Original subtitles

New York City during the 1970s

was a beautiful, ravaged slag...

Impoverished and neglected

after suffering from decades of abuse and battery.

She stunk of sewage, sex,

rotting fish, and day-old diapers.

She leaked from every pore.

No wave was the waste product of "Taxi Driver,"

Times Square, the Son of Sam, the blackout of '77...

The desperate need to violently rebel

against the complacency of a zombie nation

dumbed down by sitcoms and disco.

We were howling with delight,

laughing like lunatics

in the madhouse that was New York City...

Thrilled to be rubbing up against the freaks

and other outcasts who somehow...

for some unknowable reason,

had all decided to run to land's end

and, all at once, scream their bloody heads off.

It's our fucking park!

♪ I took a walk through this

♪ Beautiful world

♪ Felt the cool rain on my shoulder

♪ Found something good in this

♪ Beautiful world

♪ I felt the rain getting colder

♪ La, la Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la

Nothing but a bunch of crack heads,

Dope fiends and motherfuckers

This is a show about a very special place...

A very special time...

And some very special people.

So much happened, so much began

on New York's Lower East Side.

Those buildings are still there.

Yeah, all of them.

Yeah, I mean, I know every corner I ever drank

by order of, like, preference, you know,

'cause there was some, you know,

you'd really rather not to go to.

That was, like, sort of, like, you know, a last resort.

Yeah.

Somewhere, uh...

there was a hole, a big hole in the wall right there.

Basically like a car-sized hole in a wall.

You'd step into an abandoned space.

I didn't know any spots down there.

I mean, people would take me, of course.

- Yeah, yeah. - But it was not my regular.

My regular was here, at Executive and Laredo

were my preferred.

But for a while, I had to go specifically...

- Hot zone. - Yeah.

The Lower East Side was in many ways

the cradle of New York.

The Lower East Side was in many ways

the cradle of New York,

where new arrivals first settled,

built communities, and later, moved on,

only to be replaced by others.

In the New York City of the '70s,

nearly bankrupt, riddled with corruption,

the Lower East Side, particularly Alphabet City,

was left to fend for itself.

Huge swaths of it abandoned, ruined, or simply empty.

Much of it became an open-air supermarket for drugs,

whole blocks taken over by organized drug gangs.

Rents were cheap, and the neighborhood started

to attract a newer, highly energized,

and creative group of people who wanted to make things...

Music, poetry, movies, and art.

It seemed at the time, everybody was a star

and, for a while at least, that it was a golden time.

But it was dangerous.

You lived down here, you had to be tough

and talented and often very quick.

Now...

things are different...

very different.

Everybody together. Ready?

One, two, three.

Pick those feet up six inches and hold.

Bring that arm over. Pin the wrist, let's go.

Is everybody clear? Yes.

- I can't hear you. - Yes!

Okay, on three. One, two, three, let's go.

♪ My love, what's your number?

♪ Don't know if I'll survive

♪ Street crime and violence

♪ All I see is grime

♪ But one thing that I know

♪ That's why I love, love, love my life

So, I mean, this is pretty much some of the last remnants

of what the Lower East Side

kind of used to be like, you know?

Good, old-school, no elevator.

You didn't live in this building?

No, this wasn't the building I lived in.

This is a squat, though, that actually became legal.

I was actually in that building right there.

When I lived in it, it was...

You know, we had no windows, no front doors, you know?

You'd find a door in the street.

You'd put it up and chain it up yourself, you know?

No running water, I used to...

bathe in the fire hydrant in front of the building,

and I used to sleep with my pit bull

so rats wouldn't get too close to me at night.

- Right? - You know?

You actually grew up here.

What was that like growing up... Growing up here?

Being a little kid here?

My main problem growing up down here

was that I lived on a gang block.

- Right. - The gang on my block

was called the Hitmen,

and, you know, they were no joke, right?

And I remember, they would be hanging out on the stoop

on the church across the street, smoking dust.

All of them with their golf clubs

and 007 knives, and everybody'd be listening to...

of all things, Kraftwerk. Right.

- "Trans-Euro Express." - Right.

They'd be out there screaming "we're going to kill"

the next [...] that comes out of that building,

and I'm laying there,

thinking, "Oh, I got to go to school tomorrow, man."

I was never a violent person.

You know, Christ, I was raised by hippies,

but I was thrown into a crazy environment

where I had no choice but to fight my way through it.

I always had a cue ball and a sock in my pocket.

I'd split your head open

quicker than you could say "What the..."

And it did turn me into a bit

of a problem as a teenager, you know?

I would guess.

Wait a minute, I don't have to guess, I know.

The first time I saw you,

you were, famously, that 12-year-old drummer

in the Stimulators.

Your aunt was in the band. Yeah.

That was the only reason we were allowed to play

at most of the clubs is because

I had a "relative" who was basically my legal guardian.

I need to get a vanilla egg cream.

What are you getting? Chocolate egg cream.

- Chocolate egg cream. - Yeah.

One vanilla, one chocolate.

I got PTSD, man. It's like, I just feel like

I'm seeing ghosts when I'm down here, man.

I miss it, though. I tell you... As much as I paint it

as this horror story, which it was, I loved it.

You know, it'll always be a part of who I am.

My man. Cheers.

All right, Ray, thanks for the egg cream.

That is a superb egg cream.

They don't make them no better.

You're always talking about what?

I had a signed "The Last"...

What is it? "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz."

You came here first as a writer, as a poet.

New York, in your mind, was where the writer's life was?

Yeah, well, it was just the place

that had the most stimulation.

Was music even in the back of your head,

or was poetry and writing?

My model was Dylan Thomas when I was a teenager.

You know, so being a drunken womanizer,

that was my ambition.

You woke up in your own lifetime,

open up a paper, and realized,

"There's, like, a million kids in Britain dressing like me

and cutting their hair like me."

And you have this inadvertent, tectonic effect

on kids all over the world.

Well, it wasn't inadvertent, but it was indirect.

I mean, I wanted to have that effect.

Other bands who responded

to the way I was doing things got famous,

so it ended up having this huge impact and influence.

When I first saw a picture of the Sex Pistols,

it was like... I just had to laugh.

That's a charitable interpretation of events.

Malcolm McLaren came to New York and saw the Voidoids

and went back and built a boy band,

and said, "You're going to dress like that guy."

Yeah, I don't really look at it that way.

Yeah.

- All right. - I mean, ideas are free.

I never resented that. Mmhmm.

But it was funny and strange.

Cheap rent brought a lot of people together.

It wasn't just living spaces were cheap.

There were venues where you could put

whatever it was you did out there.

Yeah, CBGB's didn't exist until we created it.

I mean, we went and proposed

that we be the house band there.

This next number is called

"I Belong To The Blank Generation"

One, two, three!

And then your band, the Voidoids...

What were your expectations?

I wanted everything

that anybody who starts a band wants,

but I didn't even quite realize

how weird and uncommercial I was.

I thought what I was doing was really catchy.

Do we over-romanticize that period?

Was it special?

I think the creation of the mythology of the '70s

kind of began in the mid-'90s.

I can see why people who weren't there

wish they were there, but it goes

against all my instincts to think that way

just because the idea is

we didn't like where things were,

so we decided to change them.

Why are you here tonight?

I guess we're just interested to see what's going on.

We saw a bit in... I think it was "The New Yorker."

More or less, to see what was happening.

Simple as that. How about you?

It's a fascinating place, I must say.

It's probably one of the most interesting places in New York.

Just simply the...

the neon lights and the crowd here...

It's all very interesting.

- Would you come here again? - No.

Have you ever considered writing a dish-y memoir?

I mean, my God, it would be 800 pages long.

Yeah, you know why?

Because so many people are still alive.

- I mean, people love you. - Yeah.

They have to say that.

How can you say something mean

about somebody who might be mean back at you?

It's an industry. Are you kidding me?

People will ask, "What was it like

the first time you saw Iggy?"

And I didn't see him.

I heard the music from down the hall.

I mean, I thought,

"This is the rock and roll I always wanted to hear"...

Something that was this fierce.

And yet, you could sense... There was a tune there.

When I bought "Funhouse" in high school...

Yeah.

I was immediately ostracized.

- Yeah. - This was defining music.

And normal people didn't like it.

The Ramones met because they were poor outcasts

in a high school of 5,000 people who liked "Funhouse."

- Right. - Okay?

They had it all figured out,

that they would sell as many records

as the great record sellers would sell,

and in a few years, they would have so much money

that they would retire and never have to work again.

Right, especially with each other.

Yeah.

Guess what. They had to say on the road for another...

- 25 years. - Yes.

You know where their greatest

financial success has come from?

"Hey, ho, let's go"... Right.

Sung in football and soccer stadiums around the world.

The Ramones' estates are gathering in more money

from five seconds than they ever made in their...

Is that the measure of greatness or eternity?

It's one of them.

So many people died.

So many people didn't get recognized.

Richard Hell's still living in the same apartment

he lived in 40 years ago.

Who likes to move in New York?

He got a good deal.

The neighborhood got all better around him, you know?

Iggy was supposed the one

who didn't make it most of all,

and he's still there... The most dangerous.

God sends us these signs that there are miracles,

don't give up hope.

What you believe is beautiful probably is,

but not everyone will know it in time.

Okay, my name's Hugh Mackie.

I moved over here in '81 and started this shop in '86.

When we opened this shop here,

we were the only, like, business on the block.

We were the only, like, real thing

apart from just mayhem down here.

Basically, it's been a one-man show

with one person helping me,

and we still fix old British bikes.

We're really into it, but nowadays,

there aren't so many people into it anymore,

and the supply of bikes is dwindling.

It's gotten to the point now

where I'm the only bad thing on the block.

I'm now the mess. I'm now the noise.

I'm the scruffy building.

It's not that anymore. It's just not.

I mean, it's super-expensive restaurants,

which come and go every five years.

High-heeled girls with mink coats

are out getting into fancy schnitzel restaurants,

and they're standing on rats, and they think that's cool.

What they don't know is that

before the restaurants were here, there were no rats.

So now all these, like, rich people are coming down here

and standing on rats and think

that's East Village, and it never was, you know?

So...

How hard was it to... If you're coming to New York,

a section of New York that's completely broke...

You are broke. You're going to be an artist,

and not just art, but fairly confrontational.

How committed do you have to be to do that,

particularly at that time?

I think that...

contrarily, it hasn't been that hard.

I feel like I've been very fortunate

to have got to stay alive here, so...

And I have everything I need. Look around us.

It's a wonderful amusement park

of good and bad ideas all happening at once.

You know how people immigrate here

to start a new life and to dream big?

I felt like I needed to do that as well,

just like the way that people did

at the turn of the century.

You move to New York to immigrate to a new land,

to start... a new life.

And that's really what the Lower East Side is all about.

You know, it was an extremely rare and wonderful time.

I think only now do I realize how fortunate I was

that I got to experience a neighborhood

that had Jack Smith on 1st Avenue,

that had the Living Theatre,

that had Jonas Mekas on 2nd Street.

Who thrilled you back then?

Who was doing stuff that you just thought

just, "Holy shit",

this is really incredible and inspiring"?

Um, well, gosh. Um, luckily, my friends

that I was working with were very inspiring.

I loved Joe Coleman's work.

The Lower East Side at that time

was a destination for me.

There was something, you know, that compelled me,

you know, to just be there, and I would paint it.

Squeeze in. Yeah. Wow.

Wow.

Oh, yes, you were telling me about this guy.

Yeah, yeah, and here, if you want to use this...

It's beautiful.

You know, all the paintings are novels, you know?

You know, so it's a dense story,

and the more that you look, the more that you learn.

And it's in nonlinear time, you know?

Like, you're exploring, you know, at your own pace,

whatever you want to look at.

And someone else might start in a different place,

and, you know, it might tell a different story.

The performance art, at what point...

So you came to paint, or did you come to paint before?

No, I came to paints, but the paintings were...

like, implosions, where I was studying the world around me

and myself inside,

and the performances became literal explosions.

I learned violence from my old man.

So I was angry, you know?

When your house is on fire, you know,

you don't read poetry,

and you don't, you know, sing a folk song.

You know, you got to scream.

I missed all the great art of the time.

I came for heroin, and I came for music.

Other than that, I didn't live here.

But, man, a lot of people didn't make it,

and I remember, I guess around 1980,

it was like... something is happening,

and no one knows what it is.

- You mean the AIDS? - AIDS.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of that time

exists in my mind like a dream, like an opium dream.

I have these people that I love

that would just, like, drop out and fall out.

I'm a little bit sad that I wasn't there.

I wasn't present, you know, for them,

because I was too off in this other world.

But for me, it was still something

of great beauty to see that time.

You have Wall Street tycoons

fighting for huge amounts of wealth,

and you have, like, bums fighting over, like, pennies.

And it has, like...

you know, a primal, like, awe.

It's for Passover, matzo brei...

Special matzo, special days.

- Yes, sir. - I've been coming here

since 1966.

- Over 50 years. - Only 5 years.

It's family.

So everyone should come, but not too many people.

Yeah.

This is one of the places that Keith, Harry, and I

would love to come here.

Jean-Michel would join us,

and we would have good meals here on the regular.

And it was consistently the exact...

You know it's great when you can go someplace...

They have the exact same food. Come on, this is it?

- It's still the same? - Still exactly the same.

- That's encouraging. - Which is great, it's great.

I mean, you know, even though

there's a hotel three doors away...

- Right. - And high rises going up,

we can still have a decent meal.

You brought hip-hop culture

to a very finite number of people initially

on the Lower East Side. Yeah. Mmhmm.

Totally changed the world.

Everybody get funky

Everybody get funky

Teenagers at that time were doing something interesting,

so I wanted to find some people

that would listen to these ideas,

and that's what lead me to the Lower East Side

and to connect with...

I guess you met Glenn O'Brien.

Glenn O'Brien, yeah.

Everybody get funky

Glenn was key to it all,

because I would read his column

in "Interview" magazine, and it was just brilliant,

and I met him, and he embraced me

and invited me to be a part of "TV Party,"

which was this underground...

Oh, I remember it well. I watched it at the time.

Hi, and welcome to "TV Party."

Fred, why don't you tell us

a little bit about what the Holy Land looks like?

I want you to know...

That I've been to the Holy Land,

and the Holy Land is so funky.

How funky is it?

It's funky! It's funky!

And through that connection is where I met

all these people that listened to all these ideas I had,

and that was David Byrne, Chris Stein and Debbie Harry,

and so many amazing people that were just like,

"Yeah, tell me more."

What I think is under-celebrated

about you guys in particular was your kindness.

You were famously really, really supportive

of the people you came up with...

Your contemporaries and people around you

who weren't doing as well.

You know, let each other sleep on each other's floors.

Well, there was nothing at stake.

There was nothing at stake.

And I mean this in a good way.

You were writing hits from the beginning.

I mean, these are enduring songs

that people are still listening to and hold up.

I just think a lot of people had low expectations.

You didn't. I mean, you had a plan, yes?

Well, no. If we had a plan, we would have made more money

and not got so completely fucked over...

- Yeah. - By the industry, as it were.

- We had a plan to survive. - Yeah.

We had a plan to keep going, doggedly.

But I think the thing that was so attractive about that period

was you weren't locked in

to one format or one form, you know?

It was just... Everybody was doing everything.

You introduced the entirely revolutionary notion

that street art... Mmhmm.

Was in fact, really art.

The painting that we did on the street

was coming from a place that pop art came from as well...

Like popular culture, magazines, advertising, comics.

And so some of the first people

to buy paintings from me and Jean-Michel

was Chris and Debbie from Blondie.

And then they also commissioned

me, Lee Quiñones, and Jean-Michel

to do sets and art

and participate in their music videos...

Some of the very first.

Your support and work with Fab 5 Freddy...

I mean, look at the soundtrack to the whole world now.

It's hip-hop.

That connection, that crossover there,

you guys put considerable muscle and gravitas.

I talked to all these record company guys,

and I'd say 98% of them told me it was a fad.

It's not going to last.

It's going to go away in five years.

And you recorded a song that was hugely...

Well, I will say, you know, like, we're...

I'm very proud of the fact

that, you know, we created a format

that didn't exist in rap until then,

and that is that we wrote a song that had a rap in it.

Yeah, those guys were sampling still.

The rapping was only scratching and sampling,

so we, you know,

made it viably commercial.

And then, you know, you had another

earth-shattering event... "Wild Style."

I had an idea that we could make a movie

and show that this rapping, this dancing,

and this DJ'ing was one thing.

Electro

So I was on a trip to Germany

not long after the film had aired,

and I see these kids break-dancing.

I'm like, "What the hell is going on?"

As I got closer, I noticed the moves the kids were doing

were the exact same moves that the Rock Steady Crew

does in "Wild Style."

But I then knew that this was going to translate globally.

I remember that film opening.

That was a nuclear bomb. Yep.

And it ended up being, like, the second-highest grossing...

Second to "Terms of Endearment,"

which not many people think about now,

but, yeah, we did well.

You got to love that moment of corporate terror

in the film industry when people are looking

at the weekend grosses, and it's like, "What's this?"

"Who is this audience that did not appear in our metrics?"

Yeah, it was a great experience.

Electro

I came to the Lower East Side back in 1964.

When I came here, the changes was already in motion.

There was the heroin epidemic,

the beginning of the homeless epidemic.

And there I was, witnessing all these changes.

That's the history of the Lower East Side.

They did not have to go back and find themselves

on the Lower East Side.

Probably every day, or every week,

just by walking through it...

That's my connection to the neighborhood.

That's the neighborhood connecting to me...

You know, to photograph that before that change.

They have that running history.

My main thing now is to keep a running record.

So I started the 4th Street Photo Gallery here,

and it's been history ever since.

I'm still here. I'm surviving.

You started making films

before you knew how to make films.

Yeah, yeah, the oddball thing about it is,

knowing so little,

being an amateur was so helpful.

Who knew that you could hire a casting director?

No, it was just like,

"Hey, you play that, you play that," you know.

"Which one of our friends are going to be around for this?"

Exactly, "are you going to be around next Tuesday?"

'Cause I"... you know...

I saw myself more as like an experimental filmmaker.

You know, like the Godard films, for example,

they were inspiring 'cause I could say, "I could do that."

I owe a lot to Amos.

No, I saw "The Foreigner."

It was amazing. The whole scene was there.

Everybody was there. It was really...

- Yeah, that was a big night. - I got so charged up.

And I was sure I was going to make films.

And your first film as a student film?

My first film was a student film...

"Permanent Vacation."

They say people like myself are crazy, you know,

'cause, well, you know...

NYU film school made a mistake,

so I had a $12,000 budget for my first film.

Which is enormous for the time.

It was huge for me.

But the root of the word "amateur"

is "the love of a form,"

and "professional" means you are doing it for money.

So I still hope

that I consider myself an amateur, for sure.

What was the budget on your first film?

- Oh, man. - $12.

Yeah.

Well, it depends on what you call "first film,"

but "Blank Generation" was like, $2,200.

I started shooting bands, and it was more,

"How do you shoot music with a silent camera?" basically.

And then, "Unmade Beds" was, like, my first narrative film.

It was, like, about $4,000.

I think on "Unmade Beds,"

someone from "The New York Times" called it

"the cinematic equivalent of kindergarten scribbling."

And Amos put that on his posters... "New York Times."

And that was the most, like, punk-ass move.

So, yeah, so what do you think now

when you walk around the neighborhood?

You know, you paid some dues

to walk down back in the day,

and now it's projectile-vomiting frat boys

with baseball caps on backwards.

Oh, man.

Does this give you a sinking feeling,

make you angry, or are you just resigned?

I wish I would have bought real estate, that's for sure.

The thing that I always tell myself

is, "Look at the history of New York City."

And it's always about hustling and...

- Change. - Change.

And if you want it to stay the same,

man, you got the wrong historical spot,

because they're used to be a Native American trading post

on the tip of Manhattan.

It's now Wall Street, you know?

♪ - I just don't want to go

♪ Out in the streets no more

♪ I just don't want to go

♪ Out in the streets no more

♪ Because these people, they give me

♪ They give me the creeps anymore

♪ Too many creeps, too many creeps

♪ Too many creeps, too many creeps

♪ Too many creeps, too many creeps

♪ Too many creeps, yeah

Do you want to come in for a minute?

Yeah, sure, I'd love to take a peek.

I'd be interested in looking at your dope bags.

Yeah, here's some.

I got this guy who was a bank robber,

and he was going to jail.

He hooked me up with this. This is from the early '80s.

Oh, wow. Air Mail.

- Air Mail. - Yeah, with 12th Street.

- Yep. - Oh, I might have

to put my glasses on for this.

- It's a treasure. - DOA, I remember.

- Poison, you must remember. - Poison, yes, of course.

Evidence, the Psycho. I remember all of those.

- Did you ever do Hellraiser? - No, I don't remember, ever.

Toilet. There it is.

Classic, right? You know, you were-

You knew you were doing something bad

when you bought a product called "Toilet"

and, you know, shot it in your arm, or...

Oh, man, memories. Yeah.

I mean, basically, your reputation is

the godfather archivist of all things Lower East Side.

You were here pointing your camera at stuff

since the early '80s.

I probably have one of the largest

inner-city photograph collections of anybody.

I used to know everybody that went by.

That neighborhood thing is, like, really important to me.

So I photographed the Puerto Ricans,

the Dominicans,

the drag queens from the Pyramid Club,

basically the whole hard-core scene in '87.

I was more interested in, like,

the eccentric people, the unique people.

You were at the battle of Tompkins Square Park,

which is sort of the Gettysburg of the Lower East Side.

I remember it had essentially become clogged

with nodding junkies... Right.

Homeless people who'd set up permanent camp.

- It was dangerous. - It was genuinely dangerous.

When the police came down and decided to clean the park,

the question is, who won?

Well, in the beginning, we did.

It's our fucking park! It's our fucking park!

It's our fucking park!

You know, you have to remember, in 1988,

they couldn't close a 10 1/2-acre-square park

on the Lower East Side,

not with 450 riot cops...

Horses, helicopters... They couldn't do it.

- Maybe we get the better city. - We don't got no weapons.

They got 9 millimeters down there!

They got shotguns and machine guns!

There were big bomb fighters in the middle of Avenue A.

Buses couldn't come down,.

Cars couldn't come down. They were stuck.

You were on the news a lot, I remember.

- A lot, yeah. - You were the most, like,

despised man in... Yes, yes.

NYPD, you were not their favorite photographer.

Let's put it that way.

This went on for four years.

There were multiple riots,

hundreds and hundreds of arrests.

Four years here of real, solid conflict.

The cops eventually got organized.

I think this was the beginning

of the sort of police-state mentality in America.

I remember Tompkins Square.

After the police fenced it off,

it was, in a lot of people's minds, the end of an era.

And, yeah, when they cleared off the drugs,

a lot of people think, "Hey, great.

"We're now going to have a neighborhood,

and everything's going to be safe."

And then in came the gentrification,

and so the whole concept of America is being wiped out,

because you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps anymore

'cause you can't get in the game.

Gentrification has affected the whole city.

You have to now make a huge amount of money to be here.

You know, they got the skyscrapers in Midtown

that are sold... millions of dollars apartments,

and nobody lives in them, and they're empty.

I live in one of those big, empty buildings...

- Yeah. - With absentee owners.

Is that all that's going to be left in New York?

Yes. New York, there was always something

that brought it back,

but once you fill it with the corporate world,

it's never going back.

So we turned a corner that we will never go back again.

And so it's over.

- It's over. - It's over.

You know I have my eye on the octopus.

Okay, then I'm going to go straight into the...

Straight, you're going to go straight?

You're finally going straight. A little too late for that.

Oh, my God, I'm impressed.

Can you verify exactly what "straight" means?

- No. - No way, honey.

Even when you're straight, you're not straight.

Did you expect to make a living from your art?

- No, of course not. - How do you...

No, I just was happy I didn't have to suck dick

in an Iranian shoe store.

First of all, I thought I would come to New York

to do spoken word, but spoken word

didn't really exist, so I started

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.

I really had to make the most hideous yet precise den

I possibly could as a tantrum

against all of music and all of society.

Little orphans running through the bloody snow

Little orphans running through the bloody snow

Little orphans running

Through the blood, through the blood, through the...

There were a lot of freakish,

"never could have happened at any other time"...

It seems to me... bands who had a ready-made audience,

okay, as you did.

You could basically say, "I am a rock star"...

Well, hang on, wait, wait, reel it back, wait.

- "I am a star." - No, no, no.

First of all, I never said I was a fucking star.

No, but, I mean, not by word, but by deed and deportment.

We are great, aren't we?

First of all, I'm not a star. I'm not an icon.

That might be your midnight fantasies.

You walked into a club, people knew who you were.

I didn't walk into any place thinking I'm a star.

I walked in thinking I had shit to do.

But I wouldn't say I was a catalyst.

I'd say I was a cattle prod to get people to do shows.

Booking shows, curating shows, it's just what I do.

It's like, "Let's go, let's do it."

And when people would ask me to do things,

I'd go, "Yeah, I want to do it, of course."

- Pardon me. - People were... Beautiful...

Doing things because they had to do it,

not because of any other grand idea.

So what made you happy back then?

I mean, did you have any happy moments?

Happiness was not the goal.

Satisfaction was the goal, as it still is.

My anger is on a global level. It's never on a personal level.

I'm very happy.

I'm happy to have octopus with you tonight, my dear.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

- Um... - Mmm.

Good?

- Perfect. - Yeah.

When was the last time

you had something this good in your mouth?

I know you eat well, but this is, like...

Yeah, it's been a while. This is pretty incredible.

Mmm.

Why are you here tonight?

To see the Dead Boys.

- Why? - 'Cause they're great fucks.

- How do you know? - 'Cause I fucked them.

Who do you want the run-down on?

- Did you throw the, uh... - Yeah, I did.

It was my present. I'm Lunch.

They do a song called "I Need Lunch."

I'm Lydia Lunch.

Why did you throw that? What was it? What was it?

They were used tampons. Genuinely used, new ones.

Why did I give them to them?

Because they're going to eat them in the second set.

You were featured prominently

in many of the best-known films of the era.

Most of which sucked.

I was trying to be a reflection

of the reality at the time.

This why I made the films I made,

especially with Richard Kern.

Just drop me off.

Where are you taking me, anyway?

My house.

So we did this horribly

violent film called "Fingered"

that was based on real things that had happened to me.

It was not glamorous. It was not pretty.

It was offensive, but I'm trying to work out

my psychosexual problems,

because I know I'm not alone in them,

by making films and speeches that will address the situation

that I know other people suffer from.

Okay, this was a film, very influential,

far beyond the imaginings at the time.

We didn't think that when we did it.

We didn't give a shit. We just wanted to make a film

and get it out there because we had to do something

because we were burning and our blood was on fire.

Looking back, though, was it all that?

Was it a golden period? Are you nostalgic?

- No. - Okay.

I am golden.

It's always a golden period for me.

Look, we have a golden piece of asparagus, it's golden.

- So do you have any sense of... - No.

I fucking don't.

Those were the bad old days, baby.

You try living on peace of black beauties.

You try giving hand jobs under the table today,

take your first band to Europe. Oh!

You want to go back to that, you go back to that.

How were you living? I know the same, hand them out.

So no sentimentality? No nostalgia at all?

I'm doing too much shit all the time.

I still have shit to do.

Why am I boo-hooing when I've just been on tour

from October from next October? I'm not stopping.

Youth... would you want to go through that again,

or is it that overrated? Youth?

Don't I look good for my age? Hell, yeah.

Shit, well, then what do you want from me?

The older I get, the better I taste.

What can I say? It's like wine, baby.

Did something special happen then, or am I just...

My whole life is special, because I'm still alive,

doing what I want to fucking do with who I want to do it with.

To me, I'm not living in the past

because I'm living in the present.

It's in New York, get used to it.

It has never changed. It had a golden moment here.

It probably had a golden moment in the '40s, too.

I'm not sure. I wasn't here.

Maybe the '60s, we weren't here.

- So it was all bullshit? - No, none of it was bullshit.

It happens when it happens, and things change,

and time is not what it once was as anywhere.

If you've done one thing, you're living in the past,

and that's your glory day, that's your glory day.

This is my glory day.

I'm here, talking to you, eating octopus.

I got my boots on his knees. And I'm like...

And if only his dick was big enough,

he'd be fucking me now, but we'r going to go have a cigarette.

Got that? Thank you.

We'll be back.

I try to make paintings that are so beautiful

that I get lost while I'm doing them.

And you just hope that other people

get lost in it the same way.

You know I have a John Lurie over my bed.

Oh, you posted that.

That was nice that you posted that.

Sometimes, you know, you get these letters and stuff.

It's like, "Your painting saved my life," duh-duh-duh.

- Yeah. - But then sometimes,

because I don't have any shows...

- Oh, that's great. - It feels pathetic, you know?

Well, this is incredible to me.

- What? - You don't have shows,

like, regularly. That's insane.

And it's sick, and it's wrong, and I don't even

want to complain about it. You complain about it.

- I'm complaining about it. - Yeah, okay.

I am bitter.

Because I'm going to die one day,

and they're going to be worth a lot of money.

Right.

So my paintings are going to be on the same TV station

as Wolf Blitzer.

Oh, they are, yes.

This is really a breakthrough for me.

- He's a big art fan. - He is not.

I don't...

I, like, came to New York

'cause I was kind of, like, on this Coltrane thing.

I wanted to find God through music.

Like, I started meeting all these amazing people.

They were irreverent.

The energy was enormous,

and it was probably more fun

than anybody's ever had in human history

for about a year or two.

But there was no discipline, which...

I mean, I've like people who can play their instrument

like they just found it on the street.

- Mm-hmm. - But they can't

just do it once... They got to work on it.

I mean, I was a serious saxophone player.

I came here as a saxophone player.

I had to hide the fact that... I know, right?

I had to hide. I mean, I really did.

I would practice for two hours every day,

but I would, like... I wouldn't tell people.

So these are eggs... Mmhmm.

Which you could get, you know, at the store.

If you live in a good neighborhood,

they will even deliver them to your house.

And then you take water...

which...

I know you go to all these exotic places,

but they used to say that New York had the best water.

- That is true. - You think it's still true?

I haven't heard anything to say otherwise.

- Do you drink it? - Yeah, I do.

And then you boil them.

And then I serve them to you. Outstanding.

I am grateful and honored.

What I'm really curious... Because I've seen your show,

and I watch you sit down.

You eat, like, some mouse head soup,

and then you go "Mmm, it's delicious."

Just curious to see when you eat the hard-boiled egg

if you're going to say, "This is delicious."

As long as there's not, like,

a half-term chicken fetus in there,

which wouldn't be the first time for me, by the way,

I'll be thrilled.

We really felt like the universe

was between Houston and 14th Street

and Bowery and Avenue C, you know?

And if you went outside there,

you were a phony, you were a traitor.

It's like, "We're done with you."

You might as well be an accountant.

What about film? I mean, as it turned out,

you ended up appearing in work by Amos Poe, Jim Jarmusch.

All very seminal films. And I made my own.

I made my own films, too.

But it was kind of just like...

you go downstairs, you run into a friend.

You say, "You want to get a cup of coffee?"

Then that's... You know what I mean?

Like, there's nothing to it,

and everybody's making these movies,

and so I do a little music for that,

I act in that one, and I'll hold the boom on that one.

You know, like, I didn't think about it that much.

You know? Right.

And so...

Look at that.

I'm not eating this shit. Here's a plate.

Thank you. Eggs, the perfect food.

Thank you, sir. Eat that.

I don't think I've ever cooked for anybody before.

Oh, well, I'm honored, sir.

So, looking back...

is there a danger of over-romanticizing

that place and that time,

given the downside and the body count?

I don't know. Does it have to end badly?

I mean, I'm glad I survived it.

I'm glad I still got my own liver.

I'm glad I lived through it, but it's kind of...

I don't know. I don't know how to add that up.

Mm-hmm.

I'm sure glad I didn't miss it.

♪ - It doesn't pay to try

♪ All the smart boys know why

♪ It doesn't mean I didn't try

♪ I just never know why

♪ Feel so cold and all alone

♪ Baby, you're not at home

♪ And when I'm home

♪ Big deal, I'm still alone

♪ Feel so restless, I am

♪ Beat my head against a pole

♪ Try to knock some sense

♪ Down in my bones

♪ And though they don't show

♪ The scars aren't so old

♪ And when they go

♪ They let you know

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ Don't try

♪ Don't try

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

♪ You can't put your arms around a memory

You didn't say the egg was delicious.

- Oh, no, you're right. - You did not.

- But I ate two of them. - You ate two of them.

Silence is the highest compliment.

Just the gnashing of my jaws... You didn't say they-

- On those delicious, delicious eggs.