Lydia Lunch vs Lale Müldür: PART 3

LALE: How about your feelings about your mother and father?

LYDIA: Well, they’re dead. I’m very happy for that. I’ve always felt like an orphant.

LALE: I’m happy for my dad who died as well. But i still feel sorry for him.

LYDIA: Why? What is this torturing dead? He is dead! What is to feel sorry for?

LALE: I believe in after life.

LYDIA: So then he is tortured! Poor bastard!

LALE: No, they were right a bit as well. You see, i wrote poetry all the time. And i couldn’t work because people were jealous. At the beginning, i tried to work. I understood that it won’t work after quite a short while. So, afterwards i looked at my parents for being financed. And i am really sorry i can’t prove it to them. My mother’s got Alzheimer. My father is dead. So i can’t get to tell them how sorry i am to use their money.

LYDIA: I will never feel sorry for using someone’s money.

LALE: You will never feel sorry?

LYDIA: Noo... If someone has money, and especially an artist should be given some help.

LALE: There is no help in Turkey.

LYDIA: Yeah, of course. So then, you should not feel bad taking it from your parents.

LALE: Why?

LYDIA: What are they gonna do with it? They’re dead! Because if they use it when they’re alive you should get it freely or you wait for them to die to take it then. I don’t understand. But maybe i have a different opinion because my parents were very poor. So i was fearing to get their death, not their benefits. So i think that if parents have money they should give it to the children.

LALE: I thought so, too. But i don’t think so anymore after they’re dead.

LYDIA: Well, I don’t have any children so they are not getting my money. I don’t have any to give them. So, it is ok.

LALE: I don’t have three billions, so i feel sorry that i had to ask money from them.

LYDIA: Well, guilt is something i don’t understand.

LALE: How come?

LYDIA: I don’t know. I don’t understand it. It is not that i am perfect but i don’t understand guilt.

LALE: What about guilty people?

LYDIA: That’s their problem. Of course, i understand when someone is guilty but i don’t understand the feeling of having guilt.

LALE: I have it.

LYDIA: I don’t. You need to get rid of it. Get rid of the guilt. It’s gotta go. It must go. Out! Guilt be gone! Guilt be gone!!! It’s got to go.

LALE: But there is my brother who works as a director in the European Community, he is always sort of not looking good at it. What do you think i should do?

LYDIA: Get some money from him too. Why isn’t he supporting the Arts? It is amazing! I should meet your brother. I will take some money from him. Don’t worry about it. He won’t know what happened. First, i’ll take his wallet then i’ll go through his bank account. It will be wiped out at no time. And it will be given only to poets. No problem.

LALE: Poetry is dead now in Turkey as well.

LYDIA: Yeah, then we call it something else.

LALE: What do you think when poetry is dead? What arrives?

LYDIA: I don’t know. I don’t call what i do is poetry. I mean, i know what i write is poetic but i consider what i do is Spoken-word because it has more conversational tone. So it’s different. I am not writing in the poetry format. Even my song lyrics are not necessarily written in a standard format. I mean, i think that poetry... Some people are very precious about this term. I am not at all because i think there is poetry in music, some rappers are doing incredible poetry. It’s where you find it really. So maybe the format as in a traditional way is not alive right now. I don’t think that it means that the poetry is dead. Maybe just the format....

LALE: But there are no more poets left! Come on Lydia.

LYDIA: Yeah, i guess not.

LALE: Throughout the world, i say.

LYDIA: But maybe it is manifesting another format. I mean, when people complain to me that oh music sucks, there is no music..

LALE: Yeah i think Nick Cave said that. There is no more music he said.

LYDIA: Maybe you should look to architecture then, or maybe you look to painting. I mean everything is cyclical. So, if there is no more poetry now there is poetics in architecture or photography. It is where your interest lies. To me, i see incredible poetry in architecture all the time. And i don’t mean necessarily modern, i mean ancient architecture. If i don’t hear music from this year or the past twenty years that influence or affects me deeply, music from 40 years ago does or 100 years ago does. So i think people want everything of their generation, of now or new. When there is so much poetry that's already existed you will never be in between at all. So i don’t take this complaint lightly. If you can’t find it now then you must look backwards. That is why it is beautiful that there are documents such as books, such as photographs, such as records. I don’t need something to be of my time. As a matter of fact most things that affect me most are not of my time. But this is the complaint of many young people. Ohh, music sucks, ohh bla bla... Well, then make it yourself. Do you suck? No! All right! Then, shut up!

LALE: You write poetry then?

LYDIA: I don’t call it that.

LALE: What do you call it?

LYDIA: I call it Spoken-word. What i do is spoken-word but when i am writing it’s... I really think of myself more as a journalist of my own hysteria and of the world's hysteria. So what’s poetic is a byproduct of the fact. Of course it must have poetry. But i consider myself really more of a journalist.

LALE: Are you doing journalism?

LYDIA: Also i have done straight journalism, yeah.

LALE: I have done as well. For five years. Then they kick me out because they didn’t like what i was saying.

LYDIA: I've had a few things cancelled myself. It is very hard to get any money as a journalist any place. I mean it is impossible. But i think what i do is just a journal so i am a journalist of my time, of what is affecting me, of my hysteria, of the world’s hysteria.

So tonight for instance my show, it goes from, the topics are hangovers... You know what a hangover is?

LALE: I do

LYDIA: Hangovers... A hangover from life, a hangover from sex, isolation, the desert, dead man, suicide, and then of course it's been about the war. It encompasses most of life.

LALE: What about the war then?

LYDIA: Which one? The one that never ends? The last, the great war? The war that’s been going since the caves?

LALE: No, i am asking about Iraq.

LYDIA: It is a travesty but it is only one war of dozens that are raging on this fucking planet.

LALE: I know but what do you....

LYDIA: It is ridicilous.

LALE: Of course

LYDIA: It is another American constitute, another American arrogance showing its stupidity. Ruining the place to rebuild it, then not rebuild it! So ruining and luding the place, massacring the people, causing enemies around the world; all for business interests which art even pending out yet. But the interesting thing about war or the co-operations is that it's hard for people like us to understand because we are not thinking in a 25 or 50 year project. We are thinking about tomorrow, about next month maybe and maybe the beginning of the year. We are not thinking much further, we can’t. These insane genocidal maniacs that run the cooperations and the killing machines, they have a very long term view. So they say: "Ok, 5 years of destruction; then 5 years of rebuilding of which we are bankrupting again the people by making them pay for what we have destroyed to be rebuilt. Ok? Then in 15 years we put other American interests there and in 20 years we are making a lot of money on this country."

So the war machine has a very long ranging view of what goes on. And this is something i think we have to understand if we really wanna know what is going on in the world. Because this is the empire’s goal, the empire never changes. America has been the dominating empire for the past 50 years. And unless really the dollar continues to sink there is some assassinations which are necessary and the whole climate changes. This is what we continue until the entire world is forced into, as we are, Slavery. Iraq, it’s one part of the war. There are ten countries in Africa warring all because of the American interest in mining. There is unrest all over the world. And part of it is because of God, whoever that is supposed to be. He will be fortunately left out of most of my insults tonight only because i don’t want to get shot. But you know God the father, God the fucker, the father of the country, all these fuckers... I mean they are encodes to make the world as it is a fucking ghetto. The world is a ghetto.

LALE: So the problem is with people.

LYDIA: The problem is the people haven't find a way thoroughly to make a revolution to rise up because we cannot burn every building of the financial institudes and because everyone is codependant as part of this machinery.

THE END

Lydia Lunch vs Lale Müldür - A Conversation

Takes place at Dogzstar on the 6th of December, 2007

PART 1

LYDIA: I come to the corner with the fur hat. It looks warm and causy. I should have worn my matching hat. I left my matching hat at home.

LALE: That is very bad

LYDIA: Yeah, i know. I need it now. It is a good idea.

LALE: Are you American? Of course!

LYDIA: Oh, please! I was at one time.

LALE: You are not anymore?!

LYDIA: No... I am a citizen of the world... Even then i am not happy to admit it. I live in Spain now.

LALE: Spain is good. My biggest love affair was Spanish.

LYDIA: The man i am with, he will be here soon, i’ve known him for 23 years and finally four years ago we got together. A very long romance.

LALE: He is coming?

LYDIA: Yeah yeah, he is coming soon.

LYDIA: Spain is a very good place. They finally learnt from their history.

LALE: They did.

LYDIA: Finally!

LALE: My Spanish boyfriend accused me of being racist towards the Arabs.

LYDIA: Spain has finally learned from its mistakes. I think it is one of the most sane countries now... As far as the happiness of the people concerned. It is not perfect, of course, but they were very smart in the money they took from the EU. They applied it and the people are not miserable. This is all we can hope for any country in this world. I cannot think of many countries where the people are not miserable.

LALE: I have just arrived from the United States....

LYDIA: Yes?

LALE: And i’ve been to Princeton. I couldn’t see any poetry there myself.

LYDIA: No, no, of course.

LALE: I saw only 3-4 people, young guys, who were poets and they were really wonderful and they say they couldn’t resign poetry in living. That was a big compliment.

LYDIA: Well, maybe if they were true poets they were living poetry instead of speaking it.

LALE: They are living poetry. They were good poets, but the others like in Princeton, i met the guy who won Pulitzer and many awards like that. We became close, we sat together in the dinner. Everybody said we are going to be good friends. I said, what if i don’t like his poetry? And then i read his poetry and i didn’t like it so much.

LYDIA: Well, i have to turn that upon myself because i have a lot of friends that i would not expect to like my art at all; because why should they? Maybe it is too strong for them. I mean, i am sure in this case it was too weak for you. Ok?! but i have many friends and i’ve had many lovers when i wouldn’t expect them to be interested in my art because maybe it is just too much for them. So i don’t hold that against people. I am sure they hold my art against me but i don’t hold it against them.

LALE: I have a bit the same problem as well, of being understood. Poets here, all revolve around Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and so.. But they don’t really know them. It’s terrible, it is very funny, the poets. There are good poets though, nobody knows, nobody will expect Turkish people to write good poetry but there are good poets. I stand there as they are when they saw me as a Turkish poet.

LYDIA: Turkish woman poet, let’s not forget it.

LALE: In France it is forbidden to say “woman poet”, you know?

LYDIA: Because they understand literature a little better. In France for me was the easiest place when my book “Paradox” was published. It had the most response there because they are not intimitated by a woman speaking about sex in an ugly way. So it was no problem.

LALE: Good.

LYDIA: Yeah.

LALE: My father is dead, i can write the same way now.

LYDIA: I’d like to say i killed mine but that is...

LALE: You killed yours?!

LYDIA: I’d like to say that!

LALE: I don’t like my father very much but after he died my feelings changed.

LYDIA: Yeah so did mine. They got worse. I began to see how much like him i was and i really hated the motherfucker. The bastard really came back from the grave to inhabit my body and i had to kill him again. Disaster.

LALE: So i see we have the same stockings.

LYDIA: No i have boots but i like your stockings. The boots are like your stockings. There you go, see? You have the plain boots, i have the plain stockings. And then i have the floral and you have the floral. If we cut our legs off we can join as one. Siamese poets! A new sickness yet to be created. Siamese poets! Thay can’t stand one how are they gonna take two? It is a nightmare, a beautiful nightmare.

LYDİA: Last night, i did some recording with Babazula it was very nice. Three songs we made, improvizational music and i had some text and it was very beautiful. I was very happy to do some recordings here.

LALE: And today you don’t feel very good because it rained?

LYDIA: No no no i am fine. A little cranky but that is usual before the show. Little, little irritable.

LALE: I got to know Natasha Atlas. She was different from before the show. She was complaining about the one who sang before her.

LYDIA: Yeah, i see, i see... That is why i don’t think anyone is on tonight. I can only complain about the weather and myself.

LALE: What do you complain about yourself? Come on!

LYDIA: Never. I never. I am a biggest fan. If only everyone was more like me. It is true.

LALE: Well, it is true. I know it is true. There are very few human beings left in the world.

LYDIA: I think the biggest problem in America, i can only speak for Americans, i can’t speak for other people, the big problem in America both with man and woman is, it is not a gender thing, is people are terribly neurotic, terribly insecure because the culture is so hippocretical, it pretends to be very rich, it pretends to be very liberated and very democratic and these are all increable lies. America is very poor!

LALE: I know that.

LYDIA: Again, there is 50 million at least poor people in America, very poor! They pretend it is like television and Hollywood. This is not America at all. America is not New York or Los Angeles. It is not a democracy and they are not liberated. And the thing, because it promotes this consumer and capitalist society, people never feel they are good enough, they never have enough. The more they have, the more they want and then the more depressed they become. And it really makes people very unhappy with themselves and everything else. And neurosis, i think it is just the worst condition for people to suffer under.

Look, there is so much in the world to hate why hate yourself. I mean you have to have one thing to love and that should be yourself. And if you don’t like yourself, you’d better find a way to reconfigure that. I mean you are what you make yourself. That’s when you know that you no longer wanna be a victim to what everything is trying to make you. And i think this is the big problem in America. It is devastating. It makes the men neurotic which is very unattractive and it makes the women, you know, no better. And it keeps people down. It is a fear. They let the campaign of fear everywhere. This is what supresses people.

LALE: Unfortunately i couldn’t get to know such Americans because they took me from one university after another and made us meet poets. But if poets are no good then what else? Because it is the only less money gaining art you know, the Poetry. They are really, people who are poets really dedicate their whole lives to it and they get nothing at the end because what is important after all is fiscallity.

LYDIA: Exactly!

LALE: What is fiscallity mean? Could you explain to me?

LYDIA: No. No, no...