In 1973, he found time between $10,000 Pyramid tapings to sit down with Lester Bangs. Bangs zinged him a little, asked him what he made of "fag-rock" — Bowie, Lou Reed, et al. Dick said, "Bisexual … what's the other word, AC/DC? I think it's partially fad and partially goldfish swallowing, as protest was." That's the part of the interview everyone remembers — Dick, who described himself in his 1976 autobiography as having "the heart of a cunning capitalist," equating bisexuality and political activism with goldfish swallowing. But he went on to say other, smarter things to Bangs: "We all know Alice [Cooper] is a put-on, a shuck. But what's funny is when you read the sociological commentators and how torn up the whole straight world is over this craziness. I can't attach any significance to that."

He liked how he came off in Bangs's piece, published in the November '73 issue of Creem as "Screwing the System With Dick Clark," felt Bangs had quoted him accurately. I like the piece, too. I like how Clark comes off in it, square and shrewd and unapologetic about being both.

"I'm always distressed by the supposedly bright people who don't know what they are," he tells Bangs, citing the Monkees as an example. "They could have had a very nice thing going in their area for another couple of years, despite the fact that it was a shuck. It was a commercially built commodity for which there was an audience from which they could have made a great deal of money and retired and passed it on to their children. Instead Mickey Dolenz thought he was Paul McCartney. He went up to Monterey and they laughed at him."

Clark never had a moment like that, where he tried to punch above his weight class, coolness-wise. He was described as the World's Oldest Teenager, but he never acted anything but his age. He was a cultural chaperone, a reassuring presence who convinced generations of parents that Iron Butterfly or Run-DMC or whoever might actually be (as he'd invariably say) nice young men with bright futures ahead of them, despite the threat they might have seemed to present to common decency.

In that Bangs piece, asked how he felt about hipsters who disdained him, he said he understood himself to be "a good institution to play games off of," but avowed that he'd outlast his detractors in "the underground press … I'll be here longer than you will, is my attitude." And he was.

-Alex Pappademas



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-21 20:27 by tatters.

Dick was confused about which Monkee was at Monterey. It was Peter.









Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-21 22:56 by tatters.

Quote
tatters
Dick was confused about which Monkee was at Monterey. It was Peter.

Dolenz was at Monterey, too, just as a spectator. In the film you can see him at the very end of Ravi Shankar's set. Dolenz bought his Moog synth at Monterey.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-21 23:11 by tomk.

Funny Clark slagging the Monkees when he sponsored/promoted their 1967 tour.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-21 23:36 by tomk.