I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (38 page)

AW: Do you have to wait in line?

JC: Yes. It would be great if you had a drive-up gallery. You could order through the speaker.

AW: They have drive-up churches.

JC: Do you drive up to the window and they give you alms?

AW: I guess.

JC: What are you doing tonight?

AW: There are so many things I can’t do any of them.

JC: What?

AW: There is a screening for 9 ½
Weeks
which I can’t go to. Yoko Ono asked me to dinner and I’m not sure I can make it. I have an appointment. David Letterman is having a party for his four years on TV.

JC: What is an ideal party for you?

AW: If it’s easy.

JC: Simple?

AW: Yes.

JC: Do you have any favorite parties?

AW: Just something different from the last one. What did you do last night?

JC: I went to an opening of Syd Solomon’s. Then a party afterwards. John Chamberlain was there.

AW: Oh really?

JC: He asked about you.

AW: Oh really? He’s great. All my friends have left town. Keith Haring’s gone to Brazil, Kenny Scharf’s gone to Brazil, everybody’s gone away.

JC: You have good friends. Who do you reveal yourself to?

AW: I don’t have anything to reveal.

JC: Who is your best friend?

AW: Everybody’s my best friend.

JC: Who is your favorite friend?

AW: My Reebok shoes are great. I’m not wearing them today. I’m wearing my Aspen shoes.

JC: What about a person? Who are you closest to?

AW: J & B.

JC: J & B Scotch?

AW: Um. . . . That’s a good answer.

JC: You don’t drink Scotch, do you?

AW: No, but that’s a pretty close friend.

JC: What do you do with it?

AW: Use it as perfume. I sprayed myself with Absolut this morning.

JC: Who is your favorite person to talk to?

AW: My two dogs, Fame and Fortune.

JC: Do they answer?

AW: Sometimes they bark. At the ASPCA dog show we had to pick the dog that went to entertain troops at the hospitals.

JC: What do you talk to your dogs about?

AW: I talk to them in dog talk, so . . . you can’t understand it.

JC: What do you do?

AW: I whine.

JC: You what?

AW: Whine.

JC: What do you feed them?

AW: Dry dog food. The kind you add water to. Do you drink?

JC: Yes. Do you?

AW: I drink tea.

JC: Milk?

AW: No, I don’t like milk.

JC: Coke?

AW: No. Just Diet Coke.

JC: Champagne?

AW: No.

JC: What do you drink at dinner?

AW: Tea.

JC: You like to go out to dinner.

AW: Yes, because New York has a new restaurant every day.

JC: Who is your favorite dinner companion?

AW: The TV.

JC: Do you eat TV dinners?

AW: I had my first TV dinner last week. It was Cajun. Cajun TV dinner.

JC: What is your favorite frozen food?

AW: Raspberries. Frozen peas.

JC: What is your favorite canned food?

AW: Spam.

JC: What do you like about it?

AW: The can. I like Poppycock, too. That’s my favorite canned food.

JC: Do you have hobbies?

AW: Taping and typing. Looking and listening.

JC: You type?

AW: Yes, with one finger.

JC: What kind of music do you listen to?

AW: Any kind of music. I usually watch TV. I love all music. Classical, country, opera, everything.

JC: What is your favorite band?

AW: The last one I’ve seen. Let’s see–The Residents.

JC: Do you dance?

AW: No. Do you?

JC: Yes.

AW: Can you dance for four hours straight?

JC: Oh, yes. Why don’t you dance?

AW: I don’t know. I don’t have any soul.

JC: You like to go out.

AW: Yes, but just for a few minutes.

JC: Then go somewhere else?

AW: Home.

JC: And watch TV?

AW: Yes.

JC: What do you read?

AW:
The Enquirer, The Examiner
and
The Globe
.

JC: Do you like the sensationalism?

AW: No, I like the photographs. Do you read
Eagle Magazine?

JC: No. Do you?

AW: Yes, I do. How about
Guns In Action?
Do you read that?

JC: No.

AW: They’re really good magazines to read. How about
Soldier of Fortune?

JC: No.

AW: I get those weekly.

JC: You don’t like guns, do you?

AW: Yes, I think they’re really kind of nice.

JC: Do you have a gun?

AW: No, I don’t have a gun.

JC: Do you believe in self-defense?

AW: I guess so, for people who can do it.

JC: Karate?

AW: Yes, I think it looks beautiful.

JC: Can you do it?

AW: No, I don’t do it. I wish I could. I can barely get up in the morning.

JC: You have your bodyguards to defend you.

AW: My bodyguards? Well, they’re drag queens, so I don’t know how they could really watch my body.

JC: Who is your favorite aristocrat? Do you like Princess Diana?

AW: Yes, I think she’s great.

JC: The Queen Mother?

AW: Yes, she’s pretty good. Do you know any queens?

JC: I have a great chess set.

AW: Chest?

JC: Chess.

AW: They used to make chess sets out of Ivory Soap. It floats.

JC: Did you ever enter Ivory Soap contests?

AW: Yes, but I never won.

JC: What kind of soap do you use?

AW: I’m into liquid soap. I just got really excited about it, so I went to B. Altman’s and got four big bottles of it, plastic bottles, really cheap.

JC: What scent?

AW: Sandalwood, but they all smell alike.

JC: If you had a half an hour shopping spree in any store, which store would you pick?

AW: The Emporium. They have everything and they’re open 24 hours. It’s really great.

JC: If you had a half an hour shopping spree in Neiman-Marcus what would you buy?

AW: Popcorn without the added yellow. When are you going to start making movies?

JC: I’m doing a video magazine that’s sold at newsstands.

AW: That’s a good idea.

JC: Do you oversee everything in
Interview?

AW: Sort of.

JC: Do you give yesses and nos?

AW: I guess so. Sometimes.

JC: Who was on the first cover of
Interview?

AW: I don’t remember. Marilyn Monroe or Racquel Welch.

JC: How long ago was that?

AW: Sixteen years ago. They took my name off the cover so it would sell more copies.

JC: Did you do a lot of the work yourself in the beginning?

AW: Gerard Malanga did.

JC: What were your ambitions when you were starting?

AW: I never had any.

JC: Did you want to make money?

AW: Just to pay my rent.

JC: What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to you this week?

AW: Talking to you.

JC: Do you like interviews?

AW: Yes.

JC: Yes?

AW: No.

JC: No?

AW: No.

JC: Yes and no?

AW: Yes.

JC: Do you like everyone?

AW: Yes.

JC: Why do people like you?

AW: Not everybody does. Somebody threw a banana at me at the Sugar-reef.

JC: A real one?

AW: It was a plastic banana.

JC: Does anything intimidate you?

AW: Young rich kids. What are you wearing today?

JC: Kouros.

AW: It’s warmer here today.

JC: It’s great.

AW: Did you get any fan mail this week?

JC: Letters. Do you get letters?

AW: Yes, I’m going to read some right now.

JC: Fan mail?

AW: Yes, a lot of fan mail.

JC: Do you get hate mail?

AW: Some.

JC: Death threats?

AW: Not yet.

JC: What fan mail did you get today?

AW: There are a couple of fan letters here.

JC: What are they?

AW: Just fan mail.

JC: What do they say? Do they say how much they love you?

AW: No, they just want jobs

JC: What do you like most about being famous? Good tables?

AW: No, I don’t get good tables. I have to wait in line to see a movie.

JC: What would the ideal person be like?

AW: The ones I know are really ideal.

JC: Money? Appearance? Brains? Charm?

AW: Yes, all that.

JC: Would you put these in any certain order?

AW: You have the right order.

JC: Money first?

AW: No.

JC: How do you spend your holidays?

AW: Working.

JC: What is your favorite holiday?

AW: I like the new one they just did.

JC: Which one?

AW: Martin Luther King Day.

JC: Who makes holidays?

AW: People do.

JC: Valentine’s Day is coming up.

AW: Are you getting anything?

JC: Chocolate. Are you getting anything?

AW: I don’t know. It goes by so fast. We’re working on May now.

JC: Do you get lots of presents at Christmas?

AW: No.

JC: Do you give presents?

AW: I try to.

JC: What is your favorite gift to give?

AW: The same thing I gave last year.

JC: What is that?

AW: I don’t know. Whatever I gave, I just usually give that.

JC: What is your favorite gift to get?

AW: The same thing I give.

JC: How have you changed in the last ten years?

AW: I haven’t. I have these time capsules. All the mail I get and things I mark the date on and store down in the basement. I do twenty of them a year.

JC: What would you like your famous last words to be?

AW: Goodbye.

JC: Do you think it’s bad that it’s not who you are but what people think you are?

AW: No. Have you been to an analyst?

JC: Yes.

AW: What do you talk about?

JC: Yourself. He helps you deal with things.

AW: Did you entertain him?

JC: No, you have to be real.

AW: You didn’t entertain him at all?

JC: No, it doesn’t work then. You’re paying him.

AW: What was your problem?

JC: I don’t remember. Have you been to one?

AW: I’ve sat in on a session with Truman Capote.

JC: What did you think about it? You have to really reveal yourself.

AW: You do?

JC: You have to trust him.

AW: Did you trust him?

JC: Yes. But I wonder if they talk about it.

AW: All psychiatrists I know talk about it. What did you tell him?

JC: You just lie there and talk. Do you think people think you are boring?

AW: Yes, they do.

JC: Then why are they interested in you?

AW: After they meet me they say “Oh my God, how boring.”

JC: People are interested in you.

AW: No, they’re really bored. Have you started sculpting yet?

JC: No.

AW: Knitting?

JC: No. Why knit?

AW: Why not?

JC: Do you knit?

AW: No. Do you?