Pie Driver PROPAGANDA

February 2003

Pie Driver Interviews Keith Knight

Keith Knight is best known for his cartoon The K Chronicles, but also has another strip, Th(ink), and his band, The Marginal Prophets. Recently the unemployed Pie Driver caught up with Keith in a café down the street, and they discussed the current political scene, cartooning as a profession, gigging in San Francisco, and whether George Lucas has any creativity left. Be sure to check out the web sites for Keith and his band and their upcoming appearances, as the upcoming show with the Coup has been rescheduled.

P: Tell me about the projects you've got going on right now.

K: I've got the two usual strips: The K Chronicles and (Th)ink. And from there I pick up a lot of freelance stuff. But the project I'm working on here is a book -- almost a how-to or dummies guide to community-based art. It's going to have ten different stories - ten different examples of community based art organizations across the country, and how they came to be. I've done one so far on Rhodessa Jones, a thing called the Medea Project. She does dance workshops in women's prisons. This is one I'm doing on the Village of Arts and Humanities. It's this amazing section of north Philadelphia where they pretty much got the community involved in creating a beautiful space to work in. They took this area and took these abandoned lots and created a meditation place based on stuff from India. Then they created these African signs, these murals and mosaics. Here are some shots of some of them. And they involve the community. [Shows pictures of the Village.] This is a whole tree park where they raise trees for the rest of the city. The city buys trees from their lot. They've got gardens where they grow vegetables and anyone in the community can harvest those vegetables. They go by the motto that if the community builds it themselves, has a say in what goes on, then they care for it.

P: They have a vested interest.

K: They've even built really cool, low income housing for 30 grand - they've got really cool houses and even one handicapped place. [Shows more pictures.] This is a park that the kids helped design, and the football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, came and helped build it. It's just an amazing place.

P: It's certainly a good sign that people continue to do these sorts of things. Good news these days is so hard to find.

K: I think in bad times it stirs up people to act. Some of my best work happened after September 11th, because I started questioning the government's motives and how they were acting. I got a lot of people saying, "I don't believe you're saying this" and "You better watch your mouth," and it's just like… [Shrugs.]

P: Is it different to write about political things than it was four or five years ago?

K: I would think so. It just seems like if you write about it now, you are perceived as unpatriotic and people are saying "Watch what you say" in a sort of George Orwellian sort of way. It's really bizarre. All the people who had all these problems with the government before are saying, "They know what's best for us now." Really kind of strange.

P: Ronald Reagan once said, "Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," and it's funny to have him, of all people, up there saying that.

K: It's funny how this administration came in saying "Small government, we don't want to mess around with your lives, we don't want a foreign policy so let's not pay attention to anything out there." All this different stuff. And then they go and turn it around on us. But I can't say everyone is like that. The media won't tell you that, but I think a ton of people are totally against what the government is doing, and a lot of people are on the fence. And then a lot of people have this question in the back of their head of whether the government would do anything bad, but they don't want to say anything about it. I think there are very few people saying "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Less and less every day.

P: Tom Tomorrow made the point that since Bush and Gore had a stalemate, and that only 45% of people voted, only 22% or so of Americans actually voted for Bush. At least back with Reagan he swept the vote and had a massive backing, for better or worse. But now it seems like there are different pockets of opinion and that people don't really know how to feel.

K: It's a total contradiction. When you have the mass media saying 88% of people want this and 88% want that, you know that's not right because as you go through your every day life you know that's not the case with all the people.

P: But do you think we get things a little skewed here in San Francisco? This city is more liberal and much more culturally diverse, it just seems that we see things differently here.

K: I always think we live in a bubble here, but I've traveled more around the country since September 11th than ever in my life. In the past year and a half, I've been to New Orleans, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Champagne/Urbana, Boston, DC, Baltimore, Vegas, Southern California, and I see protests all over the place. I see people not buying into it. Now I can't say I've been all across mid-America, but just the fact that you have people questioning it in middle America is important. People write me from different places. If people are questioning even a little bit, that's a big thing. And I hope to do a strip on that soon. I try to urge cowboys and people like that to protest the war, because every cowboy that protests is like worth 30 or 40 hippies in San Francisco.

P: What if the Democrats don't get their asses in gear and Bush gets re-elected?

K: I don't think that's going to happen. I really don't think that's going to happen. In fact, I see Bush being challenged by another Republican for the nomination, because I truly believe that Bush is bad for the Republicans.

P: Well, they seem to be enjoying the power they have.

K: That's because they have it all planned out - I'm sure they had a four year plan because they didn't think it would last. In fact, I'm sure they had a two-year plan, because they didn't think they'd win all this stuff. And the Democrats are just spineless jellyfish, you know? People need to step up. The person I admire most at the moment is Ryan, the Republican governor from Illinois who just pardoned all those people. Him and the former New Mexico governor who said, "The drug war is bullshit." He said "I did cocaine in college and I know why it should be illegal, but pot shouldn't be illegal," and stuff like that. He said, "that's why we have term limits, so I don't have to be worried about getting elected next time around." The guy had props - these guys are both Republicans - and I give them more props than a lot of other people. These guys understand that the guys in office are totally wrecking it for everybody who actually care about people who aren't rich.

P: Let's change the subject because it's a bit depressing.

K: It is. I've lost my hair because of it. I blame the Bush administration for losing my hair. I had dreds and now they're gone…

P: Just back from Chicago recently?

K: It was either October or November and I was on tour with Dave Eggers and They Might Be Giants reading my book and they were showing panels. It was great, it was in front of like a thousand people.

P: Those are some cool people to hang around with.

K: Yeah, who was it? Ira Glass, Dave Eggers, They Might Be Giants, Eddy Jo Cotton, the Trachtenberg Family Players - that girl was scarily sophisticated and smart.

P: Didn't you go back to school someplace?

K: Right, Champagne-Urbana. I did a guest residency for a week there and that was really great, that was really fun. They do this thing every year where the hippy dormitory has this guest in residence come and hang out for the week. They have a thing where they do workshops every night. I did one on race representation and youth, one on how to be a cartoonist or just look like one, I did one basically introducing my work. And then you leave your door open during the day and students can come by and talk to you. It was great. It was like flashing back to being in college again. It was the same exact thing, except this time I didn't get in trouble for not going to class. What was really cool was that I got to take advantage of all the things you get in college. Only in college do you get exposed to so many great things. In that same week Angela Davis was speaking and another former Black Panther, and it wasn't even Black History Month. They served lobster in the dorm cafeteria. And at the same time they were redoing Soldier Field so the Bears were practicing on campus, and they were playing the New England Patriots. I'm from Boston so I was at the bar cheering them on and the Patriots came back 21 points in the last quarter, and I was drunk hanging out with all these Chicago people. It was great. I said I was ready to come back whenever they wanted, but there's a two year limit, so they'll have me back, but not for two years. But I've been doing more and more college speaking engagements. My next college will be in Ann Arbor, Michigan in February.

P: So you make your entire living from cartooning these days?

K: If you combine all the projects, the freelance, the books, the appearances, the speaking engagements, I'm able to make a modest living.

P: Is this what you thought you'd be when you grew up?

K: Oh yeah. I actually envy people who didn't know what they wanted when they were younger. Because it was all laid out for me. And it's still laid out. I would obviously like to expand and do more. I'd eventually like to do a daily strip and do television and film, different stuff. Slowly but surely it's happening. But nothing ever surprised me. I got married - that surprised me. Even so, when I met her I said, "That's probably the woman I'm going to marry."

P: What's the best part of professional cartooning?

K: I guess the hours. I get up and I go play tennis first. That's the first thing I do in the morning, although I wouldn't even say it's morning. For most people it's well into the day. 10:30 or whatever. The looseness of that and I don't lose sight of that I'm doing what I've always done and I'm getting paid for it. I'm not getting paid much for it, but still…

P: There's certainly a momentum to it. Building up steam in certain areas.

K: Sure, but unfortunately now that we're in a recession I just got dropped by three papers right after Christmas. But it feels like things happen right in the nick of time. Right before quarterly taxes - I have to pay quarterly taxes - something happens and I'm alright.

P: What's the worst part?

K: I'm my own worst boss. If I had someone on me, like really on me, that'd be cool. Probably say the second thing is the whole money aspect. I wish money wasn't such an important part of everything. If I could travel and have my food paid for I'd be okay. That's what I eventually want to do is review restaurants and cities and such by cartoons and get paid to go some place and do that. That would be my ideal thing. When I first went to New Orleans I did this comic about the food there and this one restaurant. And I guess someone sent the comic to the owner of the restaurant's father, and then he sent it to the owner and when I went in there again they were excited and gave me food. I thought, "This is it." So that was really exciting. I have these different goals I want to hit this year about expanding stuff - I want to do greeting cards and different things. Because there are always strips that I think "That would make a great Christmas card. I caught this one guy at Kinko's who was making a Christmas card out of one of my comic strips. He was making a flier for his Christmas party and I was looking at it, and I said, "I did that." He said, "Oh really?" and he was wondering if I'd punch him out. He invited me to his party and there was all this Indian food laid out, it was really fun. So, as long as I get free food and free travel then I'm good.

P: How many years has the Marginal Prophets been together?

K: Eight years, maybe nine. We started out as two rappers and a producer. And went for a while with just our DAT machine playing shows, which probably would have been the best way to go to Europe that way. Some friends of ours, the Mystic Journeymen, do their shows that way, and now they go over all the time. But we've got a full band now, so it's harder to pull that stuff off. We're playing with the Coup and Deep Dick Collective next month, so that's really cool.

P: How many states have you guys toured?

K: California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, that's it. We haven't been too far.

P: But you've been overseas?

K: No. But I tell you, we played the day after Christmas at the Red Devil Lounge and this guy showed up from Germany. He had picked up our CD at a second hand store in Germany and just happened to be in the city when we were playing the show, so he was really excited. In weird ways we always have some European person at our shows saying "You should come to Germany." I've had three of my strips developed into short films that played at film festivals in Germany. It's given me more love of the US. I was in a museum in France in January or February, and they take over the whole town with comics. And I was on the wall there, they blew up my comics really big. I just got pictures - I couldn't afford to go, which is really sad. And I had a documentary done on me in England, it ran on Channel 4 - the cool station. I get the love overseas… That's the thing. I just love being able to create art and survive. I'm not saying that I don't like having lots of money, but just the fact that you're able to go on to the next thing and worry about all this stuff - everyone should be able to do what they want to do. Not have to sit there and say, "Oh I used to do that, but now I can't so I work this shitty job." How can you do that and not go crazy?

P: What's your favorite part of gigging?

K: Playing the shows themselves. I think that's the best part of being in a band is playing the shows. For every great show there are five bad shows, but it's still worth it. There's no better drug - just jumping around on stage and acting like an idiot. It feeds another part of you - cartooning is such a solitary activity, staying cooped up doing your thing and then you put it out there. Whereas playing live is immediate and you're working with other people. So the collaborative thing feeds another part. Feeds the ego, I guess.

P: How different is gigging in San Francisco now than it was five years ago?

K: The demise of venues, the demise of people wanting to go out and see new music, and the rise of the cover band - everyone wanting to go see bad 70s cover bands, and now wanting to see bad 80s cover bands - it's just been hard to see. Seeing places close, like the Paradise Lounge - look, I don't like to say, "Oh it was so much better back in the day," but it was. It's actually better to be from San Francisco and play in another town than it is to play in San Francisco. Every time we're on the road, people ask, "Can we come to San Francisco and play a gig with you guys?" and we say, "You don't even want to play SF. If you're going to come and play San Francisco, then just come here for a vacation and see the city. Don't come here thinking you're going to play a great gig." There aren't very many good places to play.

P: But when you guys started off, though, there was an interesting scene in the early 90s and it was a lot easier to play because there were fewer bands. Have we come full circle or are we going to come full circle? Are people going to start seeing music again?

K: Hopefully. There were a lot more bands back then. People went out to see gigs. I think it all goes in circles, and people will start coming out again. There was an energy an energy to it and I remember playing so many different places with so many types of bands. We used to play with the Swinging Utters. We even got put on this bill that was supposed to be rap-rock, but it was all heavy metal. It was at the Trocodero Transfer. We played a Live 105 show at the Shoreline [Amphitheater] with Fiona Apple, Violent Femmes, and Ben Harper [that] was really cool. We played with Cake. We played with them in a little café in Sacramento, then at Slim's, and then at Shoreline. Just a lot of different things like that, and there aren't as many gigs like that any more. It doesn't seem like places are open to mix unsigned bands and signed bands and things like that. But again, there's a whole different strategy you have to take to try to figure out what works.

P: What would be part of that strategy?

K: I think part of that would be the rise of the Web and downloading - we sell a decent amount off the Web. Also trying to get your stuff on to soundtracks or background music for something. We've got our stuff on TV - we got our stuff on Nash Bridges, which was cool. And that's a residual check that comes in. It's nice to have work that you've done that can give the band some sustainability. We just put out a bootleg of ourselves, we just sell that ourselves at shows - we don't have distribution for it or anything. And that's been cool. You just have to find a way to make it work for yourself.

P: What's your favorite club that's not around any more?

K: The Paradise Lounge for sure. It was centrally located, had three different spots to play, there was always a band playing. I used to work at the youth hostel and I would tell people, "Come by our show." Even if they didn't like us they were bound to like somebody else. That was a great place to see music. It was inexpensive.

P: That whole street [11th Street] is dead now.

K: Yeah, it's a shame that it like that now. Maybe it will bounce back one day. But maybe San Francisco is past its prime. Maybe it's time to find some other little place. Columbus, Ohio or some place like that.

P: So Hewlett-Packard comes to your band and says "We'll pay you $100,000 to use your band's song in a commercial.

K: It just depends on who it is, really. Well no, I [have] no qualms with that. I mean, if Shell Oil came to me, I couldn't do that. It really depends on who it is. I would really love Sharpie to come to me. I have this giant Sharpie and I have to send them a picture that says, "Look, I promote your stuff." There are certain companies that I totally love - In N' Out Burger, that'd be great. There are certain things that I'm totally down with - Dunkin' Donuts. I think they're the only people that can take out Starbucks. 'Cause they're all over - where I grew up there was a Dunkin' Donuts on every other block, and no one's got a problem with that. Their coffee is so good, but they stopped trying with the donuts a long time ago. It's the only coffee that I can drink - I don't drink coffee, but when I go home I get a coffee and a Boston Globe and I'm set. I've always said it, but they think I'm crazy, "You're the only ones that can take out Starbucks." Because they've got the common people thing, but Starbucks has their Vente and highbrow stuff. It'd be the clash of the titans, the common man versus the highbrow. I'd like to see that.

P: In our on-going discussion on selling out, I'm always trying to pin down where it crosses the line. Where does it go from being alright to being too much?

K: My deal is if you already have shit-loads of money, what's your motivation for doing that? But for somebody who doesn't have money and it's not something that's completely against their values - I could never do it for an SUV commercial. But I'm totally into robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. It's funny, we let our music be used for DIY or Die, which is this movie this guy made about do it yourself artists. And he gets it for free, because you rob from the rich and give to the poor. For every college gig that I do that I get paid for, I'll speak at high schools and grade schools for nothing. It's a balance.

P: It's a shame. Sting's become such a parody of himself, he's just so far removed from what he used to be, and when he sold that song to Nissan it was just the last straw. There was nothing left.

K: Speaking of music, just with Run DMC and the Clash, two bands that were going to be on the gigantic Keith Knight Tour From Hell. But that's not going to happen. It's a sad thing.

P: One last question: Has Lucas learned from Jackson? And what if Episode 3 sucks as bad as Episode 2?

K: I've actually given up. But I've been to every film on the first day. On that early night before thing where everybody's in costume, so I have to go to this one even though my expectations are so damn low. I wish he could beg Peter Jackson to direct it, that'd be so beautiful. But I don't think Lucas has learned anything. His ego is so big that he doesn't care what he should do, which is give it to somebody. He should look over all the stuff, all the comics and the books, find writers that he likes to take his ideas and do that, and then give it to a director that can direct. He's got actors and the money. Just go out on a high note, not an egotistical note. I just hope Attack of the Clones doesn't win for special effects. I'm just hoping Lord of the Rings can win.

P: Now we can move on. When we were kids we had Star Wars, and now we have Lord of the Rings. We don't have to pretend that Star Wars is going to be something else.

K: And there's the Matrix and X-Men 2. This year's going to be great.

P: We don't have to worry about Lucas anymore.

K: It hurts. But, you don't expect him to be on top of his game after 20 years. No one else is.

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