Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Greetings troubled listeners. Welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times and future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome Manny.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hey man, what is going on? We're partying.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I hear that. It's, it's.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: It's a Clempire's birthday, right?
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Clemens birthday brother Dave's birthday. It's Tiki Tuesday.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Oh man, we've been partying since like 5 o'. Clock.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Oh yeah, okay.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: It's great, great.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Getting. Getting a running start.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Oh yeah, stumbling.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Stumbling. Yeah, sure, okay.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah, we've been partying. Dave's a good guy. Sure. He's 93 years old today.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Wow. He doesn't look a day, a day over 85.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: He's a vampire, man.
He's a crazy vampire. And he loves cake.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Okay. He loves cake and chicks dig him.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yo man, chicks dig him there. So just like chicks dig me.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Sure, sure. It's a fact. Right, right. It could be worse.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Women dig me. Right, right. I've had to already shoo away a few women.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. Here. Actually my wife is here.
Just because they were irritating. But so. So, man, I haven't. We haven't. Haven't seen you in three weeks.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Good.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you miss me?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Not really.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I don't miss anybody.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, well, you know, I feel like.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Thing I miss is bowel movements. If I can't be regular every day, then that's what I miss.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Are you going to say Alvarado Street?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Oh, I missed.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: You missed that.
No, I was going to say, you know, I think everybody our age has a certain amount of attachment disorder from our. The. Stemming from the, The Kennedy assassination. You know, I've talked about this before.
When Kennedy was killed or all the adults kind of checked out. They were sleepwalking through.
Through life for the next year or so and here we are, three months.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: I was one month old when Kennedy. You gotta say.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, but your parents were adults and they were reacting differently to you. So it. I think they, they. We.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: I think they would have beat me just the same.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I think it would just beat me the same.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: You know, I heard this comedian talking about his abusive father and he's saying, you know, sometimes I wonder, you know, think about, did my dad beat me too much? Thinks no, I think he beat me just the right amount. If he beat me any less, I wouldn't be this funny, right?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, because comedians especially can't standups. It's all about their life.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: The trauma.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Trauma.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: The pain.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Those are the best comedians, Right?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: About the pain and the trauma. But then there are, like, prop comics.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Huh?
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Like, what's that guy who used to smash watermelons?
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah. What's that guy's name? Gallagher.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Gallagher.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Now you know who's now. I mean, now it's some like. And then they have Carrot Top. He's another modern prop comic. You know, I think Rip Taylor was considered a prop comic.
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Y.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: And he was one of my favorites. I used to love R. Taylor.
Come out and. And throw confetti and.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: He was ridiculous.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: He had a night show gay audience like you.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think he crossed. Crossed over Wasn't. What? Wasn't just the community that found him funny.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: I didn't have the LGBQ high five community back then. Well, he did. He decided you're gayer.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Well, that's true. That's true. He kept it simple, so.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but he lived in West Hollywood. Sure. Or I had an apartment in West Hollywood for a few years. And I hated going shopping first thing ever.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Okay. I don't even want to dig into.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Why, but I like Rip Taylor.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I like anyone whose name is Rip.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Sure. Rip Torn.
[00:04:05] Speaker D: That's the greatest name.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: We had a guest on the podcast early on.
Rip. What is his last name?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: I didn't.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: He's a great director. Film. Film worker.
I don't know.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: You would know.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: You booked the guest?
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I have to look it up. He's a good friend of mine, but, you know, I can't remember everything.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Some friend. Well, you know, can't remember his name.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: So many. I can't remember everybody's last name. Necessary. I could come up with it if I wasn't on the spot here. Well, so in. In the absence of the show, you've been busying yourself with campaign.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: So.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: So how was. Great news.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:42] Speaker D: Over the weekend.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Really some fabulous news. And I announced it yesterday morning on a radio show that I did.
We got the endorsement of Mayor latoya Cantrell.
[00:04:53] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: She's endorsing.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:04:55] Speaker D: That's a big endorsement.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Well, it's something.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: But she said privately in a text message, she said, do what I do, Manny. Run, run, run.
So I'm running.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Again, you know. All right, we'll see what happens. She seems like a good person. Yeah.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Does she? Okay.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: I don't know, you know, but apparently we'll see what happens, because I think she.
She can't go to Iceland, they said.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: You can't go to Iceland.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yep. Shut that down.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: They don't want black people in Iceland.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Well, I don't know about that. I just think they want to keep the. The.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: The.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: The feds want to keep a closer track on her.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:33] Speaker D: Like, would you come back.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. I'm not sure what the extradition treaties are with. With Iceland, you know.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. She's got a few months left.
[00:05:41] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: The. The primaries this Saturday. So I encourage. You know, I can't do it now, but I'm trying to encourage everyone to go out and vote. Vote with their heart.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: You know, vote for who you think is the right person.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Now, who are you voting for, Manny?
[00:05:56] Speaker B: I'm voting for me.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: All right.
[00:05:58] Speaker D: All right.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Because that hasn't always been the case. Sometimes you would abstain from voting. Well, back in the day.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Me on the ballot. You people are nuts.
[00:06:11] Speaker D: Troubled now more than ever.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Oh, yes. We saw. Started seeing signs, many Chevrolet signs out there on the neutral ground.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Now they're getting stolen.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: That's what I was thinking. Because there's such a collector's item that I'm surprised.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Well, me and my campaign manager, the birthday boy, Dave Clemens, we went out Thursday night, and we started putting signs up all around the city.
That was Thursday night. We didn't end till, like, around midnight. We were out till midnight putting signs out. And then Friday afternoon, I gave it about 12 hours.
I went out and started driving around where we put the signs out, and 50 of them were gone.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Gone already.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, they were gone. And they're funny signs. Yeah, they're funny.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:54] Speaker D: Someone just coming here.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: You had your trash can.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Oh, that one.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Which one?
[00:07:00] Speaker D: The one you had your head poking out of it. Yeah.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Well, that. Those were some leftovers from four years ago. I just put those out because I don't want them in my shed.
Thank you, Eric. All right. Thank you, brother.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Eric, man, I'm good. Thank you.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Now, keep him coming, man. Yeah, yeah, keep him coming.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Sure.
And he says, keep them coming.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Anyway.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So that happened.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: And you went on the radio show. That went smoothly. I saw. I tried to listen the first time you said. But I guess the wires were crossed somehow.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Well, what happened was it was the same radio station.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: But a different political host called me up, and he says, I want you on the show. But he's syndicated. He doesn't even live here. Syndicated. He goes, I've read your story and I dig you and stuff like that.
And he said, can you do it on a certain date? Which I posted. But then he said, I can sell you 60 second spots for 30 bucks a spot.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: I said, oh, it's a hustle.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was like, I don't have that money. And the minimum was like 10 spots.
And I was like, I don't have that kind of money. He goes, well, I'll call you and we'll do the interview. We'll pre tape the interview.
I said, okay. So that's when I said, we're doing this interview, blah, blah, blah. And he never called me.
And then I found out that he's some syndicated guy who's very big. Yeah, but he's from, he's from the east coast somewhere.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I don't know, I don't want this thing he gets people on. Then he, then he.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Well, the morning show I did on Monday, who's a guy I've known forever, right. He asked me if I was willing to pay for some spot and I said no. Yeah, because it's too much, you know, I have to.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Tens of dollars, so. We don't have that kind of money.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Well, it's also, it's like I've got to record it, I've got to write it, you know, and I've got to get it done like in 24 hours. It's a lot of work, you know, So I mean, if you let me curse, then it'd be so easy.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: So anyway, well, yeah, well, very busy.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: And this, you know, starting next week, you can, you can no longer say the next mayor of New Orleans, because this is my last.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Okay. Well, perhaps, perhaps we, we can.
Depending on how this turns out, next week we may be able to say.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: That I'm done with it.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Oh, well, I mean, you may win. Don't, don't, don't.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: I know, I know. There's always keep hope alive. Like Jesse.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: That's right, that's right.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: I was at a Chicken and Waffle House with Jesse Jackson in la. Yeah. In Hollywood. I sat right in it, this far away, came and he told me, keep hope alive, Manny.
And I screamed at the top of my lungs. Have you been keeping it? Yeah. Cuz he walked in with all these Secret service people.
He walked in and they were looking at me and I had like a quarter gram on me.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Some high H.
And then Jesse comes, sits next to me. He's a good guy. He smelled really good too.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll bet I could see that.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah. He smells nice.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Cologne.
[00:10:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: And he was a reverend then.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Is he still alive?
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Is he really?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: I think so.
[00:10:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Maybe I can get his endorsement.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, he, he and, and latoya are going to put you over the top.
[00:10:23] Speaker D: When I was in high school at McMahon, he came and spoke when he's running for president way back in like the 84. Yeah, he actually came and spoke at McMahon.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
Well, that's when Reagan ruled, right?
Yeah.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: That's going to be tough sledding for Jesse Jackson to make it into the White House. But he tried. He kept hope alive.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Well, New Orleans, we've. It's.
You know, the murders are down over, over the course of the year, but they're up right now. It's. Holy cow, the, the shootings, man. We had some people from out of town I was talking to at my Carousel Bar gig. As they're leaving, I told the band, I said should they gonna go play the New Orleans favorite game. Wait, wait, don't shoot me.
Yeah, it's a Chris Champagne invention.
Shout out to Chris Champagne.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I know that's a. Yeah, but yeah, you know, people will get murdered. I got family coming in town in a couple weeks and if they want to go down there, I'm not going to say hey, see be.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: You're going to. You're going to say go ahead.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Go ahead. Yeah, but don't you know. But not get out of there by midnight.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:35] Speaker D: Yeah yeah yeah.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Cuz it's Halloween weekend when they're coming.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Oh yeah. You know, and it's nutty anyway. Yeah, it's crazy going well people bringing guns out to. To. To the problem.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Now people can walk around with guns legally on their holster exposed.
You don't even have to have them concealed.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Right. Well, I think they can carry them concealed too, without. Without a permit. So both of those are. Are bad. And, and like the, the girl in, in, in the, in the French Quarter, she was there just there for her birthday from out of town. They said she was a hard worker. All she did was work and take care of her kid. They.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: They were all good people when they're murdered. Oh, this person was a great person.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: All the fit, well, you know, victims, you know.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: I understand. I get it.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah. These, these people had nothing to do with. These aren't people having a shootout between each other. These are people just minding their own business and somebody comes up and shoots them. It's awful.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: The investigation's not over yet. Well, we'll see.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Well, anyway, anything else going on with you?
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I do have some stuff going on. Where are my notes here?
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Because I was out when I made use of our off time, I went up and put played on the Mountain Stage Radio show, the syndicated radio program nationally.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Never heard of it. Right.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Robbie, you're not into music, but this was loose cattle playing on a bill with this band minus five, who has singer Scott McCoy.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Never heard of him.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: In the band is. Is Mike Mills and Peter Buck from.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: REM One of the worst bands ever.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: And.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: And Steve Wynn from.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: From.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: From Dream Syndicate.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Oh, I like Steve.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: I know you like Steve W. We wound up hanging out a bunch at the. At the bar afterwards.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: That night he banged my girlfriend and I watched.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:13:24] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: He was banging her back in Hollywood.
[00:13:28] Speaker D: But you're a big fan.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And I just watched and I jerked off. It was a good thing.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Well, you know, Steve wants to come on. Steve wants to come on the podcast.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: So Betty wants to come.
[00:13:38] Speaker D: I wanted to come.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: He seems like a good.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: He is a good guy, man. And hanging out with him that night, I really. I really got to spend some quality time. He's a real sweetheart, man. And had his wife, Linda Pittman, great drummer, playing drums in the band.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: What band was this?
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Well, so it was two bands that have the same personnel. It's just they different material. One is Minus five, the other one is called the Baseball Project.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Why is it called minus 5 minus 5?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: I'm not sure about that. But the Baseball Project, they call it that because every song is. Has a baseball theme. It's either about a baseball player or something.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: But baseball season is too long. Yeah, you think Way too long.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Well, the games are long.
[00:14:22] Speaker D: I know the games are long. Well, not much happening.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: But I wanted to talk about. I remember our fearless leader, Trump.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: He went to England like about a month ago.
[00:14:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: And you know, he was received, you know, not well. They don't like him there, but he had the royal people receive him and stuff.
But.
[00:14:45] Speaker D: Country where he is like.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: But he was with the royal family and he kept looking at Prince Andrew saying, where do I know this guy from?
I know this guy from somewhere.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Couldn't quite place him.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah, with the big pimp, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, he couldn't quite play. And then he meets with the generals. All the generals of our country.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. He brought him in from all around. All around the world, like 800.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Thinking that he was gonna get some kind of big, you know.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: You know. Right.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: And they looked at him like, what a.
Yeah.
[00:15:22] Speaker D: Stone silent.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: I. I was watching this whole thing because I watched a lot of C span and stuff like that, and it looked to me like Trump was like, looking like, how many black guys are here?
And I really think, you know, he's that crazy. He's like, well, I got to get rid of these black jets.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Oh, geez.
Oh, man.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: He doesn't like them anyway, so I noticed that.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Problems upon problems.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and then I also noticed. I don't know if you noticed, because I watch a lot of TV because I don't really like to go out.
I don't care for music.
I. I wish more people. Yeah. I don't care for people too much. But what is with all these banana commercials? Have you noticed this? No, these. And apparently they're either right wing or left wing commercials where there's a woman or a man or a child walking down the street carrying a banana and there's all this violence going on around them.
You haven't seen these commercials?
[00:16:24] Speaker A: I don't know what's in the show.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Oh, no, this is like on every major network during football games, during. Really, during prime time tv. All right, like, I. I saw this movie commercial with this attractive blonde woman is parking her car, and she comes out with a banana that's already peeled, and she's talking straight to the camera about what's going on. And there's a society and in the background, there's going on.
And it's the weirdest thing.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: But it's not a commercial for bananas, is it?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: No, I think it's. It's an anti. Something. But they're using bananas as a substitute for something. Now the troubled nation wants to chime in and let me know because I'm confused.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: All right, Well, I have to keep it very good.
[00:17:08] Speaker D: Holding the banana, eating the banana.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: I love bananas.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I eat one every morning. Yeah.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I like bananas. I like bananas with little peanut butter and walnuts. You ever have that?
[00:17:19] Speaker D: I've had that. That's really.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Let's taste peanut butter.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Peanut butter, bananas.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Walnuts are good for the liver.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:17:26] Speaker D: They're good for the liver, particularly.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Use all the help you can get.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:17:30] Speaker D: I buy fortify by the pound.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:33] Speaker D: You know, fortify that.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: What's your name again?
[00:17:35] Speaker D: Caesar.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Caesar. Okay. All right, so let's go on.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah, let's. You want to get, get to the guest here, Manny. Seems like about that time.
[00:17:43] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: We can get.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah, let's get to the guest.
He's an exciting guest, somebody I've, I've known for a while and in passing seen him, admired his work. We have, we have many friends in common. He's an award winning. Let me talk for a second.
He's an award winning cartoonist and animation artist and illustrator. He has a monthly comic strip appearance appearing in Anti Gravity magazine since 2005 and serves as their comics editor.
His work has been exhibited many galleries including the Antenna Gallery, Barristers Carol Gallery, Boyd Gallery. He's also a founder of the New Orleans 24 hour draw a Thon. That's a popular event my wife's been to, my children have been to many times. He recently won the. The best film prize in the 48 hour film project competition in New Orleans and he's going to represent the city and, and himself, all of his colleagues are going to the film A Palooza in Portugal and that's coming up in March.
So we wish you great success with that.
[00:18:50] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Competing on the international level.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Flying to Portugal.
[00:18:54] Speaker D: Yeah. At least I may have to get those. But yeah.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: So without further ado, the great Mr. Caesar Meadows.
[00:19:04] Speaker D: Thank you.
Thank you for having me on the podcast. Been a big fan for a while now.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: We're thrilled to have you on. You work in all these. These things around town. Many people are familiar with your work. They also. You have the. The Mogi Head is kind of your. Your overall. Yes.
[00:19:23] Speaker D: For I guess all my kind of work I have is the umbrella title for all of it kind of is the Mogi Head stuff.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Right, Right. And I see your Instagram page, Mogihead. You feature many of the.
[00:19:36] Speaker D: It's called Mogi Head because I found this gourd purse in a thrift store many years ago that had this sort of Velcro top that you could peel open. That sound like a sculpting place.
And I was like, I saw a face on it and it was like kind of hard and shellacked. And I was like, this is a neat container. If I. My little comics that I make, if I fill it up and I go out to see bands or Mardi Gras and people see the head and they go, what the hell is that?
It's like a Mogi head. And I said, here's a little reward for your curiosity. And I pull back the scalp and give them a little comic and stuff. And this is before there was that Wilson Volleyball and Castaway. A lot of people thought, oh, castaway. But no. Anyway, But I gave it the name Mogihead. It's kind of weird.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: How old are you?
[00:20:30] Speaker D: I am actually soon to be 57.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Just. Just a little bit younger than us.
And. Well, let's get. Get into some of your background. So you are, in fact, a native New Orleans?
[00:20:43] Speaker D: I am a native New Orleanian, yes. Grew up here.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: And you grew up kind of in this neighborhood, huh?
[00:20:47] Speaker D: Very much so. This is where I went to school, but I grew up on Audubon street. Kind of like right off of Claiborne. In between Claiborne and Fountain Blow.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:55] Speaker D: But, yeah, this is where I went.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Marleyville. Fountain Blow, Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker D: Which I never called it Marleyville when I was a kid.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Nobody knows.
[00:21:01] Speaker D: I call it. Yeah. University, you know, area and stuff. You know, look on the map.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: It does say Marley.
[00:21:06] Speaker D: Yeah. Or Tulane area, you know, But. But, yeah, but Carrollton, I guess that's where.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: So you grew up here with mom and dad?
[00:21:14] Speaker D: Regular family with my mom, who was a nurse. And we lived. I had a younger brother and yeah, she pretty much raised us here from the time. So, yeah. Went to kindergarten at Henry P. Allen.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Now, where was Allen School?
[00:21:27] Speaker D: Allen was like, at the. It was like, on the corner of Nashville and Loyola.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: So, as a kid, are you interested in comics? Is that something drawing?
[00:21:37] Speaker D: Yeah, from the time I, like, I knew. When I hit kindergarten, I knew who Charles Schulz was, who was the creator of Peanuts. It was like I had a book, a picture of him in the back. And instead of, like, wanting to be a fireman or some other, it was like, cartoonist. I knew what that was and stuff. So, yeah, so I've been drawing since even before school.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Peanuts. Many people refer to it as Charlie Brown.
[00:21:55] Speaker D: Charlie Brown, Peanuts Gang and stuff.
Yeah.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Now, what about MAD magazine?
[00:22:00] Speaker D: Yeah, I was a huge fan of Mad as well. I mean, pretty much any kind of comic. But that was.
That was very influential.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Linus was a jerk, though. In many ways, I think he was a jerk.
[00:22:10] Speaker D: I always had Charlie Brown's back. He was always kind of like.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: He always came up with these prophecies like, oh, this is it, Charlie. You know, Charlie Brown was an idiot.
[00:22:19] Speaker D: Well, Charlie Brown was a manic depressive, kind of. Even though he was a kid. And Linus kind of always hit him with like, hey, Charlie Brown, it's not that bad.
Maybe this. Yeah.
Oh, Lucy was. Yeah, it was.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: I've known a lot of Lucy's in my life.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: All been.
[00:22:39] Speaker D: I think the word that Chult used was fuss. Budget.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Fuss Budget.
[00:22:42] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: You don't hear that one all the time, do you?
Well, you know, I used to. I was obsessed with that Spy versus Spy series.
[00:22:51] Speaker D: Antonio Projas, that was the name of the cartoonist. Yeah, that was an awesome. They had like little Morse code in the title.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Just the simplicity of the thing, of the design of it back and forth, you know.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: It was a perfect time because it was a cold war.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah, well, sure.
[00:23:09] Speaker D: I think he was. He was a refugee from Cuba, I think, and that's why he came here. Cuz he was escaping persecution and got a gig. Even though I think he didn't really. He didn't speak English very well. But those were wordless.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you didn't need to speak English.
[00:23:25] Speaker D: You know, he showed up at the office this, they're like, you know, yeah, we'll publish this.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: And he drew them and wrote them.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they didn't have any, any, any dialogue. Those, those Spy versus Spy.
[00:23:37] Speaker D: Just two pointy nosed black spies.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Identical except for their, their color. Right.
[00:23:43] Speaker D: Scheming against each other.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Right.
Were you in art classes? Did you ever have any art training?
[00:23:49] Speaker D: Kind of self taught. I mean pretty much. There was.
My great grandmother did. There was a guy that kind of. She was taking art lessons from at the jcc.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:00] Speaker D: His name was Carl Kramer. And she kind of got me a gig where I kind of did some minor janitorial stuff at his studio in the Quarter on Saturdays. And then I got to get a bunch of art lessons and stuff. Although he was. Oh cool. Got to work with different mediums and stuff. But he was always saying, why are you working so small?
It's like you have all this room.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:24:23] Speaker D: But I just was like. I guess I was drawing tiny because I liked comic strips.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: So when you say minor janitorial jobs, did you have to wipe his ass? Is that what you're saying?
[00:24:32] Speaker D: No, it was like a little.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: That would qualify.
[00:24:34] Speaker D: It was like a little like you were an insult. Guest house. And I, I ran a vacuum.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:41] Speaker D: I did some sweeping. It was very much not, not anything.
Was like it what? 20 minutes of that and then I had like three hours of getting to play with like art supplies, you know. So yeah, it was, it was.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: So it was worth it.
[00:24:56] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Some murder. Yeah, it was okay.
[00:25:00] Speaker D: But that was probably my first.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: You seem like a good guy.
[00:25:02] Speaker D: I'd like to think I am.
[00:25:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Humanitarian.
He likes to, to think the best of people, given the.
[00:25:11] Speaker D: But speaking of this area and stuff, there was this wonderful bookstore that was on Carrollton and Ferret called the Little Professor Bookshop.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:25:19] Speaker D: And that's where the first time I saw any of Bunny Matthews cartoons or a collection of. I might have seen it in, like, a Figaro or something. But the fact that it was an actual collection and it was called for sure. This is like, I guess, overheard dialogue, you know, Even though the drawings of New Orleans people were grotesque.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:38] Speaker D: But it was like.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: But accurate.
[00:25:39] Speaker D: Yeah. But I was like, this guy is from here. It's a cartoonist sphere. Like, that seemed like becoming a national cartoonist. Like Schultz seemed like, that's a long shot. It's like a lottery win.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:50] Speaker D: But seeing Bunny Matthews book here was.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Like, how old were you at Bunny Matthews when you said?
[00:25:54] Speaker D: I was probably like, 10, nine.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Oh, excellent.
[00:25:56] Speaker D: Really young, you know, But I was like, sponge.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker D: I was like, that's doable. I think I can grow up and be a New Orleans cartoonist because there's a guy here doing it locally and, you know, so.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: And much beloved. He was. He was a huge star in New Orleans.
[00:26:09] Speaker D: And I finally did get to meet him, and he really was really cool. Yeah, I got to meet him a few times. Yeah.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: You know those people that ran that Little professor bookstore when I was a senior at Ben Franklin? I would meet every morning with them and this guy, mister.
And we would all have coffee at that Riverbend and smoke cigarettes.
[00:26:31] Speaker D: Are you talking about the biology teacher with the mustache?
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Mustache.
[00:26:34] Speaker D: And I remember the biology lecture. We walked into the room, he had a written on the board, was, there were no rabbits. And he was teaching us about evolution.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:43] Speaker D: Because that Darwin, when he went down to Australia, there were no rabbits. And I remember that very specifically.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: You know, when I had his class, I was really. I was. I was already playing music professionally. I was not interested in Biology one or two, but I. I wanted to pass the class. And for some extra credit, one day, me and this other little weed head went over to his apartment on Saturday.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: And sucked him off.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: No, I'm getting there.
Get ahead of me.
And painted the inside of his apartment. And he left. I don't know what he was doing, but he left us there with his, like, ex stripper girlfriend who came out and, you know, we're like, going, hey, baby. I mean, she was, you know, closer to our age than his age. And we wind up smoking. Smoking weed with her.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: You fucked her?
[00:27:32] Speaker A: No, Manny, no, no, no.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Why not?
[00:27:34] Speaker A: I was trying to get a good grade. I was not trying to get. To get an F. Anyway.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Anyway, you gotta see anyway. Right?
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Well, that's all I was looking for, is to see.
[00:27:42] Speaker D: No, my memory of biology class, besides Mr. Catalano, was that I had a classmate, Joel, who was reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And he was like, oh, this awesome. This book is awesome. You gotta check it out. And I read the first. You know, like, we were 60 miles outside of Barstow and the drugs kicked in and the bats and stuff. I read that whole page and I was like. It was like. Freaked me out. Like, whoa. I was not ready for this at that time, even though I grew to love it later. But it was like. I remember thinking. I sat there thinking about that book in one class and didn't pay attention at all.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that was. That was a big book for us when I was at Franklin. Well, so you. You were just a few years behind me at Franklin. But Franklin was. There was a lot of people taking a lot of drugs, in fact, which is why that.
[00:28:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: No, now of all those people. It's funny, though, you'd be doing that, you know, as a student. And then all those people grew up to be, you know, brain surgeons and, you know, neurobiologists and very successful attorneys.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Bartenders like Juan or a bartender like Juan.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Well, and. But Juan worked for Goldman Sachs for many years.
[00:28:44] Speaker D: I also knew kids growing up uptown whose parents were professors at Loyola and Tulane and who had incredible libraries. So these kids would get into this stuff and learn about all this crazy shit. I don't think their parents, who they were getting into, like, dropping acid and doing stuff and doing all kind of crazy stuff. So it was a little bit. I wasn't so much. But I remember thinking these kids just seemed really, like, interesting to me in terms of the subjects they were getting into. But I was a little too, much, like, later for me, you know. But I do remember it was really wild.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Kept your distance a little bit.
[00:29:16] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Okay. So you. You. Then you. You go to Franklin for a couple of years. You want. Then go over to Spectrum, Spectrum.
[00:29:24] Speaker D: I end up at Spectrum and then graduated from McMahon.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Not what a Spectrum.
[00:29:29] Speaker D: Spectrum was a school within a school.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: It's kind of an alternative.
[00:29:32] Speaker D: It was like.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: You went to one of those.
[00:29:33] Speaker D: Yeah, it was like they did this thing instead of College Bound. They did this. It was career.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Prison bound.
[00:29:40] Speaker D: It was career based education. You had these internships. I actually got the intern at some of the. I was interested in going into broadcast journalism, so I got the intern at a few TV stations. Well, actually, at Wis. It was just doing envelopes for pledge drives.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Have you heard about. Speaking of local news? But you Hear about that weatherman?
[00:29:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: He'S done.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: That's no good. Yeah, I think he might be done.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:05] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: And for some reason they promoted him to chief.
I don't know what that means. The weatherman. They're all weatherman.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: I mean, Margador steps away and.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: And what kind of last name is Lucy? What is that?
[00:30:22] Speaker D: I don't know. I just know his mug shot looked like.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. He got the worst of it.
[00:30:28] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Even though he beat the out of.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: So I don't know.
[00:30:34] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: He seems like a good guy.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: He seemed fine. I never did that to me. And he's.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Well, his weather reports were always bullshit. He said it's not raining tomorrow and it rained.
[00:30:44] Speaker D: Well, it was funny because it's like when I was at lsu, I was studying broadcast journalism, but I had a job in the media center there. And there was this professor, Dr. Pennybacker who used to teach journalism students how to do the network speak. Like how do you speak as an anchor and stuff. There's a certain way that you do.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: It and you gotta read those cards.
[00:31:04] Speaker D: How do you deliver news that a plane crashed?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: If you're looking right, the screen's behind you.
[00:31:09] Speaker D: It's very tough, but it's like seeing. Seeing Devin. It's like cuz there's the face you put on in front of the camera. But then that mug shot is like real. Like it's not. There's no front.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: It's Gretna Fest kills.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it always does. I hate Gretna Fest.
[00:31:25] Speaker D: Is that where apparently the started?
[00:31:29] Speaker B: He was with girlfriend at Gretna Fest arguing.
Maybe she was banging some.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Some of the musicians hired back to.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Their house and they went back to their house in Marrero Ball first started. Why is he living in Marrero? I don't understand that.
[00:31:43] Speaker D: Well, it wasn't just that he had the scratches, he had his hair was. Had all this stuff going on look like it was, you know.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: That's tough, man. I would hate for that. I'd hate to bet I don't know situation, you know. So you, you graduate from McMahon? Yeah. You go to LSU for a few years? Few years.
[00:31:59] Speaker D: Few years.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: But like, like all good artists, you drop out before you finish.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: I drop out because I realized I didn't want to go into broadcast journalism. Because you had like three tracks. You could either be on air talent producer or you're kind of doing the camera work and stuff. And I kind of got to do the camera work and editing and all that stuff. And I wasn't really that interested in it, but I also was interested in film, which is one of the reasons it was a cool job. But I sort of realized to get films made, you really have to have a huge ego and be able to motivate a lot of people.
But at that same time, I discovered underground comics, which is something where I had, like, been younger and didn't know anything about that stuff. And discovering that was like, wow, there's a whole world of people doing comics that aren't so much child oriented or more like, you know, it's much more about expressing themselves in all these kind of crazy ways.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Like the American Splendor style hobby, American.
[00:32:53] Speaker D: Splendor, Robert Crumb, Zap comics. I mean, all those. And around the time that I was discovering it, there was also kind of like a new wave of comics that. Like Matt Groening, Linda Berry.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Right?
[00:33:05] Speaker D: Yeah. Gary Panner. I mean, those are all kind of like artists that were, you know. And there was National Lampoon, which had a lot of great, like, artists and cartoonists that were being published out of there. So, yes, that was pretty much anything that was like, comics related and animation related too. Like, I was definitely grew up with a huge fan of Warner Brothers animation. And when that Roger Rabbit movie came out, I really was like. I realized that there was a set number of Warner Brothers cartoons that were made, and I wanted to find out how many there were and stuff, because I think those Warner Brothers cartoons were like, refined over several decades. It was like a very similar.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Well, that's the only good thing about that Roger Rabbit film is that they introduce you to those old cartoon, you know, of Warner Bros. Cause that movie sucked. It sucked big time. But it did introduce an.
[00:33:55] Speaker D: It did. And it did. Yeah. It definitely got me inspired to go learn the actual history and why those cartoons were so good. And I feel like that's kind of what I did. So that truly got me interested in that whole. The whole world of that stuff. But also it opens up, you know, there's a whole world of animation that Disney kind of killed because Disney kind of made things sort of look a certain way.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Well, no, Disney's cheap.
[00:34:18] Speaker D: Well, they're fucking cheap.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: I mean, they're beautiful.
[00:34:20] Speaker D: But animation doesn't have to look like. Like I've known three dimensional people who.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Work for Din Z. I'm from la. I've known tons of. And they quit because they say, I'm an artist. I'm giving you the best. And you. And they steal it. They steal it. A lot of times, Disney's the worst.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Now, I read somewhere that you had an aunt who gave you some advice.
[00:34:44] Speaker D: She did, yeah. It was like when I realized I wasn't gonna stay and get an actual, like, a professional degree and go into some field and stuff. And I really wanted to be an artist and kind of take that path.
She was like, well, what are you gonna do? Stories about, you know. So she said, if you're gonna be an artist, you gotta go out there, work different jobs, get to meet different people that are not like yourself and stuff. And then as the years go by, you'll start to hear their stories and learn about them, and you'll actually have material to do comics about or whatever your medium you're going to work in and stuff. But otherwise, what the hell are you doing?
[00:35:18] Speaker A: That's good advice. Now, how did she have the insight to give you that advice? You think, well, she's gone.
[00:35:23] Speaker D: She's my Aunt Betsy. And she'd gone to LSU and got a degree in English.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:28] Speaker D: But she realized what she wanted to do was hospitality. So she became a bartender in the Quarter and then eventually a bar manager. But she loved living a life where she could go out there and be a bartender, drink and then.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Fancy free.
[00:35:43] Speaker D: Yeah, it was really. It was kind of amazing because growing up, we got to go visit her, and it seemed like every six months or so.
Why was happening? I don't know. But she'd end up in a different apartment. But back then, I got to see lots of these really cool little French Quarter apartments when you go visit her and stuff. And I also remembered, like, it seems like lots of these bars in the 70s had, like, kitchens to where during the day, my brother and I. My mom would go visit her.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: She was a madam.
[00:36:11] Speaker D: Yeah, I know she was a madam. But we got to actually hang in bars because they were serving food during the day and stuff.
[00:36:17] Speaker B: You know, you love food and drink.
[00:36:20] Speaker D: Yeah, well, pretty much.
Growing up in this city.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to soak up that. That seedy side of life down there.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that. But I always thought that was cool. Cool about how you had the external on the street. When you got into those courtyards with all the vegetation, it was like. It was almost like a geode because you get in there, it was all green and lush like these gardens, but you couldn't see it from the street. So I thought it was like this neat little surprise to see these, you know?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: And that was. You did that with their cartoons?
[00:36:48] Speaker D: No, but I think I've Incorporated that idea of something. Like, on the surface you don't suspect much, but when, when you get into it, it sort of surprised you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Excellent.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: So some of these jobs that you had, Ice cream man, knife salesman.
[00:37:04] Speaker D: Yeah. That was both ruined.
I was an ice cream guy for a few weeks. There was a guy, Wally, who wore a pith helmet and he worked like 16 hour days.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: And I just was like slinging that ice cream.
[00:37:17] Speaker D: Yeah, he'd. He'd be up at 5am going to get his truck to go. Right. You know. And so I trained with him for two weeks and learned some stuff. Like, learned you couldn't put your siren on near a school because the kids go ape shit. And, I mean, it's against the law and stuff. But then there was a cool story. We got to a neighborhood on the west bank and he's like, you ready? And he hits the noise, you know, like.
And all of a sudden it come pouring out. Like, it was amazing to see how like Pavlovian they were came out. And he was like, look, you ask a kid what he wants, he either tells you, if he doesn't say anything, he's got a dollar in his hand. Eskimo Pie. Hand it to him.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: You take the dollar.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: There you go.
I love Eskimo Pie.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: I guess everybody does. I guess that's why you can get away with that. The knife salesman, is that like a cutcoat?
[00:38:06] Speaker B: All right.
[00:38:06] Speaker D: Which I wasn't sure.
It was like three days of training to learn the whole sales pitch, which was pretty amazing because it, like, it totally wows people.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: And it works out of Cutco knives that a friend of ours daughter sold to us.
[00:38:21] Speaker D: But unless you're a foodie or someone who cooks, you don't need a set of $800 knives. But I found it. I actually did pretty well the few weeks I was doing it. It gave you red marbles if you made so much in sales. And I was actually getting kind of a large marble pile. But I just felt like every time people's eyes would glaze over, like you had. We had like scissors that would cut a penny and all these like, things. And it was like very much. You had to do this exact phrasing. So it was almost like hypnotism.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Speaker D: And stuff. And it was like, so how, how many, what set of knives did you want? And it was like, they don't need $400 worth of knives.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: You felt it was too easy.
[00:39:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: I just wasn't someone who felt like, all right, knives. The second that's right.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: First. First prize, Cadillac. Second prize.
[00:39:10] Speaker D: Third prize.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: You're fire Third prize.
[00:39:13] Speaker D: Cuz the people that I did sell.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Cutco is a good company.
[00:39:15] Speaker D: I the knives are still doing well.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: And I am killing people with this.
[00:39:20] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: All right.
[00:39:21] Speaker D: All right, man.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: It's got Margaret walking in here.
Oh yeah.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Dave Clemens has died. Oh no, you're too late.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: And all kind of luminaries coming in, in, in here. Let's take a break. Yeah, it's. It's about that time. So Manny, tell, tell the people Trouble.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Nation and our guests we know what to do. We're gonna take a break. We'll be right back.
[00:39:44] Speaker C: I don't wanna live where everybody lives Chiseling everybody else no, I don't wanna live where everybody lives Chiseler everybody else I don't want to live where the sky is black I don't want to live where the day come back no I don't want to live where everybody lives cheer.
I don't want to live where the wind blows peel trouble where light shines bright and where everyone was happier yesterday.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: You know.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: I don't want to live where everybody's chiseling everybody else Chiseling everybody else I don't want to break into a hollow room, but I don't want to wake up in an empty tomb.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: And we're back. Yes, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: That's me.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: I am Renee Coleman.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: That's you.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Back with our guest, Mr. Cesar Meadows.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: That's him.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Now, Cesar, I know you are a fan of the podcast. So you're aware that this is a listener supported operation.
And we have The Venmo and PayPal links in the show, notes of every show, as well as the Facebook page.
And sometimes we don't have anything to mention. But, but it's a watershed week here. We have much support from a former guest, recent guest, who just, just had a birthday the other day, Margo Manning, great jeweler, kidder. Margo Manning, great jeweler, metal work, designer. Also longtime supporter and listener, Ryan Osapek.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: And, and, and also guy listener, works with our former. Our guest we just had a couple of weeks ago, Tyron Benoit, Scott Morrison, great bass player.
So thank Margo, Ryan and Scott for all your support buying us cocktails here.
And also we have the Patreon link. You can join our handful of patrons who support the show week in and week out. We love you.
Also with the link there for the Troublemen podcast T shirts, which Christmas is getting closer every week.
And follow us on social media instagram Facebook and rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it.
Give us five stars. Cost you. Nothing helps us a lot.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we're taking shots right now.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Okay, all right. Everybody's taking shots coming and going. And speaking of five stars, I played on this tab Falco record that I mentioned before. It has all kind of people. Ann Magnuson, Kid Congo Powers, Chris Spedding, Reverend Horton Heat, John Spencer, Jim Scott, Unus, on and on and on. And I played on a track and it got one of only six records so far this year to get a five star rating for Mojo magazine.
[00:43:19] Speaker D: Wow, that's awesome.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: And who reads Mojo?
[00:43:21] Speaker A: You know, nobody reads people that are interested in music.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah, nobody reads Mojo.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: Anyway, so a great, great.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: That's a great review to.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: To receive.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: Where's your Mojo?
[00:43:33] Speaker A: And so, so let's see what else. Yeah, I want to mention I have a few dates coming up. I'll be playing the Dr. John tribute or Tipitina is with John Papago on October 18th.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Now who is Dr. John Google. And also, I don't do the goo.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Also, Iguanas continue to play our residency every Sunday at the Carousel Bar through the end of the year and possibly beyond. So everybody come check that out. Sunday 7 to 10 at the Carousel at the the Hotel Montley. On back to you, Caesar. So, so you've got gained all this experience and now you start self publishing comics in the early 90s and nobody likes them, right?
[00:44:11] Speaker B: Everybody likes them. They liked them in the early 90s in New Orleans.
[00:44:15] Speaker D: Yeah. But we were doing this really cool zine called Turd. Oh yeah, they liked the joke.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: You're taking shits on people.
[00:44:25] Speaker D: Well, it was, you know, it was a silly, crazy underground kind of of comic Z and stuff, you know. But yeah, the idea was that, you know, people were dumping all their waste in the Mississippi river and we were kind of at the tail end.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: And they're still doing that.
[00:44:38] Speaker D: I know they're still doing it, but it's like, you know, plus we would trade our comics with other.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: This is one of the worst cities ever.
[00:44:44] Speaker D: And they would always send back there was our stuff was considered trippy to them. And they'd say, what's in the water down there?
[00:44:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I was like, I don't know.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: But everything, yeah, everything that from Minneapolis on down that you guys throw.
[00:44:59] Speaker D: But I feel like it's a bit like you get the snake venom where you build up a tolerance.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: That's true, that's true. I think that's, that's why it's good to not wash.
[00:45:08] Speaker D: I grew up drinking tap water. I thought it was great.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's your problem.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I would still be drinking it. My wife made me stop, so. So. So you do that for. For like a year or so and then you have the fungus, which is a. Yeah. Which was another one that follows up.
[00:45:24] Speaker D: On that and the model after sort of the zap Comic jams. It was like a weekly get together and it was basically, we passed around, I guess, comic pages and people would then draw the next panel.
So it was kind of like an exquisite corpse.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Oh, okay, cool.
[00:45:41] Speaker D: But we did that pretty much for a long time.
Every Wednesday we would like, you know, it was basically, it was a very social setting for a lot of different artists and stuff. But it was, you know, it was a nice kept, I guess, a sort of a center anchoring for all these really creative folk and stuff. So.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: And gives you. If you're doing it every week, it's a reason to go and do work that week. You know, it's like, like this podcast.
[00:46:06] Speaker D: Yeah. We put out like eight issues and it was always great to give it out to unsuspecting people along the routes during. Because my little group, we would walk from uptown all the way down into the Quarter and the marinade and stuff to find crew of St. Anne. But along the way, we would spread the fungus to all these people and stuff. And it was always great. We'd hand it to adults because it tended to skew all different ways, but people would see comics. We always kind of like smiled when they'd hand it to their kid.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: They hand it to their kid.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Oh, man.
You work for Anti Gravity magazine?
[00:46:41] Speaker D: Yes, I do. Yes. I've done good.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. How is that?
[00:46:46] Speaker D: It's great.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Oh, really? Because I qualified for mayor about a month or so ago and they wanted me to answer their questionnaire.
[00:46:56] Speaker D: Well, they send out a question. Yeah, they do it.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: But the questionnaire, it's like, I'll answer your questionnaire. But their questionnaire was like over 80 questions.
[00:47:05] Speaker D: Very thorough.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: It's just.
[00:47:06] Speaker D: But they don't really endorse. They just give the information.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: No, I'm not going to answer anything that wants me to do 80 questions.
[00:47:12] Speaker A: Too much work for you.
[00:47:13] Speaker D: Too much work.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Okay, so Anti Gravity magazine, man. Okay, well, you realize 80 questions, it's like, I'm not going to answer all 80 questions.
[00:47:22] Speaker D: Well, you realize what the beginning of the word anti.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I understand.
I wrote them back. I. I wrote them back. I said, this is too many questions. I'm not going to answer this. They never responded to me.
[00:47:34] Speaker D: Well, I mean, yeah, they gave me the options. You decline.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: And hey, they're a good magazine.
[00:47:39] Speaker D: It's been a great.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: They have a good crossword puzzle.
[00:47:41] Speaker D: New Orleans, especially post Katrina, I feel like the whole point of it was to cover sort of the non touristy thought of New Orleans culture. It was to cover other stuff that was here that there was clearly people, other types of music.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: At some point you start doing these, these little mini comic books.
[00:48:00] Speaker D: Well, there was a period in my life where because I grew up with my mom, I grew up visiting.
Well, I grew up visiting my dad's side of the family with my brother. Every other weekend we'd go stay with him.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: They were divorced.
[00:48:13] Speaker D: Yeah, we're divorced. But I'd go stay with my mama and papa in reserve in river parishes and I'd see my dad and stuff. And so when I got older though, I decided to move out there because my dad was running a pool, pool hall in Washacheria and he wanted some help with it. And I thought. And at the time I was a bike messenger in New Orleans.
But he had this old, kind of like it had been a general merchandise store shack and he was like, you could use it as a studio, you could set up, you know, your library, so to speak, even though it was an area that wasn't really going to be that useful. So I had this place called the Jigsaw Junction. And there was like a kind of a redneck bar called Bombers that was named after the Gulf War. But this guy Jerry came over and said, hey, I have an old cigarette machine. You think you'd be interested in buying it? I'll give it to you for 50 bucks. And I was like, oh, maybe I could vent little comics out of it. So we moved this heavy thing over and I actually made a bunch of little comics that would fit in a cigarette sized pack. But it was too light, it would get stuck.
And I was like, shit. And then someone said, hey, what about those blankets Bubble. Those toy capsule machines? And they would fit in a bubble and those were more accessible. You could portable. So that's what I like.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: The gumball machine.
[00:49:26] Speaker D: Except like a little toy capsules. Yeah. And that was great. So that's what got me started doing the little small ones. But also you're a smoker, not of cigarettes.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah, baby, yeah.
[00:49:40] Speaker D: I mean, yeah. I think now more it's the.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: You roll your own.
[00:49:45] Speaker D: I'm now real happy with the, the, the drinks that they have now and the little candies and stuff.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: Those are kind of nice.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't. I don't like the edibles.
[00:49:54] Speaker C: I'd rather.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: Rather keep. Keep it.
[00:49:56] Speaker D: Well, I've also like. I remember being. I have relatives in Alaska. My. My grandmother and mom's mom was a bit.
[00:50:04] Speaker C: What the.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: She is your family.
[00:50:06] Speaker D: She homesteaded five acres in Alaska in a land lottery in the 80s.
[00:50:10] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:50:11] Speaker D: But I went up to visit in the 90s and that was a pretty much a state where like, you know, they were pretty free and that was. It was legal and definitely like they saw themselves bear.
She did ate bear. She actually. She hunted bear.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:26] Speaker D: In this room like that. She named two of the bears that she killed after ex husbands.
So I actually got to have bear now.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: How does bear taste?
[00:50:38] Speaker D: It was.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: It was kind of gamey, like fantasy kind of gamey.
[00:50:43] Speaker D: I had bear meat spaghetti when I was out.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Oh, that sounds.
[00:50:47] Speaker D: They preserved it. They'd put it in like a. Like a. Yeah.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: So it's cured? Kind of.
[00:50:51] Speaker D: It was cured. It was like in a spaghetti sauce.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Huh. Okay.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: It's like a jerky or. Oh, you put it.
[00:50:57] Speaker D: Yeah, with red sauce. With the actual. That's with the bear meat.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: I think bear is one of those animals that you can get trichinosis from. Just like.
[00:51:04] Speaker D: Well, it might be. But I'll tell you this.
When you're out in the like in the interior and stuff, there was a guy that was living out there who had a bunch of like those little Alaskan huskies and stuff that. But.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: And his name was Howard Kose.
[00:51:16] Speaker D: No, his name was Mark.
But anyway. But he was kind of letting us know how to deal with bears because it's like there's no. It's really remote. So at one part we're walking along and I see this like bear fur up like about 8ft tall up in a tree. And I'm going like, oh, did the bear, did it crawl up there? And he goes like oh, no, no, no. It was scratching its back. So it's like how tall it is. No, you could see. And I thought cuz they're grizzlies, they're the larger size of the bears. And I just was like, are you kidding me? Like it's like 12ft tall. Yeah, it was. I told something when you saw the height of where the backyard. I was like. And he said, but most bears are fairly scared unless they're totally famished. So if you walk through the forest making a bunch of noise, they generally don't want to Investigate. You kind of scare them away. They don't really want to confront anyone and stuff.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: It's funny. I didn't have bears in my notes anywhere, but here we are nonetheless.
No, we like that. We like the digression. These mini comic books, and you call them comics with a Q, Like Q, O, M, I, K, S. It was.
[00:52:18] Speaker D: Trying to like the format itself, the ones that would fit inside of. Because within small press, there's different designations. Like there's digest, which is eight and a half, 11 folded. There's many comics, which is a sheet folded four times. Then there's like, micro comics, which is folded, you know, so it's like. And this was something that was even smaller than, like, micro. I mean, you know, so I kind of wanted to give it its own little.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: You came up with your own form.
[00:52:42] Speaker D: Yeah, that. It was just more kind of a play on it.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:45] Speaker D: I even gave it a. Like, the O has an umlaut over it.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:52:48] Speaker D: Which is like. So like qualmix or something. But it was really just like, sort of being obnoxious with it. Like giving this weird, you know, weirdness to it.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: MLE Crew.
[00:52:58] Speaker D: Yeah. Just being like, what the hell is that? I know for a lot of people, like, looks pretty pretentious, but it was intentional.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: That's fun. It's fun to be ridiculously pretentious. Sometimes I do the same thing.
They call that. There's a name for that that's Edgar Allan Poe. Or Edgar Poe, as I call him, which is.
[00:53:16] Speaker D: Big fan of his.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: The. It's called the. The Imp of the Perverse.
[00:53:20] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: So which is. Which is to do the thing that, you know, people will hate you for, but you can't resist doing it anyway. Well, I kind of get you a certain charge. Yeah.
[00:53:30] Speaker D: I like it. Yeah. So.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: Or to do anything that may put you in danger.
[00:53:34] Speaker D: Yes. I say it's. It's playful and starts a discussion and stuff. And I feel like the fact that anyone would be annoyed by it. I feel like this is funny to me to trigger someone, like.
[00:53:42] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:53:43] Speaker D: It's just words.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:44] Speaker D: You know, just weird.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: So you parlay this, you actually wind up working for, like, the several different Mardi Gras parades. Producing these.
[00:53:54] Speaker D: Yes. Because I always had this idea once I was kind of working in that small comic format or was producing it as someone who grew up collecting the blooms and loving that as a kid, you know, the different colors. It was like. I thought they'd make great carnival throws, but I had the idea. But didn't know how to mass produce them. And then one night, I'd been doing it one way where I could probably only make 50 in an hour. But then right before I was going off to sleep, I had this sort of epiphany moment where I kind of visualized if I did. If I laid out the comics a different kind of way and stapled before I cut them. I was like, oh, no. I remember, like, getting out of bed. You know, my wife at the time, Jeannie, was like, what's wrong? And I was like, oh, I think I could do this. And sure enough, when I actually did it, I could make 500 in an hour. Wow. And that made all the difference because, like, I knew a crew would need like, several thousand for a throw and not be a factory in China, you know, like.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:54:49] Speaker D: So then once I could do that, it was like I went and made a pitch to muses, the crew that did it. And for like two years, they actually.
Look at that palmetto.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Roach is crawling on us here in the bar.
[00:55:01] Speaker D: But no, but I was able to do 30, 000 hand make 30,000 for the two years that I did it.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:55:07] Speaker D: So that was pretty cool.
[00:55:08] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Yeah, I remember getting those things. It's. It's quite a. Quite a little.
And. And also then. Then you. You. You're involved with the. The crew of T Rex.
[00:55:18] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: Which is a miniature parade.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:55:21] Speaker D: Which is like, I. That's been an incredible thing to be a part of because it's really a unique, wonderful experience that I feel like it's very intimate. It's very much like harkens back to early days of the satire on the streets and, you know, where it wasn't so much like these large spectacle parades.
[00:55:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:55:39] Speaker D: And I just feel like the creativity there is more like, since it's individual to each of the crews of the artists working on it, as opposed to like a Blaine Kern or some place that's doing all. Most of the creative part.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Super fun.
[00:55:52] Speaker D: Yeah. So you get more of a mosaic of different types of floats and tiny throws and stuff. So.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:59] Speaker D: And it was just perfect because, like, the fact that I was doing those little comics and suddenly here, this was just like. And I actually, at Allen in my first grade, you know, I actually made a float and actually walked the hallways of Allen.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: Used to have those shoebox parades, like float parades in elementary schools. Right, right.
[00:56:17] Speaker D: Yeah. So, yeah, no, it's been. And I. And I have to say, like, I'm the president of the board, but really it's Two, two co captains. There's really Janine Hayes and Tris Nugent. They're really the ones who make the parade happen in terms of handling all the permits and all the sort of like bothering, like sending out all the announcements and making sure all the permits, you know. So I feel like they're the ones who are true heroes of making T Rex happen over here.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great parade. And I have to mention, speaking of T Rex, a dear friend of ours, Julie, Julie Ebel, we just, just lost. She was very involved with the T Rex parade and it's really sad.
[00:56:55] Speaker D: She was a. Yeah, yeah.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Had to mention her name. I think she was former Queen of T Rex at one point. And God we love you, Julia.
Never be another.
Now at some point you, you got into animation and I did along the line. Now, now during the pandemic, Loose Cattle recorded a song, Sidewalk Chicken Chicken.
[00:57:18] Speaker D: And Michael Severus reached out to me because he'd seen some of my animations online and really enjoyed them and went and actually like said, hey Cesar, would you be interested?
And he really gave us the option of three songs.
We listened to my two other friends who I animate with Stylo Moniker and Tommy LeBlanc, which we call ourselves Cut that Out Productions, which is kind of like a. Originally we animated with actual cutout paper puppets, but we also thought it was funny. It was like, hey, cut that out. Like as if you're having too much fun.
And then. But anyway. But yeah, so we picked Sidewalk Chicken, which was, we thought was the most as far as lyric wise, we thought was going to have the most visuals and be fun to kind of do.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: Now that's one of those songs that like. That's my mother's favorite song, you know, like, like the, like in the Iguanas we have the song My Girlfriend Is a Waitress. It's kind of a silly song, but that's my mother's favorite song. You know, it's like there's certain songs that it's like, right. Everybody can like this. It's very, you know, easy to like. And Sidewalk Chicken is one of those. It's easy to play. It always kills.
[00:58:25] Speaker D: It was a challenging part in the song. There's a long like a minute. It's like a minute almost a little over a minute where it's just instrumental.
[00:58:32] Speaker A: It goes into the lyrics that kind of heavy metal break.
[00:58:36] Speaker D: And we weren't really sure what to do there. But then we ended up turning it into where there's a guy with this dog chasing and it's like we turned it into this like kind of road. This road journey that I thought worked really well and stuff. So that was kind of neat.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that. That was great, man. That's.
[00:58:48] Speaker D: That's.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: That's a brilliant piece of work there.
[00:58:51] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Cut that Out Productions. What's the other. The. The guy's name?
[00:58:56] Speaker D: Okay. There's two other animes animate with is stuff Stylo Moniker and Tommy LeBlanc.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: Tommy LeBlanc, that's a real name.
[00:59:03] Speaker D: Well, Tommy LeBlanc actually is a co owner of the hey Coffee and hey Cafe stores.
[00:59:08] Speaker A: Now, is Kenny Harrison involved in this or.
[00:59:13] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's like he's probably not gonna be saying that. Stuff is like, Kenny Harrison's one of my. He's like. He's like a big brother. He's like, you know, someone is amazing.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: So he's involved in. That's the.
[00:59:24] Speaker D: It is. And Kenny Harrison is someone who.
It was really. I met him through the drawthon. But as someone who was very visual oriented, I was aware of Kenneth Harrison's work in the Times Picayune.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:37] Speaker D: And I thought it was a name for a bunch of people because his stu.
[00:59:41] Speaker C: He.
[00:59:41] Speaker D: He varied like the style of the art. It was like wood blocks or cutting or pastels. And I thought, how could one guy do the turnaround on these editorial illustrations, like in a day? I didn't think it was possible. But he was working digitally, so I got to know him. Okay. And he worked for the timespick up until they kind of screwed over the longtime people that are working there and stuff.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: Right.
[01:00:03] Speaker D: But I think like he's wanting to do work under like where it doesn't have the. That, you know, so. Although now I've put it out there. So he's probably going to be pretty upset, but he's been both. He's. He's animated under Kenny Harrison and his stylo and stuff. So.
[01:00:17] Speaker A: Okay. I just want to give credit where credit was due. You know, it's like you. You can be. I think they call too cute by half.
[01:00:24] Speaker D: Well, that's true. But he is such an amazing artist and so versatile in his skill set that I feel like the backgrounds in our animations look so amazing to where even though our animation maybe isn't like full animation, it's a bit limited visually. He kind of creates these backdrops that are so beautiful to look at. Yeah, yeah. So.
[01:00:44] Speaker A: Well, very cool. And actually, you guys, I. I mentioned it in the. The intro, the 24 hour drawn your which is.
[01:00:52] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: Which is going to be having that as well.
[01:00:53] Speaker D: Is that? Yes. And we're actually going to have it coming up the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the Mary Opera House.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[01:01:00] Speaker D: Yeah. So we're kind of gearing up for that.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: We're a beautiful new space.
[01:01:04] Speaker D: I don't necessity new, but it's like we've had draw thons there before.
[01:01:07] Speaker B: It's a weekend. No one will be there.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: Oh, no. But it's a popular.
[01:01:11] Speaker D: You should come. Just think about it.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: I know.
[01:01:13] Speaker D: A whole place full of people drawing on the walls and the floor.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: I'm not going to be there, dude.
[01:01:18] Speaker D: I.
No way I could do. I have a. I do a Connory impression about Drawthon and stuff. Ready? Here you go.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:01:27] Speaker D: You mean you give crayons to children and encourage them to draw on the walls? Sounds like a recipe for madness.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: Anyway, I like that. That's a good one.
[01:01:37] Speaker D: Yeah. Anyway. But it's one of the better, Sean.
It's people getting together to kind of reconnect to a sense of creative play that unfortunately, as you grow up, you tend to disconnect from that and stuff. But it's like the critical mass of so many people. It's free, open to everyone. You don't have to stay the whole 24 hours. But there's workshops that go all night long.
[01:01:59] Speaker B: Right.
[01:01:59] Speaker D: So it's like for those of us who have done like I've spent now because I've done the 24 hours and this is going to be our 20th one. I've nearly spent three weeks of my life.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:08] Speaker D: At Drawthon because it's been 24 hours at a time.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: It's like this podcast. It's like, it's about three weeks of my life.
[01:02:15] Speaker D: It's sort of like a Brigadoon like thing where it appears for 24 hours and then it disappears. I like it.
[01:02:20] Speaker A: I like that Brigadoon. I actually worked on a production of that when I was in summer camp.
[01:02:26] Speaker D: Okay. I was thinking I went to a production at LSU that I thought was really cool.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: No, this was at McNee State University.
[01:02:31] Speaker D: Did you have a fog machine?
[01:02:33] Speaker A: We didn't, but I ran follow spot one year.
[01:02:36] Speaker D: Oh, did you?
[01:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Stagecraft.
[01:02:38] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:02:38] Speaker A: When I. When I found out there was such a thing as stage craft, like, oh, man, that's for me.
[01:02:43] Speaker B: Listen, you've been a great guest, but I. I'm leaving. Good night.
[01:02:46] Speaker A: Well, let's take a picture first. Manny, let's.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: Good night.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: Let's take a picture.
Okay. And we're back again and Manny's gone. He started pre gaming a bit early.
His excuse was, well, it was Dave's birthday so he had to start drinking at 5 and so we started 7:30. And so that's, you know, he's. He's always a little bit lit up.
[01:03:09] Speaker D: He hung in longer than I thought he was gonna. Yeah, I think so.
[01:03:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:03:13] Speaker D: Especially knowing that he had started. You know, normally when I'm listening, he kind of starts at the beginning of the podcast.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: Well, he starts bit a little, little bit earlier, but not quite that early. Yeah, yeah, I started at the beginning of the podcast. Okay, well, so we were talking about the, the, the drawthon and, and, and then, then the 48 Hour Film.
[01:03:33] Speaker D: Well, yeah, that's something that because of Tommy LeBlanc who had I think participated in first. But he brought Kenny and I into it and so we've competed in it six times and it's just been fun to kind of, you know, be able to like work on something real intense for that weekend.
And that first one that we did was really all. Tommy did most of the heavy lifting. Kenny and I just kind of did the voices and the kind of the drawings. But it was really. But now since then we kind of self taught ourselves to be better animators. So then each year. So.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: Well, give us, give us the premise of this whole thing.
[01:04:10] Speaker D: Well, the one that actually won this year was like, no, I mean the premise of 48 Film House is like, yeah, the people sign up and it's. Most of them are live action teams. We're probably the only animating team here, at least in New Orleans. And basically you have to make a film in 48 hours.
So you show up at like an place where you pick your genre. So it's like out of a hat. So you have a. Gotta have a team name. But then we got various. We got. This year we got mockumentary or medical film. You could do either of those two. We decided to go with medical film, but we've had other categories. And then each year to kind of make it to where it's fair and everyone is competing, there's three elements. There's like you have to have a line, a character and a prop. And everyone has to include those three elements in their film or they don't. They're not eligible to compete in the judges judging them and stuff. Which not everyone makes it in the 40 hours or forgets to do that. But it really is kind of cool to see how the creative ways people do incorporate those elements into Their films and stuff. That's part of when they do a screening of all the films.
Everyone's kind of looking to see how everybody did their own take on it.
[01:05:20] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[01:05:21] Speaker D: You never know a given year. But we felt pretty good about this one. Like, we had a really strong idea as soon as we knew what our category was.
[01:05:29] Speaker A: And so what did you say medical film was?
[01:05:31] Speaker D: Yeah, the name of our film that won was called Health Hive.
[01:05:34] Speaker A: Health Hive Live. Yes, I was. I've seen it before, and I watched it again today, and it's kind of. Kind of in keeping with the rfk.
Make America Healthy Again.
[01:05:45] Speaker D: Yeah, there's a reference there. And actually, we weren't. We had a feeling it would go over pretty well, but we. We. When it actually was first screened, it actually got. Not just a laugh, it got a clap. Yeah, clap from the audience, like, clearly. So it felt nice that the audience is definitely in simpatico with where our sensibilities and.
[01:06:03] Speaker A: With the zeitgeist.
[01:06:04] Speaker D: Yes, the zeitgeist. And things of like, you know. But no, it was kind of like a nod to older films that were sort of like travelogues or. There was Disney films about the House of Tomorrow. It was like basically a premise to where you could just string a bunch of gags along there and stuff. And it was fun just coming up with really ones. And there was like. We didn't know if they were gonna work. You know, it was like.
Well, we went with it. It was making us laugh really hard.
[01:06:27] Speaker A: Right.
[01:06:27] Speaker D: That we hoped other people would laugh, too.
[01:06:30] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[01:06:30] Speaker D: So it seems like. Yeah, for the most part, we saw it with an audience. They were laughing along with us.
[01:06:35] Speaker A: Nice, nice. So. So you guys wind up taking best film.
[01:06:40] Speaker D: Yeah, it was like. We were really not, you know, every year we thought, well, there's no chance we'll ever win because live action will do it. Because they have much bigger. Because our crew is really. I mean, the three of us. And then we usually have a guy, Robert A.E. landry, who does. Who's been doing scores for us or adding music and stuff, and usually contributes something. But he's not. He's not necessarily there with us, but he sends stuff in that we then use, you know, once we kind of tell him what we're doing and stuff.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: So most of the other live action films are porn, I'm guessing there are.
[01:07:10] Speaker D: All kinds of different ones, but they're. But some have huge, you know, huge crews and, you know, they have a lot of people. And so, like, there is a. You Know when you go into the competition, people are voting for their own films but. But they do a thing where it's ranked where like you choose your top three films.
[01:07:24] Speaker A: You guys are actually taking your win all the way to Lisbon.
[01:07:29] Speaker D: We're trying to get ourselves there just to see if you know how it does. But also, you know, everyone keeps saying you gotta go, you gotta go, you know, like for any reason. Sure. How often do you get a film that wins and gets to play at a festival in Portugal?
[01:07:43] Speaker A: I've been all over Europe. I've never been to Portugal. I mean I play.
[01:07:46] Speaker D: Never thought of myself as a jet set to fly around and be part of film festivals and other parts. But yeah, that seems doable. Like it seems like Lisbon or Portugal is a little more affordable than some of the other places.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: I think it is kind of depressed economically.
[01:07:59] Speaker D: Well, I like that it's going to be on the coast. I kind of think we're all here. Kind of slightly amphibious here.
[01:08:05] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:08:05] Speaker D: That it's probably a little bit of like amphibious too because they're on the coast.
I think they start late in terms of like to go out late and put party late stuff. Like I think restaurants don't open till.
[01:08:16] Speaker A: 7 and people don't show up on time like here or not at all.
[01:08:20] Speaker D: So anyway, so yeah, so I'm. I'm looking forward to it. You know, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: And then, you know, you're someone that always has a lot of irons in the fire and I like that. And we were trying to schedule this, this podcast and you were saying, well, I can only do it on certain Tuesdays. Yes, because on other Tuesdays. Tell us about that.
[01:08:41] Speaker D: Well, I've been hosting this thing I call Marty Draw every other Tuesday, which is really kind of like an artist social. But the thing I've really been kind of working towards is that the front of my house in Bayou St. John I've turned into sort of like what I call the Illustrator's Resource Library or the irl. Basically it's a curated library that's not just comics. It's like books with images in them, like books about artists, books about cinema and stuff. But it was like that's the main thing, pictorial images and stuff as a resource for illustrators or any kind of artists that they might come. And so the Tuesday night things are sort of more social. And I also host these Saturday all day long events because eventually I'd like there to be kind of like hours that people can. It'll be open for access for people that really don't necessarily want to come to be social. They want to treat it like a specialized library where they can come and look at resource. Yeah, because I have, you know, I've got like collected old issues of National Lampoon, Heavy Metal magazine, all these things. If someone to do research or all issues of New Orleans magazine. I've been collecting under like underground small press, New Orleans comics that go back to the 90s. So I have that all organized for. So if someone's wanting to go and do any kind of. That kind of research or just any young artists or people that want to just come in and look at the bookshelves and say and kind of serendipitously discover a book or an artist they didn't even know existed. Because I know that's how like when I was coming up, that was part of the fun of just looking for work that I hadn't seen that I thought kind of was drawn to. And you know, it kind of inspires you to create more work or to change the way you're working and stuff. So I'm hoping to get that more established. Right now it's been more kind of like on the download. There's not regular hours. It's more like word of mouth. But if people are interested. I do have a Instagram, it's Irlnola. If people are interested, check it out and they can direct message me on that Instagram account. If they want to come and see it or check it out, they can come by. We can arrange some time to come see it and stuff. Or if they want to get on the list to come check it out or come just direct message me about.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: It and we'll put that in the show. Notes of the show, the lengths for that.
[01:10:51] Speaker D: But it's building community. It's building creative, creative community.
[01:10:54] Speaker A: And, and you know, it's. It reminds me of the, the salons of the. The 19th, 18th, 19th century.
[01:11:02] Speaker D: Well, well, it's like one thing that I think is important for me at least is.
Is being able to be face to face. And I feel like we live in an era where people, I guess maybe the pandemic or something or that I've been kind of using the metaphor that we're all. We're all staring at little pools of narcissus in our phones.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:11:20] Speaker D: Ego feedback.
[01:11:21] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[01:11:21] Speaker D: And unfortunately it's like I think we need to get back or at least have a balance, not do away with it completely, but at least get to where we're talking face to face and in real spaces and stuff. So I kind of see the Mogi. I also call it the Mogi House as well as, you know, but I see it as, like, an alternative to not necessarily your bar or coffee shop. And it is. There is a bit of inspiration. I was a huge fan of Bersodi's Coffee Shop and Breezy's Bob Besotti, the poet and playwright. And I kind of knew him in my early 20s and stuff. And I felt like his whole bohemian air about welcoming all kinds of different people and just having a sort of, like, he had a great line. I like that. He told me, like, words are slippery things. And I think that's so true in terms of, like, how in context, words could have different meanings.
[01:12:10] Speaker C: Sure.
[01:12:10] Speaker D: But I feel like part of what my house is is almost like creating my own space, like a BR space. The welcoming creative spirits who want to come and kind of be in fellowship with one another, but with no dogma, just the fact that you're just about meeting each other and getting to know another other human beings.
[01:12:30] Speaker A: And art.
[01:12:30] Speaker D: Yeah, and art.
[01:12:31] Speaker A: Art and exchange.
[01:12:32] Speaker D: Yeah. Like the plumbing. Because I feel like my favorite thing in life is to. Is to find a kindred spirit and then compare notes on the ridiculousness of life.
[01:12:40] Speaker B: There you go.
[01:12:40] Speaker A: There you go. Well, man, you know, let me. Let me present you with a few more Troublemen podcast stickers on the way out here. And, you know, we lost Manny, but we had him for longer than you thought.
[01:12:53] Speaker D: Look, I got. I got full. Manny, you got. You got enough podcasts. I got the full man.
[01:12:59] Speaker A: You got the full man?
[01:13:00] Speaker D: The full man.
[01:13:01] Speaker A: Right, right.
[01:13:01] Speaker D: And I know the man's busy.
I mean, the mayor's election's coming up.
[01:13:07] Speaker A: Got a full plate.
[01:13:07] Speaker D: He's. He's divided in his thoughts. I know.
[01:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah, he's.
I could go into, like, the. The. The whole monologue from Apocalypse Now. You know, he's.
He's comfortable with his people, you know, know dialectics.
[01:13:30] Speaker D: Anyway, gotta zap with your sirens.
[01:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna move on. Look it up, people. And. Well, thank you so much, Caesar. It's been a real pleasure. And everybody check out Cesar's work. You know, we'll put all the links to all of his. His accounts in the show notes. And you can, you know, find Mogad.
[01:13:48] Speaker D: YouTube channel Cesar Meadows that has all the cartoons and Mogihead, Instagram.
[01:13:52] Speaker A: Oh, and just on closing, I was checking out your theater, the. This series that you have on New Orleans history with Cricky Ricky and the things that you chose. Fun arcade, the Paris theater, the trampolines on vets.
[01:14:08] Speaker D: That's all stuff I love.
[01:14:09] Speaker A: Trampolines on vets. Look, I never got to go there, but I saw them every time we rode there. I thought, God, if I could just do one thing, I would want to go there.
[01:14:19] Speaker D: That's where having a divorced dad who came and picked her up every other weekend, Veterans highway was like a, you know, place where divorced dads were taking their kids.
Their kids to go do cool things.
[01:14:31] Speaker A: I guess I missed out. My parents are still married, you know, what the fuck? You know? Yeah, that was fun, you know?
[01:14:37] Speaker D: Well, I'm glad for those people because I've got a lot of feedback saying people really love, like, oh, I'd forgotten about that, you know, and so. Yeah, yeah.
[01:14:43] Speaker A: No, you had so many good ones. So that's on the YouTube channel. Everybody. Check those out. Great.
[01:14:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:14:48] Speaker A: All right, Caesar. Well, okay. As always on the Troubleman podcast, we like to say trouble never ends, but the struggle continues.
Good night.
[01:14:58] Speaker D: Good night.
[01:15:08] Speaker C: I will buy you pretty things Everything the season brings When I'm rich, I'll buy you rings Now I'm poor so I will say you are my final change of mind I won't go back, no, not this time to past and future Now I'm blinding. You are my final change of mind I pull my hair, bite my tongue did you know I was once young? Too many groups I did belong Song I'm not the singer what the song I'm not the singer what the song.
Sail my boat but can never cross your moat Should I crumble, should I hope? What should I do with all this dope? The sky dissolves into the sea they make the stars in factories I've been living on my knees they make the stars in factories I pull my hair, bite my tongue did you know I was once young? Too many groups that did belong I'm not the singer what the song I'm not the singer what the song I'm not the singer what the song I'm not the singer what the song.
[01:17:23] Speaker A: Sam.
