Billy Parker: Hi Armin, how are you?

Armin Heune: I am alive. You’re calling from London, right?

BP: Yes. It’s half-past ten at night.

AH: Oh, it’s past your bedtime!?

BP: Almost.

AH: May I ask how old you are? You are in the prime of your life?

BP: One would think. I’m 27.

AH: My God. When I was 27, I wasn’t even Peter Berlin yet when I came to America in 1971, I made my film [Nights in Black Leather] in ‘72, I put that name [Peter Berlin] there and I was 30 years old then. My god. That time. If I could go back, because now times are so… terrible.

BP: It’s nice to hear someone else thinks so too.

AH: Who would have thought that the world in my lifetime would change from—we started very early to become stupid. It’s criminal what we do to the planet. I have a lot of time to think about this whole endeavour of life. BP: Have you worked out what life is about yet?

AH: No. And nobody will. I’m in awe of the creation of life, and the creation of the universe. Just mind-blowing. When I was Peter Berlin I had a good time every day. I was always very sexually excited, that was my life. It was a breeze. Now that’s gone I’m just this person who is getting older. I talked to my mother every day. People like to talk to me because they trust me. I remember saying “Mommy, I had a good life, and I’m ready to go now.” I’m very disappointed with [humans]. I’m trying to be thankful, and grateful to be alive, and I’m not in too much pain. I’m always very quick starting to babble. Do you have a question?

BP: Please babble, it’s my favourite thing. Is there a specific point in time where you remember becoming Peter Berlin?
AH: It was a slow development from the 60s, when I started to be sexual. I was always what one calls… horny. I miss that feeling of just being excited. Slowly I felt that I wanted to dress a certain way. I used that energy. I photographed myself. I created the name Peter Berlin. When did this name first come up in your life? My name.

BP: When I was at art school. Someone was showing me some of Tom of Finland’s drawings and one of them was of you.

AH: I always saw myself as a figure out of these drawings from Tom. I think he came the closest to my idea of how a man should conduct himself and dress. That idea to my eyes was very exciting. I started to photograph myself. Now everyones doing it with a phone. In my time, it was a little cumbersome. I looked like Peter Berlin before I was Peter Berlin.
BP: Was your aesthetic influenced by Tom, or was it developing at the same time?

AH: Whenever I hear people talking about the influence those drawings had… I never felt like being influenced. I realised that the first time I saw a drawing of Tom’s. I would identify with it, but the essence of what I felt was not at all that what Tom was drawing. I only felt a kinship with the idea of tight pants. That was very important to me. It’s easy in the drawing but in real life… to make them really fit me? I had to sit there on a sewing machine. I couldn’t go to a store to buy that. I think today you can go to a store and buy all kinds of incredible clothes.

BP: Did you make the trousers or were you adjusting other pairs?

AH: I started off just adjusting others but later I bought fabric and made them completely from scratch—that was important to me. I always ask people, when you think about Peter Berlin do you visualise me not-naked? Or do you visualise me naked? [He asks with an excited, boyish curiosity.]

BP: I visualise you in white, tiny trousers.

AH: Exactly. From head to toe. That is a fashion statement. Everything is connected. I was surprised back then when it came to gay fashion, it very quickly went in the female direction. Many gay men, and big designers, for instance, made dresses for women. I like the idea of androgyny. But it always has to look ‘masculine’ for me. I am amazed how female drag is so popular. Do you have an idea who RuPaul is?

BP: Yes, of course.

AH: RuPaul is a man who is famous for being, or pretending, or looking like a woman. And the world loves it. It’s amazing how an image of a man in women’s clothes has become a normal part of the world. What you don’t see is the image of Peter Berlin. I would have liked to influence people your age.The compliment now, as an old man, would be to walk the streets and see people dressed like Peter Berlin. I would have loved to have given young guys the courage to do what I did. I did it to please myself. To give that pleasure [to others]. I often meet people—now not too much as I am living a very much secluded life, I basically don’t like people—and they are either boring or annoying. All my friends died. I know that image of Peter Berlin isn’t walking the streets. People used to tell me “Oh my god, I saw you in London or in Paris or in Rome, and it was like a vision.” I stopped traffic, walking around looking like that. I didn’t do it for the general public, I just wanted to be seen by someone who I then could have a ‘good time’ with.

BP: It was never for anyone else. It was always for you.

AH: I’m very erotic in life. Very visual. My eyes are the main place I get information. Men are very good at looking. That’s why pornography, or what they call pornography, is so widespread on the internet.

BP: Did you think you were making pornography?

AH: You can’t define what ‘pornography’ is. When a man has an erection and you take a picture of it, that’s pornography. But when you have a sculpture like “David” by Michelangelo, and you see his little dick, people say it’s ‘art.’ The whole discussion of what is pornography and what is fine art is an invention of this stupid human race. I like to use that word ‘stupid’ because it’s the nicest thing I can say about my contemporaries. There are exceptions. I have done all kinds of stupid things. I did a good job in not killing. The talent I had in my life was making some nice erotic self-portraits. I felt good, and the result was rather stunning. Even I sometimes look at the photographs and that identification as Peter Berlin. Put a mask on all my faces in the photographs and just see that image. I never thought that I was so incredibly beautiful, or handsome. I looked quite nice but I have seen pictures of guys and said, “Oh my God, if I had looked like that… I asked my mother, “Mommy, did you drop me at some point as a baby? Because I think there’s something in my brain that’s not normal.” I am a blue baby. I came three months too early. I think there’s something underdeveloped in my head but I can camouflage it quite well. People wouldn’t think, “Oh my god, he’s stupid.”

BP: You don’t come across as stupid at all.

AH: I know that. The first thing I realised when I was Peter Berlin was if you are good looking and you are blonde, then something must be wrong. When people wanted to meet me they were surprised: “Oh my god, you can even talk three sentences in succession.” When people met me as Peter Berlin and I felt that I wasn’t treated the way I wanted to be treated, then I pushed the brakes. Then one is seen as arrogant and full of himself.

BP: I guess that’s because you broke the perception that people had of you, suddenly you were a person again instead of an idea or fantasy.
AH: I learnt so much seeing how I was treated. How I was assumed as who I am. Being, or having been, Peter Berlin has taught me a lot. It made me think about why we are here. I think the only reason we live is to have a good time. It’s not to have a career. It’s not to work. The idea of work is so foreign to me, I mean what I call work: if you go into a mine somewhere, and you’re shovelling coal. When I think about this generation now, they’re all sitting staring at a screen, either an iPhone or a computer. The picture of a human being completely motionless. The direction we are going is so wrong. It’s so against nature. So against the reason that we have this beautiful thing of life. I don’t believe in God or Jesus. I have to be careful with those statements because I don’t want to offend anybody, but the respect for nature is completely gone. And of course we will pay. We already pay a price. When I was your age the future always looked great. In the 70s in San Francisco, New York, Paris or Rome, one looked with great thought at the future. I had sex with guys and they were usually younger than me. I always apologized to them for being part of the generation who gave them this world. You’re/they’re inheriting a world that is quite different from the world I was in.
BP: I dream of that world. It’s definitely true that people my age don’t see the future as something positive. It definitely feels like we’re moving towards something bad.

AH: When a person is depressed and not happy, I think it’s an accurate reaction to living in this world. If you are happy in this world, then there must be something wrong with you. Either you are insensitive or stupid and that’s tragic. My tears are always very close. In my eyes I see a picture of a very old turtle. There was a documentary where what is the name? It’s a very famous naturalist.



BP: David Attenborough?

AH: David Attenborough. He’s there on the ground and there is that old turtle. Attenborough said this is the last of that species. About two weeks later that turtle died. Now that can make me cry. A beautiful bird wouldn’t think “I think I should make a bigger nest,” right? No, they don’t do that, but we do. “Oh, I want to have a bigger house, I want to have a bigger car.” That’s why I keep by myself. I unfortunately can’t escape living in this world and being part of what makes the world blow up. Anyway, did you have questions you are really dying to pose to me? I like conversation, back and forth, maybe you have something written down?

BP: I like conversation. I’ve got some questions written down, but I much prefer just chatting to someone and getting to know someone.

AH: I can tell. My favourite question was always—when I had sex with guys, usually there is no talking. I always avoid talking until after sex. Then it’s nice to talk. I asked the guys: ‘Okay, we had a good time”—because I made sure that someone who I played with had a good time. That was very important to me. I don’t know if you have experienced someone who is very selfish, who only thinks about his climax and his joy. These people are common—“How do you see your future? Do you have dreams? Do you have an idea where you want to be in life?” I quickly realized that most people had no clue or they just wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor. These lawyers and doctors, these people, they love that idea.

BP: People still do love that idea.

AH: I worked three years in my life, I ran a little movie house in Wiesbaden, Germany. I did that because I was expected to. If you are young and born with very dominant parents who don’t let you be yourself, who want to make you in their image, that’s where the trouble starts. There’s this idea that you can go and fulfill your dreams. My dream, and I only can dream for one day at a time, was getting laid. That phrase doesn’t get the essence of what I mean. Getting laid is being in a state of great anticipation and excitement. Running around with a hard-on all day long. That’s why I like the idea that I’m a man. This idea of an erection, not getting it by putting a Viagra pill in your mouth, but by this natural feeling of horniness, that was my dream. I never wanted a house, or a car, or money, or a career. I sailed through life by doing nothing more than making little things like the photographs I took of myself. I had a very successful show in Los Angeles just a month ago. I sold everything on the wall. I was amazed. I was never a big seller because I am always falling through the cracks. We are going back to the word pornography. To show a picture of me with a hard-on would be in their eyes something that is wrong, indecent and should be criminalised. America would love to make pornography illegal. The idea of making an erotic picture that now hangs on a wall that someone paid money for is crazy. I went through life quite nicely. I never wanted a lot of money, but I always had enough to live well.

BP: I mean, it’s kind of perfect. You managed to live the perfect life.

AH: Looking back I don’t even know how I did it. I never had a plan. I went from day to day and it all fell into place. Let’s face it, what did I do? I made some photographs of myself, and of course I made two stupid films where my judgment is nothing to write home about. Did you see my films? Probably not.

BP: Of course I’ve seen your films.

AH: Most people haven’t seen the films. People are more familiar with the photographs. Big fucking deal that my name is as big as it is and has jumped generations. I didn’t make the photographs to hang on a wall in a gallery. I did it for my own pleasure. In Berlin, a friend had a gallery and he said “well, if you want to do it…” and that’s how my whole life was. I never knocked on anyone’s door. Photographers used to run around galleries with a portfolio. I never did that. I was too shy. Thinking back, that is where the success in life comes: if you please yourself and if you get to know yourself.You are probably gay, right?

BP: Yes.

AH: Thank God, sometimes there are still straight people around. Unfortunately I don’t buy the labels.

BP: No, me neither.

AH: For me it’s simple. When a man touches his dick, that is a homosexual act.

BP: True.

AH: A man, or a woman, but I’d rather stay with men as that’s where I’m the expert—I grew up with a sister, my grandmother and my mother. I never had problems with women, I just didn’t want to have sex with them. A woman is just… I’m really gay. That gave me confidence. I never felt insecure in my sexuality. When I came to America I heard these horror stories; some gay guy in Texas being bullied—this whole thing of young straight guys who are homophobic and beating up gay guys. I never experienced that in my life. I just had a good time being me and thinking, what do I wear tonight and where do I go? Do you go to the club?

BP: Yes, I go out.

AH: And do you have a partner?

BP: No, I don’t.

AH: Stay without a partner, okay?

BP: Okay.

AH: I learned that quick. You think “his is love, this is my boyfriend,” but I never called any one of my people ‘boyfriend.’ I had friends. Do you have friends? You have a nice circle of people you hang out with?

BP: I’m really lucky to have amazing friends.

AH: You’re right. That’s lucky. All my friends died in the 80s. I’m the only one who survived. I realised what a great gift it is, to enjoy being with people who you are really comfortable with. I think about how many men and boys I have met in my life, in the thousands. Every day I met sometimes two or three a night. It could be a very erotic situation, even without touching. Whatever rocks your boat, right? But now what they all do is, go on the internet and look at stuff.

BP: Yes.

AH: You look at something to have a good time. That’s where I come in, my image. If you click on Peter Berlin my image is there in the hundreds- once in a while I do that. You don’t have to buy a photograph of Peter Berlin in a gallery. There are some I painted on that go for over $8,000. My God, it’s just a stupid picture. The image on the internet doesn’t cost you a cent. How fabulous!

BP: You keep saying you haven’t done anything, that you made some stupid pictures for your own pleasure. But your image is now there, forever. That’s the art of your life, you’ve immortalised yourself.

AH: Is it important that you immortalise yourself? I already declared the human race as stupid. Everything we’ve made up to be important, to be remembered. To say that sentence, “I want to be remembered,” is already telling me that you’re stupid because the time it takes to say that takes away from having a good time. I didn’t even know there was a name for my way of sex. It’s chemsex. Do you know the word chemsex? Like chemical-sex?

BP: I know the word.

AH: I did drugs throughout my life. When I went out I always was stimulated by some amphetamines or crack or whatever there was.

BP: What did you like the most?



AH: At the end of my life I’m completely asexual. I don’t have sex, I don’t look for it, I don’t have a sexual drive. This is so completely the opposite of that what I went through.It’s a done deal. The speed was always my favourite. I need a little lift, I can have sex without it, but why should I have sex without it? This is why it’s on this planet, for us to use. I don’t wanna promote it because one can go to a point where you do too much of it, but the idea of enhancing something with some stimulant? Beautiful. Alcohol is one of the worst highs. The most obnoxious behaviour I have seen is people high on alcohol.

BP: I agree. Alcohol is the worst.

AH: People get stupid, loud and dumb. What were you asking me?

BP: I can’t remember.

AH: The only thing now that would get me out of bed would be the ability to make a film. The way I would do it would be too unconventional. I want to have a pile of money where I can hire the best qualified artists, cinematographers, musicians and actors. I would love to have, a long line of 100 or 200 young boys lining up to audition to portray Peter Berlin in the film.

BP: That is an incredible image. I would love to audition the boys!

AH: It would be financially successful. But the idea that I would write a script and run around showing it to people, that’s not what Peter Berlin is doing now. I’m talking about me. I’m not Peter Berlin anymore. But the idea of putting that on screen, that is my little personal dream.

BP: I would love to see that; I hope it can happen.

AH: The experience as Peter Berlin was very interesting. Besides the erotic thing, I was not constantly on drugs and running around, there was the in between where I was just myself, not Peter Berlin. When I was alone in my house, I was the normal person, but whenever I stepped out of the house, I was Peter Berlin, always immediately recognisable. When I had my morning shower and breakfast, I looked like anybody else eating bread.

BP: Did it feel like living as two separate people or did it feel like the same person playing a character?

AH: Let’s put it this way, as Peter Berlin, I would feel confident and sure of myself. But I never really was. I played that very well.

BP: So in a way you created what you wished you could be, and then played it.

AH: Yes, exactly.Like when you are a little and you put on clothes from your mother, or you pretend to be a cowboy. That’s the problem with older people. Once you leave that child behind, things go downhill. You lose the idea of seeing life as a theatre. Unfortunately that childhood is getting shorter and shorter and old age is becoming longer and longer. I tried to figure out how the world would look if more people thought like me. People would say I don’t go to work, I do things I want to do. If you can do that and make a living…

BP: That’s my dream life. I’d love to not have to work and just be able to do what I want.

AH: But that is the trouble being born into this world. I started to apologise for being part of the generation that created that world.

I could say the same to you. And that’s why homosexuality is there. A gift from nature to say, okay, I like sex, but I don’t want to have the problem with pregnancy. Now, isn’t that a good point of being homosexual? But I never made that point, they say it’s unnatural to have sex with the same sex.

BP: I know, but that ideology has existed forever and it always will.

AH: I see the problems. It’s not a black and white story. My God, if I would have been straight, running around and meeting thousands of girls? That would be impossible. What else can we talk about? The beauty of my life now, the thing that is most valuable is I have time.

BP: That’s what I’m most jealous of. That’s all I want. Time.

AH: When I was cruising in parks in San Francisco, I would be there at 9 o’clock in the morning till 9 o’clock in the evening. It would get really busy after 5pm. People came from work, parked their car, came up, went down, and were done in ten minutes. I was there from morning till night. This is where the wealth was in my life, to have the time to have a good time. Maybe meeting three or four or five people. What a trip that was! Thank God I have a sense of humour. I look in the mirror and say, who is that person? I look at a stranger. It’s a very interesting feeling. I avoid looking in the mirror. Do you like yourself when you look in the mirror?

BP: Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I do.

AH: When I was Peter Berlin, I liked what I saw. That’s already a gift from nature.I lost it. Isn’t that interesting? There’s a price you pay for being beautiful. It can be a very short thing. When I was 50, I thought I could still get away with it. I had a great run. BP: When do you feel Peter Berlin finished?

AH: At some point I met a guy who I had the best time with. He was the only one I had sex with for 3, 4, 5 years exclusively. That guy is still living with me. That was the end of it. I still made some pictures, but I started to have health problems. I didn’t feel well. I had all kinds of tests but it never was diagnosed. I had to stop drugs completely. The only thing I never stopped completely was being creative, running around with my camera.I now look back at life, not too much at the Peter Berlin time, I go back to my childhood in Berlin. That’s where I have very fond memories of my grandmother, my mother, and this whole life. It was such an innocent world there.

BP: It’s nice that you sound content.

AH: What is a successful life? Contentment and gratefulness? A career and titles and money and house and car? That’s of course what is for people, the most important thing. None of that is true. I had a very good walk.

BP: I know, I’ve seen it.

AH: You can fake a lot of yourself in a photograph, but when you move… just the way someone moves can be so incredible, beautiful. My walk was good. One time I was walking and a bicycle passed me on the sidewalk, he looked back and said, “You have a pimp walk!” That was such a good compliment. I never will forget that compliment. My phone is ringing. Maybe it’s Hollywood! It’s Eric—excuse me.

I’m grateful that I’m entertained by the political drama. I’ve learnt a lot about American politics. When I was Peter Berlin, the Vietnam War was going on. I had no idea. I didn’t look at any news. Peter Berlin was running around, right?

BP: Is there something that still excites you?

AH: Most people on this planet will never feel the excitement I felt as Peter Berlin. I was at the beach here in San Francisco, early in the morning, oiled up, looking good, and having a little speed. Waiting. Getting excited. I remember saying out loud to myself, “I’m in heaven.” I can’t feel more excited and more great than how I feel now. The sun on my skin. I had a hard-on constantly. If someone asked me, “How is heaven?” I would say “It’s empty!” I was the only one there because it was early in the morning. People think when you go to heaven you will see all your friends and family. No! Empty! Empty. I saw a park ranger coming down the hill and immediately the heaven changed to hell. Authority is coming, and the way I am here, in my tight, see-through thing, with what I had… And sure enough, he started bothering me and going through my stuff to look for drugs. In other words, the idea of heaven and hell is not a place, it’s a situation. You can be in it, and then there’s a door out of it. I will never forget that situation, where I said, “My God, this is heaven.” Nature couldn’t make something more beautiful than what I felt. The nature. The ocean. The trees.