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April 10

30 years ago today, I received my first Holy Communion.

24 years ago today, when I was 14, I saw my first rock concert. (Adam Ant with INXS opening, at St. John’s University, thanks to my brother Joe.)

I remember the one because I remember the other: I was given a charm (for a charm bracelet) commemorating the first event, & happened to still have it when the 2nd happened. For whatever reason, the date just sticks in my head, even now.

I don’t know what happened on any of the other April 10ths that I’ve lived through, though.

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Thanks to Betty

I felt the need to publicly thank Betty for not only tolerating me but not mocking me while I watched PBS’ Great Performances of Sting’s Journeys & Labyrinths a few nights back. This one is by far the most pretentious of Sting’s projects, and despite the music being beautiful, the video was silly (& in parts kept reminding me of Monty Python). Sting and his lute-player, at one point, seem to be laughing to themselves over the silliness of watching two historians debate the finer points of religious politics of the 16th Century.

However, Sting is wearing a pair of boots in one scene that I swear must have been made from the skins of Calabrian shepherd boys and their pet goats. Of course Sting being Sting, he may be protesting his own boots in the near future.

The songs, though, are beautiful, and so is Sting’s voice even when it’s not best-suited to these songs. So yes, I still want to be Sting when I grow up. & Not just for the boots, but that he’s willing to be pretentious and experimental, & knows that doing this CD will get a ton of people – me included – to listen to music they might not otherwise listen to. Throw in the house, the organic farming, & the labyrinth garden, of course. But what I admire the most, to be honest, is his seeming surety, confidence, nearly arrogance: he knows he’s talented, he knows the world is his oyster, but also seems to take his power & privilege seriously, like some kind of Philosopher-Musician, or Musician-King, which only earns him more scorn from people who mock him.

& I keep meaning to write more about the whole idea of who aspires to be what as children; at the AMC wrap party, I had an interesting conversation with David Harrison about the idea, since he always wanted to be an actor (not an actress) receiving an Oscar as a child, despite being female-bodied. & It got me thinking about my own aspirations as a kid, the people who reflected what I wanted to be the most, how many of my role models were male & not female, & on top of all that, a friend noted, while reading SNTMIM, that she went into Religious Studies in order to be something like Indiana Jones, which reminded me this kind of cross-gender aspiring isn’t restricted to me, or to trans people, & may instead have something more to do with Jung’s animus idea, or the lack of women role models for certain ways of being.

Someone remind me to flesh that idea out, please.

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Stop the Cat Box

There’s a Singular commercial that shows two guys listening to The Clash’s Rock the Casbah who can’t understand the lyrics,and who come up with the sheep don’t like it / stop the cat box / stop the cat box (the correct lyrics are the shareef don’t like it / rocking the casbah) and every time I see it I wonder if a guy I knew in junior high & high school ever thinks of me when he sees it. I made him a tape of the Combat Rock album when we were in maybe 8th grade biology together. I have no idea where he is now, or what he’s doing, but I think of him every single time I see that commercial. He was always a nice guy, even when I went full-on punkrock and he was something like captain of the football team. So, wherever he is – hello, Mike.

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Rockergrrls

As I promised Gracie a while back, the whole issue of women & music has been chafing my ass a lot lately.

I’ve been a musichead all my life. I love music, I love bands, I love seeing live shows. I’ve been to more concerts than I can count; the list I kept when I was a teenager blows even my mind, these days, as I rarely get out to see a show anymore (since Betty isn’t big on concerts, sadly).

Moreso, I love aggro rock, & always have. I’m a punk at heart, and while I have my love of New Wave and Caberet, there’s nothing like a good garage band as far as I’m concerned. Loud, out of tune, I don’t care. Just bring it on, and with major cock attitude, too.

So I watched when Betty found a “100 Best Hard Rock Bands” show in VH-1 the other day, because I was curious about how they’d mix metal and grunge and punk and glam. I’ve never been a metalhead but I’ve had friends who are, but grunge and punk and glam – well, HELL YES.

What puzzled me not at all was that Carmen Electra was the host, even though that doesn’t make any sense at all, since she’s famous, of course, for being one of Prince’s finds, and has otherwise become a professional Pretty Face. What was weirder is that all the voiceovers – you know, the smart bits about the bands – were done by a guy. I’m sure she has talent, I just don’t know what in. Anyway, she was wearing a leather minidress and reading blandly from the teleprompter – there’s nothing quite as ridiculous as someone delivering the phrase “Rock On!” with no passion whatsoever – and I got more and more aggravated by her presence.

Because they were interviewing people like Lita Ford and Penelope Spheeris (director of the Decline of Western Civilization movies, amongst other things; in other words, a woman with real rock n roll bona fides). I couldn’t understand why Carmen as host, when there’s all these cool rock women around, and then it hit me: oh, Carmen is there for the audience. You know, the guys who like rock. You know, cause it’s only guys who like rock. You know, cause women like me don’t exist. Neither does the woman I met in St. Louis who told me every cigarette she couldn’t have caused her to turn up her Black Sabbath that much louder on her headphones.

Women in music are scantily-clad Rolling Stone covers (please notice the paucity of women on the covers, & the paucity of their clothes when they are), pretty girls in leather minidresses that can’t deliver a “Rock on!” with any conviction whatsoever. They’re the ones who sleep with the bands, with the roadies. They don’t actually know anything about music; they’re only in it for the boys.

Anyway, Carmen Electra tires me. It’s not her fault. It’s a million years of rock & roll history. No matter how many Jordans, or Poly Styrenes, or Chrissie Hyndes or Wendy O. Williamses or Joan Jetts, aggro rock will always be the domain of the boys. And you know, FUCK THAT.

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End of the Century

Or more like the end of an era. Today CBGB closes its doors. Thanks, Hilly, for all those years of punk rock, for influencing 30+ years of music, for great unannounced gigs, hardcore Sundays and stacked chairs.
Sometimes it’s almost seems like all signs are telling me it’s time to leave NYC; it’s not my city anymore, at least not the one I fell in love with, anyway.

< — & Yes, that’s me & Betty (she’s in the tux & I’m in the gown – nutty, right?) on our wedding day. & Yes, those are DMs I’m wearing: Johnny Joey DeeDee, good times, indeed.

I think Richard Hell got at some of it in this Op-Ed for The New York Times, in which he said,

“We all know that nothing lasts. But at least we can make a cool and funny exhibit of it. I’m serious. God likes change and a joke. God loves CBGB’s.”

But you know, we tend to come to regret when we don’t step in and save a well-loved institution or two, and I thought we’d learned that by now in NYC. But alas, apparently not, but I think we will come to regret this loss, to be honest.

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Oh. My. God.

aaA pure moment of unadulterated teenaged glee, here, but: Adam Ant has written his autobiography. A couple of years ago when he was first really struggling with manic-depression he got a “1%” tattoo on his body somewhere – yes, I’d like to know where – because 1% of the world’s population suffers with mental illness of some kind.
And I thought he rocked then.
But this just thrills me; in a sense it’s been a book I’ve been waiting for my whole life, or at least since I was 13 or so. I still have dreams about finding Ants stuff I don’t own, and there’s precious little out there that I don’t. And now, this, as a grown-up; it’s even better than the time he was on Northern Exposure, which was my favorite show at the time, & a little surreal, for my favorite person/hero to be on what was my favorite show. Like the kind of dream you have when you’re 16 & your life sucks.
(& by god, but look at his face! i think he’s the most perfectly formed person who ever lived, i swear it.)

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World Party

Betty & I kicked off a week’s vacation – starting tonight or tomorrow, depending on your perspective – by seeing a band I first fell in love with sometime in 1986 or so called World Party. & They were great live; if you ever liked a song of theirs & they’re playing anywhere near you, do go.
We’re especially fond of them because one of their songs was the first song Betty ever sang to me, but no, I’m not telling which one, and yes, they did play it tonight.
Thanks, Karl, for many years of sanity delivered through music & lyrics.

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Brel & Weill

Our friend Johanna Weller-Fahy is once again doing a show based on the songs of Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill at the Duplex. The 2nd of four dates this August is tonight, so go! You can buy tickets through smarttix.
It will also be playing on August 17th & 24th, & all the shows are at 7pm. I saw it last time around but will be going again with Betty and probably several others in tow.