FOT Forum

The Best Show on WFMU => Mike And His Ilk. => Topic started by: mike_b on April 04, 2011, 06:59:47 PM

Title: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: mike_b on April 04, 2011, 06:59:47 PM
Dear Mike,

Please try to get him to stick around.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: NJL on April 04, 2011, 08:28:33 PM
I feel like this was probably already recorded.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: B_Buster on April 04, 2011, 08:39:17 PM
Yeah, I  doubt he'll be journeying forth to Jersey City. Also, he's the least interesting Crumb in "Crumb."
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Denim Gremlin on April 04, 2011, 08:54:38 PM
who do you like best mike?  the rapist yogi or the creep obsessed with the kid from treasure island?
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: crumbum on April 04, 2011, 09:03:22 PM
Perhaps the best title ever for a collection of letters:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5160XZ0BZ2L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

And a pretty decent read to boot.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: cavorting with nudists on April 04, 2011, 09:50:38 PM
who do you like best mike?  the rapist yogi or the creep obsessed with the kid from treasure island?

I think, in fairness to Maxon, he was more a "sexual assaultist" yogi than a "rapist" yogi, no?

Mike, Robert may have been the (relatively) best-adjusted of the Crumb brothers and thus, from a certain perspective, the "least interesting," but are you claiming he's therefore not even interesting at all?  Man, you are a tough critic.

I myself thought the most emotionally compelling thing about Crumb the movie was the mystery whereby Robert managed to escape the family madness through his devotion to art and hard work--but even at that, at a stiff price in fucked-upness.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: not that clay on April 04, 2011, 10:20:18 PM
I really like his Cheap Suit Serenaders albums! More than his comics even. I love this song:

Robert Crumb & the Cheap Suit Serenaders - Home (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iquF8NM3C8#)
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: B_Buster on April 04, 2011, 10:44:55 PM
What can I say, cavorting with nudists? I never got the comics for adults thing. Obviously, this is a personal bias not shared by everyone. I have never read a Robert Crumb comic nor have I ever had the desire to (the only ones I even had an inkling to read was his treatment of The Metamorphosis and Genesis, mainly because of the source material). Of course, this did not prevent me from thoroughly enjoying the movie, Crumb (I liked the brother who never left the couch and later committed suicide--he was the funniest of the bunch).
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Kormod on April 04, 2011, 11:28:43 PM
A creepy picture that might interest Mike:

(http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/10/03/dd_crumb_095_mac.jpg)
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Christina on April 06, 2011, 01:07:48 PM
It was an entertaining hour, for sure, but there was definitely some of that record-nerd-off-the-deep-end stuff that had me rolling my eyes, like being mad about people who come over to hang out and listen to records and then have the nerve to TALK during one of them! Or how the Rolling Stones don't "do it" for him as he prefers Robert Johnson. It's like talking to one of those film nerds who only like silent movies & think anything after 1929 is shit.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Omar on April 06, 2011, 01:25:28 PM
It was an entertaining hour, for sure, but there was definitely some of that record-nerd-off-the-deep-end stuff that had me rolling my eyes, like being mad about people who come over to hang out and listen to records and then have the nerve to TALK during one of them! Or how the Rolling Stones don't "do it" for him as he prefers Robert Johnson. It's like talking to one of those film nerds who only like silent movies & think anything after 1929 is shit.

Is it true that Bob said he liked the new Tyvek album?
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: cas-vik on April 06, 2011, 01:36:45 PM
It was an entertaining hour, for sure, but there was definitely some of that record-nerd-off-the-deep-end stuff that had me rolling my eyes, like being mad about people who come over to hang out and listen to records and then have the nerve to TALK during one of them! Or how the Rolling Stones don't "do it" for him as he prefers Robert Johnson. It's like talking to one of those film nerds who only like silent movies & think anything after 1929 is shit.

Is it true that Bob said he liked the new Tyvek album?

Actually RC said they've released total shit since the Summer Burns double 7".  That's pretty much a direct quote.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on April 07, 2011, 04:36:51 PM
I myself thought the most emotionally compelling thing about Crumb the movie was the mystery whereby Robert managed to escape the family madness through his devotion to art and hard work--but even at that, at a stiff price in fucked-upness.

I would challenge that.  I don't think he escaped the family madness. His form of madness just turned out to be lucrative.  Is that the distinction you are drawing between madness and "fucked-upness"? 

His brother who committed suicide worked just as hard as Robert did, if not harder, but there was not a penny to be gained from it.  He also shared Robert's dedication to art.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: fonpr on April 07, 2011, 10:13:21 PM


His brother who committed suicide worked just as hard as Robert did, if not harder, but there was not a penny to be gained from it. 

The brother did escape.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: buffcoat on April 07, 2011, 11:58:59 PM


His brother who committed suicide worked just as hard as Robert did, if not harder, but there was not a penny to be gained from it. 

The brother did escape.

Damn, Fredericks.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Denim Gremlin on April 08, 2011, 01:37:48 AM
I myself thought the most emotionally compelling thing about Crumb the movie was the mystery whereby Robert managed to escape the family madness through his devotion to art and hard work--but even at that, at a stiff price in fucked-upness.

I would challenge that.  I don't think he escaped the family madness. His form of madness just turned out to be lucrative.  Is that the distinction you are drawing between madness and "fucked-upness"? 

His brother who committed suicide worked just as hard as Robert did, if not harder, but there was not a penny to be gained from it.  He also shared Robert's dedication to art.


I wouldn't say that at all. he completely closed himself off be came a shut in and never progressed in his work beyond what he was doing as a kid, sure he got weirder with it all but he was still doing essentially stupid pirate cartoons while Robert put himself out there and actually made a name for himself. the act of actually trying to do his art as a career definitely sets him apart, Charles never made the effort because he never could, he was to fucked up and crazy.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: cavorting with nudists on April 08, 2011, 09:37:09 AM
I myself thought the most emotionally compelling thing about Crumb the movie was the mystery whereby Robert managed to escape the family madness through his devotion to art and hard work--but even at that, at a stiff price in fucked-upness.

I would challenge that.  I don't think he escaped the family madness. His form of madness just turned out to be lucrative.  Is that the distinction you are drawing between madness and "fucked-upness"? 

His brother who committed suicide worked just as hard as Robert did, if not harder, but there was not a penny to be gained from it.  He also shared Robert's dedication to art.

Hmmm, how to respond when I feel sorta-busted, sorta-not?  I will meet your challenge, but admittedly my original post was hastily written and not overly precise:  notice the trickiness with which it both suggests an explanation for Robert's having escaped and calls it a "mystery."

I would say that Robert did "escape the family madness," though obviously not untainted by it.  Unlike his brothers, he stayed functional. (Apparently there were also a sister or two who refused to participate in the movie; who knows what their story is?)  He found employment in a field linked to his art (the greeting card company, I'm talking about) and was successful at it even though at first it wasn't his own uncompromised artistic expression. And he's obviously formed a strong and longstanding, if unconventional, bond with his second wife and is, for all I've heard, a good father.

I admit it's too glib to simply attribute that to a strong work ethic, though.  It's a mystery.  Who the hell knows why he managed to stay afloat while one brother succumbed entirely and the other has apparently held on by the slimmest of threads?  I'm sure Robert doesn't.  In the movie he never mentions feeling anything like survivor's guilt, but I think it's pretty clearly suggested in the family scenes where the three of them are talking about some pretty harsh stuff and Robert keeps making his oddly forced, gleeless laugh and grinning his goofy "God, life is so weird" grin. (The fact that it's suggested by what is shown rather than being spelled out is a virtue of the film, of course.)

I don't know how to tie all this up, but in my original post I simply meant to say that the movie makes us wonder about all this stuff, including the possibly sentimental idea that maybe it is possible to transcend a lot of shit through a dedication to art, and that's its most emotionally compelling aspect, to me.

Of course, if you're just in it for the laughs, Charles is your man.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on April 08, 2011, 03:46:07 PM
Thanks for the thoughtful response, CWN.
Title: Re: R. Crumb on the Antique Phonograph show this week
Post by: Kormod on April 12, 2011, 08:58:19 PM
Robert Crumb on WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music Program #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1CUhowhb8#ws)