Episode 1419 - Laurie Anderson
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron how are you is everything okay are you all right lori anderson is here today lori anderson now i don't know how old you are who's listening to this but lori anderson for me was pretty important
Marc:as an artist and as somebody who represented that world of art.
Marc:And she was one of the people that kind of broke through.
Marc:What was the name of that first record?
Marc:Was it Big Science?
Marc:I'm trying to, you know, it's like, I remember having that record in high school.
Marc:It was Big Science, came out in 1982.
Marc:So I will have just, huh, I would have just graduated high school.
Marc:So, you know, my brain was wide open.
Marc:It remains more open than I'd like it to be, to be honest with you.
Marc:But it just went in there.
Marc:The idea of her, the idea of coming out of that New York art scene, the idea of that New York art scene.
Marc:I mean, she was a portal, one of the many portals into, you know, Philip Glass, into experimental music, into...
Marc:you know, what became my obsession with Brian Eno.
Marc:I can't remember whether or not the guy at the record store next door turned me on to her, but I remember listening to that album a lot.
Marc:And then Mr. Heartbreak afterwards, there was something funny about it.
Marc:There was something compressed and witty and totally unique about the sound of her voice, about the sounds that she was using.
Marc:And then you kind of just grow up with these people being around and she's done so much other stuff.
Marc:Visual arts.
Marc:She's done poetry.
Marc:She's done records with other people.
Marc:She's I just I when I was going through this, I found this this record of her dealing with, you know, I think it was it was a meditative record, a meditation record, songs from the Bardo.
Marc:That's crazy stuff.
Marc:She's still at it.
Marc:She's still occupying this space.
Marc:And as many of you know, she was married to Lou Reed.
Marc:And as many of us, you know, tried to wrap our brain around that.
Marc:If you were a big Lou fan and you were a big Lori fan, you were like, what is that about?
Marc:I mean, obviously, I'm not going to get into that because Lou was Lou.
Marc:But I was certainly honored and excited to talk to her.
Marc:She's actually here promoting a book.
Marc:that she just put together of Lou's writing on Tai Chi and other meditative practices.
Marc:I guess he'd been writing for years and never got it all together.
Marc:Well, that's what she's out doing is talking about this book.
Marc:It's called The Art of the Straight Line, My Tai Chi by Lou Reed.
Marc:So she's here because she is the the executor, I guess, or the I mean, she's I think she's got the Lou Reed stuff.
Marc:I mean, she did a deal with Light in the Attic Records and they did some demo stuff from the late 60s, early 70s that was just exciting.
Marc:But as an artist on her own, man, just mind blowing.
Marc:Just she was one of the one of the creative people that wired my brain.
Marc:And you're going to find out some interesting stuff about her on this episode, stuff that I couldn't believe and didn't really know.
Marc:We've talked to other people who were around New York in that time, you know, early in the 70s.
Marc:where it was just a free-for-all.
Marc:It almost feels like it was some sort of artist compound in Tribeca and the Lower East Side and just Lower Manhattan.
Marc:But it kind of was.
Marc:I mean, it's hard to picture New York as just this vacated, you know, dumpster fire.
Marc:But that's where all that stuff sort of came up and there was a real community to it.
Marc:And I've talked to other people who've grown up in that community, some people who created it.
Marc:You know, Kim Gordon was on this show.
Marc:But...
Marc:It was thrilling to talk to her.
Marc:I have a favor to ask you, people.
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Marc:It's a quick survey and it will help us make decisions that better serve you, the listeners.
Marc:This is really the best way for us to know what works and what doesn't for our audience.
Marc:So it would be a real big help to us if you just do it.
Marc:It'll take about five to seven minutes.
Marc:You can do it while you're listening.
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Marc:And while you're in the episode description, if you want to send a question for our next Ask Mark Anything episode, there's a link for that, too.
Marc:OK.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So I don't know why, but I mean, stuff comes and goes.
Marc:And there's a lot of stuff out there.
Marc:That I miss, but there's some stuff that, not unlike any other sucker in this fucking world, I develop opinions about based on nothing.
Marc:On nothing.
Marc:And for some reason...
Marc:I dismissed the film Amsterdam, the David O. Russell movie.
Marc:I just was like, I just kind of didn't get to it.
Marc:I got to Babylon, which was garbage, but I didn't get to David O. Russell's Amsterdam.
Marc:And I don't know why.
Marc:I didn't hear about it.
Marc:I didn't talk to anybody about it.
Marc:But then I start to realize, like, who do I really fucking talk to?
Marc:Who's in my social circle?
Marc:I got Kit.
Marc:I got Jerry.
Marc:I got Brendan.
Marc:I got a few people.
Marc:I got the people that come in and out of here for specific reasons.
Marc:But like there is no sort of cultural momentum.
Marc:If there isn't any cultural momentum around things in the world that I occupy, in the space that I occupy culturally, I don't know.
Marc:It just it just got kind of dismissed.
Marc:It just went by the wayside.
Marc:A David O. Russell movie with fucking Christian Bale.
Marc:And I just let it go by the wayside.
Marc:Until I was on an airplane two days ago.
Marc:And I was like, all right, well, let's just figure out why this is so terrible.
Marc:And I watched Amsterdam, and it's kind of a little masterpiece.
Marc:It's a socially relevant, complex film with complex characters about real stuff.
Marc:It's a period piece that explores the beginning of American Nazi sympathizers.
Marc:It also explores the arts of that time and what it meant to live an artist's life.
Marc:It also explores biracial relationships at a time in this country where they were illegal.
Marc:I mean, it takes place in between the two world wars.
Marc:It deals with the sort of grotesque result of war.
Marc:And all these characters is a sort of slightly comedic bent to them.
Marc:But this, it deals with eugenics.
Marc:It deals with the corporate supporters of fascism.
Marc:I mean, and it's all done in kind of a perky, rompy way with these amazing performances by all of the actors in it.
Marc:And I think I'm going to talk about it more specifically, maybe in some bonus content, but I'm going to start looking around for more movies.
Marc:It's like that movie I talked about with Tim Blake Nielsen that he was in that it just seems like, did anyone see them?
Marc:I mean, everyone was yammering on about Babylon, which is garbage.
Marc:And yeah,
Marc:And no one talked about Amsterdam, which was kind of a masterpiece.
Marc:In the same way I will defend Hail Caesar as one of the great Coen Brothers movies, I will defend Amsterdam as one of the great David O. Russell movies.
Marc:Probably the best one he's done since Silver Linings Playbook.
Marc:I'm putting that out there.
Marc:And I'm not trying to kiss his ass.
Marc:I wouldn't mind having them on the show.
Marc:But these guys, some of them just never come.
Marc:They never come to the show.
Marc:I invite them.
Marc:They don't come.
Marc:I'm not a miracle worker.
Marc:I can't force people.
Marc:So I took this job.
Marc:I took a job on a little part in a movie for Peacock called Bernard and the Genie.
Marc:And it's a Christmas movie.
Marc:And.
Marc:I took the job because it seemed fun.
Marc:It seemed easy.
Marc:It would allow me to make something out of nothing in a way and to just be funny.
Marc:And Melissa McCarthy's in it.
Marc:And I did a few scenes with her, but there was a lot of scenes with Papa Isidou.
Marc:I'm not sure how you pronounce his last name, but he was in I May Destroy You.
Marc:But he was great.
Marc:But just hanging out.
Marc:with melissa mccarthy to do these scenes and there wasn't much on the page uh i play a door guy in this building um i guess because it's a remake i i'm not tipping anything it's about a guy who is having trouble uh because he's working too much and his wife and small door daughter uh get annoyed and uh and they um
Marc:And he's just having marital problems.
Marc:So a series of events happens and he summons a genie.
Marc:And that genie is Melissa McCarthy.
Marc:And I'm the door guy in this building.
Marc:And me and Melissa develop a relationship over these four or five scenes I have.
Marc:But just to be on set with her and I've talked to her in here, but we just connected and it was fun.
Marc:She is one of the funniest fucking people in the world, like ever, just effortlessly funny.
Marc:So I found myself just kind of hanging out, just waiting to laugh, you know, and I'm doing scenes with her and we're just riffing and we built out this character a little bit.
Marc:And I'm just improvising with Melissa McCarthy.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I was pretty casual about it.
Marc:I definitely see she's just another funny person.
Marc:But you're on set and you're doing this stuff.
Marc:I had a good time.
Marc:I had fun.
Marc:I enjoyed doing it.
Marc:I enjoyed just being goofy, just being funny and riffing with Melissa McCarthy.
Marc:I don't know why it takes me so much just to be like, I had a good time, man.
Marc:And it's like, I can be funny.
Marc:I have to assume I'm a funny person.
Marc:I've been doing it for a long time.
Marc:But it's just nice to be able to unleash it a little bit and then to do it in a kind of symbiotic, riffy kind of way with Melissa McCarthy.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:How fucking great is that?
Marc:Did I ever assume that would happen for me?
Marc:No.
Marc:So it's it's not a huge part, but was a fun part.
Marc:It was fun to be in New York for a few days.
Marc:It was fun to wear doorman's outfit.
Marc:And it was fun to to just be on set again.
Marc:The guy Sam Boyd's directing it.
Marc:He's a fan of this show.
Marc:He pulled me in and he's like, come on, let's just do, you know, let's see what happens on set.
Marc:And I'm like, OK, man, had a lot of ideas.
Marc:Put them all out there.
Marc:We'll see what makes the cut.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:But either way, good times.
Marc:Three days, New York City.
Marc:Stayed at the fancy hotel.
Marc:Had a nice time.
Marc:Ate some okay food.
Marc:Hung out with my buddy Sam Lipsight for a day.
Marc:Basically just, you know.
Marc:It was kind of weird.
Marc:The entire spectrum of weather happened when I was in New York.
Marc:It rained.
Marc:It snowed.
Marc:It got nice.
Marc:It got windy.
Marc:It was all there.
Marc:So, as I said before, Laurie Anderson had a profound impact on my life.
Marc:Just hearing her in my headset while I talked to her was kind of mind-blowing.
Marc:It happens sometimes on this show.
Marc:And you'll be surprised.
Marc:She mentions a comic icon in a very personal way that she had a relationship with.
Marc:And I was sort of like, holy shit, what?
Marc:But she's here ostensibly to talk about The Art of the Straight Line, My Tai Chi by Lou Reed, which is a book that's available now wherever you get your books.
Marc:Laurie is one of the editors.
Marc:I think she wrangled the whole thing to get it out, which Lou didn't manage to do while he was alive.
Marc:So this is me talking to Laurie Anderson.
Laurie Anderson
Marc:Yeah, plans for the apocalypse.
Marc:What do you got?
Guest:Well, I've been spending about a year going to different places to see where might be a good place.
Marc:To stay above.
Guest:Iceland is one.
Guest:Greece is another.
Marc:Greece?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Portugal's too crowded with Americans.
Marc:I don't know that I... People talk about that, like you can buy your way into Portugal.
Marc:Yeah, you can.
Marc:But I don't speak Portuguese and I'd feel... You don't need to.
Guest:You don't need to.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:You know, I have this hobby just shopping for sheep farms, which I used to do in the 90s.
Guest:When I was on tour, it was...
Guest:It was like a Sunday and you're not playing.
Guest:What do you do?
Marc:You shop for sheep farms?
Guest:Well, yeah, you go to the local real estate place and say, you know, are there any sheep farms around?
Guest:I mean, I have no interest in sheep, really.
Guest:I just wanted to go driving around with a real estate person.
Guest:So in Portugal, in 92, I was there.
Guest:And I was flipping through a real estate brochure and said...
Guest:Sheep farms.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, actually, it said actually 10 acres, more or less 10 acres.
Guest:That's a lot of land.
Guest:For $2,000.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I called up the agent.
Guest:I said, that's a typo, right?
Guest:And they said, yeah, it is.
Guest:It's $1,800.
Guest:So I thought, I should buy a sheep farm for all my friends.
Guest:Did you?
Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:What a mistake.
Guest:There was no water there.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:It was so beautiful.
Guest:It was like New Mexico, which is my favorite kind of landscape.
Marc:I grew up there.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Lucky you.
Marc:Magic.
Marc:It is magic.
Guest:Huge sky.
Guest:All sky.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where do you spend time when you go to New Mexico?
Guest:Well, I haven't been there so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, some friends have, you know, around Taos.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah, Taos.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But... So back to Portugal, the sheep farm?
Guest:Back to Portugal.
Guest:So there was no water.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And no electricity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, you could bring a truck in with some water.
Guest:Generator.
Guest:Yeah, generator's called.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was like...
Guest:New Mexico on the ocean, so red dirt and cactus and pine trees on the Atlantic.
Marc:So that was the plan.
Marc:But, like, now, I just think, like, just Canada.
Marc:No.
No.
Marc:Well, it's warmer there now.
Marc:Well, I just find that I used to find it boring, but now I find it relaxing.
Guest:Boring is relaxing these days.
Marc:Yeah, right?
Marc:And I just know that if I go anywhere outside of this country, within seconds, I'm like, oh, my God.
Marc:It's not here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whatever it is.
Guest:But, you know, what do they think of this these days?
Guest:I mean, it must be like living over a crack house or something.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:What's going on down there?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How is this happening?
Guest:How could it be?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But they're kind of used to that, I think.
Marc:I guess, but to this degree, and it's creeping, you know, because whatever the psychic malignancy is... Does it creep over the border?
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I mean, in factions, but you don't feel it, I think, culturally.
Guest:I don't feel it until I get up to Montreal.
Guest:I mean, Toronto, I feel the creep.
Marc:You do, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's right across.
Marc:Sure, right.
Marc:And it feels a little more American there.
Marc:I don't know what the plan is.
Marc:I just need water, and I don't want to...
Marc:I've been recently thinking about these people that want to survive the apocalypse, and I don't understand why.
Guest:It's like I have a friend who's – she clones extinct animals.
Guest:Now that – Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's her company.
Marc:And they're doing that?
Marc:They are.
Marc:And have they had success?
Guest:Yes, they have.
Guest:And they're working on ferrets at the moment.
Marc:Are ferrets extinct?
Guest:They're going extinct, certain ones of them.
Guest:And so they're cloning them to bring them back.
Guest:But, you know, for the big ones, like a woolly mammoth, what are you going to bring it back for?
Guest:Just stand in a lab and go, I'm a woolly mammoth, I'm extinct.
Guest:We did it.
Guest:Yeah, look at that thing.
Guest:None of his friends are there, nothing to eat.
Marc:It would be so sad.
Marc:It's the saddest story.
Marc:It's a children's book that can't end well.
Yeah.
Guest:Children's books don't end well, generally.
Guest:You know, if you listen to lullabies, you know, Lorko, Garcia Lorko, the beautiful guitar player, you know, anyway, wrote about lullabies.
Guest:And he said, you know, they are not comforting.
Guest:These are mothers passing on some urgent, dark messages to their children.
Guest:Rock-a-bye baby in the tray.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Wind about breaks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Greatly now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good night.
Guest:Good night.
Guest:Twinkle, twinkle, little star, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I just learned the second verse of that thing.
Guest:When the blazing sun is gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When there's nothing to shine upon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Marc:It goes on from there.
Marc:So we've all been prepared.
Marc:It's not just religion.
Marc:It's fairy tales and children's songs.
Guest:Yeah, our mother sang us this song.
Guest:They were kind of trying to get us ready in a subtle way.
Guest:Did your mother sing any of those songs?
Guest:No, she did not.
Marc:My mother did not sing anything.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:What did she do?
Guest:My mother?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was involved.
Marc:No, she was very self-involved.
Marc:Telling stories to herself.
Marc:I don't know what she was doing, but she was very concerned about her appearance.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:That was her job.
Guest:Did she look good?
Marc:Yeah, she looked great.
Marc:Well, bravo.
Marc:How about you?
Marc:What did your mother do?
Guest:Oh, she had too many kids.
Guest:I was just lost in the crowd.
Guest:How many?
Guest:She had eight.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I was number two.
Guest:Was that Catholic?
Guest:No.
Guest:That's the first question everyone asks, is it Catholic?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Other people, she should have been a CEO.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of something.
Marc:Of children.
Marc:Well, she was a CEO of children.
Guest:That's what she decided on.
Guest:It was a long on down the list, but she did that, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you have all these siblings around still?
Guest:Yeah, they're around.
Guest:They're doing different stuff, yeah.
Marc:And you get along?
Yeah.
Guest:With most of them, yes.
Guest:There's always one that's, you know, and that one changes a little bit, you know.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It comes and goes, yeah.
Guest:But no, basically, you know, you're friends with all these people for life.
Guest:That's really nice.
Marc:And you were the middle?
Guest:I was number two.
Guest:What about you?
Guest:Did you have any sibs?
Marc:Younger brother, two and a half years.
Marc:Very similar, a little different, but yeah.
Guest:Are you competitive?
Marc:No, we're not competitive.
Guest:Wonderful.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Yeah, he was more athletic.
Marc:And then I went the art way.
Marc:He went the athletic way.
Marc:Perfect.
Guest:Divide it up.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Right when he beat me, the first time he beat me, I'm like, I'm out.
Marc:I'm not doing that.
Marc:I'm the artist here.
Marc:I'm going to go figure out what Kerouac was talking about.
Marc:Oh, did you figure that out?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I think I romanticize.
Marc:I mean, I'm 59, so I came in kind of late, you know?
Marc:So they were all several generations back, but I like the idea of all of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To the point where I think I had, the first album of yours I had was that one, You're the Man I Want to Spend the Rest of Mine.
Marc:You had that?
Marc:Well, I have the album with you and Burroughs.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Burroughs?
Marc:I've been sure to.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You're the guy I want to share my money with.
Marc:You're the guy I want to share my money with, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just, I became sort of obsessed with Burroughs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you were on there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was before you even made a record.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I was hanging out with those guys.
Marc:You were?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like you were there in New York at the time where everything started to happen.
Guest:Oh, things were happening before I came along.
Marc:But I mean that wave of like late 60s, 70s weirdo art.
Marc:That was cool.
Guest:That was cool.
Guest:It was a really, really, really nice time to be an artist.
Marc:Where did you come from before that?
Guest:Chicago.
Marc:You were going to school there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you grew up there, kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Big Skyland, also.
Guest:Also like New Mexico.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you get to New York, and what's happening is before it fell apart, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was falling apart.
Marc:It's always falling apart.
Marc:But didn't the 70s really kind of crash out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ford to New York City dropped dead was the headline.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And everyone was getting lofts in Tribeca for a nickel.
Yeah.
Guest:It didn't cost a nickel.
Guest:It was free.
Guest:That's better.
Guest:You know, that's what we did.
Guest:You just squatted and took it?
Guest:We were squatting, yeah, pretty much.
Guest:And then we had, speaking of no water, we had no water.
Guest:It's hard to live with no water in New York City.
Guest:What year are we talking?
Guest:74?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But you got there earlier.
Guest:I got there to go to Barnard in 67, in the late 60s.
Guest:And so it was really, the 60s really kind of rolled into the 70s in a lot of ways in terms of people helping each other and being sort of like communal and this kind of still sort of spiritual.
Marc:Like just post-hippie kind of thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's still a few hippies around there.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But I mean, I imagine it was mostly focused on the war in the late 60s in terms of the youth culture and then it kind of shifted.
Guest:Yeah, the war was part of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But love was part of it.
Marc:Was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you felt it?
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And just being part of a group also.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was really cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you could call somebody up and go, hey, I got to get my floor sanded.
Guest:Could you guys come over?
Guest:And people would come over for three days and sand your floor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, we could try that today.
Guest:There are plenty of sanding companies you could try.
Guest:I mean, I'm like, I don't have five minutes.
Marc:I'm so busy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it was just something.
Marc:It was a communal vibe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And these were other artists and whatnot?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Artists, musicians.
Guest:We all did a little bit of everything.
Guest:We all had pickup trucks.
Guest:Really?
Guest:In the city?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the city because the city was dark, kind of deserted.
Guest:You needed a truck.
Marc:And this was way downtown kind of deal?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So dark, dark, dark, dark.
Guest:Really?
Guest:One restaurant called Food.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was it good?
Guest:Do you like stuff like hard-boiled eggs with little tiny amoebas swimming in the oil?
Marc:Amoebas on purpose?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, I don't know what that is.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:What was the angle?
Marc:The angle is, you know.
Guest:Was it supposed to be healthy or just?
Guest:Yeah, like eating living stuff.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Green stuff.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Fishy stuff.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know what we were doing.
Guest:We were just trying to make up weird things to eat.
Marc:But who was the crew down there at the beginning?
Guest:Phil Glass, Trisha Brown, Gordon Mattaclark.
Guest:He was the ringleader of everything.
Guest:Richard Nonis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of just really great people.
Yeah.
Marc:To me, that period is so amazing because there were such unique artists that never happened before, really.
Marc:I mean, Philip Glass, you.
Marc:But I guess it's all before the Worcester Group and all that stuff, right?
Guest:They were cranking up around.
Marc:Spalding was around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I can't imagine everybody as young people just feeling it out.
Guest:Well, reel it back, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Reel back to your own life as a kid.
Marc:And I guess you had space, too, because if it was that deserted and that weird and New York was this sort of, you know, Wild West frontier.
Marc:You could also get shot, though.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:So it wasn't all a party.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, like, it seems to me that from the beginning, despite the intention of art, that, you know, comedy was always sort of part of what you were doing.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I was a straight man for Andy Kaufman for a while.
Guest:That was really fun.
Guest:Where'd you meet him?
Guest:A friend of mine said, and this was also right around that time, she said, there's this guy who's got to go out to Queens to this comedy club.
Guest:In the 70s?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Comedy club.
Guest:Early 70s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you've got to check him out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went to this club and...
Guest:Really squalid little place.
Marc:Was it like Pips or something?
Marc:It probably didn't even have a name.
Marc:It probably had a name, but it was in Queens?
Marc:It wasn't even a comedy club.
Guest:It was just a club.
Guest:So there was a guy playing bongos in this place.
Guest:And it was a really long set.
Guest:And bongos, you know, I don't know.
Guest:They get a little tiring after a couple of minutes.
Guest:Just solo bongos?
Guest:Solo bongo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then as he's playing these bongos, they hit about maybe four different bongos, different pitches, and bongo, bongo, bongo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And as he's playing, his head sort of falls, and some tears start rolling down his cheeks, and he starts crying, and then he's playing a little faster, and he starts crying, and then he's sobbing, and then he's like...
Guest:Just sobbing.
Guest:And everyone in the club was like, what the hell?
Guest:What's wrong with this guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, this is the greatest guy ever.
Guest:This is the funniest thing I have ever seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just said, who are you?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I did some stuff with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would go to Coney Island and, you know, we would...
Guest:Do stuff like stand around that test your strength thing with that sledgehammer.
Guest:You hit it and the meter goes up to like... So he would... We'd stand around.
Guest:He'd make fun of people who were doing it.
Guest:Like, what a... Provoke them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm supposed to like...
Guest:Andy, could you get me a bear?
Guest:And he's... So finally these guys get really sick of him and go, okay, pal, you give it a try.
Guest:So he just... And it goes up like not even one...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the try again weakling level.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's going, I want to see the manager.
Guest:This is fixed.
Guest:This is an outrage.
Guest:We have to go see the manager.
Guest:Anyway, it was just so much fun.
Guest:And he was a...
Guest:Real genius.
Guest:He was really a genius.
Guest:He just did all of these projects like that.
Marc:And this is before anyone knew him.
Marc:Like, this is before he really started doing it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Was he part of the scene or he was just this weirdo who lived in Queens?
No.
Guest:I mean, did you... Well, the scene, what was the... There wasn't a scene, really.
Guest:But it was like... These were experiments.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, okay, so then eventually we did do stuff in some real, like a comedy club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that would be... So other things were just things like we would go to...
Guest:Rides at Coney Island, you know, the one with the centrifugal force and everyone, the bottom drops off.
Guest:The Tilt-A-Whirl or whatever?
Guest:Yeah, it might be called Tilt-A-Whirl.
Guest:Anyway, so just as people are getting strapped in, he'd just go, I'm not confident about this ride.
Guest:I really have a very, very, very bad feeling about the ride.
Guest:And everyone's starting to sweat.
Guest:And they stop it, you know, because everyone's freaking out.
Guest:Freaking out?
Mm-hmm.
Guest:And other things, we would go to Madison Square Garden.
Guest:And this was before there were metal detectors or anything.
Guest:You'd just show your tickets when you got inside.
Guest:So he had no tickets.
Guest:So he would just go tell the usher.
Guest:We would sit down, you know, just courtside.
Guest:Basketball games or wrestling things.
Guest:Just down right where the action was.
Guest:First row.
Guest:And they'd come and go, tickets please.
Guest:And he'd go, oh.
Guest:I just have a piece of paper because a guy on the street sold me for $200 ringside tickets.
Guest:He said I could sit here ringside.
Guest:And the guy is going, you just paid $200.
Guest:Yeah, I've just paid $200.
Guest:You just get this guy to pity him.
Marc:You let him sit there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you go to wrestling too?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, what we did in clubs was he would part of – then he just started developing his act.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was also writing this really beautiful book, which I don't know what happened to because he would come over and read it to me.
Marc:What was it?
Guest:A novel.
Guest:Really?
Guest:A crazy, crazy novel.
Marc:How old was he when – how old were you guys?
Marc:Like 21, 22?
Guest:20s, in the 20s.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:You know, something like that.
Guest:And so then –
Guest:he got these things in clubs and he would just stand around saying, women just, you know, I just don't respect him.
Guest:You know, I just have to say, on a physical level, let's say, too, you know, because I'll respect a woman when she can come up here and wrestle me down.
Guest:And that was my cue to come up and, hey, I'll take you on.
Guest:So I'm sitting there in the club just trembling, drinking four whiskeys in a row.
Guest:I have to do this.
Guest:He would really fight, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't just, I mean, he wasn't going to kill me, but he was really twisting my arm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He didn't show you any wrestling moves?
Guest:I knew a few moves.
Marc:So you guys were friends for a while, huh?
Guest:Yeah, we were.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I loved him.
Guest:I loved Andy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's interesting to talk to somebody that knew him before he became what everyone else knows him as, whether as a comic or as an actor.
Marc:I mean, you knew him when he was basically just starting this weird stuff.
Guest:He was dangerous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do you think that his sort of courage around that stuff influenced you?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:That was crack for me.
Guest:I was like, yeah, who are you?
Guest:He did some really great stuff.
Guest:And did you stay in touch with him?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:Once he started doing TV stuff, I was kind of like, no, no, no.
Come on.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No, I didn't like that stuff.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Not really.
Marc:Well, what was it?
Guest:I didn't think it was funny, you know?
Guest:It was kind of a, it became such a sort of shtick.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was like, all right.
Marc:Like the laska stuff?
Marc:Yeah, you know.
Guest:I mean, it was sort of charming, I guess, but it wasn't like... Menacing.
Guest:Oh, I like the menace.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So who'd you lock on to after that?
Guest:I just got to do a scene of, you know, downtown music.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I guess we, at some point, everyone was calling what they did an opera, for lack of a better word.
Guest:You go down the street and you go, hey, how's your opera going?
Guest:Fine, mine too.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:You know, none of us were making actually operas, you know, but we're just... What was your first big performance piece?
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:Big.
Guest:I did a lot of stuff in lofts.
Guest:That's where I got my thing going.
Guest:For a few people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For eight people in a loft.
Marc:Important stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just stories and standing in front of film.
Guest:I was doing like film concerts.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's sort of an evolution of like that 60s thing.
Guest:I mean, I still kind of do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just came from...
Guest:Well, actually, that wasn't a show like that.
Guest:I just, on the way out here, went to Kansas City.
Guest:Wow, what a beautiful place.
Guest:Played with an orchestra there.
Guest:Wrote a thing for orchestra about Amelia Earhart.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I hadn't been in Kansas in a long time, and I realized...
Guest:I could see why she wanted to fly.
Guest:That's the only direction there.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:She's from there, huh?
Guest:Yeah, Atchison, Kansas.
Marc:So you were asked to do this, if you were interested in doing a project with this orchestra and you did some research and were inspired to do it about Amelia Earhart?
Guest:Kind of like that, yeah.
Guest:This conductor asked me to do something.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I thought, orchestration, how hard could it be?
Guest:So I orchestrated this thing for a giant orchestra.
Guest:And, you know, I mean, it's an art form that I didn't know anything about.
Guest:So they played the piece.
Guest:And the first time this was ever played was like 23 years ago in New York.
Guest:They played it in Carnegie Hall.
Guest:And big orchestra.
Guest:And the conductor, and you have no chance to revise it because they play it through and the next night is the world premiere.
Guest:So you're like, you better be good.
Guest:So sitting there, he plays this piece and it is amazing.
Guest:the worst thing I have ever heard in my life.
Guest:The bassoons are doing what the cellos should do.
Guest:It was just chaos.
Guest:You didn't know.
Guest:No, I did know.
Guest:It was the worst thing I've ever heard.
Guest:So the conductor turns around and he goes, how was that?
Guest:And I was like, um... He says, faster?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Faster would be good.
Guest:Be all over sooner.
Guest:But then I learned something really crazy the next night.
Guest:They...
Guest:They play a lot about music and audiences.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They played this thing.
Guest:It sounded just as bad as it had the night before.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But people were like applauding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As if they'd heard actual music.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, whoa.
Guest:You know, maybe they thought it was supposed to be chaotic.
Guest:That's what she wanted.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Lots of chaos.
Guest:Lots of craziness.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that, oh, okay.
Guest:That's a wild thing to learn.
Yeah.
Marc:That audiences don't understand.
Marc:And if they're seeing art and they're interested in it, they're pretty open-minded.
Marc:They are.
Marc:Because there's nothing to compare it to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:It's all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Another nice thing to know, and performers forget this, is people want you to succeed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not just out of generosity.
Guest:No, they want to be uncomfortable.
Guest:They want to be at a cool thing.
Guest:They want to tell their friends, I just saw the greatest thing last night.
Guest:Sorry you missed it, but it was really great.
Guest:So they're kind of rooting for you.
Guest:And they don't want to be witness to, you know.
Guest:A debacle, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that's the interesting thing about Andy is that he wanted that.
Marc:He wanted them to feel that.
Guest:Well, that was his success.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He did.
Marc:It's kind of wild that in order to appreciate him, you've got to, you know, be in this zone of discomfort.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he succeeded.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he really did.
Guest:And touching people that way is amazing just to feel failure.
Guest:And that's what was so genius about Bob Dylan.
Guest:He was the first guy who wrote about losers.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And romanticized losers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're all losers.
Guest:So, you know, we're like, okay, I get that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How great to have something about loss.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, Andy, that was built into Andy's thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Failure.
Guest:Loss.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Humiliation.
Guest:Shame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Welcome to the human race.
Marc:Right.
Marc:All this stuff we try to hide.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:When you decided to sort of live the life of an artist, what drove you?
Marc:Because you studied it, right?
Marc:I mean, you studied art history, right?
Guest:Yeah, but only because they thought it was too messy to do real stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Let's talk about it instead of do it.
Guest:It was what they did at school.
Guest:But then I went to school.
Guest:I got my MFA in sculpture, so it was...
Marc:But was that too confining, these other modes?
Guest:Well, I got kicked out several times because I wasn't doing welded things.
Guest:I said, sculpture is about welding.
Guest:I was like, really?
Marc:You didn't want to weld?
Guest:Well, I did want to weld, but there were other things to do in addition to welding.
Marc:I think Dylan's welding now.
Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He makes large, found metal object sculptures.
Guest:Beautiful.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, there's something very healing about welding, just sticking it all together.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:The flames, melting.
Guest:The flames, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just to see little Bob Dylan, thinking of him, welding is pretty great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone should have two or three things that they do, at least.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are your three?
Yeah.
Guest:Tai Chi is a big one.
Guest:Tai Chi is a big one.
Guest:And let's see.
Guest:That's music.
Guest:Music.
Guest:I like music.
Guest:I like painting a lot.
Marc:Did I see some of your paintings up at Mass Mocha?
Marc:Was that a thing out in Western Mass, you know, that big art museum?
Marc:Did you have a room out there?
Guest:I have a room there for 15 years.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm there forever.
Guest:So right now they have some VR stuff that I did.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there were some big paintings, weren't there?
Marc:For a while.
Guest:Yeah, I saw those.
Guest:Those are great.
Guest:And then, oh, yeah, there were pictures of my.
Guest:Oh, the VR stuff.
Guest:Yeah, VR.
Guest:And now there's some stories sort of thing.
Marc:So they just gave you a room and you just kind of fill it up every few years?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a crazy sort of gig.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't that a crazy space?
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I love old factories that turn into something else.
Guest:It's really nice.
Guest:And it's cool for Western Mass, too, because it's a whole scene there now.
Marc:I definitely, when I drive, I'll go out there if I've got a gig out there or somewhere around there because I've never seen anything like it.
Marc:And when artists choose to fill that big hall with an installation, it's like, that is nuts, man.
Marc:What an undertaking.
Marc:So, well, the Tai Chi, I mean, I know you're here promoting this book.
Marc:What's interesting about the book, which is The Art of the Straight Line, My Tai Chi, the Lou Reed book, is that with both of you, you know, like when I started listening to the old records of yours, like which I listened to in high school and, you know, maybe I haven't listened to in a long time.
Marc:But there's something about your voice and your tone that, you know, right when you put it on, you know, I'm like, oh, you know, I know what this is.
Marc:It's Laurie Anderson.
Marc:I'm going to be here now.
Marc:Because it's part of my wiring.
Marc:You are.
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:And Lou is, too, because I listen to all that stuff.
Marc:And I guess you had something to do with the Light in the Attic release of those demos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So beautiful, right?
Marc:It's wild because there's a couple on there.
Marc:It's like he's literally trying to be Dylan.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And a folk singer, too.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I was like, oh, my God.
Marc:There's harmonica.
Marc:Like, it's so cute.
Guest:It's adorable.
Guest:He's in his parents' basement, you know, kind of going, Words and Music by Lou Reed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was he in his parents' basement?
Guest:No, actually not.
Guest:But he was in a studio.
Guest:But a lot of the stuff he did in the basement, he was a kid, but all these early versions of stuff.
Guest:There were...
Guest:Just some wild ones.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's see, what's the first cut on that?
Guest:I can't remember right now.
Guest:Anyway, it's a song that went through a lot of changes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As many of them did, because there's a song, Perfect Day, that he did an early version of, which was, it's such a...
Guest:Summer day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I want to spend it with you.
Marc:Yeah, it's always wild to hear what they've become and how much better they've become.
Marc:But, I mean, I guess, like, I talked to Jackson Brown once about Lou and about, you know, Jackson Brown being in New York for a minute and writing that song that Nico did.
Marc:But he said Lou Reed took him to a Murray the K show.
Marc:So there's this whole element of Lou that really wanted to be this pop singer, you know, songwriter, right?
Guest:And a soul singer.
Guest:And...
Guest:James Joyce.
Guest:He wanted to be a lot of things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you guys were together starting like 2008?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, we got married in 2008.
Guest:We were together for 21 years starting in 1992.
Marc:That's crazy, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We just got married as a sort of fluke.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Most of us, I was walking along the road somewhere, I think California.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was talking to him and I was saying, you know,
Guest:There's so many things I didn't do in my life.
Guest:I was going to learn German.
Guest:I was going to learn physics.
Guest:I guess I thought I'd get married and go, let's get married.
Guest:He said, how about tomorrow?
Guest:He'd asked me to marry him many times.
Guest:I was like, I'm not into it.
Guest:But then at this point, I was thinking...
Guest:Okay, so we got married the next day.
Guest:Where, here?
Guest:No, we got married in Boulder.
Guest:I had a show in Boulder the next day, and he came and he sang the show, and we got married.
Marc:That's nice, wasn't it?
Guest:It was really nice, yeah.
Guest:It was really nice, yeah.
Marc:But I guess where I was going with the...
Marc:with the idea was that like, you know, all of us who have, who are fans of you or fans of, you know, you have, you have your, I have my perception of whatever your life is very limited.
Marc:You know, it's limited to some records and a few things I read and you, you know, doing a thing in, you know, Stockholm or whatever it is.
Marc:You know, it's a perception.
Marc:And then this thing about Lu.
Marc:Like, I didn't know anything about Lu and Tai Chi.
Guest:You know, it's wild.
Guest:He is known in China as a Tai Chi master, not as a musician.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Okay, not as a musician.
Guest:So, he's a really, really complicated person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Tai Chi was something that he began, well, he began with martial arts in like the 70s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we also just found a song about Tai Chi from then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was always, martial arts was always a big part of his life.
Marc:Did it save his life?
Guest:Well, he died.
Marc:Well, I know.
Marc:Well, everyone's going to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, but at the time, in the 70s, I mean, like he was.
Guest:No, I think what saved his life was drugs at that point.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just white light, you know.
Guest:Well, right.
Guest:He wanted to see the light somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wanted magic somehow.
Guest:So it was drugs then.
Guest:It was music later.
Guest:It was Tai Chi all the time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, so he was still doing drugs when he started Tai Chi.
Guest:Yeah, he was.
Guest:And he wasn't doing very well in Tai Chi.
Guest:No, he was doing pretty good in drugs.
Guest:But martial arts is – and especially the kind he did was – when I met him, he was doing more Yang style, which is more kind of –
Guest:almost circusy moves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you'd be like doing scissor kicks and swords and stuff.
Guest:I was like, whoa, that's crazy.
Guest:And then I, you know, you don't want to do everything your partner does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I like Tai Chi, so I found another guy to study with, Master Ren Guan Yi, push hands champion of China.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway,
Guest:I said, Lou, my teacher's better than yours, so you've got to come over here and check it out.
Guest:So they did.
Guest:And then I became like a third wheel.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, they just glued to each other.
Guest:It was really great.
Guest:They became brothers.
Guest:And Chen style is really much more a fighting form.
Guest:So I think that appealed to Lou a lot.
Guest:You know, that it was like...
Guest:Ritual fighting.
Guest:So there's many, many moves, like a very slow, beautiful, slow motion slice of the right arm through the air.
Guest:And you see old Chinese ladies doing in the park.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Decapitation.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No mistake.
Guest:It's a killing art form.
Marc:Well, let me ask you, because I started going through the book, and there's reflections from Iggy, Michael Pierioli, some of the teachers, some of the other characters in his life, in your life.
Marc:And I started to think, well, is this serendipitous?
Marc:Should I be doing this?
Guest:Well, you know what we're doing is with this, and we can do this now if you want, because...
Guest:I just think, I told the people who are publishing the book, you know, we don't want to just be sitting around being talking heads.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we're going to make all the things about doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you're doing it in a sitting position, you do something called Standing Mountain, which is, if you're listening to this, this podcast, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So just...
Guest:You put your arms in a circle almost out like – and you drop your shoulders.
Guest:And it's a kind of tree-hugging position, let's say.
Guest:But we don't think of it like that.
Guest:It's called standing mountain.
Guest:And you do that for as long as you can stand, maybe an hour.
Guest:But let's say you're only going to do it two minutes.
Guest:You'll still get a lot of benefit out of two minutes because you're going to begin to feel the movement of chi through your body.
Guest:And everything in Tai Chi is circles.
Guest:So as your hands pass each other in many of these forms, you feel this ball of energy.
Guest:And the first time I felt that, I was like...
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's really an amazing thing.
Guest:So the title of this book, The Art of the Straight Line, what does that mean with an art form of circles to have a straight line?
Guest:So that was the title he came up with when he started writing this book.
Guest:And, you know, he never finished the book.
Guest:So he was doing a lot of things and then he got very, very sick.
Guest:So he just kind of,
Guest:left all these notes for us.
Marc:And he felt like this was following through with the reason you put it out was because you knew it was... To the best of our ability, we followed through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, the art of the straight line, he makes references to a straight line in song sometimes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think Some Kind of Love of Boers, I think, says something about a straight line in there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's a lot of Tai Chi images in his music.
Guest:Also, there's a song called Ecstasy, and he's talking about inside the self is reeling is one of the lines.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yes.
Guest:What is reeling?
Guest:So, silk reeling...
Guest:is one of the basic forms of tai chi, a name for one of them.
Guest:Because it comes from a lot of these physical circular motions come from the spinning of a silkworm.
Guest:And then from the way that everything turns into these...
Guest:not spirals, really, because that has a center.
Marc:Almost like yarn balls?
Guest:Yeah, kind of a yarn balls.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is a little bit like that, a little bit like the spinning.
Guest:But it is, what this comes down to is ardor, you know, that I want to learn this.
Guest:I want to get there.
Guest:I want to see something magic.
Guest:I want to really be, I want to find out what this is for.
Marc:And you can get there?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you can get there.
Guest:You can get there, and then you fall apart again, which is the great part, the great lesson of this.
Guest:You just try it, and then you're going to fail, and then you're going to try it again, and there's no judgment about it.
Marc:And what you're looking for, because, I mean, part of it requires imagination, right?
Guest:Yeah, it does.
Guest:It's very much about your mind as well.
Marc:Yeah, in order to sort of like feel the chi in a ball that you're dealing with.
Marc:You know, I think that if your mind meets, you know, if your mind meets the idea—
Guest:sort of midway and then the reality can happen well the chi is inside you too I mean you are made of chi so the ball is just an expression because in many of the moves they're made so that they you feel the chi running down your shoulder through your heart and out the other hand and you're like what is that really it's like white lightning it's like kundalini it's like like you had eyes and you never opened up huh so it's like a wow so I could see how this would replace the drugs once he locked into it yeah
Guest:It's white light, white heat.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it doesn't require syringes.
Guest:No.
Marc:Just hands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It seems safer somehow.
Guest:Yeah, it's a lot safer.
Guest:Well, is it safer?
Guest:I don't know if it's safer.
Guest:Drugs are safe.
Guest:You know, go into your little cocoon and see.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:And as long as you're managing them properly, but ultimately not.
Marc:I would say that from what I've read in this book that, you know,
Marc:Tai Chi is probably better for your organs and your veins.
Guest:It is really good for that.
Guest:And Lou died of liver cancer.
Guest:And when I met him, he said, I'm going to die of liver cancer.
Guest:He knew?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, because he had hepatitis.
Guest:He had a lot of things from drugs.
Guest:And a lot of those guys, Bowie, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:kills you.
Guest:When you do that as a kid, you're going to die from it.
Guest:So he did, but he really kind of took control and he lived a lot longer than he would have without Tai Chi, without wanting to understand his body, without wanting, you know, he wanted to live.
Guest:He wanted to live.
Guest:He was
Guest:So he did everything he could.
Guest:And so this book, Art of the Strange, is also about all of the other things he did, like meditation and diet and ways that you can live a little longer than.
Marc:Knowing he was sick.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, when he started this, he wasn't sick.
Marc:He was just searching.
Guest:When he started the book, he had hepatitis C. Yeah.
Guest:He had diabetes.
Guest:He had a lot of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had a lot of things.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:But he was a fighter.
Guest:Yeah, clearly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he said, that's not going to stop me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to do everything I can.
Guest:I mean, he wanted the best of everything.
Guest:He's so inspiring in that way.
Guest:I'm going to find the best sword.
Guest:I'm going to find the best briefcase.
Guest:I'm going to find the best bass player.
Guest:I'm going to find the best.
Guest:I'm going to really find the best.
Marc:Do you think that come out of insecurity?
Guest:I would never try to be a psychoanalyst.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of people – he got psychoanalyzed by every journalist in the world.
Guest:That's true.
Marc:Because he was confounding.
Guest:Well, also, you know, they were kind of – you must be like so messed up because he's going –
Guest:He wanted to be Baudelaire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Rambo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:It's called writing.
Guest:I'm not talking – the I I'm talking about, that's not me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why do you have to decide that that's me?
Marc:It's so funny that Baudelaire, Rambo, you know, that you've got – like Lou was in that zone too.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And Patti Smith's in that zone.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Jim Carroll was in that zone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:writing poetry, dark poetry about the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're in that zone?
Guest:Past the present.
Guest:I'm fairly dark.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's always a hint of humor a lot of times.
Guest:Well, I find the apocalypse kind of funny.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Sadly.
Marc:And you always have?
Guest:No, you know, but, you know,
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I have a different view of time lately.
Guest:I don't know why.
Marc:Well, that's interesting.
Marc:I do, too.
Marc:I think COVID fucked time up.
Marc:Big time.
Marc:And I can't get it back.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And that's okay not to.
Marc:Did you want it back?
Marc:No, because it's actually every day seems like about a week.
Marc:And I don't know when that happened or how it happened, but it did happen during COVID.
Marc:Yeah, it did.
Marc:And it reconfigured things.
Marc:And I mean, we live lives.
Marc:If you're living an artist's life where you're not clocking in, you know, it's nice that we now have elongated.
Guest:It's a dream.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's so wonderful.
Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of people changed their lives.
Guest:You know, I was talking to a guy the other day.
Guest:He was a tech guy that I was working with in Kansas City.
Guest:I said, what did you do in the pandemic?
Guest:Because he was doing a lot of technology stuff.
Guest:And he said, I became a horticulturist because I just wanted to be around the dirt and, you know, like outside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think a lot of people kind of went, you know, I hate my job.
Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to do this.
Guest:I want to do something else.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Guest:What an incredible gift to everybody.
Guest:For a lot of people, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some people are like, I can't wait to get back.
Marc:That's okay, too.
Marc:They want the structure.
Marc:Well, I mean, and it's also, but you were in New York, and it got devastated.
Marc:I mean, people like someone that you worked with on one of your records, Hal Willner, passed away from that.
Marc:And it just seemed like New York was ground zero for the actual production.
Marc:death count of COVID.
Guest:Yeah, we lost a lot of people.
Marc:Did you know others?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:And a lot of friends in Europe, too, who were stuck in Milan especially.
Guest:Three people I know there died.
Guest:Yeah, people I was working with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a very big thing.
Guest:But I think it did do something different.
Guest:People are so vague about time now.
Guest:Like, I don't know, was it three years ago, four?
Guest:Pre-pandemic, I think.
Guest:So that's not just me.
Guest:No.
Guest:Their clocks got erased.
Guest:You know, their digital clocks kind of went error, error, error.
Guest:It's wild, man.
Guest:It's all gone.
Guest:It's gone.
Guest:It's so great.
Guest:It's, you know, it's...
Guest:It's exhilarating.
Guest:I always hoped for something like this, not for the death of people, but for the reset and to just kind of go, what do you want?
Guest:Who are you?
Guest:I had a very weird thing that just happened to me, probably because of the same thing.
Guest:I have been going since the late 70s to this place in Massachusetts to do meditation.
Guest:So it's like very hardcore, 18 hours a day for 10 days, no talking.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you do what you do with all these meditation things.
Guest:Your mind is a clear sky and thoughts are clouds.
Guest:So you see a cloud come by.
Guest:You just... Okay, that's a thought.
Guest:Let it go.
Guest:Here comes another one.
Guest:Let it go.
Guest:And you constantly do that to try to find another place that doesn't have busy thoughts going through you.
Guest:Anyway, it's a very standard thing.
Guest:Although...
Guest:I also have a Swiss teacher who's, because he's Swiss, he goes, imagine not your mind is not a sky, let's say it's a little lake, let's say he's Swiss.
Guest:Every thought's a little sailboat.
Guest:Here comes one, let it go.
Guest:Here comes another one, let it go.
Guest:So then, but he takes it a little farther.
Guest:He goes, now imagine...
Guest:what kind of wind is blowing these boats?
Guest:Is it a fierce winter wind or is it some soft summer breeze?
Guest:In other words, what's the engine?
Guest:Where are your thoughts coming from?
Guest:What's motivating them?
Guest:What's down there doing this?
Guest:Anyway, so I'm going through this whole thing and I'm throwing the thoughts away.
Guest:There's
Guest:Giant landscape of discarded thoughts.
Guest:I'm there.
Guest:And then what happened was so weird.
Guest:It just kind of came up out of that.
Guest:I couldn't remember my name.
Guest:And this went on for like 10 seconds at least.
Guest:And I was like, in the first couple seconds, you go, wow, it's not my name.
Guest:Then you go, I don't know my name.
Guest:And then you go, is there a piece of paper around here with my name on it?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I just couldn't find it.
Guest:And it's a lot longer than you think.
Guest:Like when you're introducing two people, you can't remember the names.
Guest:You're going, you two should really be.
Guest:You like each other.
Guest:It's transparent that you can't remember the names.
Guest:Sure, I'm terrible.
Guest:Terrible names.
Guest:You two do it.
Guest:But when it's your own name, it's wild.
Guest:So I'm sitting there, and finally, after...
Guest:searching around, I see this big shabby kind of banner.
Guest:And it has my name on it.
Guest:And I'm like, that is so stupid.
Guest:What does that have to do with this discarded landscape of thoughts, you know?
Guest:And then the next thing, mental picture was...
Guest:A whole lot of really beautiful, interesting artworks that were all different materials, really quirky kind of things.
Guest:And then another sort of banner that goes, primitivism.
Guest:I'm like, how dumb that you have to put a word onto something so complicated, so diverse and weird.
Guest:And you have to go, that's called primitivism.
Yeah.
Marc:That is sort of a strange kind of umbrella word for anything kind of raw and ethnic from different parts of the world and time.
Guest:But all those labels are classics.
Guest:Classic is the same or, you know, okay, that's punk or that's something, you know.
Guest:And it's just to – I mean, it's – obviously, we can't – we don't have time to describe things in detail.
Guest:So, these are handy labels.
Guest:But when you're –
Guest:When your name becomes a handy label, it's weird.
Marc:That's wild, huh?
Guest:And I think that's the biggest difference for me in looking around at the world now as opposed to when I was a young artist.
Guest:We weren't looking to make our names or to make a style that was going to be –
Guest:I mean, when I started doing records with Warner Brothers, they said, well, we need you need a style.
Guest:We need to like get you sort of like a branded thing.
Guest:I was like, I did it as a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it was ridiculous.
Guest:And now which part was a joke.
But.
Guest:You know, like your look.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, I was like, well, obvious.
Guest:It's to sell stuff, you know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But leading up to the records, I mean, you were working with all those, you know, you were interfacing with technology.
Marc:You had done the music.
Marc:You made the different filters and the violin.
Guest:Yeah, because I wasn't.
Marc:You were doing art stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wasn't making art to express myself.
Guest:I don't care if you know me or not.
Okay.
Marc:Well, then what is the purpose?
Marc:Why are you doing it?
Guest:Because I want to see how things work, what colors they could be, what shapes they could be, what kind of stories they could be.
Guest:You know, it's not to tell you about myself.
Guest:I don't care.
Marc:But it comes out of you and you can't – Yeah, but – yeah.
Guest:And eventually you have a kind of style.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But to want to have a style to begin – No, of course.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Is – I think unfortunately for young artists now, they're told they have to have a style.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A brand, it's called.
Guest:They have to brand and they have to be a whatever.
Marc:But that's interesting because out of that same world that you come from, that there was, and I think it's become overdone, people who explicitly want you to know them better than you probably want to know them.
Marc:Probably.
Marc:Well, I mean, Spalding was like that.
Marc:I mean, that was a specific trip, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was his rhythm.
Marc:That was his thing.
Guest:That was his thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But – and now I – Well, he's a – yeah, he was an autobiographical – what they call – okay, here's another – here's another label to slap on him.
Guest:But he did want to know himself and he wanted you to know him as much as he could articulate that.
Guest:And – which is –
Guest:A funny kind of thing because even with the words that he tried to use – that he used.
Guest:I shouldn't say tried to use.
Guest:The words he used could be shoved one way or another just by his facial expression.
Guest:Because you had to really see him do that.
Guest:Also, I did some music for his movies.
Guest:And I realized that because it's just a guy sitting at a table with a glass of water, you could make his story sound –
Guest:Ominous.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Or you can make a sound.
Guest:And he's saying the same thing.
Guest:So power of music is amazing.
Marc:So when you write, you know, the poetry that drives, you know, that is layered on top of the sounds and the music and the rhythms, you know, those are not, they just come to you that, you know, you kind of, how do you work when you write?
Yeah.
Guest:Different ways.
Guest:But now I'm using a lot of AI programs.
Marc:So you're adapting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, actually, I was working with this group sometime before the pandemic.
Guest:A million years ago before the plague.
Guest:A million years ago.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:It's called the Machine Learning Institute in Adelaide, in Australia.
Guest:And they said, okay, this is the biggest language supercomputer in the world.
Guest:You're the artist in residence.
Guest:What do you want it to do?
Guest:I was like, it's a supercomputer, doesn't it?
Guest:Can it get its own projects?
Guest:What do you need me for?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I said, okay, let's teach it to read the Bible.
Guest:Because...
Guest:Everyone's always banging on the Bible, saying, the Bible says.
Guest:And I say, really?
Guest:What does it say?
Guest:So we got to three different language streams that make up the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Guest:And you can control those with faders.
Guest:So if you are reading the Bible, you can add a little extra Greek.
Guest:And the question was, is it going to be more rational?
Guest:If you add a little extra Hebrew, is it going to be more mystical?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Inconclusive results, kind of.
Guest:But anyway, what they did was they put everything I ever wrote or said or recorded into the supercomputer and they crossed it with the Bible.
Guest:And they sent me a 9,000-page book.
Guest:The Bible...
Guest:According to me.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's creepy.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Guest:It's in my style.
Guest:It's got syntax, got the kind of thinking.
Guest:And I'm telling you in this book.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:With great confidence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:About the creation of the world.
Guest:Dominion of Man over Animals, Fiery End and Revelations.
Guest:Are you using it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I mean, I'm addicted to this program now.
Guest:So the opera that I'm doing, which is an apocalypse.
Marc:But this is a real opera.
Marc:This is not a Lower East Side opera.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's an Upper West Side opera.
Guest:Apocalyptic dark comedy called ARC.
Guest:And it's going to be in...
Marc:And this is your collaboration with AI?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also, they also put everything that Lou ever wrote into this program.
Guest:With you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or a separate one?
Guest:I could now combine these two things.
Wow.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:It's wild.
Guest:Now, I don't really think I'm... It's not a Ouija board thing and I'm like... Yeah.
Guest:I think I'm collaborating with my dead husband.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, but...
Guest:People have styles.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And they have styles and you can meld them.
Guest:So I'm writing these weird songs now that are collaborations between the two.
Marc:Through AI.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So this is the natural evolution of what you do in terms of your relationship with technology.
Marc:This is it.
Marc:It's almost like...
Guest:Yeah, but for a lot of people who work with tech, everybody's using the chatbot to write their papers, to do everything.
Guest:And did you read the love affair that the guy had with Sidney?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It was with the new Bing, supposedly, the Bing chatbot.
Guest:And got into a very long thing.
Marc:Is it like that movie Her?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we're having to confront this now.
Guest:I mean, who's in there is another kind of intelligence that's kind of mirroring us.
Guest:I mean, it really is with a lot of these algorithms.
Guest:It's like Twitter in, Twitter out.
Guest:It depends on what you're feeding the AI.
Marc:But do you feel like you're grounded in yourself strong enough to do it, to not be sort of erased by it?
Guest:I don't mind being erased.
Marc:You don't mind forgetting your name as long as you can come back.
Guest:No.
Guest:And even if he can't come back, I don't know.
Guest:It was a kind of – I thought, finally, I'm making a little progress.
Marc:Yeah, it's beautiful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I did – I aspired to disappear.
Marc:Now, I want to talk about –
Marc:Because I lost somebody during the pandemic.
Marc:And, you know, talking about grief.
Marc:And, like, for some reason, I was sent the songs from the Bardos that you did.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It was, like, on Smithsonian or something?
Guest:Oh, uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, it was, yeah.
Marc:Songs from the Bardo.
Yeah.
Marc:And I sort of listened to it yesterday and then just considering what you went through with Lew's sickness and how you, I don't get a sense of how you process things, but I found that for some reason listening to the Bardo's, I kind of got something that I didn't anticipate.
Guest:Well, I highly recommend something that I listen to about a hundred times.
Guest:It's a really long teaching by a guy named Bob Thurman.
Guest:It's called The Liberation of the Between.
Guest:And it's about how...
Guest:What happens to – in this belief system is what happens to consciousness, let's say, when you die and 49 days where your consciousness prepares to enter another life form and how you can help that person do that.
Guest:So I listened to that.
Guest:I haven't memorized it.
Guest:It's about four-hour teaching.
Guest:It's fantastic.
Guest:And so Bob Thurman begins that with like –
Guest:The thing to know about the bardo is there are no dead people.
Guest:No dead people at all.
Guest:And he goes on from there.
Guest:He goes, there's the door.
Guest:It's just a line.
Guest:And on and on like this.
Guest:Now...
Guest:I have to say, you know, Lou's been dead 10 years, and I feel his presence every day really in a very powerful way.
Guest:I feel that he teaches me a lot.
Guest:I still find notes around the house from him that I haven't read, okay?
Guest:So it's like he's in my life.
Guest:So is Hal Wilner.
Guest:And I thought, I've always believed in angels.
Guest:They're around.
Guest:And then...
Guest:And recently, two weeks ago, a friend of mine came back from Varanasi.
Guest:And this is a place in India where they carry the dead people on these stretchers.
Guest:And they toss them down the ghats, down the stairs.
Guest:And they burn them up.
Guest:And she saw these.
Guest:She saw them using this big stick.
Guest:And they're chopping up the charred body.
Guest:And they're chopping the head off, the charred head off.
Guest:And she said...
Guest:two things came to her mind, final place.
Guest:And I was like, oh.
Guest:She said, I don't have that much stake in reincarnation anyway.
Guest:So I just saw that, I thought that.
Guest:And I said, but wait, wait, wait, wait.
Guest:Lou talks to me every day.
Guest:And then she said, I want you to consider this, that they're inside you.
Guest:And I was like, oh, that's heavy.
Guest:Because then when I died, they're gone.
Guest:She said, no, no.
Guest:They're inside a lot of people.
Guest:It's not like you're the only one carrying this.
Guest:So I've been trying this out the last couple of weeks.
Guest:And it's intense.
Guest:And it does give you a different sense of time.
Guest:You know, it gives you this sense of like...
Guest:Wow, what if this is what my mind is doing with that?
Guest:You know, doing all of these things that I think are coming from some… Outside, yeah.
Guest:Outside.
Guest:What if it's inside?
Marc:Self-generated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's a thrilling idea also.
Yeah.
Marc:But also the idea of qi within and then connecting to universal qi, why not?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I probably am going to compromise going we're in an ocean of thought stream that we all live in.
Guest:And sometimes we have bodies, sometimes we don't.
Guest:And individuality isn't so important.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it comes down to something that's really especially thrilling to me, which is every single second that your hair counts.
Guest:Every single second.
Guest:We don't know where we come from.
Guest:Don't know what we are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So just try to be there for as much of it as you can.
Guest:Don't sleep too much.
Guest:Yeah, show up.
Guest:No, sleep is nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sleep is nice.
Guest:Sleep is wonderful.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, no pressure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No pressure.
Guest:It's just all about, you know, love and joy.
Guest:All right.
Guest:It comes down to that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'll take it and I'll work on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:I'm trying to work on that too.
Guest:It's tough though because it's easier to believe in angels.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Not for me.
Marc:But like I have lately been experimenting with joy and it's a little disconcerting.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because it's not comfortable.
Marc:You know, it feels vulnerable and it feels like an emotion that originally –
Marc:manifests as a type of sadness first.
Guest:Well, then your joy is your sadness.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Guest:Right?
Guest:I was hoping not.
Guest:No, why not?
Guest:I mean, everything lives inside its opposite, so...
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I mean I'm like a – I wallow in sadness.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I like it.
Marc:It makes me feel something.
Marc:I don't feel sorry for myself.
Marc:It's something else.
Marc:It's sort of –
Marc:Like, there's, yeah, there's a, it's a dark empathy.
Guest:Bingo.
Guest:That's, I mean, every day I think of what our teacher said, and this is Lou's teacher too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And mine as well.
Guest:And we took him.
Guest:He's a guy from Nepal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he looks like he's a really vulnerable guy, incredible teacher.
Guest:And he said, you don't know how to swim, do you?
Guest:He said, no, I sink all the time.
Guest:I'm going to teach you to swim.
Guest:So we took this guy swimming.
Guest:But what he taught us was something so great, and it was about this.
Guest:I could sum it up in one sentence, which is what he said was try to practice how to feel sad without actually being sad.
Guest:And I thought, wow.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Because there are lots of sad things in the world.
Guest:And if you pretend they're not there, you're an idiot.
Guest:They're there.
Guest:But his whole thing is don't become that.
Guest:Do not become that.
Guest:Feel it, but don't become it.
Guest:And I was like, what a great distinction.
Guest:That's where it lives.
Guest:So...
Guest:And he's all about... He's... I don't know.
Guest:I'm just picturing his face now laughing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is he gone?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:He's somewhere.
Guest:He's a really incredible teacher.
Guest:He also just disappeared for about four years.
Guest:He went off into a cave in Nepal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he is somebody who...
Guest:was never alone in his whole life.
Guest:I always had three llamas trailing after him because he's kind of in this lineage of teachers.
Guest:Yeah, is he out of the cave?
Guest:Yeah, he's out of the cave.
Guest:But he was in the cave when Lou died and I thought, oh yeah, I need you right now.
Guest:You're gone in a cave?
Guest:Come back.
Guest:So I lived on those words.
Guest:And that...
Guest:That one is key.
Marc:Feel it, don't be it.
Guest:Feel it and don't become it.
Marc:Don't become it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's a lovely book and it's got me thinking already, honestly, because I'm just hiking up a mountain and lifting weights and trying to eat well.
Marc:Those are great things.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Hiking up a mountain?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like two or three times a week right over here.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But there seems to be something to this.
Marc:And I tried meditation a bit during...
Marc:During the pandemic.
Marc:And I felt I felt that I could get there.
Marc:You know, like I it was not alien to me.
Marc:It wasn't like, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:I got it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But this seems like there's some good information in here about about, you know, harnessing the chi business.
Guest:We've got it.
Guest:We've got it.
Guest:We all have it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And we're all part of the big one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So might as well.
Guest:Yeah, I think there's some, you know, it's a lot of Lou's friends who talk about how this works.
Guest:And it's just also a very practical thing to do for your body.
Marc:And it's an interesting profile of Lou Reed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like my friend Sam, who lives in New York, knew that he was in the Tai Chi.
Marc:And I guess there's people that did, but I didn't.
Marc:So I'm like, this is whole other Lou.
Yeah.
Marc:So if you're a Lu person and you don't know Tai Chi Lu, now you're going to know Tai Chi Lu.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:I'll tell you a story and then I've got to get you out of here so you don't miss your point.
Marc:Because I've told this story before.
Marc:But, like, you know, Lou Reed was signing records with the band he played on New Sensations with.
Marc:It was for New Sensations.
Marc:I was in college in Boston.
Marc:And he was signing records at Strawberry Records in Kenmore Square.
Marc:And I'm like, I'm going to go.
Marc:I'm going to go see Lou.
Marc:I'm going to meet Lou, you know.
Marc:And I was in line, and I'm behind this guy who's in a white jumpsuit with an amp strapped to his back and a guitar.
Marc:I'm like, I got to be behind this asshole.
Marc:But I'm in line, and I'm like, I got to connect.
Marc:I got to connect with Lou.
Marc:This can't just be a signing thing.
Marc:I got to connect.
Marc:So I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking about it.
Marc:And I get up to the counter, and he goes, what's your name?
Marc:I go, it's Mark.
Marc:And I go, hey, Lou, what gauge pick do you use?
Marc:And he looks at me, right?
Marc:And he looks at me and goes, medium, man.
Marc:You got to use a medium.
Guest:And I'm like, yes!
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:That was my big Lou Reed moment.
Guest:Well, that's a good one because that stuff mattered to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was where it lived, you know, what pick it is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I can tell.
Marc:All that stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:All that stuff.
Marc:Great talking to you.
Guest:Same.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Andy Kaufman.
Marc:The book, The Art of the Straight Line, My Tai Chi by Lou Reed, is available now wherever you get your books.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Hang out for a second.
Marc:Folks, if you're interested in hearing more about Andy Kaufman and you have a full Marin subscription, you can listen to my episodes with Andy's friend and comedy partner, Bob Zamuda, and then my follow-up with Tony Clifton.
Guest:I would go on fucking TV, Letterman, Merv Griffin.
Guest:Remember Merv, Mike Douglas show, all that stuff.
Guest:Then I'd go do it, and it was me, and Kaufman would be home laughing his ass off what people think was him.
Guest:So we became friends.
Guest:And then, of course, after his death, right here at the comedy store, one year later.
Guest:So he's dead.
Guest:Oh, he's dead as a fucking door.
Guest:Damn right.
Guest:Sometimes, you know, sometimes I'll be on stage and somebody yell out, Kaufman, Kaufman, you Andy Kaufman, you know what I say?
Guest:I say, you want to see Kaufman, get yourself a shovel and a flashlight.
Guest:What do I fucking tell him to do?
Guest:I'll throw him out or I'll fucking push the face in his suit.
Marc:All right, so what about Zamuda?
Guest:No, he's that fucking guy.
Guest:He did an impression on you.
Guest:Terrible, terrible fucking impression.
Guest:Let me tell you that.
Guest:Then you had Jim Carrey in the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And on the moon, he didn't impress me.
Guest:And also the other guy, Paul Giamatti.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did one.
Guest:So a lot of people don't impress.
Guest:But I'm the original.
Guest:I'm the guy.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:If you look back, if you look back on Merv, on Letterman, on Miss Piggy, you will see me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Zamuda had nothing to do with it.
Guest:No.
Guest:Every once in a while, he would fucking- Why are you so fucking mad at Zamuda?
Guest:Because he's a fucking-
Guest:Stupid piece of Polish shit.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:That's from episode 287, and the one with Bob Zamuda is episode 274.
Marc:Those are only available ad-free for people with a full Marin subscription.
Marc:To sign up, go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus or go to the link in the episode description.
Marc:And speaking of the episode description, don't forget that we have an audience survey link in there.
Marc:It will take you five to seven minutes to complete, and it's really helpful to us if you do it.
Marc:It lets us know how better to serve you, our listeners.
Marc:And right now below the survey link is another link to submit a question for the next Ask Mark Anything episode on the full Marin.
Marc:So that's a bunch of stuff you can do right now in the episode description.
Marc:Sign up for WTF Plus, complete our audience survey and send me a question.
Marc:Go for it.
Marc:Some of you have noticed that I'm actually playing partially songs or familiar things, but they're usually pretty deep cut.
Marc:So no one's really going to know except those of you who know.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and LaFonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.