The Fur Flies on the Bridge Over Generation Gap
My 16 year old kid is always telling me what to do. “Here's something interesting in the 'Help Wanted" pages," she said to me. "Become a stringer for The News Tribune."
"What's a stringer?" I asked. "It sounds like something dirty."
"Find out."
"I don't know."
I turned to my husband, who was reading the other half of the paper. "What do you think, Honey?" "Don't bother."
I must have been the only person who applied, because the editor was very, very nice to me.
"Do I have the job?" I asked eagerly.
"Do you want the job?" he replied, just as eagerly.
In four months I worked myself up to where my articles about local people appeared once a week. My kid, who respects success, was treating me like I was slightly human.
Then it happened. I interviewed Rise Stevens, the executive director of the National Council of the Metropolitan Opera.
My kid says, "Can I help you set the table, Mother? I meant to tell you, you are a good writer."
I know I am in trouble. I ask: "What do you want, Laurel? What's the angle?"
"I was thinking that if you can get an interview with Rise Stevens, then you can get interviews with some other really interesting people."
"Like who?"
"How about doing an article about a group of musicians?" she blurts out. "The Psychedelic Furs are playing at the Fountain Casino in two weeks. I'll do the pictures and you can do the story about their music."
"But I don't know anything about their music and I don't think people out here would be interested in them."
"O.K., O.K., forget it. You can't get an interview with them anyway." "Oh, can't I?"*
I pick up the phone and call. "I want an interview with the Psychedelic Furs."
"Sure. Bring your press credentials and be down about 8."
"You did it." She jumps up and down.
I think about how I am going to explain to my ultraconservative editor that I've got an interview with an experimental English band of musicians who are still learning to play their instruments.
For the next two weeks, Laurel brings me every article she can dig up on the Furs, all relating to their music, which I can't understand. Laurel plays their first recording for me.
"Listen to the lyrics," she says. "They're like poetry."
All I hear is loud groaning.
On the day of the interview, Laurel is nervous.
“What are you going to ask them, Mom? I hope you don't make a fool of yourself. Don't mention the punk movement they hate punk. Do mention the romantic movement. Don't ask why they play so loud. Don't ask them about drugs, drinking or sex. Do ask them about Richard Butler, their lyricist - he looks like David Bowie."
I perk up. I can relate to David Bowie.
Laurel follows me into the bedroom while I decide what to wear. She is dressed in $50 black moiré knickers, a white ruffled blouse and $80 black patent-leather shoes. She is also wearing one earring. I decide not to mention the earring. It will just rear. firm her convictions that I have no sense of style.
I grab at a pink silk blouse a hand-me-down from my daughter's wardrobe- and a cotton skirt. I am beginning to feel desperate.
"Daddy's coming with us," I announce firmly as we head downstairs, "because if these guys ask us to go for a drink, I want Daddy there for protection."
"I can't believe you," says Laurel. "Who would be afraid of Daddy?"
"Don't be disrespectful to your father," I say, "Get your camera." It's almost 8 and we're late. She starts to load the film.
"It's jammed- it won't work," she shrieks.
"Give it to Daddy and let's go inside."
Now I know the Fates are against me. I picture myself telling Charlie, my editor, that the camera jammed at the last minute.
"Will they let me come with you without my camera?" Laurel asks. “Take your camera bag." I say. "You'll look more official, and stick with me every minute. Remember, if they offer you something to drink, don't." "Mom, please."
She grabs at me before we enter. "Don't tell them you're my mother," she says. "Tell them I'm 19."
The Fountain Casino in Matawan is empty except for a few people. "I'm Amy Berger, and this is my cameraperson, Laurel," I say, as Laurel holds up her camera bag. "I have an interview scheduled with the Psychedelic Furs."
I'm amazed at how my Brooklyn accent comes out when I'm being pushed.
"Back there," he says, pointing to the darkened stage.
We approach a young man in jeans and a blue T-shirt with a "Norbert" name tag pasted on his shirt.
"Hi, Mr. Norbert. I'm Amy Berger of The News Tribune. I have an inter- view with the Psychedelic Furs."
"I'm not a Norbert," he says. "I'm Duncan. The guys are at dinner and I was going over to have mine. Would you like to come?"
"How stupid of me," I lie. "It's the lighting. I'd know you anywhere from the jacket covers of your records."
Laurel helps me. "Of course, we know that you're the saxophonist, don't we, Amy?"
"Sure." “We'd love to go out to dinner with you," my daughter adds.
“My car is outside with my driver," I volunteer. “Great," he says. "The others should be finishing up dinner. I'll just have a drink and we can talk. Do you know where the Roman Inn is?" "Yes."
We get into our car and I introduce my "driver," Murray. Laurel climbs into the back seat with Duncan. She seems to forget that this is my interview.
"I'm recording now, Duncan." "That's fine."
He talks about his music, how the group is anti-punk, and anti-violence, how their name is a put-on. He talks about spoiled American kids who have money for everything and have no imagination; he talks about Margaret Thatcher and Kent State.
My eyelids are beginning to droop. Laurel has never been so wide awake. I think she has all the makings of a groupie. The car stops and my driver shows he knows his place. He announces that he'll do a crossword puzzle while we have dinner.
Duncan, Laurel and I go into the restaurant. My tape recorder is making funny sounds. So is my stomach. Duncan introduces us all around. "The News Tribune- it sounds like the 'Lou Grant' show."
"Could be, could be," is the brightest thing I can think of to say. I'd better get brilliant soon.
"Listen, guys," I ask. "How do you feel about my interviewing you during dinner?"
"Not very good," says Tim Butler, a guitarist, "but we wouldn't have the time otherwise."
"Well, you just go on eating." I say. "Eaten in any good restaurants lately?"
Laurel shoots me a look. Scratch that one.
"Fellas, I don't intend to ask you about your music, because I don't pretend to understand it." I notice they stop eating. "But I do like your records."
At the end of the table sits a girl, Carol. She reminds me of an English Cindy Williams. I show my ignorance again. "What do you do, Carol?" Duncan and Tim answer. "She's Tim's girlfriend.”
"She sees to all my creature comforts," says Tim. I wonder whether her mother had anything to say about her traveling in a bus with six men. "It's rumored," I continue, "that you have a big grouple following."
"Groupies! Of course not!" says Duncan. "They come to me and say “your trousers are so tight and stout, how on earth do you get into them? Buy me a drink; give me some coke."
I can tell the interview is beginning to go well because Laurel seems to relax.
"All right," she tells me, "ask the question.”
"Tell me, what do your parents think about your traveling all over on a bus for three months away from home?" "My father broke his arm banging on the table when I told him I was going," one of them says. We all laugh.
I ask what makes the group special. "It's the pure and natural way we approach things," one says, "and that's the best quote you'll ever get from the Psychedelic Furs."
I glance over at their light person, who also has on one earring, like Laurel, and who is having his lobe nibbled by one of the girls who came down from New York to be with the group. Laurel turns her attentions to Duncan.
"I'm going to be in New York tomorrow," she says. "Do you think I could get on the guest list for the party that you're having tomorrow night? I need to take the photographs for Amy's article." I have an urge to wring her neck. "Sure," he says, then turns to me. “Amy, will you come as well?"
He looks genuinely hurt when I decline.
“It's going to be a very sophisticated party," he says. It's all I can do to keep my eyes from rolling.
The interview finally over, we say our goodbyes. Laurel wants to stay to see the performance, but midnight is a little beyond my bedtime. We leave and I steel myself for the fight with my daughter about her going to New York.
As usual, I lose. Parents don't have any control anymore. The next day she goes with a friend to take pictures of the group for my article. I stay home and worry.
When she returns she is loaded with posters, Furs' T-shirts and records. She tells me she got great pictures. When I get to see her negatives, I see the rock star Todd Rundgren, the poet Jim Carol, the ex-model-singer Bebe Buelle and a Norberta groupie.
Laurel did learn that the Norbert name tags they were all wearing referred to the Furs' road crew, the Norberts, alias, the Dead Gumbies.
I wear my Psychedelic Furs T-shirt to the supermarket whenever I feel like making a social statement and I love their new album, "Talk Talk Talk," but I'm still mad at Laurel for not taking a picture of Duncan for me. Tonight after dinner, while Murray is watching "60 Minutes," I give him the news.
"I'm in love with Duncan," I say. "That's OK. with me," he says, "but if he asks you out again for a drink- this time, can I come too?"