jackassworld

In honor of The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia’s west coast coming out party this Saturday, June 27th, at the Los Angeles Film Festival, we are once again featuring a figurehead in the production of the documentary. The first was Priya Swaminathan, the Director of Development at Dickhouse and TWWWWV* Executive Producer, who spent most of her interview making fun of Jeff Tremaine. The next was Storm Taylor, a metrosexual hillbilly turned documentary maker. This last one is with Julien Nitzberg, the Director of TWWWWV, who not only “discovered” the Whites but also introduced us to Mr. Merlin. Yes, that Mr. Merlin. Anyway, here’s Julien in his own responded words. Ger er done.

Who the hell are you, how old are you, and where are you from?

I’m Julien Fucking Nitzberg. I’m 43. I grew up in the same place as Grandmaster Flash, Jake LaMotta, Stanley Kubrick and the Son of Sam—the beautiful Bronx.

How did you first get involved with Jesco White?

I met Jesco White in 1989. I was shooting a documentary about Boone County’s legendary psychobilly singer Hasil Adkins. During a concert, a cat fight broke out and an amazing woman with a voice like thunder broke it up—that was Mamie White. She was on acid and told me I had to come over to her house for her birthday because she was going “to have a cake with tits and a pussy on it.” I do love cake so I went. That’s where I met her brother Jesco. I thought he was amazing and returned a few weeks later with a borrowed camera and shot the first footage of him. That footage became the basis for Dancing Outlaw.

We occasionally had a few “camera off” moments during production on jackass the movie and jackass number two. Did you have any of those while making The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia or was it pretty much a free for all on tape?

There were occasional moments when illegal things were being done when I was told to turn off the cameras. But mostly everything illegal ended up on tape. And everything else non-illegal also.

Can you give me a few good examples of some Boone County slang/expressions?

“I’ll cut your eye down” is a popular one when someone is pissed. Lots of people like to “hunch” on each other, which is kind of like humping. “Get er done” is used every third sentence. Jesco changed it to “Have er done.” Derek changed it to “Get her drunk, then get er done.” “Fit” is the past tense of “fight.” Charlie likes to call his wife Mousie White “retarded fuck” as a term of affection. Jesco calls Maker’s Mark “Marker’s Mark,” which does sound more poetic. Morel mushrooms are called Molly Moochers. Certain pills are called, for some reason, “nervies” and “painers.” Les White likes to yell “Call the Law!” at random times and calls everyone, regardless of gender, “Judy.” They also add “kindly” to sentences such as, “I kindly told him I’d slice his head off and take a shit down his motherfucking throat.”

How many hours of footage did you have to cut back before you got down to the final cut?

We shot 560 hours of footage and most of it was golden. Somehow we got that down to 86 minutes. In my ideal world, I’d like to have a room where people could go and watch the uncut footage 24 hours a day and get a sense of what it was like. Or it would be great to have a telephone hot-line where you can call in and get a White fix like Dial-a-Joke.

If you were to go back to Boone County now, would you need to wear a disguise?

I think most people in Boone still like me for some odd reason. But I might wear a disguise for fun. Hobo disguises are always fun. Or Jolly Green Giant!

People often ask if there’s anything Johnny Knoxville is genuinely scared of and I say, “Yes. Mr. Merlin.” Why is that?

Knoxville is scared of Mr. Merlin because he is so sexually attracted to him and wants to be his slave. I don’t know why Knoxville can’t just admit he wants Mr. Merlin to shove painful objects up his penis hole instead of getting on a motorcycle, wrecking it, and making it look like an accident as a way to get the same result.

What’s up next for The Beastly Bombing, you little librettist?

My musical, The Beastly Bombing just played Amsterdam with Mr. Merlin reprising his role as President Dodgeson. We’ve been approached about productions in Berlin and Hamburg. And I’m still waiting to make the movie! Knoxville could make a good white supremacist!

I’ve seen some pretty funny/bizarre/weird shit in my time, like a midget peeing in the mouth of another midget, but I’m guessing you’ve seen more—much more. Can you give me a for instance?

Well… I’ve seen a male midget peeing on Jeff Tremaine dressed as Batman on a school bus, does that count? And I’ve seen a squirter (I hired) squirt on Jeff Tremaine. And two pre-op trannies lap dance Jeff Tremaine. It seems Jeff Tremaine is involved in all the weird shit I’ve seen.

“This is my happening and it freaks me out!” Who said that?

Z Man, of course! And he/she is a sexy motherfucker.

* Note: This either looks like some crazy, drugged-up Roman numeral or the proposed buzzword for the fourth World War, but I for one am sick of typing out this goddamn long movie name.

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