Latest / DISGRACELAND / Andy Warhol: Fame, the Future, and Back from the Dead

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Andy Warhol: Fame, the Future, and Back from the Dead · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:13
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol are insane. He was the first artist to
0:18
Speaker 1: achieve rock star status. He was rescued by firefighters when
0:22
Speaker 1: a mob of obsessed fans threatened to crush him. His
0:25
Speaker 1: work in play space the Factory was a regular target
0:29
Speaker 1: for the NYPD. The factory scene attracted people of all ages,
0:34
Speaker 1: rich and poor, straight and gay, sane and not so sane.
0:40
Speaker 1: He was almost killed by a strung out junkie with
0:42
Speaker 1: a loaded pistol. He was shot and critically wounded by
0:47
Speaker 1: a would be assassin. He died on an operating table
0:50
Speaker 1: before dramatically being brought back to life. Andy Warhol's second
0:55
Speaker 1: life began the moment his heart started to beat again,
0:58
Speaker 1: and in that second life he became a true cultural icon,
1:03
Speaker 1: bigger than his paintings, or his polaroids, or his experimental films,
1:07
Speaker 1: and bigger than life itself. Andy Warhol was great art.
1:14
Speaker 1: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
1:16
Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great art. That was a
1:19
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called three Sheets Swing MK. One.
1:27
Speaker 1: I played you that clip because I can't afford the
1:29
Speaker 1: rights to a clip from Hang On Sloopy by the McCoys,
1:33
Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
1:36
Speaker 1: Ohio State Marching band Cheese? Could I afford it? Because
1:41
Speaker 1: that was the number one song in America on October eighth,
1:45
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, and that was the day that Andy
1:49
Speaker 1: Warhol debuted his first ever museum show at the Institute
1:53
Speaker 1: of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, a turning point not only
1:57
Speaker 1: in the world of art, but in the culture at large.
2:02
Speaker 1: On this episode, artists as rock stars, strung out junkies
2:06
Speaker 1: would be Assassin's quit thinking surgeons the factory in Andy Warhol.
2:13
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Nineteen eighty five,
2:40
Speaker 1: New York City. The Smiths on their first real tour
2:44
Speaker 1: of the United States. The Manchester Band's lead singer Marcy
2:48
Speaker 1: on stage at the Beacon Theater, blue jeans, button up shirt,
2:52
Speaker 1: casually unbuttoned, flowers in his back pocket, arrogant, dismissive begging,
2:59
Speaker 1: Please please please let me get what I want this time.
3:02
Speaker 1: Not a man so much as a persona a creation,
3:06
Speaker 1: a work of art. Marssy holds an outstretched hand to
3:12
Speaker 1: the thousands there to see him. The kids who just
3:15
Speaker 1: hours ago were beating on the windows of the car
3:17
Speaker 1: he was riding in, the same kids who screened with delight.
3:21
Speaker 1: When Johnny marr rang out the opening lick of this
3:24
Speaker 1: charming man on his guitar, it's all a bit surreal
3:28
Speaker 1: to Marssy, and he tries hard to make it look
3:30
Speaker 1: like he doesn't really care, not like Johnny fawning over
3:34
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger backstage, that wrinkly old fuck. But then Marssey
3:38
Speaker 1: sees someone out in the crowd, that shock of white hair,
3:42
Speaker 1: the glasses. Andy Warhol stops Marssy in his tracks. Like Marssey,
3:50
Speaker 1: Andy is a put on a persona. But Andy did
3:54
Speaker 1: it first. Andy walked so that Marrissy could run Marssy,
3:59
Speaker 1: doling out that youthful, erotic energy that Andy fails to
4:02
Speaker 1: possess and frankly really never had, but which fascinates and
4:06
Speaker 1: turns him on nonetheless. But Morrissy, like Andy, Warhol markets
4:13
Speaker 1: himself not as a sexual icon, but as asexual. Whether
4:17
Speaker 1: or not you believe that, whether it's actually true, that's
4:20
Speaker 1: all part of the process, the process that is intentional
4:24
Speaker 1: and precise. Like the image the Smiths chose for the
4:28
Speaker 1: cover of their self titled debut album. A man shirtless
4:33
Speaker 1: head hanging down an image from a nineteen sixty eight
4:36
Speaker 1: film called Flesh, directed by another Morsy, Paul Morrissey and
4:42
Speaker 1: produced by one Andy Warhol. Right out of the gate,
4:47
Speaker 1: the Smiths owed a debt of gratitude to the man
4:49
Speaker 1: in the white wig, who is now standing in the
4:51
Speaker 1: middle of the Beacon crowd. And they owed him not
4:54
Speaker 1: just for stealing a photo from a movie of his,
4:57
Speaker 1: but for the very concept of a modern rock and
4:59
Speaker 1: roll con the light show, the iconography of a superstar,
5:04
Speaker 1: whether on a stage or in a silk screen painting,
5:06
Speaker 1: It's all Warhol. Warhol is here at the Beacon witnessing
5:12
Speaker 1: the Smiths, just like he was at the Cafe Bazaar
5:15
Speaker 1: some twenty years prior witnessing The Velvet Underground. He is
5:19
Speaker 1: everywhere in New York, or so it seems. Liz Taylor's
5:23
Speaker 1: birthday party at Studio fifty four, the cock Ring on
5:27
Speaker 1: Christopher Street, where guys cruised the bathroom as an amyl
5:30
Speaker 1: nitrate hot wire as the dance floor, the Anvil over
5:34
Speaker 1: on West Fourteenth where the hypnotic repetition of a man
5:37
Speaker 1: removing fifty pairs of jockey shorts from his pelvis is
5:40
Speaker 1: just as much a work of art as Andy's thirty
5:43
Speaker 1: two Campbell's soup cans, clam chowder, chicken noodle, cream of vegetable,
5:48
Speaker 1: green pea repetition in real life in art, and in
5:53
Speaker 1: the process split pea, cream of mushroom, onion, chili beef.
5:59
Speaker 1: Andy one ask the Velvet Undergrounds, Lou read, how many
6:02
Speaker 1: songs you've written that day? Five? You told him five?
6:07
Speaker 1: Andy said, what's wrong with you? Why are you so lazy?
6:11
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol despised laziness when it came to work, just
6:15
Speaker 1: like he despised anything that wasn't new. That's why he
6:19
Speaker 1: was drawn to the Velvet Underground and now to the Smiths,
6:23
Speaker 1: the newness of Stephen Patrick Morrissey, who dropped his first
6:26
Speaker 1: in middle names to become something completely different, just like
6:30
Speaker 1: Andy leaving Scrownny Little Andrew Warhala in the past, just
6:34
Speaker 1: another working class Pittsburgh kid with a face that disgusted him,
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Speaker 1: in a way of carrying himself that betrayed all the
6:41
Speaker 1: ways in which he was different from John Q. Hetero.
6:44
Speaker 1: It was fine, though, as an adult, Andy Warhol had
6:48
Speaker 1: concealer to remake his face and wigs to hide his
6:51
Speaker 1: rapidly disappearing hair. He needed those things just like he
6:56
Speaker 1: needed to make great art, just like he needed to
6:59
Speaker 1: be famous, but more than your garden variety celebrity, not
7:03
Speaker 1: some fifteen minute flip. He wanted to be as famous
7:06
Speaker 1: as the Queen of England, as iconic as a meticulous
7:09
Speaker 1: artwork inside the Byzantine Catholic church of his youth, which
7:13
Speaker 1: transported him away from dreary Pittsburgh somewhere far down the
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Speaker 1: road the future. And he did this, and he got
7:22
Speaker 1: there by becoming something in someone that no one had
7:26
Speaker 1: ever seen before. September nineteen sixty three, half a year
7:33
Speaker 1: until the Beatles would land on us Soil. Mere months
7:37
Speaker 1: before JFK's motorcade made that fateful turn into Dealey Plaza,
7:41
Speaker 1: thirty five year old Andy Warhol laid on a mattress
7:44
Speaker 1: in the back of a Ford Falcon next to his
7:46
Speaker 1: assistant Gerard Malanga. They flipped through magazines while their friends
7:51
Speaker 1: Winning Chamberlain and Taylor Meade sat up front and piloted
7:55
Speaker 1: the station wagon through Middle America as if they were
7:58
Speaker 1: in a Kerouac novel. But that sal paradise and Dean
8:01
Speaker 1: Moriarty jive was old news a few years was an eternity.
8:07
Speaker 1: At least Andy on the Road was in the past.
8:12
Speaker 1: Andy and his friends weren't emulating the past. They were
8:15
Speaker 1: doing their own thing, chartering this honk of Detroit Steele
8:18
Speaker 1: in a haze of marijuana, smoke and speed. They left
8:24
Speaker 1: New York City in the dust back where andy silkscreens
8:27
Speaker 1: of Marilyn Monroe had recently shifted the tectonic plates of
8:30
Speaker 1: the art world's crusty underpinnings, ever so slightly. Fifty Marylands,
8:35
Speaker 1: each one the same, but each one different, just like
8:39
Speaker 1: Andy doling out altered versions of himself to each new
8:42
Speaker 1: person he met, like those waiting for him in Los Angeles,
8:46
Speaker 1: where he was headed now, where his second gallery show
8:49
Speaker 1: was just days away. Twenty three canvases of Elvis Presley
8:54
Speaker 1: pistol drawn eyes looking up and to the left, the
8:57
Speaker 1: same Elvis, overlapping, over and over Elvi. Andy hoped these
9:04
Speaker 1: twenty three Elvis's would send the City of Angels into
9:07
Speaker 1: another tizzy. His first La show, the aforementioned Campbell's Soup Cans,
9:12
Speaker 1: really pissed off the so called connoisseurs tastemakers who didn't
9:17
Speaker 1: realize their time was up. Andy was hated as much
9:20
Speaker 1: as he was loved. That's the mark of true fame.
9:25
Speaker 1: In Kansas, they pulled the forward into a truck stop,
9:28
Speaker 1: real salt of the Earth. The kind of people whose
9:30
Speaker 1: definition of art was that picture of Jesus hanging on
9:33
Speaker 1: their wall at home. They didn't know Andy Warhol, and
9:37
Speaker 1: that he made a name for himself in his adopted
9:39
Speaker 1: city of New York, first with commercial work illustrations in
9:43
Speaker 1: Harper's Bazaar, Town and Country, ads and sports, illustrated drug
9:48
Speaker 1: company propaganda and the like, all while sketching his friend's
9:52
Speaker 1: cox on the side, Or that he parlayed department store
9:55
Speaker 1: window dressings into gallery installations. Low art made high. All
10:01
Speaker 1: they knew was that he looked different, walked different, dressed different.
10:06
Speaker 1: He had that New York stink on him, but something
10:09
Speaker 1: about him was tilted. The tuft of white hair on
10:13
Speaker 1: his head, sunglasses so dark you couldn't tell if there
10:17
Speaker 1: were actually eyes behind them. Andy hung back on the fringes, listening,
10:22
Speaker 1: observing the leader of a pack, who also happened to
10:25
Speaker 1: be a loner. Heads turned as Andy and his friends
10:29
Speaker 1: looked around for something to eat. A hush fell over
10:32
Speaker 1: the place. This alien in their midst art fuck future
10:36
Speaker 1: boy in his limp wristed queens. The locals fascination quickly
10:40
Speaker 1: turned into menace. Andy Gerard wind Tailor that could all
10:45
Speaker 1: feel it, the eyes staring at him, the threat that
10:48
Speaker 1: didn't need to be spoken to be heard. Andy Warhol
10:53
Speaker 1: didn't let it bother him. These people were stuck in
10:55
Speaker 1: the past. Andy was thinking about the future, about a
10:59
Speaker 1: few more days down the road, where his La Gallery
11:02
Speaker 1: show would take one step closer to the fame he craved.
11:06
Speaker 1: He would get there on time and in one piece.
11:09
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol was not going to die, not today, not
11:14
Speaker 1: inside a Kansas truck stop, not anywhere. Andy Warhol was
11:19
Speaker 1: going to live forever. Philadelphia, nineteen sixty five. The roughnecks
11:50
Speaker 1: standing outside the Institute of Contemporary Art fondled their switch plades.
11:54
Speaker 1: Their leather jackets provided relief against the cool autumn breeze,
11:59
Speaker 1: and they waited for Andy Warhol to step out into
12:01
Speaker 1: the night. That's when they'd jump him. They didn't give
12:05
Speaker 1: a shit about his art, or any art for that matter.
12:08
Speaker 1: They just hated Andy Warhol, his sexual orientation, his stupid
12:13
Speaker 1: Brillo boxes. His fame didn't matter. They hated that they
12:17
Speaker 1: had to read about him in the paper and see
12:19
Speaker 1: his screwed up little face on TV. Tonight he'd get
12:23
Speaker 1: what was coming to him. Inside, Andy Warhol was surrounded
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Speaker 1: swarmed by adoring fans as if he was a beetle.
12:31
Speaker 1: But Andy didn't do beetlesuits. Andy wore a black shirt,
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Speaker 1: black jacket, Levi denim wrap around sunglasses, the coolest thing
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Speaker 1: that Philly had ever seen, so cool it could only
12:43
Speaker 1: be seen at night. Nine pm was the stark time
12:47
Speaker 1: for Andy's first ever museum show. Flashbulbs, flash autograph hounds,
12:53
Speaker 1: Hounded hands reached out to touch the hem of his garment,
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Speaker 1: just like the hands that would pound the window of
12:59
Speaker 1: Stephen Patrick Morrissey's car decades later. The cops did their
13:04
Speaker 1: best to keep this particular scene calm, but Andy's scene
13:08
Speaker 1: could not be contained. Every one of the more than
13:12
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred people attending the show were as much a
13:15
Speaker 1: part of the art as the silk screens hanging on
13:17
Speaker 1: the walls. Artists didn't have fan clubs and entourages. Not
13:22
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five. Andy Warhol changed all that. The
13:26
Speaker 1: moment he stepped into the museum with Edie Seddric on
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Speaker 1: his arm. Seventeen years Andy's junior, all dawled up in
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Speaker 1: a pink floor, lank jersey tube and earrings that dangled
13:36
Speaker 1: to her collarbone, living on her inheritance while also living
13:39
Speaker 1: as a part of the growing community at the Factory.
13:41
Speaker 1: Andy's work and play space in Midtown Manhattan, four flights
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Speaker 1: up and one of the oldest elevators in New York
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Speaker 1: to a space forty feet wide by seventy five feet deep,
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Speaker 1: wires sticking out of the ceiling, the concrete floor dinged
13:55
Speaker 1: with so many imperfections it could have been Andy's blemish
13:57
Speaker 1: face with The factory was growing along with Andy's renown,
14:03
Speaker 1: not just Gerard and Wynn and Taylor, but Billy named
14:06
Speaker 1: Paul Morrissey, Robert Olivier, to name a few. Bibby Hanson,
14:10
Speaker 1: daughter of an avant garde artist, and at fourteen years old,
14:13
Speaker 1: one of the youngest factory hangers on, later described the
14:16
Speaker 1: collective as quote drag queens and queers, children, street hustlers
14:21
Speaker 1: and rough trade, dropouts and runaways, drug dealers, and psychiatric
14:25
Speaker 1: basket cases. We were all outside, our insiders at the factory, unquote,
14:30
Speaker 1: and they all did the things outsider insiders do. Gerard
14:34
Speaker 1: made silk screens with Andy, while Billy snorted and fetamine
14:37
Speaker 1: hydrochloride and got ready for his first three minutes of
14:40
Speaker 1: fame in front of the camera. One of the hundreds
14:43
Speaker 1: of human subjects for Andy's so called screen tests silent films,
14:48
Speaker 1: one take shot on a black and white bolex. Robert
14:52
Speaker 1: Olivio meanwhile shot speed anidie cedric mainline barbiturates and acid
14:57
Speaker 1: while trying to blot out the first twenty years of
15:00
Speaker 1: for life, her abusive father, her brother who hanged himself
15:04
Speaker 1: at a hospital where he had been sent to be
15:06
Speaker 1: cured of homosexuality at the Ica in Philly. Though Edie
15:11
Speaker 1: had her shit together for one night, at least she
15:14
Speaker 1: looked incredible. The press said she was Andy's girlfriend, which was,
15:19
Speaker 1: of course, by design, all part of the act Andy's creation.
15:25
Speaker 1: The two of them looked down at the rapturous crowd
15:27
Speaker 1: from up on the wrought iron staircase, where just moments
15:30
Speaker 1: earlier the cops had escorted them for the protection. There
15:33
Speaker 1: were simply too many people here, and they were shouting
15:36
Speaker 1: Andy's name. They tried to tear his clothes off of him.
15:39
Speaker 1: Who knew what they would do if they actually get
15:41
Speaker 1: a hold of him. Andy's newfound fame, the thing he
15:45
Speaker 1: wanted more than anything, was beginning to turn on him
15:48
Speaker 1: and devour room hole. He began to panic. He looked
15:51
Speaker 1: up and there was nowhere else to go. The staircase
15:54
Speaker 1: he was standing on led to nothing, just the ceiling.
15:58
Speaker 1: He and Yedie were trapped, but the cops noticed a
16:01
Speaker 1: potential escape, a trap door at the top of the
16:05
Speaker 1: stairs that had been sealed up long ago. Philly firefighters
16:08
Speaker 1: wrenched it open with crowbars and told Andy and Edy
16:11
Speaker 1: through to another floor, away from the obsessive throngs. From there,
16:15
Speaker 1: they had to move fast. Andy grabbed Edie's hand, they
16:19
Speaker 1: raced through the empty room like George and Ringo, racing
16:21
Speaker 1: through a train station, over to a window and a
16:24
Speaker 1: fire escape. The gang of leather clad roughnecks waiting to
16:27
Speaker 1: do Andy harm had long since folded up their switch
16:29
Speaker 1: blades and gone home instead. Andy and Edie ducked their
16:33
Speaker 1: heads as they slipped into a waiting police cruiser, which
16:36
Speaker 1: now whisked them away to safety, then back to the
16:39
Speaker 1: confines of the factory East forty seventh Street, four flights up,
16:44
Speaker 1: where the cops would soon show up again, but this
16:47
Speaker 1: time not to save Andy Warhol from over Zela's fans.
16:54
Speaker 1: The NYPD heard all about what was going on at
16:56
Speaker 1: the factory, and I'm not talking about the assembly line
16:59
Speaker 1: of artwork and films that were being produced, Films like Couch,
17:03
Speaker 1: which was nearly an hour of people literally fucking on
17:07
Speaker 1: a couch. That was the film that was it in
17:11
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, that was not simply taboo but highly illegal.
17:16
Speaker 1: The constant influx of new people into Andy Warhol's factory
17:20
Speaker 1: scene was totally unsupervised, and an unsupervised scene of again
17:24
Speaker 1: to paraphrase, maybe Hanson, drug dealers, street hustlers, rough trade, etc.
17:29
Speaker 1: Will undoubtedly bring with it a ced criminal element. And
17:33
Speaker 1: that criminal element was what the cops were there for.
17:37
Speaker 1: Amen sure, for amphetamie men, addicts who were always looking
17:42
Speaker 1: for a fix, mole people aka the ones so strung
17:46
Speaker 1: out they had to hide the ocular evidence behind a
17:48
Speaker 1: pair of shades. The police arrived unannounced and tossed the
17:53
Speaker 1: place from top to bottom. They hunted down every trace
17:56
Speaker 1: of paraphernalia they could find. They kicked people out, They
17:59
Speaker 1: shut down parties. Police pressure on the factory became such
18:02
Speaker 1: an issue that Andy required all drug use to happen elsewhere.
18:07
Speaker 1: If you wanted to get high, you had to go
18:08
Speaker 1: to the park down the street near the United Nations building,
18:11
Speaker 1: step out onto a fire escape, or head to the roof.
18:15
Speaker 1: For his part, Andy popped and fetamines only to help
18:18
Speaker 1: him work longer and later, never just to have a
18:20
Speaker 1: good time. At least that's what he told himself. Besides,
18:25
Speaker 1: he wasn't so much interested in drugs at the moment
18:27
Speaker 1: as he was interested in Danny. Danny Williams was a
18:32
Speaker 1: sound man, an editor, an electrician and a gaffer, and
18:36
Speaker 1: upon his arrival in New York with Edie Sedgwick in
18:39
Speaker 1: sixty five, he quickly became a crucial part of the
18:41
Speaker 1: factory's technical team. He also became a crucial part of
18:45
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol's life. He dressed like Andy. He moved in
18:49
Speaker 1: with Andy at his row house on Lexington Avenue. Andy's
18:52
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with Danny was very private, in the way
18:55
Speaker 1: that his non romantic relationship with Edie was very public.
18:59
Speaker 1: But Andy's idea of a romance was good food and
19:02
Speaker 1: glamorous friends. Danny wanted more. He fought for it, and
19:06
Speaker 1: Andy argued with him out for an intimate dinner at
19:11
Speaker 1: a Greenwich Village restaurant. Danny couldn't take it anymore. He
19:14
Speaker 1: was frustrated, confused, hurt. He lashed out at Andy. He
19:19
Speaker 1: wanted to humiliate him, make Andy feel the way he felt.
19:22
Speaker 1: He jumped from his seat and grabbed Andy's silver wig,
19:25
Speaker 1: ripping it off his head. Andy's face went flush. Everyone
19:30
Speaker 1: in the restaurant was staring at him, staring at the
19:33
Speaker 1: real Andy Warhol, the pimply bald, working class kid who
19:38
Speaker 1: couldn't stand his original skin. Andrew wore halla. No one
19:43
Speaker 1: was supposed to see him. He was supposed to be
19:46
Speaker 1: dead and buried in the dust of the past. Andy
19:51
Speaker 1: kicked Danny out of his row house soon after that,
19:54
Speaker 1: but he didn't have the heart to completely cut his
19:56
Speaker 1: ex lover loose. Danny went on tour with the Factory's
19:59
Speaker 1: great rock band, The Velvet Underground. He was the mastermind
20:03
Speaker 1: of the group's seminal lighting show, which would change rock
20:06
Speaker 1: and roll forever. But Danny was changed too. He was
20:11
Speaker 1: now addicted an ahead, a mole person, a speed freak
20:15
Speaker 1: who showered once a week, In July nineteen sixty six,
20:19
Speaker 1: he went back to his parents' home in Massachusetts, where
20:22
Speaker 1: he borrowed his mother's car and drove it out to
20:25
Speaker 1: a rocky cove along the ocean, and no one ever
20:27
Speaker 1: saw him again. They just found the car, along with
20:30
Speaker 1: his clothes, folded up in a pile by the water.
20:35
Speaker 1: Danny Williams's family was despondent. His mother rang the factory.
20:39
Speaker 1: Andy refused to come to the phone. I don't care
20:42
Speaker 1: where he is, was Andy's reasoning. He's just an amphetamine addict.
20:48
Speaker 1: Danny Williams was now like Andrew Warhaala, dead stuck in
20:52
Speaker 1: the one place. Andy would never allow himself to be
20:55
Speaker 1: caught the past. We'll be right back after this word,
21:03
Speaker 1: word word. November nineteen sixty seven, Andy Warhol was expanding
21:17
Speaker 1: beyond art, beyond film, and now into music. He had
21:22
Speaker 1: his sight set even higher on the culture at large,
21:25
Speaker 1: where the real immortality was at But all the money
21:28
Speaker 1: he was now sinking into music In the Lou Reed's band,
21:31
Speaker 1: The Velvet Underground, the gear, the rehearsal space, the tour,
21:36
Speaker 1: Andy has seeing very little return on his investment. The
21:40
Speaker 1: band's debut album was a commercial dud. But the failure
21:43
Speaker 1: of the velvet Underground. The chart wasn't what was on
21:46
Speaker 1: and Andy's mind today. Today he was thinking about the factory,
21:50
Speaker 1: the workspace and freak scene he had established and lorded
21:53
Speaker 1: over for the last four years. Their month to month
21:57
Speaker 1: lease was being terminated. The building was slated for demolition
22:01
Speaker 1: within weeks. The factory would be rubble. Andy needed to
22:05
Speaker 1: find a new space and fast, but the machine aspect
22:09
Speaker 1: of the factory had to carry on. In meantime, Andy
22:12
Speaker 1: kept printing screens and making art, kept calling the press
22:15
Speaker 1: agent he had on payroll with any and all news
22:18
Speaker 1: about the factory, which the agent would then pitch to
22:20
Speaker 1: the media, drumming up more recognition, thus making Andy Warhol
22:24
Speaker 1: more famous. The boost in Andy's profile brought more people
22:28
Speaker 1: to the factory store, people who wanted something a fix,
22:32
Speaker 1: a fuck, a place to crash, or some cash for
22:35
Speaker 1: a sandwich. Andy Warhol had money. He took in the
22:38
Speaker 1: less fortunate, the down and ounce, the outsider insiders. This
22:45
Speaker 1: was the thinking that drove a guy known around the
22:47
Speaker 1: neighborhood as Sammy the Italian to make his way up
22:51
Speaker 1: to the factory with a loaded gun. In reality, Sammy
22:55
Speaker 1: was having a hard time thinking at all. He was
22:58
Speaker 1: strung out and he needed to but first he needed
23:01
Speaker 1: to settle a drug debt that he owed to some
23:03
Speaker 1: guys downtown. He figured, like many before him, that Andy
23:08
Speaker 1: Wreol was good for it. The elevator door and the
23:12
Speaker 1: fourth floor opened, and Sammy stepped into the factory pistol
23:16
Speaker 1: in hand, where Andy, Paul Morrissey Taylor Mead, Billy Name,
23:20
Speaker 1: and Nico the Velvet Underground soon to be former lead singer,
23:24
Speaker 1: were hanging around. Sammy waved around his gun and told
23:27
Speaker 1: him to all get on the couch, and they did
23:29
Speaker 1: as they were told. Then Sammy told him that one
23:31
Speaker 1: of them was going to have to give him some
23:32
Speaker 1: dough right now. Andy was in shock. Nico, on the
23:36
Speaker 1: other hand, was laughing. That thing's not even loaded, she said.
23:42
Speaker 1: Sammy was insulted, and he fired the gun at the ceiling.
23:46
Speaker 1: Sammy's piece was loaded all right, and he wasn't fucking around.
23:50
Speaker 1: He needed cash, so he opened the gun's cylinder and
23:54
Speaker 1: emptied out all the bullets, but won. Then he snapped
23:58
Speaker 1: the cylinder shot in the barrel at Andy Warhol and
24:01
Speaker 1: the others on the couch, and he pulled the trigger,
24:05
Speaker 1: said he was going to keep pulling the trigger until
24:07
Speaker 1: someone paid him. Everyone started to frantically digging into their pockets,
24:11
Speaker 1: pulling out dollar bills, change whatever they could find here.
24:14
Speaker 1: Sammy take it. Just don't fucking pull the trick. Fuck Sammy,
24:18
Speaker 1: Fuck Jesus Christ. Suddenly a wave of regret came over
24:22
Speaker 1: Sammy's face. Only now did he realize what he was doing.
24:27
Speaker 1: He didn't want to hurt anybody. He really did need
24:29
Speaker 1: the money, though, or else someone was going to hurt him.
24:32
Speaker 1: That's all Andy for one breathed a sigh of relief.
24:37
Speaker 1: He dodged a bullet literally Seven months later, however, he
24:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't be so lucky. June third, nineteen sixty eight, the
24:51
Speaker 1: elevator bell rang out not on the fourth floor of
24:54
Speaker 1: the building on East forty seventh Street, but the sixth
24:56
Speaker 1: floor of a Victorian on the west side of Union Square,
24:59
Speaker 1: where Andy Warhol's factory now made his home. This time
25:03
Speaker 1: it wasn't Sammy the Italian coming for Andy, but someone else,
25:07
Speaker 1: another character on the factory's fringes who also wanted something.
25:11
Speaker 1: Valerie Solanis said she lived nowhere, that she was no one,
25:17
Speaker 1: but she clearly wanted to be someone like Andy Warhol.
25:22
Speaker 1: She wanted to be famous, but Andy Warhol didn't want
25:28
Speaker 1: to help her with that. He didn't care about her
25:30
Speaker 1: self published pamphlet The Scum Manifesto, A scum as in
25:35
Speaker 1: the Society for Cutting up Men, the one that called
25:38
Speaker 1: for overthrowing the government and eliminating the male sex. Andy
25:42
Speaker 1: was no feminist, and just because he'd let her act
25:45
Speaker 1: in one of his shitty movies, that wasn't gonna change
25:47
Speaker 1: anything he asked her to do. That not the other
25:50
Speaker 1: way around, because when she asked for something, she got buckus.
25:54
Speaker 1: Andy wasn't gonna turn the script she gave him into
25:56
Speaker 1: a movie. That was clear to her now. It was
25:59
Speaker 1: also clear that Andy hadn't even read the fucking thing
26:02
Speaker 1: on an asshole. Andy didn't care about other artists. He
26:05
Speaker 1: just cared about himself. And if Andy Warhol wasn't gonna
26:09
Speaker 1: help Valerie Salanis become famous by shooting her script, then
26:12
Speaker 1: she would become famous by shooting Andy Warhol. The first
26:19
Speaker 1: two rounds from Valerie's beretta sent the people in the
26:22
Speaker 1: factory scattering. Someone yelled, hit the floor, and Andy duck
26:26
Speaker 1: behind a desk. Valerie found him easily cowering there in
26:30
Speaker 1: his black leather jacket like a rat. She pushed the
26:33
Speaker 1: hot barrel of her bretta into Andy's side and pulled
26:36
Speaker 1: the trigger again. The bullet went straight through him and
26:39
Speaker 1: lodged into the hardwood floor below, and Andy screamed out
26:43
Speaker 1: in pain. Valerie then turned her gun on Mary Amaya,
26:47
Speaker 1: a London curator and critic in town to talk with
26:50
Speaker 1: Andy about a suitcan show in the UK. Amaya suffered
26:54
Speaker 1: a minor flesh wound and managed to scurry off to
26:56
Speaker 1: a better hiding place. Valerie would have also shot a
27:00
Speaker 1: third person if her gun hadn't jammed, or so goes
27:03
Speaker 1: one telling of the story. Within minutes, Valerie Solanis was
27:06
Speaker 1: gone and Andy Warhol was left dying on the floor
27:09
Speaker 1: of his studio. Everyone wanted something from Andy, even the
27:15
Speaker 1: ambulance driver who transported Andy six blocks down the street
27:18
Speaker 1: to Columbus Hospital. He told Mary o'mio was fifteen bucks
27:22
Speaker 1: to turn the siren on, or so goes another telling
27:25
Speaker 1: of the story. The doctors at Columbus were more sympathetic.
27:30
Speaker 1: When Andy Warhol's unconscious body arrived in the er, he
27:33
Speaker 1: was pronounced clinically dead. The bullet from Valerie's gun had
27:36
Speaker 1: punctured his stomach, his liver, his spleen, his esophagus, and
27:41
Speaker 1: both of his lungs. The surgeon on duty had one option,
27:45
Speaker 1: a miracle. Meanwhile, in Times Square, Valerie Solanis walked up
27:51
Speaker 1: to a rookie cop and turned herself in. Being arrested
27:55
Speaker 1: for murdering Andy Warhol. Thrust her in the right direction,
27:59
Speaker 1: toward a radio station, microphone and one step closer to fame. Valerie,
28:06
Speaker 1: why did you do this? He's a piece of garbage?
28:10
Speaker 1: You know he may die? God? Do you mean that? Yeah?
28:14
Speaker 1: I do. Why do you hate him so much? Because
28:18
Speaker 1: he's huh? What do you think is going to happen
28:20
Speaker 1: to me? Now? I have no idea. I don't care.
28:22
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna throw it to going to jail because
28:24
Speaker 1: there's nothing out here but through garbage. Valerie Solanis had
28:30
Speaker 1: no patience for garbage. For the things she tried to
28:33
Speaker 1: kill and leave behind. Andy Warhol was dead, dead like
28:38
Speaker 1: Andrew warhola and Danny Williams and on the road and
28:41
Speaker 1: pictures of Jesus and living rooms and any creative thought
28:44
Speaker 1: that wasn't in the service of the new but Andy
28:47
Speaker 1: Warhol was also alive, the future Andy Warhol, the one
28:52
Speaker 1: who was resurrected on an operating table. The attending surgeon
28:56
Speaker 1: at Columbus Hospital cut open Andy's chest and massaged his
28:59
Speaker 1: heart hand. Slowly, Andy's pulse returned. He took a deep breath.
29:06
Speaker 1: He was the same, but different, just like one of
29:09
Speaker 1: his fifty Marilands or twenty three elviss and also just
29:13
Speaker 1: like Marilyn and Elvis. Andy Warhol, the impossible survivor of
29:18
Speaker 1: an assassination attempt, had finally achieved fame at a level
29:22
Speaker 1: that someone like Valerie Salanis could only dream of, the
29:26
Speaker 1: kind that can never be taken away. Andy Warhol turned
29:48
Speaker 1: forty years old right after he was released from the
29:50
Speaker 1: hospital in the summer of nineteen sixty eight, but he
29:53
Speaker 1: looked and felt much older, and he was frightened. The
29:58
Speaker 1: memory of the hospital, so cold, so empty, were life
30:02
Speaker 1: hung in the balance. The image of his Frankenstein body,
30:05
Speaker 1: all that scarred flesh wrapped tight with a surgical course
30:09
Speaker 1: to hold the stitched up organs in place. The sound
30:12
Speaker 1: of gunshots echoing inside the factory. Those things haunted him,
30:17
Speaker 1: and they never went away, and needed at Valerie's salonis,
30:22
Speaker 1: at least not at first. Just months later, around Christmas
30:28
Speaker 1: that same year, Valerie was released from lock up while
30:31
Speaker 1: awaiting trial. Some scum sympathizer that's again, the Society for
30:36
Speaker 1: Cutting Up Men scum put up the ten grand to
30:39
Speaker 1: bail her out. Valerie immediately called the factory and Paul
30:43
Speaker 1: Morrissey answered. Valerie wanted to talk to Andy. Paul told
30:47
Speaker 1: her that that wasn't gonna happen. Valerie said she needed
30:50
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars for her legal defense and she wanted
30:53
Speaker 1: Andy to give it to her. Let me repeat that.
30:57
Speaker 1: The woman who shot and nearly killed Andy Warhol called
31:01
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol just months later to ask him to pay
31:05
Speaker 1: for her legal defense. But that wasn't all She wanted.
31:09
Speaker 1: More than money, She wanted Andy to use his connections
31:12
Speaker 1: to get her on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
31:16
Speaker 1: Of course, Andy Warhol did not give Valerie Solanas anything. Still,
31:20
Speaker 1: she stayed with him for the rest of his life.
31:23
Speaker 1: Her bullet caused permanent damage and incision during his initial
31:28
Speaker 1: life saving surgery caused a major hernia. Eating was a
31:31
Speaker 1: chore and valume was necessary so much value that Andy
31:35
Speaker 1: Warhol was constipated and required a daily enema. His gallbladder
31:41
Speaker 1: became inflamed, but he ignored it because he couldn't do hospitals,
31:44
Speaker 1: not since the shooting. He survived once on the inside,
31:48
Speaker 1: and he wasn't about to chance it again. And that
31:50
Speaker 1: was Andy's thinking, so he turned to crystals to heal
31:53
Speaker 1: him again. Andy sinking this time wished for bordering on delusional.
31:58
Speaker 1: His gallbladder became more diseased, gang greened even and when
32:02
Speaker 1: it was finally removed in nineteen eighty seven, it was
32:06
Speaker 1: too late. The night after the surgery, Andy's heart stopped.
32:11
Speaker 1: He was fifty eight. Andy Warhol died in the future.
32:17
Speaker 1: He was busy creating. But the crazy thing is that
32:20
Speaker 1: he never got to witness the future that his art
32:22
Speaker 1: had always envisioned. Let me explain. In the two decades
32:27
Speaker 1: between the shooting in nineteen sixty eight and his death
32:30
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, Andy Warhol kept reinventing himself and
32:34
Speaker 1: what it meant to be an artist. He put a
32:36
Speaker 1: working zipper on the cover of a Rolling Stones album.
32:39
Speaker 1: He became a male model. He commissioned portraits of the
32:42
Speaker 1: upper crust shahs and princesses, and empresses, Diana Ross, Bridget Bardoux,
32:48
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger. He launched Interview Magazine. He started his own
32:52
Speaker 1: cable access show in the MTV Age with guests like
32:55
Speaker 1: Duran Durant, The Cars and Debbie Harry. He courted the
32:58
Speaker 1: New School, all that youthful, erotic energy that he never
33:02
Speaker 1: possessed but so desperately craved Basquiat, Keith Haring, Stephen Patrick Morrissey.
33:09
Speaker 1: Only now in the twenty first century is it obvious
33:12
Speaker 1: that we are living in Andy Warhol's creation. No one
33:15
Speaker 1: knew it at the time, but Andy's greatest work of art.
33:18
Speaker 1: Who's not a Campbell soup can or a Brillo box
33:21
Speaker 1: or even the deliberately constructed image of himself, but rather
33:25
Speaker 1: the reality that we are living in right this very minute.
33:30
Speaker 1: And yes, it's flawed, it's weird, it's dangerous, It nearly
33:34
Speaker 1: kills us. It revolves around some of the worst aspects
33:38
Speaker 1: of people, vanity, greed, viral videos, everyone getting their fifteen minutes.
33:43
Speaker 1: But it's undeniable. The selfie you took last night, the
33:47
Speaker 1: video you shot on your phone, is some monotonous slice
33:50
Speaker 1: of everyday life. The live stream that I am filming
33:53
Speaker 1: right now as I record this podcast, they're all just
33:57
Speaker 1: screen tests. They're Andy even podcasts. Like I said, especially
34:02
Speaker 1: this podcast, which Don't Forget, is produced by a company
34:06
Speaker 1: named after in Andy Warhol Painting. Double Elvis, the creative
34:10
Speaker 1: device that I use at the top of my show,
34:12
Speaker 1: as well as the one that you know is coming
34:14
Speaker 1: in just a minute. It's my clam chowder, it's my
34:17
Speaker 1: chicken noodle, my cream of vegetable. It's all repetition, all
34:21
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol. We're all factory kids, some of us up,
34:27
Speaker 1: some of us down. Some are candies or Billy's or
34:30
Speaker 1: EV's or girards. But we're all free to be who
34:33
Speaker 1: we want to be, to create that which resonates with us.
34:37
Speaker 1: We are are in art is us. We live together
34:41
Speaker 1: in one nation, one world, one future, not under God,
34:46
Speaker 1: but under Andy Warhol. Amen. I'm Jake Brennan, and this
34:52
Speaker 1: is disgrace Land. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
35:18
Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this
35:21
Speaker 1: episode can be found on the show notes page at
35:24
Speaker 1: disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All
35:28
Speaker 1: Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really
35:30
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and if not, you can become a member
35:33
Speaker 1: right now by going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership.
35:38
Speaker 1: Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free,
35:42
Speaker 1: Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month,
35:46
Speaker 1: weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access
35:50
Speaker 1: to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod dot com slash membership
35:55
Speaker 1: for details, rate and review the show, and follow us
35:57
Speaker 1: on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgraceslamppod and on
36:01
Speaker 1: YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgrace Lampod, Rock
36:06
Speaker 1: and Roller. He's a baddad man.