More thoughts about Andy Warhol and stuff

But I was talking about Andy Warhol, wasn’t I? I suppose I first became interested in Warhol because of the Velvet Underground, and I was interested in the Velvet Underground because of Joy Division, and how much further back do you want me to go? I was in my first year at university when he died: I remember the nascent artist/film-maker Nick Abrahams leaping out at me, hissing “Have you heard? Have you heard?” as I ambled along the High Street. I’d imagine we were both wearing Doc Martens, but that his were cooler than mine.

The following year, I took a course in writing radio drama, and one of my submissions was a sort-of-interior-monologue-cum-collage about Warhol’s last few minutes, largely drawn from his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: from A to B and back again. I vaguely recall Edie Sedgwick making an appearance as the Angel of Death (which was in turn influenced by Jessica Lange’s role in All That Jazz). The funny thing was, at that stage I knew very little about Warhol’s life, beyond the stuff he chose to make part of his public persona. It wasn’t until I read Victor Bockris’s biography of Warhol that I found out he was gay, for example.



I know, it seems astonishing now, but even in the mid-to-late-Eighties, such things weren’t as widely discussed as we might remember. There was simply an assumption of heterosexuality, the sort of thing expressed in this airline commercial.  Diehard Queen fans would get aggressive if one suggested that Freddie Mercury might not be entirely straight. John Inman and Larry Grayson, Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howerd refused to be drawn on the subject. Even the Pet Shop Boys refused to confirm or deny. Men flew Braniff because they liked the girls, unless they explicitly stated otherwise, which for the most part they didn’t. Remember this when people say Warhol made his life his art. Or was it the other way round?

It wasn’t just about sex, of course. Until I read the Bockris book, I don’t think I’d sussed that Warhol wore a wig either.

And I’m just about to post this when I realise that a few months after Warhol died, the Smiths broke up, and remember that we’ve just passed the 25th anniversary of the release of The Queen Is Dead, and I can’t think of much to say that hasn’t been said too many times already (often by me) but I’m certain that for some reason the occasion does need to be marked.