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Episode 22—Jeff Krulik on "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," "Led Zeppelin Played Here," and His Kinship with Oddities
135 Plays9 years ago
Jeff Krulik is a documentary film maker—the first on #CNF!—and he stops by the show to talk about his approach to work, the history behind "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," and being a freelancer for 20 years.
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Transcript
Introduction to Jeff Krulick
00:00:11
Speaker
One thing we value at Hashtag CNF HQ is consistency, which is why we wait nearly two months between episodes. But right here, right now, episode 21 with Jeff Krulick is well worth the wait.
Exploring Cult Documentaries
00:00:26
Speaker
Jeff is a documentary filmmaker, the first of his kind to appear on Hashtag CNF, and he has made the cult hit Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Led Zeppelin played here.
00:00:38
Speaker
He's a freelancer, he's a grinder, and he tells true stories. So he's the perfect fit for hashtag CNF. But before I let you go, please subscribe to the podcast and sign up for the Brendan O'Mara.com newsletter, which is five cool things that I try to send out every month. One of which would be this episode, episode 21 of hashtag CNF with Jeff Kruelich. Enjoy my friends.
00:01:07
Speaker
Foremost like thank you so much for carving some time out of your morning here to come on the show I'm sure Brendan, of course happy to do it.
Impact of 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot'
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, I guess I'll start with With heavy metal parking lot and that it's been can you believe it's been 30 years since you turned the camera on a bunch of a bunch of concert goers at a Judas Priest concert I mean, what is it? What has that been like for you? I
00:01:31
Speaker
Well, it's funny because I really, you know, every anniversary, you know, five, I'm beginning with the 15th, 15 years ago, you know, John and I, you know, John Hein, who I made it with, you know, we always kind of come up with some way to commemorate it. So it's not like it just was dormant until then now. So so we kind of revisit this every, you know, like every five years, five year reunion, like a high school reunion, what have you. But
00:02:01
Speaker
to answer your question every time it's like every time it's um... you know it just it's a total you know it's an it's an amazing head scratcher you know it's a real uh... it's a it's a joyful thing and uh... a really wonderful thing but also a gigantic puzzle at the same time because we really we were very lucky and very you know it was one of those uh... i guess uh... kismet
00:02:32
Speaker
moments everything kind of comes together and but who knew I always say like if I knew now what you know if I knew then what I know now I'd never turn the camera off I have to be capturing footage constantly
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, you always wanna be, even with writing, if writing books or magazines, like you wanna magazine stories, you wanna always have the liberty to throw stuff out. So I imagine it's the same thing with filmmaking in that you always wanna have the camera on, so at least you have the liberty of throwing things out instead of having to scramble to fill the time, or just you only have a finite amount of material and you have to somehow make it work.
Influence of Videotape on Filmmaking
00:03:15
Speaker
Well, that's the thing. You can't just shoot endlessly. Videotape has made it economical. Certainly, our phones now drive space, make it just infinite 24-7. You're constantly documenting stuff. It's too much, in fact, but it's overwhelming.
00:03:39
Speaker
I'm grateful for what we did capture. We caught it because we had access to equipment that was videotaped. We had an idea. We kind of went with it. But there were so many other ideas that we had or that we wanted to do that we never executed. And that's what I mean by I would have just done so much more because we had
00:03:59
Speaker
access to this professional video equipment through community television, public access, and that allowed us to be prolific. That's kind of an early adapter of the video revolution, early adopter, because it was really right before
00:04:19
Speaker
home video exploded, VHS, cameras, et cetera, right at the advent of it. But we had access to this professional gear, but it was still that same kind of thing. I mean, I've never worked in film and that's expensive, you know, can be, but it also forces you to really be mindful of what you're shooting. Video, you just kind of let it run and just keep shooting and taping.
Universal Themes and Heavy Metal Music
00:04:45
Speaker
Why do you think Heavy Metal Parking Lot struck such a chord with people? Well, it's certainly, you know, archetypes at work, you know, and everybody can identify with being at that concert or knowing somebody who was at that concert or being in a homeroom classroom with people
Creation of 'Neil Diamond Parking Lot'
00:05:06
Speaker
at that concert. Are you related to them?
00:05:08
Speaker
And also, since concert going is such a rite of passage for people, that everybody has experiences like this. And getting plastered at a concert is generally a rite of passage, partying, and just that kind of tribal gathering mentality and experience is something we all can identify with, whether we want to or not. And certainly,
00:05:40
Speaker
You don't have to be a heavy metal fan to understand what's going on here. It's funny because 10 years after we made it, was it 10 years? Yeah. In 1996, we made Neil Diamond parking lot, which was 180 degrees in the opposite direction on purpose. We wanted to do that.
00:06:02
Speaker
This was after we realized we had something here worth mining and further developing because we learned of the interest in the heavy metal parking lot. We came up with Neil Diamond parking lot. That's been popular as well with a whole different crowd of fans. It just shows you that it's just a universal
00:06:31
Speaker
thing that people can identify with, that passion, that fandom, that devotion. With Heavy Metal parking lot, the reason it's had a shelf life and has been so appealing over the years, and I'm very grateful, is that it all came, we just got good material that
00:06:59
Speaker
But beyond that, we were fortunate that it was the band Judas Priest who are kind of iconic and still sound, their anthems sound great still today. Their music is really, still holds up and they're still viable and out there touring. And also the bands, the people that, the artists that are mentioned in the film Madonna, Metallica, they're all still current today.
00:07:28
Speaker
So that stuff helps. And the fact that Heavy Metal is still a genre that is still, whether it's got hits or not, it's still popular.
00:07:42
Speaker
I think even this day it's the way music has just been so and I know I sort of music pop culture savant here but it's you don't have to you don't have to be to realize how fractured and splintered the entire industry is so it's almost like it's become increasingly tribal which makes
00:08:03
Speaker
What the work you did 30 years ago, almost like this self-fulfilling prophecy of like these little, these little communities that really rally around a certain band or a certain genre. So it's really prescient what you did then. And it seems even more like a more of the case and stronger now.
Content Spread and Popularity
00:08:21
Speaker
Well, I think, uh, you know, just somehow struck a chord, but I also think.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, you couldn't do anything. You can try to do stuff like this, but because we're just flooded with content, there's just such an overwhelming amount of stuff coming in every day in your inbox. In the case of this, it had a chance to percolate and really just seep into the culture. I don't know if it's really answering your question or really discuss
00:09:01
Speaker
kind of addressing your point because a lot of it's been over the years, even though I can talk about it endlessly and have, there's still some kind of mysterious quality. It's hard to kind of put into words.
00:09:22
Speaker
And it seems like from the get-go, you realize that you had to really hustle to get this in front of people. You were very cognizant of each anniversary, five years, 10, 15, big one, and then 30. Yeah, but that wasn't until 15. I mean, that was really, I don't know, god darn it. Well, maybe, you know, it just...
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, it was hard, it was a struggle, but we really didn't try. We really didn't try. That's the thing. We basically just put it to bed after four years or so. By 1990, we had said we're done with it because there really weren't many options for distribution.
00:10:05
Speaker
So the fact that it really had took on this kind of grassroots life, you know, just like a friend of mine told me, he said, you know, it's like heavy metal parking lot just grew legs and walked away, which I thought was brilliant.
Cultural Significance and Distribution
00:10:20
Speaker
You know, it really is. That's a great description of it.
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, then it finds its way into the hands of some like, some grunge bands in the early 90s. Like that Deadspin article you shared with me, which I'll be sure to link to in the show notes, like shows the life that this little movie was living, probably unbeknownst to you at the time, but it was like, it was building to something like it grew its own legs and found its own little cult. Oh, God, yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I did. Totally. Totally. Yeah. How small it was. I thought it was brilliant. He came up and said, you know, it's like it just grew legs and walked away. And he's right because that's what it did. And we literally had nothing to do with it. Well, I shouldn't say that I the reason.
00:11:06
Speaker
It's hard to say exactly how far and wide it would spread. I had one friend, Mike Heath, who showed up at a job I had in 1992. I was working at Discovery Channel. I'm talking to you from Maryland, where I live and have lived and worked my entire life and have built my body of work from Maryland.
00:11:30
Speaker
Heavy metal parking lot took place in Maryland. That's a very Maryland story, although it's got universal qualities that that's the reason we're talking about. But what happened was that Mike Heath showed up at the job I had just unannounced
00:11:46
Speaker
It was a Discovery Channel, you know, they work based here in Maryland and I was on staff and he wanted copies of Heavy Metal Park and what this was in 1992, he was moving out west. God darn it, I'm sorry. How do I turn that off?
00:12:04
Speaker
Don't worry about it all, you can barely hear it. Okay, thanks. It sounds louder to me, I guess. Yeah, it's just this little pang in the bad side. Okay, all right, great. Anyway, Mike was moving out west and he asked for copies to bring with him. And see, that's the thing, we used to give copies out like water. We just would, anybody who wanted a copy of this thing here on VHS because it was born on video and it lived on video. You know, it was never a television show, even though we used television equipment for it.
00:12:35
Speaker
You know, we want John Hine and I, and I'll go back to the beginning if you want of how it actually even came to be, but John was the, you know,
00:12:48
Speaker
I lost my train of thought. The thing is, John Heinan and I wanted to become, we wanted to be documentary filmmakers. We weren't, and this was kind of a, filmmakers and documentary was what we gravitated towards, real life.
Inspiration from Community Television
00:13:04
Speaker
We had access to these tools, this equipment, this video equipment. We basically set out to create this. So it wasn't like done for television, it wasn't done for public access. I didn't rush to show it on my channel because
00:13:18
Speaker
I didn't feel it was something I want to share like that because it was pretty wrong. See, I worked there. I ran the studio and so I didn't want to wave this in front of my employers and we had other ambitions. But the thing was this video tape couldn't be, you couldn't
00:13:37
Speaker
put it in film festivals at the time. Now film is video, vice versa. It's like everything's on video. Everything's digital. So you can pretty much enter anything at a film festival. But 30 years ago, 25 years ago, forget it. You had to be a film, to be at a film festival. So we have very limited opportunities for presentation. We didn't have any money to
00:14:07
Speaker
We didn't have any money. This is making me nuts. Maybe if I shut off that, quick messages. Okay, maybe that'll help. Sorry. We didn't have any money to blow it up to film. So we were stuck with video. So we would just give copies out on video. And that was the thing. We never sought to sell this thing. We just wanted to maybe see if we could get screenings and we just kind of
00:14:36
Speaker
gave it out. So here's a guy, you know, after it kind of ran its course in between 86 and 1990, by just showing it wherever we could find out what's for it on video in the Washington, Maryland area. I think there was one attempt, there was one screening at an art gallery in New York, that's it, that had a, you know, kind of curated showcase. But we, we had
00:15:05
Speaker
By 1990, we had run out of options and we just were kind of forced our friends to watch it anymore, like living room parties, what have you. It was done. And then a friend was moving out west and he asked for copies and that was in 1992. Now this guy, Mike Heath, we call him our Johnny Appleseed because he really did an incredible service to us by getting it into the hands of the
00:15:32
Speaker
you know, music community on the west coast. And that's kind of detailed, you know, quite exhaustively and accurately in the article that you mentioned, the Deadspin article, which is kind of the definitive story of how this came to be.
00:15:49
Speaker
really tracing the chronology and connecting the dots of how it got circulating on the West Coast. Now, maybe it would have circulated that way if Mike Heath hadn't taken them out, but I don't think so. I think his effort to
00:16:08
Speaker
Sharon on the West Coast really helped us greatly by getting into the hands of people in the music community and Hollywood, entertainment business, a cult video store named Mondo Video.
00:16:23
Speaker
was renting it, the Colonel Rob, the owner, they would kind of make anybody who came in, he would have them, he would really encourage them to see it or rent it. And all this led to us eventually getting, in learning that this had been having this distribution network, this circulation that way.
00:16:47
Speaker
Kind of what red life into it which we have we're unbeknown we didn't know anything of this sword and that's that's when We decided to do the sequel at 96
00:17:00
Speaker
And then that's what, 10 years? And then five years later, we already had kind of a body of work. Then we decided we would do a 15th anniversary tour because also people were getting inspired by it and making kind of tributes to it. And then for the 20th anniversary, we put out a DVD. That was in 2006. And then the 25th anniversary, we went
00:17:22
Speaker
We actually went on tour, not literally, but our film Heavy Metal Parking Lab opened the Found Footage Festival tour. Joe and Nick with the Found Footage Festival, this traveling tour, they had us as the opening band for their program, which was cool. That was the 25th anniversary, and now we're the 30th anniversary, which is when we're
00:17:46
Speaker
We kicked it off this year at South by Southwest, which was great to have a chance to screen there and to
00:17:55
Speaker
be a part of that because it's such a music focused festival. And that was in March. We kicked it off and then we just had an opening for a gallery exhibit at the University of Maryland.
Exhibit at University of Maryland
00:18:12
Speaker
And because that's where I went to school and I donated my archive to Maryland.
00:18:17
Speaker
And and we have an exhibit there kind of tracing the history of the the you know this pre viral viral video Mm-hmm just kind of in this kind of academic setting which is great and that's so we're doing that to commemorate the 30th anniversary so I guess I think my original the point we were talking about a little while ago was just You know kind of
00:18:41
Speaker
We come up with these ways to commemorate it and to kind of exploit it and to bring it back into some form of public consciousness just so that we can remind people we're here and just further build this brand.
00:18:59
Speaker
what and for what I don't know other than you know what we were still wanting to be in the game we want to be in the in the in the in the mixes as filmmakers so you got to kind of lead with you know you use what you got and and that's what
00:19:18
Speaker
This is certainly the topic du jour because it is 30. But we never set out. It just kind of happened when we realized there was an opportunity. If nothing ever came of this, it would have just been a piece of something on the shelf. I mean, we were always very pleased with it and always very grateful and happy with the
00:19:40
Speaker
attention and interest in it and people enjoyed it, but we never thought of it as something beyond what we had, which in the 90s was just something we would share locally among people we had access to. Again, there were so few outlets for it that we just kind of put it away, put it on the shelf.
00:20:05
Speaker
So it took its age, just kind of grew legs and walked away on its own. Through tape trading, through the tape trading. That's the thing, it was all analog VHS tape to VHS tape. And that's kind of the focus of this academic, this gallery exhibit at the University of Maryland, which is kind of tracing that and how it happened, explaining how it happened.
00:20:29
Speaker
So I'm sorry if I'm just going on and on.
Analog vs. Digital Distribution
00:20:33
Speaker
It's wonderful hearing you recount the history of it, especially you being the primary source of it. It's really fascinating to hear where it comes from. And so many of those, maybe the way it was distributed was
00:20:51
Speaker
by our modern standards is very analog, hand-to-hand, but in a lot of ways, that's how things distribute now. The best way to build a platform and a product is having something that is really good at its core and then encouraging people to really share it and spread it, and then it does create its own kind of momentum. And this happened,
00:21:17
Speaker
It started 30 years ago, but it took a while to gain a little bit of steam hand by hand. And you see that now with some people with books or even some YouTube videos, you're just sharing stuff with friends and then you hope that they share it with friends. It's just a little more expedited, but it's really the same principle that your movie in a lot of ways sort of started in that sense. Yes, thank you. I mean, you're right. I mean, it really did. But yeah, it wasn't something
00:21:45
Speaker
I couldn't be more honored that people took it upon themselves to do this and really made the effort to do it. It was born out of that time and place where you had to do it. You had to seek something out. The fact that people liked it is gratifying.
00:22:08
Speaker
you know, they don't have to. Of course. Yeah. So when you, you know, you say basically born and raised in Maryland, heavy metal parking lots, just a very like Maryland centric thing, you still live there. So what about what about your home state keeps you there, where a lot of people tend to, I don't know, they tend to sort of relocate, but you've stayed home.
Maryland's Influence on Filmmaking
00:22:32
Speaker
And what does that meant to you to stay in Maryland? And what is how is that informed your work to
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, I think I've always just been a real kind of homeboy, I guess. I just like being around friends and family. I never felt the siren call enough to go elsewhere. And I'm not saying that's
00:23:03
Speaker
good or bad, it's just kind of how it is because I kind of conceptualized being elsewhere as I kind of wanted to make a career in the entertainment business. Because most filmmakers, they feel like they have to go to Hollywood in order to grow. Exactly. Exactly. Hollywood, New York, big markets.
00:23:29
Speaker
I think I'm always kind of a stubborn person and I just wanted to kind of follow whatever my own vision. I mean, documentary was not something I set out to do as a career path, but it became obvious to me that that's what I was drawn to because truth is stranger than fiction.
00:23:55
Speaker
And I'm generalizing here because there's a lot of fiction that's, you know, strange and, you know, it doesn't, you can kind of come up with great stuff, whatever. I mean, you can, it doesn't have to be, I just, I don't, I wanted to be a filmmaker early on, not as a kid, but as I kind of grew to appreciate the opportunity through community television,
00:24:22
Speaker
public access when I actually was able to get behind a camera, it seemed like since my interests were leaning towards eccentric behavior in people, and I felt kinship with oddities and just something that was unusual,
00:24:50
Speaker
as out of not in the mainstream, I'm like, I could do something with this, with access to video equipment. And it just kind of all came together. But it wasn't like something I set out to do, if that makes any sense. It was an opportunity. I've never really kind of thought back enough to any, although I think there is,
00:25:20
Speaker
Certainly some moments of, you know, eureka moments of sorts, but I like I didn't use the bar a couple of times, you know, I mean, not even maybe I can count on one hand how many times I made a movie with my mother's super eight camera. So it's like, you know, a lot of people who are, you know, wanting to be filmmakers use tools like that early on. And I didn't.
00:25:50
Speaker
But I think college radio is where I really started to get a sense of what you could create with that medium. And then it just, through some different paths and opportunities, it led me to doing
00:26:15
Speaker
community television public access which became in my mind an extension of college radio like college television if that you know but i would god what was my point where was i going with this i was like this is like therapy sorry i was trying to sense i was trying to just uh... figure out what led me to all this and how i started to make
00:26:45
Speaker
these videos because I wasn't trained in it. It was, oh, you're asking me why I stayed in Maryland. That's the point. That's what you were getting at. That's what you were asking. I think because it was documentary.
00:27:00
Speaker
And, or take, you know, like, I've never put words on paper. I've never tried to write a script. I've never tried to work from a script or work with actors. So now I've wanted to, but I've never done it. So that maybe it's not, yeah, I've thought I've wanted to and I've never done it, but I've always just felt at home just taking a camera out
Support System in Maryland
00:27:29
Speaker
Recording what's around you and and that's kind of how I built this body of work and and and through and Because I could do it here. I didn't have to go elsewhere to do it That's why I stayed here Plus I just have a support system here friends and family that I've always felt a connection with and then I met people you know And then you just meet like-minded people who do the same kind of thing and then you realize well you can try to You know do things
00:27:59
Speaker
and elsewhere in other markets. You can try to sell yourself, which I have done to some degree of success and failure in places like New York and Los Angeles and in the conventional entertainment business in both markets.
00:28:22
Speaker
Like I mentioned earlier, I'm stubborn and I kind of, or I have a particular vision or an idea. And I think that's where I kind of was able to create a lot of things that ultimately became parts of my body, parts of my filmography or videography, what have you, that are not heavy metal parking lot, what are kind of the things that I wanted to do, that I was able to do from here.
00:28:48
Speaker
But weren't, you know, Maryland stories like, you know, going on the road following Ernest Borgnine in his in his bus as he drove it around the Midwest. But I just all roads kind of I still was able to come back to Maryland. I'm very proud of Maryland. Happy to be here. And I'm happy to be still around the support of friends and family now.
00:29:17
Speaker
I would like to maybe try it going somewhere else, but I didn't. I went to Maryland. I went to the University of Maryland.
00:29:28
Speaker
Have you ever lived anywhere else? Wait a minute, you lived down here in D.C.? I did, yeah. You were down this, these parts. So how long were you down here? Don't tell me, you were in Adams, Oregon, right? Yeah, I was for about a little under a year, I was. My girlfriend, my now wife then girlfriend, was down there for probably two to three years.
00:29:52
Speaker
But yes and then i moved to upstate new york from there to take a newspaper gig but yes i was in adams morgan for For about a year and i was going i went back and forth to buoy a lot i remember that story that was Amazing when you told me that buoy maryland where i grew up yeah here you Were going to the training center working for phil show at all is that who it was yeah i was yeah exactly i was i was sort of
00:30:16
Speaker
I was shadowing him and telling his story for a grad school manuscript and a book of which that I'm still editing and actually hoping to maybe just give it away for free in exchange for email addresses. And speaking of like a hand-to-hand thing. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, but that very skeletal almost like graveyard like remains of the buoy race course there, now a training center as you know.
00:30:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, and now it's closed. I mean, they closed it all together. They finally, they moved it all over to Laurel. Oh, OK. Jeez. So out of the loop I am. Jeez. Well, you know, sure. I mean, you went on to other things and what have you, but you have something that I'm sure is really valuable and will be really appreciated. And I think that's, I mean, I.
00:31:05
Speaker
I'm totally, I was really awed by what you did and what you explained to me how you did it and it's still, I'm sure, going to hold up whenever you do share it and that's, you know, I totally relate to just putting things out there because what's the point of having it?
00:31:24
Speaker
You know, on the shelf if you can't really, you know, I mean, I don't know what a lot of people I know who are writers or doing, you know, are, you know, in similar discipline, you know, have to figure out ways to, you know, not necessarily monetize it, but capitalize on it, you know, because you've got that content and the internet's a great tool for it.
00:31:48
Speaker
and that's how I distribute my videos. Absolutely, yeah, and now, just speaking of that, not to get too off the rails with my own work, but now that the Bowie Training Center's closed, this could be, there actually could be a valuable set piece there, just talking about Bowie.
00:32:03
Speaker
within the story because that's primarily where it takes place and I went there almost every morning shadowing Phil around and becoming the world's worst hot walker of horses. I'm kind of a nervous person and horses as beautiful as they are and I love watching them from afar. They make me just tremendously nervous.
00:32:27
Speaker
and uh... they sense that and as a result it's just this awful snowballing effect of nerves upon nerves where they win so i hope go with that and there's it with your writing that's funny i mean it's that's amusing to me cuz i i'm pretty nervous around horses too i'm amazed when people who you know are not there's they're very natural around them actually this scores of people who are because that's you know who have the that they they
00:32:56
Speaker
you know, make the business work. But, you know, in that universe tick, I just, you know, I love horses and horse racing and that's how you and I met. Yeah. We were exiled to the land of misfit toys there at Churchill Downs in that auxiliary press box. That's right. Oh God, that was fun.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, that was amazing. That was five years ago. However, that was 2011. 2011, 2011, 2011, of course. Wow. Yeah, we were covering the.
00:33:32
Speaker
Kentucky Derby for Kentucky Confidential. A great little project. I had fun doing it. It was a bit of a struggle at times just trying to dig up some storylines. That's all on my end. I had a bit of a hard time at times. Well, we were turned loose. I think we both were turned loose to just kind of get what we could. Sometimes it takes a while and sometimes it happens. I don't know, it just was a whole big
00:34:01
Speaker
I don't know. For me, it was just such a magical week on many levels. I look back with great fondness on it. I wish there were things I did differently like betting animal kingdom.
00:34:18
Speaker
You know really just a great a great a great week and was happy for the opportunity and I'm happy It's a lot of the stuff the videos I shot
Memories from the Kentucky Derby
00:34:28
Speaker
are still online So yeah, yeah me too. It was it was
00:34:33
Speaker
It was definitely a good experience. When I talk about it and tell people how I covered the bourbon underworld of Kentucky Derby Week, I come away with some pretty cool stories. Especially one night, I was going to do the bourbon road or tour or something. And I was at the first bar there.
00:34:57
Speaker
I just didn't know what, I had my notebook on the bar, I didn't know what the hell I was gonna do. I was just really nervous, I'm like, what the hell am I gonna write tonight? And then the bartender asked me what I was doing, I said this, and then he started sampling out all these bourbon, it's like a wine tasting.
00:35:12
Speaker
to me and it was like holy shit like all this it just opened up what bourbon could be said this is the one you kind of drink neat this is the one with a splash of water or blah blah blah and um then it turns out like he he just knew a great story of Penny Chenery who owned Secretariat and then I happened to be sitting next to this guy Kevin Connolly who was eavesdropping
00:35:35
Speaker
And that night he just took me out to some other bars that I had no idea existed and then said at the end of the week, he's like, every night Kentucky Oaks Day, he's like, my buddy has this party in his backyard to celebrate the Derby where all the locals go. And there's all these spotlights just sort of knifing across the sky across town for all the A minus and B plus celebrities that are in town.
00:36:02
Speaker
And here's this little party where there's just this little band playing. They play old Kentucky home, they play a bunch of stuff, and they get paid out in Knob Creek, bourbon.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I went to this party and talked about it. As soon as I got there, I got a pint glass of bourbon. They're like, here you go, have fun. And I was like, oh my God, I sipped that thing the whole night. And it was like one of those things where it just led, it just happened to be sitting at that bar just worrying like hell, what the hell I was gonna come up with.
00:36:33
Speaker
sit next to this guy and it led to what ended up being my favorite piece of the week of being at this party in the shadows of the whole pomp and spectacle of the derby. So it was pretty neat. So overall the experience was wonderful but it was kind of stressful in the middle of it.
00:36:50
Speaker
Oh yeah, sure. No doubt. I've certainly had highs and lows. I remember John Scheinman, he's one of the partners, I guess, with Jessica Chappell in creating that. John, he told me he went to the, I guess,
00:37:09
Speaker
Dale Romans has a party after the Derby, and so he showed up at it, and Dale Romans said to him, your writing friend is here, referring to you, which I love that, your writing friend.
00:37:31
Speaker
It was funny. I was right there. I mean, I'm not like a breaking news guy. I hate breaking news. I'm a total narrative feature guy. Just want to sit back and sort of like tell a story. And I was there. He was on the, Romans was on the phone with the owner for Shackleford and he came over to me. He's like, you know that Shackleford, we're going to the Preakness right now. And like, that would be kind of like a big deal if you're a breaking news guy.
00:37:57
Speaker
And I'm just like, oh, that's great. Awesome. You're running in the Preakness. Then again, if I was like this big Twitter follower, Shackleford going to the Preakness. But I was happy he was doing it, but I didn't care for the story. And that's perfectly fine.
00:38:13
Speaker
That's funny, you were the first to hear it. I was. I was definitely the first writer to hear that Shackleford was going to the Preakness, but I was just like, oh, all right. And then I just did that whole party of wrote the piece about them just celebrating finishing fourth with that gritty, gutsy horse and awesome horse. And it just.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah. God, darn, that's funny. That's really funny. Yeah. A big part of that piece, I just reread it just for the hell of it. And it was really about Bailey Romans, his daughter, being just so jealous and pissed off at her brother for being so featured in the first Saturday in May documentary. Oh, that's, yes, yes. And her jealousy about that whole thing.
00:38:55
Speaker
Which is the big part of that story which is hilarious. I just put out but you're right you know some things just stick with you and that's always stuck with me. I mean you never even heard john told me that you're you're right in front of you that i can just hear that from dale roman's mouth your writing friend is.
00:39:15
Speaker
That's hilarious. That's awesome. So yeah, just to kind of bring it back to your wonderful work. I wonder, what did you want to be when you grew up? You said you didn't immediately want to be a filmmaker, but you eventually became that. But before that, what were you thinking about when you're looking into the future?
Shift from Veterinary to Filmmaking
00:39:36
Speaker
Gosh. A veterinarian. That was my earliest goal.
00:39:44
Speaker
as a kid, I love animals and pets and just have been always surrounded by that. I was fortunate to grow up with pets and always had a real keen interest in them and their welfare and animals in general and I just thought that would be what I wanted to do.
00:40:11
Speaker
I remember going on a field trip to an animal hospital, maybe through the 4-H club. I joined the 4-H club in Bowie. I didn't really care for the sight of blood. I think that was a realization that I wasn't really going to be going in that direction, but I always loved
00:40:37
Speaker
the creative pursuits and I always kind of was a ham. I'm a frustrated performer. I just think a lot of things, the older you get, you realize you really need to put the hours in. So if I was to be a performer, you got to put the hours in.
00:40:58
Speaker
But I don't think I never mean I like being on stage, but I but not literally I don't want to be so so I didn't want to be an actor, but I like you know creating entertainment and As things developed and I got interested in music I wanted to be in the music industry and the music business and
00:41:28
Speaker
When I tried to go through a music path or rather a path towards the business side of things of entertainment, that also meant getting some degree maybe in business and that didn't work. I'm kind of leaping ahead to college, but I wanted to then be
00:41:50
Speaker
in the record and music business and the music that I liked was not necessarily commercially viable. This was all like when a lot, but radio is what I really took to radio and really enjoyed working at the college radio station and also did concert promotion.
00:42:15
Speaker
I really loved putting on events. I love putting on events. I love promoting events. I love being a promoter, but I don't have the temperament to be a successful promoter. I don't have that kind of killer instinct, that business quality.
00:42:38
Speaker
how money works and respect it, but I don't think I have that kind of necessarily that tough demeanor to be able to make money at something like that. At what point did you, I'm sorry to interrupt, but what you're talking about ties in so perfectly to Led Zeppelin played here.
00:43:03
Speaker
At what point did you realize, because when you get a sense watching that movie, and we can talk about that in more detail in a little bit, but you get a sense of how almost ruthless you need to be as a promoter.
00:43:18
Speaker
and i wonder what exactly that's that's kind of what should see if you can see everything kind of comes or you know everything kind of mixes together like my interest in music my interest in you know promotion my interest in entertainment my interest in pop culture my interest in collecting it all kind of comes out with my in my work and they all just mix it up that's that's what i i'm drawn to you know my interest in history you know what have you i just uh...
00:43:47
Speaker
I'm able to find an outlet for it through doing my documentary work and research. That's how I've become who I am. I didn't have a crystal clear path, but it all kind of happened. I found a path.
00:44:16
Speaker
through community television, which was an extension of college radio, really. And in fact, it was a college radio DJ who told me about the public access channel down the street near the college where I could go become trained in video equipment because I never took classes in filmmaking. I took film appreciation classes.
00:44:42
Speaker
I watched films. I loved going to the sea films and discussing them. And then, of course, documentaries. I wasn't exposed to them. But things like Penelope Spheris's decline of Western civilization, that film was a great influence on me in the early 80s about the Los Angeles punk scene. And her filmmaking is really a tremendous influence.
Influences and Filmmaking Style
00:45:09
Speaker
What was her name again? Penelope Spheeris. She's a documentary and narrative filmmaker Los Angeles based and she made some really seminal music documentaries that decline of Western civilization. It's like a series of three films about the music scene in Los Angeles, punk, heavy metal, and punk again.
00:45:36
Speaker
And so, but other people influenced me too, but I think...
00:45:44
Speaker
All of this just kind of led me to eventually then picking up a camera through community television. And that set me on the path. Also, I got an English degree. I mean, you might appreciate this as a writer. I'm not sure, what did you, you went to graduate school. So was that? Yeah, and under grad, I was journalism and biology. And then in grad school, I got an MFA in creative nonfiction. So more like narrative nonfiction. Basically what you do only on paper.
00:46:11
Speaker
Right. Yeah, totally. That's kind of why we're talking here because I think we have similar...
00:46:22
Speaker
kind of along the similar paths. Oh, exactly. You're the first filmmaker I've ever had on. I was just like, I had a friend, Maggie Meset, who's a terrific writer and teacher. And she likes to think of what she does as putting documentaries on paper. And I just love that. That's great. Yeah, and documentary film is another genre of the narrative nonfiction or creative nonfiction genre. I was like, you know what?
00:46:47
Speaker
You know, start talking to some filmmakers, too. I think that'd be wonderful. And I was like, you know, I know one. So that's sort of germ of wanting to have you on the show. But yes, exactly. I think that's why we have a similar sensibility. We're kind of doing the same thing, just using a different platform, different media. Absolutely. Totally. And I think with regard to the
00:47:18
Speaker
All this, just having the English was what I studied. I got an English degree and that included some writing as well as just exposure to literature. But I didn't study, again, that was what I wound up. The liberal arts, that really was my, the liberal arts was my grounding, that was my,
00:47:47
Speaker
I don't know the point where I launched from, the liberal arts background, that the University of Maryland has afforded me, after a few fits and starts, I wound up there and I got an English degree. But I really got, right as I graduated, I started selling cable television and then doing work at the cable studio volunteering.
00:48:18
Speaker
And then I eventually got a job at the studio and became the director of the studio. But it was all an extension of college radio, which was freeform, this freeform radio station, a small station, a 10 watt station. But it just showed me the possibilities of what you could do. And I kind of took that to, that sensibilities to the TV world.
00:48:47
Speaker
you know, not mainstream and not commercial, although I tried to take that to the commercial universe. I've always considered myself, I mean, that's really what I wanted to do is make television. I didn't necessarily want to make films, but I'm happy to be making films. And it's just a whole mixed bag of different experiences that have led me here today to be, you know,
00:49:18
Speaker
generally happy with how things turned out. I mean, there's always regrets, but you try to... What are some of those regrets that you've felt over the years? Well, I think I've tried things that haven't worked. I mean, I've invested in things that haven't worked.
00:49:37
Speaker
I did want to make a TV series, a couple of them. I really aim swung for the fences. I optioned a book that didn't necessarily all go according to the plan of my head. I speak in a creative nonfiction.
00:49:59
Speaker
You're familiar with Josh Allen Friedman's work? I'm not. But he wrote Tales of Times Square, which is this incredible book about the sex industry in New York in the 70s. That was one of my favorite books ever. I read it in the 80s. It was published in the 80s, but it was a compilation of his work that he was the Times Square correspondent for Screw Magazine.
00:50:27
Speaker
and he wrote about the Times Square. Nobody else was writing about it, but he's also the son of Bruce J. Friedman, the humorist and the writer and his brothers, Drew Friedman, who's the illustrator. You've seen his work. I'm sure you have. Basically, just because it's been published a lot. Anyway, these guys, they collaborated together, but
00:50:50
Speaker
Josh wrote this great book I optioned the book because I it was very it felt like it's very visual to me I saw this thing and I wanted to make it into television Like an HBO like a narrative series like some episodic series and I'd never done that but I thought I could I had a lot of
00:51:14
Speaker
hubris. But I also, you know, was wanted to do it from Maryland and that's one of the mistakes you might think that was a bad.
00:51:24
Speaker
I think it wasn't necessarily that I was from Maryland, but that it wasn't something that I didn't place myself in the epicenter where this kind of stuff was going on, which was Los Angeles and New York and the development of that kind of thing. You know what I mean?
Learning from Failed Projects
00:51:37
Speaker
I mean, there's no reason I can't still live where I live, but I needed to spend a great deal of time and also make that my primary focus.
00:51:45
Speaker
I mean, you're asking me my regrets. It's just one thing that didn't work. I mean, I've thrown a lot of stuff against the wall and some things stick and some things don't. I mean, that's just the nature of doing this kind of thing, doing this work. And anyway, I still really love that book and I still believe in it.
00:52:03
Speaker
I was doing this 20 years ago for whatever five, six, seven year period, trying to develop something. I had some success with climbing the ladder at different places to get people interested. That's such a tough market. That's just a tough area to try to do something in.
00:52:26
Speaker
You know, that programming and television for that, there's so much filmmaking, whatever. There's a lot of stuff in development forever. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't even get to that level. There's a lot of things that just don't fly. And this was, for me, in my experience, that was one thing that didn't really, really work, ultimately. But the book is still great if you have a chance to check it out, if you're interested in that. But here's the funny thing is right now, David Simon,
00:52:56
Speaker
is doing a show for HBO called The Deuce. It's really the same subject matter. I'm sure they've written original scripts, but it all just
00:53:17
Speaker
You know, this kind of thing. Maybe Tales of Times Square can still happen after that once people, once it's established that there's an interest in it. But we'll see. There's a lot of- Yeah, so definitely like just put a pin in it. You know, keep it there on the corkboard just in case. It's not mine anymore, but I don't regret the- I regret how it didn't work and didn't fly, but it certainly was an interesting experience.
00:53:44
Speaker
You know, there's a part of it, you know, that is a regret and a part of it that it was like, well, you know, I tried on my own terms, you know, but I learned, you know, I think I did a lot of things, you know, the wrong way, but I was kind of doing it the way, only way that I knew of, which was just kind of.
00:54:01
Speaker
making it up as I went. But yeah, I tried. I guess my ultimate point was I was trying to do some things that were outside maybe my comfort zone or my zone of experience. But I had to try it. And so a lot of things I have done that haven't really
00:54:20
Speaker
You know take you know stock But other things have so oh, yeah, I think artists have to do that You have to push the the threshold you can't just turn churn out
00:54:33
Speaker
You have to be inspired, you have to do something even if it's gonna fail because it takes maybe five or 10 bad ideas to come up with a good one. And you have to just keep pushing, pushing your own creativity and pushing your own limits in order to make something great and memorable. So yeah, regrets, they have to...
00:54:58
Speaker
They have to happen. Failed projects need to happen in order to get to that next great thing. Who knows what would not have happened had you not had this stumble. Right. I agree. You're right. That's really at the core of what it is.
00:55:18
Speaker
life experiences, professional experiences, good and bad.
Filming Techniques and Authenticity
00:55:23
Speaker
And I wonder, you seem to have, with your work with Heavy Metal Parking Law and the Kentucky Confidential, it appears you have a real skill for sweeping in and talking to people. And then you've also got this fairly obtrusive device with you at all times as well.
00:55:40
Speaker
It's not like a reporter's notebook, which is kind of like a very soft core way in. Here you've got a camera. I wonder how you deal with approaching people, getting them to talk, the bashfulness of people. A lot of times it looks like you just kind of sweep in, and there you are. And then you're talking to these people. And I wonder how you approach that. Well, I've always just felt comfortable
00:56:10
Speaker
Talking to people. I mean and my my friends used to call me a nut magnet, you know, because I would always be drawn to and You know nuts if you will, you know, but again, I mean I love Colorful characters and so it's like kinship with oddities. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No exactly and so um, I
00:56:35
Speaker
I think since I'm not a shrinking violet and I like to wrap with but by having access to a camera and Being comfortable with the camera and also a lot and as cameras have gotten smaller but you also Just from what you know experience with the camera and how it can just kind of be an extension of you that you can then just Illicit some
00:57:05
Speaker
good material with people you come into contact with. I mean, you pretty much know from jump really right away. You can get a sense the longer you do it, as long as I've been doing it, when people don't want to engage on camera. And so more people tend to than not, at least from the people that I'm drawn to. And certainly now, everybody's just, your cameras are so ubiquitous that everybody knows what it is.
00:57:32
Speaker
you know, surprised by it. Now they're very unobtrusive too. And I think I just developed a skill and developed an ability to shoot and talk to people and not have it where I'm looking through the lens while I'm talking to people. I can hold something
00:57:56
Speaker
within the line of sight so that I keep my face engaged with them, talking to them with the camera recording. And that's just something that I just developed in time, with time.
00:58:11
Speaker
And certainly the way the cameras are made now make it much easier to do that. But even when cameras were bigger, I still was able to do that. So I don't know if that explains it fully. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it just it's, you know, some people I know, you know, for one, like doing what you're able to do, like when I've had stories where I've had to
00:58:35
Speaker
just kind of, here's the idea and I'll just go up and talk to people. Like I've always had a little hard time with that, but it's where, like if I have sold myself on telling some, like trying to do a feature on somebody and I've been on, had a few emails, here's the idea, here's the story I'm looking for, you know, when can you sit down and talk.
00:58:54
Speaker
Like that's a little different. I'm more comfortable doing that. But if it's like Saratoga today got rained out so there's no races and I'm already at the track, go talk to the people who are already there and what are they doing? Because the live racing was canceled because of a hole in the track. This happened in 2008. So it was just like a weird kind of newsy story to just go up to the random people who were still hanging out at the track despite.
00:59:21
Speaker
Right not being any live racing so in a lot of sense it was just seeing somebody who might have might looks a little interesting or Happens to make eye contact with me and I have to go up to them and then sort of say what are you still doing here?
00:59:38
Speaker
and why you're here, how do you like this place, blah, blah, blah. That to me is more uncomfortable than the feature setting. But that's exactly what you're doing in a lot of this stuff. So it kind of speaks to your comfort and your personality, I think.
00:59:55
Speaker
well yeah thanks that's exactly right i mean i've never shied away from it sometimes it's a drag but you know it's like and sometimes you know and you don't get everything all the time you know regarding the parking lot saying people think you can kind of do that anywhere you can't i mean sometimes it doesn't work we've tried other times in
01:00:16
Speaker
That night, 30 years ago, as cliche as it sounds, we caught lightning in a bottle. It really did all just kind of come together and happen.
01:00:35
Speaker
Another another little kind of like a spur of a question like what what does did success look like to you say like in your mid 20s and then as you put your mid 30s to 40s like how did success evolve for you over those years?
Evolving Perception of Success
01:00:54
Speaker
That's a good question. I'm thinking about it. I really
01:01:06
Speaker
don't recall defining it. I think everything was kind of amorphous in a lot of ways. I mean, success at one point, at one time, you know, was equated to financial success earlier in my life. And then it became, I think more artistic success. And now I don't know what it is really,
01:01:35
Speaker
here's the crazy thing is I don't feel successful. I mean, I am, I mean, I just don't, I don't, I think that just kind of maybe is what motivates me to keep somehow pushing forward. I don't wake up thinking I'm successful, but I know that I am, but yet it's not really
01:02:02
Speaker
Like I didn't have, the definite, the benchmarks, the goals I set for myself, they were always kind of amorphous. And I didn't really, nothing, you know, which I think might be one of my shortcomings and that I don't really, I'm not a great planner in the, you know, conventional sense. But I mean, I can produce, I can make things happen.
01:02:33
Speaker
I'm a visionary when it comes to that. But writing something down and sticking to a plan and having a conventional to-do list with crossing things off and doing it, quote, the right way, certainly the smart way, let's just say pre-production is not my strength.
01:02:59
Speaker
So and that's perhaps why you know sometimes yeah, I mean a lot of times things just kind of Evolve and just Take shape and Before you know it you've got something. I mean I'm a I have an eye if I have an idea for something I can pull it off you know and that's I think goes back to being the kind of promoter like I'm an event and
01:03:23
Speaker
I conceptualize events. I can concept, like I love the marketing of things. I love like going back to the whole anniversary concept. I mean, that just didn't happen. Like somebody said, say to us, we want to celebrate the 25th anniversary. That just kind of happened. You know, we, we concept, we thought, how can we do this? Certainly the 30th anniversary, 25th anniversary, maybe Joe and I don't remember if Joe and Nick with found footage came to us or vice. I think they might've, in fact, I know they did. So they had that idea.
01:03:54
Speaker
We went with it. And it was good. It was a good fit. But like the 30th anniversary, we came up with all these on our own to kind of, I mean, but I had to pitch University of Maryland. They didn't know I was sitting here with
01:04:08
Speaker
the 30th anniversary, they didn't know I had a body, you know, a large trove of stuff that might fit into their collection. I pitched them on it. You know, they didn't know about the 30th anniversary, I pitched them on it. You know, John Hein had the idea for a beer to commemorate Heavy Metal parking lot. He pitched a brewery on it. And so a lot of these things happen, but it goes back, you know, but like a lot of things, some things don't work.
01:04:37
Speaker
I mean, we were trying to pitch a commemorative VHS for Record Store Day this year in April. That didn't work, but that's minor. I mean, I'm just saying a lot of stuff doesn't always happen. Metallica released an actual cassette tape of their original demo from 1983 or 1982 for Record Store Day. I believe this was last year they did that.
01:05:04
Speaker
You know, The Four Horsemen was originally titled The Mechanics, which was like this really corny thing. It used the same music, but it was just like this song about being a mechanic and all the sexual innuendo of all the tools. Then they wisely changed that to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is just a way more killer song than that.
01:05:27
Speaker
Real cheesy mechanics one, but it's just the the pure innocence and charm of it and then packaging it in the actual cassette tape was just so brilliant and just a great way to harken back to When record stores were in their prime, of course, they had the juice to do it, you know, they made it happen we didn't we didn't with ours but you know, we I guess my point I was getting at was at some things you you you you try to
01:05:55
Speaker
You just throw stuff up against the wall, and some things are successful, some things aren't. But you gotta, I think going back to the point of success, you just kinda have to take everything. You realize that you're not gonna hit a home run every time, but you just gotta keep stepping up to the bat. And I'm not a big baseball person, so I don't even know where that came from, but it's like, I just, swinging for the fences, blah, blah, blah, I just, I don't know why I,
01:06:22
Speaker
use those expressions, but I guess they certainly convey what I'm trying to get across. I don't mean to say that I don't feel successful. I do feel successful. I just never had a particular definition of it that kind of motivated me. That made me, you know, got me inspired to keep going and things just kind of
01:06:49
Speaker
You know, they kind of just different things just would evolve at moments in my life. See, I've also kind of been, you know, since because I'm self taught and I'm also I've been freelance for 20 years. I mean, that's a real tough road to
Freelancing and Financial Challenges
01:07:05
Speaker
go. I mean, I haven't had a regular conventional, you know, paycheck, the conventional job for
01:07:16
Speaker
Since 1995, I left Discovery Channel in 1995, which was my last job. That was a wonderful five-year job as that place was really becoming the juggernaut
01:07:29
Speaker
the TV powerhouse it is now. I watched the growth of it. I was among the first 150 employees, and this was in 1990. I left in 1995. I had a commercial. I had public access, community television, job experience. That ended in
01:07:52
Speaker
In 1990, I started at Discovery and had five years there, but that's where I learned a lot of the ropes of commercial television, a lot of the things how it's done. That's why I said earlier in the conversation, I really wanted to make television. I really still want to make television.
01:08:09
Speaker
Now television is not the television we used to know. It's now on the internet, which I love creating content for. So I still love creating content for that medium. It wasn't like I wanted to be a feature filmmaker, that I wanted to be in theaters, although I loved being in theaters. I love having distribution in theaters. I love theatrical presentation. But I was always motivated to do television, and that's how
01:08:37
Speaker
You know, reality TV, but who knew reality when I was starting out or when we were doing it, it wasn't didn't exist. But that was kind of what I was drawn to. And I had the experience at both. So I had community TV experience and then.
01:08:53
Speaker
conventional, I mean, mainstream network television experience, and that was, I left 20 years ago, but had been freelance. I freelance, I do, I still produce, and I couldn't talk to you yesterday because I had a producing job, and then I still, I do archival research for documentary filmmakers and for film, for television. I'm fortunate to live close to the National Archives and Library of Congress, and I do archival research and acquisition.
01:09:20
Speaker
So I have different ways I pick up, make a living in the freelance world and then still have time to make and do my own independent documentary productions and of course exploit and capitalize on what I do have. And at the moment, it's heavy metal parking lot, which John Hine and I are celebrating the 30th anniversary.
01:09:48
Speaker
And I, it's, it's, you know, you're referring to freelancing. And I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast, dabble in freelancing or do it full time. And I wonder, I wonder how you cope without you don't have to get in the specifics of dollars and cents. But like,
01:10:05
Speaker
I know for me the tax burden is just crippling so I must supplement it with day jobs and so forth and very steady day jobs that take up a lot of time because basically 50% of every dollar I make is spoken for in terms of taxes and other withholdings.
01:10:28
Speaker
And I wonder how you have grown to handle that over the 20 years, because that's definitely a challenge for people who freelance.
01:10:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think that challenge is just ever present. And sometimes you have good years, sometimes you don't. I think that's where I've always been kind of baffled about the definition of success and feeling successful. I lately consider now it's about like, I wish I split the difference more. I wish I didn't go whole hog into
01:11:02
Speaker
this freelance universe, like over the years, I wish I had at least had some kind of regular cushion. But it goes back to the stubborn description. I kind of stubbornly want to do it the way I want to do it. And I think I just,
01:11:28
Speaker
it a lot and also with regard to my productions I fell for the oldest trick in the book early on at least with some of the real ambitious stuff I did was use credit cards to finance things and that was a huge blunder that again you don't kind of know that until you you learn from experience but you know it's all
01:11:57
Speaker
you know, just something, you just, you lick your wounds and, you know, financially, I mean, it's a roller coaster. I have assets, thankfully, but I don't own a house. I also, you know, I don't have any dependents. So, I mean, and I try to keep my overhead low.
01:12:21
Speaker
and my, you know, but you're still living on the margins a lot. And it just, but again, but I mean, I think what I, I'm just trying to be resourceful and, you know, sometimes and try to just make the nut regarding taxes. I thankfully have a good accountant, family accountant,
01:12:45
Speaker
that has been able to keep me afloat for 20 plus years. A lot of times it just feels like a house of cards. I know this isn't really explaining how I do it. I'll never forget when I was trying to decide to leave Discovery Channel, because what happened was I was developing a show that actually did go on the air. I was developing it with some
01:13:11
Speaker
freelance colleagues and people who, you know, were on the other side. And I was trying to figure out how do they support themselves? How do they do it? You know, not that I ever really asked them, but I was just mulling it over. When I finally then left, jumped off, you know, they jumped into that, you know, black hole. I was, I just eventually figured it out. You just do it. You just do it. And it's not for everybody.
01:13:40
Speaker
It really isn't for everybody. I'm hoping now that I can find some path into the academic world, but there's a lot of other people wanting to do the same thing. I'd like to find a way to impart my wisdom or lack thereof to
01:14:05
Speaker
people who could be maybe interested, but in an academic environment. And that's one reason why I'm hoping, continuing to develop a relationship with my alma mater, University of Maryland. But I don't have those credentials that oftentimes are needed to do that. I don't have a master's degree. I do have an undergraduate degree, but I have all this experience, all this life experience.
01:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that if maybe the administrations can set aside their ego for paper, like the mere experience that you have is a hundred times more valuable than getting a master's degree in teaching.
01:14:52
Speaker
the body of work, you've done the work, it's done well, you've freelanced, you've made a living and a career, you've lived it. That kind of stuff is what is tremendously more valuable than someone who might be the prototypical by the book teacher that they tend to hire, unfortunately.
01:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I would value your experience over a degree 10 times out of 10, Frank, personally. Thank you. Appreciate that, Brandon. I don't know what it's, you know, it just somehow, maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't, but I'm starting to, you know, I don't want to say plan for that because my, the point I made earlier is I'm not a good,
01:15:46
Speaker
I'm not a big production guy, but I'm an opportunist. If there's an opportunity, I'll try to capitalize.
01:16:05
Speaker
You know, the financial thing, again, it's just not for everybody. No. You know, doing what we do. Yeah, I'm lucky in that my wife has the steady job and the health insurance. And so I also have a steady day job and I spackle in all my free time with the freelancing and hopefully to tip the scales more in favor of that.
01:16:29
Speaker
I'm lucky in that sense that she's the one who has the steady steady job very steady paycheck in the health insurance and that's a Luxury I a day doesn't go by that. I don't I'm not grateful for that. Otherwise, it'd be in a whole lot of trouble. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I Live with my girlfriend. We were both freelance. So we both kind of have she's a freelance graphic designer So that's got you know
01:16:59
Speaker
peaks and valleys as much as I do, but again, we just, we somehow make it work. I mean, it's just, you know, keep our overhead low.
01:17:08
Speaker
don't have cable television. I only have it because I use it for work. I do some live blogging and I cover various things for Bleacher Report. It's not a whole lot of money but I don't have to travel for it and it's right at home. I primarily have TV so I can cover various sporting events right from my quote unquote press box.
01:17:30
Speaker
I have television through other means, through other ways, and I try to certainly keep up with stuff. Otherwise, I wouldn't have it. I don't need it. But actually, next year, we probably will scrap it. Basically, the work I pull in after taxes kind of just pays for the cable bill. So it's like, what's the point?
01:17:54
Speaker
And I finally just, you know, I was finally trying, I was sick of, you know, trying to leapfrog around these paywalls. They finally got me. I mean, I just subscribed online to the Washington Post and to the New York Times to, you know, just, I mean, because I, I, I'm a news junkie. I mean, I want to.
01:18:13
Speaker
I mean, I regret not having round the clock news on television, but I also, you know, it tends to be a distraction. And plus, there's just a constant flurry of it online. I mean, I'm tethered to the computer night and day, which is can have its drawbacks. You know, the Internet's always on. And so that's. But yeah, so we get we have cable. The cable bill is still paid. Yeah.
01:18:43
Speaker
cable modem internet access. So we are still tethered in that way. You need that stuff. We do need that. It's funny. It's not even that much more money to get the content on screen. But again, we still have access to it. There's a lot of ways to flood your eyeballs with things.
01:19:13
Speaker
Distractions good and bad, but you know I just my point was just we try to just keep the margins low You don't you just you be resourceful you be creative so the two of us are always trying to do that Absolutely, and so what are you working on these days?
01:19:30
Speaker
Well, you mentioned Led Zeppelin played here, which is my feature documentary that is just about done. I mean, it's been done since we previewed it in 2013.
Completion of 'Led Zeppelin Played Here'
01:19:43
Speaker
So we've just kind of been smoothing some rough edges so that now I can officially make a DVD that I can't sell.
01:19:55
Speaker
because I don't have the rights to any music, but I'm planning to just give it away as a free screener, not for sale screener, and also provide it online through whatever means I can. Yeah, what a cool little mystery that you put together. Are you familiar with the podcast Mystery Show on Gimlet Media with Starley Kine?
01:20:20
Speaker
I'm not. I'm going to put that down here. Mystery show. Your documentary reminded me of her podcast where she basically someone brings this little mystery to her that she can't Google. So she has to go out and kind of find out this stuff. And it's really wonderful. I think you would really
01:20:41
Speaker
Oh, I can't wait. This sounds great. And I could picture it being like an episode of her podcast. Like a friend came through and be like, did you know that Led Zeppelin played at the Wheaton Community Recreation Center? And I was like, no way. And then just going on this hunt to see if they played there. And it was the way you went about it the whole time. And then it builds at the very end where you were actually able to get an interview with Jimmy Page
01:21:09
Speaker
right there at the Kennedy Center. I'm like, wow, what a way to culminate the thing and get to be able to speak to him 40, however many years after the fact. I mean, jeez, it built to that moment and it was really something else. It's just really well done. Thank you. Appreciate that. It's a fun piece that I'm real proud of and I kind of just made the film I wanted to make, which I will do
01:21:37
Speaker
Without any you know without hampering myself with their you know things little things such as You know music Clarence rights to music something I kind of want to talk about how do you go about? physicians because I really I realized you know I'm kind of shoot myself in the foot and
01:21:59
Speaker
distribution-wise, because you can't. I can't commercially distribute this thing. I just kind of made this film that I wanted to make, and I can only kind of show it in curated screenings, which we just had in New York, New York City at the Anthology Film Archives, and I've screened it in DC and the Maryland a bunch over the years.
01:22:17
Speaker
And so with Led Zeppelin played here, it's been a interesting journey. The film didn't start out to be what it ultimately became. And that kind of goes, I mean, I think it just was like it evolved and in time and just was something that I could see kind of have this beginning and middle and an end that just really somehow
01:22:48
Speaker
congealed and and I have a feature documentary and About this mystery and it didn't start off to become this mystery. It just became that and Whether it's solved or not, you know remains to be seen but I think I just wanted to I really just wanted to tell the story kind of just show
01:23:08
Speaker
the history and development of the concert industry, using this microcosm of the mid-Atlantic and even more of a microscopic microcosm was just this youth center, this community center in suburban Maryland. But it was really, I had hoped that it would resonate and show the story of this emerging concert industry because
01:23:36
Speaker
You know, it had to come from somewhere. And that's what I really wanted to put forth. And it's worked. I mean, the film can play outside of Maryland and my home, which is what I had hoped it would. But if it didn't, I really just made it for this market, this area. So I was hoping it would have
01:23:57
Speaker
some, you know, ability to resonate elsewhere and it's done that. But again, it's going to be hard to see. Yeah, which is too bad because it's got the, it's what many people consider to be the greatest band of all time, greatest rock band of all time.
01:24:16
Speaker
And the mere fact that, what was Page's been, what was he calling the, was it New Yardbirds or New Yardmen? Yeah, the Yardbirds. The Yardbirds, yeah. And so, the New Yardbirds. Yeah, so it almost reminded me of stuff you might have heard about the Beatles when they were just forming and they were playing these small gigs in Germany just to get there, just to
01:24:41
Speaker
to get hours and master their craft and you get a sense like oh here's this new new wave british rock metal band coming over and they're just trying to get shows under their belt and coalesce as a unit and here they were like possibly in this tiny little gymnasium
01:25:00
Speaker
It's just and bands were doing that all over the region the big bands just playing these tiny little venues just to Just to get their brand out there. It's just it was really it's just harken back to almost the more
01:25:14
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. It was just a very charming thing to think of, of all these people playing on these tiny venues and just to get those minutes and all those posters you were able to find too. So like what a culture of the time, right? Yes. Thank you. Yeah. It really, you know, it's, it was, and that's what fascinated me and interests me. And that's what compelled me to want to tell that story and make that.
01:25:40
Speaker
I'm a collector at heart even though I don't collect anymore, so I'm drawn to collectors and their collections, and I'm fascinated by what people have acquired.
01:25:53
Speaker
So I kind of built that into it, and I built that into it. I just really, I'm real happy with how it all came together. Because there are these three distinct camps. There are the people who are like, nah, there's no way they played here. Then there's people like, yeah, I saw them. They definitely played there. And then there's the more measured people who are like, well, they could have played here. And it was just the whole time, you never know one way or the other.
01:26:21
Speaker
It's just really fun. It kind of keeps you on your toes the whole time. I wonder, keeping in mind that you had a lot to sort of juggle there. How did you balance the tension and the narrative of the whole movie so you're never quite sure one way or the other?
Challenges in Documentary Narratives
01:26:40
Speaker
Well, that's a good point because I think I was
01:26:48
Speaker
A lot of it trying to just ... I'm dealing with a film that's all talking head. There's a minimal amount of images and imagery. That was a greater challenge than, I think, creating some kind of narrative arc.
01:27:14
Speaker
If there's one thing I'm guilt, you know, it really kind of the idea of it that they play there didn't play there almost gets obscured by the just the other kind of anecdotal stories that
01:27:27
Speaker
tell the story of the time period of the fact that these other kind of bands were playing there. People waxing rhapsodic about them and also just some characters in it like Mario Medius, the Atlantic Records guy. He's just a very compelling person to hear. He could talk for hours, which he did, which I included some of that footage. That's really fun stuff that he's saying and just these other ingredients
01:27:59
Speaker
Like the woman, Sharon, who I just use her phone calls, and I actually have her on camera, but her phone calls are better. If phone calls convey more, I think by hearing her voice off camera, that I would see her on camera. But I didn't know that until I'm playing around with it all in the edit.
01:28:24
Speaker
Ultimately, you got to just worry about bodies and seats and keeping people engaged and keeping them entertained and interested and involved. A lot of it's a crapshoot, but you're just making this thing based on your own instincts about what
01:28:46
Speaker
I would want to sit and see and enjoy. And I'm working with an editor. I'm fortunate to have an editor who was invested in this and took a great sense of ownership in it. And also John Hine, who I made heavy metal parking lot with, he contributed greatly. So it was a project by the three of us. But it was all ultimately my vision to do it in the first place.
01:29:15
Speaker
And, uh, how satisfying was it to see this through to this point of completion? Because it was kind of your baby. Oh, it's always satisfying. It's always great. In fact, you forget how miserable or slog it is. Any project, anything you've done. I mean, any, any documentary I've done that, you know, especially independent ones, anything super ambitious, you just forget all the, you know, it's like people, I mean, I've been, I don't
01:29:41
Speaker
mean to equate it like childbirth but you know it's like not having a clue what that's like literally but I do you know it's like having a there's a you know just you forget how tough it is when you're seeing people in seats enjoying it and getting good feedback and also when you see strangers enjoying it it's not just friends and family so that's really satisfying
01:30:10
Speaker
That's great. I want to be respectful of your time, and I definitely feel like we could have a part two at some point, but I think that for the purposes of this one, it might be best to cut our conversation a little bit short. We are running about 90 minutes, which is great. I could go on for another 90, but I don't know.
01:30:34
Speaker
the fifth
01:30:57
Speaker
share and I'm happy for your interest and I'm happy for the opportunity. Oh, fantastic. Trust me, it was my pleasure and people are going to love hearing about your story and everything about it and how you go about your work. Lastly, where can people find your work online?
01:31:20
Speaker
Well, I have my website, which is jeffcrulick.com, J-E-F-F-K-R-U-L-I-K.com. And that then also takes you to Led Zeppelinplayedhere.com. And then there's heavymetalparkinglot.com. But I think that my, I'm on Facebook. I'm pretty available.
01:31:43
Speaker
Twitter, although I never use it. I don't even know all these other social networks and things and I'm overwhelmed. I don't know if I, I mean, I'm just, I'm just, there's so much, I mean, earlier I said I'm an analog guy trapped in this digital universe, but I, I do.
01:32:01
Speaker
I'm accessible, my emails are through the websites. I'll send you links for some of the stuff we talked about too if you might find that helpful. Absolutely, yeah. Put that on the, I always do a sort of a partnered blog post with the episode that has all the show notes and everything and so that'll be a cool resource and hub for your episode. So yeah, any links that you want to send along by all means.
01:32:28
Speaker
Oh, thank you. Well, that's great. Well, YouTube and Vimeo, as far as online outlets for seeing my work, that's pretty much it. But I share a good deal of it that way and with more to come. Fantastic. Well, that's a great point to end on. And as someone who is now heavily purveyor and a fan of your work, I look forward to what's coming next.
01:32:57
Speaker
Well, thanks, Brandon. I appreciate that. And maybe I'll see you at Saratoga. That would be wonderful. Or at a track near you. We'll see. Bye. Yep. You got it. All right. Well, thanks so much, Jeff. And we'll be in touch, for sure. Thank you, Brandon. Good talking with you. You too. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye.