My date with Lana del Rey
Muffins and love
‘There’s the love guy and the fuck guy,’ I said, ‘All the love guys want to be fuck guys and all the fuck guys… well, they don't want to be love guys. And even those who get to be both usually don’t get to do it with the same person.’
‘So which are you?’
‘I write a melancholy weekly newsletter about failure, relationships and marginal cultural practitioners,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’
‘There’s no need to get defensive,’ Lana said.
I was on a date with Lana Del Rey. The singer. Coffee date, to be clear.
My laudatory articles about her work, as well as my slightly bizarre tiger-related fantasies about her, had somehow reached her via her people. She’d in turn reached out to me to ask where she could get a good blueberry muffin in London. I proposed Fulham.
To my surprise, via what appeared to be nothing more fancy than a personal WhatsApp, she accepted for Friday morning.
‘So you’re James.’
‘And you must be Lana.’
‘That’s right.’
We were meeting at Fulham Broadway station. She was wearing ripped jeans and a white T-shirt, and to be honest didn’t look that much different to any other early middle-aged American tourist in London.
‘Thanks for meeting me.’
‘No problem, I had a spare hour before I go into the studio.’
I’d been there for an hour already.
We walked over to the café.
‘So how did you find out about me?’
‘Oh, one of my people reads your newsletter. What do you call them? SUQers?’
‘That’s what I informally call them, yes. I don’t know if they call themselves that.’
‘And she said that you’d been writing all these pieces about me and they were weird and funny.’
‘Well, three.’
‘Is today going to be the fourth?’
‘It depends how it goes.’
‘And how did you find about me?’ Lana smiled. ‘Was it the music?’
'It was mainly the music, yeah. I need to make clear that I’m not obsessed. Well, maybe a little. I’ve always had crushes.’
‘Oh me too! Who’s your current ones?’
‘Well, Scarlett Johannsen, Aubrey Plaza. Alison Brie. Anybody who speaks Dutch with me.’
I didn’t mention Lana herself; it seemed superfluous. We were getting muffins, weren’t we?
When we got to the café Lana surprised me by paying for her own order separately. She had one of those debit cards which you top up with a limited amount of money so as not to overspend, which always carry a slight air of disorganisation to me.
Anyway, she bought a muffin and one of those coffees which borders on being a hot chocolate. One of the vanilla bullshit things, to quote the other living American as good as Lana.
We sat down in a corner with the people filing by in the crisp spring day outside.
I sipped my ‘basic bitch’ black coffee and, in my best Larry David voice, said ‘Water and coffee! Mixed together! What a drink!’
She nodded and said, ‘You’re doing Larry David. This is a good muffin. It’s really very fluffy.’
‘Is it in line with your expectations?’
‘It’s in line with my hopes. Which are even above my expectations.’
‘Anyway, how's life?’ I asked.
‘I moved to Louisiana. Oh, and I got married.’
‘I mean why else would you move to Louisiana?’
‘It’s very nice, I’ll have you know, if warm. I’m there with my husband Jeremy.’
‘Not to sound obsessed, but I already knew that.’
‘That’s so strange that I get married and everybody knows about it,’ she said. ‘Even like weird British guys.’
‘I'm more Welsh actually. Do you know Wales? It’s like America, but better. Anyway I'm happy for you.’
‘Thanks. When you know, you know, you know.’
‘Didn’t your husband used to be a tour guide? You know, that used to be my job,’ I said. ‘Tho I wasn’t a tour guide for alligators. I worked with American high-school students, which is much more stressful.’
‘That’s funny,’ she said. ‘But seriously, my people say that you write really weird things about me, like you dressed up as a tiger and were in my music video.’
‘It’s embarrassing really. I just sometimes genuinely believe that I would have a chance with someone famous. There’s no real evidence. I just feel it.’
‘Like Aubrey Plaza.’
‘Don’t be bloody stupid.’
‘Or me?’