Tony O’Neill has just completed a European tour. He gave what he describes as “a really fun reading” in Paris:
“Dennis Cooper came down, and one woman got really offended when I said that they should legalize dope and that when they did I’d be first in line at the pharmacy. She hissed ‘junkie!’ at me, and later called me ‘Monsieur Poubelle” — which Dennis informed me meant ‘Mr Garbage’! Then, she drank all of the free wine and fell asleep in the bookstore: what a review! Of course, I loved it. Everybody else enjoyed it a great deal; I signed a bunch of books, and it was a real trip.
Germany was massive. Like ridiculously massive: there were even people hanging around outside the hotels looking for autographs, pictures etc. No kidding, it’s the first time that’s ever happened and I thought it was a prank at first, but no, people are just really into my stuff in Germany. For the readings over there, I read with a young Austrian actor called Robert Stadlober, who looked like a young Jeffrey Lee Pierce. We’d get very drunk on wine as we read, and it was all very loose and free and beautiful. I also had some kind of blackout in the Reeperbahn and did a photoshoot in a former brothel! Heres a TV show that went out in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They tell me its a big show, kind of the equivalent of the Culture Show on the BBC out there.”
First posted: Saturday, October 8th, 2011.
