JOHN WILSON Talks Concrete, Getting Jumped, and Avatar

John Wilson (0:00)

The Adam Friedland Show The Adam Friedland Show The Adam Friedland Show The festival that I was at set up a concrete walking tour of Warsaw, and we went to this one neighborhood. They were like, you know, this is a Jewish neighborhood, and it was leveled, and when they rebuilt it, they used the ground up bones of the Jews to make the concrete. But then they added another really off-color comment where they were like, rumor has it that people live in these buildings will often see the ghosts of Jewish people when they're going to sleep, but only if they're late on the rent.

Adam Friedland (0:41)

What?

SPEAKER_3 (0:42)

I was like, this is like the most classic anti-Semitism. No, I was like, man.

Adam Friedland (1:21)

My guest this week is filmmaker John Wilson. John's new film, The History of Concrete, is in theaters now. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, user NET says, Five stars, avatar, colon, the way of the water is pure cinematography. The visual effects, the setting, the action for me is perfection. Definitely one of my favorite movies. Sadly, Ms. T has yet to review The History of Concrete.

But Annie, take this as your sign to watch the film. It's great. And if you're in Denver, Colorado, please come and see me at ComedyWorks Downtown, the 22nd to the 24th of October. And next month, November 13th, I'll be at Town Hall, New York Comedy Festival, The Big One. Please enjoy my conversation with John Wilson.

SPEAKER_3 (2:12)

Oh, wow. How are you? You doing well?

Adam Friedland (2:17)

Just like that. We're starting.

SPEAKER_3 (2:19)

Like that?

Adam Friedland (2:19)

Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_3 (2:20)

Okay.

Adam Friedland (2:21)

We do, like, if you want, we do like a Ba-Ba-Boo-We kind of like interview thing, like Howard on E. Okay. If you want, we follow you down the hallway with a camera. Oh, no, that's okay.

John Wilson (2:32)

I don't think we need that.

Adam Friedland (2:34)

I don't want to start here, but you obviously have a connection to great American tragedy, terrorist tragedy, a story which I believe is-

John Wilson (2:45)

I can't believe you're bringing this up.

Adam Friedland (2:47)

Is the greatest story anyone has ever told me. John, the way you told me the story too, I forgot where we were. John and I have met numerous times.

You meekly said, I was a victim of the Boston Bomber, which is the best way to phrase it.

John Wilson (3:05)

Well, by one of his good friends.

Adam Friedland (3:09)

It wasn't Tamerlin Tsarnaev, I thought.

John Wilson (3:12)

Yeah. I don't know where you want to start with this story.

Adam Friedland (3:17)

To back up, John says- Yeah. What do you think happened? He says, I was a victim of the Boston Bomber. I said, you were in the Patriots Day bombing, and you said no.

I was assaulted by-

John Wilson (3:30)

I was assaulted by his best friend in 2009, 2010, maybe.

Yeah. It was very odd. I was living in Cambridge in Massachusetts at the time, and I was just out for a night with a bunch of friends, and we were in a 7-Eleven parking lot, and this guy got out of his car because one of my friends hit the back of his car because he almost hit us. And then he got out and just started beating all of us up.

Adam Friedland (4:12)

Wait, one guy?

John Wilson (4:14)

There were two guys, but the main guy.

Adam Friedland (4:16)

Of course, he was a trained boxer, so I'm just putting that out there.

John Wilson (4:19)

Yeah, he was an MMA. We later found out that he was like a really big MMA guy.

Adam Friedland (4:25)

Oh, Tamerlan's friend?

John Wilson (4:27)

Tamerlan's friend. Okay. Yeah. So he punched me in the face, and then punched another friend, gave him a fat lip, and there were just like eyeglasses everywhere. It was embarrassing. But then the guy in 7-Eleven calls the cops on him, and then the cops come immediately and pull him over like a block away. And then he tries to assault a police officer, and then they pepper spray him and arrest him.

And then I'm getting like calls from the Boston Police Department, Cambridge Police Department, for months afterwards asking if I want to like press charges against him.

Adam Friedland (5:11)

And you dropped the charges.

John Wilson (5:12)

And I said, no, I don't care.

Adam Friedland (5:14)

So it's yours.

John Wilson (5:15)

And so, but then like the final call I get from the cops is that the case has been dropped, because the guy that beat us up was murdered. And they couldn't tell us anything else, you know? And then fast forward like a few months later, and it turned out that he was murdered by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, allegedly, you know, like throat slit.