For years, artist Drew Friedman has chronicled a strange, alternate universe populated by forgotten Hollywood stars, old | dG1fOWVxRm5jQll6NGs
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 In a world where all hope is gone, a world turned upside down, one voice rises above
00:11 all other.
00:12 Hey, where are you going, Jew dots?
00:15 Come on, hey, show us one of your germs, Jew dots.
00:20 Drew Friedman, Vermeer of the Borscht Belt.
00:23 I don't only draw Jews, even though some people think I do.
00:27 Everything in real life is actually as full of personality as Drew's drawing.
00:32 Show business is always weird, and he's just looking at it, you know, as being weird.
00:37 I like drawing older people because you see the lives they've led, like, etched in their
00:41 faces.
00:42 Where you can see the flop sweat.
00:44 You see the guy's working the mic a little too hard.
00:49 And as a dumb 14-year-old from rural Canada, I was staring at this going, "Is this real?"
00:53 He's capturing them so accurately and with such affection, but then he's getting in a
00:59 little bit of a dig.
01:01 William Frawley and Desi Arnaz actually stripped nude and had this.
01:08 Drew's take on these characters is contemporary, even though it was about the past.
01:13 This is part of the fabric of my life, and many others, too.
01:18 Art Vonnegut, one of the few times I agreed with him, said about Drew that he was the
01:23 Goya of our time.
01:26 I think nostalgia is a poison, and I think nostalgia is a very, very dangerous thing.
01:30 Personally, I hate nostalgia.
01:33 It's one of the reasons I like Drew.
01:35 Nostalgia's an anagram for lost again, by the way.
01:37 I was so obsessed with Drew Friedman, I wanted to see a video of how does he draw that?
01:42 How does he do that?
01:43 Join Drew Friedman and a cast of thousands and Shemp.
01:48 Shemp, yeah.
01:51 It's all about Shemp.
01:52 Drew taught me to like Shemp.
01:54 Okay, that's what I do.
01:55 Yeah, Shemp was disturbing.
01:57 Drew Friedman, Vermeer of the Borscht Belt.
02:02 Coming soon.
02:03 I mean, all these people who say, "Oh, it's so bad, it's good," they can go fuck themselves.
02:07 You know, and that's a good pull point.
02:08 Put that on the poster.
02:09 Go fuck yourself.
02:10 The Vermeer of the Borscht Belt.
02:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]