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Andy: Well, but how long was the fuck?

Truman: It was a very short flight. About thirty-five minutes. Everybody kept switching and changing camera angles. Robert Frank was photographing for a movie he’s making about the tour, and said, “Well, I hope you’re going to leave that in.”

Andy: Did the girl know that she was being photographed?

Truman: Of course! They had lights up and everything. She was enjoying it! I said to her, “Well, you came to get a story for your high school newspaper and you’re sure getting one.” She got off at the next stop. I must say they were always very nice about these kids.

Andy: You mean there were more instances like this?

Truman: Well, it was going on continuously, day and night. And not just girls, but boys. The girls and boys, flocks of them went off with . . . There were, uh . . . mmm . . . a lot of people connected with the tour that used to do that. Um, went off with the boys. Very attractive sort of college kids that showed up, they’d get out there, get involved with everything from an electrician to, mmmm, to—They would go with anybody who was connected with the tour. A carpenter. A lightman. Anyone connected with the tour, no matter who it was. They didn’t care. Boys, women, dogs, fire hydrants. I mean, the most extraordinary things you’ve ever seen.

Andy: Mostly outside New York, right? Not in New York. Because I didn’t see any of it happening. . . .

Truman: The things that went on in Texas. I’ve never seen anything equal to it.

There’s sort of all-night partying. One night . . . in Texas—I mean I never did it, because in my own mind I was working at the moment, even though subconsciously I knew I was not going to do it. But they would come off and be wagged up, and one night about four o’clock in the morning when I was in bed but wasn’t asleep (and I guess in a way this is the key to first question about why I didn’t do it), Keith Richards came and he knocked on my door, and I said, “Yes?” and he said, “It’s Keith,” and I said, “Yes, Keith.” He said, “Oh, come out, we’re having a terrific party upstairs.”

“I’m tired. I’ve had a long day and so have you and I think you should go to bed.”

“Aw, come out and see what a rock group’s really like.”

“I know what a rock group’s really like, Keith. I don’t have to come upstairs to see.” And apparently he had a bottle of ketchup in his hand—he had a hamburger and a bottle of ketchup—and he just threw it all over the door of my room. [Laughs]

Andy: It sounds like fun. Oh, I’ve gotten to like ketchup so much! I just can really eat it.

Truman: What?

Andy: Ketchup.

Truman: Oh, ketchup.

Andy: But it seems like there’s just so much material on that trip, and the way you describe things is wonderful.

Truman: Yes, there’s material, but it’s just that. Material. It’s just that. It doesn’t have any echo. It isn’t that you want to forget about it because of any unpleasantness; it’s just because it doesn’t have any echo. Nowhere in this whole story of the Rolling Stones could I find anything sympathetic except the naïveté of the kids . . . which wasn’t—maybe in itself—true, either. Maybe it was just sentimentality.

There was this thing about the Stones that I hated. Which was that the kids would be staying there—they’d end the performance. . . . [Lighting director] Chip Monck would say, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The Rolling Stones—” And the lights would go up—or had been up actually—and the kids are standing there and they’re just—breaking their hearts applauding . . . And there they are in this dreary Mobile, Alabama, ghastly—Fort Worth, Texas. I mean, they waited months and months for this thing. They wanted it, you know . . . for such a long time. And then , the Rolling Stones—Not only have they left, not only have they no intention of giving an encore, they are already on their airplane up in the sky while the kids are down there applauding and applauding and pleading, saying, “Please come back, please come back!” and everybody knowing