Episode 382: Robbie Conal,from the studio to the streets--applying what you do best to what you care about most

Introduction

0:00Hello. Before we get into the episode with Robbie Cannell, I wanted to give you a quick announcement, which is that Virtual Cafe No. 15 is coming up December 23rd. That's at 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 9 p.m. Eastern Time, or morning to afternoon if you are in New Zealand or Australia. Unfortunately, middle of the night in Europe, we will plan another one if there's enough interest from European listeners. And if you're not familiar or have never been to a virtual cafe, sometimes there's a special guest and we will turn that into an episode.

0:36This one will not be recorded. It will be a hangout amongst listeners of the show and could go in a number of directions. It really depends on how many people show up. We have had breakout rooms in the past. We have had one big group, one medium-sized group. It basically comes down to reading the temperature in the room and facilitating some interesting connections and conversations. This one's going for an hour and a half, could go a little longer or shorter, depending. And I've invited a number of guests of the podcast from the last couple of years, so I'm sure at least a couple of them will be passing through at some point.

1:14So, hope you can make it, again, 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 9 p.m. Eastern Time, on Tuesday, December 23rd. If you're not already on the podcast email list, email theconversationartpodcast at gmail.com or dm at artistpodcast, and I will send you that link. Hope to see you there.

Show Introduction

1:33Now, on to the show. This is The Conversation. It's a podcast that goes behind the scenes and between the lines and out into the streets of the contemporary art worlds. I'm Michael Shaw. Welcome to the show. This is episode 382 with Robbie Canal. He is a legendary street artist and artist, painter, now living in Los Osos. The website for this show is still theconversationbod.com, where you should definitely go check out several of Robbie's relatively recent posters, including the Supreme Injustices, Contra Cocaine, and arguably his most famous non-politician painting slash poster, Watching, Waiting, and Dreaming with Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King.

2:28If you think you've seen a painted caricature of a politician or otherwise, you have not seen one until you've seen one of Robbie's paintings turned posters. And if you were not living in cities up through the early to even 2010s, you missed out on some pretty great street art. These paintings, particularly back in the 90s and 2000s, were ubiquitous in cities.

3:01He's started all the way back with good old Reagan and has certainly continued through the current Dick, D-I-C-K, Tater. And yeah, so his public posters were all over the place for a period. His city staple was the traffic light converter box. That was the perfect size, but he's done, you know, bus shelters and construction sites and so on. So they've been all over. And we talk all about that.

3:33And as usual, you will, you know, on this public feed here, a little bit more than the first half of our conversation. To hear the full episode, you're going to need to go to patreon.com slash theconversationpod, where you can listen to the full episode by becoming a Patreon for as little as a dollar a month. Or you can buy the episode one off for $15, $20. It's a way to help the show keep going. You can also support the show non-financially by subscribing on whatever podcast platform you're listening on.

4:05I happen to use Podcast Addict because I am a Android guy and I am also not a Spotify guy. But whatever you're on, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, etc., just subscribe. We'll help more people find the show, particularly if you are on Apple Podcasts, apparently. We talk about his political roots, which go back through both of his parents. The breaking point of his work, which was in 1986 at the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.

4:38That is to say the grand opening of the museum itself. And several of the works that he has done over the years, including one poster he made that thoroughly backfired. We talk in the second half about getting his work out into the world, including the risks of posturing. We have a whole separate segment at the end of the conversation, partially for my selfish reasons wanting to do this myself. But he talks about how and why he's gotten arrested and what that procedure, that protocol of getting approached by PD and what that looks like all the way through trial.

5:20So that is going to be on the Patreon end. I hope you guys are doing well. Happy December and holidays of 2025, such as it is. Yeah, I think you're going to find this illuminating. I certainly did. Big thanks to Patreon supporters. Big thanks to Aaron Craig and Berkeley Young for helping the podcast out. If you would like to help out, feel free to reach out. TheConversationArtPodcast at gmail.com. Let's jump into this episode. Thank you very much for listening.

5:50And I will talk to you soon. Until then, chat for now.

Family Background

6:00So your dad's an Irish Jew. How unusual is that, an Irish Jew? It's pretty unusual. Very unusual. Yeah.

6:08There's, you know, a long story about my father's family history, which I don't know if you want to get into or not. But I'll tell it to you if you have the time. Cliff Notes version of one sentence, please.

6:27Okay. Because we have a lot to cover. His father was a Talmudic scholar, and he had a route around Ireland of all the synagogues in Ireland, which maybe there were like 12 or 11.

6:42And so, you know, and there was a mayor of Dublin who was a mayor of Belfast, actually, who was an Irish Jew. So it's rare, but Jews are everywhere. You know why Jews are everywhere? Because they were kicked out of everywhere else. Right. Yeah. Got it. That's not even really a joke. That's more of just a statement. Well, there's a good joke. There's an element of truth in a good joke.

7:12Otherwise, it's not funny, right? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Is your mom Jewish as well? She is. She's from Warsaw, and her whole family was wiped out in the Holocaust. Wow. Only, and her father was a member of a radical Jewish bond, and his assignment was to actually assassinate a general, a Polish general. Well, he fucked it up, and he had to get out of the country.

7:43So that's why they survived. Wow. So it's colorful family legend. Let's put it that way. Well, you have obviously, you've established a history in fighting the power, I guess, as it were. I think it's genetic by now, you know, like, I always say my mother's breast milk was pink, but delicious, and delicious. Both my parents were union organizers in New York in the 30s, and when that kind of organizing with corporations was actually a kind of a war.

8:18And then in the 40s as well. And then my father was blacklisted by the HUAC committee in the 50s. What committee? Yeah, I've got a lineage. Wait, what committee was your father blacklisted by? That's an American Activities Committee. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. McCarthy, right. Lest we forget. Wow. Right, of course, of course.

Rebellious Roots

8:41Yeah.

Rebellious Roots

8:41So let's get into the present a little bit, particularly where you are. I was surprised to find out that you are in Los Osos, just like former guest Marcy Begleiter. When did that happen? Also from the same neighborhood in L.A. Oh, she was in Mar Vista as well? Yep. I didn't know that. Okay. Got it. So what was the story with the move? Birds of a Feather. Well, my wife and I love Los Osos, and we've been coming up to Los Osos on special occasions,

9:15like our anniversary, for like 30 years. And we lived in Mar Vista in a wonderful track that Gregory Ayn, a socialist architect, 50s, mid-century modern architect, put together. And we loved our modular house, but we always thought that maybe we'd have a vacation house up here. But in 2008, when investment bankers crashed the world economy, it got a little difficult.

9:51So we just flipped it and decided we'd just get a place and let's live, you know, a permanent residence in Los Osos and have a little pied-a-terre down in L.A. because Deb's in Angelina, which is kind of rare, and all her pals, you know, forever are down there. And also she's in the film business. So I could do what I do pretty much from anywhere, but she needed to keep contact in L.A.

10:24But that's why we moved up here, and we love it here. I mean, we're like three blocks from the confluence of the big pool of water, the Pacific Ocean, the bottom of Morro Bay, and an estuary, just three blocks away. And I'm a beach baby, so water baby. Nice. My parents used to go to, I don't know if you know about Fire Island off the Long Island Sea. I've been to Fire Island. Okay, so I pretty much grew up three months of the year in Fire Island.

10:59And so that's also like in my blood, you know, salty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm salty. Yeah.

11:07Yeah, I think I even know, I was in Los Osos a couple of years ago, a couple of summers ago. And I don't know if you're referring to that confluence, but we visited that marsh. Is it pretty much right by there? Yeah. The sort of the state park or, you know, local park that you can- Well, the big park is Montaña del Oro, which is fantastic. No, I'm thinking of the smaller one that's right in Los Osos where you have the various placards for, you know, certain native species, and you walk along the wood.

11:42Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's near you? Yes, yes. That's in Bay. We're in Baywood. And that is Baywood right off the bay. Okay, got it. That mark, yeah. When you're there versus in Los Angeles, I mean, of course, social media sort of puts everybody together with all of the crap, essentially, right? But to what extent when you're there- I'm in the good stuff, too. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, that's fair.

Remote Location

12:13But to what extent do you feel a certain remove when you're in, you know, a more remote area than Los Angeles? Well, by definition, it's a remove. Remote remove, yes.

12:30You know, it's lovely here. We miss things. Like, I grew up in New York City. You know, I love and hate New York City. I love and hate L.A. where, you know, I moved to L.A. I also lived in the Bay Area for a very long time. I love them all and miss them all. We try to go as much as we can. But the things we miss are, you know, culture, you know, big-time culture, art museums and cultural events, great ethnic food.

13:10L.A. is champion of great ethnic food of any city in the United States, although New York and L.A. have this thing. No, no, we have the best ethnic food. No, you do. No, I do. But my best friend is an artist in New York, and he's a gourmand. And it took me two weeks of driving him around L.A. to convince him that L.A. has better ethnic food than New York. But that's just another subtopic. And then we miss people.

13:41People is a big deal. Yeah. We were just in New York for the No Kings March. I brought my posters and stuff, and, you know, we hung out with, like, 100,000 of our closest friends. And it was fantastic, you know, like, just great to be there. I mean, we've been to protests in Osos and San Luis Obispo where there are 5,000 people or something. Well, that's not exactly 100,000.

14:17And, you know, like, it was just amazing. And it went on for hours and hours. And we had a great time. I love people. And when I was a kid growing up in New York, my greatest treat was being on the subway with all kinds of people, right? Like, you don't even know, you know, there's no other way to have that close access to so many different kinds of people than on the subway in rush hour, let's say.

14:47And to me, being a little people person, I felt very people wealthy, you know, and that's not true here, although it is the most important thing, I think, about being in a rural location is to have some people who are your people, you know. And we do have that here. Like Marcy, you were saying, you know, she's from our old neighborhood in Mar Vista. And also, she's a great filmmaker, made this great documentary about Eva Hessa, who's a great artist, New York artist.

15:21And so we have lots and lots in common. And there are other people here, too, who are just enough to keep us with our little clutch of familiars, you know, where we can talk smack about everything. It sounds like a great little expat, sort of, as it were, expat L.A. community. It is. That's very well put. Very well put. Yeah. So here's a point that you made me think of when you talked about being in the 100,000 protests, you know, and then the 5,000 protests in San Luis Obispo.

Protests and Effectiveness

15:57There was a question in the ethicist column in the New York Times not too long ago. It was about a guy, it was a guy saying, hey, my friend won't do protests, you know, and yet they're living in this conservative place. And it really pisses me off. That's not the point. The point, actually, is what came up in the comments, which you can imagine were pretty thorough. And there was a sentiment that was mentioned a few times that was, oh, protests are about making us feel good about ourselves.

16:34But as far as what they do, eh, you know, that was kind of generally the sentiment that was expressed. And I thought, that's fair. You know? I don't think so. I don't think that's inaccurate. Obviously, the visibility of large protests, as with the No Kings, is important. It sends a message. But to what extent does it change policy? Well, changing policy is, you know, like a big multifaceted project.

17:10And that kind of public display is certainly part of it and a big part. I would say, you know, there is this element of, like, oh, okay, I'm not alone. You know, like, here's me and 100,000 of people who agree with me and are adamant about it. That's terrific. The app part, I don't agree with, you know, of those commentators. It contributes, and it contributes big time compared to not having those protests.

17:44You know, the difference between having 7 million people on the streets in one day and nobody is enormous, right? I mean, that's undeniable. And anybody who says, eh, to that doesn't know what they're talking about. Okay. Good counterpart. My personal opinion. No, that's a very fair point. So we've established that you have rebellious or, I don't know what the, if we boil it down to one word, I don't know what the right word is, but that you have the genes for, you know, fighting back, fighting the power.

18:21I want to go back to what we talked about when we spoke on the phone a few weeks ago, what may be one of your, the seminal or one of the seminal moments of your art slash political making life, which was when Mocha opened.

Mocha Opening

18:38That was the moment that you chose to tell me about, you know, when we spoke before. So can you please, in as sort of concise a way as possible, set the scene for Mocha opening and you coming out with these posters? Yeah, I think it was more serendipity than anything else. I had, for a while, for a couple of years, and we're talking about September 1986 now, for a couple of years, you know, I had been making these nasty little black and white caricatures, portraits of Ronald Reagan and members of his cabinet.

19:19They were so unforthcoming about what they were doing in the name of representative democracy, and they were doing awful things as far as I was concerned, that I called them men with no lips. They're all like, not telling us what they were doing. And you get into Iran Contra with this. But I had just been doing these little oil paintings, and one of the things I realized, and this is from my background as well, and we can go deeper into my background in art and art history, but was that if I was going to express myself in public about public issues, social and political issues that I cared about,

20:08just putting art up in a clean, you know, just putting art up in a clean, you know, white cube like an art gallery is not going to really reach the public that I was looking to communicate with. So my object was basically to express myself in public about issues that I care about and participate in a public conversation, whether it was pictorial or otherwise.

20:41And I knew the history of posters and protest posters quite well, but I'd never done a poster, so I just realized that I had to, if I wanted to, just little old me, you know, it's like, not like I could take out ads and TV or the media or anything like that. There was no internet, so I learned how to make a poster, and I made this pathetic little poster, got my friend, my best friend in a Tom Sawyer, Finn kind of way, broke the piggy bank, made, you know, like a thousand posters, you know, for 600 bucks or something.

21:24And we were in, I was living in Venice in LA and started putting them up, you know, started, okay, we're going to put them up in the middle of the night. And it just so happened that MOCA was having its grand opening downtown when I was getting ready to do this little deed, you know, my little minor form of civil disobedience. And so I thought, well, of course, I'll never let my art into that museum, so we'll just surround the museum at the opening with these posters.

22:03And so we went down, you know, just before, the night before the opening and put them up all around downtown. And that's just the way it was. That's the first big post street post ring that I did with my friend. And it just kind of blossomed from there, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Poster Reaction

22:30What kind of reaction do you think you got from the people who were going to this grand opening? And, you know, did you have any expectations or objectives? I would say I got a specific reaction that I can tell you about. At the time, my studio was a two car garage in Venice in a courtyard called St. Dolphin. And it was like at Fifth and Rose.

23:00And, oh, that's funny. I just got a text from Alan Schaefer, who I was just going to tell you about. This guy has been my photographer since that moment, actually. And so the night after we had put up these posters and the night after the opening at MoCA, Alan Schaefer comes back to his studio apartment in St. Dolphin and sees that I'm working in a two car garage right near his parking space.

23:41And he goes, holy shit, you're the guy. Those are the originals of the posters I just saw around MoCA. You're the guy. You're the guy. And I said, yeah, I'm the guy. Leave me alone. You know, don't tell anybody. And he says, he said, we were knocked out by those things. What the hell are you doing? What's going on? This is amazing.

24:07And so that was nice to hear.

24:12And so I guess it impressed somebody. But, I mean, part of the project, you know, the thing that I understand from my background, which is different from other street artists and graffiti artists, you know, considering my family background. And also, I come from the art world. A lot of street artists actually don't. They just come from the streets. So, you know, I knew that there's a, it's like, you know, Shepard Fairey.

24:47Sure. Obey Giant. Okay. So, so I'm Shepard's OG, you know, like his old guy, original gangster, you might, which is what it, he saw my work when he was 17 and said, oh, I can do that. But what, what he is greatest at is distribution. And the thing about street posturing, if you're doing it analog, you know, just putting stuff up on the streets, is there's a certain threshold of volume that you have to get so that people will actually see it, understand it, and react to it.

25:26Like LA is huge. So I'll give you an example of, you know, like the cliff notes example of how it works. Somebody is driving around LA or a major city or walking around the major city and sees one of these posters on a traffic light switching box. And it says men with no lips or whatever. And it's four images of ugly old white guys in suits and ties. And you go, what the hell is that? You know, first of all, it's not supposed to be there.

25:57They know that. There's nothing on it that says buy me or, you know, call this number or go to this website for more information or anything. There's no name on it or anything. So they go, what's that doing there? And then like at their next traffic stop or on the next street, they go, there's another one. Wait a minute. I just saw that over there, you know, and here's another one. And now I can, you know, like read it a little better.

26:29I got men with, and now I've got no lips, men with no lips. And I recognize Ronald Reagan. Okay. Well, okay. Then they go somewhere, the next stop or next place, and there's another one. And by the third one, they go, something is going on. Like, what is this? Who's doing this? And if you get enough of them up, you know, in a certain night or a certain public space, people will start to think about it.

27:01You know, and the whole object of, because I use humor as my, you know, like weapon of choice. You know, I mean, I could only do three things. Like I could play baseball. I can't play baseball anymore. You know, I could draw. I could always draw. Okay. I can still draw. And I can talk smack. And I can still talk smack. I'm a New York, little New York wise guy at heart. You know, like, so putting together images and text, you know, is my signature style.

27:39And it's designed to be seen and read on the streets, you know, by people on their way to work or whatever they're doing in their daily life. Um, so, uh, all I'm trying to do is tickle people into thinking along with me about issues that I think are important, you know, that are, that I care about. And my personal mantra, um, not that anybody cares is apply what you do best to what you care about most.

28:12So what I do best is draw and talk smack. You know, what I care about most is American democracy. And that's my little man, personal mandate. You know, like I've had people, you know, since over this long period of 35, 36 years that I've been doing this, I've had people like in England, you know, where Great Britain used to be. Um, say, would you do, uh, Margaret Thatcher, would you do one of our politicians?

28:45And I said, really, I'm sticking to what I know, you know, is like American political situation, the American social, economic and political, uh, problems that I, uh, want to address. You know, like it would be carpetbagging for me to go to another country, even if they offer me a lot of money, which has happened. Uh, but I say, aren't there a lot of great English artists who are pretty upset with the government? And of course there are, you know, so, uh, I don't do that.

29:18I stick to basically what I think I know, um, and try to concentrate on, um, you know, making fun of the bad guys. And taking them down a little bit, um, in the process and, um, trying to communicate, you know, in public, uh, with the tools that I have about these issues that, uh, we have. Right.

Artistic Process

29:48So when you made the, had the posters made that you put up around downtown and elsewhere, they were, they came from these oil paintings, correct? Right. What was the evolution of the oil paintings in relation to, um, making them so that they would reproduce well, or was it just a natural fit without having to change anything? Yeah. Well, it was Al Schaefer, this photographer.

30:19I mean, he's a, he's probably the greatest, uh, art photographer on the West Coast, if it, if not in the United States. He takes, he shoots all of, uh, uh, uh, Andrew Shea's stuff. He, he, he shoots, you know, all the major LA artists. Um, and, you know, he's gotten better and better. He's also the fastest gun in the West. Um, and now that he has, you know, like high res cameras.

30:50And so he's coming over today to shoot my latest, uh, piece. And then we get it, you know, like in high res digital form. And, um, then I get, um, my, my Photoshop guy, Brian Lazan, who's been working with me for years, uh, to prepare it for, uh, my offset lithophate, uh, print printer, which is Typecraft in Pasadena. Who's been, you know, giving me like pro bono prices because they think I'm funny, um, which is a moot point, but, uh, you know, for many years, um, I started in 1986.

31:32The first one I did with them was 1990, which was artificial, artificial Jesse Helms, the Senate, the Senator from, um, North Carolina, um, who hated the national endowment for the arts. And, um, was probably, you know, the most powerful sexist, racist, homophobic, uh, member of the Senate for about 29 years. Um, so that's the process, you know, it's like, do the paintings.

32:04Uh, it used to be that, uh, I hand lettered all the texts too. And sometimes I do, but sometimes, uh, we set it, um, in word and then transfer it into Photoshop, um, just to be cleaner on the streets. Hmm. The actual, uh, text, like you can see back here is on the originals is hand painted. But, uh, sometimes just for clarity, for street reading, I like it to be crisped up, you know, like, um, the fonts.

32:42Um, you said Alan's coming to shoot your latest work. Is that your latest work or is that? No, this is this screen. I've did this one in, uh, I think, uh, 2018 actually. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, that's another thing that this is all topical stuff. So you have to, you know, like I have to work out a way, like doing an old painting takes a certain amount of time. And, um, as I was gearing up with, uh, topical issues, um, I realized I had to make them faster and get them out faster.

33:21So I went to charcoal on canvas, um, and when I realized that was a little too elaborate, I tried to, um, kind of figure out a way to reproduce my painting technique, which is very gloppy and thick and, uh, comes from abstract expressionism to tell you the truth, uh, in acrylic, which dries fast. And, uh, you can really whip around and, uh, you can really whip around and also like, if you start a painting in acrylic, you can apply oil paint on top of it.

33:57If you want, you can't do it the other way. Right. So, uh, if I really needed gnarliness, um, I would do the thing in acrylic, which this is, and then add, uh, accents in my oil technique. Um, but, um, the, this, the posters are, I try to make them better than they have to be, you know, better quality than they have to be.

34:30And typecraft is a very high end, uh, printer. They have these giant Heidelberg presses, six, six color Heidelberg presses. And there are hilarious stories about me. Uh, they only would let me do, uh, my printing on, um, the graveyard shift because it was like, you know, like 3000 posters, like that's nothing to them or five, 6,000 posters. That's nothing to them. To me, I'm like, Oh, you know, like here's my one shot.

35:01And I go down for, um, proof, proofing the posters, you know, at the press and I would just annoy them because I was so nervous. My wife, Deborah Ross, who was a, a movie title designer, a great one. And, uh, and a graphic designer would always help me with fonts because she's got about 5,000 fonts inside her body somewhere. And they're a great weapon, you know, like, uh, you can, um, like I've got this drip type on this, which is like bloody and stuff.

35:33Um, but, um, she, by 1990, when we got married, um, she started taking over my type, uh, selection. Uh, but also, um, the guys, the printers, once they realized that she was part of the mix would say, we will charge you less if you send Debbie down to do the proofs and leave Robbie at home. Um, because he's like too anxious and too nervous for us.

36:04She's a pro, you know? Yeah. All we got to do is push a button with her and she'll say, do this, do that. And we're done. So it's not like I do this alone. You know, I have this whole team of people in the production. And then we have, of course, uh, thousands of, or have had thousands of, um, you know, uh, irregular, uh, guerrilla volunteers who helped put up the posters in major cities around the country for many, for many years.

36:36I want to ask you about the logistics and cost for these things, but first, you know, you have

Logistics and Cost

36:45Steven Miller.

Logistics and Cost

36:45I, I think I suspected that would be a candidate. I don't recognize him physically, but, but here's the thing. I mean, it sounds like you've gotten, from what you said earlier, you've gotten faster, not a, not only with the, uh, printing, but with the painting itself. Yeah. And so the question is, don't you want to spend as little time with these characters as possible? Because, you know, as opposed to reverence in a painting, you have the opposite, right?

37:17Well, I have no choice in the matter. I mean, this is one of the things, like, I've been doing this for a long time. And, um, let's say during COVID, you know, like, didn't go out much at all, right? Here I am in Los Osos, in my studio, going nowhere. I made more paintings of bad guys in that two and a half year period than in any, than the

37:48number of paintings I made in any other two and a half year period in my life. And they were stacked up in the studio, you know, like, um, but I, I mean, every once in a while, Debbie will say to me, can't you do something positive? You know, come on, like, it's all this negative, which he's right, you know, like, uh, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of these things over the years, you know? Uh, so whether I spend, you know, like a couple of days with this guy or a week with this guy

38:21in the studio, there's hundreds of other guys in the studio with me as well. You know, like we have like, um, three sheds around our house that are full of these guys, you know? And, uh, I mean, I sell them and, you know, like I show in art galleries and, you know, have shows regularly. I had a big show with him. Um, you can see the, the grotesque gold frame, which is a nod to Donald Trump's taste.

38:55Uh, you know, his exquisite taste in home furnishings. Um, I did a show, uh, I have an art gallery track 16 in LA. We did a show, uh, called cabinet of horrors, which was Trump and all his cabinet members. Um, and, um, that ergo the gold frames and a black wall. Um, but, um, and I sell, you know, stuff, um, pretty regularly, but there is a certain

39:31double-edged sword in my work in terms of, um, making myself rich or anything. And that is, you know, you might appreciate my art, but you don't necessarily want this guy in your living room hanging on the wall. Exactly. Yeah. All my friends who have my art have it in the toilet.

39:54Right. So there is that, but, uh, I have done some positive things and, and, uh, actually I'm doing some, uh, right now, um, because things are so dire, you know, um, and all my friends, including my darling wife, get so depressed that she demanded I do something, you know, a little more uplifting and, and, uh, uh, I've done a series of, uh, inspirational women basically at her request.

40:28Um, you know, um, AOC is my favorite of course, but, um, you know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, uh, right.

40:44So are the, uh, the, are the Ruth Bader Ginsburg RBG and the, and the AOCs and whatnot more likely to sell? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I did, uh, my most popular art was really a triptych called watching, waiting and dreaming. And it was Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King. Um, and, uh, the origins of those are six feet high, black and white paintings that are at the San Jose Museum of Art. Um, and, uh, you know, the collector who bought them donated them to, to the museum.

41:22Um, but yeah, of course, of course positivity, you know, like cells, um, you know, puppy dogs, uh, sell like hotcakes, um, but well, we're not, I can't show it to you because we're not doing video, but, uh, the latest thing I did for Deb and my, my depressed friends was, uh, I have this series of knuckleheads that I do for myself that are skulls with a word underneath

41:56when I'm, you know, when I can't take it anymore, I've had it and I can't take it anymore. Three in the morning. I don't want to have anything to do with these bad guys. I'm going to do a goofy, nutty skull, a knucklehead, like, uh, like I'm a knucklehead, you know? Uh, so she said, well, what, what'd you do like a positive knucklehead about something? Um, and so, uh, we love fungi, uh, mushrooms and, uh, and especially certain kinds of mushrooms.

42:28Um, and so I, I did, I just did for her and our friends and for our Christmas people, um, um, a diptych of, uh, a fun guy and a fun gal and their, uh, their skulls with mushrooms blooming from their heads and, and, uh, all kinds of mushrooms and, um, it's in full color. Usually I just use black and white and red or something.

43:00Uh, but I mean, I'm capable of using color. Life is color as far as I'm concerned. Uh, so it's a thrill for me to, you know, like go to the art supply store and buy a whole bunch of colored paints and, and break them out, you know, like, woohoo, um, life is color. I'm, I'm having a good time. So do you have an art supply store up there? And we have a great art supply store. There is one, there is one art central in San Luis Obispo run by a lovely woman who, uh,

43:34caters to all my needs and I try to be as good to her as I possibly can. Um, but yes, it's a lifeline. I mean, we could get stuff online, you know, pretty much. Right. And of course. But she gives me a big discount and I don't have to pay for shipping and, and I, and I love that. That's like going to the candy store, man. You know, I, I get it. I get it. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, your photographer friend, your friend who did the postering with you and so on and, and even more up all the way up through the present is your Tom Sawyerism,

44:13um, been a big part of the, the project, the work for the, for the, you know, the course of these, you know, 35 plus years, because, uh, you know, you're not necessarily going to be able to sell an Oliver North painting, you know, maybe at a certain point with, you know, with enough time, maybe people can handle it, but right. Yeah. There is a time factor. You're right. It's a 20 year time factor. That's it. That's it.

44:43It's a 20 year threshold. I did, uh, a Nixon triptych.

44:51Um, and it was Nixon, Ehrlichman and Haldeman. And I did it, you know, oil paintings in full color, not, not big, but in full color, I've shown them several times, but at the 20 year mark, they actually sold people could maybe take it, you know, at that point. Uh, and also he's so relevant because now we have Trump and Trump is trumping Nixon. So, you know, anytime you think of Trump and how egregious whatever he's doing is, there's

45:28always a little asterisk, uh, for Nixon.

45:34And Nixon is my evil muse anyway. Um, what have there been people ever like say, you know, the multitude of Republicans who worship Ronald Reagan, who would buy a Ronald Reagan painting or poster, even though you have the words that are not so flattering going with it. I imagine there are, um, the Ronald Reagan is one of my most famous paintings. And, um, David Arquette owns it actually.

46:07Um, but, uh, it, it says contradiction and it's about Iran Contra, him talking, dicting about the Contras and contradicting himself about the Contras and so forth and so on. But I can tell you a funny story, like, you know, how genius I actually am with this kind of stuff, just to your question, um, there's a big police scandal in LA called the Rampart scandal, where, uh, members of the Rampart division of, um, LAPD had their own gang inside,

46:45inside their division. And they even had their own, like, uh, uh, logo of, uh, uh, uh, like a cowboy have it with a dead man's poker hand, which is aces and aces, aces and eights. Um, and they were framing people, uh, that they didn't like, you know, uh, taking, uh, evidence, evidentiary cocaine out of the evidence, uh, lockers and selling it and doing all kinds

47:19of horrible stuff. So I did a poster about it called disbelief. Uh, and it was, uh, um, I got my hands on a LAPD, uh, police badge and we morphed it into a skull and then took two LAPD batons, crossed them and set them on fire. And, um, so, so this was, uh, you know, a mixed media piece, um, that Al shot.

47:52Uh, we actually went and, uh, got, you know, like a six packs of Ronson lighter fluid and lit up these, uh, police batons because you could get anything from prop houses in LA for the movies. And, um, so we, we made the posters, you know, didn't look like me, which I thought was great. I, you know, like nobody knows it's me because it's not like a gnarly old guy in oil paint or anything. Uh, so I had a little bit of cover, uh, and we put them up. All around Rampart, you know, and all around the city actually.

48:26And there was one, um, bookstore in LA, midnight special bookstore in, uh, Santa Monica that actually sold my posters retail. And, uh, I got a call from Margie, this wonderful woman who ran the bookstore saying, I've got a guy here, Robbie, I've got a guy here who wants a hundred of the posters. He's got $1,200 in cash. Do you have a hundred posters? And I said, I have enough posters to line my crypt, you know, no problem.

48:58Who is he? And she says, hold on a second. She says, his name is Chavez. I'm going, Oh my God, maybe he's related to Cesar Chavez. You know, like the great farm worker, um, head of the farm workers union. Maybe he's a really progressive. Well, this is fantastic. You know, ask him what he does. He comes back. He said, he's a cop at Rampart. They love the poster. They think it makes him look tough. I'm going, Oh shit. I think I should take up another profession.

49:28Maybe I'll be an accountant or something, you know, totally the opposite of my intention. So yes, there are people who, you know, like, like my subjects and probably, um, I'll tell you another one. Um, I did a, uh, Debbie and I did this together, uh, about Iran Contra with Contra cocaine, you know, they're selling cocaine in LA, um, and the money was going to fund the Contras.

50:01And, um, so it was a skull, uh, in a politician's suit, striped suit with, um, camouflage background. And it said Contra on the top and cocaine at the bottom. So we went and put it up all over. Uh, we did it in conjunction with, uh, a group of God squad lawyers, uh, called the Christic Institute and Jackson Brown, uh, did a tour with that image as the tour t-shirt

50:33and everything. And we're all excited about it. Um, and I put it up all around the Venice boardwalk and kids kept coming up to me saying, can I have one of those? Can I have one of those? I'm going, this is great. These kids are really hip. You know, they, they're in their end Contra and everything. I said, what are you going to do with it? Oh, we're going to cut off the Contra and just keep the cocaine. Yeah. Oh, great. Okay. Party on.

51:04So that happens. That happens. It happens. Yeah. So you're talking, you're talking about these dips in, uh, or disconnects between intention and reception, right? Yeah. What about, um, dips in, uh, sustainability financially? You know, I mean, it sounds like, you know, if it wasn't selling a painting, you know, you had a surplus of interest in posters, you know, you got a lot of pro bono printing and, and whatnot, but I mean, it's not like you're selling marketable work over the course of

51:39all these years. So what is, what's the, what's the difference between those two versions? Well, there's two things. There's two things. Yeah. One is, um, my whole adult life after I, uh, got through graduate school at Stanford was, uh, I've taught at the university level for many years. I taught at USC for 12 years and other places, you know, the university of Connecticut all around, uh, so, you know, make a sustainable living.

52:11And also I love kids. So, um, I have access to kids, both to proselytize, you know, like, Hey, uh, I always taught the same thing, Robbie one-on-one. Um, and, uh, and also they're a great source of, uh, postering volunteers, I must say. Um, and then the other thing is like, we would get, you know, people would help in, in different ways. Like we had many volunteers, many, many volunteers would come out in the middle of the night with

52:42us, you know, in some of the most dangerous urban areas in the United States and put up posters with us to do a little mischief about, you know, issues that they care about, which is fantastic. But other people who, uh, you know, maybe wouldn't do that would, uh, donate money or something, you know? Uh, and we got, had a lot of, quite a bit of that, you know, we have regular donors who are into it and say, you know, right on Rob.

53:14And, you know, let's go, let's go get them and all that stuff. And here's 500 bucks for the printing or whatnot. So there's both of those. Plus, um, I surprisingly, I did have some really good years. Once again, to listen to the full episode with Robbie, taken to the streets, you can go to patreon.com slash the conversation pod and support the show there.

53:45Thank you very much in advance. Thank you for listening. Happy rest of 2025, such as it is, and talk to you in 2026. Until then, ciao for now.