich bin froh, dass ich es verlassen habe.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Nein, nein, nein. Ich hatte Verhoeven gesehen. Das ist die Sache. Ja. Ich habe Gigs für Geld gedreht und ich war wirklich interessiert in dem, was es sagt. Ja. Und ich hatte Verhoevens Film gesehen, Soldier of Orange und Spetters. Und ich dachte, Verhoeven war ein Geschenk.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und Vierter Mann. Ja. Und dann ging ich zu ihm und sprach mit ihm. Ja. Ich sagte, man, du machst eine persönliche Geschichte mit einem operativen Hintergrund, wie Chekhov. Und wir haben das angefangen. Chekhov nennt diese Spiele Komödie. Warum? Weil jemand Lindh aus dem Naval auswählt, wie Seinfeld, während eine Revolution losgeht.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Wow, ich habe den Cherry Orchid, ich habe meine 30 Äcker, oder was auch immer. Das ist interessant.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Außerhalb der Welt fällt es ab. Und Chalkoff schrieb Lieder über Menschen mit ihrer eigenen persönlichen Agenda. Ich mag das. Und obsessiv. Ich mag das. Ja, und das ist, warum er sie Komödie nennt. Weil sie nicht den Wald für die Bäume sehen können. Weil es eine gebildete Ironie gibt. Total. Ja. Komplett. Was du sagst, ich schaue nur auf mein iPhone. Und was ist mit dem? Und was ist mit dem?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Hey, zum Beispiel, es wird draußen geblieben. Ja, das ist nicht mein Problem. Ja, nichts, was ich tun kann. Ja, nichts, was ich tun kann. Das ist so, wo ich bin.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Wann hat das angefangen? Okay, also meine Mutter spielt, es macht mich weh, weil, du weißt, und Miles bequemt mich, seine Selbstporträte auf meiner Wand. Es ist ein großer Painter, ein Painter wie Kandinsky. Und meine Mutter hat mich um 9 Uhr geworfen. Und wie gesagt, ich war 11 Jahre alt. Das ist in diesem Diario, übrigens. Ja. Das sind nur 5.000 Worte.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und ich höre ein Boot, das bald nach New York fliegt. Von Porgy und Bess, von Gil Evans, Mann. Ja. Und es sendet mich, Mann. Ich werde ein Miles-Adikt. Ja. Und dann will ich ihn niemals treffen. Ich kenne Herbie, ich kenne Wayne, ich kenne all diese Leute, die mit ihm gespielt haben, Zolvenel, und so weiter und so fort. Ja. But I don't want to meet Miles. You don't meet your heroes, man.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And also he's nuts. But he's Miles. He's Miles. And then I'm sitting at the World Cup too. I'm sitting at Hermosa Beach Magic Club. The owner of Hermosa Beach Magic Club comes and says, Mr. Davis is expecting you backstage. I'm sitting with the robo-team, the people that make the suits. Why are you at the comedy club? Because he's playing there. I'm at a Miles concert. Yeah. Okay.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I go to see him all the time, but I'm not going to meet him. I'm not going to hang with him. I'll hang with Herbie. Herbie's one of the great guys. I'll hang with Wayne. All those guys, man. So Miles is waiting for you. Ja, du musst etwas wissen. Ein Freund meines ist weg, Treat Williams, ein wundervoller, wundervoller Kerl, ein wundervoller Schauspieler, Motorradfahrer.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Aber er hat mir immer zu Beginn gesagt, Weller, du bist ein mittlerer weißer Junge, der sich als schwarzer Hipster befindet. Ja. Und ich sage, weißt du was, Treat, du hast recht. Es ist basically in meinem Geist, mein Wannabe-Ding. Also, hangen raus. Es ist wie die Geschichte von Terry Southern. Ja. Was?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Es kommt aus Red Dirt Marihuana und anderen Teilen. Es ist in dieser Kollektion. Also ich gehe zurück und da ist Miles. Und Miles weiß natürlich, er hat einen Arschlöcher, der in die Tür geht. Weil jedes Mal, wenn jemand mich interviewt, wie du oder jemand anderes über einen Film, schalte ich immer auf Jazz oder Musik oder Rock oder etwas Musikes. Also er weiß, dass dieser Kerl ein Fan ist.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Also kommt er raus und sagt, hey Robocop, setz dich hin. Wir reden über Porgy Best, wir reden über meine Mutter.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Seine Mutter hat den gleichen Namen, seine Frau hat den gleichen Namen wie meine Mutter, Dorothy. Sie hat ihn von der ersten Bedrohung gerettet. Und so weiter. Wir sprechen über den ersten Ton. Und dann bin ich mit ihm. Jede Giga. Er erinnert mich an seine Geburtstagsparty. Er erinnert mich an diese Giga, diese Giga. Und ich bin sozusagen der weiße Token-Movie-Guy-Gruppier. Ja. Hängen mit ihm.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und ich habe in einem Trio mit Jeff Goldblum gespielt. Wir haben seit Buckaroo gespielt. Wir hatten einen Mann namens Peter Harris, der mit Hornsby gespielt hat. Ein toller Gitarrenspieler. Und wir haben in den Lebensräumen gespielt. Und Miles ist der Mann, der gesagt hat, wenn du in Goldblum gehst, Wenn du in Goldblum gehst, wirst du aus diesen fucking Wohnzimmern gehen. Er gibt sich eine Band.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich sagte, Miles, das ist in New Orleans. Ich sagte, Miles, wir sind Akteure. Wo finden wir eine Band? Und er sagte, kauf eine. Du hast das fucking Geld. Ich gehe zurück und sage Jeff, ich sage, Miles sagt, wir müssen eine Band finden. Er sagt, ich weiß nicht, wir müssen spielen, wir müssen beobachtet werden.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und langsam, und Woody, ich habe Mighty Aphrodite gemacht, und Woody hat Andy Hall gemacht. Und Woody hat gesagt, find einen Ort, der keine... Es hat nichts mit Business zu tun. Und Jeff und ich und Peter Harris haben angefangen. Und der Rest ist Geschichte. Aber mittlerweile bin ich mit Miles. Ich bin mit Miles, ich bin mit Miles, ich bin mit Miles. Und der wundervolle Bob Thiel Jr.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
ist der musikalische Supervisor. Und sein Vater war Bob Thiel, der Produzent für Coltrane. Wir sind im Hollywood Bowl. Wir wissen nicht, wann sein letzter Gig ist. Aber das interessante ist, dass all diese Leute da sind. Quincy ist da, Mann. All kinds of people played with him. Was he sick? Yeah, he was, but I didn't know. Because I'd just been hanging with him.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
And then he said, he would hold me by the shirt sleeve. And I'd say, Miles, two hours. I'd say, Miles, I gotta go. He says, now we're gonna go talk to Mark Maron. And then I'd walk over with him. I'd call my mother. Meine Mutter war so wunderschön. Sie sagte, Peter, du bist mit deiner einzigen verdammten Ehefrau, die dich hängen möchte. Where are you going to go?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
What's better than hanging with Miles? What in life? Where do you want to go? Lose your sobriety? So Bob and I and his wife Amy Cantor, wonderful singer and daughter of Jay Cantor, Brando's agent, Jay Cantor, and we walk outside and there's a kid in a wheelchair waiting for hours to sign an autograph. We walk to his car and there's the glitz and glamour part of it. He said... Wo gehst du hin?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich sagte, ich gehe nach Paris, um einen Film zu machen. Und wir hatten das gleiche Jahr einen Ferrari. Du und? Miles. Und er hasste ihn. Und ich liebe meinen. Wir reden immer darüber. Und er sagte, fahr mir einen Ferrari. Gehst du durch New York? Ich sagte, ja. In New York leben wir einen Block entfernt von uns. Er sagte, fahr mir einen Ferrari. Ich sagte, ich habe nicht genug Zeit, Mann.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Er sah mich so aus, als wäre ich der größte Arsch auf der Erde. Er schlug sich in den Kopf und sagte, mach Zeit. Er ging in den Auto und war weg. Bob sagte, das sind ziemlich zu prophetische Wörter. Wir wussten seine letzten Wörter. Das waren die letzten Wörter von mir. Und dann ist er tot. Und dann bekomme ich ein Fax in Paris, dass er tot ist. Ich wusste nicht, dass er tot war.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ich weine einfach. Wir weinen alle, wenn wir jemanden verlieren. Ja. I weep, weep, weep. And then about three days later I get this thing from this art publisher that his self-portrait, which I wanted, is going to go to me. But they want taxes. State taxes. And my mother calls me up and... Man, meine Mutter. Manchmal redest du von jemandem, der seine Familie hat.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und du hasst ihn, wenn du zwölf bist. Und du vermisst ihn, wenn du 60 bist. Und meine Mutter fragt mich, was ist der Deal? Und ich sage, Miles ist tot. Und sie sagt, ich weiß. Und er sagt, er will mir ein Selbstportrait. Und ich sage, was ist das Problem? Und sie sagt, sie wollen 55.000 Dollar. Und ich sage, das ist ein Stehtag. Und sie sagt, wir bezahlen es. Und ich sage, ich habe es nicht.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und es ist Pause. Und sie sagt, ich habe dich zu ihm gewandt, als du neun warst. Ich sagte, ich habe ihn nicht gefallen, als ich neun war. Sie sagt, ja, du hast ihn gewandt, aber du hast es nicht gewusst. Also habe ich ihn zu dir gewandt. Du hast ihn gewandt, seit du neun warst. Er wollte, dass du sein Selbstportrait hast, aber du hattest nicht 55.000 Dollar.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und sie sagt, verkaufe, ein anderer Uta Hagen, verkaufe etwas, verdammt! Und er schlägt das Telefon an und hängt es runter, Mann. Und ich sage, okay. Also habe ich ein paar Sachen verkauft. Und das Bild ist da. Meine Frau sagt, wenn es einen Feuer in diesem Gebäude gibt, was es fast war, Are the paintings going to be on the ground before your wife and kid? And I go, you know, maybe.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Ja. Oder dass es sich zerstört. Ja. Ja, Pryor war so für mich. Ich glaube, Pryor ist der Mann, den ich nicht aufhören kann, ihn zu hören.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Myron Cohen brachte Borscht-Humor zum Tonight Show. Das war das erste Mal, dass ich es gehört habe. Meine Mutter sprach immer darüber, weil sie in und um New York war. Sie wusste den Jam, aber ich wusste ihn nicht. Also wusste ich nie, was der Goof war. Und dann habe ich Myron Cohen auf Johnny Carson gesehen. Ja, ja. Und dann sprichst du von explodierenden Klischees. Ja, ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Oh, das ist furchtbar. Oh mein Gott, das ist furchtbar. Also das ist die Art von Sache. Das ist tiefe Scheiße.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
No, it's alright. I'm talking to your listeners out there, man. You say, is he actually laughing about Sam Kinison and Charles Manson? Yes, I am. Why wouldn't you?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Frightening as it is, and as true as it is, and as funny as he is, and maybe one of the blackest humorists I've ever run across, that cornerstone that he's thrown that egg at is the thing that ended the 60s, as far as I'm concerned. Because to live in that time... I marched for this, I marched for that, I marched for this. I was scared. And I love what Obama said on your show.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I just got to bring back Obama because he's a hero and he's one of the few presidents I never met. And I hope to God I meet the guy before both of us pass. Because the inspiring thing he said was... Don't believe it when people say it isn't getting better or nothing has changed. It has. Because marching in the 60s, man, marching in the 60s, 67, 68, 69, you're going to get killed.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Someone's going to come up and club you to death in a second. I don't feel that now. I feel a different kind of paranoia. But for him to attack that, once the Manson thing went down, I could no longer be part of that. Because then people started looking at me. I had hair like you. I had a goatee. I had hair down to this. Okay, it wasn't that shattering. It wasn't like down to my ass or whatever.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
But all of a sudden the world started looking at me. And by the way, Tex Watson did those murders. I went to school with in North Texas. He was in North Texas at the same time as me and Don Henley and me and Joe Green. That's that year's claim to fame. So you've got these guys who do this thing and then all of a sudden Sie schauen mich an und sagen, oh, hast du einen Knopf?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Wirst du uns aufschneiden? Und ich muss sagen, das ist eine ehrliche Scheiß-Scheiße. So viel wie Sam Kenes ist, ich habe meine Haare geschnitten. Ich sah, als wäre es strahlend. Ich habe immer noch Bellen und all das. Aber ich werde nicht wie Charles Manson aussehen. Weil die Welt es anders anschaut. Erzähl mir das Buch.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Leon Battista Alberti in exile, tracing the path of the first modern book on painting and very shortly in an abstract about a very famous polymath, renaissance guy, everybody's favorite renaissance guy, whose family was exiled from Florence.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
Und dann kam er zurück nach Florenz und für eine lange Zeit, würde man als Kunsthistoriker glauben, dass er das erste moderne Buch über das Malen in neun Monaten in einem Jahr geschrieben hat. Und mein Argument ist, nein, nein, nein, nein. Er hatte eine große Bildung aus Padua, wo ich dich gehen wollte. Ja. Joto. Joto. Ja. Und er hat Joto geschaut. Ja. Wir feiern heute das Geburtstag der Kirche.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1632 - Peter Weller
I certainly wish you best with your HBO special, man. Thank you, sir. It was great talking to you. Real honor. Great talking to you, man. Thanks for having me on.