Penelope Spheeris is one of the most punk rock women alive. And I have to thank her for setting me on a more righteous cultural path. You see, in the late 1980s, I was a middle school hair metal fan. Did I see Ratt play at the Worcester Centrum in 1987? And was Poison the opening band? Did I have multiple records by the semi-obscure Japanese metal band Loudness? Perhaps. The metal interregnum was brief, thanks to Spheeris’s masterful 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. If you’ve seen the film—packed with terrible bands “treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry,” to quote a film Spheeris almost directed—you’ll understand why. If you haven’t, find it online posthaste.
But first, watch this amazing conversation I had with Spheeris last month, during which we talk about the lost movie she made with a cocaine-addled Richard Pryor; how she ended up directing big Hollywood films like Wayne’s World and Black Sheep; her...errrrr...unvarnished feelings about Tina Fey, Brittney Spears and Jennifer Aniston; and how the ratbag Weinstein brothers precipitated her retreat from Hollywood. One of my favorite interviews of the year.
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Your gets are insane. I’m seriously considering paying.
If your 4th guest is Katie H I will buy the platinum package.
Moynihan, when you said that you were changing the direction or emphasis (I can’t recall how you said it, I’m no Andrew Wimsatt, RIP) of the show, I figured it was a regroup and then would be more or less kind of the same.
Holy shit was I wrong. This episode and all of the new episodes are absolutely fantastic. It reminds me a bit of Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast in the best possible way. Guests with amazing stories to tell who no one else is talking to, talking with someone who actually gives a shit.
I would however appreciate it if you could start referencing Caesar Romero’s sexual proclivities more often. Thank you.