The young Cameron meets Lester
Copyright 2000, Vinyl Films
LESTER BANGS rants on air for the benefit of a FEMALE DJ.
BANGS
Music, true music, not just rock ’n’ roll, it chooses you. It lives in your car, or alone, listening to your headphones, vast scenic rituals and angelic choirs in your brain. It’s a place apart from the vast benign lap of America.
DJ
Quite an honor to have the world’s greatest rock critic and editor of Creem magazine back home in San Diego for a few days -- Lester Bangs.
BANGS
(Rifling through the stacks)
The Doors? Jim Morrison? He’s a drunken buffoon posing as a poet! Ah, give me the Guess Who. They got the courage to be drunken buffoons, which makes them poetic. Give me some White Light/White Heat. Iggy Pop! Amen! Put this on!
DJ
Don’t you think it’s a little early for that?
BANGS
Not for me.
DJ
O.K., well, that was Lester Bangs with some valid wisdom, and here is Iggy Pop.
Cue "Raw Power" by the Stooges.
EXT. SAN DIEGO STREET -- DAY
Bangs walks up the hill with William Miller, the kid, who’s been waiting for him outside the station.
BANGS
So you’re the kid who’s been sending me stuff from your high school newspaper.
WILLIAM
I’ve been doing some stuff for a local underground paper also.
BANGS
What are you, like the star of your school?
WILLIAM
They hate me.
BANGS
Yeah, you’ll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle. Your writing is damn good, it’s just a shame you missed out on rock ’n’ roll. It’s over. You got here just in time for the death rattle, last gasp, last grope.
WILLIAM
At least I’m here for that.
INT. DINER -- DAY
BANGS
Yeah, what do you type on?
WILLIAM
Smith-Corona Galaxis Deluxe.
BANGS
You like Lou Reed?
WILLIAM
The early stuff. In his new stuff he’s trying to be Bowie. He should just be himself.
BANGS
Take drugs?
WILLIAM
No.
BANGS
Smart kid. I used to do speed -- and sometimes a little cough syrup. Stay up all night, writing and writing, like 25 pages of dribble about the Faces or Coltrane, just to fucking write…. Alright, it’s been nice to meet you. Keep sending me your stuff. I just can’t stand here all day talking to my many fans.
No one is paying him any attention
WILLIAM
I understand.
BANGS
If you go to L.A. you’re gonna have friends like crazy, but they’re gonna be fake friends. They’re gonna try to corrupt you. You got an honest face, they’re gonna tell you everything. But you cannot make friends with the rock stars. If you’re gonna be a true journalist, a rock journalist, first, you’ll never get paid much, but you will get free records from the record company….
(Laughs) There’s fucking nothing about you that is controversial. God, it’s gonna get ugly, man. They’re gonna buy you drinks, you’re gonna meet girls, they’re gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs. I know it sounds great, but these people are not your friends, these are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars, and they will ruin rock ’n’ roll and strangle everything we love about it and then it just becomes an industry of cool. I’m telling you, you’re coming along at a very dangerous time for rock ’n’ roll and that’s why I think you should just turn around, go back and be a lawyer or something. I can tell from your face that you won’t. I can give your thirty-five bucks. Give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath.
WILLIAM
An assignment?
BANGS
Yeah. Yeah. (Laughs) Hey, you have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful. And if you get into a jam, you can call me. I stay up late.
Cue Black Sabbath, "Paranoid."