All Hail King Udo

I checked a bucket-list thingy off this past weekend when the Anthology Film Archives here in NYC hosted a retrospective of Udo Kier cinema (it's ongoing actually through June 4th -- check the schedule here) and I got to breathe the same air with him as they had the legend himself there in person for an extended Q&A following the Paul Morrissey flick Blood For Dracula on Friday night. You maybe saw my Twitter thread...

Let me tell you what y’all, Udo Kier does not fucking disappoint as a Q&A — wow wow wow we got all the stories, all the names dropped, all the coke on tits and a full reenactment of the birthing scene from The Kingdom to boot y’all pic.twitter.com/LkKHFJyAwX

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 20, 2023

... wherein I highlighted a few (emphasis on "few") of the best stories that spilled out of his mouth. But the man talked and talked and he soaked up every millisecond of the spotlight and I could never dream to come close to capturing the magic of it all in words. He was EXACTLY who I wanted him to be. It was a tip-top star-fucking experience.

Anyway before the moderator told the audience we weren't allowed to take video I managed to do exactly that of Udo's first few minutes in front of us, and I think the below video gets across what a trip the whole night was. The man LED the night by enthusiastically quoting his most famous lines from Dracula and Frankenstein, and it only got wilder and more colorful from there. What a joy! This was the first time since the pandemic began where I really remembered why I live in this city -- what absolute magic it can drop right into my lap when I let it. Udo, you're a real one.