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The Chosen Ones: An Interview With Jeff Feuerzeig

The documentarian with a cult following on his new film about literary persona JT LeRoy, his love of Tom Wolfe’s books, and why he’s drawn to Yom Kippur

by
Periel Aschenbrand
September 09, 2016
David Newsom
Jeff Feuerzeig. David Newsom
David Newsom
Jeff Feuerzeig. David Newsom

The Chosen Ones is a weekly column by author and comedian Periel Aschenbrand, who interviews Jews doing fabulous things.

A few months ago, I got an email from Jerry Stahl. “My friend and fellow Jew Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary, “Author”—the story of JT LeRoy and his secret creator (and Jew) Laura Albert—is premiering in a couple weeks, and I thought you might want to check it out.”

I like it when Jews hand me other Jews, and even though I’m the furthest thing there is from a film critic, I would literally do anything Jerry Stahl tells me to do. Plus, I figured: How bad could it be?

Turns out, not that bad.

Feuerzeig is an award-winning director and non-fiction filmmaker best known for—or, I posit, he was until now—The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary about a manic-depressive musician, for which he won top directing honors at Sundance in 2005.

Feuerzeig’s following is almost cultish, so it make a lot of sense that his latest film, Author: The J.T. Leroy Story, which opens this weekend, is about Laura Albert. If you’re even partially alive, you probably know that Albert is the author of the Sarah, “a novel of truck stop prostitution set among the diesel fumes of a West Virginia highway,” which she published in 2000 under the nom de plume JT LeRoy. Years ago, finding out Jeremiah “Terminator” Leroy, an artistic persona with a background of vagrancy, didn’t actually exist was the literary equivalent of discovering the tooth fairy is made up.

It’s worth noting that you should watch this film for many reasons, not the least of which is that you will get to hear the best voicemail, maybe ever, in which Courtney Love tells JT to call her back at such-and-such hotel where she is checked in under the pseudonym “Mrs. A.F. Right,” as in Mrs. Always Fucking Right. (I’m totally changing my name.)

As I understand it, Albert was approached by several people wanting to tell the JT LeRoy story, but she turned them all down and chose Feuerzeig because, as she told The Los Angeles Times, “’he was Jewish and he was punk rock,’ which, she said, meant he rejected certain societal norms.”

My meeting with Jeff confirmed for me that Albert is not only a masterful storyteller, but also a very good judge of character. Feuerzeig’s knowledge of music, literature, history, and New Journalism (a genre in which his work is firmly rooted) is encyclopedic. Half the time we spoke I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but he was considerate enough to talk slowly for me—a mere mortal unfamiliar with, say, Japanese Psych music or Super Fuzz Big Muff (Mudhoney’s first album).

I caught up with Jeff on a very, very hot summer day in NYC. He was wearing a hat.

Periel Aschenbrand: I never understood what the big deal with Laura Albert was. It’s like, okay, so she created this character. She’s an artist. That’s what she’s supposed to do.

Jeff Feuerzeig: Have you seen [my] film?

PA: No. I didn’t want to watch it before I met you.

JF: You might change your mind. You might not. My interest is not to moralize. I like the viewers to think for themselves. I never underestimate their intelligence.

PA: I usually take the opposite approach when I’m writing—I never overestimate their intelligence.

[Feuerzeig looks at me.]

PA: I’m kidding!

JF: I don’t know what the long-term effects are [of all this social media], but why do we all have to watch Breaking Bad?

PA: Are people trying to make you feel badly that you haven’t seen Breaking Bad?

JF: We all have a choice, we have freedom of choice. I’m not going to make someone feel guilty that they aren’t familiar with Flower Travellin’.

PA: With what?

JF: It’s a Japanese Psych band. It’s so hard to make something perfect. Spacemen 3 is the perfect prescription.

PA: What else?

JF: Chuck Wepner, Andre the Giant wresting a bear, old American weirdness, that’s what’s gone. I could give you a whole list.

PA: Please do.

JF: Josh Alan Friedman. He wrote Black CrackerWhen Sex Was Dirty and Tales of Times Square. Harry Crews, who was like Florida’s Bukowski. Brett Morgen. Kubrick. Woody Allen.

PA: Keep going.

JF: Phil Spector was pretty awesome before he killed someone.

PA: Semantics.

JF: “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Gay Talese. The Right StuffMauve Gloves & Mad Men, Clutter & Vine, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby…

PA: You like Tom Wolfe.

JF: I’m a huge fan.

PA: Tell me more.

JF: Jeffrey Lewis’s Fuff. He’s a comic book artist. Ringolevio by Emmet Grogan. Seymour Krim, the lost beat. Norman Mailer. Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife. Nick Tosches.

PA: What by Nick Tosches?

JF: All of Nick Tosches.

PA: Why are you wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Marvin Gaye on it?

JF: I’m working on a new film. I’m like a method writer. I like to go deep into these rabbit holes. It’s so fun to go there and disappear. I love making these films. That is the greatest gift in the world.

PA: That and being Jewish, of course.

JF: Culturally, I identify with Judaism—the angst, humor, and self-loathing that comes with it. And the mom that came before it.

PA: That’s nice. That’s what every Jewish mother likes to hear. Can you tell me what your favorite drink is?

JF: Red wine or craft beer, paired with good food. I love to go to the farmer’s market and cook dinner for my family.

PA: How do you eat your eggs?

JF: Eggs are huge. I’m very specific.

PA: That doesn’t surprise me.

JF: I’m all about the loose scramble with a little bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano. I don’t like hard-boiled or over-easy. The French know how to do eggs.

PA: How do you drink your coffee?

JF: Dark-brewed. With a little half and half.

PA: What’s your favorite Jewish holiday?

JF: Oh boy, that’s a tough one. I always liked the idea of Yom Kippur—the atonement of sin, putting bread in a body of water—as opposed to schlepping to church.

PA: Did you have a bar mitzvah?

JF: Yes.

PA: What did you wear?

JF: A mauve three-piece suit.

PA: Oh, that is so good. What shampoo do you use?

JF: Some organic thing, I don’t know.

PA: Gefilte fish or lox?

JF: There’s no comparison. I’m all about lox. It’s the Jewish sushi, baby. Jews invented sushi!

PA: Five things in your bag right now?

JF: It’s a little empty right now. I have the new Lou Reed bio, the essential USB charger, which I can’t leave home without. Some Valerian root, to relax the muscles—nature’s valium. And I always carry a Kind Bar with me.

PA: What flavor?

JF: Coconut almond.

PA: Favorite pair of shoes?

JF: Adidas “Skateboarding” gold suede with three Black stripes. I just picked them up and I’m loving them.

PA: You also seem to like hats.

JF: I have many, many hats.

PA: What is the one you are wearing now?

JF: This is from Bailey of Hollywood. It has, what is called, a stingy brim. My face rejects other hats.

Periel Aschenbrand, a comedian at heart, is the author of On My Kneesand The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own.