I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (36 page)

ANDY: No, we were going to send it out. This would be great because I could do it in green and another color.

COMMODORE EXEC: Like you did with the Deborah Harry thing?

ANDY: Yeah.

[
At the Amiga launch, Deborah Harry, singer for the group Blondie, posed before a video camera. A single black-and-white frame was frozen and transferred to a paint program where Andy filled in colors, added lines, drew with the mouse and finished in ten minutes what would have taken weeks in a studio.
]

GSW: How much time have you spent with the Amiga?

ANDY: Just the few weeks that Jack [Haeger] was here. We are waiting to get the final software. And then we need Jack back again for a couple of weeks. Has Jack discovered any new techniques?

EXEC: I’m sure he has, because the new programs have a lot of different capabilities.

ANDY: What are they? What new things have come up in the last few months?

EXEC: I haven’t even seen them myself. Everyone has been working on their separate piece of the puzzle. But the last time I spoke with Jack, he asked when he was coming back here. So I know that he is eager to come back.

[
Another option of the paint program is activated and the colors cycle through the spectrum on their own with a light and color strobe effect
]

ANDY: Oh yeah. Oh, that’s weird. Oh, look at that.

GSW: Is there anything that you don’t like about the Amiga?

ANDY: No, no. I love the machine. I’ll move it over to my place, my own studio. That way I’ll be able to do the colors. It’ll be really great, and if we can get a printer, I’ll do this portrait in four different colors and send them out to Dolly.

GSW: Then you see yourself using it as a major tool?

ANDY: Oh yeah. It would save a lot of time. I wouldn’t have had to do all these portraits all at once. I could have just picked out the colors I wanted and sent them out, and then picked the one I wanted.

GLENN: Do you think that it will have any effect on the value of an “Andy Warhol original”?

ANDY: No, it would just be a sketch. Call it a sketch.

GSW: Do you ever see that as becoming an artwork in its own right?

ANDY. Oh yeah. Well, actually Stephen Sprouse really did most of his artwork this way. He did his last print, I think, with the planets and stuff, in this way. Beautiful things, geeze!

GLENN: Would you ever think of sending them out as finished pieces?

ANDY: Well, we are doing that already. After I did that and Stephen saw them, he showed me some of his things and they’re just great.

GSW: The great thing is that you can play with all the color combinations, take a picture of the combination or make a printout and then decide which combination works best.

ANDY: Well, maybe I could take the painting up there and I could do the color variations on it. There must be a printer we could get, even the small one.

EXEC: Actually I think we have a larger printer.

ANDY: How big is it?

EXEC: Eight by eleven.

ANDY: Oh really? Could we do that maybe this week?

EXEC: Next week.

ANDY: OK. If I brought this picture up, could I just do different colors of this?

JEFF: Sure.

ANDY: [To Guy] And then you could use this in your article. You could show how I could change the picture. Do you know what day next week? Early next week?

EXEC: They’re around. It’s just a matter of picking one up.

ANDY: Oh. Okay.

[
More adjusting of the camera and painting of Dolly. The photographer is beginning to slow down, but his camera continues to click-zhhh, click-zhhh.
]

GSW: What are the things that you like the most about doing this kind of art on the Amiga?

ANDY: Well, I like it because it looks like my work.

GSW: How do you feel about the fact that everyone’s work will now look like your work?

ANDY: But it doesn’t. You just showed me other artists’ work in the magazine [
AmigaWorld
]. It looks like the work that I started doing. I still think that someone like a decorator could use it when he wants to show somebody how their apartment would look all in blue or all in white, or . . . they could just do it so easily. Change a chair or a color.

GSW: Would you ever consider using the Amiga for “traditional” uses?

ANDY: The kids from
Interview [whose offices are downstairs
] want to steal it already. We just haven’t given it to them.

GLENN: Do you think that you might ever use any of the pictures generated on the Amiga in the magazine [
Interview
]?

ANDY: Oh yeah. This would be a really good thing for our covers.

GSW: Do you ever play computer games?

ANDY: I’m not fast enough.

GSW: There are some slow ones. Interactive fiction. Electronic novels.

ANDY: Oh really. [
To exec
] Are the ad agencies getting the machine yet?

EXEC: You got yours way ahead of schedule.

ANDY: Oh great!

GSW: How do you feel about using the mouse instead of a paintbrush?

ANDY: I thought I would have the pen [
light pen
] by now.

GSW: Do you find the mouse a little awkward?

ANDY: Yeah, the mouse is hard. Why isn’t there a pen around?

EXEC: Kurta is working on one right now, and we thought that we would have it by now, but. . . .

ANDY: Would a pen work the same way? I mean, it could even be a square pen. You could put the ball down here [
indicating the corner of the mouse
], just holding it differently. If you had a ball at the tip, you could hold it differently.

GSW: A ball point mouse.

JEFF: The one we are working on doesn’t even have a cable.

ANDY: You mean just like a pencil?

JEFF: Yes.

ANDY: Oh, how great. That is going to do so much. You could trace over a picture and stuff like that?

JEFF: Yes.

GSW: With something like this [
the mouse
] do you miss getting your hands in the paint?

ANDY: No. No. It’s really great not to get your hands in paint. I don’t know. They always say that plastic paint is bad for you. Is this bad for you?

GSW: Nowadays they say that it is the way you sit in the chair in front of the display.

GLENN: Could you do a self-portrait?

ANDY: Oh sure.

[
The video camera is moved to point at Andy, and his face appears on the Amiga display. With Andy on the monitor and Andy in front of the computer and Dolly in the background, there is photographic temptation.
]

PHOTOGRAPHER: Could you lean forward? I want to get both you and Dolly in the same shot. [
Andy leans.
] That’s excellent. That’s good. Okay, thanks.

GLENN: Did Dolly Parton come to you to do the portrait?

ANDY: I did it when I went out to the Madonna wedding.

[
Back to the self-portrait The engineer adjusts colors, levels, and gray scales until Andy is satisfied.
]

ANDY: There, that one [
indicating a straight black-and-white video image of himself
].

JEFF: Like that?

ANDY: Uh huh. [
Already working on coloring in the on-screen image of his face.
] God, isn’t that funny?

GSW: If there was something that you could add to the Amiga, what would you add?

ANDY: The only thing that I would add would be the pencil [light pen]. That’s the only thing.

GSW: What about working on the screen itself, with a touch screen?

ANDY: Well, that would be great. That would be good with the pencil, because you could add in the color and stuff like that, but with a sharp point, you could get the lines easier.

GSW: Have you ever done anything with computers before?

ANDY: No, this is the first time.

GSW: Why haven’t you used computers before?

ANDY: Oh, I don’t know. MIT called me for about ten years or so, but I just never went up . . . maybe it was Yale.

GSW: You just never thought it was interesting enough?

ANDY: Oh no, I did, uh, it’s just that, well, this one was just so much more advanced than the others. I guess they started all that there, all the kids from college who went to California. Weren’t they the inventors?

GSW: Do you think that computers will play a larger and larger role in art?

ANDY: Uh, yeah. I think that after graffiti art, they probably will. When the machine comes out fast enough. It will probably take over from the graffiti kids.

GSW: Do you like graffiti art?

ANDY: Oh yeah, I do. I think it’s really terrific.

[
Andy becomes absorbed in the self-portrait. Adding colors, lines, filling in areas, changing things. The mouse is moved and clicked and clicked, but his eyes never leave the screen. People continue to move around the room. Some leave, some enter, most just stare at the Amiga screen while the black-and-white Warhol changes from a digitized video frame displayed on an Amiga computer into a full color self-portrait, a Warhol-painting-Warhol original The iterations of Andy Warhol painting on an Amiga, an Andy Warhol painting of Andy Warhol sitting at an Amiga doing electronic painting become too confusing to follow. Wince Freemont, producer
of Andy Warhol T.V.,
enters and stares with the rest of us.
]

VINCE: You want some air conditioning in here?

JEFF: I turned it off, because of the fan.

VINCE: How about opening the door?

JEFF: Fine, thanks.

[
Squeak–door opening–crash, rumble-rumble, metal door rises.
]

VINCE: [
Stepping outside onto the roof
] I love these skylights.

ANDY: [
Rising for a moment to look outside. The image of his face on the screen, partially colored, stares at an unseen monitor.
] They were supposed to be party tables.

VINCE: Those skylights are being knocked down now.

ANDY: Are they? [
He steps outside.
] Again?

VINCE: People from the other buildings throw stuff on them, and since they put in the wrong weight of glass, they have a tendency to break.

ANDY: I haven’t seen the back in a long time.

VINCE: Okay. Everybody go outside and take a break for five minutes. Is that roll up still there? Andy? Andy? Andy?

[
Andy returned and the self-portrait was finished. People wandered off. We had to leave. Other interviews. Other
. . . .]

¹
See Richard Ekstract’s 1965 interview, "Pop Goes the Videotape: An Underground Interview with Andy Warhol.", p. 71.

ANDY WARHOL: Did Ultra Violet tell you that she was eating gold and she almost died? She was eating pounds of it a day.

JORDAN CRANDALL: Really?

AW: Someone told her to eat gold so she was eating it by the handful.

JC: What did you eat for lunch today?

AW: Fish. And a piece of bread.

JC: Do you eat fast food?

AW: No, I eat food fast.

JC: You’re into health foods.

AW: Yes, but I eat health foods fast.

JC: What is your typical breakfast?

AW: Seven grains. Apple pie. Twenty vitamin pills. Carrot juice. And I’m a wreck.

JC: You’re pretty healthy.

AW: Not really. I try to stop eating candy.

JC: Do you keep healthy creatively?

AW: No. These two great kids who have a book
Positive Thinking
have caught me being unpositive a couple of times.

JC: You do think positively then.

AW: Not consciously but I try to.

JC: You don’t dwell on the negative things.

AW: I don’t know what negative things are.

JC: What is your favorite vice?

AW:
Miami Vice
.

JC: What kind of exercise do you do?

AW: Free weights.

JC: Three weights?

AW: No, free.

JC: Sit ups? Push ups?

AW: Twenty push ups.

JC: Every day?

AW: Yes.

JC: Do you look at yourself in the mirror?

AW: No. It’s too hard to look in the mirror. There’s nothing there. We have a good mirror here, though. It’s one of the ones that make you look tall and thin. One of those dime store mirrors.

JC: Do you think the preoccupation with the physical is good?

AW: Well, not mine. Everybody else, yes.

JC: The Andy Warhol exercise program would consist of. . . .

AW: Just getting up, about the most exercise anybody can ask for. Getting up and out.

JC: What do you think about when you exercise? AW: Nothing. Same thing I think about before. JC: Do you get lost in your reveries? AW: I don’t really have a memory. JC: Do you dream?

AW: No.

JC: Do you have any secret fantasies?

AW: No.

JC: What makes you happy?

AW: Being able to get up in the morning. How are things in sunny Florida?

JC: We’re having a cold wave. The oranges go into shock and fall off the trees.

AW: Do you drink a lot of orange juice?

JC: California orange juice.

AW: Are there a lot of orange trees?

JC: Yes.

AW: I never see any orange trees when I go to Florida.

JC: Where do you go?

AW: Palm Beach, Miami Beach.

JC: Well, you’d rather see people than oranges.

AW: No, Fd rather see oranges. Where do you see the oranges?

JC: In the rural areas. You can fly over them and see them for miles.

AW: Oh you can really?

JC: Do you get depressed in New York?

AW: No. Do you get depressed in Florida?

JC: Yes.

AW: Why? You have funny looking old people.

JC: Do you ever go to the beach?

AW: No.

JC: Never?

AW: Well, I go to the beach to take photographs of the people on it.

JC: What do you wear?

AW: An umbrella.

JC: Bathing suit?

AW: No, umbrella.

JC: What is your favorite thing to wear?

AW: I just wear the same thing every day.

JC: Are you an impulsive shopper?

AW: Yes.

JC: Clothing?

AW: I buy anything. But I can’t wear anything. I just put it in the closet. I wear Stephen Sprouse black pants, black T-shirt, black turtleneck, black shirt, black leather jacket and Adidas shoes.

JC: What is your style?

AW: Anti-fashion.

JC: Would you call your art anti-art?

AW: No, it’s any art.

JC: What would you like to do that you haven’t done?

AW: Like what?

JC: Oh, go in a spaceship, elevate the consciousness of people in Third World countries, play basketball. . . .

AW: They all sound pretty good.

JC: If you were given three wishes, what would you wish for?

AW: The first wish would be to be able to wish.

JC: Do you think there is life on other planets?

AW: Oh yes, I believe there are people out there.

JC: I wonder what they’d be like.

AW: They’d be different. I like the idea of those power stations where you can go and get powered up. I do believe in that. Walking in other people’s bodies. They’re called walk-ins.

JC: What do you think people from another planet would look like?

AW: I think there are a lot of them down here. Walk-ins. People who just walk into other people. They’re here already.

JC: You don’t know they’re here?

AW: No, you don’t.

JC: What happens to the people who were there before?

AW: They decided to give up but they didn’t want to give their bodies up. So somebody just walks in and takes over.

JC: Do they ask?

AW: No, one day you just wake up and you’re a new person again.

JC: You talk about how you’d like your tombstone to be blank. Wouldn’t you really love a mausoleum, a crypt, something slightly monumental?

AW: No. I think the best way is to be disintegrated by a ray gun. Without smoke or anything. There are just those little stars that sort of just flicker away.

JC: I don’t like those little stars.

AW: I was just reading
The Examiner
, my favorite newspaper; a story called “Life After Death.”

JC: They have a lot of UFO stories in there.

AW: Yes, those are good. Those are my favorites.

JC: Have you ever seen a UFO?

AW: Fd love to see one. Have you seen one?

JC: No. Fd love to meet someone from out there. Did you read in
The Enquirer
about the top US Senator who saw two UFOs and Washington kept it under wraps for thirty years?

AW: Really?

JC: They just came public with it.

AW: Which senator?

JC: I don’t remember. He’s dead now, though. It’s great that it was a senator, because it’s usually farm people.

AW: Which issue is this?

JC: The newest one.

AW: With Don Johnson on the cover?

JC: Yes, that’s the one.

AW: He just called and wants me to be on
Miami Vice
. But I don’t know, I have so much work to do.

JC: Would you play a good guy or a bad guy?

AW: Bad guy. My acting is so bad I can’t believe they would ask me.

JC: What are your favorite TV shows?

AW: The rerun of the 11:30 news at 1:30 is my favorite favorite.

JC: Do you watch soaps?

AW: Just the nighttime soaps. They’re richer. In daytime soaps they don’t have maids any more. They’re too normal. They just have sex. They have normal clothes.

JC: What else do you watch?

AW: I watched the Donahue show and they were wondering whether or not retarded people should be allowed to have television. It was really interesting. I like to watch daytime television at night.

JC: Do you speed through the commercials? AW: No, I love them. I speed through the show. JC: What is your day like?

AW: I sleep with the television on. I wake up two or three times to go to the bathroom. I watch TV and get up at 7:30. I watch more television. MTV. I walk to work. I work until 9:00 and then try to go to a movie. Last night I went to see the movie that was eight hours long but we only got there for the last hour. They charged us forty dollars anyway. It was really interesting.

JC: What was it about?

AW: The Warsaw ghettos.

JC: What kind of films do you like?

AW: I like comedies. I like to see kid movies.

JC: What is your favorite movie?

AW: Just the last one I’ve seen.

JC: What movie do you wish you were in?

AW: A walk-on on
Citizen Kane
.

JC: Who is your favorite comedian?

AW: Whoopi Goldberg.

JC: Did you see
The Color Purple?

AW: Yes.

JC: Did you cry?

AW: Almost.

JC: Do you cry?

AW: No.

JC: Do you like horror films?

AW: Yes, a lot. Do you?

JC: Yes. I like vampires. Do you scare easily?

AW: Yes, I scare all the time.

JC: Are you scared of the dark?

AW: Scared of the dark, scared of the light. . . .

JC: Have you had any scary experiences?

AW: Walking down the street.

JC: Can you think of one that’s scarier?

AW: No. It could happen later.

JC: Your life story, with Tab Hunter starring, would be a comedy? Romance? Drama?

AW: To make it interesting it would have to be a comedy.

JC: Would it have a happy ending?

AW: Every movie has a happy ending.

JC: Who would direct it?

AW: Kurosawa. And they’d all be wearing Japanese outfits. I could just sit there watching it rock.

JC: Are you satisfied with your life?

AW: I don’t think about that.

JC: Have you ever thought about writing your life story?

AW: No.

JC: Would you let someone else write it?

AW: No.

JC: If someone had to write it and you had no choice, who would you want to write it?

AW: Stephen Saban.

JC: Do you believe in destiny?

AW: What does destiny mean? It happens all by itself?

JC: It’s planned.

AW: You’re just at the right place at the right time.

JC: Do you believe in. . . .

AW: Life after death?

JC: How did you know I was going to say that?

AW: Do you believe in Santa Claus?

JC: You knew what I was going to say. You might be psychic.

AW: No, I’m not really.

JC: If you were psychic, what would you predict for the future?

AW: That the world is round.

JC: What would you predict for America?

AW: That it will be around for a while.

JC: What do you like most about America?

AW: Traveling around the country: one day trips, and coming back the same day. It’s really fun.