Anyway, it was more interesting down in the chairless auditorium, as people began to pour in. Very proper little old ladies in waitress outfits wandered around serving trays full of big cups of beer. The audience was very good looking, a lot of well-dressed punks. Also I notice a kind of Bertolt Brecht look, which is skinny hair, black leather, and horn-rimmed glasses on a thin nose.
There was certainly evidence of a lot of drugs. Five guys next to me were dancing on acid, everyone smoked hash throughout the concert (no police evident), there were even the occasional sympathetic huddles around ‘a bummer’.
Patti’s concert was perhaps best summed up by the Berlin paper the following day: they complained about the hype, and said the music wasn’t much fun to listen to and the lyrics were indecipherable but she had a good voice. The group was made uptight by the silence and immobility of the majority of the audience. At one point Patti said “I ain’t impressed with you, I sang in front of 14,000 people so 2,000 people doesn’t mean shit to me,” but nobody understood what the poor thing was saying. However, the proof of the audience’s actually extremely positive reaction came with the hysterical 10-minute political demonstration demanding an encore (I kid you not). The manager of the theatre told Patti there would be a riot if she didn’t come back.
I couldn’t help but compare seeing The Ramones in London to seeing Patti in Berlin. You have to hand it to the Berliners for their organised serious consumption of the concert combined with a clear presentation of their approval, but Londoners like to ROCK OUT.
Quote for the day:
“The weather is uncertain.”
Father Romeo Panciroli, commenting on the Pope’s decision not to celebrate the traditional Palm Sunday mass in St Peters, due to the terrorist kidnapping of a major Italian political figure. In conversation, Rome 1978.
Monday
I tried to eat a big breakfast, in preparation for a long day, but got put off by the half-page close-up photograph of a corpse in Tel Aviv. Funny how reading the news in another language you wonder if it’s true. My impulse was: “I must catch up and check on this.” I think the Germans are rather attracted to terrorism, but I mean I don’t know what that means.
You’ll remember perhaps that I mentioned the Berliner’s love of machines? I got an interesting look at it this morning. If you think the German walks his dog on a ‘leash’ you would be wrong. He has instead a small machine which looks like the circular plastic casing for an electronic kite handle. It is red and the dog connected to this thin metallic lead, can walk as much as thirty feet in front of the stroller. As he changes positions the machine adjusts the length of the lead so all the stroller need know is the dog is attached to him at all times. I saw this on the Carmerstrasse this morning coming out of a store where I had bought some notebooks and postcards.
I went back to my hotel, packed, paid the bill ($84 for four days, I think pretty reasonable for a very clean, efficient, if somewhat stolid hotel), and made an appointment to visit Manuel Gottsching at 3:30, which just gave me enough time to say goodbye to the lady at the Autoren Buchhandlung and have a nice lunch.
If anything hit me continually with a negative twinge in Germany, it was the heaviness of their objects, particularly the furniture, cutlery, clothes and buildings, but the character of a people is awfully elusive: as soon as one feels one has pinned it down, the impression is totally contradicted by a series of others. For example, in saying Germans make heavy things one ignores the delicate mobility of a Porsche. The beauty of German girls is largely based on their solidity, which does not sound like an attractive quality but can be, juxtaposed to … Naturally their problem lies in running to a little fat, but those who escape the rigid potato diet and maintain their lightness have a double-barrelled attraction, because of a supreme confidence in their superiority.
After lunch I went to Manuel’s and waited in his lounge while he made a long-distance call to an electrician. He has a beautiful apartment with two enormous sparsely but tastefully furnished rooms, a music room (where he records his solo albums) and kitchen (where the remains of breakfast – boiled eggs and coffee – sit complacently on the table). The bathroom, done in light pink, is full of Rozi’s OPIUM perfume. Manuel also has a cat who seemed to know more about the German rock scene than anyone. And this cat was actually staring at me so I felt a little unsettled, but thought “anyway, this is my last contact in Berlin”.
Manuel finished his telephone call, offered me a glass of French Cinzano, and explained that the Berlin-born rock scene, as represented in its individuality by Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Ashra Tempel and Klaus Schultze (going under the label “space rock”, after rejecting the earlier “cosmic rock”), has very little support from the German press and businessmen. Their records have consequently sold very poorly. One label called OHR (translation: ear) had originally released all their records, but the owner of the label, a Herr Kaiser, quickly developed such a bad reputation for being crazy that all his artists found, even though they liked him and he was the only one who understood what they were doing, they couldn’t afford to have anything to do with him.
According to Manuel (who is often called Mr Ashra because he was the man behind Ashra Tempel and has gone on to produce three excellent solo albums, the latest of which, Blackouts, is just out on Virgin), this music did grow out of the explosion of political feelings created by the students from 1968–69.
“In West Germany, the Bader-Meinhof gang is a very small group of militant revolutionaries that can call on a few hundred people for logistical help but otherwise is completely isolated politically.”
New York Times, March 1978
But “Radio and TV are VERY CONSERVATIVE and change is very slow in Germany. Most of these German groups had their first success in France because the French public is open to new things whereas the German audience is very critical and mostly concerned about how ‘correct’ the musicians are. This”, says Manuel wearily, “is part of the German mind you have to contend with.”
Prior to ‘space rock’ the German music scene was so dead that musicians had to create something so strange that it might get some attention, and that is why the sound of German music is so specific, though Manuel agreed that it was also a fair representation of the mechanical nature of the German intellect. However, he is now surprised to find that no new groups are forming.
Manuel is an excellent guitarist often compared to the most innovative American and English players, he also seems to have a clear understanding of what he wants to do with the guitar, combining the monotonic Teutonic style with complex interior progressions, and hopes to go to New York in the Spring to do the music for Berlin fashion designer Claudia Skota’s show there, but, although he feels very positive about the future, Manuel is clearly exasperated by the ‘nothingness’ of Germany. N.B. He loves Berlin, and seems to have a pleasantly cultured and tuned life there. He and Rozi were certainly the most interesting, hospitable and attractive (apart from Christine Klipping) people I met during my weekend in Berlin. After our conversation and exchange of addresses, they kindly drove me back to my hotel in a comfortable yellow Mercedes. From the Savigny, I took a bus for 60¢ to Tegel Airport, twenty minutes from the centre of Berlin.
The bar at Tegel was very pleasant and the whole airport is generally excellent. But, again, security precautions are rudimentary. A middle-aged Jewish businessman in front of me was made to unload his whole briefcase and demonstrate that his cameras, a regular Nikon and a Bolex Movie Camera, work, whereas I, dressed in black leather, was passed through without the slightest … and I am carrying a tape recorder which could easily conceal a Derringer or explosive. At best, travelling is as dangerous as it always has been.
I had a very interesting conversation for the last forty-five minutes of the flight with a lady sitting next to me who told me my German was very good and that got me going. We ended up discussing the beauty of German women as opposed to the beauty of Americans, who she said she found mostly too fat
(!?).
She was in Berlin in 1943 during the bombing, and when the Russians came in, and she showed me a little book she bought then – a tiny English/German dictionary – she thought she would need it. She spoke a little English and she is a very good example of the resilience of the German people because she said “Well, when I got back to Berlin I found my man was dead. Well he was dead. First I thought I would go away, but then my friend and I we came back to Berlin … I had to get on with my life and I did. Now I have many friends …” and she smiled.
Quote for the day:
“The Germans have survived wars with the Romans, attacks by Huns, Magyars and Mogols, The Thirty Years War, Frederick the Great and Napoleon – and they will no doubt survive even my rule.”
Adolf Hitler in conversation, Berlin 1945
Christopher Isherwood has been my favorite writer since I was fifteen years old. I read every one of his books at least twice. His Berlin stories are still the best account of what it was like to live in that city in the 1930s.
24
Christopher Isherwood Meets William Burroughs
Christopher Isherwood has flown overnight from Los Angeles and is in town for four days to promote Christopher And His Kind (Farrar Straus & Giroux $10). When I meet him at the Algonquin at 6 pm, he has not slept for 24 hours but shows no sign of strain. At 72, he appears fit and trim, looks younger than his years and seems buoyant about the attention Christopher And His Kind is receiving. He is here with his friend of the last twenty years, the artist Don Bachardy. Both wear casual ties, jackets, slacks, buckle shoes, and bracelets. Before walking out into the street to get a cab, Christopher puts on a double-breasted tan military-style raincoat and as the taxi pulls away in the direction of the Bowery, he begins the conversation by noticing my Qantas flight bag. I ask him if he’s ever been to Australia.
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD: Several years ago. Tony Richardson was making that ill-fated Ned Kelly picture with Mick Jagger. We had an awful lot of fun. The journey down was wonderful. We flew to Tahiti, and then we went over to Bora Bora, and then we went to Western Samoa, then we had a sort of peep at Auckland, and finally got to Australia. And, of course, they were shooting out in the back country which – although it’s not very far from Canberra – might just as well have been the proper outback. It’s so empty there when you get outside. We were working on another project, so we made an excuse to make it into a business trip.
BACHARDY: Well, it actually was a business trip because he wanted the script right away.
BOCKRIS: Was that the Frankenstein film?
BACHARDY: No, it was a script of I Claudius that he was going to make. It was only prevented by his not being able to raise the money. He wanted Mick Jagger to play Caligula. And, actually, I think, after Ned Kelly, he and Jagger had a falling out, so it was then very difficult to raise money. He wanted Nichol Williams to play the part of Claudius. Apparently this new one that he’s just finished Joseph Andrews is ah … I hear nothing but good things about it. Even he is pleased. And he’s the first one to talk his own work down.
ISHERWOOD: Oh we’re great admirers of several pictures of his, even ones that haven’t done very well, like Mademoiselle. Did you ever see that? It was quite extraordinary.
BACHARDY: It’s one of the films he made with Jeanne Moreau.
ISHERWOOD: I worked on The Loved One several years ago with him. As a whole it was a mess, but it had very amusing things in it. Some by Waugh and some just completely invented from elsewhere. It sort of rambled about all over the place.
BOCKRIS: It’s rare that people make good movies out of really good books though, isn’t it?
ISHERWOOD: Yes, I think it is. I happened not to like that particular Waugh nearly as much as some of the others. It doesn’t hold up very well. There’s a lot of plain old rather boring kind of anti-Americanism, anti-Californiaism. But we had the most awful amount of fun making it.
The cab pulls over on the deserted Bowery. It’s very cold outside.
BOCKRIS: This is it right here. (Cab stops in front of the locked iron gate of William Burroughs’ headquarters, referred to by himself and his entourage as ‘The Bunker’). A foreboding entrance, but this is it. We can all hop out. (Pays cab) Give me twenty cents! Let’s see … thanks a lot.
CAB DRIVER: THANK YOU.
BOCKRIS: (On street) Now. It’s rather hard to get in here sometimes, it depends on whether the gate’s open or not. Ah … the gate’s not open. We have to go across to this bar here and telephone. Hope you don’t mind …
BACHARDY: And he comes down and …
BOCKRIS: He comes down and unlocks the gate, yeah; it’s not too frightening.
BACHARDY: Is that because it’s a bad part of town?
BOCKRIS: Well, I mean, I don’t think that’s the reason actually that they have it locked. It’s just that it’s a big building and they lock the gate. He doesn’t personally lock it.
We walk across the street to a bar half a block away. Icy wind. People wrapped in blankets leer out of doorways.
BOCKRIS: Now this bar’s perfectly safe, perfectly safe. (Open door, go into bar, loud noises of laughing, shouting, breaking glass, screams.) I’m going to run to the back! (Christopher and Don run very close behind. Voices from various conversations appear on tape: “That’s my two dollars” etc.) Is there a telephone in the bar?
BARTENDER: Nope.
BOCKRIS: (Surprised) There’s not a telephone in the bar?
BARTENDER: No. There’s one right there across the street.
BOCKRIS: Oh, okay, fine, thank you. Little mistake there. (We thread back out of the bar stepping over a maze of broken glass, sawdust, blood and spittle and come out into street.)
ISHERWOOD: (Gleefully) It’s so Eugene O’Neill it’s not true.
BOCKRIS: (Running across street) Can we make this? I think we can. Just! (Christopher is dodging cabs beside me.) Right, here we go again. (Open door into second bar. Repeat of above atmosphere. Voices drift in and out of the tape: “You and me are gonna meet tomorrow, you better believe it! When your friend ain’t around. I’ve had enough of your shit! All your goddam friends!”) This is part of seeing William Burroughs though, isn’t it? (VOICE: “You’re just a Puerto Rican Irish punk.” VOICE: “Now wait a minute …”) (On phone) Hi! James. We’re down on the corner here … righto … (hang up) Okay, they’re coming down (walk out into street). Is it worse to be a drug addict or an alcoholic do you think?
ISHERWOOD: God, I don’t know, ah … I never tried either.
BOCKRIS: You do see more alcoholics in the world, generally, in these kind of areas, completely broken up, which means, I suppose, that either drug addicts just die or else they don’t get in such bad shape.
ISHERWOOD: I’ve drunk rather a lot during my life, but I never came anywhere near to being an alcoholic. I don’t know why, I guess it’s just …
BOCKRIS: Here we are. James! (Burroughs’ secretary James Grauerholz appears behind the iron door with a key.)
GRAUERHOLZ: How do you do?
VOICE IN STREET: Ah shut up!
BOCKRIS: (Stepping aside) Don Bachardy, James Grauerholz. Christopher Isherwood, James …
GRAUERHOLZ: It’s a little bitter out there.
BOCKRIS: It’s getting really cold and it’s going to get colder. (Walk up a flight of stone steps) I’ll lead the way (walking into William Burroughs’ spacious apartment). I love this white floor. Isn’t it spacious? Hi Bill, nice to see you.
BURROUGHS: Nice to see you.
BOCKRIS: Christopher Isherwood, William Burroughs, Don Bachardy … (shake hands, nod, smile)
BURROUGHS: Why don’t you take off your coats gentlemen. (All put coats in Bill’s room next to his pajamas which are lying neatly folded on his bed, come back into living room and sit around large conference table that Burroughs has in the kitchen section of his apartment, in a series of office style orange armchairs.)
GRAUERHOLZ: Can I get you a drink?
EVERYBODY: YES!
>
ISHERWOOD: (Looking around) This is a marvelous place.
BURROUGHS: There are no windows. On the other hand there’s no noise. This whole building was a YMCA. This used to be the locker room. The man upstairs has the gymnasium and downstairs is the swimming pool. It’s a furniture shop now.
BOCKRIS: Where are sort of the mass bathrooms and things like that? Are there big rows of urinals?
BURROUGHS: Well there are two urinals right in there (pointing toward bathroom). That’s possibly all they had.
BOCKRIS: This is a real flying visit for you, you’re just in for three days?
ISHERWOOD: Yes, we have to go back on Saturday. It’s terrible.
BOCKRIS: Do you always come to New York when you have a book out?
ISHERWOOD: No, not really. I forget. Well, I did last time, that’s right, but, no, they were just very good in that sort of way, they really get behind all that. (Turning to Burroughs) I’m going through a phase of being very pleased with Farrar Straus and Giroux, they seem to be interested in a really kind of behind you in your corner way.
BOCKRIS: Roger Straus has a great reputation for giving great parties. Did you see Christopher’s new book?
BURROUGHS: No, I haven’t seen it.
BOCKRIS: Oh, I should show you a copy. I have a copy here. It’s a very beautiful book. (Go into bedroom where book is in flight bag.)
ISHERWOOD: People like it. I found the cover a little too elegant. The cover’s a sort of pearl grey and it’s got a drawing … well you’ll see it.
BURROUGHS: Did they let you have anything to do with the cover?
ISHERWOOD: Well, yeah, in a way. They asked me.
(Re-enter from bedroom, give Burroughs a copy of Christopher Isherwood’s new book which is a fascinating revisionist memoir of his early years in Berlin, collaboration with Auden, trip to China, etc, ending with his arrival in America in 1939.)
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