May 15, 1978 - CBGBS - JOURNAL

I spoke to Alice before she took off from Charleston. I offered to meet her at LaGuardia. Arrival time was late at night. She said she was just going to her apartment. Only seven more days or so to her college performance at The Ensemble Studio Theater. THE GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA. Shakespeare. I have only seen a hippie troupe performing MIDSUMMER NIGHT DREAM in the Boston Common and AS YOU LIKE IT after the blackout a year ago. The city had been so quiet.

I said I would see you tomorrow I went to cbgb's. Strangely playing pinball my shoelaces broke a strange omen.

Alice has become so distant. She loves in the theater. I have a life in the theater too. But only as a spectator. On the outside looking in.

Excessive man from CBGBs. I don't know for what. Maybe cuz he's only 15. He's been banned before. his father came down and told Hilly not to let him in. This won't last same as the others. X is a die-hard punk.

I will miss him, since the 15 year old guitarist is the only other player in CBGBs.

Pinball is my relief from frustration in anger. When I play I think it's nothing more escaping the gravity of the death hole touching the flippers to prevent the ball disappearing.

I rarely tilt.

Mayor LaGuardia in the thirties send the police to smash all the pinball machines. He explained this action, by saying " pinball machines steal money."

He was right, but not for people like me who basically play for free games.

I started playing at the amusement centers of Washington Street up from the Combat Zone, then the Phoenix bar on Commonwealth Avenue, the Bright Spot in Allston, 15 Lansdowne, days of Buchanan's underneath the Lenox Hotel, blue Ranch by the Greyhound bus stop, The Gaslight Pub in Park Slope, The Ocean Club on Chambers Street, and now cbgb's.

I played all over America and only found several players of my caliber; Xcessive, Micel the French bartender from The Gaslight Pub, and Fran Malin, not that she was as good as me, but she humped the pinball machine savagely he's thrust pushing the ball back into space. I asked if she f*** the same way.

She said yes.

It was the truth.