Danny Says

1

You're always looking for sexy.

- Everyone's always.

- Looking for sexy.

I'm always looking for sexy!

But...

smart is sexy.

("I Got a Right")

(by Iggy & The Stooges plays)

It is as if I know

how wonderful this person,

this talent is.

I'd rather see a bit

of a miracle, and then...

just encourage it to keep

being miraculous because

the thing about people,

- especially when they're young.

- And coming along,

s that they're racked

with so much insecurity.

They don't know

how fabulous they are.

He seemed to be at the pulse

of the underground

in New York City.

He was always, sort of,

in that world of

Lou Reed and Iggy,

the whole Warhol gang.

- He was sort of.

- The mayor of New York City,

When it came to that.

Danny's a connector,

like a fuel line in a car,

which is, by the way, one of

the most dangerous places,

a place where things

are liable to... erupt.

He's been the handmaiden

to the gods,

he's been midwife to

some of the most important

people in music.

I remember the first time

I went to his house,

and I found the "Wall of Fame."

And he said, "Yeah,

here's Janis and Patti..."

Various stories,

denigrating or otherwise,

about all of them.

- And then.

- There was a picture of me.

You know, in a mirror,

putting my make-up on.

I was really overwhelmed.

- Somehow I was preparing.

- My first trip to New York,

Danny said, "Stay with me."

- Really, Danny was my.

- ntroduction to New York.

And the East Coast.

And Danny was the first person

to explain to me the importance

of a cover of a magazine.

That meant something. We just

put any random thing on a cover.

- He said, "No, no, no,

- when you do that,

t signifies great importance."

So that was

another revelation to me, so...

You know, kinda just...

Danny was an early teacher.

Danny was one of those people

who was into rock 'n' roll

and the rebellious edge

that it had,

and he chose to work with

the most rebellious

of those people.

His art is knowing how to

place people within a context,

and that context,

within the culture.

All of the bands that were in.

Danny's universe,

- whether he worked.

- With them or not,

Had a great,

great influence because

they were doing something

that nobody else was doing.

They created themselves

out of the stuff of...

dust.

He speeded up the evolution

in a tremendous way.

Nothing was ever

the same after that.

This music went on

to take over the world.

("Begin the Beguine"

(by Cole Porter plays)

Danny:
I was born in Brooklyn.

My father was in

and out of the war,

so there was a lot of

grandparents and aunts.

There were four sisters,

and their idea

of sinning as teenagers,

was to go out and eat shrimp

in a Chinese restaurant.

- God bless that generation.

- (laughs)

That's how they defied...

tradition and parent control,

they ate shrimp.

And I grew up with them,

so they were sort of

four "Auntie Mames" in a way.

My life was mainly my hobbies,

I had no friends.

I went to school like

everybody else, I got all A's.

I took a lot of amphetamines

cause my father was a doctor,

- so I've been taking.

- Amphetamine every day.

Since I was ten.

- But so was everyone else,

- (laughs)

My mother.

There was a bowl of Desoxyn

on the dining room table,

like people would have M&M's,

I don't know what Italians have,

but we had Desoxyn and Dexamine.

I always went against the grain,

whether it was because

I was a little f*ggot,

which everyone else knew but me,

- or whether it was because.

- I didn't like.

My parents' tastes in anything.

Oh, it's Daniel's Bar Mitzvah!

This is quality.

This is high class.

- Okay, there's my mother.

- And my father,

- And my little brother.

- The traditional...

Kiss...

The traditional pomade.

My brother.

Isn't this mortifying?

Now, the main thing

at a Bar Mitzvah is all kids.

Then, it was just a few kids,

and I hated kids.

They had to scrape the bottom

of the genealogy barrel.

Oh yay, hurray!

Aren't they nice?

It's amazing to have something

like that, isn't it?

- (laughs)

- Forest Hills!

Home of the Ramones, right?

When I was a teenager,

and I was at Penn...

there was no right table.

I was in the wrong table

from the get-go.

The wrong city,

the wrong school.

My best friend,

Steve Levine, said,

"You have to see this singer."

And it was Nina Simone.

Say love me and leave me

And let me be lonely

You won't believe me,

but I love you only

I'd rather be lonely than

happy with somebody else...

Danny:
She would come and

sit with the guys from Penn.

She was so, I'd say insecure,

but she was humble.

- "Do you really think I'm good?"

- kinda thing.

- "You think.

- What I'm doing will work?"

Well, I don't know, we were 15!

- As long as.

- t's good enough for then,

You can't think of what noise

this is gonna make

in the history of history.

And that was part of our

little crowd, trying to escape,

the "Penn penitude,"

"penal-atude."

Other schools looked so sexy

compared to

all the Jew finance majors

at Penn.

Yeah, I had straight A's.

I was sixth in my class

of a thousand...

and the youngest.

One of our immediate crowd

was a flaming f*ggot

who loved to get f***ed.

So I knew all the juicy ways,

what they did.

The night I graduated college,

we went out to celebrate,

and one of the things we did

was to go take a look at the

promenade in Brooklyn Heights.

They said it was very cruisy so

we went up and looked at it.

You know...

- I'm 19,

- I graduated college,

And I stood there, and I did

everything he said they do.

Like, you look,

and you wink and nod, and all...

- It's like you do a silent.

- "Hello, sailor,

Would you like to come over?"

This is what they say!

Whoa!

- I felt compelled to tell him.

- On the way back to his house,

"I've never done this before."

Of course he said,

"Oh, it'll be all right."

(laughs)

- So I always thought.

- I would fall in love at Harvard,

But I didn't know how to fall

in love at Harvard Law School

where everyone was 23 and

wearing a suit and a tie.

No one had sat next to me

in Property

or Civil Procedure

that I wanted to go and have

a coffee date with.

So I had to call Keith.

"I haven't be able

to meet anyone like us."

I don't know what I said.

I don't know what word I used.

Homosexual, I guess.

"Are there homosexuals

in Boston?"

And he said, "Yes, there are

two bars in Boston,

The Punchbowl

and The Napoleon Club."

("Boys in the Back Room"

(by Marlene Dietrich plays)

I met people like Donald Lyons

and Hal Peterson

and Harold Talbot,

- real aristocrats.

- Of the mind and spirit.

I was in the 99th percentile

on the law school aptitude test,

no one could believe it

'cause I was flaky.

- I stopped going to class,

- it was so boring,

And I hung out with

a bunch of dissolute faggots,

shoplifted a lot,

charged a lot,

ran around Harvard Square

in a camel's hair coat

and f***ed a lot.

- That's what I always wanted.

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