A Talk in the Attic
Expect the unexpected in this one-man variety show hosted by Kirk Ross from his studio in Grand Rapids, MI.
A Talk in the Attic
SEAN PETER on 'ANTIWARHOL'
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sean Peter is the author of ANTIWARHOL, a nonfictional deconstruction of the Andy Warhol myth and details the methods by which Warhol's backers created and promoted Warholism. ANTIWARHOL “...examines the corrupt players who fooled the (art) world, rigged the game, and in the end: took it all.”
ANTIWARHOL Official Website
Official Spotify Playlist of E54: SEAN PETER on ANTIWARHOL
ATITA on Patreon
Michigan Podcasting Network on Facebook
Joe Jenneman on Spotify
What's up everybody? It's Friday, September 4th, 2020. This is a Talk in the Attic, making me your host, Kirk Ross. My guest today is Sean Peter, who I connected with virtually a couple weeks ago via Reddit, the social media platform, and at first glance, Sean skewed a little conspiratorial. So I'll admit right here that when I first entertained the idea of this interview, I was a bit nervous that it might devolve into some sort of QAnon nonsense, or QAnon sense, if you will. But upon a little further inspection, it became very clear that this particular investigative journalist is anything but a conspiracy theorist. Sean Peter is the author of Anti-Warhol, a non-fictional deconstruction of the anti-warhol myth. He details the method by which Warhol's backers created and promoted Warholism. In short, the book examines the corrupt players who fooled the art world, rigged the game, and in the end, took it all. That's from the actual book. Please check the show notes where you will find a link to the anti-Warhol website. While you're down there in those pesky show notes, you'll find a link to the Spotify playlist comprising all the music that you're about to hear. You'll also find links to the Michigan Podcasting Network, as well as to Joe Gentleman, the talented musician responsible for the theme song up top. I'm excited, folks, because Sean touches on the myth of celebrity and success that I've been working hard to prove is just that. A myth with this very podcasting project. We talked via the telephone yesterday. Sean called in from Osaka, Japan. Shout out to my people listening and JP. What's up, y'all? Ohio goes I am and we have a great conversation. I trust that you'll agree, but you have to check it out for yourself. With that, let's let Lou Reed's walk on the wild side play us into my talk with author Sean Peter. But we can't get ahead of ourselves just yet, can we? Fans of the show, you already know why. Because first we have to start the show. So let's start the show.
SPEAKER_04It tucked away across USA. Rucked their eyebrows on the way, shaved their legs, and then he was a cheese. Take a walk on the wild side. Said hey, honey.
SPEAKER_06But I fell into the rabbit hole and I followed the trail back both directions from 1968 to 2019 all the way back to 1901. And with without studying history, you don't understand the context of where you're at now. So the kids think Instagram link sorry sorry to say kids, kids.
SPEAKER_00Let's establish that first. How old are you?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I am I am almost ready to retire early.
SPEAKER_00Very ambiguous, mysterious almost.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Officially retire. The government will give me money, so they say. They've been telling me for the last couple of decades. They've sent me a reminder every once in a while saying, you know, we're we we're ready for you. We're gonna we're ready for that moment, that special moment.
SPEAKER_00I'm excited for you. I mean, you're an American citizen living in Japan. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_06Uh uh I am currently in Osaka. I've lived abroad for a few years, but getting back on the track of of the Facebook likes and and the Instagram likes, I mean, even 10 or 15 years ago, it wasn't like that on the internet. The internet was very uh decentralized, and Google wasn't pushing Medium and Instagram and Facebook and Reddit as the places to go. There were more individual websites to see. And you we're talking about uh Web 2.0. That was that's a plan to get people hooked on on that kind of adoration, that kind of fame.
SPEAKER_00It's working. It's having devastating effects on the mental health of the collective conscious, I think. Would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_06If anyone feels that it's real, it's not. You're just alone in front of a screen at the end of the day, no matter how many upboats. I mean, I posted something the the other day and it got a thousand likes. So what? Really? We we're still here, you know. If that doesn't monetize, it's uh it's it's pretty empty.
SPEAKER_00Right. And it's a pretty passive experience, too, on the other side of that. Like like hitting a like button to to someone, even though in your heart your intentions may be to send encouragement to that person. There's a lot of people hitting like that are just doing it passively and scrolling and whatever.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_00You're so right.
SPEAKER_06How I got into the story was I had been a photographer of models for five or six years. I worked with about 200 models and and photographed them and monetized it. And I was writing a book about my photography. If you don't mind me cutting off, what era was this? Oh, about 2005 to 2012, and it was in California. Uh I wish they could all be California girls. No offense to the no offense to the girls that are not in California or the women.
SPEAKER_00You should claim that phrase. I feel like or we could even write a song or something to that effect.
SPEAKER_06That's hey, yeah. I yeah, I wish they we could monetize that. We just need to pay off, we of just need to pay off some DJs here and there. Payola. That's the way it works. The the illusion is what is it, American Idol?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_06For our European friends, I think there's Eurovision, it's the same thing. And there's gotta be something in Japan and China that's the same way. That's all scripted. I can when I was living in Beijing for a while, and I was a judge for a CCTV talent talent contest, and at the end of the day, we the judges went into the office and we we discussed who should win, who shouldn't win. You know, it was done in private with the producer.
SPEAKER_00That's completely contrived. There's there's zero organic nature to it. Or do you think that's a case for American Idol?
SPEAKER_06Oh, it's gotta be. It's gotta be. Yeah, they they sit and they discuss it perhaps in advance. Maybe they look at the audition videos and decide from from from there who who they feel is gonna win, or they they're looking at people's connections. Maybe they're looking at whether they have a Instagram following or a Facebook following, and that person will be the favorite because it's good for business.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, we're all kind of opting in, aren't we, by participating and and watching TV or being on Facebook? We're all almost opting into the disillusionment that's about to ensue.
SPEAKER_06Right. If one believes that it's real, then there's disappointment. If it's just a game, okay, you know, you play your game for twenty minutes a day. Or do you think they're on it No.
SPEAKER_00People are either on it for six, eight hours a day, or they check it once in a while for just to see if their kids are posting or something. Which I mean, I use it to promote the show, and so I I fully understand that I'm participating in it, but I feel like my output is worthwhile and positive, but a lot of people think that and that's very subjective. And I'm jiving with completely with what your position is on all this. How do you uh prevent from diving into like almost a conspiracy theorist environment? And maybe you are that, and I'm not saying that in a negative way, by the way, either, Sean.
SPEAKER_06It's not so much conspiracy as that things are not what they seem. Ten or fifteen years ago, Kurt, you could have more easily been number one in Google for a certain amount amount of keywords without having to do any payola or know anyone. That would have been an easier, more organic way for people to find you. In in my own case, I had a I had a website or two where I was promoting some websites, and uh I was number one in Google for a few days, and I made five thousand dollars in just a few days. And then probably somebody at Google said, uh-oh, we've got uh a lone individual at the top of this keyword, we better delete that. And you know, that was that. That was the end of it, honestly. Yeah, anti-warhol. If you search for that in Yandex, which I know is a Russian-owned website, so it immediately some some blood pressure will rise when people hear that it's it's owned by Russians. But if you search for anti-warhol in Yandex, it's number one or number two results. But if you search for it in Google, you'll only see it from corporate-owned websites where I've posted Goodreads Medium, you know. And the actual website is nowhere to be found.
SPEAKER_00When we first linked up, Sean, I I had trouble accessing your site from the link you sent me. It kind of went into this non-secured thing, and then I thought, well, I haven't talked about it yet. Am I being uh hacked or something? And I risk I risked it because I think you sound interesting, and I'm I'm certainly happy I did. But is that a concerted effort to keep the little guy out of it? Is it to keep people scared? What is it?
SPEAKER_06It's obvious. If I'm able if the site is able to be number one in Yandex and I don't want to jinx it, but it's actually on the first page in Bing as well. And it's not in Google, then there's some there's some kind of uh man maneuvering going on. And it's not just with me. If you look, you'll see it's all if you search for most words now, they'll send you to the bigger uh corporate-owned websites, and the the individual sites are on page three, four, five, if at all.
SPEAKER_00Which no one ever gets to on Google. I mean, you'd be I I don't know how often I even go to page two of Google, right?
SPEAKER_06Well, I as a researcher, I I would go to page two, but as an individual, probably not.
SPEAKER_00Right. I think the reason I'm excited to talk to you, Sean, is that in spite of falling victim to the system that is the just the giant corporate entity of Google, I I love to talk to people that are passionate enough about something to put in months and months of research and clicking to pages two and three and ten of Google searches to just to get to the bottom of something. I I find uh a lot of inspiration when people attack something like that, particularly when you're you're self-funding, I imagine, you're self-publishing, you're not getting paid to research this stuff. You're doing it because you want to find out and you want to share the results. That's right. What is your relationship with the idea of investigative journalism and why does it make you tick?
SPEAKER_06I glom the I I don't know, is glom a word? G-L-O-M. I glommed onto the story, and my first instinct was things are not what they seem. And then I just kept following the connections, and I could not believe how dirty and corrupt everything was. I knew it, but then when I followed the depths, I just I just couldn't believe it. And so yeah, it becomes a story. I as far as tone of voice, I wanted to have it feel like um I'm talking to someone in a bar. You know how we we in the do you go to the bar, Kirk?
SPEAKER_00I've seen anymore? I've sp I don't go to the bar anymore, but I've spent enough time for many lifetimes in bars, and uh I know exactly what you mean. It's the same tone I go for on the show, frankly, Sean.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, the Blarney stone in New York, or uh, you know, your favorite bar with a patio outside. And you start you talk to the person next to you who you've never met before and will never see again.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_06Without any records, yeah, yeah. Well people will tell you their deepest secrets and cry or laugh. The point of it is you don't say, well, what's your Facebook so I can add you?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_06That that would spoil it. You just listen, commiserate, I suppose, is is is the word. So that was the tone that I wanted to convey. The different stories, the different things that I found out. So and and yeah, I was lucky to have uh a year and a half. That's what people apply for uh artist grants or writers' grants. They're looking for that six months or one year of time, but usually it comes with strings attached. So I was fortunate to not have those those strings. You didn't have those strings because you didn't receive a grant or because applying for a writer's grant or an artist grant, and they give you five thousand or ten thousand dollars, and that gives you six months or a year to to work, but you but you have to pass the gate. So if your story doesn't match the narrative, then uh you won't get that money in most cases.
SPEAKER_00It kind of constrains your ability to follow the breadcrumbs and makes you kind of stay on track, which is really the the crux of bad journalism.
SPEAKER_06Uh uh in investigative reporting, those those those folks are heroes.
SPEAKER_00100%.
SPEAKER_06They they really are. They they're they people put their lives on the line in in ways that you know it's hard to imagine. I had one uh New York publishing person tell me, my head is spinning, you know, you've made so many allegations that you would be keeping the lawyers busy for for for months and months and years and years. So no publisher can take this on. And even though it's all all based in fact and and and you know, 99% documented, uh, he's right.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_06If if you find out that the soap that you're using is has a toxic chemical in it, good luck getting that into the newspaper. And that that applies to a million different that's why independent journalism is so important. That's why your show is so is so important. Shows like yours are are really valuable. Yeah, I'm gonna send this recording to the New York Times.
SPEAKER_00You should. I will. So Sean, it's 2005. You're peeling back the onion and seeing what you always kind of believe, but but you're surprised at how in your face and brazen it all is as you're digging more and more.
SPEAKER_06The book started a year and a half ago. 2005 is when I realized that Google wasn't my friend. Got it. Because they wanted to inspect my you know, they're they're just they just weren't my friend. But uh, but i in this moment, did you know that Andy Warhol was shot? There was an assassination attempt on his life.
SPEAKER_00I did know that, yes. I don't know all the details surrounding it though.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I didn't even know he was shot. This was a year and a half ago. I mean, I saw Andy Warhol in the in the nightclub when I was a teenager in New York. And and I never gave a second thought to him again, you know, for for three or four decades. I never thought about him again.
SPEAKER_00Even though his artwork is so prevalent and available, it's on Velvet Underground covers, which is my real exposure to him because I love Velvet Underground. Did you were you kind of blasé and indifferent to his art the whole time?
SPEAKER_06I'm the one who, when he goes to the art museum, he says, My kid could do that.
SPEAKER_00It's just a Campbell soup can, for God's sake. My kid could paint this, you know.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I do, I do enjoy going and looking at art. I do like to go to art openings and different shows sometimes just to kind of hang out. The cool people, yeah, the cool people, yeah, sometimes. But I'm the guy who says, yeah, my kid could do that. So it wasn't it wasn't coming from the art point of view, it was coming from who shot why did she shoot him? And did they tell us the real story? And that's kind of how I got into it. Do you know the name of the woman who shot him? No, I don't. She is a feminist hero now. Oh, really? She inspired uh Kill All Men, Feminism.
SPEAKER_00As a man, that makes me tremble, but as a as a ally to the feminism movement, that's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_06She also wrote her own uh 1984 dystopian manifesto called Scum. What's her name? Valerie Jean Solanas. And she wrote Scum, the Society for the Cutting Up of All Men. So she she saw she envisioned a future where the men would be like pets, like you know, puppies or cats. She was writing this in the mid-60s, and I think she had a rough childhood, and she had to give up her son for adoption. I I talked to her son on on email. He's doing all right. He's older, he's my age, so he survived it. But she had to give up her son for adoption, and she had a rough childhood, and she was a tough street street woman, street fighting gal in New York. And she did uh staged readings of a play called Up Your Ass. And her connection to Warhol was that she gave him a one copy. She had many copies of the play, you know, because she was doing staged readings. She actually found a publisher for Scum and for Up Your Ass. She found a publisher, Maurice Gerodius. In the mid-60s, she gave a copy to Andy and said, Hey, maybe you can make a movie out of this. The story goes, the legend is that he didn't return it. You know, so uh a couple of months later she said, Hey, can you return my copy of the script? And and Andy said, Uh, you know, I lost it, I can't find it. And supposedly that sent her into a rage that led her to to go up to his what is called a factory, to go up to the factory with a gun and and shoot. She fired three bullets, one one bullet damaged eight organs. Warhol's life was in a uh you know, almost almost. Gone. They had to operate for hours. But we're supposed to believe that it was because he lost one copy of her play. Yeah, she was selling it, you know, selling it in the classified ads. And so I figured they're lying about this. What else are they lying about? So I s I just kept following the connections. And in the end, so this is the mid-60s. Now it's fast forward to about 1990. 1990, roughly. And uh Valerie, unfortunately, is dead. She died in her mid-50s alone in a transient hotel room in San Francisco, all by herself. So one of the in-crowd was looking through one of Andy Warhol's old uh trunks just to catalog it for uh a Vassar College. He was just cataloging it. And he found the missing script. It really had been lost. It was at the bottom of a box. And instead of giving it to the son or giving it to the college that he was working for, you know, cataloging everything, he sent it over to the Andy Warhol Museum. And what they did was on each page, and she had copyrighted it. Back in back when she she wrote it, she had said, you know, Valerie Jean Solanas, copyright, this is mine. And the Andy Warhol Museum, they stamped their own brand on it and they said, This is ours, property of the Andy Warhol Museum. This copy of Up Your Ass is Ours. And do not reproduce without permission. So, Kurt, so what would you do if somebody told you do not reproduce without permission?
SPEAKER_00Sneak off behind the tennis cards and bang.
SPEAKER_06There you go. Well, I downloaded it and I reproduced it a couple of the pages. I'm not going to listen to them. Yeah, so what nerve they have, and and because the Andy Warhol Museum is owned by the Carnegie Foundation, PBS, the Demandhills and Oil family. So that's who owns the brand. So anyone who follows Warhol or buys his stuff, you're supporting the Carnegie Foundation, you're supporting the old aristocratic oil money, you're supporting uh people who've uh declared bankruptcy on purpose and put 300 people out of work or or stiffed 300 people out of payments and then went off to buy 20 million dollars of horses the next day. Those are the kind of people that are behind him. So I felt that that was a story that needed to be told.
SPEAKER_00Of course. And especially since the Well, having lived through it, what would you say, even though you weren't necessarily into it, wouldn't you say that the Warhol movement was kind of a counterculture movement? And isn't that what makes the this big aristocratic money behind the machine now so devious? Is that they're the ones making money off this perceived counterculture?
SPEAKER_06Ah they were the ones who made it.
SPEAKER_00So he was a fraud the whole time?
SPEAKER_06Well, he was a fraud. Well, yeah, he was, I will agree with you. He was a fraud the whole time, a faker. You'll get that agreement from me. But remember LSD? I don't know if you remember or not. It's okay if you don't. That that that started in the 50s with with the government. The government was the first ones to do the research on on LSD. So the whole counterculture, if the if the counterculture was was done by the government, then the current culture is also manufactured and controlled. It's exhausting.
SPEAKER_00What's crazy about this is this is a conversation that for most of the people listening would have had a really hard time digesting what you're saying without writing it off. But now six months, seven months into this pandemic thing, I I think uh people are a little more open to these kind of conversations because it certainly feels like we're part of some sort of theater right now, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_06Ah, theater. The theater of the absurd, all the world to stage. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Of course, you're just a guy looking into some stories. Did it ever at any point become a situation where the warhole backers were onto you and were trying to put up roadblocks? Or how does that look? What kind of resistance do you receive in a in a project like this?
SPEAKER_06Well, a lot of a few people wanted to talk to me, but a lot of people didn't want to talk to me. They wanted to know who are you, what's your name, and what's your phone number? And we'll be we'll be in contact with you later. So yeah, people didn't didn't want to speak about either their involvement or their involvement in in the art world or contradictions that I caught them in, or lies that I caught them in. Some people did answer and did reply, but a lot of people were very guarded and very cautious because it's a multimillion dollar business they're protecting.
SPEAKER_00And they're all sucking at the teeth of that business too, to some extent.
SPEAKER_06They've made their bed, they've l they they're going, they've made their promise to to keep the secret. Right. Whatever the secret is.
SPEAKER_00If if you and I kind of agree that uh he was kind of that Warhol himself is kind of a poser. We kind of know that his art is maybe being has been perverted uh from the jump and it certainly is being perverted now and commercialized accordingly. How did he get his start then? Why was he the guy that they chose uh for this mission?
SPEAKER_06Ah that that's why h history is important. The boogeyman now is the virus, right? That's the current boogeyman. The the the who was the previous boogeyman? It was uh the ISIS, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. That was the boogeyman before. And then do you can you who the boogeyman before that? Who was the boogeyman before the the Muslims? It was the communists.
SPEAKER_00Oh, right, yeah, yeah. The communists. But what happened between from like 85 from the mid-80s up to uh the Muslim kind of uh prejudice that began? Was the communism and Russia fear still alive? I mean, I was alive from 84 to 2000, but I don't really remember the subtext of all that.
SPEAKER_06I would say the 80s were kind of a transition period between communism and Muslims as the boogeyman.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_06So so that by 1991, when they had the Iraq war, you know, everybody put out a yellow ribbon on around the tree. Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree was the theme. It's a catchy song. Come on. It's a great song. Put on a mask, tie on a yellow ribbon. You know, come on. You can do it.
SPEAKER_00It's really the same motion, really. Exactly. So that was alive, and the communism stuff was alive and well when Warhol got his start.
SPEAKER_06The communist was the boogeyman before then, just for the record, it was the anarchists, but they faded out in the 30s, and then they brought in uh the Nazis for a while, and then right after 45, boom, they turned the switch on and said, uh, forget the Nazis, we beat them. It's the communists, they're the enemy. So Warhol, 1950, he is 20, he's 21 years old, he's in New York. And uh there was another artist named Ben Sean, and they accused Ben Sean of being a communist and said, Ah, you're a bad guy, we don't like you, you're blacklisted, you can't work. Forget it, you're a commie. You're a commie. So you're you're finished. Ben Sean the Kami, okay? So he got blacklisted, and Ben Sean's style was something called blotted line. Yeah, blotted line. And Warhol had the same style and uh wasn't a communist. So Warhol got a lot of Sean's jobs, and that's how he got a start, his uh his original start. And it didn't it didn't hurt that one of his first clients was uh very connected to Life magazine. So he got a cut he got a couple of articles in life. So why why did he go forward? It was because of his apolitical, you know, willingness. He could have said, hey, you know, Ben Sean, he might be a communist, but he's a good guy. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Uh exactly. He was willing to play the game in a in an environment where you're supposed to be standing up against the game.
SPEAKER_06So he said, I'll take the job. Sure. Hell yeah, I'll do it. You know, they call him up on the phone and say, We just fired the communist. Are you available? And he said, Yeah, I'm available. Right. You can't really blame him, though.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean that's the thing. It's like uh like you said at the beginning, if you can't monetize a like, what is it worth?
SPEAKER_06You can't blame him for taking advantage of the system of of of doing it. Is it always like that? I mean some people do turn down the fame, they do uh keep their integrity but at great costs.
SPEAKER_00I agree, but don't you think are is it your position? And I may be able to be persuaded on this, by the way, Sean. Is it your position though that anyone who's commercially successful in the arts has sold themselves?
SPEAKER_06Like sold or so from my own experience, you have to compromise in order to be mega successful. Is that a bad? Is it bad? It's the way it is. It's the way it is. What is it, Black Mirror? Black Mirror did an episode kind of showing the the Miley Cyrus character? Uh uh and how she was how she had to be controlled. She was you don't get to that level without having to give up a lot of your own uh artistic and other kinds of integrity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So but Warhol went with it.
SPEAKER_06And you can't, I don't blame him for that.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_06But it's but people should realize, okay, that's how that's how we got that's how we got it. It didn't just they didn't see I think I think we're told America and and the Western world, we're told that the the modern world, the first world, is a merit society. If you if you follow the rules, if you get A's in school, if you're talented, you'll rise to the top.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_06And that's kind of bullshit. 99% of the time it is, yeah. I mean, there's always gonna be an exception. But you gotta play the game.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_06I could tell you a story or two, but I know for a fact that if you're willing to uh really just kind of get get into bed with the with the dog, then it's like guaranteed. There there comes a moment. If you've got some talent and you're willing to lie down with the dog, that you you have a much better chance of success.
SPEAKER_00So have you in your career lied down with the dog?
SPEAKER_06I was invited to lie down with a dog, yes. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas and fame. Okay, so we'll change the cliche a little bit. And and and the thing about uh more than once I was invited. And the thing is that you know they can fuck you once and then fuck you again by not even giving you the gig.
SPEAKER_00First off, you have to like sacrifice your your integrity to even try, and then it hurts again when they tell you no.
SPEAKER_06Can you imagine? Can you imagine that? And it's so hard to get rid of them, too. That's the personal experience. So they hold auditions for American Idol, and God knows how many people show up, you know, hundreds. I don't watch much TV, Kirk. Do you?
SPEAKER_00You know what? We've dialed back significantly. What we this is gonna sound maybe kind of lame, but hopefully you give me a chance. Throughout this pandemic, we've been watching uh for the first time, because I never watched this before, we've been watching old reruns of the the game show Survivor. And I gotta tell you, that show on its face, I always thought was kind of some stupid comp contest competitive show or something, but it's really about it's really a mirror of society, and it's a lesson in psychology and sociology and all this human nature stuff that it's really been enlightening to watch.
SPEAKER_06Well, you're watching it critically, you're not in the story. You're you're watching it critically, you're you're stepping back and watching it critically. I managed to stop watching TV about 15 years ago and to go way back uh when when O.J. Simpson trial was going on. I said, okay, that's it. I'm not following these stories anymore. That's it. I'm finished.
SPEAKER_00Took 10 years to sink in.
SPEAKER_06Uh yeah, so you know, I I started to wean myself for that, I but you know, I didn't follow that story. I said, that's enough. I've had it. Because they keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it kind of plays into the whole fame over f how would you kind of sum up the theme of the anti-warhole project? You know, like what what's the what's the book jacket or the elevator pitch of the conclusion that's made without giving away your work, of course.
SPEAKER_06The truth is, is that he was an unoriginal appropriator who didn't think of any of his own ideas. He was willing to follow orders and do what the others told him to do. He didn't even think of the soup can. Other people told him, hey, why don't you paint Marilyn Monroe? He was he was paid to do the Jackie thing and and and and and the Kennedy art that followed. Those portraits were all commissioned. Mao was all commissioned. It was all commissioned work.
SPEAKER_00Same with the banana, right? Isn't the Velvet Underground banana commissioned for that for that record too?
SPEAKER_06Uh, that was his own band.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_06So maybe maybe he thought of a banana. All right. Kurt.
SPEAKER_00I'm not trying to give him credit for that. We'll cut that part out. No, no.
SPEAKER_06Let's let's give him credit for the banana.
SPEAKER_00All right. I mean, we don't want to compare fruit here. It's apples and oranges, but he he thought of the banana.
SPEAKER_06It's okay. And that was his band. Even though somebody intro you know, someone introduced him and and pr that was a good thing. You know, he helped him get some fame.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_06You know, he leveraged his own fame and helped Lou Reed and helped the Velvet Underground to to to to get some bounce. But the long and short of it, the the I'll I'll give away the ending. After all that time, he was he was being managed the whole time, he was being managed and controlled. He couldn't do you know, he wanted to do a store, he wanted to have a chain of Warhol stores in the 70s. That early he said and Andy Warhol asked his manager. He had a boss. He asked his manager, hey, I want to do some stores. I want to have Warhol stores, you know, sell product. Right. And his manager told him no.
SPEAKER_00Which is so crazy because holy smokes, so that's a mind fuck a little bit, Sean, because they're the ones that are really trying to control him for commercialism, but under the guise of counterculture, and to that end, it would have been devastating for the counterculture to allow him to create retail stores.
SPEAKER_06Back in the 70s, things were already changing, hippies were already out of style, it was disco time. The point was they were managing his entire career from beginning to end. And when he died, he died in 1987. Within two or three years after he died, the the big corporate folks captured the entire thing. He had almost a billion dollars worth of art and furniture, and his brand was worth money, and they captured the whole thing and they stole it.
SPEAKER_00And didn't they just sell a painting recently of his for six hundred million dollars or something, the most expensive painting ever or something?
SPEAKER_06Okay, I'll ask you a question, Kurt. How much does a mansion cost? Chicago? 10, 20 million. Does it make any sense to you that a painting could be worth, let's just say, a hundred million and a and a mansion is only worth 20 million?
SPEAKER_00Does that make sense? I can't even and I don't mean to discount or to rein on the prate of any artist who's playing with the visual medium or any artist, period, but I don't think any piece of art is worth uh even a million dollars, if I'm being frank. You know, in and of itself. If it's going to be used as a vehicle to make money for a company like a like a song would or something, then maybe there's more value there. But it's a piece of art that you're gonna hang and keep the money within your family in a museum somewhere, and maybe there's value to the posterity of that, but not when people are struggling to eat and shit like that. I find it uh reprehensible in a way.
SPEAKER_06Right, right. One of his portraits of uh uh a famous athlete sold in February for like, I don't know, 10, 20 million dollars. And and and meanwhile, houses, townhomes, expensive mansions will sit on the market unsold. So things are not what they seem. So what I have a theory about that. Yeah. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just that things don't, it doesn't seem right. If you were a rich guy, you know, a billionaire, or let's say you had a hundred million or two hundred million in the bank, right? Would you rather buy ten houses or three or four paintings? It just doesn't make sense. So I don't believe they're really buying it as art. I think something else is going on, and I'm not sure exactly what.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I appreciate most about this conversation, Sean, is that what what I notice with people who follow the you know the even a conspiracy theorist, if you will, has some element of investigative journalism or investigation. They're they're digging into stuff, blah, blah, blah. But have you ever met a conspiracy theorist who doesn't have an answer for every question? There's always some you know what I'm saying? And the fact that you just admitted that you're not exactly sure why, to me, it validates everything I believed about which you which is that you don't, you're not a conspiracy theorist. You you've woken up to something, you're seeing it. You were able to package it around an interesting, let's just call him what he is, a pop hero in Andy Warhol, an artist from the 50s and 60s that still is well known by even kids today because they see it as art everywhere. And that's a really excellent package for you to have done this investigative work that really reaches far beyond Andy Warhol.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I I do have a theory, there are some theories going on, and it's pretty much around money laundering. It's money laundering. The art is more like a poker chip.
SPEAKER_00But okay, but you're the one bringing up money now, and let's put this in the context of Andy Warhol was willing to play the game to a to an extent that's maybe uh that you're shining light on in your project. But he came very rich, though. And meanwhile, are you rich? No, he's rich. He's rich, right.
SPEAKER_06He was rich.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_06They stole his legacy. When uh when when his brother died, uh John Warhol, he had two brothers, Donald and John. They were older brothers, and uh they gave uh John a seat on the uh the the Warhol Foundation board, and when John died, the Warhol Foundation gave gave the family $140,000 while they were paying themselves a half a million or a million a year. So, you know, it it but but stepping back, and my Warhol got rich from from doing this. It was rigged, though. It's a rigged game. You know, when you play the Game, the game is also rigged. So he became number one, uh, the most expensive artist in the world, and it was from a rigged auction. Two two people that were both backing Warhol went to the auction and bit against each other. They knew each other. So that's how they got it to the high price. It was it's a fake. It was fake 1970. And they were able to keep it a secret for six or seven years, by which time he was already established. So all these numbers that we see we we can't be sure if they're real. You're right. The newspapers, the TV news will say, ah, now he's number one, or they'll say that they'll say another story. And when the correction comes seven or eight years later, that's not as big a headline as as the original story.
SPEAKER_00Of course not. And so what are the farther reaching consequences? Or not even consequences, but lessons to be learned here. Andy Warhol is a specific person and a specific legacy, but I imagine there's some solutions you have in mind for moving forward to prevent this or to not participate in it, or or what would you say about that?
SPEAKER_06The the redemption, the happy ending is just very simple. It's it's the artists and their fans and family getting together in a uh a a little bar or a little hotel or a coffee shop or a pop-up storefront and doing their own thing. And ignoring the the big game. I mean that really is the only solution. It's just to turn turn one's back on it.
SPEAKER_00Dude, it's like you're speaking directly into my soul about this very project.
SPEAKER_06Well, thanks. Uh I I I didn't intend to do that, but okay, great. Really, but that's the only way. And I didn't even understand that a few years ago. Now I realize that that's that's the only that's the only solution to turn your back on it.
SPEAKER_00Well then is then does that mean that art has to be a part-time in Denver if we are to make ends meet?
SPEAKER_06Ah no, why don't people could trade for their art, or if they're good with making portraits, or they want to paint someone's apartment wall with beautiful designs on it. It doesn't even have to be for money. They could trade, they can charter. That's the real solution. There's I I know more I've met more than one person. I know more than one person. They paint the the child's room or they'll paint a design in some living room or or or or or the hallway wall, and that's one way. Or paint a portrait of someone if they're if their skill is good. I I that that's the way. I keeping it keeping it smaller, it's like buying your food from the farmer's market instead of Amazon Apple Food.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think I I I'm completely in agreement with you on all this. You know, I think particularly in the age of social media, uh which thankfully Warhol wasn't around for that. Uh yeah, the the metric is has become this ambiguous follower count and like account, a lot of which is manufactured, a lot of which is just bought and paid for from you know, these Chinese tech companies and Russian tech companies and American companies who are just passively liking stuff with the not with some software, and it's never been more evident to me that it's bullshit, and then of course this is good timing because you know, you just did a year and a half of work on proving that it's bullshit.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. You can buy the number one spot in Google too. Organically. People won't even know. It's expensive. So yeah, you can buy likes and you know, sometimes things do catch on. But you can't build your your you can't build a a foundation on on the hope of going viral. Or maybe you can. It's worth a try. Don't give up.
SPEAKER_00It's certainly not my intention, no, either. And I I'm just I'm learning that the same way. Like I had an interview a couple weeks ago that no offense to the person that was on, but it just wasn't it it was clear to me that sh she was an artist trying to grow her following. And as a result of as a result of that, there really wasn't any substance or content to what we talked about. It was just about like surface level stuff. And by by by going after people who are also looking to grow their sh their following, it could be beneficial to me because maybe their following will grow and then they'll see this interview from two years ago and come listen. But as soon as I started even participating in that conversation, it didn't feel right. Whereas this conversation, regardless of how many people know about Sean Peter, regardless of how many people know about uh anti-warhol, this has been an extremely uh interesting and valuable conversation, one that runs laps around most interviews I've done, to be honest. I'm happy to hear that.
SPEAKER_06And and maybe this interview will go viral. Maybe it'll go so viral that it'll this will happen.
SPEAKER_00It's a New York Times they're suing you for libel.
SPEAKER_06Hopefully.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. That'd be the that'd be good. That'll get buried on page 90. There's no such thing as bad publicity. So what's next for you though? You're kind of uncovered everything now, and you gotta live with it.
SPEAKER_06Well, I'm happy to have made it. And now I have other books that I I will finish. I worked on a book about uh the English language, and I have uh John Zurzan, Kenneth Goldsmith, a couple of other people that that word nerds would would know about who've contributed. So I'll publish that. It's uh it's kind of about Twilight Language and Green Language. Kyle Hunt, who has uh his his own radio show, he's contributed something. And then I'll go back and finish that book I was gonna do about my own photography and why why models posed. I I wanted to know what was their motivation, and that's how I found Valerie Solanus. And because I was looking into feminism and trying to get into the the mind of the of the woman and and and what she was thinking when she she answered an ad to pose for a photographer. Why did she, you know, what was the the reasoning behind that, the psychological reasoning?
SPEAKER_00Were were they able to articulate have you have you gotten to that point? Have they been able to articulate that? And you don't have to share it, but that seems like they have to really face a lot of their own internal they really have to be self-aware to know exactly why they were posing.
SPEAKER_06Yes, confidence validation that I am beautiful. You know, I'm a beautiful human being. I I didn't say, Oh, you have to be a 10 you know, or I'm not gonna work with you. I photographed, you know, ol older women in their forties. Well, no offense to women in their fifties and sixties and seventies, but I photographed older women in their thirties and forties. I didn't it didn't matter if they were fat, you know, or or what's the word? Do we say fat anymore? Or do we say weight challenge?
SPEAKER_00Or I don't think full figured.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, full figured. It's okay, you know? There's everyone's beautiful. That's the magic and the diff we can talk about selfies versus having a photographer do it. Selfie, it it doesn't quite get it. The same way a photographer's eyes, you talked about going into your soul. There's some kind of magic that can happen when you're when when two people are working together. And and the most the the word that I most enjoyed hearing was when I would flip the screen over and show a shot, and the model would say, Wow. Wow. That's you. Yeah, that's you without any Photoshop, without any makeup, that's you. So that was very enjoyable, and I wanted to not just do a book with the photos, but at least have, you know, a chapter or two on uh motivation.
SPEAKER_00You know, I I think you you're touching on a lot of themes that I like to touch on in this show too. Without, of course, you're able to articulate a a more focused, poignant point, I would say. But I'm I'm also kind of thematically talking about how we need to put our technology down, we need to focus on what's in front of us, we need to focus on our real fans and not the not growing the crowd. And so this couldn't have come at a more timely time for my own personal development, if you will, or just awareness and just really thinking. It's fun to think about this kind of stuff. So I appreciate that you did this. You're welcome. I mean, it's cool, and I appreciate that you looked me up and that we that we hooked up and linked up and talked about this.
SPEAKER_06It's great. It's great. I I I'm glad that I did the show.
SPEAKER_02I am too.
SPEAKER_06And and believe it or not, believe it or not, Kirk, sometimes I will go outside to the grocery store and I will not bring my phone.
SPEAKER_00Does it make you feel vulnerable or does it feel second does it feel more natural?
SPEAKER_06Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, I'll be back in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_06Well, I'm glad that I could uh create some uh joie de vive for you. That's French for joy of life.
SPEAKER_00Nihongo got Makarimaska?
SPEAKER_06No, very scoche, very scoche. I probably know about 30 words of Japanese, maybe a hundred words of Chinese, so that's pretty good. And maybe five hundred words of some other languages. I've even managed to to study a little bit of uh etymology of uh of Latin, German, just the etymology of it. When I was looking into the the decoding of English, which was I had a blast doing that. That was so much fun.
SPEAKER_00What was the end product of that? An article, a book, uh just your own personal knowledge?
SPEAKER_06Well, the Twilight language, the language of the birds, we're talking about decoding words and and finding the meanings. So pandemic starts with with pan. So perhaps there's a clue there to what's going on. So so we're words have uh have meaning.
SPEAKER_00And I want to have you back on the show and talk about that for a specific subject, because I'm all about that. The precision of language is so important, and we're we're now seeing a situation where in the media and in the presidential office where these words are post-truth, and people can say whatever they want without any repercussion of the fact that the words meant something. And if you'd be down, you should come back on and talk about that subject.
SPEAKER_06We will talk about language, we will. Okay. We will. The the like the language, uh yeah, don't get me started. No, I mean I want to get you started, but I'm not sure. I would love to different time. Okay, different time. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So stay alive. I'll hit you back soon. And I think uh in the meantime, stay out of those pachinko joints. Sounds like you're you learned your lesson early on that. Keep up the keep up the uh passion project, keep up the hard investigation. I think it's inspiring. The people listening are gonna think it's inspiring. But to those of you listening, don't be afraid to go down to the show notes, go check out the website, check out all the links down there that will help you get in touch with Sean, will help you buy his book. Not that it's about that, but support this because he did it fully independently, he did it without sleeping with a dog, if you will. So let's get to this flea free fella with some love. Go check it out. It's an interesting situation. I appreciate it, Sean. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Peter. What a talk. What a guy. Go check out antiwarhall.com to learn more about this ambitious and exciting new project. I'm looking forward to speaking with Sean again soon, next time, about a favorite subject of mine, language. To everyone else, stay positive, enjoy your long weekend. If you're listening here in the States, as if we need any more time off, but enjoy it nonetheless. Now here's the banality of evil, a song by Nine Horses that'll play us out. The lyrics to this song work so well with what we just discussed. In fact, Sean was the person who recommended it to me, but don't take our word for it. Have a listen. And peace out, y'all.
SPEAKER_03Right, you are the change of the state. Over the law. Don't know when you better wrong. All right, what gold? You've got it. The bell of that is the written nine button. I don't believe in what you believe. Your skin is filthy angel girls. Don't look like God to me. But I wanna touch you. Now that isn't right. Now that can't be right. But I wanna touch you. You're leading me on another way.
