Bonus Episode: My Chance Encounter With One of My Favorite Artists on the Streets of Europe

Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode, a little thing that we like to call the after party. This is the show after the show, the party after the party, the bridge to get from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other, the backyard, to dig into the dirt, and our mission is to uncover the truth, to confront the myth, to reclaim the story. On this bonus episode, the cost of Art, the Great Beauty, Wendy O. Williams's tragic end, in your emails, comments, DMS, and as always, a whole lot of Rosie. This is the podcast for the musically obsessed, the outsiders, the dependent thinkers who know that the best history is the history that gets very Disgraceland is where I tell the stories they didn't want told, the kind

you'll end up telling someone else. All right, just goes, Let's get into it. Here we are, here, we are. I am back behind the desk. It's been a minute. Listen. I know you haven't missed me in the feed. I've been in the feed with you these last few days weeks, but I've been away on vacation for the better part of two week, like fifteen days. I've been gone everything that you've heard with me, with Me and Zeth and this Disgraceland feed in Hollywood Land, all that stuff. Everything has been was pre recorded so that I could go away and not have to record anything. Well, I'm back.

I literally just sat down in my chair here behind the desk at the mic. It's been an eighteen and a half hour journey today from when we left the hotel in Munich to when we get back to our place here in the state, and I'm rare to go. I am pumped to talk to you guys. It's been too long. I had something profound happened to me while I was away just last night actually in Munich, and I know we got Wendy O. Williams in the feed, and I want to talk to you about that because it has everything to do with Wendy O. Williams, and has everything to do with what we do here in Disgraceland.

It has to do with what you guys love. Great art, great music, great movies. Listen, say what you will about Wendy O. Williams, this week's full episode subject of Disgraceland. She was a fearless artist. Some might quibble with that word artists. Some might say that that's a term unworthy of Wendy O. Williams in her Shock Rock, But there is no doubt about it. Wendy O. Williams was a driven artist. She was compelled to create in an effort to express herself. And when she couldn't do that anymore, when that option was no longer available to her, she ceased to exist. She ended her life. It's an extremely sad ending. Life is delicate. Art is also delicate. Even rock and roll played with chainsaws and exploding cadillacs is delicate.

Making something truly great is a delicate balance of expression of bravery and vulnerability.

Now.

I've been in Central Europe on vacation with my family for the past few weeks, Like I said, and I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful and awe inspiring architecture that I've ever seen. Giant buildings, churches, cathedral statues, monuments to saints, to royals, to God. Man made epic creations that literally stop me in my tracks and make me marvel at the beauty humans are capable of creating.

And it forced this idea into my head over the past week. Art, true art, great art is delicate. I've been walking around Munich and Vienna and Budapest and thinking about this idea, and going to bed at night and dreaming about this idea. I know that sounds pretentious, but that's the actual truth. I've been ruminating on this. I've been watching films, I've been listening to music, reading books and looking at architecture and taking it all in through the lens of this idea. That art is delicate. Now, not everything an artist sets out to create achieve the same intended effect. Some art is off balance, some songs don't sing, some albums don't hit their mark, some stories don't resonate. But sometimes everything works as it was intended

or unintended, and the creation transcends, and if the artist is really lucky, their creation will find an audience. Now, Wendy O. Williams was not this type of artist, and I'm not so sure that her aspirations were that of a traditional artist anyway, But regardless, she wasn't afforded the life other artists are afforded, and her end was, as we know, tragic. Now. All this has been swimming around my head the last few days while I've been in Munich, a fantastic city again, with big, bold, dynamic architecture that, at least in Old Town where I was staying, seems to just grab you by the shirt collar and shake you alive. I recently watched the Pallo Sorrentino film One Man Up. Okay, but a week before I left on vacation,

Sorrentino made the HBO series The Young Pope, as well as the Academy Award winning film The Great Beauty. Now. I rewatched The Great Beauty a couple days before I left for vacation after I saw One Man Up. Tony Servillo is the Italian actor who stars in both The Great Beauty and in One Man Up. One Man Up is about what else, a disgraced musician and a soccer player.

It has a surprising Wendy O Williams outcome. And The Great Beauty Again, also starring Tony Servillo, is about a writer whose greatest work is completed at a young age, and who struggles with his fabulous life after this great early achievement. He has all this success, he has a fabulous life, but he's he's he's got a lot of other stuff going on. He's unhappy. The delicate nature of art, the vulnerability of personal expression. These are the themes of both of these films. I watched these films. I went to Europe, something about Europe. It wouldn't let me forget these movies. Okay, two European movies I've been constantly reminded of during this trip. Two films starring, as I said Tony Servillo on our last night in Munich, last night,

this past Monday, June twenty ninth, we're walking back to our hotel after dinner, beer, sausage, venus Schitzel, of course, and this like, it's just picturesque. Just imagine church bells tolling, couples sitting out side, and cafes you know, they're all smoking, that the bars are starting to spill out, getting packed, the beer gardens all that. We're walking back to our hotel.

It's lightly raining. You can literally smell incense in the street from the Catholic church that's right there. We turned the corner toward our hotel and as we do, right there on the street on the sidewalk that we're walking on, I lock eyes with an older, handsome man. And when I say lock eyes, I mean lock eyes from the instant we saw each other. Boom He was maybe ten feet away at that moment, and we stared at each other the entire time. He approached me, and I approached him, and we kept staring at each other until we passed one another on the street, like shoulder to shoulder. Now I couldn't look away because I recognize this dude in his eyes. He didn't recognize me, but he must have been taken aback, confronted by the fact that I was

just so fucking locked in. And it was only a second or two after we passed each other that I realized whose eyes I was looking into. From the great beauty from one man up, the man himself, the star of both of those Polo Sorrentino films, the leading man, Tony Survilla. I didn't recognize the actor at first. Again, the actor in this fucking movie, these two movies that I've been thinking about, and the themes of these movies for the past two weeks. This sounds too It sounds too synchronous. It's like too much synchronosity, the grateful they called synchronicity. It's I know, it sounds like I'm making this up, like I'm building this up and I'm making up.

But I'm not. You can. You can google this shit. Okay. So I passed this guy and I'm like, oh fuck that that's that's in my head, that's what's happening. And I immediately but it didn't look like him. I mean, it looked like him enough, but it didn't really look like him. And then I have the thought, I'm like, oh shit, I know him from a movie that came out in like twenty thirteen, and the other one came out in like two thousand and nine or something. So I immediately google searched Tony Servillo twenty twenty six as I'm telling my wife what's going on, and he the image that pops up from late twenty twenty five is the man I was just looking at, no doubt about it.

He looks much older now. He's sixty eight years old. I think he's like early fifties. In The Great Beauty, Great Beauty an Oscar winning Best Picture for a Foreign Film, Foreign Language Film, Excuse Me, where Tony Servillo plays Jep Gambadella. That's the character. But again, he looks much older now. Okay, So then I google I'm like, well, wait, maybe I'm crazy.

Maybe I'm just like I'm just like project because I'm now I'm thinking, like I've been thinking about this fucking guy. How wild is this? So then I'm like, well, maybe I'm just I'm my head's going and putting these things together when it's not so. Then I google Tony Sevilla Munich. Okay. Turns out he's in town being honored at the Munich International Film Festival with the Scene Merit Award. And it was that night, June twenty ninth, Monday night. The dude was probably on his way to the event when I saw him. Okay, totally strange me in a foreign country walking around, traveling and reflecting, doing the type of reflecting you guys know. You know what happens when you travel, you have time away from work or whatever. You know,

you start to reflect on things in a different way. That's why we do it. That's why we need vacations. We need to reset. And I'm doing that very thing, and I'm thinking of this man's films and the themes of these films, what they represent, especially because they're very much these themes are very much in conversation with the Wendy O Williams episode that we released to you this week and Bam, I come face to face with the actor in these movies, the very same actor, this artist, this artist whose art was being celebrated that night. I took it as a sign, a sign to keep going, to keep making, to keep creating, to keep putting things into the world, to keep searching for inspiration, to keep looking beyond the despair and the grind to find that beauty,

and to hopefully find a way to put more beauty into the world through art, through conversation, through storytelling. But great art, great beauty is delicate. Sometimes a lot of times artists miss the hits. You know them when you make them. They feel different, But not everyone feels the way you want them to feel about your art. Wendy O.

Williams couldn't reconcile this. Not only is art delicate, but artists, as Wendy O. Williams tragically illustrates, artists are also delicate. So I'm taking my chance encounter with the great actor Tony Servilla, the great artist, the great beauty himself, as not only a sign, but as a reminder, a prompt to use the parlance of our times to celebrate not only the great and delicate art that makes life tolerable, but also the delicate artists who make it so. If you're listening to this today, tell an artist you love how much you appreciate them, reach out to them on social media, write them a letter, go to their shows, buy their records, read their books, pass their myths on to future generations. All right, we owe that to Wendy

O Williams, and Tony Servillo is reminding us of that. In the spirit of this conversation that we're having right now, Zeth and I are going to give you a deeper dive into the two Tony Servilla films that I discussed here in this monologue, The Oscar Winning The Great Beauty and the very disgrace Landy One Man Up, which is also a soccer film and very relevant to the World Cup.

Of it All that that's happening, Okay. Both films, like I said, are directed by Paulo Sorrentino, the creator of HBO's Young Pope. Both films are a plus, and I can't wait to talk about them with Zeth. You want to hear this. Conversations come up later in this episode for our all Access listeners on Patreon and Apple subscriptions.

If you're not an All Access member and would like to join the Disgraceland community and support the show and all that Zeth, myself, Matt and the rest of the Double Elvis game put together for you every week. Then you can sign up at disgracelamdpod dot com to unlock exclusive content like this plus ad free listening. So Wendy O.

Williams in the feed this week, I'm talking to you in the after party right now. Coming up this weekend a rewind episode on Lana del Rey and next week another brand spank and news story on the death of Jim Morrison in the Mysterious Count Jean de Brettoi. Jim's death is not what we were told it was. People.

It's not the death authority said it was, and it is the death that the conspiracy theorist say it is. Either it is something else. And if you want to understand how Jim Morrison actually died, you need to listen to this episode and when you are when I lay out these different theories, when you're listening and you're hearing me explain the facts. After you listen, call me six one seven nine oh six six six three eight and let me know what you think. Let me know how you think Jim Morrison actually died. All right? Does the official cause of death make sense to you? Does the conspiracy theories seem credible? Or does the theory that I lay out make the most sense? Six one seven, nine oh six six six three eight voicemail and text Disgrace

Lampod at gmail dot com and at Disgrace Lampod on the socials. I'm gonna take a quick break. I'll be back in the flash with your voicemails, texts, emails, DMS and more. All right, guys, we are back. You know where I'm Adam and the phone booth. It's the one across the hall. I'm hanging in the telephone with y'all.

Six one seven, nine oh six sixty six three eight voicemail and text. Let's go to the four one two.

Hey, Jake, this is Hewing begins a calling from the four one two in Pittsburgh, and I wanted to tell you about the album covered that I was obsessed with in my younger days, Big Brother in the Holding Company's Cheap Thrilled album. Those mysterious cartoons from Robert Crumb, the cartoon illustrations, especially jenis Joplin see her tombles Man. It would be another decade before I got my hands on Crumb's notorious Fritz to Tat Cartoons and the songs on that record. My college friend Dee was obsessed with Jennis at the time, and with long on the floor listening to Janice ripping out her soul on a regular basis.

I still get to chills when I hear Ball and Chain, rock and roller Man.

Heather, the Heather in Pittsburgh, Go Pirates, rock a rolla Listen. Yeah, R Crumb, did you see the Art Crumb movie? Pretty amazing? And yeah, the artwork is amazing as well on that album Cheap Thrills. Sonic Use Goo kicked off this conversation about album art. Let's check out this text from the three one seven Yo. It's flow from the three one seven Just want to say I totally dug the Sonic Youth episode and the breakdown in the middle of the episode is fucking rad. Sonic Use Goo was shown to me via a skateboard video by Toy Machine called Welcome to Hell. I was nine years old. I wanted eskate curbs and the Sonoran Desert and pretend to be ed Templeton, So I ripped the album off of Napster and blasted

and on my JVC kaboom box and shot Coca Cola's in the unfettered heat. Side note not to always bring up Marsy or the Smiths, but the Smiths suffered Little Children off the awesome nineteen eighty four self titled debut Album's rid about the Moors murders anyway, keep kicking ass rock and Roller. I knew that about the Smiths. I knew that about that song, but not until last couple for years, sort of the s obsession I have with murder ballads. I think Zeth hit me to that tune float.

Thank you for the text. Excited you like that episode? And I'm excited that Sonic use Goo compelled you and further deeper into the subculture. I love that nine seven eight rights And Hey, Jake, just wanted to say, I really liked your cover of Losing My Edge by LCD sound System on the pod the other day. That was pretty rad. That's you know. Someone that hit me up on Instagram about that and they called it a cover as well. And I didn't think about it as a cover.

I didn't I don't. Honestly, I didn't think about it as music. I just thought about it as this thing we did with with podcasting. But I get it. It's covers weird because we changed all the words, made it fit the LCD sound system thing. It's more like as if it's music, it's more like weird. Al you know what I'm saying. But whatever it is, I'm glad you liked it. Nine seventy Thanks for letting you know. I really appreciate it different nine seven eight Rights said, Hey, great episode on Jeff Buckley. I miss him every day.

Hope you're well. Ryan Hastings, Oh my god, it's skinner. I know skinner, Ryan Hastings. How are you, buddy? Been a long time? Thanks for uh, thanks for letting us know you're you're into Jeff. We miss them too, man, I think everybody does talk about an artists. It went way too soon, and I was actually reminded of Jeff Buckley when I was in Munich looking at that river flying through the city. Four to three seven, Rights saying, Hey, Jake, we get a Clive Davis episode and a George Michael episode as well. Well. Listen four three seven, Yes and yes you can get a Clive Davis episode. I already have it in the plant. I had it in the plans before he died. Rip and George Michael, we have a Georgie Michael episode. So there you go. We're good.

Six one seven nine oh six six six three eight voicemail and text Disgrace lampod at gmail dot com. I take a quick break. I'll be back in a flash with your emails and more. All right, guys, Before I get to your emails, I gotta let you know. Listen, school's out. You got kids, You know exactly what I'm talking about. But it being schools out season, we can't talk about school being out without talking about Dazed and Confused, one of the greatest rock and roll movies of all time. Yes, but quite possibly the greatest schools out movie of all time.

And Zeth and I hit this pretty hard, and this film should be played loud. In that episode we did this month, I want you guys to hear it. I want you to go to Disgrace simpod dot com and sign up to be an all access member so that you can you can watch this full episode on one of our favorite movies. This film should be played loud.

Every month we talk about one movie and this amazing music behind that movie, the music that makes these movies chug along makes us love them even more than we possibly ever could. Okay, great soundtracks, great needle drops, all that this film should be played loud, Matt, give them a little taste what we get going in the Daiz and Confused episode.

The seventies gets all the love for I mean rightfully so for sort of like fucking up the movie system, the studio system. But the nineties, dude, like shook it up pretty hard.

So yeah, there was a version of it that happened in the nineties, and nineties are a close second in best filmmaking decade of all time to the nineteen seventies, like yeah, without a doubt, totally. And there's a weird cosmic thing between those two decades too, because there was an absolute renaissance of the seventies in the nineteen nineties, and it is really bizarre because they're not that far apart, like we're going through a nineties renaissance right now, I fucking forty thirty years later or whatever it is. And that was like like when this this is set in nineteen seventy six. I was in high school. Twelve years later.

My high school looked exactly like the high school oh that film that I don't want to burn it all now, But there are so many similarities, and I don't really I don't know if younger people get how big the seventies were in the nineties. That's like John Travolta in pulp fiction. That's why that mattered because he was a seventies thing, and there were all these other pieces of nineties culture that were trading on seventies that you mentioned.

The Beastie Boys totally goofing on seventies to There's a gazillion other examples we can get to. So it's they're they're really related in my mind. And the weird thing is I hated the seventies so much growing up. I thought it was so fucking lame, everything about it, everything about it. And again, like time moved slower than so like when I was in high school, all the older the teto dudes who taught like they still dressed like they were in the seventies, it was all so fucking old and lame to me. But it was also like this renaissance thing. It's really bizarre. It is totally bizarre.

It is totally bizarre. Yeah.

And I feel like a lot of the characters in this movie the character tropes that were like seventies eerotropes where they existed in the nineties. I feel like every person in this movie, I could give you an example of that person in my high school in the nineties.

One hundred percent. Yeah, And it doesn't it almost it feels like it feels like my high school. So much of this, yeah, totally, from the characters to the style, the cars, all of it. I mean, the only weird thing is like all these cars. I know, all these cars. This is like the big one of the biggest car porn movies out there.

Oh man, there was Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about this for sure.

Oh god, there's so much. There's a scene where they're in the parking lot in the beginning and they're showing like they're they're focused on all the cool muscle cars that these kids drive, and then the cars in the background are kind of like older sixties and fifties, like you'll see like a Buick with the big fins, like you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we didn't have that shit around, that that stuff was aged out right, but there were still so many seventies cars around, and that was a bit I've we talked about this on Wrap party the other day that that was a big part of my youth. Yeah, so I don't know, man, and the style too, Like Slater looks like he fell out of a fucking blind Melon video, you know what

I'm saying. He's wearing that baggy T shirt and baggy jeans, and even even Jason London is just like, like, that's how I dressed. I'm dressed like that right now. I'm literally wearing five O ones jeans. I noticed that fucking Dawn is wearing a luke Ezy belt and he's got like a like a like a buttoned down shirt, Like we still dress like that.

I guess.

I think I think the seventies felt so far in the past to us at that moment. But I mean, this movie came out in ninety three and it's set in seventy six. That's not even twenty years apart. It felt so far in the past, and I think this just goes to show that how much of the seventies was still left over by the time the eighties roll and the nineties rolled around it.

We just didn't really even know it. All right, that's this film should be played loud. Go to disgrassampod dot com. The sound has become an all access member to unlock exclusive content and ad free listening just like this now, Disgrace lampod at gmail dot com. You want to hit me up, you don't feel like caln you know, I even want to text. I get it, you know I need the whole brevity thing. You want to email? Jason Carrey writes saying, Hey, Widow's Bay, it's obviously supposed to be Maine due to the Stephen King font. Well, you know, Jason, is it Maine? It's a strong case for Maine. I get it. We should ask the maners if Widow's Bay.

We should ask Matt Bowden, Jason, you from Maine, and we should ask Eth as well. I don't know. I feel like it could be off the coast of Massachusetts, but then I feel like, you know, we already there. They does a lot of Martha's Vineyard talk, so probably not. I feel like they're paying homage definitely to Stephen King with the font. You're right about that, but I feel like they're paying homage to a lot of great eighties horror.

The music doesn't strike me as particularly Stephen King. I can't tell what they're working on there by the way the music in the Cape Fear remake, I know it's just the original music, but it's so good. It's so great. I think it's the original music. It feels like it. Anyways, I have watched the end of Widow's Bay because I've been traveling and I kind of let go of watching is Cape Fear. And Jason, I appreciate your email here because you reminded me to watch both of them. Pete our Rights in Hey, you should do another episode on I don't like Mondays. The new info from the Brenda biography is wild. We never did an episode on it.

I don't like Mondays or the Boomtown Rats, but it's going on the list. Thanks Pete, appreciate you. Jay Hangham Rights and Hey, Jake. A quick one from Blackpool, a wee town in the UK which in the first week of August holds a punk festival. It's called Rebellion. It's amazing. It's been going on for thirty years, so with it also being fifty years of punk rock too. This year will be huge. It's a pub across the road from our tattoo studio which is hosting forty bands in four days, and many other fringe gigs happening over the week. My husband and I have been official tattoos for the Will since twenty fourteen, and the music, the people and the punk ethos influenced our daughter since she was seven and

has made her into the kick ass kid that she is today at eighteen. Anyways, fancy a trip to Blackpool in August? We've got a cool tower. Love the show, Joanna. Thanks for the invite, Joanna, I don't think I can make it back over to the UK, back over to Europe, I should say in August, but I appreciate that sounds.

I love hearing the punk rock has influenced the youth in positive ways. Appreciate the email, Joanne. I hope you have a great festival. Send some picks. This one comes from Jonathan Epstein Double Loves Team. Hey, it's your old pal Jonathan from the six to one zero. I'm a disco and I'm a fan for a few years and I'm a Patriot member since the beginning, and I'm digging the rap party and all the extra after party content.

But I had a request for you, guys. I'm usually in my car at work or working on a project when listening to Disgrace Land and love hearing the hot takes between Zeth and Jake. However, there are times when you talk about recommendations and Zeth will say, oh, this movie is amazing. I can't believe you haven't heard the cover blah blah blah. And you go back and forth, and that'll take you to somewhere else, like the heist films and the songs covers and the album covers and the cover songs. And here's my ask, the show notes, can you please put links to these things so I don't have to stop, pause, go back, write it down.

This is a podcast for the true crime geeks and freaks, but can someone make it a little easier to follow the trail and dig the res? Thank you and thank you, and keep up the great work. Rock a Roller your old pal Jonathan in the six' one, Oh Jonathan, this sounds like a great job for our guy, Brett. I don't know about the show notes. Perhaps we do something in Patreon, uh putting on the links in the show notes.

It's there's already a lot of links and that has all kinds of ramifications. But maybe we can do some sort of ancillary documentation. I hear you. It's a lot. It's a lot. We're gonna look into that. Appreciate it. Jonathan disgrace ingpod at gmail dot com. You guys want to email me about any topic under the sun, go for it. Next week we're talking about the doors. I want to know how you think Jim Morrison died, if you believe what they put out is the official cause of death, if you believe what the conspiracy theorists have been peddling since the beginning, and even the new theories that came up about twenty years ago, and what you think of my theory as well's not my theory of the facts. I should say that I'm laying out there

six one seven nine, six six sixty three. I'm excited to talk Jim Morrison and the count coming up next week, But right now I'm talking to Zeth Lundy, and you gotta be an All Access member to hear it. Disgrace lamdpod dot com to sign up, become an All Access member, become part of the disgrace Landed community. Take quick break back after this. All right, guys, we are back there.

You're hanging in there with me on a late night here in the week of June. What is it June thirtieth when I'm recording this. Yeah, we're into July by the time you're hearing it, July first second. Appreciate you all, Thanks for hanging out, Thanks for be coming an All Access member if if you have done so, thanks for listening, Thanks for spreading the word. I've been awake for a really long time and I'm gonna go to bed soon.

I'm gonna drink another beer, have a couple of slices of pizza. I think might put on the soccer game. I think France is playing check that out. But in the meantime, we're gonna recap all right. Number one, Wendy O. Williams is available in your feed for you right now. Number two are rewind Slot coming up this week, and we get Lana del Rey next week. We have Jim Morrison and the Count Zeth is giving you those Hollywood and crime vibes over in the Hollywood Land feed. So make sure you are subscribed, and I give you my music recommendations in the wrap party every week. I forgot to mention that earlier. That's happening in Hollywood Land as it is always, so check that out. Number five, This film should be played loud. Our video podcast with our

episode on Days and Confused is available for you to listen to you right now. Number six six one seven nine oh six six six three eight. Your voice keeps usticking to the dark corners of the music history. So keep calling, keep texting with your answers to this week's question of the week, or with whatever else you want to talk about. Number seven. Don't forget disc goes. This isn't just content. It's a community, a community of the obsessed.

And no one cares about music, books, records in the crime and grime that ties them all together like you do. And well that's a disgrace, all right. Back on April sixth, nineteen ninety eight, Wendy O. Williams tragically met her end. And here's what America was listening to on that day, according to the Billboard Charts. Number one All My Life Casey and Jojo last week fifteen peak position one weeks on chart two. Number two Frozen Madonna last week five peak position two weeks on chart.

Last three four number three physician Nice and Slow last week two peak position one weeks on chart. Seven eleven peak last number three My Heart go On Selene dr Last week p Physicians to walk out us our church last six, number

Five facts last change, quit talking and start mixing could

Bonus Episode: My Chance Encounter With One of My Favorite Artists on the Streets of Europe

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