Barry Crimmins and Bobcat Goldthwait revisit Crimmins’ traumatic childhood—rape at ages four and five—and his 1995 undercover expose of AOL’s pedophile chat rooms, which led to arrests after a year-long investigation. Crimmins condemns Disney for hiring convicted child molester Victor Salva to direct Powder, calling it a "pedophile movie," and rejects trigger warnings, advocating instead for confronting abuse head-on. Their documentary Call Me Lucky (inspired by unused footage from Fran Salamita’s film and backed by Robin Williams) explores his abuser’s lonely death in prison, blending raw survival with dark humor. Crimmins returns to stand-up via Kepler Speakers, while Goldthwait promotes the film’s release in NYC, D.C., Austin, and L.A., underscoring how art and activism collide when trauma meets comedy. [Automatically generated summary]
And then I went to Stitches and tried to maintain that.
But then, you know, I mainly became a comedy producer to get stage time and knew other comics needed stage time and also knew comics needed to be treated like someone when they walked into a joint house.
Because I'd been around the country and been treated like shit.
You stand in line.
You have 12 hours since you got in line and you get on for three minutes and then they tell you, you can't come back for three weeks.
And it's like, well, I fucking hitchhiked here and, you know, camping out to do comedy.
And now I can come back in three weeks.
Thanks.
And it's some gruff shithead with a clipboard who's nasty.
So anybody that walked in the ding, I tried to make sure they were treated well and given a fair chance.
And the thoughts that when we put our shows together, people who...
You feel like they're somebody, you're going to act like they're somebody and they're going to do a good job.
unidentified
I think the proof is in the remarkable amount of great talent that came out of there.
Well, the problem with those kind of sets is when they get those laughs, those guys are going to stay in the business like four extra years just based on that one night.
Yeah, there was a set at the Comedy Store where Joey Diaz went behind the stage There's a curtain in the original room at the Comedy Store and there's this woman who's on stage Who's just just whatever she doesn't have the gene just doesn't exist But she kept trying she was always there and it was one of those things But she would go on stage like midnight or something like that and she would mostly clear the room but She's on stage and Joey goes backstage behind the curtain and when she hits her punchlines He would open the curtain up and his pants would be down and
You know, and by the way, kids, when you walk on the stage and no one knows who the fuck you are, how about opening with a joke instead of going, hi, how are you?
Like that golden moment when you can fucking take the stage and get somewhere where they're going, like, wow, how did you think of that opening?
How about saying something funny and that's maybe pertinent to where you are that shows you're on the same planet as the audience, but you're the funny guy.
When I came up in Boston, what I was going to say, when I was talking about you getting on stage with the beer bottles, you had this thing that you represented when you would go on stage.
No need to qualify it, but there was a very distinctive...
Feeling a very distinct feeling when you got on stage like this is this is a serious person This is a guy who is a stand-up comedian a very funny person But this guy stands for shit the way it's this is this is this is what's right And this is what's wrong and when shit's wrong you pointed out and then you know I followed your career Through the time you did that the it was a cassette at the time I think with Randy Credico and who else was on it with you?
No, we got paid I always loved Billy But, you know, to me And I think, you know, it was It was reflective of the way Guys were speaking about you in the documentary That's, you were an important part Of that comedy community Because you were, you know I think comedy communities are only as strong as the strongest link.
You could say they're only as weak as the weakest link, but not really in comedy because there's always going to be open micers.
Essentially, there's a weird thing like you're not a comic until you're getting paid, but they're all comics.
We all were open micers and aspiring, whatever distinction you want to put in the beginning of it.
But the strongest member of the community is really where the community lies.
And that's where the standards are set.
And so you were a very, very important guy to me when I was coming up.
I was just trying to do what was right and I was trying to do what I wanted to be in the situation that, you know, I wanted to provide the situation that I wanted to be in myself.
And I was immediately rewarded for that with who came in and the blossoming of all that talent.
It worked.
It was great.
And we had a really nice run.
Sometimes, like, I don't want to...
You know, we've done enough Ding Ho reunions.
It's like going to your Little League reunion.
Well, we're a really good team, but we didn't even win the fucking championship, you know?
But it's great seeing all those people now and then and whatever.
But we really...
You know, we really did it together.
It was just a matter of just providing this sort of one opportunity.
And then, I did the same thing I wanted everybody else to do.
I developed at what I was good at.
What I was good at was talking about what was going on.
He was like, alright, because I said, you know, like, oh, there's a reason you're such a dick.
I was like, I've been betting on this all along, because he's going, like, everyone's going, like, Crimin is an alcoholic, and he could tell I would just use it as coolant, you know, it wasn't like I could turn up missing for days, it was just like, you know.
And that's a point that comes out in the film, and People, I would be telling friends about it, and they would be saying to me, well, have you talked to anyone about this?
Yeah, I fucking thought I was talking to you, man.
You know, I guess not.
Oh, I gotta go pay somebody $200 to be put on pharmaceutical dry ice until I stop talking about it.
That's your plan, right?
Well, listen, shithead, I'm gonna keep talking about it.
Not to you.
Goodbye.
You know, thank you for helping me edit my friends list.
My friend Tim Walco said about cocaine is how I feel, too.
It's like...
You know, I don't like to do, I don't like to stay up, I don't do coke, I don't like to stay up late and complain about my Little League coach.
So, I was never a coke guy, and you know, in Boston it was bad.
I wasn't a coke guy, but I used to say to people, if you want to get high, I'll get some acid.
You know, and see if we're looking for the dealer at midnight, you know, because I'll reach into my little drug pocket in my jeans and pull out another ten hits if we need them, you know, but we don't, and you won't.
Yeah, like an oil well would blow up and you'd go in and it's like, oh the fuck, is it going to go in here and deal with it?
When someone would be bumming out on acid, I would get the call, they're bumming out.
And in those days, in the early 70s, If they bum out, then they could end up going to the doctor, a hospital, or whatever, and then suddenly they're blathering, they'll turn in everybody, and nobody's doing anything.
We just all got some acid.
One person got the acid, but they weren't a drug dealer.
They were just the obtainer of the acid, you know, but that's who gave it to me, and that person could end up in fucking Attica or something.
So...
I would get these calls from people like they're freaking out, and I got this reputation for being good at helping people who are freaking out doing acid, and I would go in and go like, okay, what'd they do?
They did these.
How many did they do?
They split one.
Give me two.
I've got to get in there quick.
And I would get in there, and then I would, like, have them laughing in a while, and, like, I would do stuff like, get me a Temple Orange, just get me one, you know?
I'd, like, eat this, wow, isn't it?
See?
It's okay.
You're on a planet that these things grow from trees.
It's an amazing place.
Put on an album.
What do you like?
Come on.
There's an old Joni Mitchell.
See those things?
I know what's freaking you out.
Those hieroglyphics you think are almost words, but you can't quite read them, and now you're getting frustrated.
No, it's just a cool thing.
It's like looking at a beautiful Egyptian crypt carving thing or something.
Obviously you can't read Egyptian, but you kind of get the point they were making.
Don't worry about it.
It'll be an hour later, we're all laughing, and the next morning we're at breakfast, and it's cool.
But that's when I was the Red Adair of LSD. Is freaking out on acid like freaking out on mushrooms where you're just trying to control it and you get scared of the experience where it's taking you and you try to resist?
I mean, we just kind of, someone was in some sort of trouble and they needed somewhere to put it and then they disappeared and we just sort of inherited it and it was like, you know, I don't know.
And then everybody just left with like baggies.
They weren't even baggies then, but just like fill up your pockets with ass and go...
And I finally just sort of noticed, cut myself a break, you know, I've taken enough of a, you know, I've been through enough shit, and it just soothes me to be there with, you know, with a dog, and I just love the terrain, and it's so verdant there.
I mean, I love it out here.
It's so great to come here, especially to see my friends like you two doing so great and having succeeded.
It's a completely different It's a good thing to come to LA now than it was when I first came to LA and we were all trying to get our foot in the door.
But it's really nice.
It's serene.
And it's a really nice place to sort of rake myself into a pile and my thoughts into a pile and then distribute them and reflect.
And come, I want to have something to say, but be perfectly fine for being missing for a week or two at a time.
So when 2000 rolled around, I guess, you decided to just, once the internet started kicking in, you made a conscious choice to try to go somewhere that's a little bit more peaceful?
Me and Kaz and I are going to, Paul Kozlowski and I are going to do it, and it's going to be called Over to the Podcast, which is the upstate, the defeated tone.
People buy his art, and then we're trying to get the podcast going, but he's been pretty busy because he's been swamped with art orders, and I've been pretty busy.
Well, yeah, man, you could easily do a podcast up there, and if you ever do, please do let me know, and I'd be happy to promote it, and I would listen to it every week.
I didn't want to do that thing in documentaries where they have the triumphant return, because that's always...
It feels very cooked.
But I just wanted to show that Barry was alive and still relevant, and that's why.
And it ended up being great.
It was Bradley Stonese for the DP who suggested it.
And it ended up really good because Barry ended up narrating a good portion of the movie from the stage, you know?
Like when he says, you know, we went back, we went to that basement where...
Where I was raped as a kid, you know, that was not something that was cooked.
It was something that I was going to film the space where these things happened because I thought that would be powerful and I didn't want to do reenactments.
So they're playing it dumb with me because one nut is bothering them and they just, well, thank you for your being a good citizen of the AOL community, but we have to balance in, as Bob noticed, our corporate growth along with First Amendment rights.
Are you fucking kidding me?
These people are exchanging pictures of children being raped.
There's no First Amendment right.
I don't give a fuck about your corporate growth.
Fuck you.
Keep it up.
And then right before they asked me to testify, or when I was already invited to testify two days before, AOL contacts me and says, you know, would you like to get together and meet?
They were going to come up with the bribe.
And I went, you know what?
I'm going to see you Tuesday at the hearing or whatever day it was.
So Barry, after Barry testified, he wrote an article in the Boston Phoenix that I thought, and this was in 95, and I thought it read like a Frank Capra movie.
Yeah, it's not in the movie, but he had given the evidence over to the feds, and the reason it's not in the movie is that there was arrests that were made directly because of the stuff that Barry had handed over, but the feds weren't interested in being in the movie, I think, because Barry kind of did their job for them.
So, where is he?
So, he begged me to make the movie.
No, so...
So I thought, this reads like a Frank Capra movie, and I asked Barry to write a screenplay, but this was right when you just said he had lost 100 pounds, and I was like going, Barry, this article you wrote for The Phoenix is tremendous.
It's a crazy thing that when you were doing this, it's sort of analogous to how people got away with pedophilia and how they got away with child molesting back in the day, because it was something that was almost, it was just pushed aside.
And so it was a hard time for me because, you know, here was Barry and I saw how ill he got and I was making Police Academy 4. It was really taken away from my time on the set.
But there's parts in the movie that my daughter has a problem with because the one is the basement because it looks like I asked him to or kind of manipulated him.
It's so evil, too, because the girl that was involved as well, the babysitter that lured you in and brought the guy over, and then the girl was trying to stop your sister from getting away.
Well, that's like when Barry was in the basement, you know.
And to me, what he says there is very...
You know, it proves that he's not living in it, that he's bringing the message back to the tribe, you know, very Joseph Campbell kind of stuff, you know, that's the, you know, the end, it's a great fourth act.
And so he says, he says to me, he goes, I totally blacked out.
I don't know what I said.
Is any of it, thinking about the movie, which is very sweet, he goes, was any of that usable?
And I said, I don't know.
I'm playing yackety sax the whole time you're down in that basement.
He goes, yeah, you can animate it.
But, you know, people get weirded out by that.
But how else are two guys that genuinely love each other?
But in any case, you know, I'm glad I went into that basement for a few reasons.
Number one was because other kids go in that basement.
I didn't want to We're good to go.
To say, any kid who's ever been in here or any kid who will ever be in here, I hope you have fun and you play with your friends and everything's okay and no one else ever gets hurt here.
Ever.
And that was really important to me.
And the other thing was I kind of, as silly as it sounds, as sort of crunchy granola as it sounds, In a way, well, I mean, I hadn't thought about that place for so long.
I wasn't going to walk up to the door and give it the kind of power that I couldn't walk in there.
I had every right to walk in there, and so I did.
And in a way, I walked in there, and I collected myself as a small child, and we all walked back up the stairs.
Beautiful thing in the movie where they talk about I'm walking up the stairs and then this county prosecutor from Cuyahoga County in Ohio says we've arrested over a thousand people for trading child pornography in Cuyahoga County and a lot of what he did is the basis of What's being done nationally about this heinous crime.
So, it's, you know, I mean, it's a fucking beautiful bow on like a ridiculous package.
And I'm, man, did we name the movie The Right Thing.
And they actually would attack someone who challenged them rather than someone coming in and going like, holy shit, someone sees what we're doing, scatter.
At least that would happen now.
At least they know they're in some sort of danger.
Back then, it was like, well, this is a natural progression of things.
And plus, I'm just reading these guys.
And, you know, I will read what my enemy writes.
So, like, I studied Nambla and what they have to say.
And these fucking people, if you're not familiar with Nambla, watch the movie Powder.
It basically puts the entire philosophy of Nambla into a film that Disney paid for that was directed by a convicted child molester.
The plot's victims of Clown House are three prepubescent brothers led by the debutante Sam Rockwell who spent their time running hysterically around the enormous surprise.
Nowadays, if you go to a meeting, you know, it's like 80% FBI agents, so enjoy yourself, Nambla, guys.
Remember the hilarious thing when they had a Nambla meeting at the San Francisco Library, and that film crew came in, and everybody walked out, like, crouching.
I mean, the register sex owner who'd recently been doing that was hired to make a film for Disney.
Selva's Disney film film was a straight potter, a freakishly intelligent albino boy with telepathic and telekinetic powers.
The film was marketed as a modern-day fairytale which starred such household names as Jeff Goldblum and was at the time decreed to be a sleeper hit after it cost $30 million worldwide, outstripping its modest $10 million budget.
Maybe the movie was made incrementally and whatever, so I'll give him a break.
But Disney should have fucking known.
Disney's whole business is based on kids, right?
So this is what the big kid studio, the fucking theme park people, they put this piece of shit out, and it's still sort of like honored as this critically acclaimed thing.
And I... I'm no guy who can...
Critics figure out shit that I'm not smart enough or I don't care enough to figure out.
They can follow avant-garde shit.
I don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
But this movie, I know the message better than anybody.
I know what it's about, and I know who they're appealing to.
And they're putting their fucking horse shit in our face and asking us to like it.
I vaguely recollect that this was an issue that someone had brought up to me before, but I never investigated it, or maybe it was in conversation at the comedy store or something like that, and I never looked into it, but goddammit, this is fucking crazy.
I would show him that my personal revenge would be to behave decently towards him and even advocate for him to be in a situation confined and segregated from any possibility of being near children.
Where he was treated in a humane fashion.
And if he weren't, I would tell him he could tell me and I would do something about it because I became a human rights activist and not a rapist, not a human rights offender.
And so you didn't win.
The light that was extinguished in you was never extinguished in me.
Well, you're a very strong person to go that path and to go that route and that's indicative of who you became and that's one of the reasons I think, ironically, like why you became such a strong leader and this powerful person is because you overcame something un-fucking-bearably traumatic very early in your life and you developed this intense sense of right and wrong.
There's a lot of what's sold to abuse survivors that I think is horseshit and that's basically they get quote-unquote empowered and I hate that word because it takes the strength out of the word power.
What sounds more like power?
Power or empowered?
Empowered is like making them wear Birkenstocks or something.
So I'm not that big on empowered.
But they, like, I did my friend Sam Cedar's podcast a couple weeks back, and he said, I don't want to give away what the movies are.
I said, listen, man, it's not that kind of movie, and it hinges largely on the fact that I survived rapes as a child.
Well, I heard from several people who said, you know, you really should have had a trigger warning on there, and it's like, What the fuck do you think I was doing?
What the fuck do you think I was doing when I said it hinges largely?
I was warning you that what it was about right there, but someone has empowered you to have a way to take issue with me because I'm not completely basing.
You know, the whole world isn't based around me.
Even though I got raped when I was four years old, everybody shouldn't be thinking in terms of that all the time because they've been through their own shit and they're dealing with their own shit and they're trying to survive.
So if I can make them more sensitive to this issue, if I can show them that it matters to them, that they deal with other people who have been through this kind of trauma and we want to reduce it as much as absolutely possible, that's good.
But after that, if I'm going to find a way to set up a situation where I'm always the injured party and I prove again and again that I'm persecuted and no one's thinking in terms of me, then I'm never going to get fucking healed.
I'm never going to get fucking healed.
And I try to help other people.
When I help other people, I realize how far along I've come.
And I realize there's really something in it for me to do that.
And it's not like I'm this altruistic guy.
It's like I'm saving my own life.
You know, like that AOL investigation that took such courage to do it.
No.
What would have taken courage was turning my back on those kids and walking away going, oh, I don't want to know what's going on in there.
How would I live with that guy?
How would I live with myself then?
But, you know, it was nice everyone said, oh, gee, what he went through when he was doing that investigation.
What about the kids in the fucking pictures?
That's what I want everyone to know about.
Thanks for caring about me, but it's the kids in the pictures I give a shit about.
It's the kids that are suffering right now.
Somewhere within the sound of my voice, someone, you know, I mean, in this broadcast, like, where this is on, someone in the next apartment or wherever, some kid is going through this shit.
Have the courage to know about it.
That's all I ask for you.
Have the courage to know about it.
And save the contemporary children.
So you don't have to deal with a bunch of fucking maniac abuse survivors when...
It just sets people up to stay in the pit, you know, to wallow.
It's empowering them to wallow.
Like, well, I've got hurt again because the whole society...
It's like, sorry about that shit, man.
But I'm telling you what, I know you're in a pit of your own shit.
I know you're used to the temperature and the smell of it doesn't...
You're used to that and it doesn't bother you that much anymore.
But when you stand up and they...
And then you go in the house and take a real shower and put on some clean clothes, you're not gonna believe how much better you feel!
So stop letting other people tell you that you have to expect the world to do the impossible and let's be telepathic about what the fuck you've been through!
Get to the point where you can stand up and tell them the story yourself when it's appropriate.
And don't put up with anybody who is truly being insensitive or snickering about any of this shit.
Fuck people who tell me.
People walk up to me all the time and tell me, like, well, you know, the good thing is those guys get arrested, you know, and Bubba will take a hit.
It's like, you're endorsing rape to me?
You're fucking endorsing rape to me, motherfucker?
I don't want anyone raped ever.
Not even raping.
Rape is illegal.
How about making jails lawful places?
How about that for an idea?
How about someone going to jail and realizing the law protects me sometime?
I'm not going to be raped.
I'm not going to be menaced here.
I'm going to...
And maybe they will start thinking about getting reformed.
But Jesus Christ, don't joke to me about rape.
Don't tell me you want them all killed and sweep them under that rug.
Because I was born without blood on my hands.
I don't want any fucking blood on my hands now, man.
So don't...
Guess!
These stupid ass fucking lightweight things and presume I'm going to sign off on them.
Because I don't want anyone else ever raped and if it happens, even if it's of a rapist, I'm opposed to it.
Now this is a difficult, this is a difficult thought, and this is a difficult subject, but did you, after this was all said and done, horrendous moment in your life, many moments in your life, did you try to figure out what would create a person like the guy who did that to you?
One of the things that you covered in the film that I thought was really a very powerful moment where you talked about this thing that you didn't become him, that you maybe if your sister didn't come down there and catch...
I don't think I'm as nuts and bolts as you are, because I listen to you and I know what detail you go into.
So I understand how and what you're asking.
But I can't be...
There's enough of me that's been through enough that I can't be quite as thorough as you're asking me to be to answer that.
I get as close as I can, and I understand what happened, but then after that point, I'm not one of them, and I can't go far enough to say, well, then, of course, if you get past this point right here, then obviously this is the...
And help mold me, you know, because I met him when I was 16. Right.
So it's, you know, making a movie that's not a work of fiction with someone you love that you want them to like when it's done and you want people to like the movie and him for the same reason you like him.
It was hard.
It wasn't, you know, like people will talk about making a movie and they say that was hard.
No matter what, I never think, you know, but seeing that these are real people, I don't want to embarrass anyone.
No, I mean, I felt like I had told it a lot, and I felt like the trail was there and people could find it.
This is like the dream that it gets told this way.
But I didn't expect it.
I didn't presume it.
And I was completely honored and flattered that it was done, and then it was done so well.
But, you know, I mean, like, part of me doesn't give a fuck about my story.
I mean, I just, like, I, like...
I've learned as I grow up, I've learned not to take life personally.
You know, I'm just part of it.
And so, I don't expect it to stop for me and do it.
But it has in this sense because Bob stopped it and got the footage and sequenced it and put it together and thought these brilliant ways to approach it and then made this beautiful picture.
I mean, really, If it wasn't about me, I mean, I would be out crusading to get people to watch this.
It just seems immodest at this point, you know, because it's about me.
I mean, I'm trying to hang in there, but it's like I read this shit out.
P-T-G-O-T-R-S-H-U. Half hour later, I'm going like, putting on other shoe?
What the fuck?
You've got time to tell me you're putting on your other shoe, but you're in such a hurry, you've got to abbreviate it so I can't figure out what the fuck?
So I have to be calm enough to try to convey this.
I have a great new speakers bureau called Kepler Speakers in New York.
If you want me to come talk to you, I will for a fee.
And I'm going out and doing a bunch of shows and getting ready and I would like to, you know, I think there might be like kind of a valedictory performance.
And then I might be kind of done.
You know, maybe just find a little spot, a little lady, settle down in the country, and relax.
So, my opening act was Up Chuck the Clown, and he's driving me around the grounds in a golf cart, and the juggalos are getting out of the way, like, who are the millionaires?
So, this juggalo...
Runs up, runs alongside the golf cart, and then just starts punching the fuck out of Upchuck.
The same company that put that out said, when I said, hey, I want to make a movie about this guy, and it's about his child abuse, they were going, fine.