1 00:00:08,687 --> 00:00:10,694 FATHER: He was in college when he was in fifteen. 2 00:00:11,334 --> 00:00:12,080 LANDLADY: …he's different. 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:14,477 I've never known anybody like him ever. 4 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:18,920 And venture to say that I probably never will. 5 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:25,809 MOTHER: Most of his art is actually writing. 6 00:00:28,542 --> 00:00:31,520 RAYMOND: I spend a lot more  time writing than I do drawing - 7 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:33,720 I really wouldn't want to make that distinction 8 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:37,136 or feel the need to separate the two. 9 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:45,505 The fact is I make work that, that requires both. 10 00:00:47,734 --> 00:00:51,360 FATHER: all those books downstairs,  and the thousands we have, 11 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,180 he reads those all the time. 12 00:00:53,681 --> 00:00:56,560 LANDLADY: he loved to find books that are, 13 00:00:56,560 --> 00:00:58,560 that they are underlined or highlighted 14 00:00:58,560 --> 00:01:01,960 because especially those people  might not even be alive any more, 15 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:04,564 so it's like he gets to kind of shadow 16 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:08,345 and find out what was interesting to  the people that have gone before him… 17 00:01:09,921 --> 00:01:12,682 RAYMOND: My writing is associational. 18 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:19,131 You don't necessarily know where it's  going to go while you're doing it. 19 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:22,200 Sometimes people, ah, comment that the, 20 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:26,515 that there's such a disparity  between the image and the words… 21 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:31,618 It mirrors the way I work overall quite a bit… 22 00:01:34,147 --> 00:01:36,640 LANDLADY: I'm not trying to  say he's a slob, it's just, 23 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:39,880 that's the way he works and I believe  that he has to have his stuff around him, 24 00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:42,227 all around him like that to be able to work. 25 00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:45,440 That looks normal for him. 26 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:49,280 But it’s just hysterical to me that in his mind, 27 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:52,846 he felt that he would not make a mess at all. 28 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,067 He’s eccentric at times, I would have to say. 29 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,780 I have a special place in my heart for  him, I just think he’s a great guy. 30 00:02:09,453 --> 00:02:16,233 RAYMOND: This is gonna be a  coup, actually, seeing me… 31 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:21,160 first, first known record or case of me 32 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:24,493 actually arranging or kind  of cleaning up the place. 33 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:31,937 It can't be a documentary though, 34 00:02:33,941 --> 00:02:35,360 because no one would believe it. 35 00:02:36,180 --> 00:02:40,280 LANDLADY: He just has a really broad  range of things that interest him, 36 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:44,040 and it can be erotic to a bowl of fruit, 37 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,600 A mind that can do that… 38 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:52,800 that kind of broad spectrum  artistically has to be pretty busy 39 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:54,120 with a lot of different things. 40 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,807 MOTHER: It's a thinking  persons art, isn't it true? 41 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:01,240 It's not just drawing pretty pictures, 42 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:06,100 and he has all these ideas. 43 00:03:07,171 --> 00:03:10,400 RAYMOND: The way I think and the  way I talk and the way I write, 44 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,040 it’s not very direct always. 45 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:13,480 It can lead anywhere. 46 00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:15,560 I want it to be as fluent as possible. 47 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:17,783 I mean, that’s a major part of my work. 48 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:24,000 Almost like an athlete would exercise his muscles 49 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,320 and do the same moves and get to a point 50 00:03:27,320 --> 00:03:29,760 where it becomes almost instinctive. 51 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:43,840 Even though my work is usually  just, just one drawing, 52 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:50,480 it is more of a narrative than  it is a cartoon with a punch line 53 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:55,000 and a resolution and a laugh at the end. 54 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,472 There still is an element of caricature  and cartoons that my work retains. 55 00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:06,240 Gumby represents an alter-ego  for my work as an artist. 56 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:10,440 There’s actually a lot more  to that figure than just 57 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,219 ninety-eight ounces of clay or whatever. 58 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:20,360 In some of his cartoons he goes  into a biography or historical book 59 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:24,444 and he interacts with real figures from the past. 60 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:29,128 And I tend to do that in my  work and in my videos as well. 61 00:04:30,840 --> 00:04:34,482 You know, who for me, does more  than Gumby would be Vavoom. 62 00:04:35,029 --> 00:04:39,120 When I'm doing drawings of Vavoom,  putting him in this kind of 63 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:44,360 epic, sublime, romantic  landscape and he is this little, 64 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:46,625 little guy with a booming voice… 65 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:50,360 I consider characters like Gumby or Vavoom, 66 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:56,867 Felix the Cat, with respect, compared  to the President of the United States… 67 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:01,562 this one or any or them, you know, really. 68 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:05,920 And those are the real cartoon figures, 69 00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:09,868 and those are the real ridiculous figures. 70 00:05:12,213 --> 00:05:15,840 RAYMOND: There’s a very direct  kind of anger in some of my work. 71 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:21,760 The pretentious, the powerful, decadent, corrupt. 72 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:24,734 Those would tend to be people  who I don’t respect at all. 73 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:30,680 It's a way of trying to  break down this natural awe 74 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:35,862 with those heroes that comes  out of a sort of fear and envy… 75 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:41,560 I've never considered myself  much of a political artist. 76 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:46,076 And most of my art doesn't really deal  in like explicitly political issues. 77 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:53,800 But you know, I'm not going to  apologize or shy away from it any, 78 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:56,011 any more than I would any other subject. 79 00:05:59,383 --> 00:06:03,240 (Patty) Daddy, you never  taught me the facts of life. 80 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:04,751 You never read me Marx. 81 00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:10,280 I grew up not knowing what  a worker is or what they do. 82 00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:11,760 Look at me now Daddy. 83 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:12,996 Look at your little daughter. 84 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:14,800 I’m out of the closet for good. 85 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,935 The blindfold’s peeled off  for the first time in my life. 86 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,720 RAYMOND: Patty Hearst and the SLA… 87 00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:26,400 it would really be impossible  I would think, for me anyway, 88 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:30,200 to not treat it with broad comic aspect to it 89 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:35,000 because the whole situation  was such a broad burlesque. 90 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,360 And like a lot of the best humor, 91 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:43,655 whether it's the Three Stooges or Molière, 92 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:50,760 it's about someone who is  really strident or pretentious, 93 00:06:50,760 --> 00:06:54,560 and a lot of political groups from the sixties, 94 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:59,080 seventies were so full of their own righteousness. 95 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:02,498 It's hard to take that sort of thing seriously. 96 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:07,800 If you can see it from any historical distance… 97 00:07:09,212 --> 00:07:12,813 If I'm going to be  condemned for broaching that subject 98 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:17,218 from a comic angle that is,  that's completely absurd… 99 00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:22,840 to demonize them in particular when 100 00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:26,240 you had a war going on that was killing millions, 101 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:31,080 I mean it's a way for me to  objectify the lines there. 102 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,720 To even the playing field a little bit, 103 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:38,277 rather than picking one enemy and demonizing them 104 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,775 to basically cover your own ass. 105 00:07:56,841 --> 00:08:02,320 RAYMOND: Now if you could get me  on camera doing a straight line 106 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:07,147 that would also be a historic shot. 107 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:09,711 That's not going to happen here. 108 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:16,600 If you do look at my, my  works, baseball for instance, 109 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:20,129 there is a kind of larger than  life attitude to a lot of it. 110 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:26,440 Not all the works are pure  adulation of the ball players. 111 00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:30,680 Baseball has probably been my  favorite since I was a child. 112 00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:33,440 The reason why I keep coming  back to certain images 113 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:38,214 is probably most often that there's  a visual quality that works for me, 114 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:42,360 whether you are throwing the  pitch or batting the ball 115 00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:48,000 you do have that sense of movement  and for an artist like myself, 116 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,478 whose work is that one  moment, that can be important. 117 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:56,840 My work on the subject does say a lot about 118 00:08:56,840 --> 00:09:00,080 what goes on off the field  as well about the society– 119 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:07,709 it's kind of a microcosm  of the society as a whole. 120 00:09:08,712 --> 00:09:17,688 MOTHER: He draws a train and it can give you maybe hundred stories just looking at the train. 121 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,485 RAYMOND: I think trains in my  work are particularly American. 122 00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:31,604 In this country, we still had vast frontiers left. 123 00:09:32,766 --> 00:09:39,279 It was about bringing the shores  together, about going west. 124 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:47,880 Even when I was a kid, when  I heard the train at night 125 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:52,130 it was like the equivalent of running  off and joining the circus, I guess. 126 00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:59,320 Every American kid kind of had that  somewhere in his mind and kind of embedded. 127 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:07,251 Beyond that, it’s an image that works  well for the kind of drawings I do. 128 00:10:25,901 --> 00:10:29,320 RAYMOND: What you see is these motifs  that keep reoccurring in my work. 129 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:36,300 They started as one image and for whatever reason, 130 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:47,272 they did have this kind of resonance to  me and that brought them back and some of, 131 00:10:47,272 --> 00:10:51,098 some of them, you know,  have had a fairly long life. 132 00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:07,004 There is a kind of a strain in my work that  is usually described as like a film noir. 133 00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:14,920 There probably is more failure depicted  in my work then there is success. 134 00:11:17,354 --> 00:11:20,120 (Landlady) I find a lot of humor in his work, 135 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:23,720 because the world’s kind of scary sometimes, 136 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:28,520 and he tends to be able to make some  of the most horrible things funny. 137 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,440 He’ll just flat out put it down on paper 138 00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:36,321 and then write something about  it and you can’t help but laugh. 139 00:11:41,219 --> 00:11:45,040 Ray: I don't like my humor to be in  the service of making fun of people 140 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:51,764 based on superficialities just for the  sake of going for some cheap laugh. 141 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:56,600 I won’t do that if it will hurt someone, 142 00:11:56,600 --> 00:12:01,040 if it’s based on things that  people have no control over. 143 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:06,680 We as humans still so oftentimes feel the need to 144 00:12:06,680 --> 00:12:08,203 have someone to pick on, you know. 145 00:12:11,780 --> 00:12:15,480 RAYMOND: Art can be a kind of  therapeutic or kind of a fantasy life or, 146 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:21,454 or wish fulfillment or creating  this alternate universe. 147 00:12:30,274 --> 00:12:31,976 Art to me is, gives me the freedom 148 00:12:31,976 --> 00:12:32,888 to do that. 149 00:12:35,394 --> 00:12:38,021 I don’t feel constrained by 150 00:12:39,274 --> 00:12:41,225 the subject matter… 151 00:12:41,225 --> 00:12:44,134 I welcome practically anything 152 00:12:45,299 --> 00:12:47,607 into the drawing. 153 00:12:51,320 --> 00:12:56,222 I think it’s work that is best when  there isn’t any final resolution. 154 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:00,460 When you don't arrive.