MALE SPEAKER: And your hand shakes from Parkinson's?
THOM DEVITA: Yes, and you noticed my hand shaking?
MALE SPEAKER: And how long ago did Parkinson's set in?
THOM DEVITA: About a year and a half ago.
I was born with a central tremor.
A central tremor shakes when you pick something up.
Parkinson's stops when you pick something up.
When the Parkinson's stops, the central tremor immediately
takes over.
MALE SPEAKER: That got you all in.
THOM DEVITA: There's also another one.
You ever see somebody so scared they shake?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
THOM DEVITA: I asked this today of the neurologist, if
being scared could make your hands shake, if that was part
of a central tremor.
He says no, no, no, but that's another kind of tremor and he
had a name for it.
I forgot the name, but I think I got that also.
MALE SPEAKER: You have all the tremors?
THOM DEVITA: All the three tremors.
MALE SPEAKER: What are you scared of, you think?
THOM DEVITA: It's mental.
You don't know, the mind works without even you knowing it.
JOHN WYATT: Well, somebody else told me that Thom
actually moved to Newburgh, New York.
I know that he moved there, because his wife took an
engineering job for IBM.
When I got up there, he greeted me on the porch.
And I said to him, Thom, I'm shocked that you
moved out of New York.
You never were comfortable being outside of it.
And he said, but think about this.
I always lived a couple blocks from the Hudson River.
When I was a kid in Harlem, we lived near the Hudson River,
when I was on the Lower East Side, I wasn't far from it.
And then he pointed, and he said there it
is, two blocks away.
MALE SPEAKER: How long have you lived over here?
NICK BUBASH: Remember when we moved out of your apartment on
Fourth Street?
There was that one closet we'd never open, and you
said don't open it.
You remember that?
There was so much stuff.
Remember we had to hold the stuff, I think [INAUDIBLE]
held the stuff.
And then we slammed the doors of the truck real fast so it
wouldn't all fall out.
There was so much stuff.
We took the doors off the hinges, everything, because he
had made art out of everything.
And I drove the truck and Jenny went the wrong way.
Oh boy, it was crazy getting up here, but we did it.
SCOTT HARRISON: I mean, I'm sure he probably would have
preferred to stay in Manhattan his whole life, but that
didn't work out.
NICK BUBASH: Yeah, we took a train out.
You remember when Cliff Raven came?
SCOTT HARRISON: But he said if you're not in Manhattan, you
might as well be anywhere.
And Newburgh was anywhere.
ROBERT RYAN: It's definitely a pilgrimage.
I always feel great after I go.
Well, first you make an arrangement to go see him.
THOM DEVITA: Visits by referral only.
ROBERT RYAN: Once the dog mellows out and then you can
walk a little bit more freely around.
And he'll start to show you all this amazing art that he's
been making since he's moved up there, and probably even
before he was up there.
His work area and his living area are the same thing.
He lives within what he's creating every day.
Going into Thom's home studio was like the
next level for me.
I had seen his tattoos, I had seen some of the art that he
had been making.
But to see it in his place is like, now you're seeing the
true living art, it's everywhere.
It's like going to a museum.
By the end, I'm not sure what I'd even seen.
I'm just overwhelmed, there's so much of it and it's such a
strong, powerful volume that it's kind of disorienting
after a while.
THOM DEVITA: You want to see a Sailor Jerry?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
Is that an original?
THOM DEVITA: Yes.
MALE SPEAKER: And you put this Gotham Tattoo stamp on it?
THOM DEVITA: Yes, it belongs to me.
I can do anything I want with it.
That's the way I feel about art, if it belongs to you, you
can do anything you want with it.
Unless you made a deal with the artist that you
couldn't touch it.
I collect all kind of things.
MALE SPEAKER: I've noticed.
THOM DEVITA: I think they're nice, they're good-looking.
NICK BUBASH: Thom and I were always hunting for objects.
We'd go trashing, go into stores, and antique stores or
junk shops.
And we were always looking for objects, constantly.
That was one of his big things, he got a lot of
inspiration out of anything.
My relationship with Thom deVita, well, at this point I
suppose you could say good friend.
But he was my mentor, my teacher.
I first met him, I think, about 1971.
MALE SPEAKER: Did you teach Nick how to tattoo?
THOM DEVITA: You never tattooed before you met me.
NICK BUBASH: No.
THOM DEVITA: He's the only guy who ever tattooed in my shop.
NICK BUBASH: I tattooed in his shop on Fourth Street.
I can't remember how I found him.
I think I just found him, and there he was, he was sitting
on the stoop.
I walked up to him and said I was interested
in getting a tattoo.
I followed him into his studio, and
that's how I met him.
I looked for him and I found him.
I got these in 1973 or something like that.
There's a big fish.
Here, I'll take my shirt off if you promise not to take a
picture of my body.
I'm getting old and fat.
THOM DEVITA: I'm getting old and skinny.
I am old and skinny.
NICK BUBASH: This is a early Japanese fish.
MALE SPEAKER: It looks a lot like your style of tattooing.
NICK BUBASH: It's where it all began, man.
ROBERT RYAN: Definitely two guys that have spent a lot of
time together and have been through a lot together.
And I think they're probably best friends, as far as best
friends can be.
NICK BUBASH: Good bye.
I love you, you old [INAUDIBLE].
THOM DEVITA: I'm not a hugger.
NICK BUBASH: He won't hug you.
ROBERT RYAN: And Nick has so much respect for Thom.
I think he feels like Thom helped him in a great way.
NICK BUBASH: When I met him, he was probably 40.
I was 19.
I was trying to make art, and I was doing everything you
have to do to stay alive in New York.
I was driving a cab, I was doing landscaping, I was doing
whatever I needed to do.
I was basically just a working stiff with an idea that I
wanted to be an artist.
I found Thom.
I saw what he was doing.
I really got turned on by the fact that he
was actually an artist.
I thought well, I'm going to do some big drawings and take
them down here and show them to him.
So I did some big dragon drawings.
And when he saw the drawings, I can remember clearly, he
said to me, you can come back here anytime you want to come.
And I said OK, man, and I was there all the time.
deVita's influence was enormous on me.
Thom taught me the mental part of it-- the attitude, the
lifestyle, and how you create your own reality.
He was my greatest influence.
ROBERT RYAN: The deVita influence on Nick's work is
very, very strong.
NICK BUBASH: "The Porcupine of God," it's painted over an old
lithograph.
ROBERT RYAN: And Nick comes from definitely a more
schooled art background.
He does fine art sculpture, and he does also great
paintings and drawings and he does these amazing
assemblages.
You can definitely see Thom's influences there, and it's
really present in his work.
NICK BUBASH: Thom did a lot of assemblages.
I think that's probably where I got the inclination to
assemble things into works of art, because he that a lot.
This is the thinking table.
Believe it or not, there's order to this.
And my philosophy is that I bring order to
the chaos that surrounds.
The chaos forces the order.
This one I imagine is like a prehistoric animal with the
largest set of horns ever seen or ever discovered.
These things evolve.
And sometimes I'll get obsessed with one object and
I'll start working on it.
But at times I'll be passing by and I'll move something on
it or change something.
That's kind of how this table works.
But as you can see, I have a million things down here and
I'm adding to them.
Hopefully I'll get up to two or three million before I die.
Thom's never been to this studio.
I think it's kind of getting hard for him to move around.
He's getting tired and old.
Who knows, he may live to be 100--
I hope he does.
I hope he lives to be 200.
I hope he outlives me because I don't want
to see him go ever.
So here's the list of things you have to do, right?
These are the books you have to sign and number.
Number two, I think all you have to do is--
THOM DEVITA: I won't remember all of that.
NICK BUBASH: Well look, books to sign and number.
Two, 17, 18, 19, 20.
THOM DEVITA: Here's what I wanted you to do, is to do one
of these for yourself.
This was you can tell me [INAUDIBLE].
NICK BUBASH: OK, give me a piece of paper.
If you have any questions, you know what to
do with those books.
I'm going to call you every goddamn day until--
THOM DEVITA: After you sell them all.
ED HARDY: Oh, he drives Nick crazy.
I mean, Nick will tell you.
He'll call me up and go Jesus Christ.
And we're trying to help Thom out a lot, but
he's just who he is.
THOM DEVITA: What were we going to do?
NICK BUBASH: We're going to work on my piece here.
THOM DEVITA: Oh, we're going to do it on the original?
NICK BUBASH: No, on this one.
Yeah, on the original, not on the book.
THOM DEVITA: OK, I'm confused.
NICK BUBASH: We collaborated on a bunch of stuff.
He would send me stuff and then I'd re-do it, and then
he'd re-do it.
And finally he told me [INAUDIBLE]
I didn't know what I was doing and he quit.
He didn't like what I was doing.
Were you going to make the whole goddamn thing red?
THOM DEVITA: No, Sherlock.
If you don't like it, you can erase it.
NICK BUBASH: If I don't like it, I can erase it.
He was never mean or harmful.
He would criticize you, there's no
two ways about that.
He would say well, do you like this?
And I'd say no, I don't like it.
And he'd say well, you just aren't advanced
enough to like it.
THOM DEVITA: Nick, did you see the poster for the
show we were in?
This is one that I made up.
NICK BUBASH: Mine and Ed's don't have the copper border
that he put on there.
But when I go home I'm going to put a copper border on mine
same that Thom did.
THOM DEVITA: You don't know what brush I used.
NICK BUBASH: Well, I mean, how's anybody going to know?
THOM DEVITA: If I hadn't told you it was copper, he would
have done it in gold.
NICK BUBASH: No.
You know what, you can use that.
I know what to use.
THOM DEVITA: Well, you would have done it in gold.
NICK BUBASH: No, I would have done it in copper.
I've learned to use copper.
JOHN WYATT: It could be argumentative, but I think a
lot of that was he liked to play a lot of semantics.
ROBERT RYAN: That's me getting tattooed.
I'm not sure who took this photo.
So you remember?
THOM DEVITA: I claim all them things to be mine beyond
[INAUDIBLE].
ROBERT RYAN: But you couldn't do the tattoo and take the
photo at the same time, so someone had to take it.
THOM DEVITA: That's not important.
MALE SPEAKER: Do you ever get nervous that you're going to
misspeak around him?
ROBERT RYAN: Always.
But he'll tell me that I misspoke.
THOM DEVITA: It's true, but it's a little mixed up.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
I said yes, yeah, no.
ROBERT RYAN: Ed still has the stencil for your dragon on the
center of your chest.
THOM DEVITA: No, he doesn't.
ROBERT RYAN: No?
THOM DEVITA: I got the stencil.
ROBERT RYAN: Oh yeah?
THOM DEVITA: I was thinking about it the other day, but I
haven't seen it for a while.
ROBERT RYAN: Do you think maybe he took it?
THOM DEVITA: No.
Unless I cut another stencil and I gave him that one.
CLAYTON PATTERSON: Thom is an au
contraire kind of character.
His whole thing is kind of arguing
and setting up debates.
And it's a certain kind of Italian, a little Sicilian
kind of thing.
Throwing a lot of salt in there and the fire and getting
the sparks going.
NICK BUBASH: [INAUDIBLE] machines and you could tattoo
with them, but it was tough.
It was tough to get the coloring with them.
THOM DEVITA: No, you could tattoo with a Spaulding
machine if you know how to tattoo.
NICK BUBASH: Right, that's true.
THOM DEVITA: If you don't know how to tattoo, you got to go
to somebody else maybe.
NICK BUBASH: Do you understand my point?
Like, with a better tool you can--
THOM DEVITA: No.
ED HARDY: I don't know if I've ever seen Thom visibly excited
in my life, except if he gets mad about something.
He's really stubborn.
He's really opinionated.
I mean, you can get into an argument with him about what
the correct term is if you're locking the card door.
I mean, you just get into stuff all the time.
THOM DEVITA: What's this guy you mentioned the other day?
NICK BUBASH: R. Crumb.
THOM DEVITA: Yeah, I dislike him.
NICK BUBASH: You don't like R. Crumb?
THOM DEVITA: No, I don't like cartoons.
You understand that?
NICK BUBASH: But you've got nothing against R. Crumb?
THOM DEVITA: I don't know him, so I don't know
anything about him.
I don't like his work.
NICK BUBASH: You don't like his work?
THOM DEVITA: I don't like cartoons.
NICK BUBASH: OK, all right.
You don't like cartoons.
I get the point.
You didn't even like Al Capp?
THOM DEVITA: Not even Al Capp.
MALE SPEAKER: Do a lot of kids skateboard past your--
THOM DEVITA: No, not that many.
NICK BUBASH: Thom puts rocks out there so they can't do it.
THOM DEVITA: No, I don't mind kids.
It looks all right for kids.
But for grownups to be on a skateboard, it looks stupid.
NICK BUBASH: Yeah.