Twist Street

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I have a story about New York that I’ve told a number of times – I went to the city to visit some friends who were going to The School of Visual Arts and so I thought, ‘Why don’t I look for an apartment, if I can find a cheap apartment maybe I’ll move to New York. I looked through the Village Voice with a friend and we found an ad for a $300 a month place in Greenwich Village. We went to the place and knocked on the door and these two girls answered – they were bald, wearing robes, and tattooed with these blue arabesques – this was ’73. So my friend and I went in and were looking around and we were really impressed – we thought, ‘this place is great for $300 a month’ – but sensing our interest the girls informed us that it was the back room that was actually available for rent. They took us back there and opened the door; there was a cage in the middle of the room, a gorilla in the cage, and shit all over the walls and ceiling and floor. One of the girls said, ‘We don’t think he’s very happy. We’re getting rid of him and we’re going to rent out his room.’