I spent more time in a van then in my mom's womb.
High school and college were my punk, formative years. I was playing hardcore, learning to be a musician. In bands, you tour, but you're paid nothing; you're playing to 50 people in a basement, sleeping in a van, and you love it.
I kind of came from the Townes Van Zandt school of throwing yourself off a cliff and then that's what you write about, and that rule number one of creative writing is you have to have conflict. But if you write about yourself mostly, then if you don't have conflict, then you create it. And the older I get, the more I realize that that's not a very smart way to do this. Not to say I'm the most self destructive person on earth, but it's easy to do.
I knew that I had to find out more about van Gogh. Even though I was far too young, and felt I did not have sufficient technique to write a book about Vincent van Gogh, I knew I had to try. If I didn't I would never write anything else.
Oh, I love making independent films, it's such a special, magical thing because you collaborate with a small group of people and everyone's pitching in. You'll see producers setting up the lunch table and the sound guy driving a van. We're all really there because we want to be.
We [he and his wife Trish Van Devere] don't talk politics. I'm an independent conservative; she's a radical Democrat. We never vote together.
We read the [Dracula] scripts, but Jess [De Gouw] and I are completely taken out of the hunts and anything with Van Helsing. We're just living our lives, as our characters.
Van Gogh was so under appreciated in his time, he sold only one of his 900 paintings while alive. Posthumously, he became one of the most famous artists of all time and his work is now considered priceless. Oh the irony.
In general, you have great artists who have died far too early and who have left great cultural impact. If you look at people like Vincent van Gogh or Jean-Michel Basquiat-there's a long, long list of artists who have died in tragic circumstances, and far, far too early.
By actually taking Sleepy Hollow and the Rip Van Winkle story, and finding the spirit of what was great about both of them and putting them together. So it felt, actually, like one of those ideas that clicked for us, right away, on instinct.
Vincent Van Gogh, who said to the hat salesman, I like it, but it keeps sliding over my ear. Never got a dinner!
We'd done a couple of road trips with my big chair, and it was such a hassle if we didn't have the van with the foldout ramp. I figured: There's got to be some option that I can use on the go. Now I can go anywhere with my friends, which is a big, life-changing thing. I can sit on it for as long as I need to.
I think I still get something from the original broadcaster but I'm certainly not aware of any Netflix van driving to my house and unloading a load of cash into my front yard.
I was a very hard-edged geometric painter, strongly influenced by [Piet] Mondrian and [Theo] van Doesburg and that sort of thing.
My first sense of myself was as an artist, a painter. I would see a Van Gogh painting and just love it, the more emotional and passionate the more it attracted me.
I am trying to keep my voice in order. Basically not talking much in the van throughout the day to preserve it, which I'm sure is welcomed by the band.
I think, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, I saw my first example of Kerry James Marshall, who had a very sort of heroic, oversized painting of black men in a barbershop. But it was painted on the same level and with the same urgency that you would see in a grand-scale [Anthony] van Dyck or [Diego] Velazquez. The composition was classically informed; the painting technique was masterful. And it was something that really inspired me because, you know, these were images of young, black men in painting on the museum walls of one of the more sanctified and sacred institutions in Los Angeles.
I like all of the typical hard rock bands. I'm an AC/DC fanatic. I love ZZ Top, just about any Van Halen, any Judas Priest, the list goes on and on, most of the Iron Maiden stuff. Those are the big bands, but I got my feel from, I grew up on Mountain and Humble Pie. That kind of stuff is where I get my feel from.
I had gone back home to finish my book in 2011, and that's when these laws really started coming into states all across the country. I needed to get back to Brooklyn, so I had my two dogs and I rented a van and I called up Planned Parenthood and I said, "I have to drive back to Brooklyn. I've got two dogs and a van. What if I did some fundraisers for you along the way?" And they were like, "Who are you?" I was like, "No, this is a super good idea."
Vincent van Gogh was sane when he painted that piece of art, because when you you feel the mania and depression, you have all the heaven and hell your heart has ever experienced that you can tap into, to be able to create something that can last several lifetimes.
Punk-rock gave music back to people. For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16 and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. Me and [Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist] Ian MacKaye would go to these concerts, and it was fun.
I went to Hollywood to test for Martha Ivers and I thought I was going to play the part that Van Heflin played.But they wanted me to play the part of Barbara Stanwyck's husband, so I played that. Then when I finished the movie, I went back to Broadway and did another flop.
The patient needs to believe that they can keep the fire while being medicated. The doctors must tell them, "I understand that you experienced something beautiful. I understand that you saw the stars pulsing spirals of fire across the sky like Van Gogh did when he was looking outside the sanitarium window. But you know what? He didn't paint ['Starry Night'] when he was manic. He painted it when he was sane because he didn't need the mania to have the magic."
Van Gogh was asked how he created such beautiful paintings. He said I dream my paintings and then I paint my dreams.
If the FBI parks a van bristling with cameras outside your house, you are justified in closing your blinds.
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