Famous People

by Justin Kuritzkes

  And, you know, I left the meeting without a definite commitment from Chris, but I was feeling pretty confident. At a certain point, I guess we had been hanging out for a while and we lost track of the time, and he was like: Shit, I gotta pick my kids up from school. And so we called it a day. But he said he’d be in touch with me, and I gave him my info, and then, like, a week later, I got a call from him, and he was like: Yo, you want to come over today? And I was just, like: Yeah, Chris, I think I can clear my schedule. LOL.

  I mean, it’s amazing, because he never used it except to like, listen to records and hang out most of the time, but Chris had the most beautiful recording studio in his house. It was just like, a work of art. He had all of these completely amazing guitars hanging up on the wall and like, this beautiful wood paneling all over the place, and all of this old-school, super-high-quality equipment. And he was telling me when I got there that like, only two or three days out of every year, he’d find himself coming down there and recording stuff. Sometimes it’d be full songs, and like, sometimes it’d just be little scraps. And like, he wouldn’t really show them to anybody—he’d just record them and put them on a hard drive and forget about them until the next year when he’d come down and record some more—but he’d been doing that basically every year since he stopped putting out records. And I heard that, and I was just like: Chris, we’re gonna listen to that shit right now. And Chris was just like: Eh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, he was being sort of evasive and private about the whole thing, and I was just, like, putting my foot down, like: No, come on, man, you’ve gotta play me some of this shit. I need to hear it. And so he shuffled over to the laptop he had in there, and he like, hooked it up to the speakers, and he started picking files at random. They didn’t even have titles or anything—they just had dates—and he was flicking through them like they were nothing special at all—just like he was watching YouTube videos or something—and some of them were like, thirty seconds long and some of them were like twenty minutes long, and in the middle of one of the songs he was playing for me, I just started crying. Like legit not just tearing up a little bit, but like, actual, literal sobbing. And Chris stopped the track and asked me if I was okay, and I was just like: Yes. Yes. Keep playing it. And so that’s the song that eventually became “Upright Citizen.” He took down one of the guitars from the wall and started playing the melody, and I just started to riff a little bit and harmonize with it a little bit and sing some words, and after a few hours of us tinkering around, I was like: I think we need to get Trick on this. And Chris just laughed like: You’re crazy, man. But I could tell at that point that he was really beginning to trust my sensibility, and so he let me call Trick over, and when Trick came in and heard what we had been doing, he was like: Oh my fucking God. I mean, Trick just went nuts. First of all, like, he had never even seen Chris’s studio—in all their years of knowing each other, he had never been invited in—but then, like, when he heard what we were working on, it was just like, this volcano of creativity just got released from him, and he started going crazy in the booth. Like, he was basically producing the tracks live and bringing in samples and modulating the pitch and creating beats, like literally crafting beats right there in front of us. And we basically just stayed in there for sixteen hours straight building the song and then working on some other ones—I mean, it was like, we’d take bits of the shit I had written, and we’d take bits of the shit Chris had written, and then Trick would just sort of meld them all together and bring some of his own vibe—and literally the only reason we even thought to take a break is that at a certain point, Chris was just like: Guys, if I don’t go to the bathroom right now, I’m gonna shit all over the floor. And so we all went upstairs, and we all went to the bathroom, and we ordered some Thai food, and then, like, we went right back into it—like, legitimately, I think we were in there together for maybe thirty-six hours—and by the end of it, we had a fucking album. Like, yeah, there were still some little touches to be put here and there, and like, yeah, we still had to master the thing, but at the end of that thirty-six-hour session, we had basically finished the album I ended up putting out as Roses and Mud. And so the album became this sort of crazy hybrid thing, where like, half of the tracks were these uber-quiet, uber-delicate piano songs I had recorded in France, and half of them were these insane collaborations I did with Chris and Trick in Chris’s studio. And I remember just listening to the completed album for the first time and thinking: What the fuck are people gonna think about this? Like, I actually had no idea how any of it was gonna go over. But then, like, I mean, I think the only way to accurately describe what it was like when we dropped it was like it was a seismic shift, you know? It felt like we had actually changed the game. Like we had actually reached a new benchmark and created a new sound that like, people were going to have to reckon with forever. And that was honestly some new territory for me. I mean, I had killed it before, you know—like, I had felt before like I had pushed things forward a little bit or pushed some boundaries here and there—but this was a whole new thing. This was like, historical. And I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging or something, because really, it almost feels like it wasn’t even me that did it. I mean, I don’t subscribe to that bullshit at all—that, like “the spirit spoke through me” bullshit—but it’s funny, because you do end up believing in something like magic. Like, so many artists I know, so many creative people are the most superstitious people on the planet, because how else do you explain what happened in that room between me and Chris and Trick? The only thing I can say is that something magical happened. Some force took over. And I don’t necessarily need to examine it that much further, but I would be lying if I said that I totally understood it. To this day, I still think about that time as this insane dream I had, or like, this insane alien abduction that I’m not even sure really took place. But the memory is so vivid, and the evidence is so clear, and the effect it had is so undeniable that like, all I can do is just look at the results and go: Wow. That happened. Wow.

  * * *

  Right now in the video game, we’re trying to figure out how to deal with my dad’s suicide.

  We’ve gotten to the point where you’ve made all the choices that lead you up to that moment in France, where like, I’m recording all of the piano songs for Roses and Mud and I get that message on my phone from my dad with that crazy cover of the song with Deez, and then it’s like: What do you do from there, you know? What are your options?

  We’re trying to figure out the decision tree for that moment. Which things at that point would’ve led to my dad not killing himself? What would’ve happened then?

  I don’t believe in fate or whatever—part of the point of the whole game, you know, is to remind people that we’re always in charge of our lives, there’s no big puppet master who’s making all the decisions for us—but there is this part of me that sort of feels like my dad HAD to die when he did, you know what I mean? Like, now that I’m sitting there with Roger and Ines, like, actually thinking through the possibilities, it just feels like the only real way it could’ve gone down is the way that it actually went down in real life. I guess it’s just one of those things that once it happens, it sort of gets locked into your reality, you know?—locked into the fabric of time—and so it seems like the world was always leading up to it.

  But we’re having a tough time figuring out all those different options, and it’s also a problem because, you know, like I said, every time we try to add more options and expand the world, we have to sacrifice something else because the engine can’t take it. Like, the graphics look kind of janky already, and it’s like, I don’t really care THAT much about it—you know, like, I don’t need it to be the prettiest game on the market—but it still feels like a bummer to roll out something that looks like shit. That would just be kind of disappointing to me, you know, as an artist.

  One option I came up with the other day is like: Instead of ignoring all those Content Bucket videos, you sta
rt watching them obsessively after you receive my dad’s message, and like, you start looking for clues about where he is. And if you watch them all really closely, you can see that there’s this one video he made where there’s a glitch on the green screen—like, this actually happened. He didn’t frame it perfectly this one time, and so a corner of the basement wall was just peeking out—and you can see on the wall that there’s this little bicycle rack that my dad made when I was eight that I guess the people who lived there after us never took down from the wall.

  And so once you spot that, the option comes up to travel to St. James. And you get on the next flight out from where you’re staying in France, and you rush to your old house, and you burst into the basement while my dad is in the middle of recording one of those videos, or like, maybe you burst into my old room as my dad is starting to load the shotgun, and you scream out: DAD! Or something. And you rush up to him and you give him a hug and you say: Stop! Stop. I’m here now. It’s all gonna be okay.

  Or maybe you’ve brought your guitar with you, you know—in the video game, there’s an option to start taking the lessons earlier—and so you burst into the room and my dad is looking at you, like, completely shocked and surprised that you found him, and you just take out the guitar and you start playing the chords for the song that he sent you. And he gets out his guitar and he plays along with you. And the two of you, like, right there in the old house in St. James, start making music together again, you know? You decide to work together again on the next album—just a father, a son, and their guitars.

  I don’t know.

  I have to think a little more about it.

  I don’t want it to feel lame or whatever.

  * * *

  #17—Bottom of my left foot. This is the logo from The Midnight Gang. I was on the show a few years ago with Deez and Skelet0r—I think we must have been promoting b00mbuck$, Deez’s album—and we played this game of charades where, like, if the hosts of the show lost, they’d have to get the name of the album tattooed somewhere on their bodies, and if we lost, we’d have to get the show’s logo tattooed somewhere on our bodies. And, obviously, we lost. Skelet0r sucks at charades. LOL.

  #96—Right bicep. This is a little EKG machine showing a regular heartbeat. When Amelia was born, she had this heart condition—I forget what it was exactly, but it was super-serious—and they had to have her on a machine for a few weeks before Patrick and Gloria could even take her home, and so Patrick was freaking out and losing his mind during that whole time. She’s fine now, but on the day they finally released her from the hospital with a working heart, I decided to go get this tat just to show Patrick and Gloria that I was thinking about them.

  #87—Right shoulder. This is a camera and a boom mic, and I got it the week they started filming The Winstocks.

  * * *

  I actually don’t want to talk about it too much here, because I kind of think that’s gross—like, I don’t really want this to seem like a cross-promotional sort of thing, and if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already decided that you’re gonna watch the show when it drops—but I guess I just feel like I should mention it, since this is the “story of my life,” and it’d be weird if I left it out.

  A few months ago, this producer approached Bob with the idea of doing a reality show about his life in L.A. Basically, the pitch was like: You’re this incredibly controversial figure, everybody thinks they know who you are, everyone thinks they know what you stand for, but what if we could show people the other side of Bob Winstock? What if we could show people the Bob Winstock who’s a husband and a father and a stepfather, and what if you could tell people who you are in your own words?

  And, at first, I think Bob sort of thought the idea was ridiculous—we all did—but after he talked it over with my mom and thought about it for a while, I think he started to get really excited about all of the different possibilities it presented just in terms of reaching out to people, you know? Making his ideas connect.

  I remember when Bob and my mom first talked to me about it and I was just like: No. LOL. I really didn’t want them to do it. They both seemed so excited about it, and I was just like: Why would you guys want to do this? Why would this be something you’re interested in? And my mom started saying how it would be really good for raising the profile of her jewelry brand and how it’d be really good for Bob’s books, and I was like: Yeah, but you guys are doing fine. We’re all doing fine. None of us needs the money. And Bob was like: It’s not about the money. It’s about connection. Nobody reads my books. Nobody actually knows what I’ve written there. Even most of the people who buy the books don’t read them. And that’s fine. I’ve been at peace with that for a while. But what if I could talk to people in a medium they understand? What if I could meet them in a medium they’re comfortable with? I’m trying to write philosophy about today—I’m trying to talk to people today—and yet the only way most people experience me or my ideas is through what they hear about me on talk shows or what they read about me on the internet. Why wouldn’t I try to create the narrative myself? And I was like: But how are you gonna do philosophy on a reality show? And Bob was like: The same way I do it in life. The same way I do it with you. I’m just gonna exist. So is your mom. So is Lenny. We’re all just gonna show people what it’s like to be free.

  And I looked at the two of them, and I saw how excited they both were, and I kind of felt like if it wasn’t their place to tell me not to make a video game or not to make a grunge album, then it definitely wasn’t my place to tell them not to make their reality show, and so I smiled and hugged them both, and I was like: When do we start?

  And, you know, in the end, it hasn’t really affected my life that much. I mean, I’m ON the show, obviously, but I made it clear to everyone that I wasn’t gonna have my own camera crew and that I was only gonna be a part of it when I could—like, I was only gonna show up on the show when I was over at their place—and they were all pretty cool with that. Every once in a while, the producers will bug my manager about it or text me and be like: Hey, you haven’t gone over to your mom’s house in a while … But I’ve been able to make it work for my schedule.

  And, I mean, it’s actually been kind of exciting, you know, because Bob has been pouring his whole soul into this thing. Like, he’s honestly not even writing that much anymore. I think he’s really started to see it as the next step for him, the next logical frontier for the kind of work he’s been trying to do. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him so dedicated to anything.

  And my mom in her own way seems really excited about it too. I mean, it’s actually kind of cute, because at first it was clear that she was really uncomfortable in front of the cameras—I mean, she’s not like me or Bob, you know? She’s never been a public person—and so the team actually had to work with her a lot just to get her to chill out and be herself, but I think she’s been settling into it really well over the filming of the first season. Every time I go over there and hang out with them, I can tell that my mom is relaxing a lot more and having a lot more fun, and it seems like she’s gotten really chill with the camera people and the producers.

  And Bob, I mean, in a way it’s like the show is the perfect platform for him to express himself, you know? Something I’m hoping the show is gonna do is just let people see what it’s like to hang out with Bob, just shoot the shit. Honestly, more than anything he’s ever written, that’s always been what’s important to me. I’m hoping the show will sort of open people up to him and make it easier for them to let him into their lives and look past all the shit they think they know about him. I mean, obviously, when the show was first announced, there were a lot of people being like: Why would you support this guy? Why would you give this guy a platform? But I’m hoping once people start actually watching the show, they’ll see the same Bob I see: the goofball Bob, the generous Bob, the Bob who’s never been anything other than an amazing husband to my mom and an amazing dad to my brother.

&
nbsp; There’s also obviously still a lot of people who have complicated feelings about what this all means for Lenny—like, whether it’s ethical to be raised in front of the cameras from basically age one—but I’ve honestly come to think of it like: Lenny was never gonna have a “normal” life, you know? That was never in the cards for him. Not with these parents. Not with this brother. And what the fuck is a normal life anyway? Maybe the most normal life you could have, the most normal life possible, is one where you’ve got cameras shoved in your face right from the start. Maybe it’ll actually be good for Lenny to have all these memes being made about him before he’s even conscious, before he even understands what it means to be alive. The only difference between Lenny and anyone else is that he won’t ever be able to pretend it’s not happening, you know? He won’t ever be able to pretend that it doesn’t come naturally. By the time he grows up, it’ll just be part of the environment, part of the air. And maybe it’ll eventually just be nothing. What kind of freedom would that be? What kind of power is that? Maybe Lenny is the prototype for a whole new kind of human. Maybe when people say they’re worried about him, all they really mean is that they’re afraid of evolving as a species.

  * * *

  Oddvar emailed me today.

  They had a big flood at the seed vault, and they had to move some of the seeds around and reseal the entryway. He wanted to let me know that all of the seeds are safe—including the ones they named after me—but they might have to rework the structure of the building and maybe even think about moving it somewhere else to prevent this from happening again. The seed vault was supposed to last forever—you know, like, even in the case of some crazy emergency where there was like, a worldwide power outage or a nuclear war or something, the permafrost in the mountain was supposed to naturally keep the building frozen at a certain temperature until the end of time—but now the world is heating up so fast that the permafrost is actually melting, and so Oddvar and his team are just like: WTF? Two days ago, they woke up, and there was just this river of ice water gushing into the entryway. All of these alarms started going off, and this one dude almost drowned.