I don't give this sort of praise often but Milch in these lectures just completely changed my understanding of what it is to be an Artist. Absolutely profound throughout with seemingly effortless eloquence
I had the pleasure of attending a previous version of this series in 2001. I later found this series and have listened to it a dozen times over the years. Simply brilliant.
Remarkable Soul Ain’t He ? The commonality of David and I both being addicted to much the world has to offer seals my bond with his unique perspectives
It's amazing that this series of shaggy dog stories actually has a coherent point, but somehow it does. Also, man, how much is left unspoken in "if you've had your boundaries violated..."
Watch some other interviews with him. The answer is tied to religion, and he lets you draw your own (not-too-difficult) conclusion. Amazing mind, sad to see that it’s betraying him now.
+David Thompson for example: David Milch lecture #1 WGA Theater December 12th, 2007 82 minutes Abridged Transcript 1:55 What kind of qualifies us to do what we're doing, or certainly makes us eligible if it doesn't qualify us, is a certain ambivalence toward order in any manifestation. Somehow the doubleness...(starts talking to Scott in the audience) What makes you eligible to be an artist of any kind is an experience of the structures of order, which, for one reason or another, predisposes you not to accept them as a given. Or if accepting them as a given, to project into them an authority over us of which we disapprove. And which we feel justifies us in postulating an alternative order. Sometimes that alternative can be a country of the imagination. Sometimes... You know when I graduated from college it was the time of the Vietnam troubles. I had gotten a teaching fellowship at the Writers workshop in Iowa so I was out there. They had a very nice place for me to live as part of the fellowship. The guy whose house it was, I had a basement apartment down there. He was a puppeteer, this guy, as well as he taught classical literature or something. And I was drinking pretty good. I was also doing research in other areas. And periodically I would come upon his puppets. And it would fuck me up. In fact by way of validating this thing about... you know, projecting into whatever the source of order is, you know, having a kind of malicious... a predisposition to posit them as not out for your own good you know, I said: Sure, he's putting the puppets there to drive me a little fucking nuts, this guy. Dr Arnar, I just remembered his name. 5:49 The thing about being a writer, I am of an age where the whole idea about being a writer was how well did you hold your liquor. And write. It was a given that you were supposed to be drunk. Because Hemingway was a drunk. Faulkner was a drunk. Fitzgerald was a drunk. All my teachers were drunks. Richard Yates - big drunk. Kurt Vonnegut - tremendous, tremendous consumer of cannabis. And I was an alcoholic anyway. So now the order that I was given could not have been more benign. I hadda teach a course twice a week and it was, Iowa at that time, they weren't that good at football. Great basketball team.... But the point was part of my job was to teach these guys. And the way that the department made sure that you understood that these athletes were not to be judged to harshly was you got an additional ten bucks an hour for every one of these guys that you tutored. And you could tutor as many of them simultaneously as you could find. That's like 120 bucks an hour, right? Believe me those guys did well. So in terms of the benignity of the circumstance, the puppets notwithstanding, I had a place to live, I was making a good buck, I had sold a novel. The downside there, was I sold it to a number of different publishers. And of course that bespeaks again a certain ambivalence toward the contract - the whole concept of contracts - which is one form of order. Plus I was shitfaced all the time. It got very quickly to where I never got home. I went six months, I never got back to that apartment. While the weather was good I'd sleep in the streets. It was a small town. But even so it got a little nippy. You'd find occasion, you know, I wonder if I have a drinking problem. No... And then in the winter I would stay at this place - very inexpensive place - the Hotel Jefferson. Three bucks a night or something. And there was this one-armed elevator guy (9:11) and he was fucked up on something. The way the bars worked, the regular bars closed at eleven and then there were places that served beer, that didn't care if you smoked reefer inside until two. This place, Little Bill's. I couldn't drink beer but, I would, y'know. Actually I was not a good consumer of reefer but any port in a storm as the sailors tell us. So at that point I'd make my way to the hotel Jefferson and then inexplicably I would conceive an overwhelming desire for candy. The elevator operator was this one-armed guy, he was the night watchman and he was the elevator operator. And I felt the need to explain to him... It wasn't enough that I would explain to him: Oh I had this massive desire for candy; I had to conceal my felt sense that he might find out that I was a drunk and a fucking tea-head. I'd just buy the candy one bar at a time. And then I would find a pretext to go back. I'd say, Look can you hang out for one more second? This is crazy; I wanted the Clark bar, but I also want a Zagnut. 10:39 Now I go back there and I say, Do they have 3 Musketeers? He says, Just get in or off the elevator! Which is to say that we project into... Now this elevator operator was not an apostle of order, except the fact that he operated the elevator. But after a while he knew it was me. But I was projecting into him an ability to judge me. On the other hand I couldn't get back to the apartment. So if I was really that concerned about appearances, here I am sleeping in the streets but then I'm trying to explain to the elevator operator why I want my fifth Zagnut. So we're kind of selective about, or idiosyncratic or subjective let's say in our sense of our relationship to whatever we identify as the ordering authorities in our life. (Mutters: now I'm thinking if I should tell you this horrible story. Once I got back to my apartment... Ugh, no I'm not gonna tell you that story). So here's the thing: now there's a strike going on and we feel at once I suspect generally depressed because we who have this very tentative and kind of provisional and ambivalent relationship to order to the structures within which we operate. Including the structures of imagination. Now for reasons which we don't completely understand and probably don't fully endorse our Bridge to the world just got shut down. All sorts of antisocial behaviour occur as a possibility in response to that. Like After I lost my deferment after the first year there in Iowa and I had a low number for the draft I'd been accepted to Yale law school. So I go back to Yale Law School. But I had also been issued a credit card, a Gulf Oil credit card on the back of which says you can stay at Holiday Inns 14:00
This one time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
Listening to him kinda bums me out, because the type of trouble he got into coming up is no longer possible / has higher consequences now. It's a different time. Steve Jobs had a pretty crazy life too, and in his biography is quoted as complaining that kids these days are too risk averse. Louis CK echos this too. There's less margin for error for young people now.
Yeah, if I walked down the streets shooting out streetlights I wouldn't get charged with a felony, I'd get shot and killed by the cops. There's no more room for miscreants in the world anymore.
"There is a way out of hell...Art's possibilities...for just an instant, you feel whole. For just an instant, you feel a part of things..."
This man is EVERYTHING one should aspire to be, in every sense. The utmost respect to this man.
I don't give this sort of praise often but Milch in these lectures just completely changed my understanding of what it is to be an Artist. Absolutely profound throughout with seemingly effortless eloquence
I had the pleasure of attending a previous version of this series in 2001. I later found this series and have listened to it a dozen times over the years. Simply brilliant.
Remarkable Soul Ain’t He ? The commonality of David and I both being addicted to much the world has to offer seals my bond with his unique perspectives
I could listen to this guy for hours
Just finished deadwood, ended up here. Great show.
What a genius
The news that David Milch now has middle stage Alzheimer's has brought me to tears.
cinemar .
What he was able to do in the _Deadwood_ movie while suffering from it is unbelievable.
What he was able to do in the _Deadwood_ movie while suffering from it is unbelievable.
@@Jimmy1982Playlists IKR. Even with his faculties severely compromised he is way above anyone else.
This man overworked his brain so hard, his brain is now on the decline. One of the greats
That's not how it works.
It's amazing that this series of shaggy dog stories actually has a coherent point, but somehow it does.
Also, man, how much is left unspoken in "if you've had your boundaries violated..."
Watch some other interviews with him. The answer is tied to religion, and he lets you draw your own (not-too-difficult) conclusion. Amazing mind, sad to see that it’s betraying him now.
@@ericpaine Hear, hear!
Zagnut and Clark. when you're high on reefer(or not),those are 2 of my favorite bars. this Milch has great taste. I'm waiting for DEADWOOD the movie.
Anybody know if/where the transcript of this is avlbl?
+Benjamin Rood Great, I look forward to seeing those. I have transcribed some of them myself purely by copying and pausing ad infinitum.
+David Thompson for example:
David Milch lecture #1
WGA Theater
December 12th, 2007
82 minutes
Abridged Transcript
1:55
What kind of qualifies us to do what we're doing, or certainly makes us eligible if it doesn't qualify us, is a certain ambivalence toward order in any manifestation. Somehow the doubleness...(starts talking to Scott in the audience)
What makes you eligible to be an artist of any kind is an experience of the structures of order, which, for one reason or another, predisposes you not to accept them as a given. Or if accepting them as a given, to project into them an authority over us of which we disapprove. And which we feel justifies us in postulating an alternative order. Sometimes that alternative can be a country of the imagination. Sometimes... You know when I graduated from college it was the time of the Vietnam troubles. I had gotten a teaching fellowship at the Writers workshop in Iowa so I was out there. They had a very nice place for me to live as part of the fellowship. The guy whose house it was, I had a basement apartment down there. He was a puppeteer, this guy, as well as he taught classical literature or something. And I was drinking pretty good. I was also doing research in other areas. And periodically I would come upon his puppets. And it would fuck me up. In fact by way of validating this thing about... you know, projecting into whatever the source of order is, you know, having a kind of malicious... a predisposition to posit them as not out for your own good you know, I said: Sure, he's putting the puppets there to drive me a little fucking nuts, this guy. Dr Arnar, I just remembered his name.
5:49
The thing about being a writer, I am of an age where the whole idea about being a writer was how well did you hold your liquor. And write. It was a given that you were supposed to be drunk. Because Hemingway was a drunk. Faulkner was a drunk. Fitzgerald was a drunk. All my teachers were drunks. Richard Yates - big drunk. Kurt Vonnegut - tremendous, tremendous consumer of cannabis. And I was an alcoholic anyway. So now the order that I was given could not have been more benign. I hadda teach a course twice a week and it was, Iowa at that time, they weren't that good at football. Great basketball team.... But the point was part of my job was to teach these guys. And the way that the department made sure that you understood that these athletes were not to be judged to harshly was you got an additional ten bucks an hour for every one of these guys that you tutored. And you could tutor as many of them simultaneously as you could find. That's like 120 bucks an hour, right? Believe me those guys did well. So in terms of the benignity of the circumstance, the puppets notwithstanding, I had a place to live, I was making a good buck, I had sold a novel. The downside there, was I sold it to a number of different publishers. And of course that bespeaks again a certain ambivalence toward the contract - the whole concept of contracts - which is one form of order. Plus I was shitfaced all the time. It got very quickly to where I never got home. I went six months, I never got back to that apartment. While the weather was good I'd sleep in the streets. It was a small town. But even so it got a little nippy. You'd find occasion, you know, I wonder if I have a drinking problem. No... And then in the winter I would stay at this place - very inexpensive place - the Hotel Jefferson. Three bucks a night or something. And there was this one-armed elevator guy (9:11) and he was fucked up on something. The way the bars worked, the regular bars closed at eleven and then there were places that served beer, that didn't care if you smoked reefer inside until two. This place, Little Bill's. I couldn't drink beer but, I would, y'know. Actually I was not a good consumer of reefer but any port in a storm as the sailors tell us. So at that point I'd make my way to the hotel Jefferson and then inexplicably I would conceive an overwhelming desire for candy. The elevator operator was this one-armed guy, he was the night watchman and he was the elevator operator. And I felt the need to explain to him... It wasn't enough that I would explain to him: Oh I had this massive desire for candy; I had to conceal my felt sense that he might find out that I was a drunk and a fucking tea-head. I'd just buy the candy one bar at a time. And then I would find a pretext to go back. I'd say, Look can you hang out for one more second? This is crazy; I wanted the Clark bar, but I also want a Zagnut. 10:39
Now I go back there and I say, Do they have 3 Musketeers? He says, Just get in or off the elevator! Which is to say that we project into... Now this elevator operator was not an apostle of order, except the fact that he operated the elevator. But after a while he knew it was me. But I was projecting into him an ability to judge me. On the other hand I couldn't get back to the apartment. So if I was really that concerned about appearances, here I am sleeping in the streets but then I'm trying to explain to the elevator operator why I want my fifth Zagnut. So we're kind of selective about, or idiosyncratic or subjective let's say in our sense of our relationship to whatever we identify as the ordering authorities in our life. (Mutters: now I'm thinking if I should tell you this horrible story. Once I got back to my apartment... Ugh, no I'm not gonna tell you that story).
So here's the thing: now there's a strike going on and we feel at once I suspect generally depressed because we who have this very tentative and kind of provisional and ambivalent relationship to order to the structures within which we operate. Including the structures of imagination. Now for reasons which we don't completely understand and probably don't fully endorse our Bridge to the world just got shut down. All sorts of antisocial behaviour occur as a possibility in response to that. Like After I lost my deferment after the first year there in Iowa and I had a low number for the draft I'd been accepted to Yale law school. So I go back to Yale Law School. But I had also been issued a credit card, a Gulf Oil credit card on the back of which says you can stay at Holiday Inns 14:00
Hi, any updates on this?
Son of a b****, wtf happened when you got back to the apartment? ???????
This one time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
lol
GoT season 8 brought me here
Listening to him kinda bums me out, because the type of trouble he got into coming up is no longer possible / has higher consequences now. It's a different time. Steve Jobs had a pretty crazy life too, and in his biography is quoted as complaining that kids these days are too risk averse. Louis CK echos this too. There's less margin for error for young people now.
Yeah, if I walked down the streets shooting out streetlights I wouldn't get charged with a felony, I'd get shot and killed by the cops. There's no more room for miscreants in the world anymore.
what do you mean exactly
@@yaboydolphin I'm envious
@@Bardamu3000 It's not a controversial take, just economic reality
I wish he would just get to the point.
why were you listening to him if you didn't like storytelling?
Does this guy think he's Hunter S. Thompson?
Milch is a writer. What is Thompson? A writer.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Milch
***** You missed the joke. I'm talking about his rebel stories.
@John Doe :)))
He's of a different ilk...but I'd say he's just as great a writer in his own right.