I hung around with them and soaked up a taste for showbiz. Then, of course, I started singing with the New York Dolls. How did you get involved with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company? When I was seventeen I started to work for a fellow named Lohr Wilson who had a tchotchke shop on St.
Mark's Place. I worked in this Dickensian basement with dripping stone walls where we used to take logos from beer cans, cut them out, and make pop-art earrings.
He sold them through a mail-order business. One day, all these beautiful costumes started appearing in the basement: feathers, glitter, a giant sequined phallus. He said that he was making this stuff for the Ridiculous Theatrical Company.
I was enthralled. I started going to rehearsals. I just loved everybody in that group. I would sometimes be a spear-carrier or do the sound. I played the guitar in their country-western musical, Corn.
It was amazing. I would be sitting at a dressing room table next to Candy Darling, and in all seriousness she would say things like, "I done a lot of low things, but I never been no waitress. Did you ever imagine back then that you would one day be playing such a swanky joint? I started doing Buster as a hobby, for a couple laughs. I started with just a piano player.
Then everybody wanted to play. I should be singing songs for these people. These are people I talk to who mean something in my life. I think it all depends on how you look at life. I look at life as a very natural kind of evolution. Sixteen years ago when I lost at the track I felt as lousy as I do today. Fifteen years ago, he adds, there was a certain full-throttle approach to life.
Everything is relative. A lot of people might think I lead a fast life now. I may get to that. The drummer is particularly amazing. Have you been playing with these guys for a long time? When I was starting to do Buster again, I guess about three years ago, I called Tony and said, I want to put together a show , and I sent him the material.
But I know a guy. You mentioned the word shtick. Is that the best way to describe your show? Shtick is musician-talk shorthand. You want to do a nice song and then you want to do a little something-something that gets a laugh or a groan, and then you want to do a nice song.
Those are the little details that add up to form a show. So for me to do the Poindexter thing is such a good adjunct in my life because it gives me a chance to say whatever comes to my mind, and to get a response from it instead of people going, Huh? Do you write your own jokes for the show? Yeah, essentially. Every once in a while I will hear one, or someone will tell me one that hits me in a way.
Tuff Darts, Robert Gordon used to be in that band. It was me, David Hickey, and Lester Bangs palling around, the three of us?
So it says. Reading that scene made me think of the upcoming HBO series Vinyl. Are the people watching that show spectators to you? The only problem with that is that that becomes history.
That becomes what the history is. You kind of just get shorthand, biased opinion. So you know, that could be problematic, but whaddaya gonna do? Do you know much about the series? Compared to , do you think the city is terrible now? Things evolve gradually. It just kind of shifts. At that time, for example, there was no great distinction between artists because of whatever field they were in.
So in at Mercer Arts Center [now the Kitchen] there would be so many people doing different things, but they were all artists. Whereas now it kind of seems like designers are one thing.
Filmmakers are one thing.
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