The History of Bones

by John Lurie

  Probably the best idea that came up for the movie was Juno’s Flu.

  Juno’s Flu was an illness that lasted three days to a week. The symptoms were close to those of Tourette’s syndrome but a little more dramatic and much sillier.

  It was highly contagious, so that throughout the movie, all the characters came down with it.

  So there are scenes where Roberto and his Native American friend, Coney, are staying with a group of extremely austere monks.

  They are having dinner and the second-highest-ranked monk starts to suddenly interrupt the master with absolute nonsense. Everyone is shocked and horrified.

  Until the master of the monastery exclaims, “Chickens! They are nimble! Woot!”

  I went to the Florida Keys and lived in a hotel room that looked like a concrete bunker for several months and wrote the script.

  Kazu came down and stayed with me for a while, and it was kind of great.

  When I finished it, I sent it to Jim Jarmusch with a note asking for his comments. I was pretty pleased with what I had done but it was a little clunky. I had written one other script before but really didn’t know what I was doing other than it was supposed to be 110 pages long.

  I never heard back from Jim. It bothered me. I send him my script and he never responds? I didn’t know what to make of it.

  Two years later, I flew over to Rome to meet with Roberto, with a producer who wanted to back the movie.

  It looked like this was all going to fall into place.

  But the morning we were going over to see Benigni, the producer came to me with a very long face and said there was a problem. The money might not happen now.

  I asked what it was, and he said, “Jarmusch is making a western about a white guy and a Native American traveling across a surreal landscape, and the money is now going to be hard to get.”

  When I got back to New York, I couldn’t get Jim on the phone. I left messages but he wouldn’t call me back.

  Why on earth is he not calling me back? Did he really steal my idea?

  So finally I wrote him a letter: “Dear Jim, Word is that the film you plan on making next fall is remarkably similar to my script ‘You Stink Mister,’ which you read in 1991.

  “Is this true? What’s going on?”

  I get a letter back from Jim’s office saying Jim’s script contains no element or aspect of my script. And if I wish to go into this further I can send a copy of my script to Jim’s attorney.

  I never saw Dead Man and don’t know how many similarities there are. Probably not many. But the basic premise of a white guy and a Native American traveling a surreal landscape is exactly the same.

  I don’t think there are a lot of movies made about a white guy and a Native American traveling across surreal landscapes. Perhaps this is a genre I have missed.

  You Stink Mister never happened.

  All the time you spend tryin to get back what’s been took from you there’s more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.

  —Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

  Except for about a week, years later, when he suspiciously became my new best friend when he wanted me to do the commentary for the Down by Law DVD (I had refused to do the one for Stranger Than Paradise), I didn’t hear from Jim.

  A couple weeks after this brief encounter was when my symptoms from advanced Lyme started to get violent. Jim called me because to just disappear after I had done what he wanted would have been odd. I told him what was happening to my body, that doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong and that I was terrified. I literally couldn’t function or do the simplest of tasks. And that I kept having these overwhelming neurological attacks and I imagined that I was going to end up a quivering, drooling mess on the floor. I asked him, practically begged him, to please check in on me once in a while, because he lived just a few blocks away.

  I never heard from Jim again.

  * * *

  —

  As I said, if this stuff is getting to you, you can just skip past it to the end of the chapter. I certainly wouldn’t mind doing that myself.

  * * *

  —

  In, I guess, 1994, The Lounge Lizards were playing at Tramps. It must have been Directors’ Night Out, because Wayne Wang was there, with Paul Auster and Peter Newman, and the Coen brothers were there as well. Love the Coen brothers. I think Prince was there too that night, or I might be getting the nights mixed up.

  After the show, Wayne Wang, Paul Auster, and Peter Newman came into the grim dressing room and said they were doing a movie in Brooklyn, a spin-off of Smoke, a film they had just finished, and did I want to perform music in it?

  They didn’t think the whole band would work, but some smaller version of it.

  First words out of my mouth were, “Fine, but the only thing that’s important to me is that the sound is good. You can’t just record it with a Nagra and think that that is going to be fine.”

  “Oh no, of course not. It will all be done really well.”

  I’ve played saxophone in movies, and you can’t use a Nagra because a Nagra is for recording vocals. With music, and particularly with the saxophone, it loses all of the overtones. It takes the richness out of the sound, makes it sound like a shredded, irritating piece of string.

  Saxophone players are nuts about their sound in general. I heard even Coltrane was nuts about his sound.

  Sometimes, you record something and it sounds perfect and you can’t figure out why. The variables are the mic, the reed, the mouthpiece, your horn and whether or not it has a leak, the room, and what you’re recording on. But try as you might to repeat the thing that worked before, it usually does not work the next time.

  But one thing I know now and knew then, for certain, is that you cannot record a saxophone with a Nagra and hope for good results.

  I call Newman to find out how they’re going to record the music. But he doesn’t have an answer. I make it very clear that unless this is figured out, we shouldn’t do it. Perhaps we can record it before and then play along to what’s already been recorded. Or we can play and then match it in the studio later.

  “Don’t worry, John, it’s going to be fine.”

  But I am worried. For many, many years I have worked hours a day to make my tone what it is. I have to try to make sure that this is done properly.

  I call him again a week later and explain that music is a very precious and fragile thing. I want to do the movie but this has got to be done right.

  “Look, John, there are professional people who are taking care of this. There is really nothing to worry about. I promise that the music will sound great and if it doesn’t meet your satisfaction, we won’t use it.”

  Okay, maybe I’m being a pain in the ass. Newman certainly thinks I am being a pain in the ass.

  The Lounge Lizards are about to go on tour, and we’re going to shoot Blue in the Face the day after we get back. We’ll do the trio, the John Lurie National Orchestra, which is me on saxophones, Calvin Weston on drums, and Billy Martin on percussion.

  I actually would prefer this, as it had become much more musically rewarding for me than the whole band.

  Except, for a week or so before we leave on tour, I have a terrible flu. Shaking with a high fever. There are all these reports on TV about Lyme disease, which is becoming an epidemic. And I had been in North Haven, Long Island. There were constantly deer in the yard and I found ticks on my body.

  On the plane to Paris, it starts to go really bad. There is a burning itch on my back. I go into the bathroom and lift up my shirt to look. There is a huge classic Lyme bullseye.

  My fever shoots up to 105. My teeth are chattering. I have hallucinations that make me laugh. A stabbing pain in the top of my head that makes me yelp. I’m sitting next to this poor woman and suddenly going, �
��Ahhhh!” in pain and then laughing again.

  I hear through the speakers, “Is there a doctor on the plane?”

  Go straight to the hospital in Paris. They know immediately what it is and the doctor is great.

  Why couldn’t they have told me this at New York Hospital, where I went a week before the tour, sick as a dog?

  I told the New York Hospital doctor that I found a tick on me, that I was in North Haven, Long Island.

  “Would you please tell me if I have Lyme disease, because I have to buy $30,000 worth of plane tickets on Monday to take my band to Europe for three weeks. If I have Lyme, I have to cancel.”

  I got one of these doctors—everybody knows this guy, this arrogant, incompetent doctor guy. Doesn’t listen to a word I’m saying when I’m explaining my symptoms. He waves for me to be quiet with his hand.

  So, he doesn’t listen. He knows better. They take some blood. Doctor says it’s just the flu, I’ll be fine. When the doctor in Paris calls New York Hospital for my blood work, turns out that they haven’t even done a Lyme test with the blood they drew, though he told me they were going to.

  Bible was wrong. Assholes have inherited the earth.

  I do the tour. Play every night. The antibiotics work pretty fast. But still, I’m green. Room is spinning. Fever 102. My bones are being crushed. But I finish the tour.

  I’m a hero.

  So we get back to New York. Next day we’re doing the Wayne Wang movie. Sick, exhausted, jet lag. I don’t want to go, but I said I would, so I go.

  My tone on the saxophone somehow is my salvation. When I’m really playing, a prayer is being funneled through me, and in return, at the same time, the horn is my path to God.

  I certainly don’t expect a movie producer to understand this, but I was very clear about how important recording this properly is to me.

  “Don’t worry, John. There will be people there who have recorded music in movies countless times. I promise that you’ll be satisfied with the way it sounds.”

  We arrive on the set in Brooklyn. Wayne Wang has a cold. Maybe he’ll stop by later.

  Wait a minute, I’ve got Lyme disease and he’s staying home because he has a cold?! Maybe he’ll come later?!

  Paul Auster is excited to direct. A little too excited. And he is determined to be creative in his directing.

  “Does he know what he’s doing?” I ask.

  People shrug.

  I later find out or hear the rumor that Wayne Wang has one more picture to do with the company that’s produced Smoke and he wants out. So he’s going to whip off this little movie. The script is just a bunch of sketches that Auster has written. The plan is to do this thing mostly improvised and at some points Paul Auster will try his hand at directing.

  Fantastic!

  Drew Kunin is doing the sound. Drew did the sound for Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law. I know Drew and not only do I like him, very much, as a person, I also know that he’s an excellent soundman. If I did a movie, I’d ask Drew to do the sound.

  But no one has told Drew anything about recording music today. He says that we should have recorded the music in advance and then played along to it, which is what I suggested. He’ll do his best but this isn’t the way to do music in a movie. And he apologizes to me before I even ask and says, “Sorry, John, but I can’t be the guy who says this isn’t going to work.”

  No shit. Where are the experts?

  Calvin and Billy seem nervous.

  There are two little scenes. One where Lily Tomlin is dressed up as a homeless man, trying to get enough money for Belgian waffles. Lily Tomlin really looks like a man. I tell Calvin that that’s Lily Tomlin. He says, “No it ain’t, that’s a man.”

  The first scene is with Harvey Keitel and this woman Mel Gorham, who asks if we can play a rumba.

  We are playing this nice little thing that I wrote for the movie and this woman starts yelling and singing and improvising.

  Paul Auster thinks it’s great.

  Why am I the only person on this set, besides Drew, who understands that she can’t be doing this? In order to rerecord the sound, she’s going to have to loop every yelp exactly as she’s doing it now. It’ll never work. It will look very artificial and not have the same feel as the rest of the movie.

  I take Paul aside and try to explain this to him. But he really doesn’t understand. And it isn’t that hard to understand. I had heard that this guy is a genius. Welp, um, no, apparently not.

  I say we’re going to have to quit. If they use this music like this, it’s going to sound like I’m playing a rabid duck.

  “Please let us go home and you don’t have to pay us.”

  But Paul Auster is directing for the first time and my music is important to him. He has seen me play many times and loves it deeply. And apparently this woman’s yelping is part of his creative vision.

  I take Drew Kunin aside again. He tells me again, it is going to sound absolutely horrible.

  They break for lunch and I meet with Peter Newman and Paul Auster, who implore me to stay. That if Miramax goes for this movie, they’ll sink a lot of money into it and can fix everything.

  I try to explain that no amount of money thrown at this will fix it. We cannot rerecord the music because the yelping will no longer be part of the sound.

  But Paul Auster wants to direct and be creative in his directing debut, and yelping is his first contribution to the art of filmmaking.

  I’m so sick with the Lyme disease that I don’t have the strength to object. We just stay because I don’t have the strength to leave.

  We do the scene with Lily Tomlin, who, not surprisingly, turns out to be a wonderful human being. Then we go home.

  About a week later I call Peter Newman, to ask him how we’re going to redo the music. He says that Wayne Wang has seen the scene and he likes the way it sounds.

  “Well, it’s not up to him.”

  “Wayne thinks that to rerecord the music will give it a different flavor than the rest of the movie. He really thinks that it sounds fine and we’re just going to use what we’ve already got.”

  “Yes! It is what I tried to explain to Paul Auster. It will be a completely different tone and not fit. But this is my music. You can’t do this.”

  So there’s a meeting at some editing place. They play me the scene. I hate it. The music sounds horrible. This can’t be happening. I won’t sign the contract.

  “Peter, this is not what we agreed on. You gave me your word.”

  No response.

  Wayne Wang, who seems very sweet, suddenly is showing an iron-willed tenacity that I should have realized was lurking back in there somewhere.

  He actually goes into this routine about how I’m very talented but behavior like this will ruin my career. Is he threatening me?

  I can’t believe this. I mean, I want them to like me. I want them to appreciate the stuff I wrote for their movie, that we rehearsed on the road during sound checks while I should have been in bed. How is it going like this? The only thing I want is for it to sound okay. I have not asked for anything else since the beginning.

  Their reasoning is this: Roseanne Barr doesn’t like her scenes and wants to reshoot them. Now, they can’t do that, and this would be basically the same thing. They just can’t allow an actor to dictate how they will make their movie.

  “But this is my music. I’m not acting. This is what I do. It is not the same thing. I’m passionate about this in a way that you’ll never understand and you think you’re going to use it sounding like that. You can’t.”

  So I leave. On the way out Wayne Wang tells me about his next movie, which is going to have a jazz score. He must think I’m stupid, or so ambitious that I’m stupid. I think that’s also when he tells me that I’m very talented but if I make a problem here, I won’t work again.

/>   I agonize over this. Do I sign their contract or not? Literally lose sleep. I don’t want a battle. But how can I let that music go out like that? It is disrespectful to the music.

  This guy Peter Newman seemed like an honorable guy. He gave me his word. And I really don’t understand Paul Auster, who seems to be an enormous fan of the music but now is going to ruin it, at least for people who have ears. This was a fairly simple, commonsense thing that just could not be explained to him.

  Then Peter Newman calls me and says that Harvey Weinstein is going to sue me unless I sign the contract. I have appeared in the movie, which indicates my intent. I cannot now say I do not want to participate.

  I give up and sign the contract.

  I send them a tape of some music with the trio playing in the studio, which isn’t mixed but should give them some idea of what it should sound like. And perhaps they could use some of this music so that people can hear what it is supposed to sound like compared to this disaster that is in there.

  They say no, they don’t like it.

  When the movie comes out, there are three of the pieces of music from the tape I sent them, the music they didn’t like, placed in the movie. There is no deal, no discussion, no money, no nothing. Only thing I heard was that they didn’t like it. But then they put it in the movie without asking me.

  Well, now I pretty much have them. If nothing else I can demand a big payday.

  They have used my music without my permission—copyright infringement. Except, a friend of mine is the music supervisor and it’s going to cause her problems because she didn’t clear this music. Not only will she be fired for this, she will probably not work again. Even though it appears that this is someone else’s fault, it is going to get blamed on her. I let it go for next to nothing, because they have no money left and I really like my friend and don’t want her to not work anymore.

  This is where my reputation for being difficult comes from. I don’t know how I could have handled it better. How I could have been more clear on what was necessary for the music to be in the movie or how I could have resolved it without giving up any more. But now I am “difficult.” I start hearing it all the time.