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- [00:01]
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- [00:18]
Dave Davies
I'm Dave Davies. David Johansen, a founding member of the legendary 1970s band the New York Dolls, died last week. He was 75. The New York Dolls never sold many records, but the band had lasting influence, paving the way for punk rock. He also performed in his Persona, Buster Poindexter, a pompadour wearing lounge lizard, and he played the blues with his band. David Johansson and the Harry Smiths. Johansson was the subject of a 2022 Showtime documentary co directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi called Personality Crisis, One Night Only. Much of the documentary is built around Johansson's 2020 performance as Buster Poindexter at the Cafe Carlisle in New York City. The film also featured newly discovered and archival interviews with him and others. Here's a clip from the documentary with English singer and songwriter Morrissey. He says he was obsessed with the New York Dolls as a teenager because they brought a sense of danger to rock. Their music was loud and rough, but more than that.
- [01:23]
David Johansen
So here were boys who were calling themselves Dolls and they looked like prostitutes, male prostitutes, which at the time, you have to remember, it was a long time ago and all of that kind of thing was really taboo.
- [01:38]
Dave Davies
English singer Morrissey from the Showtime documentary about the New York Dolls, Terry Gross spoke to David Johansson in 2004. The surviving members of the band had just reunited at Morrissey's request for a festival in England. Their performance was recorded on a CD and DVD titled the Return of the New York Dolls. Live from Royal Festival Hall. Terry's interview starts with a track from the album called Looking for a Kiss. The Dolls used to play this one in the 1970s. It was written by David Johansen, who also sing.
- [02:19]
David Johansen (performing)
When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, luv I always saw you just before the dawn how the other kids are just dragging along I could funny the way you seem to be never in a place they used to say to be nothing, to walk every way so now go I gotta have my fun I gotta get some fun I gotta keep on moving can't stop the loose outdoor this is never done Listen when I tell you got no time for this I just got a bigger can of power to miss if there's one reason I'm telling You this. I feel bad. I've been looking forward. Kiss.
- [03:23]
Terry Gross
So when you were on stage, you know, with the. With the Reunited and the new version of the Dolls, and you were doing the old Doll songs, did you have any, like, flashbacks to things that you had totally forgotten about? Like, did memories, like, surface of things that were really interesting that you had completely forgotten about until you were back in that setting again?
- [03:46]
David Johansen
Well, I have memories, but, God, they're vague, you know. I mean, I remember the first time we made a record with Tod Rundgren. And the only thing I remember is the lights on the control board. I thought they were really pretty. And that's really the only memory I have.
- [04:05]
Terry Gross
Any historian would want to know all.
- [04:06]
David Johansen
About that, of making that first record. That's the. You know, people think I'm kidding when they ask, well, what was it like making that first record? Because it, you know, kind of became this benchmark kind of record. That's really the only memory I have of it. But, you know, the thing that struck me was I had to kind of sit down and listen to the music and write the words down and learn them.
- [04:34]
Terry Gross
Oh, you had to relearn your own songs?
- [04:36]
David Johansen
Yeah, because, you know, I hadn't sung them in God knows how long. You know. I mean, it wasn't like I had to relearn them from scratch because they kind of come back to you. But I had to have some kind of thing to look at. And, you know, I find that when I write something, it goes into my head better than if I just try to memorize it. So I was writing, for example, like human being. And I was thinking, God, how did I write that song? This is great. I mean, it really holds up. You know, it's kind of like a declaration that I think is timeless. So there's a lot of stuff like that in the songs, which. Let me explain something to you. There was a time, you know, when. When we started the Dolls and we were really such a gang, and it was like, us against the world, and we were really trying to evolve music into something new. And it was, you know, very kind of almost militant to us. And then over the years, you know, in the history books, you know, like the. The Rolling Stone, Complete Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll or something. You know, you look in the appendix and see where your name is and see what they say about you. It's not like you buy the book and would always say, you know, they were trashy, they were flashy, they were drug addicts, they were drag queens, you know, and that whole kind of trashy blah, blah, blah thing, I think over the years kind of settled in my mind as, oh, yeah, that's what it was, you know. And then by going back to it and deconstructing it and then putting it back together again, I realized that, you know, it really is art. And that some critic at one time had come up with this catch all phrase that as, you know, once somebody says it, then everybody just looks it up and they say it. Because nobody does.
- [06:38]
Terry Gross
Right.
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David Johansen
Nobody has an original idea.
- [06:40]
Terry Gross
In spite of the fact that you don't remember a whole lot about parts of the early days of the Dolls. Do you remember writing the song Personality Crisis?
- [06:49]
David Johansen
Well, you know, I don't remember exactly sitting down and writing the words, but I remember where I got the name because I was. I was kind of like an acolyte in Charles Ludlum's ridiculous theater when I was a kid. This is when I was, you know, 17, 18, 19. And.
- [07:10]
Terry Gross
And let's just describe what Charles Ludlum's theater was. He used to dress in drag a lot as the leading lady and these, like, Greta Garbo kind of roles.
- [07:19]
David Johansen
Yeah, but it was so much more than that. It was really very intelligent stuff that he used to do. And he used to combine a lot of genres of, you know, classical playwriting and, you know, like Moliere. He would put in with something kitschy that was present, you know, present day stuff. And he would put. He would make this melange of ideas that were just so. They would come out so original and brilliant that, you know, people throw the word genius around. But he was actually a genius. He was one of the most intelligent people I think I've ever met. But I think one day we were at a rehearsal or something and he just said, oh, God, I'm having a personality crisis. And I just thought, oh, that's really good. And I wrote it down, you know, personality crisis. And that's really all I remember about writing a song. And the song came from that.
- [08:15]
Terry Gross
Well, why don't we hear Personality Crisis as performed by the New York Dolls at the Meltdown Festival over the summer. So this is from the Return of the New York Dolls.
- [08:44]
David Johansen (performing)
You're my sister, I'm your mother.
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David Johansen
We.
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David Johansen (performing)
Can'T take her this way Offending one another space open for that Sunday that you are too strong all about that personality crisis.
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David Johansen
Got it.
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David Johansen (performing)
While you come on, what you got personal.
- [09:16]
Terry Gross
In the liner notes for the DVD and the cd, you write about Arthur Cain. This was his last performance. He was the Bass player of the band. And it was Arthur Kane who knocked on your door and recruited you to be in the Dolls when the band was being formed. He died just a few weeks after the concert. Did you even know he was sick?
- [09:39]
David Johansen
No. And neither did he. You know, he had had this incredible life, Arthur. And he was just this really brilliant guy who had this incredible insight into reality that was. It was just one step to the left of probably the most radical people I had ever met at that point. And I don't even mean, you know, politics. I just mean the way he saw things. And they were always spot. And he was just so brilliant to me. And then he kind of. He had come from this family that was just like hell on earth. And he got a taste for the booze and went through, like, a lot of years of just being drunk all the time. And he would. I remember he got to this point where you would just say, hi, Arthur. And he would just say, woof. His only word became woof. Anyway, he went through all this stuff. I mean, I can't begin to tell you in his life. He fell out a window, he did this. He got hit by a car, he did this, he did that. And then he came out the other side and he got involved with, like, you know, the Mormons and became the librarian at the family history office at the Mormon Tabernacle. And he was like this Mormon, but with this really kind of demented outlook on life that. So he wasn't, you know, like a proselytizer, but he just was so wonderful. And he had this very high voice, and he was 6 foot 5 or something.
- [11:34]
Terry Gross
Let's talk about how he did recruit you for the band. He knocked on your door in your apartment in Manhattan. You were what, around 19 or something?
- [11:42]
David Johansen
Yeah.
- [11:43]
Terry Gross
What did he tell you about this new band?
- [11:45]
David Johansen
Well, there was a guy who lived in my building who I used to kind of, you know, jam with and strum guitars. And he was this Colombian guy who played bongos, and we used to just sit around and play music. And he knew Billy Mercia, who was the original drummer in the Dolls, and told these guys that. Who were looking for a singer, that I was a singer, and he thought I was a pretty good singer. And so one day, Arthur was just at my door with Billy. And Arthur was about 3ft taller than Billy. And he just said, I hear you're a singer. And I said, yeah. And I invited them in and we started talking, and they said they had a band and they were looking for a singer. And I was looking for a band. And we just really, that day, actually, we left my apartment and went like four blocks up the street to Johnny Thunder's apartment where there was some drums and guitars and stuff and started to play. And we were a band essentially.
- [12:46]
Terry Gross
What were some of the things that you knew you didn't want to be about? The kind of music that you thought had dead ended?
- [12:53]
David Johansen
Oh, you know, at that time there was like these interminable drum solos. And you know what happens when the drum solo stops? It's the worst. Then the bass takes a solo and stuff like that, you know. And we just wanted to kind of have some really wham bam songs. And I mean, for me, the whole thing was like, if you have to compare it to something like a Little Richard kind of presentation. And I can remember when I was really young and I would go to the Mary the Kaye shows, you know, and I saw Mitch Ryder. And, you know, these shows had 30 acts and everybody would come out and do two or three minutes and Mitch Rider would come out and do a medley of his three big hits. He would come out in like, kind of like a tuxedo. And within 45 seconds he was half naked and sweating like a pig. And we just wanted to make an explosion, you know, of excitement. So that's what was missing, you know, rock and roll had become very kind of pedantic and meandering and was looking for something, but it was like an actor in search of a play or something, you know.
- [14:13]
Terry Gross
Now, on the album cover of the New York of the album the New York Dolls, you're all dressed in this kind of trashy drag with a lot of eye makeup and lipstick. You're wearing a bouffant wig. I assume it's a wig.
- [14:26]
David Johansen
No, it wasn't a wig.
- [14:27]
Terry Gross
It wasn't a wig. No, you teased your hair for it because it was very.
- [14:30]
David Johansen
Well, somebody teased it.
- [14:31]
Terry Gross
Somebody teased it. Right. You're wearing what looks like capri pants and high heeled clogs and open cardigan revealing your bare chest. And you're staring at yourself in the mirror of a makeup compact and the band's name is written in lipstick. Right. For those of us who didn't get to see you on stage, how did that compare with how you actually looked on stage?
- [14:50]
David Johansen
Well, that was probably, you know, I mean, I think, you know, to the average civilian it probably didn't look any different. But to us, we were like dressing up a little bit more. Make it a little special for the record cover, you know. You know, Sylvain was in the rag trade with Billy. They had this little sweater company called Truth. Well, they sold it to this company called Truth and Soul. They used to make these poor boy sweaters. They had a loom. And through that, they knew a lot of people who actually are very kind of famous designers now, but who were just getting started. And I think it was like Betsy Johnson and these women that she used to work with. They had a store in St. Mark's Place, and they knew a photographer and they knew a makeup guy, and they knew this and that. You know, we didn't know anything about that. So I think they helped to facilitate that photo session.
- [15:48]
Terry Gross
What inspired your interest in or willingness to be in a kind of drag for performances? I mean, you mentioned you had been with Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theater, and drag was often a part of their performances in theater. So where did you see it fitting into your music?
- [16:07]
David Johansen
Well, you know, we were on. We were, you know, the hotbed of revolution at that time was, you know, St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue, and through that, you know, there were so many artists there and, you know, actors and people who were doing these plays, like the Ridiculous people. And there was, you know, filmmakers and poets and painters. And we were the band of that crowd. I mean, it wasn't like we were the band of even New York City, you know, we were the band basically of the East Village, you know, and it wasn't so much like a sexual thing because, you know, like, sexuality refers to, like, biological aspects. It was more like a gender thing, you know, and gender is like, you know, like the cultural differences that grow up around the biological differences. So instead of, like, male and female, like, gender is really masculine and feminine. Right. I think the trick for us at the time was to decide which characteristics were sex and which were gender, you know, and, you know, because there's certain things males do and there's certain things females do. I mean, the universe didn't make two sexes for nothing.
- [17:28]
Terry Gross
Did a lot of people early on assume that you were gay because of the way you dressed in performance or because of the.
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David Johansen
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it was. Obviously, we weren't gay. I mean, you know, I. But maybe to some people, it was, you know. You know, how. Some people. I mean, to some people, everybody's gay. You know, like, you could say, like, you could be talking to somebody and go, oh, that Hitler. And they go gay, you know. So, I mean, some. Some people just think everybody's gay. But I don't know. We were like these kind of street kids from, you know, from St. Mark's Place, you know, and we just had this idea that, you know, at the time, masculine meant strong and assertive, feminine meant weak and demure. And this was a time of like redefinition of the roles, you know, it was overdue and it was just part of evolution, I think, you know, and everything kind of transcends and goes beyond what went before. And otherwise, what's the use of doing anything, you know?
- [18:39]
Dave Davies
David Johansen, co founder of the 1970s band the New York Dolls, speaking with Terry Gross in 2004. He died last week at the age of 75. Johansson is the subject of a 2022 documentary co directed by Martin Scorsese on Showtime titled Personality Crisis, One Night Only. Later, film critic Justin Chang reviews Mickey 17, a futuristic action comedy by Bong Joon Hob, starring Robert Pattinson. Here's David Johansson performing in his lounge lizard Persona, Buster Poindexter from the documentary. We'll continue our conversation after a break. I'm Dave Davies and this is FRESH air.
- [19:20]
David Johansen (performing)
I woke up early one day and turned on my tv. They said they had to get over when I was asleep. Well, they were breaking down doors, they were purging and burning people just like me. Well, I fixed a drink, I switched around a channel but that was all I could say. Well, it's such a boring feeling when you find that you fall into a totalitarian state. There are no ones left. It don't seem right. You just don't feel so great. Well, the queens were all camping and the Mexicans was laughing down at the detention center they didn't seem to care that they were there. I couldn't find one dissenter hunting a field communal. I was in communicado. I couldn't see her getting any better. I couldn't call no one.
- [20:26]
David Johansen
I wish I had gone.
- [20:28]
David Johansen (performing)
I couldn't even send a letter. Oh, it's such a foreign feeling when you find that you fall into a choke out very safe. You don't know what's left. It don't seem right. You just don't feel so great. When they came to dim me, I hope they would forgive me. I tried paying debt. I finished my drink, assess the situation, put the covers up over my head.
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David Johansen
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David Johansen
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- [22:32]
Terry Gross
The band was originally so used to performing, like in Manhattan in the Village, where people, like, knew the band, the people who came were a part of the same, like, arts subculture that the band was a part of. But when you went on the road in America, did you start playing in places where people weren't kindred spirits in the same way and they didn't necessarily get what you were doing? They didn't know how to react to it?
- [22:56]
David Johansen
Yes and no. I mean, it's very interesting. Like, you know, there were like Rust Belt places, you know, like Detroit and Cleveland and places like that. People would go crazy for us and they would come to the shows all dressed up, you know, and Chicago and, you know, we were really well received in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we used to play a lot in Florida, you know, Miami, and we used to play in Atlanta and be very, very well accepted. And then we used to also, you know, we were friends with Leonard Skynyrd at the time. We were kind of kindred spirits. And we would go on tours of like, state fairs and like tertiary markets in Missouri together and we would have a great time. You know, I know in Memphis, I got arrested on stage one night for allegedly, you know, it was like the Alice Tully hall of Memphis. It was this nice clean room and there had been articles in the newspaper that we were coming to Pied Piper, all the Children to the End of the World or Whatever. And we thought it was funny when we read it, but I actually got arrested on stage. And what for? Went to the who scow in Memphis, which is. I was dressed like Liza Minnelli at.
- [24:26]
Terry Gross
The time, so it wasn't the most.
- [24:28]
David Johansen
Relaxing night I ever had.
- [24:31]
Terry Gross
How do people respond to you in prison?
- [24:34]
David Johansen
In jail?
- [24:35]
Terry Gross
Yeah.
- [24:36]
David Johansen
I just, like, hid under these, like, Lysol, smelling like army blankets. And then this guy woke up, and he went like, oh, damn, you're David Johansen. And I was like, quiet, quiet, quiet. And then he woke up this bear, and the bear was growling, and I was like, oh, my God. My knees were, like, you know, rattling under these covers. But I got bailed out at, like, dawn.
- [24:58]
Terry Gross
What were the charges?
- [25:01]
David Johansen
Inciting a riot. The cops, you know, the cops wanted to mess the thing up, and they started beating on kids. And. Because they got up and danced, and I stopped the music, and I started explaining to this officer that this child he was abusing, maybe, you know, the mayor's kid or nephew or something, and his job would be in jeopardy. And then they just threw me in cuffs and dragged me away for inciting a riot. I may not have used the exact same language.
- [25:33]
Terry Gross
I understand. Why did the New York Dolls break up?
- [25:43]
David Johansen
Inertia. I don't know. You know, I think we got to a point where I like to think, you know, it was a project that we finished, but there was, like, factions in the group that were, you know, more interested in drugs than in playing music. And it just kind of became. For me. I mean, I can only speak for myself, you know. For me, it became untenable.
- [26:08]
Terry Gross
What did you think when you saw the Sex Pistols, The Ramones? Your band the Dolls preceded punk, but it was certainly influential in a lot of punk bands and had the same sensibility in a lot of ways. So when you saw that sensibility just really become so popular, what did you think?
- [26:35]
David Johansen
I thought, every new idea begins as heresy and winds up as superstition. I never saw the Sex Pistols, but I saw the Ramones because they used to rehearse down the hall from me. I forget if I was in the Dolls or in my next band, but I remember Joey Ramone came to the room I was rehearsing in. You know, they have these buildings in New York with a hundred bands playing at once. It's like it would drive a monk insane. And he came by and said he wanted me to come down the hall and hear his band. And I went down the hall to hear his band, and I probably said, you know, you're a nice guy. Why don't you just give up? You know, I told the Talking Heads they should give up. I mean, I would be the worst A and R man in the history of show business because I tell all these bands who when they're beginning that you're a good kid. Why don't you get a real job and a house, you know, So I don't what do I know? I didn't think anything about it being influenced by me or anything like that. It was just probably I had a headache and the music was really loud.
- [27:55]
Dave Davies
David Johansen, who co founded the 1970s band the New York Dolls, speaking with Terry Gross in 2000. He died last week. He was the last surviving member of the band. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH air.
- [28:11]
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- [28:33]
Terry Gross
I want to skip ahead to the 80s and 90s when you performed a lot as Buster Poindexter. And, you know, the New York Dolls were so into a kind of pre punk sensibility and were very high energy and very raw. And, you know, Buster Poindexter is much more of a kind of lounge, more Vegas oriented kind of Persona, you know, instead of in drag on the COVID you know, the Buster Poindexter characters and a tuxedo.
- [29:10]
David Johansen
It's all drag, Terry.
- [29:12]
Terry Gross
Well, that's the thing. No, no, but that's exactly the thing.
- [29:14]
David Johansen
I mean, Birkenstocks are drag exactly, you know what I'm saying? Everyone is like everybody is saying something with their clothes, you know.
- [29:24]
Terry Gross
So have you always felt like you were standing back and knowing that any kind of drag that you were putting on, any kind of outfit or whatever you were putting on for a performance was always that that you always knew it was some kind of drag or another?
- [29:37]
David Johansen
Yeah. Yeah. You know, the thing with Poindex is we there was a little club like a saloon, an Irish bar around the corner from my house. I was living in Gramercy Park. It was two blocks from my house, and it was kind of like my watering hole. And they would have bands there like Joe Turner or Charles Brown or Big Maybelle, and they would do residencies there. So they would play like three or four nights a week for a month. Say you know, and there was a room upstairs where they would live Monday night. The back room was dark. So I had decided I was gonna do this little like road barrel house kind of roadhouse show where I could just sing whatever songs I wanted to sing. And I was gonna do it for four Mondays. And I went in there and I figured I use a pseudonym so people wouldn't be coming in screaming for, you know, funky Butt Cheek. So I went in to do that and I just picked whatever songs. I had been listening to a lot of jump blues at the time, but I also did, you know, like the Seven Deadly Virtues from Camelot and, you know, whatever, just whatever songs I wanted to sing. And by the end of four weeks, I started doing weekends and it just kind of organically built into this. It started out as a three piece band and wound up as like a 15 piece band. So I think by the time it got to the national awareness, it did have this kind of Vegasy kind of idea to it. But it started off more kind of like the Louis Prima days in the 50s of Vegas, you know what I'm saying?
- [31:21]
Terry Gross
Right, right, right. Well, that image was encouraged. Like on the COVID of the Busted Poindexter album. You're drinking a martini, right? In a tuxedo with your pinky.
- [31:30]
Dave Davies
Right?
- [31:31]
David Johansen
And then I was back. See, I was walking to work, I was making a nice living, and then we had a hit and, you know, we all went to hell because we had to go back on the road.
- [31:40]
Terry Gross
Right. I want to play something from the Buster Poindexter era and don't play Hot, Hot, Hot. No, no, I wasn't going to. I was going to play.
- [31:49]
David Johansen
Thank God.
- [31:50]
Terry Gross
Were you really tired of it? It.
- [31:51]
David Johansen
It's the bane of my life.
- [31:53]
Terry Gross
Oh, I was going to play Bad Boy. Okay, tell me why you recorded this. This is a cover.
- [32:00]
David Johansen
Well, I don't know. It's just a good song. It was written by Lil Armstrong and I always liked it ever since I was a kid.
- [32:07]
Terry Gross
Yeah. Okay, well, let's hear it. This is from the Buster Poindexter Al.
- [32:20]
David Johansen (performing)
All dressed up in fancy clothes. I taking the trouble to turn my night into day. You know that old hot blazing sun. You ain't gonna hurt my head. Cause you always gonna find me right there in the shade. I can see all the folks I can see now laughing at me. Cause I'm just naturally crazy lazy baby.
- [33:12]
Terry Gross
That's Bad Boy from David Johansson's album, Buster Poindexter. David Johansson is my guest and his first band, the New York Dolls has a reunion concert that was just released on CD and dvd. It seems to me that you've had so many different characters you've inhabited as. As a. As a performer. And I'm wondering how much you think you're career as an actor has come into play in your career as a musician. You know, because before you were even in the New York Dolls, you were with the Ridiculous Theater Company in New York. And over the years you've been in, you know, a lot of movies as well.
- [33:54]
David Johansen
Yeah, I guess, you know, there's a lot of kind of acting involved. You know, I have this friend, Elliot Murphy, who's a singer. He lives in Paris now. I remember when started doing Buster Poindexter, he used to say to me, david, you know, Buster Poindexter is so much more like you than David Johansson is. You know, if you get what I'm saying. In other words, with Buster, I really kind of went on stage and really didn't edit myself and just kind of said whatever came to my mind and didn't have many filters. Whereas prior to that, in the period of my, I guess you would call it, solo career. Although, you know, you're always in a band, so it's never really a solo career. But I had the David Johansson Group or band or whatever it was called, and we used to open for a lot of bands and hockey rinks, you know, and you kind of go out there. At that point, I was going out there and kind of presenting this what I thought, like, ideal picture of myself, you know what I mean? Just this pleasant fellow, you know, Whereas Buster was really kind of more warts and all, you know. And I think by doing that, it helped me to be myself more, you know, Whereas. So now when I go on stage, I'm not like biting my nails like, oh, what am I gonna do? What are. How am I gonna be? Blah, blah, blah. I just don't even think about it because I'm just gonna go out there and essentially be whoever I am at that moment. You know what I'm saying?
- [35:41]
Terry Gross
Yeah. You once said back in the Buster Poindexter era, Buster can have this great life in the public eye and take the rap for everything, and then David can go home.
- [35:49]
David Johansen
Exactly. You know, it's funny because my mother, when Buster came out, she said, you know, this is the most genius idea you've ever come up with. This is great. And I think that was her idea that. But, you know, Buster can take the rap and politicians should do it.
- [36:07]
Terry Gross
Now you have a show on Sirius, which is one of the satellite radio stations.
- [36:11]
David Johansen
Oh yeah.
- [36:12]
Terry Gross
Who are you as a dj? Are you just yourself or do you.
- [36:15]
David Johansen
Have a. I have a show called the Mansion of Fun and I'm kind of like Sri Rama Poindexter Johansson and I'm very taken with Sri Ramakrishna lately because I read a biography of his and thought, man, that guy knew how to live. And he called the planet the Mansion of Fun. So I named my show after that. And I play a really diverse bunch of music. You know, I play salsa, opera, blues, rock and roll, you know, you name it. I play a lot of Nino Rota music. I play, you know, whatever tickles my fancy. So it's really completely free form. And I speak a lot of kind of Ken Wilber type forward thinking philosophy.
- [37:20]
Terry Gross
Well, David Johansson, great to talk with you. Thank you so much.
- [37:23]
David Johansen
Thank you, Terry.
- [37:25]
Dave Davies
David Johansson, co founder of the 1970s band the New York Dolls, speaking with Terry Gross in 2004. He died last week. He was 75. He was the subject of a Showtime documentary co directed by Martin Scorsese titled Personality Crisis. One Night Only. Here's David Johansen performing in his lounge lizard Persona, Buster Poindexter from that documentary.
- [37:50]
David Johansen
Tonight I'm going to do songs that I wrote or co wrote, I guess, from when I was a teenager all the way up to now. And the one thing I could say, the unifying thing of my existence is that there's always been plenty of music.
- [38:27]
David Johansen (performing)
Feeling a great sadness today I don't wanna shush it or shoo it away it belongs to the whole world the boys and girls it ain't just my like joy and love it's always there I don't know how I tune in or why that I care But I can't pretend it don't feel like the end and everything is fine I feel exiled from the divine a me and these sad friends of mine we just waiting down here drinking beer and losing time well, I hear plenty of music I see superfluous beauty everywhere why should I care? What does it matter to me? Yeah, yeah the myth of life is a song, yeah. And nature.
- [40:05]
Dave Davies
Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews Mickey 17, the new film by Bong Joon Ho. This is FRESH AIR. In the futuristic action comedy Mickey 17, Robert Pattinson plays a space traveler who's repeatedly killed and resurrected for scientific research purposes as part of an expedition to a distant planet. It's the first movie from South Korean writer director Bong Joon Hobby after his Oscar winning film Parasite. Mickey 17 opens in theaters this week. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.
- [40:38]
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There's long been a current of topical anger running through the work of the brilliant South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. Parasite was a domestic thriller and an indictment of economic inequality. The Host was a terrific monster movie with much to say about environmental decay and government inaction. And then there are Bong's Hollywood movies like Snowpiercer, which took on class rage and climate change, and Okja, which paints such a grim picture of industrialized meat production that reportedly many of its viewers went vegetarian. Now comes Bong's new movie, Mickey 17, an outlandish, otherworldly farce that also paints in broadly satirical strokes. The movie, adapted from a novel by Edward Ashton, begins in the year 2054 on a faraway planet called Niflheim, where a human colony is being established. Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, a good natured screw up who's been hired as an expendable a human guinea pig. His job is to repeatedly die and live again to ensure that Niflheim is safe for human habitation. And so he's exposed to radiation, viruses and toxins, leading to painful and protracted deaths. His body is dumped in the incinerator. And then, through the wonders of human printing technology, a whole new Mickey is regenerated and implanted with all his past memories. Live, die, repeat. That's all Mickey knows anymore. Why would anyone sign up for such a grueling ordeal? It's complicated. Let's just say that Mickey owes someone back on Earth a lot of money, and he decided it'd be best to flee the planet and die multiple reversible deaths rather than a single permanent one. As the movie opens, 16 previous Mickeys have already bitten the dust. And so it's Mickey, 17, who introduces us to Niflheim, a planet covered by ice and snow. During a dangerous scouting mission, a colleague, Jennifer, is killed. Mickey, ironically, survives. Later, back at their compound, another colleague, played by Anna Maria Vartolome, asks Mickey a question he's been asked many times before.
- [43:06]
David Johansen
What's it like.
- [43:09]
Terry Gross
Dying? It's terrible, dying. I hate it no matter how many.
- [43:23]
David Johansen
Times I go through it.
- [43:26]
Terry Gross
It's scary. Still, always every.
- [43:38]
David Johansen
But you are here.
- [43:43]
Terry Gross
And Jennifer isn't out there.
- [43:51]
David Johansen
The entire universe.
- [43:56]
Terry Gross
She's nowhere.
- [43:59]
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While you could see the premise as a metaphor for human cloning, Bong is less concerned with ethical implications than narrative possibilities. He surrounds Mickey with supporting characters who underscore his weird existential loneliness. Steven Yeun pops up as a backstabbing friend who treats Mickey like garbage. Mickey does have a loving and supportive girlfriend, a very good Naomi Ackee who's happy to be with him or any version of him. As we eventually learn, the Mickeys are not all strictly identical, and Pattinson has fun underscoring the differences. While most of the Mickeys are lovable goofballs, at least one turns out to be dangerously unhinged. Pattinson has always been an adventurous actor and this is one of his most inventive performances, marked by a Gumby like physicality, a Steve Buscemi edge to his voice and a deep core of melancholy. The subtler depths of Pattinson's performance aren't always matched elsewhere in Mickey 17. Not that subtlety is really the goal here. Bong is a giddy maximalist among genre filmmakers. He embraces high drama, low comedy and sudden bursts of violence, and he likes to juggle a lot of moving parts. His talents are formidable, but they aren't always well served by the shift to a big Hollywood canvas. Like Snowpiercer and OKJA before it, Mickey 17 can be a bustling, unwieldy contraption of a movie. It has not one but two over the top villains the tyrannical leader of the Niflheim colony played by Mark Ruffalo and his diabolical wife, played by Toni Collette. They have fun leering and sneering up a storm, and Ruffalo's mannered, vocal delivery makes it clear that he's lampooning a certain US President. Some of this satire does land, but it also wears awfully thin. Even so, Bong is one of the few filmmakers who can work at this scale, with elaborate production design and intricate visual effects and still retain his artistic signature. Some of the most memorable characters in Mickey 17 are the native inhabitants of Niflheim, which look like giant white roly poly bugs with armadillo like shells. They're creepy at first glance, and it's no surprise that the human characters, short sighted colonizers that they are, are bent on wiping them out. Leave it to Bong to flip the equation. He gives each of these slimy CGI critters a soul. It's a rare action filmmaker who can make you say aw instead of yuck. Even amid multiple Mickeys, Bong's talent remains one of a kind.
- [46:55]
Dave Davies
Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Bong Joon Ho's new movie Mickey 17 on Monday show Terry speaks with comic Bill Burr about his anger issues, which are hilarious on stage but not so much in real life, and how therapy, mushrooms and becoming a father have helped. Terry says the interview was a wild ride and she really enjoyed it. Burr has a new Hulu comedy special and is the star of the new Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross. I hope you can join us. Our senior producer today is Thaya Chaloner. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
- [47:31]
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