Have you read the article in the latest New Yorker about John Lurie?
The short of it is that he had a falling out with a friend who subsequently began stalking him, or so he says and it seems. The long of it is much stranger and sadder. It also explains why he is no longer my Facebook friend. (Which totally hurt my feellings!)
Ever since my freshman-in-college Jarmusch phase (which tapered off after Broken Flowers), when I saw Down by Law and rented Fishing with John and ended up with burned copy of The Lounge Lizards’ first album, I’ve loved John Lurie.
Despite, or maybe because of his arrogance:
“The people who makde it from the eighties had nothing to sell out in the first place. Jim Jarmusch, David Byrne, Keith Harring – all the bad ones got ahead, all the apple-for-the-teacher lightweights. The ones who are really great have a sense of madness and can’t hold it together…Of all the real artists from then, I’m the only one who is alive and has his own liver.”
He has gotten older, but he hasn’t gotten old.
His brother, Evan, who played with the Lounge Lizards was quoted in the article as saying,
“…the Lounge Lizards’ music was never going to be on the radio. It’s too cacophonous, too ethereal, too…a hundred things. But, because it was so heartfelt, John could never understand why everyone wouldn’t immediately embrace it.”
When you’re doing anything that could be construed as art, whether it’s screen-printing, or playing in a band, or whatever it is, exactly, that I’m doing with myself, the goal isn’t necessarily fame, or even understanding, but to be able to be at a point where you aren’t questioned for your choices. For there to be a few more people on your side than on the opposite. It’s both dis- and heartening to hear that I’m in good company.
What’s best to hear, though, is that he’s fixed up his saxophones, and that I can pretend someday that I’ll hear him play.
Tags: John Lurie, New Yorker, Son of Lee Marvin