1
GOTHAM
T he first time we were here it was just Lindsey and me. We stayed at the Chelsea and I got my hair cut there by a hairdresser who had done Dee Dee Ramoneâs that morning. Nothing unusual in that. She told me sheâd cut his hair for years. I never discovered if it was true. I wanted it to be true. Dee Dee Ramone.
Dee Deeâs hair was no fixed thing. Johnnyâs was the iconic Ramonesâ hair, so thatâs the cut I got. No one at home had that. Johnny threw his hair forward when he stabbed at his guitar, as if hair could be another weapon. The first timeI saw it, I knew it was a signature move. I was about ten back then.
I made Lindsey take a photo of me and my new hair, a close-up by the Hotel Chelsea sign near the door. I had a denim jacket on, thumbs in my jean pockets. I turned away from the camera and put on a look of purpose, pouting at the traffic on 23rd Street, as if searching for a cab that might not be coming, or might arrive with a starlet, or David Byrne, or a drag queen once painted by Andy Warhol. It was an album cover, that poseâone foot on the wall, knee bent, deep stare fixed on the middle of nothingâbut the photo ended up looking mostly like me. Me with a Johnny Ramone haircut that didnât take and which I didnât keep. I looked too much like my aunt with that hair. It turned out some people in Australia had gone for that cut after all.
The closest I got to Bloomingdaleâs that visit was a vendor outside, on Third Avenue, sellingpretzels as big as twisted limbs. They were golden and doughy, and Iâd only ever had the other kind. I was waiting for Lindsey to come out of the store. If I looked south, I could count the sets of traffic lights to 53rd and Third, six blocks away. It was a Ramonesâ song title, that intersection, â53rd & 3rdâ, a song written by Dee Dee about hustlers and violence. It was a two-minute blast of punk but there was subtext in there about how to be a man, or get lost on the way there.
The song was almost twenty years old when I stood on Third Avenue waiting for Lindsey, but the Ramones were still alive and might have been anywhere nearby, walking those streets. Theyâre all gone now, at least the four originals on the T-shirt. Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy. Tommy just months ago.
Today I have plenty of questions to ask Nati Boiâthe artist formerly known asLydell Luttrell Juniorâbut I donât have that one on the list. What does it mean to you that the last of the Ramones is dead?
Nati Boi is nineteen and ascendant, and coming to Australia for the festivals. He is not, from what I have seen and read, an easy interviewee, though it doesnât do to arrive with too many preconceptions.
Some things are certain in interviews, but not many. Chris Isaak will always charm a female interviewer over forty. Chris Martin will charm anyone and make you want to like Coldplay more than you do. Bob Dylan will treat at least one of your questions as if itâs been delivered in an alien tongue, or as if heâs just that moment determined heâs suffered his last fool.
Beyond that, where there are not certainties, there are patterns. Some interviewees come too prepared and you have to chip your way through pre-built anecdotes in the hope that somethingreal takes shape. Some have been burned before and hold back everything but name, rank and serial number. Sometimes you have no choice but to wait and watch the show that takes place in front of you. Sometimes you lurk for hours, like a twitcher in a hide, for a flash of something, a true moment yet to have a witness.
I have sold and resold tonightâs interviewâeverything from a three-minute video for a festival website to a feature across five glossy pages of a newspaperâs Saturday magazine. At the extremes, the markets are mutually exclusive. Festival-goers have never put their young hands to newsprint, while the magazine readers, their
GOTHAM
T he first time we were here it was just Lindsey and me. We stayed at the Chelsea and I got my hair cut there by a hairdresser who had done Dee Dee Ramoneâs that morning. Nothing unusual in that. She told me sheâd cut his hair for years. I never discovered if it was true. I wanted it to be true. Dee Dee Ramone.
Dee Deeâs hair was no fixed thing. Johnnyâs was the iconic Ramonesâ hair, so thatâs the cut I got. No one at home had that. Johnny threw his hair forward when he stabbed at his guitar, as if hair could be another weapon. The first timeI saw it, I knew it was a signature move. I was about ten back then.
I made Lindsey take a photo of me and my new hair, a close-up by the Hotel Chelsea sign near the door. I had a denim jacket on, thumbs in my jean pockets. I turned away from the camera and put on a look of purpose, pouting at the traffic on 23rd Street, as if searching for a cab that might not be coming, or might arrive with a starlet, or David Byrne, or a drag queen once painted by Andy Warhol. It was an album cover, that poseâone foot on the wall, knee bent, deep stare fixed on the middle of nothingâbut the photo ended up looking mostly like me. Me with a Johnny Ramone haircut that didnât take and which I didnât keep. I looked too much like my aunt with that hair. It turned out some people in Australia had gone for that cut after all.
The closest I got to Bloomingdaleâs that visit was a vendor outside, on Third Avenue, sellingpretzels as big as twisted limbs. They were golden and doughy, and Iâd only ever had the other kind. I was waiting for Lindsey to come out of the store. If I looked south, I could count the sets of traffic lights to 53rd and Third, six blocks away. It was a Ramonesâ song title, that intersection, â53rd & 3rdâ, a song written by Dee Dee about hustlers and violence. It was a two-minute blast of punk but there was subtext in there about how to be a man, or get lost on the way there.
The song was almost twenty years old when I stood on Third Avenue waiting for Lindsey, but the Ramones were still alive and might have been anywhere nearby, walking those streets. Theyâre all gone now, at least the four originals on the T-shirt. Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy. Tommy just months ago.
Today I have plenty of questions to ask Nati Boiâthe artist formerly known asLydell Luttrell Juniorâbut I donât have that one on the list. What does it mean to you that the last of the Ramones is dead?
Nati Boi is nineteen and ascendant, and coming to Australia for the festivals. He is not, from what I have seen and read, an easy interviewee, though it doesnât do to arrive with too many preconceptions.
Some things are certain in interviews, but not many. Chris Isaak will always charm a female interviewer over forty. Chris Martin will charm anyone and make you want to like Coldplay more than you do. Bob Dylan will treat at least one of your questions as if itâs been delivered in an alien tongue, or as if heâs just that moment determined heâs suffered his last fool.
Beyond that, where there are not certainties, there are patterns. Some interviewees come too prepared and you have to chip your way through pre-built anecdotes in the hope that somethingreal takes shape. Some have been burned before and hold back everything but name, rank and serial number. Sometimes you have no choice but to wait and watch the show that takes place in front of you. Sometimes you lurk for hours, like a twitcher in a hide, for a flash of something, a true moment yet to have a witness.
I have sold and resold tonightâs interviewâeverything from a three-minute video for a festival website to a feature across five glossy pages of a newspaperâs Saturday magazine. At the extremes, the markets are mutually exclusive. Festival-goers have never put their young hands to newsprint, while the magazine readers, their
Similar Books
