Reporter: ‘Do You Still Fight for Your Right to Parrrtay?’
By Nick Haramis
The Beastie Boys, we think. If not, Cate Blanchett (as Bob Dylan), Moby, and the Invisible Man.
Waiting for the Beastie Boys in the dark screening room of the SoHo House—which, incidentally, is neither a house, nor in SoHo, despite the protests of a gypsy cabbie—I sip soda, fidgeting with a borrowed camera. After two nights spent rehashing their keg party classics, the band will take the stage at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Friday to play from their latest (instrumental!) album, The Mix-Up.
Three MC’s (minus the DJ) roll in, dressed in matching suits, shiny tie clips, and bedazzled sunglasses. One’s even pulling off a fedora.
An eager journalist raises his hand to ask something about the stultifying state of contemporary hip-hop. Michael “Mike D” Diamond groans, “People are always looking for us to criticize hip-hop.” They don’t.
When asked about the lack of other white rappers, Diamond wonders how we forgot lyricists like Vanilla Ice, Snow, and “esteemed actor Marky Mark.” When another reporter tries to switch gears, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz pleads, “Sorry, but can’t we please go back to the part about us feeling like special white people?”
They’re grilled about their religious beliefs, and respond with a sycophantic chorus of “Oy Gevalt!” Then comes the unholy turkey. “Do you still feel the need,” a journalist begins, “to fight for your right…to parrrrrtay?” Immediately, from Adam “MCA” Yauch: “Do you still need to ask that question?” One point for the boys.
They fast-forward through getting the U.S. out of Iraq and something about sustainable energy, into their love for Lily Allen and their New York malaise—“It’s more and more like Boston,” Horowitz gripes.
Just before the curtain call, Diamond addresses the elephant in the room, the urban legend that he and Screech Powers from “Saved by the Bell” are brothers. Not so, apparently. For the record, he hasn’t been romantically involved with Neil Diamond—the “Jewish Elvis,” affectionately—either, despite my attempts at a “scoop.” He does however keep dying in the media, “which has slowed down recently. It’s so weird too, ‘cause I’m only getting older.” Indeed, and maybe even a little better with age.
