Painting (and basketball and music and other stuff) with John Lurie

As the season finale of Painting with John approaches, John Lurie talked with FanSided about the Nets, the Knicks, basketball and more.

John Lurie has a new show, Painting with John. Like his previous television show, 1991’s Fishing with John, it focuses on John performing an activity. Unlike his previous show, which followed John and an iconic Hollywood guest — Willem Dafoe, Tom Waits, Jim Jarmusch, Dennis Hopper, and Matt Dillon — going on irreverent, and sometimes tumultuous adventures, Painting with John is a more solitary and meditative affair. It’s one of the pandemic’s truly innovative works, and though COVID-19 is never really mentioned, it hovers in the background of this one-man-hobby-show (even though it was filmed pre-pandemic.

He paints from his home on an undisclosed Caribbean island, and we sometimes get glimpses of his assistants, who light up the screen with joy in their rare appearances. For the most part, though, we’re just right there with John, as he crashes his drone cameras, carefully adjusts the color or figure on one of his surreal, evocative paintings, and tells us long, winding stories that often diverge or land on unexpected punchlines. It shares his former series’ playful editing and comedic touch, as one segment might evolve into animated musical theatre.

Grammy-nominated John’s music bonafides are myriad — the show’s soundtrack is composed entirely of his music — and he’s acted in films directed by David Lynch, Martin Scorcese, Jarmusch, Abel Ferrara, and Wim Wenders, among others. He’s like the Bo Jackson of New York cult figures. However, we at FanSided wanted to talk to Lurie about his passion for sports, which can be found in other interviews and in his must-follow Twitter account, through which he will expound take after take like Stephen A. Smith with a paintbrush. We talked to John about being a lapsed Knick fan, moving cities and teams — I talk about moving from Miami to Los Angeles — his love of boxing, and his show idea about robbing celebrity homes.

Painting with John is streaming on HBO Max (the first episode can be viewed for free) and the final episode of its first six-episode season premieres Friday night at 11 p.m. EST. “Fishing with John” is streaming on the Criterion Channel.

How’s everything going?

Good and bad. So-so.

First, I’d like to ask you about the drones you use in your show, which you keep crashing.

Actually, you know what. We had a shitty one at first and it was really hard to keep it in our yard and stuff. It’s windy. So we had to get a good one. We only had one more. The first one wasn’t good enough. I mean we crashed it on purpose, and once the memory card — we had to get the memory card, and the backyard is really jungle. We’re out there with machetes looking for this chip, this little thing that’s the size of a quarter. And then it started to pour. We were out there forever. Then we finally found it. And that’s actually the last shot, from the chip that we found. Actually, [Editor and cinematographer Erik Mockus] found it. I gave up.

Did the drone survive?

Yeah, but then we had to leave the island for a while and it got stolen. The house got broken into.

How many days of your life go into putting together an episode of the show?

Oh, it’s not like that. I started the paintings before [Erik Mockus] came to have a background here, one was two-thirds done, one almost completely finished, and then, you know, a bunch that were sorta started. And then he came down and he’s just there so you know, we film two stories, and then we film me painting, and we just sort of…we filmed a bunch of stuff. Then you have a giant puzzle you have to put together.

But it wasn’t like three days per episode or anything like that. He was probably there shooting for a month, and then he came back for 10 more days. Then the editing really took a while because we were in different cities, and sending things back-and-forth over email that would have taken seconds to do in person. We developed a language, sort of a shorthand you could figure out because you wanna move the existing sound and you wanna move the music two frames or have the dissolve go slower … things that if you were there in person would just take a minute.

What’s the first thing you think you’re going to do after the pandemic’s done?

After the pandemic’s done and — when’s this thing gonna be done? Who knows! If everyone gets the vaccine, and the variants are stopped by the vaccine and it’s a complete bill of health then I don’t know when that’s gonna happen. Not to be depressing, but I think it’s very far away. I’m hoping to get the vaccine soon, but you still gotta wear a mask, you can still get it I guess. I mean it’s interesting this virus. I think in some ways it’s good in that people have to change their behavior and think differently about things and … in some ways I think we were all headed down some bad road and that it will fix things a bit.

In what way?

I think people might be nicer to each other. I think that if they learned a bit of discipline here and then, maybe climate change could be addressed. But maybe not. People seem so frivolous about addressing climate change. People had to be serious about this so maybe they’ll be serious about something else.

Kind of like what’s going on in Texas right now. With the cold weather and utilities being shut off for the less wealthy.

I was going to make a wisecrack about [Rick] Perry but I think I won’t bother.

Feel free!

Nah, I don’t have a good one. If it doesn’t come right up then I gotta let it go.

How do you feel about watching basketball during the pandemic? It’s kind of weird, right?

Oh no! I thought with basketball and the bubble — the first three, four, five games I watched I was like,“ this is never going to work. It feels hollow” and then they added the sounds, and then there was [laughs] one game they really messed up, and they had the pumped in fake crowd sounds. They had it too loud so you couldn’t hear Jeff Van Gundy. And it was like a game, you know in one of those places like Sacramento that gets so loud you can’t hear the announcers, like they should have been under that Get Smart cone of silence thing so you could hear the announcers. But they had the fans up too loud. Someone really messed up, and you couldn’t hear what they were saying. But I got past it pretty quick. At first, I thought it was never gonna work, but then as the playoffs started, I was right there! Did you have trouble watching it?

Yeah, it felt hard for me to suspend my sorta … I don’t know I kept thinking, “This isn’t a real competition.”

I got over that really fast. Especially the games where they were really playing. It’s weird now because I’ve never seen a basketball season like the start of this season where there’s been so many blowouts. You’ve never seen this many blowouts before — where it’s this team won by 30, this team won by 40, that’s never happened before! And I think that’s — there’s no fans there and then when the teams starts to lose they go: “Well, f**k it.” But I got into watching it without the crowd! I wonder how it affects the refs. That must be really interesting. Does the home team get the calls less often?

That’s a good point. And also now do the refs have to engage with players more because they don’t have that noise to drown out the yelling.

I mean, like, with technical fouls, if someone just sort of says under their breath, “a**hole,” they have to give them a technical. Because everybody heard it. Whereas before, it was just gone.

So I’ve read that you switched teams from the Knicks to the Nets. Is that correct?

Well, I’m prepared to be a Nets fan. I am not quite yet. I find them fascinating so far. With the Knicks — I like Thibodeau a lot. And I don’t know if he’s gotten old and bitter or not, but I think he’s a good coach for that team. Except that team was so toxic because of ownership and what they did to [Charles] Oakley was so wrong, that I really can’t root for them. I can’t even watch them. Because what they did to Oakley was so f**king wrong that I can’t forgive them for what they did. But the Nets — if they really play basketball like a team, I could get behind them.

And I’m proud of Harden. I’ve never been more appreciative of Harden’s game and the way he’s doing things. Like, he’s got an eight-foot jump shot, but he passes an alley-oop to DeAndre Jordan, and he gets other players involved. Especially Jordan, because then Jordan will go down and play defense. But I don’t see how this team can win, because there’s no DNA to play team defense. It’s not just a thing where you go, “so-and-so’s gonna play better defense.” Having the mentality to play good team defense — it’s just as big a talent as Harden’s 3-pointer. Some people have it and some people don’t. Their second team — Kyrie and Durant were out last night or the night before — and they were down by 20 in the second half and the bench really played good defense and held … I think Phoenix and it was the defense that did it.

When Harden first came to the Nets, and was just playing fantastically, people were saying they should trade Irving for more depth.

Offensively, there’s never been anything like it. There’s never been a team that had three unstoppable players on the highest level ever. Of all the people, one-on-one offensive players, they’re three of the top 25 in history. But they don’t play really good team offense. Nobody moves without the ball. There’s no screens. And then on defense. I mean I saw Harden do pretty well — he stuck Kawhi Leonard twice at the end of a game [ED Note: He said this prior to the Feb. 21 Nets game with the Harden offensive foul call]. I was really impressed by that one-on-one. But their team defense — I wish they hadn’t lost Allen. That would’ve been something. But they’re gonna trade Kyrie for what? And then what? Make Harden the point guard? I don’t know.

If only they had LeVert.

I’m sorry to see him go. He was really fun to watch. It’s also Steve Nash and then D’Antoni’s his assistant coach — I just imagine Nash turns to him and goes “what do we do about the defense?” and then D’antoni goes, “Defense, what is defense? I’ve never heard of that.”

You tweeted that you played the Star-Spangled Banner before a Nets game and f**ked it up. Can you talk about that?

I would love to. Though I might actually tell that story on Season 2 but…so my lawyer was the Nets’ lawyer. He said, “OK do you wanna play?” and I said “Sure, I’d love to.” And it was when they weren’t in Brooklyn. They were out somewhere in New Jersey. I was busy that day. So the night before I kind of ran through the Star-Spangled Banner a few times. I assumed they were going to have a shitty sound system. And it was like — just get through it and get your free ball and go home. But I practiced a few times and my big thing on my saxophone was my tone and I just assumed it was going to sound shitty and I didn’t think about it. And then I’m coming home from the studio and I’m getting my shit together and I’m about to go out. The phone rings and it’s Flea. He says: “You’re playing the Star-Spangled Banner today, right?” I was like “Yeah.” He says, “You’re gonna be really nervous.”

I hadn’t thought that I might be nervous! It had not occurred to me. And he’s like, “Yeah, no one’s there to see you. The only thing that you could do that would be memorable is fuck it up.” Like, Oh great! So I go out there, and I am! I’m starting to get nervous. Sometimes you can be nervous before, and then you burn it off, and then you’re not nervous when you step out there, but I’m real nervous and my hands shaking a little bit when I’m putting my reed on. So I have this gigantic whiskey and I’m at halfcourt and they’re gathering up the balls, and I handed the ball boy my horn and I go, “can you hold this for a second.” I take the ball out of his hand and I shot from about 10 feet from beyond half court and I was right on line. It was just short of the rim. If it had gone in, I would have been on the news across the country for hitting the shot.

So I go out there and I start to play. And it sounds a hundred times better than I thought. It just sounded beautiful! I thought, “Oh, I’ve got this.” ‘Cause I was just gonna put my fingers where the notes go. So it sounds beautiful. Because now I’ve decided I’m going to really play this, I jumped past a phrase. I didn’t really f**k up but I left out a line. So that the people who were singing along were lost. And that thing where you get nervous you’re gonna blow it — no! I pulled it back together. And I finished it and it was really beautiful. And [John] Calipari was the Nets coach then. And I think it was even Dick Bavetta. The two refs and Calipari come rushing over to me — you never see this! It must have been pretty good. They come running over to me at halfcourt and go, “That was beautiful!” And I look at them and I go, “I F**KED IT UP!” Like I’m an insane person. And they start backing away from me. I guess on New Jersey TV you actually saw this guy playing the saxophone and then yell, “I F**KED IT UP!” At the top of his lungs. Then they didn’t give me my ball.

They’re supposed to give you a ball?

Yeah, they’re supposed to give you a ball signed by the team because I was like that astronaut who screwed the pooch. You know the one who opened the door? Who is it Gus Grissom? He’s in…the capsule sinks. So he doesn’t get to meet the president. That’s like me and how I didn’t get my ball.

It’s like getting to sit on the couch on Johnny Carson.

Yeah, they didn’t invite me to sit on the couch.

That reminds me of that stretch of games where Mark Cuban didn’t have the National Anthem played before the Mavericks games. Did you read about that?

Yeah, I think what was really interesting was nobody noticed. It wasn’t made a big deal until they brought it back … I don’t see really the point of it. Unless you do it before everything. Do they do the pledge in school now?

I think they have to do the Pledge of Allegiance still but I’m not 100 percent on that.

You know what was fascinating to watch. I talked about it in another interview. When Ray Charles sang, “America, the Beautiful.” or “O, Beautiful” — I don’t know what the title is. But when he sang for the Leonard/Duran fight. Did you ever see this?

Maybe on YouTube.

It’s on YouTube for sure. But the thing is — Leonard looks really nervous. Then Ray Charles starts singing, and this giant smile comes across Leonard’s face. And at the end he’s all bouncing around like — I really think that Ray Charles won that fight for Sugar Ray Leonard. He gave him the buoyancy to win.

Athletes are so superstitious, I totally buy that whatever happens in that moment before a match can greatly affect a boxer. Do you still watch boxing or UFC or anything like that?

I used to be really into boxing. But then every time you would pay for a fight, the fight would suck. The refs would ruin it, or — and then for a while I got too sensitive to watch it. I don’t know why that happened, where I’m like “I don’t want to watch this now.” But I used to really like … I mean that first round in the Hearns Hagler. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Round 1 of Hearns Haggler is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Al Michaels was great announcing it too. I keep thinking about him going: “FIRST HEARNS WAS HURT NOW HAGLER’S HURT!” I can hear him too, I don’t know why.

What sports did you grow up loving and playing?

Baseball. You can’t really play basketball until you’re in your teens. At least I couldn’t. Your hands are too small — you’re too small to the whole thing. So baseball’s what I played when I was young. And boxing … we didn’t do an organized thing. We had gloves and we were in this guy’s backyard. We’d try to keep it within two or three years — the guy you’re fighting shouldn’t be over three years older than you.

That sounds fun. I wanna get into a boxing club.

It was fun. Do you know about — I’ve suddenly become fascinated with Red Rodney. He’s a trumpet player. He played with Charlie Parker. He moves to Las Vegas and becomes the head of a gang. He becomes a gang leader and a heroin dealer and he deals heroin with Sonny Liston. I mean what a bio. I’d be proud of that bio. I played with Charlie Parker and I dealt heroin.

Did he get caught?

Well, Sonny Liston — they think somebody killed him and then injected him with heroin to make it look like he OD’d, and some people think it was actually Red Rodney. But I don’t think he ever got caught.

Is he alive?

No, but his son’s alive. His son tells stories about it. There’s a good documentary on Liston. HBO it might be. Showtime I think.

There’s also that new film, “One Night in Miami,” about the Ali fight.

I didn’t like it.

Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of it either.

The acting and the writing were not good. I was really looking forward to it and I was disappointed.

Sorry to keep re-litigating your tweets —

It’s ok (laughs) I delete a lot of them.

OK. Did you play basketball with Vin Diesel?

Yeah. Like in 1984, Stranger than Paradise came out and I was a reluctant star in downtown New York, and I used to play basketball over on Gansevoort and Washington. I think he also trained me. I would work out in this gym and he was my trainer. I would try to get some muscles on my body. And he was always asking how he could get into the movies. I said: “You gotta lose the muscles, otherwise, the only parts you’re gonna get are the bouncer or a mafia head. You’re gonna have two lines.” And he would look so crestfallen and destroyed. But obviously, I don’t have a career as a career advisor. A life counselor? What’s it called.

A life coach.

I guess I’m not who you’d turn to as a life coach.

Do you play any sports now?

Nah, my body’s all messed up. I blew my knee out a bunch of times so I can’t play basketball anymore. And I’m old.

Who do you think is going to make it out of this NBA season?

I don’t know. It’s a hard one. I don’t think Boston holds together as a team. I don’t think that the Bucks really have the killer instinct required.

They got destroyed in the playoffs last year by the Heat, too.

The Heat are interesting. They can’t win the whole thing. The east is actually interesting. Philadelphia — I don’t know why they’re so much better this year. Maybe because they’re healthier. I don’t know why they didn’t do better when [Jimmy] Butler was there. You would have thought they woulda done better. It seems like what they needed … I think maybe it’s Doc Rivers’ coaching. I think Philadelphia might come out of the East. And the west — what happened with Anthony Davis’ Achilles? Is he coming back or is he really hurt?

I think it was a strain.

And if Marcus Smart doesn’t come back, I think the Celtics are hopeless. They really need him. I’ve only seen Utah once and I don’t understand why they’re so good. It’s not just Gobert and Mitchell is it?

Joe Ingles too is one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, I think.

He looks like a milkman.

He and Alex Caruso should start a milk company together.

I like Caruso, though. I think he’s good, too. Are you a Lakers fan?

You know, I’m from Miami, but the Heat are doing so poorly this year I’m thinking of watching the Lakers this year. It’s just hard to switch between two coastal teams. It feels like a betrayal.

The Heat are gonna be OK now. It was really just the COVID thing that held them back. I heard they’re trying to get Lowry. Or Aldridge. That’s a terrible idea for them but Lowry on that team — that could really work … You can root for the Clippers. You don’t like the Clippers?

It’s hard for me to root for Kawhi.

The whole world hated him, and he came through that. I still give him credit for when he left San Antonio and went to Toronto and won. There was that press conference where he laughs really weirdly like nine million times. So I was really rooting for him. But the combination of him and George is just a little — I don’t know. There’s something a little off.

It’s more that he shut down LeBron in the Finals when he played for the Heat, too. Can I root for someone who destroyed my team so thoroughly?

Iguodala shut down LeBron better than anyone when he was still on Golden State. That was remarkable … I really love Iguodala. I could root for the Heat.

They have great jerseys this year!

What, those things that look like sherbert? I hate those uniforms.

Did you ever meet Pat Riley?

No, but I have a story. There was that game where the Knicks were playing the Heat in the playoffs. And there was that thing where Charlie Ward submarines P.J. Brown. Then P.J. Brown picks him up and drops him on his head. There’s a bench-clearing brawl. Except for Miami holds their players back because [the NBA] has just installed this rule where if you go out on the court during a fight, you get suspended for a game. They think that Riley really set that up…and the Knicks all charged the court so we only had like seven players.

I’m at the game, and the Knicks have seven players, and we have the Star-Spangled Banner, and he’s like “O’ Say Can You See,” and somebody yells, “Riley sucks!” You could hear it from the other side of the court. Then, “By the dawn’s early light” and you hear, “Let’s go Knicks!” And then the crowd went crazy and never sat down and never stopped screaming the entire game, to try to give them enough energy to win. And it worked for the first three quarters and then they just ran out of steam and lost. So really we stood on our feet and screamed the whole game. We stopped for half-time.

There’s Fishing with John, and now Painting with John. If you were to do another show based around an activity, what would it be?

Well you know I wanted to do “Robbing with John.” That was what I really wanted to do. This is back when I finished “Fishing with John.” It’d be like me and Flea would break into Martha Stewart’s house and change the curtains. Or me and Iggy Pop would break into Bob Costas’ house and leave forged signatures of Mickey Mantle on baseballs. And then I would just leave the country. But my lawyer said, “Your crew will all be accomplices. You can’t do this or they’ll all go to jail.” And so I switched lawyers. And they said the same thing. So I couldn’t do it. That would be the best use of reality TV ever.

I feel like there was that whole prank show genre of reality TV that was similar.

We’d probably have to get a release from Martha Stewart to rob her house. But you’d have to break in and really be nervous that you’re gonna get caught. I’ve always been fascinated with people who could do that. Because I couldn’t do that. So you’ve got to give those people some credit for having the balls to be able to do that. It must be a real hard thing to break into a house and not – I guess it’s a weird thing to compliment.

I mean I guess it’s a skill.

You must have iron nerves. You might wanna leave that out.

Well, that’s all my questions, unless there’s anything else you want to tell me.

No, but my dream guest, if I ever did more fishing shows, would be Gregg Popovich.

What do you think you guys would talk about?

Nothing. And whoever tried to start talking, the other would just be irritated that they’re talking. I’m a big fan of his, and I have a lot of respect for him. I’d like to use my celebrity to meet him.

I think you have a pretty good shot.

Maybe I could play him in a movie.

Would you dye your hair or wear a wig?

I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.