Site Presented By
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
More talk about buildings and food and Big Suits and Brian Eno and Richard Avedon and Twyla Tharp and Patti Smith and ...
Oct 14, 1999 | I was the original singer of the Talking Heads. My childhood pal, David Byrne, was just the guitarist. During our first gig at CBGB in 1975, I bounced up to the microphone and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Stage fright. Byrne quickly stuck his head over and sang, "I can't seem to face up to the facts/I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax." He paused, then glanced over to see if I could take it from there. Nope, still frozen. So Byrne continued singing, "Psycho killer, q'est-ce que c'est?" And the rest is "fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa" history ...
None of the above is true. If Ronald Reagan's biographer, Edmund Morris, can fictionalize his relationship with the Gipper, why can't I do the same with David Byrne? I am in the middle of writing a history of Byrne's old band, the Talking Heads, for Morrow. I recently met him for lunch in New York City at the Ear Inn, a bar lodged inside a two-story brick building called "The James Brown House." Not that James Brown. This structure was built by another James Brown in 1817. I believe this is the oldest functioning bar in New York.
Shortly after I arrive, Byrne pedals up on a bicycle out front. He is very trim. He has all his hair, which is a little spiky. He is dressed in casual cottons -- dark colors. He didn't shave this morning. I suspect if he grew a beard it would come in gray. We walk in. The joint is dim, but noisy and friendly. A half-dozen hipsters slouch at the bar drinking pints. Johnny Cash plays on the sound system. The floor is so old you can feel the wood absorb your footsteps like carpet. We take our seats and he signals the waitress (a dead ringer for Myrna Loy).
"I like arugula," he says, then pauses. "And I like watercress salad." Pauses. "I don't want the turkey." Pauses. "Or the eggs." I suddenly realize his inflection and rhythms are reminiscent of the preacher's cadence in the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime": "You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack" ... eating arugula salad.
The waitress assures him that he can customize the salad. This is a good thing. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?" I ask.
"No. I am not a vegetarian," he answers. Good. "I have been a vegetarian on and off," he says. "How about you -- have you been a vegetarian on and off, from time to time, ever?"
I tell him no. I tell him that I pretty much only eat meat.
"You mean no vegetables? No breads? No grains?" he asks, both alarmed and intrigued, as if I were the one who had just stepped off a spaceship.
"Grains are cool," I answer. Then I ask if he ever met Owsley, the old LSD guru from the 1960s. Byrne says that he saw him at a Grateful Dead concert once. I tell Byrne that Owsley supposedly only eats meat, following a complicated nutritional philosophy. This inspires Byrne to begin talking about ... pig meat: "I was in Spain for the early part of this summer and my Spanish friends said, 'You'll never believe it. Our ham. Not the Italian ham. Not the other ham. Our ham. The fat is good for you. The fat in our ham is better for you than olive oil. Really.' They treat their hams like caviar. They have pigs that only eat acorns off a certain tree. Their meat is really dark and nutty."
The waitress returns for drink orders. He orders a Boddingtons. I order coffee, thinking, Good: He eats meat and he drinks!
