Cosmic Dust
On Cultural Guides, DIY Scenes & New York Fucking City
I first went to Jean Francois Vallée’s tiny Greenwich Village apartment in New York City when I was seventeen. It was a six minute walk from Cafe Wha? and The Bitter End, two legendary venues I’d heard of and felt a thrill to even be near. Every single thing in New York felt full of significance and enigmatic meaning and possibility lurked around every corner. JF, as he was known to all, was a French journalist who had interviewed everyone of cultural importance that you could imagine as a roving US correspondent for French television and radio, from Nina Simone to Iggy Pop to Salvador Dali, and every wall was floor to ceiling shelving piled high with tapes of interviews, radio shows, records, books and half empty coffee cups that looked as though they’d been sitting there for months and almost certainly had. JF had other things on his mind besides dishes.
Among many interests, he made documentaries on jazz and studied Jiu Jitsu. He was a cultural guide, a learned scholar and appreciator of cool stuff. He also spent a couple of days filming two long rambling conversational interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono - the first in their Greenwich Village apartment, in 1971, with political provocateur Jerry Rubin, who joins in for a wildly unhinged singalong at the end - and then again in 1975 - small parts available to watch here via the French national audiovisual archives, slightly frustrating for English speakers as the translation is French audio and Lennon and Ono can only heard be heard in snatches and in the background but fascinating just the same. JF loved his work but seemed completely unimpressed by fame and never really parlayed these extraordinary encounters he had into entertaining stories for personal cache- he was on to the next thing, or drifting away on a cloud of jazz or funk filled smoke. He loved conversations, travel, music, books, interesting people. In his last couple of years, home in his beloved Bretagne, France, he found pictures of the most exotic, amazing birds to share with his online friends, still engaged in the intense practice of appreciation and wonder, right until he died aged 81, just before Christmas.
I’m going to miss knowing he exists somewhere in the world, cos they don’t make ‘em like Jean Francois anymore.
His collected archives, his life’s work, lived piled haphazardly on the dust covered shelves of his rent protected apartment - the criteria to qualify for such a golden NYC treasure is to have lived in the apartment, built prior to 1947, since before 1971. A recentish Gothamist article about a former actress who had lived in her rent controlled apartment for $28 per month since 1955 made internet waves. This NY Times article about a former actor who lived in his Greenwich Village apartment for $90 a month since the 50s is another window into how cheap rent helped nurture and make it possible for the unique and wonderfully creative denizens that make New York so fabulous to survive its mean streets. From 2 million rent controlled apartments prior to 1950, there are now only 22,000 left. New York is more like a big shiny, sanitized shopping mall now than the mythical decrepit wonderland it once was.
This was the place I wanted to see - the NYC where ‘if you can make it there, you can sell people your unwanted hair’ in the immortal words of nineteen year old Jean-Michel Basquiat - before he even had his first exhibition - in underground film ‘Downtown 1981’, a collaboration by Queen of Polaroids and club style Maripol and her boyfriend Swiss photographer Edo Bertoglio, who also shot iconic polaroids of Madonna for her first album cover.
John Lurie, Debbie Harry - as a fairy godmother - and my friends Lori Eastside and Coati Mundi are in the film too, a wild performance with Kid Creole & The Coconuts. JF was probably in there too. The film was left unfinished and was only completed a few years ago - through the indefatigable detective work and efforts of Maripol - and its now a cult favourite, with an upcoming screening at LA’s super cool Zebulon nightclub.
Maripol described the dreamlike ode to the dirty, pulsing streets of a burnt-out New York to Interview Magazine as “like grabbing a little diamond” and advised the youth of today “Everything is not about fame and money … if you love yourself, find your voice, and stay strong - you don’t need that shit”.
I wrote about Jean Francois’s good friend - and my teen idol - Suzi Sidewinder, another queen of the Downtown scene - and Lori Eastside and Jean Francois and Coati Mundi - in my book Lovers Dreamers Fighters (on shelves Feb 16, preorder here). My mama says I look a little bit like Suzi Sidewinder on the polaroid selfie on the cover and the thought of that thrills me beyond cos thats a look I’ve been going for since I was 15.
I think why this incredibly thriving period of 70s/80s NYC - and the people that made it come alive - represents something so meaningful to me is that is proves that creativity matters, that playfulness in art-making and identity creation is what makes it so cool and inspiring and brings change in how we see the possibilities available to us in the world. The power of community and self belief and DIY culture. The power of these cultural guides who have enlightened us to other ways of being and seeing.
I believe places hold an imprint of energies. I couldn’t wait to go to the Chelsea Hotel and just kiss the walls and hoover up all the cosmic dust left behind by the wild pulsating crazy deluded wonderful brilliant minds that had slept and lived and partied and created and died there, like making a pilgrimage to a holy relic, except much easier and far more fun. I wish I could remember what the book I’m clutching was. I know I’m wearing Suzi Sidewinder’s skintight black jeans and the first (and last for the next 20 years) pair of sneakers I ever owned - glow in the dark leopard print Converse from 42nd street - I wanted to walk powered by that New York electricity. I wanted to dream New York dreams. I still do.
Further References:
Maripol ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ book
Edo Bertoglio ‘New York Polaroids’ book
Stanley Bard Gives Us A Tour Of The Hotel Chelsea, 2007
Lori Eastside’s Rockercise Program