THEY LIVE With Jim Knipfel and Alexander Zaitchik

The audio track is garbage. Sorry but Jim's an old blind guy so it was really a goddamn miracle we recorded anything at all. Janky sound was inevitable. And, as we address almost immediately, perfect for the subject matter: the documentary They Live.

Anyway. There's a real murderer's row of talent on hand to discuss the rich, insurrectionary art of They Live. Two of my favorite writers and people join me to celebrate and dissect John Carpenter's masterwork: Slackjaw columnist Jim Knipfel and investigative journalist Alexander Zaitchik.

When it was released in 1988, They Live was a reaction to Ronald Reagan's America but, as Jim says, "They Live never goes away." We talk about the cultural and historical forces that made _They Live _ inevitable and the diverging ideological interpretations of the movie that have sprung up since. Jim is a force of nature. Alex makes sharp observations. I drop a minor bombshell about "Rowdy" Roddy Piper being a teensy bit reckless about racial slurs in a decades-old interview. Hope his estate doesn't sue. Maybe I can convince them to put on these special sunglasses they'll see things my way.

• You can read the original Ray Nelson short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" here.
  
• The 1986 comic book that directly inspired Carpenter is online here.
• The David Icke interview about _They Live _is here
• Slavoj Žižek's immortal "trash can of ideology" discussion of They Live is here.