Richman walks into the café. His head is lurched a bit forward, and he wears a tweed jacket with a messenger bag. He looks like a very cool substitute teacher, one that the class will be able to manipulate so they can goof off all period, while Mr. Richman sits at the desk and gazes around the class. As he walks, it’s almost like he’s trying to make himself invisible.

He buys a cookie and a ginger tea and sits across from me. I’m immediately intimidated. I bite my tongue to remind myself not to ask about his creative process or his place in music history or his personal life or what a genius I think he is—all things I learned while doing research before our meeting, knowing that he’ll cut the interview short and leave.

When on stage in front of hundreds of people, Richman controls the crowd and is completely in his element. When we’re sitting across from each other he looks like he wants to crawl out of his skin.

He opens the wrapper from the cookie and I ask if he’d like to eat before we begin.

He shakes his head vigorously, “No, let’s start,” he says.

The San Francisco International Film Festival got in contact with him with the idea of scoring a silent film.

“Sean (Uyehara) from the San Francisco International Film Festival called up and asked if I wanted to score a silent movie, and I said, ‘maybe, whatchu got in mind?’ ‘We got these old movies from the 1920s that need scores and you know the old scores are either hard to find, or they’re all scratched up or they don’t got ‘em’. And then he said they have a bunch of movies and he named about ten titles and I said, ‘what’s that one The Phantom Carriage about?’ and he told me and I said, ‘send me that one,’ so he sent me a copy of it and I watched it and I said, ‘sign me up’.”

Richman laughs nervously and nods his head before taking another bite of his cookie. I become obsessed with the cookie and start to see it as my hourglass of time slipping away and when he finishes the interview will be over. Fortunately he took small bites.

“What was it that drew you to the film?” I ask.

“I like the movie, it was a great movie,” Richman says.

I ask him what the film is about and he gets angry, “I hate it when people tell me what movies are about. I don’t think anything is about anything. I think songs and movies, whenever they come, you gotta hear them. They ain’t about nothin’. You gotta see them.”

Two thirds of the cookie is left and Richman looks at my notepad. I intentionally write my questions in code and so sloppy on all of the interviews I do so the person I’m interviewing can’t figure out my notes. I need to keep him in the interview, so I ask if there will be a band or will it be just guitar and percussion.

“There’s going to be, like, we’re going to have trumpet and clarinet and strings and bells,” Richman says, “people from around here, Ralph Carney (woodwinds), Ara Anderson (trumpet and baritone tuba), we’re going to have Katharine Clune (violin) and Nick Carlin (cello) and we’re going to have Lee (Kusmer) and Cliff (Reilly) on bells and Beth Custer is involved with the scoring and orchestration. So yeah, there’ll be a lot of people.”

This isn’t the first time that Richman has scored a film, but it’s the first time for a silent film. “It’s different from other kinds of films, because you’re responsible for a lot. Like, ‘cause there’s no dialogue, the players’ eyes and faces say a lot and you feel like you’re sort of responsible for bringing that out a little bit,” Richman says, “I like it.”

The screening is at the Castro Theater, and I ask Richman where the band will be set up and if they’ll go through a PA.

“If I knew I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t want to know. Everyone will find out at the same time,” Richman says.

I look at his cookie and we’re at 50%.

Richman is working on new material for an upcoming release. “We’re recording some stuff. I’m going over to Spain to record some over there. And we’ll record some when we get back, too,” he says. I get the feeling he’s ready to finish, and I feel tense, so I try to sound intelligent and completely dork out with a question about his feelings for censorship in the media.