Wendy R. Williams Talks with Taylor Mead Bowery Poetry Club April 15, 2005 Written and Photographed by Wendy R. Williams   Taylor Mead and Penny Arcade

“Don’t mind her. She is just going to follow me around, take my picture and interview me. It happens all the time. I’m a movie star.” Taylor Mead explaining why Wendy R. Williams was stalking him at the Bowery Poetry Club.

If you walk the streets of the East Village, you will certainly stumble across a lot of colorful characters – people who make you stop in your tracks and think, “Boy, I bet that guy’s seen a lot of shit go down.” And in the case of Taylor, the eighty year old subject of William A. Kirkley’s documentary, Excavating Taylor Mead (2005 Tribeca Film Festival), the man has it down. Taylor is the man with all the stories, the barfly with the ears, the guy who knows what’s buried in the back yard (and in his case, the river) of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. And he was a Warhol Superstar, the star of many of Andy Warhol’s movies including the aptly named, Taylor Mead's Ass. And he was also the star of Ron Rice's, The Flower Thief, which has been shown at many retrospective film festivals at places like MOMA and the Anthology Film Archives.

I saw the documentary (see review in the film section) and then I had to meet the man. Not wanting to drop in on him in his famously filthy (as in really dirty, I mean REALLY DIRTY – see documentary for details) home, I went to the Bowery Poetry Club on tax day, April 15th, to meet the man and shoot some shit.

Taylor was holding court at the bar, drinking his usual scotch and receiving supplicants (including me and down town performance legend Penny Arcade). He was about to go up for the 6:30 show so we talked really fast (I’m from Texas and I know how to do that.) I told him that I had run into some friends of his at another poetry reading: Judith Malina, Hanon Reznikov and Benness Marden. Those three along with the now deceased Julian Beck, were the founders of The Living Theater, a group of anarchist/actors who have been creating politically-charged alternative theater since 1947. So just to make conversation, I asked him if he was with them when they were thrown in jail in Brazil. (Thought: No matter how bad you life may be, you can always be encouraged by the thought that you are not presently being sought by a group of irate Brazilian constables.)

He said that he had not been part of the Brazilian jail stunt, but he had caught up with The Living Theater while they were touring Europe. He told me that the bunch from The Living Theater were famous for sending the new guys (he called them the chumps) across borders to buy drugs. But Taylor said that even though he had been in jail lots of times in the good old USA (always taking a razor blade with him in case it got too bad), he had never gone to jail to supply drugs for the Living Theater. So there.

Taylor Mead

I asked him about working with the Kuchar Brothers (recently featured at the New York Film Festival) and he said, “Was I in their film? I’ve been in so many I don’t remember..” Well, the "internet" thinks he was, but if Taylor doesn’t remember, I certainly don’t.

Then it was time for him to go on, for Taylor to be Taylor. So, using his bejeweled cane, he walked to the stage He started his act with the poem he performs in the movie, a ditty about being raped filled with lots of moaning (he definitely qualifies for a Meg Ryan Orgasm Award) that starts with, “I know you, you raped me.”

And on to these free associations:

“Genius will commit suicide, be married or barely make it.”

“My Uncle manufactured Lavoris, I got drunk on it as a child.”

“One of my favorite people is Carrot Top.”

“I used to have long leggy legs.”

And on gay liberation:

"All the guys dressed alike, got mustaches and died.”

“Some of the famous ones knew they had AIDS and just kept infecting people.”

And back to name dropping:

“Jack Kerouac was my exhusband.”

“Andy Warhol was a genius but CHEAP.”

And finally toward the end of his act, he pointed to the door and said:

“Hey, I'm fucking eighty years old. I can see the exit sign at the back of the room.”

Afterwards Taylor asked me if I needed anything more and I told him no that I think I got him. And he said, “Good, I like to skim. It’s serendipity.” And it was just that, serendipity.

Rock on!

Wendy