This is wildlife with my mom! I mean, I'm German.
This is wildlife with my mom!
okay so let's try if it's laggy let me know we will turn off the video
and if it's still laggy i will go to another room and see if the internet is better there
okay nice nice let's start okay so i will introduce you quite briefly and then i will
give you the room to tell more about your work and achievements and all these things
is that okay okay sure were you able to watch the movie yes love it i have so many questions
i really at the end the shiva lila thing that really blew my mind i love it so plenty of
questions okay good really nice okay yes so very welcome today with me is jonathan bearman
you are a filmmaker and you're just celebrating your 20th anniversary of your movie commune
and we will talk a little bit about my favorite time today the 60s and yeah maybe you can tell us
a little bit about how you ended up shooting this movie and how you ended up being a filmmaker and
all of these? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, we were, as I grew up in suburban New York area. And so
kind of too young to have been in the sixties, but definitely heard about the sixties from
brothers and sisters and that kind of thing.
And was going into Manhattan when I was 13 for the Marijuana Day Marches
and all that in Washington Square Park and reading Abbie Hoffman
and a lot of countercultural influences like Mad Magazine
and all kinds of stuff like that.
And playing music.
I've always loved playing music.
I play keyboards.
so I play
you know kind of jam band
60s music
so
we were making movies even back
when we were like 13 or so
we were shooting
video, not video, film
Super 8 film
and it still looks beautiful
Super 8 film
and so the movie making thing had been in me
for a long time
and this project
Yeah, this project came about, weirdly enough, I was working on developing a project about barbecue in the Carolinas, like barbecue pork.
And, right, perfect logical way to start a film about kind of the ultimate 60s commune.
And I was pitching it to a funder, philanthropist, because these documentaries do not fund themselves.
and I know people think on the internet
they're like hey I'm going to free this movie and put it up
and it's like well what about all the people who worked on it for 10 years or 5 years
or whatever. So I was pitching
that movie and he was quick to say no that's not interesting to me and I said well it is
interesting to you and he said he was interested in
stuff that's off the grid. Societies and
things that are and i was like me too so i went and i got on uh the old amazon.com which was newer
back then and um and found this book that the people of black bear ranch wrote together about
each person wrote one to like five pages something like that about growing up
or growing up or moving to black bear ranch and i just found these people incredible because on the
one hand it was like um this is not a spa so don't come up here with your dog because if it's a spa
if you think it's a spa and you bring your dog we might eat your dog so they ate the cow let's
talk about the cow story yeah and then and then but then a few chapters later someone else wrote
you know having uh animals is speciesist you know we should free all the animals so i was like well
this is great. I love the conflict and contradictions here. And it seemed like a very
intriguing group of people. Not hippie, exactly.
A little bit. I had the impression when I was very lucky, you sent me the movie. I think it
reminded me a little bit of my parents. They had like a period where they were quite hitty-dippy
and I felt like this was the vibe, you know, maybe not 100% hippie,
but this off the grid thing, I loved it.
So tell me a little bit more.
How did it feel to work on that movie?
Because you were so close to these people.
Sometimes I do like little movies with my kids
and it's super interesting to be behind the camera.
I love that because what is going on?
I mean, people just know maybe like 10% of what is happening
throughout the whole time while shooting a movie.
So tell me a bit more about how that felt.
What was going on behind the scenes?
You know, every movie is like opening up a new business, right?
You're into this business, libertarian type thing.
And each one has its own guidelines
and kind of guides you where you should go.
But really, for documentary, creative documentary,
I'm not talking about the more educational ones,
but the more creative ones,
you make the film in the edit room.
So we thought we had some good stuff,
but then we had 100-plus hours of material.
And so it's a miracle when it all comes together.
That's all I can say.
And having seen the film recently,
I think it does hold up.
I mean, it's a good story.
and we didn't fuck it up.
It is.
I mean, and the thing is,
yeah, thank you.
And the thing is, there's like a million stories.
There's people,
there was one point we had one other person in the film
and the film just couldn't hold another person
and it didn't make sense.
And we pulled her out, which we didn't want to do.
It always seemed so precious.
But there's that expression, kill your darlings.
Nothing to do with your babies,
but your material that you love so much,
try to see what happens if you lose it.
And so once we lost that character,
it started taking shape.
And the other thing that happened was Elsa Marley,
who was one of the Black Bear founders, Elsa and Richard,
she was like, you should call them,
it's all very kind of synchronistic.
It is in that way, very hippie.
The whole synchronicity, Shambhala,
it's meant to happen, kismet, you know?
And she's like, there was this guy back then who was traveling around with a video camera.
You should find him.
It was like the earliest video camera called the Port-a-Pak.
And he had shot this footage of them.
And when we got it, I was really at first disappointed.
Yeah, it was rotting away in a basement in Oregon, in the northwest of the United States.
And we found the last machines that could transfer this ancient video format, you know, with the metal falling off.
the things as they're transferring it and we looked at the footage we're like oh no there's
only like 12 minutes of black bear ranch but um it turned out like those 12 minutes really made
the difference because alex you get to see them when they're young and when they're older you know
and so when you cut between those two it really you can focus your heart and your mind on uh
on that person when they're young it's like if you see an old couple and they seem to like
be in love I think they're seeing each other back when they were 20 in a way you know
okay that's pretty cute so I think you got to know these people quite well while shooting that movie
and there are so many different life stories inside of one movie it's incredible and what I
really liked one at the beginning someone said being something else than consumers or employees
i really felt that the whole movie was about liberating yourself and living exactly like the
opposite of what is the normal way of living so you came very close to these people did it
influence you in any way of how you looked at life maybe i mean it reinforced some of the stuff that
I already kind of knew, but definitely made me reflect upon my social circles, you know.
Having community, and these days, you know, they call it social media. We were talking about this
the other day. They should call it anti-social media, you know. Everybody's all like in their
own mind, in their own head, getting their deliveries and, you know, looking at their
streams and you don't have to interact anymore and especially for generations that grew up with
COVID and all that it's like wow it's hard for them so I think it really reinforced the importance
of community for me yeah in spite of all the messiness you know yeah it seems like quite
messy so I think what they were really trying to do is anarchism and yesterday I read something or
maybe the day before i think that was really interesting because most of the people think
anarchism is just craziness overall but it's more like um resonance based
oh lost you for a second oh shall i go to the other room that's your call i want to try it yeah
I will try.
Give me a second.
Okay, you got it.
The kids will hate me
because I promised them
they will have this all to themselves
and I will be in the fucked up room over there.
Okay, yeah, I thought you meant
a virtual room.
No, no, don't worry, don't worry.
But I figured out this room
is the best.
with internet page. It is better, definitely.
I lost the point where we stopped
at all. You were telling me about growing up in Germany.
Ah, that sucked. It was so boring.
You cannot imagine how boring that was. Did you have to go into your
basement to laugh? Yes, actually yes.
My parents don't have humor at all.
And I was always laughing. I played theater
and all these things.
It was very artistic.
So I always had this huge energy for creation, you know?
And my parents were like that serious with everything.
So they hated me.
I can't say that.
They hated me seriously.
They hated me so much.
Your parents hating you.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, they hated me.
Now it's getting better.
At least with my dad, I'm finding a way to...
He's now accepting the way I see life.
That is cool because, I mean, it's about time I'm 35.
Yeah.
And I didn't change.
Yeah, they always thought I'm a weirdo and I will change if they pressure me into it.
Turned out, no way.
I was born a weirdo.
So this is why I love these community stories so much because I always felt like when I grow up,
I want to live in a community like that with normal people that want to really live life and experience stuff instead of just doing what everyone else tells you to do.
And I really think the courage of living that is awesome.
It's so inspiring to see, especially for all the families that were that you you pictured in the movie.
first of all I think some people might think oh the poor kids growing up so in a in a strange
environment and I really thought there was one girl she I don't know she was like grown up in
the second part of the movie and she talked about her past and stuff and I didn't have the feeling
that she screwed up quite the opposite I had a feeling that she's really aware of her situation
and her upbringing and that she was grateful for these experiences.
I think we should have way more of these kids growing up so wild
would make this earth a better place, I guess.
So I love hippies just because my parents hated these kind of weirdos,
although I think they are a little bit like these hippies.
Right, right.
Well, you know, as I was saying,
I would argue that they're not exactly hippies
because they were so anarchistic.
When I think of hippie,
like actually I'm in upstate New York near Woodstock.
It's the summer.
Oh, yes.
And there's all kinds of parties and stuff.
And I'm like, okay, this party I'm going to.
Is it going to be super tie-dye-y
with like white people with dreadlocks?
I'm like, I don't want to go.
So I'm always like one part of that world,
but definitely outside it, more like Epicurean, Bohemian than Hippie, me personally.
But yeah, Tocelia, who's in the film.
Yeah, like when you grow up in a place, that's what's normal for you to a degree, right?
So there's nothing weird for those kids unless they moved out in the middle.
But it seemed like that generation was mostly born at the ranch.
Yeah, that's so incredible.
And they did it with no help from outside.
They just birth their kids all alone in the woods or at home.
I love that part because when I got pregnant, everyone was like, oh, my God, which hospital are you choosing?
And I was like, I would like to choose Mother Nature for this.
But it was illegal, so I didn't.
But I had a really good midwife and she made it all natural and everything.
But I think for the second kid, I would definitely go out in nature, in river or something like that,
because this is how kids should be born.
like with your friends or your family and not like so artificial.
This part really, I don't know, impressed me.
This is courage all the way because if something goes wrong,
they're going to hang you for it.
You know what I mean?
Is it courage or is it foolhardy?
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, it's courage.
True.
Yeah.
And they are able to do it and they learned about how to, you know,
how to give birth to babies in the proper ways.
I, you know, it's a weird connection,
but my first job, last job actually,
producing an early version of reality TV
was a TV show called Maternity Ward.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, so I was producing at the San Francisco State Hospital,
University Hospital.
And I lucked out because they were a great group and they had the thing where like Yeah you could go total midwife and you have your midwife and your chilled out room and all that but if anything went wrong
they'll just whip you over to the other floor and give you an epidural and i think that's the best
of both worlds if you can you know so yeah the bay area yeah because you know the bay area was
always ahead in that in that world uh you know like like with natural medications and all that
i'm like i'm gonna take the uh unless it's really bad i'm gonna take the official md
double reviewed scientific version and i'm also gonna take the woo woo version too just
do both you know yeah i like that i've been experimenting on myself with meditation only
to cure things. I cut my finger once. You can see it's still there because it grew back. And in the
hospital, they told me like, oh my God, you have to have like an operation right away. You will never
be able to use your finger again. Maybe it's spreading into the hand because the nerves and
everything. They were so afraid for me and I didn't have time. I'm a single mom and I had like
two hours before kindergarten ended. And I was like, dude, I have to catch a bus. I actually have
to catch a bus. I don't have time for that shit. And they put it back on somehow taped it and send
me back home. I had to sign all these documents if I and if and this and that. And I went back home
and I meditated for like 48 hours, almost only meditating with my kid. And he's very aware of
how I deal with these things. And you see, everything's fine. And they told me I will
never be able to do that again. It's just impossible. And the last couple of days,
I had the same thing. I was really, really sick. I had something major disgusting. I was like, dude,
I told my kids, like, please cut off, cut open my head, pull it out, whatever it is, you have to cut
me open. And they were like, refusing. They were like, it's disgusting. We're not going to do it.
I'm like, okay, so meditation it is because I'm not going to go to the doctor and it's vanished.
and the good part is they are witnesses of what i'm doing and that is the good part i'm not alone
i'm not crazy maybe i'm crazy but i'm not alone i have them to know it's true you can cure i guess
anything if you believe it i think it's really about placebo effect in your mind i really do
think that i partially agree yeah let's cut off your finger and try no but um let's do that made
me um that made me less afraid of living off grid because it was always oh my god what if i
what if i i don't know slip and fall into the chainsaw and then i cut off my leg and everything
and in the end i'm like okay we can handle maybe not a cut off leg but a finger we can handle that
made me really like okay let's go let's go to the forest live there with no medical attention
I just want to say on behalf of commune and related entities that we do not endorse this behavior because modern medicine has cool things like when really needed to can save your life.
That's true.
But you do.
Yeah.
Like these people who are trying to, you know, and I do.
I agree with you.
My dog is trying to get out.
It's hot out there, baby girl.
Our friends.
So it reminds me of a sort of very unrelated story,
but I think you might appreciate it.
Barbet Schroeder, the director, who, I think he's from Switzerland or Germany.
They are back.
Sorry, one second.
Tut mir leid, in dem Raum war kein Empfang.
Ich muss hier aufnehmen.
Pardon.
Ihr müsst es umswitchen oder was auch immer, ja?
Oder ganz stehen.
Dog wants to go out.
Your kids are coming.
where that's going.
That's good.
Yeah.
So Barbet Schroeder was,
let me sit up here.
He was,
had a film he wanted to make.
It was optioned by Canon Films,
which is like a crank-em-out movie company
in the 80s.
And they would not make the film
and they wouldn't release their option on it.
So he came into their offices
with a chainsaw.
And he said,
okay, guys,
you know,
filmmaking starts a little later,
maybe 10, 1030.
10.30, I'm going to start by cutting off my pinky finger.
And I'm going to keep cutting off fingers on the hour until you release me.
Either you make the movie or you give it back to me.
So they're like looking around like, is this madman going to do this?
And I think he was about to do it.
And they said, okay, okay, we're going to release your film.
You can make it yourself with another company.
And so my point there is just the intensity it takes to craft and then dealing with the whole other commercial side of it.
Yeah.
I can imagine.
That must be crazy.
Because like creating the movie is the fun part.
But what is behind all of that shit show, like talking to all these people, making sure that it's released, where you want to see it released and these kind of things.
I think if I ever shoot a movie and I wish I had the time or talent to do it,
I want someone else to deal with the rest.
Oh, yeah.
It's great.
And with this film, we've had a lot of help.
First run features the distributor, and they're great.
They've been around forever, and they helped get it out there.
Slamdance Film Festival premiered the film.
Slamdance, not Sundance.
It's the alternative to Sundance, which is now its own kind of large festival
that moved out of Park City.
It started in Park City as an alternative to Sundance.
Like, we're just going to sop off the crowds from Sundance
and bring them to our festival.
And now it's in Los Angeles and doing really well.
So Slamdance, first run features.
And, yeah, once we got into Slamdance,
it was like people were interested,
and then we played all over the world and in theaters.
And then first run put it out on Netflix and a bunch.
And it was in like a ton of European TV stations as well.
So the film had a good run.
I just feel like now we were upgrading, up-rezzing the film for today.
Modern standards for Apple TV and all that.
Just making some format changes, boring stuff.
And although I like the geeky, boring stuff.
And in the process of doing that, I was like, you know, let's pull it from every streaming platform.
And let's show it in theaters.
Yes.
And have people see each other.
So tomorrow night I'm showing, oh, hello.
I'm showing the film in upstate New York.
We're having a lot of bookings in upstate New York.
And now we're booked out in the California Bay Area, of course.
So people from Black Bear will be there.
Nice.
That is awesome.
It's a little bit like I feel like they're my relative, a little guilty, like my relatives who I didn't call enough.
Oh, that is so cool.
But I would feel the same.
I wanted to ask you, how will it feel like to meet them again after all that time?
How long has it been, or have you been in contact with them in the meantime?
I have been in contact here and there.
Allegra, she's the daughter of Geva, who builds that beautiful house with the stained glass.
The whole community helps her.
I've been in touch with Allegra.
where she wanted to get all the raw footage,
which was the big undertaking.
So that's, I have an, I teach at Cal State San Marcos,
another entity, which, great school.
It's one of the Cal State schools,
and they helped on the film when I just got there 20 years ago.
And so all my original tapes are there in North San Diego.
So we have to dub them and get them to Allegra.
So I've been in touch with Allegra.
I've been in touch with Cannoli a lot.
I don't know. You have to see the film to know who I'm talking about, guys.
Yeah, true.
I don't know about our European, what's happening on the Europe.
It's on a whole other front and beyond, Europe and beyond.
But yeah, like I said, it had been on.
I guess I should go back to all the people who showed it 20 years ago
and see what they said.
Yes, true.
It's super interesting.
Was it on Arte?
It was on Planet in France.
I researched it, and you can watch it on so many different platforms.
Uh-oh.
I will put the links in there.
They're supposed to not be on those.
Do not put the links for the people.
Don't put the links for the people who steal it.
No, of course not.
They got to pay their $3 or pounds or whatever they are.
Of course.
No, no.
I meant like this payment.
One Bitcoin.
If somebody wants to pay just one Bitcoin, I will screen it for your entire community.
That's cool.
Country.
Your entire country.
That's nothing.
Country.
That's cool.
yeah that's what people used to buy pizzas with people used to buy big coins for a pizza
those people are probably freaking out now true i would bite my own ass if that would have been me
seriously that is crazy are you that flexible
i don't think so i wouldn't need to hire someone to bite my own ass for that shit
but I couldn't because I would be broke so shit there you go that's really fucked up that's fucked
up so maybe let's talk a bit about uh the kids that grew up there I think there were at least
11 I counted or something like that maybe more and what I really really uh because the last couple
of years I've been living close to a lot of hippie dippy people and they have no problem with running
around naked and all these things and even with the kids i mean being naked is one thing but having
this nudist touch in your lifestyle and one thing i remember that really disgusted me was there is a
community and if they have a problem within the community everyone has to sit in a huge circle
completely naked the kids as well so this is where i draw the line if you have a problem and you want
to discuss it naked do it but leave the kids out if they don't want to teenagers everyone had to be
naked so this is what i um experienced in the last years regarding hippies and kids and communities
and off-grid living so they were quite yeah too involved with the kids i would say so yeah and i
know that um being naked was also an issue or a topic in this community you were working with so
maybe you can share something about that because i think they it was quite interesting there was so
much going on with um like not only having kids like uh giving birth within the community but
all the other stuff as well it was quite open-minded i guess
yeah i mean it's kind of like we found the perfect canvas to talk about all the issues of the 60s in
one place there was a thing called the whole earth catalog and if you can find it online i think like
sections of it or the whole thing probably.
And it's like two pages on organic
gardening before it even really kind of
was called that and a few
pages on how to fix your VW
van. So this film
is like that. So that definitely was
an issue. I mean, imagine
you're in the 1950s, right?
With all that
Leave it to Beaver
was an American TV show, like very
conformity
ridden society
of the nuclear family.
And growing up that way and, you know, being people wondering if you're a communist and all that stuff.
And bursting out of that, they just were trying to blow away every block or old way that seemed to just want to fall away.
So that was one of them.
We have this poster for the film, which has a bunch of people naked.
and yeah somebody recently said to me is that like an old guy with like a naked child on his
lap and i was like i never even thought about it because i don't i'm not a pedophile so i don't
think that way you know but and i'm not saying the person who said that is but it was a good point
i mean it's i mean it's controversial but um i don't think they were thinking of it that way
either i mean nobody nobody i spoke to yet has said there was anything untoward happening um
But yeah, the nakedness thing was funny.
What's more erotic is some clothing.
When you go to full naked, it's less erotic.
Yes, it's true.
It's true.
I always discuss this with the kids, and I'm always telling them,
if you're completely naked, you look less attractive
than if you have something on it.
So don't go to school naked?
Don't go to school naked.
They don't go to school anyway.
right and to be honest i don't know running around naked is just so monkey like so this is maybe why
but i don't know so i think there was one more interesting like 10 million more interesting
points but one thing that really stuck out to me the people always tell me and i know this from
other communities it felt like coming home like always the sense it felt like coming home so i
know that feeling because I've been to so many communities living there, blah, blah, blah. And I
always felt like coming home. But I think this is why it is because the people are more open-minded,
more conscious and more aware of how they treat each other, maybe. So coming from this
nine, like this, he wants his toy. I was thinking, what the fuck does he want from me all the time?
Yalla, adios.
And I think really in comparison to this boring lifestyle we have where everyone is focused on making money, surviving, blah, blah, blah.
Seeing these communities where people really try to live and thrive and experience life.
This is too loud, dude.
Just fuck off.
I think in between, it feels like you're coming home because it's more humane than the actual life we're living, like most of us are living.
So I don't know, maybe you experienced the same when you got there, like, oh, my God, I feel home.
Maybe not. But what do you think this is coming where this is coming from, this feeling home feeling?
Well, yeah, it brings up a lot of thoughts.
I think I told you I'm a little sleep deprived today, but I think I can still partially think.
So one thing that was, this is just an anecdote that comes to mind.
One of my camera dudes was Tomas Boitor, who's from Hungary.
And it was so hilarious because when we got there, I think because he had lived in L.A. in Hungary because he was in there.
well that's actually I'm not even sure but he just started kind of like grabbing their cds
and dubbing them as we were like in between shoots like without asking you know so I was like okay
he feels he feels at home um you know and uh yeah I did feel at home I mean one thing is when I got
there and met some of the people and these are like the OGs who aren't living there anymore to
be fair they already kind of graduated out of black we're like Gabe on Harriet and you from
and all these people.
They're like neurotic East Coast Jews like me, you know?
Richard was half Irish half Jewish I think And so it was really like in that way it almost was like literally coming home you know Nice Have you ever seen the film Almost Famous
Yes.
What is it about?
It's a great film.
It's about that kid who becomes a rock journalist.
And there's a scene where he's...
Yes, of course.
It's so cute.
This is Cameron Crowe.
His sister is going to become a stewardess
and leaving the house, the nuclear family.
and she's like look under my bag you'll find the albums stare into them and you will understand the
secret of the universe so i felt that same way my sister was more in the kind of 60s generation
and she had all those albums waiting for the sun jim morrison the doors jimmy hendrix grateful
dead kraftvick kraftvick yeah yeah radioactivity you know so those albums and that music
was a kind of home for me too.
And as a musician,
even in suburban Long Island, we were doing
our own acid test where we were like 15
or 16 with LSD and
playing music in our friend's
basement for hours and people
tripping. So there was
that element of home too.
Heimat, we call it.
Yeah, Heimat, that's cool.
Yeah, I like that.
It goes beyond home
but I don't know if it's the same as
Heimusha. Heimusha maybe is a little
warmer, that's a Yiddish word. It means like homey.
Heimat, I think, might even
mean like homeland.
It's a little more formal.
Yeah, you can say that.
But it's also
very lovely.
Heimat, that
tells people that you like it.
Because you wouldn't say
Heimat. I did a film
about the Ruskibanya,
the Russian baths in New York.
I remember I was
very happy they showed it in Austria
in Vienna under a banner of Heimat
and they added a short film by
Scorsese. I'm like, okay,
I'm showing with Scorsese in Vienna. This can't be
bad.
What is home is a great question.
It really is.
As someone who,
in spite of what I said before, I do believe
we create our own reality.
I would offer that
wherever I am, I'm home.
That's a very
empowering belief system.
It is.
I think that has something spiritual.
Absolutely.
You go to a party.
Like, I wish I had remembered that.
I was lucky to go to two parties the other night.
And one was really great cutting-edge artists,
some of them sort of well-known.
And I was like, this is great.
I could talk to everyone.
Later that night, went to a party of a really nice local British guy.
And it was more like Shicky Mickey, right?
That's an old term.
Yuppie, you'd say.
I like it.
Yeah.
And so I really couldn't connect.
But if I had remembered that wherever I go, I'm home.
But at Blackberry, I did actually feel that partially because of the people and the values and all that.
True.
I really like that.
Let's talk about the cow that really...
Well, that's what killed the cow.
Talking about it.
It's hilarious.
I think the story was like they had a cow and it was providing milk and everything was great.
Everyone loved the cow.
And at some point people wanted to eat it and they did.
How could they?
Yeah, well, it was.
And by the way, that story and a couple of other tidbits, along with recommendations are coming on our social.
Commune the movie on Instagram for you insties.
And it's also on Facebook.
but we have that story
and it's like there was a big thing
about the cow. This is Cedar who's a great
character. By the way people change their
names for a lot of reasons besides like
transforming it to someone else also
evading the draft you know
like no I'm not going to go to
Vietnam and kill women and children for my
government so I would have definitely
been on that side and gone to
Canada or something and in fact I just became
a Canadian citizen.
Nice. Yeah.
It really is. My libertarian or right-wing nephew is calling me a traitor now.
Hilarious. But, you know, I'm not killing women and children for my government.
But Cedar, he says, you know, there was a big thing about the cow and everybody was backed up.
And some people wanted to eat it. Maybe we could milk it.
I'm like, I can't do his whole story. But, yeah, I mean, that's a great parable almost about like sometimes over-talking things.
can lead to the wrong results.
Alex, this is why I could never be a communist.
The meetings.
Yeah.
Yes.
I can't be a communist or an alcoholic.
Yeah.
Can't be a communist.
Too many meetings.
And just imagine all this bullshit, blah, blah, you have to listen to.
I mean, if it's just you talking to other people, okay.
I can live with that.
Hearing my own voice, all right.
But 99% of people talking to me, I don't want to hear them.
so just imagine a room full of these 99 percent no way couldn't do it
what 99 percent what do you mean like the blah blah people the uninteresting people
yeah that you have to have meetings with them and all these discussions no way impossible
right well at black bear it was truly impossible because everybody went there for their own reason
This person was a political renegade.
This person was a, you know, who knows, back to the land person.
This person was, you know, at one point, this is not in the film,
a black revolutionary guerrilla group came up there and brought like machine guns
and they were doing target practice, you know, up at Black Bear.
That is crazy.
And, yeah, and the people at Blackburn were like, hey, guys, excuse me.
We have, like, kids here and stuff.
This is probably not the best idea.
Eventually they left.
And I waited outside the home of one of those guys, and he just didn't come out.
Sometimes people chicken out of interviews.
I'm sure you've had that.
But I would have loved to have known more about it.
Because, yeah, the hippie thing and, you know, psychology, hippies, counterculture, not always.
but a lot of times it is the domain of people who have the affluence to do it.
If you're working in a coal mine or you're being a welder,
like our Lundsman Werner Herzog, you know, he got out of that,
but he used those experiences to fuel his work.
But, yeah, and you have to have some life experiences, I think, to make anything.
But what was I talking about?
Sorry, I lost my train of thought.
What were we talking about?
Don't worry.
now I forgot it as well as you asked me it vanished from my brain do you know that sometimes
I have this when my kids are asking me something while we talk it's like I don't even know what we
talked about before now that you asked it's gone yeah I think maybe just something about like all
different kinds of people showing up for all different kinds of reasons so meetings must
have been insane and I think that was a great example of it that's you and the poor cow poor
The poor cow.
She didn't make it.
But it is what it is.
I'm assuming.
Yeah.
I couldn't.
I mean, you know that cow so well.
And it had a personality, isn't it?
I mean, it is too personal.
I couldn't eat my dog.
That is disgusting.
Even if I was a dog eater, I couldn't eat my dog.
No, I know.
Well, that is a whole Western thing that maybe we need to break through.
talk about black bear type stuff like maybe it's better to eat a pet that you or something you know
really well i don't know maybe it is feelings but i shouldn't culture especially in the states
you know people they don't want to know what their meat and stuff is you know it's the less
it looks like a lot of people won't eat a whole fish here because they see the fish head you know
so those people should not go to greece no for sure not i wanted to ask like where do you get
fish without a head but obviously in regions where it's not america yeah normal to have like fresh
fish i prefer the hat because then you know like what it looked like makes it strangely more
personal i can eat fish that i know but i cannot eat it i think the fur it's making this whole
situation weird for me if it has fur it's a friend i can eat snakes and crocodiles no problem but
stuffed with fur. I don't know.
I'll remember that when I come
visit Alex.
I will hunt down a snake for you.
No, seriously.
A couple of days ago, we've been to
a little river here, like,
I don't know, in the middle of nowhere.
And I was late to the party.
The kids came screaming at me,
are there snakes in the river?
And I was like, bam, we got lunch,
boys. And I was told
the snakes were already gone.
I wanted to catch one.
I was in this river and searching, like, where the fuck are they hiding?
I really wanted to eat one of them.
Have you ever eaten a snake?
Yes, actually, I did.
And it's not disgusting.
I would prefer it over this mass production chicken or whatever.
Exactly.
Anytime.
I know people love eel.
That's in Japan and in Europe.
Never tried that, maybe.
Really?
No.
sushi they do it yes but i never tried eel you wouldn't know you wouldn't know it's a eel because
they toast it and they put the sweet sauce on it are crazy shit but i eat snails and all these
things so basically everything and and on the on the film front i think that was part of it too
learning how to live off the land and yes somebody asked me recently about hoss was at the beginning
of the film he's a kurok indian or park kurok i forgot um but the you know the tribes that were
up there and he was like i gotta teach these people how to catch stuff and how to you know
survive the winter because they're they were originally basically mostly city people you know
yeah they didn't know they didn't know yeah that is the crazy change isn't it because for me it was
a crazy change i we lived in berlin then we moved to the jungle for quite a bit and then we moved to
the canary islands i mean canary islands is easy to live they have food in the market um but this
change yeah but the change is um like it's mindset it's a mindset thing and yeah i think at least for
me if you once got there like you can produce your own food you can hunt for it and you can go there
and just kill something and eat it it makes much more sense than going to the supermarket now we
live in Portugal and it really sucks I mean buying food here is I would say complicated for people
like me if you really want fresh stuff it's rare they have millions of supermarkets of course but
like really fresh things like hunted there must be a farmer's market you got to find your farmers
there it is it is but they still have things from New Zealand and stuff and I was thinking
dude if you go there i expect people to have like portuguese food like from the region here
like yeah no it's it's crazy but i was very like i forgot the word um
spoiled by the canary islands because the food is just awesome you have fresh food
and everything so i think living off the grid is it is really changing a lot like mindset stuff
how did you feel over there with all these challenges maybe or i don't know how did it
change you or influence you you know there is that thing with um like suburbia and all that
certainly not less at my house but you'd go to a friend's house and their refrigerator would be
stocked, especially since we were getting high back then.
As teenagers, we'd like eat through our
friends' family's well-stocked refrigerator. But there is something
actually really good about not having a well-stocked refrigerator.
Food becomes more of a
thing, you know? I guess back in ye olden days, they'd spend like days and
weeks on the hunt, right?
so um uh but um i think this whole uh uh trend towards farmers markets and all that yeah you
gotta find your farmers uh alex gotta be somewhere they're there they are here all around me you gotta
call them up go crazy here yeah i do all the time i'm walking through their fields and everything
and I'm waving to them and everything.
But I don't know where all the products are.
Ask them.
Maybe they should go off to Paris or something.
Paris.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's crazy.
But I hope that we don't stay that long,
that I have to really get into the food game here.
Let's see.
I would rather leave.
Another revolution that started against
and related to the hippie thing
was like this whole horrible Silicon Valley culture.
Yeah, that's amazing.
You remember there was that thing, I think they called it Soylent,
which was kind of a joke about Soylent Green,
the old movie where they're eating people.
And it's just like, oh, I'm working 15 hours or 18 or 20 hours a day
at Google or whatever, so I'm just going to drink these protein shakes
called Soylent.
There is something liberating about not having to deal with the whole food thing.
Just having like a little pill.
Swallow it.
I'm not like that.
I love good food.
Yes.
And I enjoy cooking and eating with friends and all that.
But there are those artist types I noticed when I was in art school at Bard College who would just –
there's those types.
They're just like, yeah, they just ate a little macaroni and cheese and they keep painting.
It's like food's not a big thing for them.
Crazy.
I mean if I'm in the zone of producing something, I can relate.
That is okay.
Yeah, me too.
Me too.
it's just like oh my god we've been editing for six hours and it felt like 20 minutes that's a
good sign so the edit process you asked before about about the making the edit process is pretty
magical yeah and i i did this other film i think i mentioned to you about um ufos and joshua tree
which was another counterculture area that's calling all earthlings and then my new one is
the third and final part of the California Trilogy.
And that is about a billionaire who wants to build this kind of ski lift
over the heads of the working class people in Chinatown
and going by their windows.
Oh, nice. That's something for me.
Yeah, it's hyper-political, which I usually don't do.
No, I love it. Really cool.
Yeah, let's talk maybe a little bit about spirituality.
how was this going down in the community because from what i've seen in the communities that i
visited it's always an issue always someone is not deep enough into letting go or something like
that and that i think from my point of view was most of the times the main issue that people
make each other feel like they are not ready enough or anything like that not connected enough and these kind of things Well it was Buddha himself who said that the spiritual trap was one of the traps When you think you holy that when you lost it So you know
we lucked out with Blackberry Ranch because it wasn't a spiritual hang. And in fact, there is a
scene where somebody's like, we would visit these other communes and they'd be meditating and
hugging each other and gazing into each other's eyes. And we thought that was weird.
they were like anarchists
it was no one way
and I love that and Richard
Marley who's you know him and Elsa
founded Black Bear
they had already been through San Francisco in the 60s
and the like you know at that
point people were coming to San
Francisco from
you know Ohio like
16 year olds showing up with
no money and tripping and it was a disaster
in a way and so they helped
help those kids who were coming in
you know get fed and sheltered and all that and then they left but they took that kind of ethos
and brought it up there but richard was able to hold on to this idea of anarchy and socialism but
in a in a way that was very light touch it wasn't like you have to believe a certain thing that's
cute makes sense because i really think everyone has their own way to talk to god or whoever whatever
is up there.
There's not one way.
It is impossible that there's just one way
to communicate.
It's just like, our God is better than yours
and therefore we're going to kill each other.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
What's happening in this world.
But, you know,
the other film,
Calling All Earthlings, is much more about
spirituality. A guy who
works at the booming
defense plants in Los Angeles
in the 50s comes from Ohio he's a flight buff flew planes crop dusters as a kid and he goes to the
desert and has an encounter he says with aliens who tell him to build this machine that will be
this like Swiss army knife of spirituality and rejuvenation called the Integratron and he builds
it out in the desert before there was anything really out there very much maybe some old veterans
and stuff were living there.
And so that was very spiritual because there was a spiritual connection
with the – in his – George Van Tassel was his name in his world.
It's hyper-spiritual, the relationship with the space beings.
Ooh.
I like it.
As a kid, I was always hoping someone would pick me up
because I felt like I don't belong here.
What is that?
It's chaotic.
it's distressed what is that even everyone's fighting all the time i'm not here for that
please pick me up bring me home i was convinced that my family was aliens at one point when i was
like seven like they didn't tell us but we were but um the other side of all that is um
this also was a very dissident counterculture thing that the government was worried about
the United States government, and they were infiltrating that because going out to the
desert from the city, living communally, even for the week or the weekend or for longer,
you know, meditating and like kind of blowing off money and all that in the rat race, that
was a threat, you know.
And so they infiltrated that with some of the very early versions of COINTELPRO, which
is an FBI program that they then used against some of the African-American who are trying
to get justice and a bunch of other people who are alleged communists.
So it's your spirituality.
You can't, you know, you can talk about one, but they're all connected, right?
Spiritual, political, physical.
so so yeah but the spirituality of the 60s also led to that kind of grab back philosophy of like
well i'm a little bit buddhist take a touch of jesus some maybe some of the old world jewish
stuff is good and then mix them all together and i'll have my custom-made religion yeah i like that
and then we can worship ai soon in a few years yes according to my friend on uh facebook he said
that there's going to be some kind of super intelligence coming in the next three to five years.
And that AI itself was saying that it's possible that people will worship that.
Yeah, I guess we will all worship it at one point if it tries to kill us.
But you know what I think is funny?
In November, there is a huge alien fleet coming towards Earth, they said.
And November, they will be here to fight us.
So I'm looking forward to November.
and other thing I
picked up is Iran
says
white tall
Nazi aliens are running
the USA. I think it's
beautiful what's going out
what's going on out there. It's
hilarious. Sometimes I think
people are so
freaked out by what is happening on this
planet because it's too much. We have
access to every piece of information
out there. People are
is getting more and more insane.
It's like insanity.
Yeah, and a lot of disinformation.
Yeah.
We will see in November if it is disinformation.
So what is now?
It's July.
So we have August.
I don't know.
We have a couple of more months.
You know, people are...
It's like those people who are predicting the end of the earth.
They're always wrong.
Yeah, true.
So far.
Someone will be right at some point because nothing lasts forever.
I would like to see these aliens running the USA.
The Aryan ones or the good ones?
Yeah.
Oh, all of them.
All of them?
I would like to meet all of them.
Right, right.
If President Trump can meet them, why can't I?
Did he meet them?
He must if they control the country.
Or how do they do it?
Like, do they have a chip inside his body somewhere controlling him?
That would be insane.
Well, this is off of my pay grade, as they say.
True.
I don't know.
So let's see.
I mean.
Maybe there's one more thing I want to ask you.
Because related to kids and how they are brought up.
And I think in this community, it's often like the kids don't belong to their parents anymore.
but they belong to the community because they are not really couples anymore and these kind of things.
So I've witnessed some of these communities living like that.
And I saw that these kids are super happy because everyone cares for them.
Everyone loves them.
And it didn't feel wrong, to be honest.
It felt like a tribe.
And we visited some tribes in the jungle and I saw it.
I mean, everyone has their parents, but the community is caring much more for the kids than we are used to it.
now in our everyday life. So I think that's something beautiful. How did you,
I don't know, see that or, yeah. Yeah, it's a whole nother thing. And maybe this release will
lead to the film about the kids, you know. One thing I remember that was a plus in that realm
was that somebody, this didn't make it into the film, right? So there's all that footage.
Was that like, it was great because I had a number of mothers. I don't think it's in the
And so if my mom, my birth mom said, no, I could just go to another mother to get permission for something.
That's pretty appealing.
Yeah.
I mean, the whole, there was that whole thing in the sixties and also like the kibbutz, kibbutzim, the kibbutz movement and all that to like stop the nuclear family.
What did they call it?
Like programming or encoding.
They had a better word for it.
And so to try to break that bond, and that's what the Shiva Leela were up to, unfortunately led by an egotistical, dark force kind of character, in my opinion.
But, you know, a lot of people were trying to break that bond and go back to a more tribal culture, for sure.
And still, right?
You have Burning Man and you have a Burning Man, the Rainbow family, all these people who are living tribally.
So it's not unusual.
So the kids had a mixed experience from what I've learned.
Aaron, who's coming to the screenings in the Bay Area, Aaron Marley, he talked about both sides.
You know, there were some dark sides of it for him as well.
Sometimes the kids weren't taken care of.
The goats were wandering around and we were wandering around.
You know, it's like a little unsupervised.
Maybe that's OK.
Maybe kids are over supervised now.
Yeah, I guess.
It seems like it.
Like in the States, they're like, well, three to four, Timmy has his judo class.
Four to five, he's going to take his flute.
You know, it's like, whoa, we used to just play in abandoned buildings.
Yes, we are doing this right now.
We have an adventure plan for the upcoming weeks.
It sounds crazy, but I'm really into really sticking to my adventure plans because I really want to see stuff here and then move on.
and first thing is
places to look out for
like World War II bunkers
and these kind of things. Explore
like there are villages
where nobody lives anymore.
That's crazy. Whole villages
you can go there and you can
play zombie apocalypse and these kind of
things. Can you live there?
Yeah, why not I guess. We will try
to for a weekend.
For the weekend. That's so fun.
In Portugal.
Let's see. Maybe
make a little movie out of it but you should because you know that is another thing about
since the film came out back then i remember we were like i was like yeah let's put the film in
theater so we put the film in theater so my company which was essentially me and some interns
were listed as the among the like 12 film distributors in the united states that year
it was hilarious in variety it was like universal pictures paramount five points pictures it was
like bizarre and um uh but a lot has changed and now uh everyone's a filmmaker like i tell everyone
at cal state where i still teach in the winter months which is a great time to teach in california
southern california um i tell my students like we're all filmmakers guys even if you're becoming
a mechanic or plumber whatever you're gonna make something and put it on youtube about here's a
quick fix for your car and if you can't figure it out come down to my shop you know so we we all
are storytellers and we all have we don't all i shouldn't say that but many people have phones
that have video on it and even editing on it and you can do it all on the phone you know it's crazy
so it was a huge revolution since then true it's an over projection of content i feel like it
that's true that's why it makes it harder to cut through you know yeah for sure it's a lot of noise
And this is why I like this off-grid living style.
If you have internet, okay, it changes the situation a little bit.
Yeah.
But if not, you're just with yourself in your tripe or whatever you're living with.
I really like that.
And somebody else told me they were like a hermit or something.
I was like, well, you know, they're actually, I was thinking about it.
There was a guy who was like a hermit at Black Bear.
So that's like the whole anarchistic, yeah, John Salter, I believe,
just kind of lived off in his cabin.
It was great.
He went there and he had guns and moose parts.
It was just like real kind of country living.
And he was a writer and he just didn't want to deal with people.
So there should be space for the hermits and the people who just want to be left the fuck alone too.
In our new society that we're creating.
True, true, true.
I really like that.
so yes what else can we uh say about where people can find you or your content your movies i mean
in theaters now you mentioned that and i will put uh links to your work and everything in the
podcast description for everyone to find with one click is there anything else i forgot maybe
i mean i had so many questions and i still have like millions of them but maybe you will be on
my show a second time to talk about the other film about the earthlings anytime anytime that
would be major so for now i think we covered so many things it's incredible oh my god yeah
i really love it i need to go be a hermit on a commune after this
you asked where to find me the probably uh commune the movie is the simplest
on in stock perfect uh i don't love it but it's you know what people like and we're putting out
clips and schedules.
Come in the movie.com has the
schedules if people are in the States.
The best way to contact me
might be through my school email
because that's super solid when I teach.
Come take classes in California.
J Berman at
CSUSM.com
Cal State University
San Marcos.
Oh, sorry. .edu, not .com.
Hasn't gone calm yet. It's still EDU.
That's cool.
Yeah. I like it.
you'll find me at the farmer's market too
you won't find me there
you will find me here in the supermarket
being annoyed by all the plastic products
we're going to find you some farmers
we're going to share their crops
yeah I'm going to find a boat
to bring me somewhere else
that is I think
it's like I'll just go to the supermarkets
for the next few weeks
and then we'll get the hell out of here soon
yeah that is what it is
yeah you have to deal with this stuff
I'm not going to lie.
It's not staying forever here.
I feel like that.
And I think that you as are
almost a descendant of this world
in the film because it's like creating your own reality.
Yes.
For sure.
And this is what I took from the movie.
Do your own thing.
Create your own reality
and live it.
It's so courageous.
I love it.
so thank you so so much for being on my show
and taking all of that time
really appreciate it
thank you
great talking with you
thank you so much
so let's see what it says
thank you so much for listening
thank you so much for listening if you want to support my work please head over to fountain or
link tree i do accept bitcoin and it means the world to me if you guys support my work
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Have fun and see you soon.
Unschooling with my mom.
She won't.
She changed my pressureŞ 샀out at the end.
Now I'll have to cut your mind over and over.