Painting With John

Quite a strange thing to do, to talk into to a camera

like you're talking to a person.

It's hard.

It's so artificial.

Like, I'm a warm and friendly person

talking into a camera. It's just wrong.

A-- and people who can actually do it well?

They're probably sociopaths. I mean, really.

'Cause it's just a weird thing to do.

If you're good at it, you can probably make a lot of money,

but... (WINCES) ...it's not a good thing,

and I've noticed as the show has gone on...

I've gotten better at it.

And as I got better at it,

I became a worse and worse person.

I'm not kidding.

Look at that.

It looks like an elephant trunk.

I think I'm gonna take it down and put it to good use.

Whoa! (EXCLAIMS)

So...

When me and Evan were, like, teenagers...

I played the harmonica and he played the piano,

and we became obsessed with Little Walter.

And then after a year or two, I was playing the saxophone

and he was still on the piano. And we-- w--

we were equally obsessed about Coltrane

and this record, Live at Birdland.

And we were mostly out of the house then,

but we would come back and Sunday morning,

maybe, my mom would make breakfast.

And I just presumed she was still paying the dental bills

'cause Evan had had this mouth surgery

and he was supposed to be very, very careful.

He was supposed to not-- not yell or laugh too hard.

He was supposed to be very careful

'cause the stitches would come out.

And we're listening to this music loud,

and my mom was a good sport about this stuff,

but we were listening to, um, "Afro Blue"

on Live at Birdland.

And we had this breakfast of pancakes and...

sausages and who knows what.

And we're sitting there, and we've got the music blaring.

There's this part where Elvin and McCoy Tyner

are just going nuts,

and-- and McCoy's getting to the end of these phrases,

thinking that Coltrane's gonna come in, you know...

And you think Coltrane's gonna come in, but he doesn't.

And they're just so muscular,

and Elvin is, you know...

And when Coltrane finally comes in, it's...

And Evan, to mime the music, goes... (IMITATES MUSIC)

And-- and--

the stitches come flying out of his mouth

and blood spurts all over the table.

And my mom's like... "Evan!"

And my-- Evan is just laughing, and he keeps going...

Kind of a beautiful memory from my childhood.

'Cause, you know... (GROANS)

...that-- that's what the music costs.

Yep. That's what it costs.

When we finished the Voice of Chunk record...

we were-- it was-- the record was ready to come out

in Germany and Austria or somewhere,

and-- and we were racing to get the cover done.

And I was always told,

"John, you gotta put your face on the cover of these records.

You know, that's how you're gonna sell records.

People know you from the movies." And I just--

just don't want anything like that.

Plus, I really saw the band as a band, it's like a tribe.

And...

Ari Marcopoulos took a photograph of me,

so I said, "Well, fuck it.

I'll put my face on the album cover."

And we brought it to this guy. I'll leave his name out of it.

And he was gonna design the album cover.

And it's really a rush.

It's coming out in Germany, you know?

And I go back to him in a few days.

And all he's done is take my picture

and blown it up to the size of the album.

You know how-- how big albums are? They're like that.

You know? So my--

And I said, "I look like I'm Donald Trump.

You can't do this."

He said, "No, it's good.

It means Lounge Lizards are not afraid to be big now."

I said, "What the fuck, you idiot."

So now I gotta figure out something to do.

I don't know where this came from,

but I always try to go with the first thing

with the paintings, with everything else,

is I wanna put an eel.

An eel in a straight line under the photograph,

and then Kazu's mouth, three times.

That's gonna be the cover. And flowers, maybe, on the side.

And there's an incredible bird out there.

All right, back to our story.

An eel in a straight line.

Which is not an easy thing to actually do

'cause it can't be an eel who's died

in this, you know, bad position,

or a one that's still alive and slithering around.

So you gotta find an eel that's kinda on its way out...

you know? And, uh... Or freshly dead.

And put it in a straight line and photograph it.

First, we go to the Fulton Fish Market,

South Street Seaport.

"No, no, no, we don't-- There's no eels.

You know, maybe go to the docks where they come in,

maybe you'll get an eel,

but nobody really seems to catch eels

and bring them into Manhattan.

But you could try the--"

You know, so we go to the docks, nobody's got an eel,

and then they suggest going to Chinatown.

And, uh, we see these eels in a tank, outside a restaurant.

And we go in, and the guy's dressed

in this beautiful 1940s suit. He looks like a...

you know, a gangster from a-- from a movie or something.

And I go in, and I say, "I'd like to buy an eel."

And he won't even look at me. He said, "No."

I don't even think he said no, he just tried to--

I said, "No, no, I'll give you 100 dollars for a live eel."

"No."

He's-- And it's just like I don't exist to him.

And-- and it pissed me off.

And then he said-- He takes me by the arm,

and I think he's gonna, you know,

tell me somewhere I can get an eel,

and he just says--

He takes me outside, and then he turns around to walk in.

He says, "Goodbye."

And now I'm fucking pissed.

I say, "I'll give you 200 dollars for an eel."

And he stops, and he's just looking down, he won't look at me,

and I say, "You gotta at least look at me."

And now a crowd starts to gather, and I'm pissed.

And...

Ari's sort of standing there like, "Uh, John..."

And he actually said, "John," um, but I--

This guy's gonna look at me, or I'm not gonna leave.