New Years Eve 1978 - Journal

Anthony and I worked Hurrah. The punk disco was packed with young people. I was one of the older at 26. Same as Anthony. The owners called it a night a 3am. Robert and Barbara wanted to go to Studio 54. Alice, Anthony, Alexa, and I decided on CGGBs on the Boweryand exited the club and went to the corner.  

Somehow after exiting from Hurrah's a checker taxi stop on West 72nd Street to let out two punkers going to Hurrah. I said nothing about the club being shut. Finding a taxi on New Year's Eve was a miracle. Anthony told the drive, "Downtown." Traffic congested before Madison Square Garden. A skinny blonde man with orange-blonde hair stood bare-chested the traffic. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys and we shouted the lead guitarist's name in passing.

The four of us got out of the cab on the Bowery. The driver didn't want to go any farther into the Lower East Side. Alice and I stood on the sidewalk. Suburban disco drones on their way to the disco Infinity on Broadway muttered about our punk attire. I stepped forwards and asked, "What are you looking at creeps."

"Why do you have to always be so violent?" Alice came from a city where the tarred roads led to dirt tracks into the Hollows. She know all about violence.

"I wish I knew."

Ship's fog horns from the southern harbor searched the night. I was familiar with the docks. Only a few ships moored on the Westside and none on the swift-moving East River.

A gang of teenage Puerto Ricans whooped drunken shouts. They weren't looking for trouble. They were poor, the neighborhood school were bad, and their only futures were as janitors, city workers, and manual labor other than dealing drugs. All of them dreamed not so much as escaping the East Village as making the neighborhood a better place for 'la familia'.

After seeing Richard Hell & The Voidoids, we wandered over to Eve's Lounge. We ordered drinks. They were weak. I was still straight and hoped to not be sober the first morning of 1979.

"I want to go." I said to Alice.

"Then let's go."

Yesterday I had met Alice at La Guardia. She wore a white pleather coat, black striped skirt, a purple sweater and knee-high white boot. She was the prettiest girl in the air terminal and every man and woman watched her walk to me. I was a lucky man and tried to kiss her. She turned her face to offer her cheek. We hadn't slept together in more than a month. Her show New Wave Vaudeville had seized her soul and Susan, the scrawny closet lesbian co-producer, was a shrew poisoning my love.

"You're a loser," she had said to my face.

I had felt like a loser too. Same way, but needed even this small money from the waiter job at an executive dining room, plus anything I could glom from Hurrah.

"I feel like a loser too," Alice replied and confessed to having trouble sleeping at home in Charleston. "How was your holidays?"

"Good." One visit to family in Boston and a few drunken fetes at the East Village bar. She suspected me of fooling around, except once I've had two drinks I'm only interested in the third, fourth and fifth.

All I could see was a dark black future, but I restrained from revealing that vision to Alice. She has the whole world in front of her.

MAN OF THE YEAR

My teachers at Xaverian Brothers High School told their students, "Never vote for yourself."

I'm only one vote, so I can be Man of the Year in my own mind.

Carter's out for his adherence to Rockefeller's Capitalism and not admonishing Taiwan about their treatment of the people of that Island Nation. Anita Bryant's anti-gay stance ended her Sunkist Orange Juice reign as spokeswitch, despite her backing from the Silent Majority and the Shah of Iran is in danger of being ousted by the Persian populace, because of SAVAK, his torture squad, and their destruction of moderate dissidents. Reza Mohammed Pahlavi's murderous attempts to modernize his country had been met with outcries from liberals and western TV journalists, but dragging peasants into the future has failed for hundreds of rulers. The people understand their narrow-minded lives and are threatened by any change, especially when any threat to religion and the mullahs despise him for supposedly distribute their ancient holdings to the farmers, although the lands go to the friends of the Shah in payment for their support.

Long live the Shah.

I bet the house on his not seeing out the 70s.

Times appointed Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese Mainland Premier as Man of the Year.

All hail the Revolution and the end to the Gang of Four.

DISASTER OF THE YEAR

Floods and earthquakes desvatated the earth over the twelve months of 1978.

The Jonestown Massacre In Guyana set the massive suicide pact in the jungle apart from every other catastrophe and hopefully the bloated bodies will not be seen in the future.

CHOKE OF THE YEAR

The AL MVP Jim Rice and the Red Sox' team Captain Yaz popped out for outs in the ninth inning with two men on base to lose to the dreaded Yankees in Fenway in the 163rd game of 1978 and the Yanks won the World Series.

JANUARY 1, 2021 - BROOKLYN

I went nowhere last night. I drank nothing. I did no lines of cocaine. I called my families in Thailand. They had enjoyed their evening eating their favorite foods. I can't even remember what I ate.

2021 was not a nothing year.

But I'm lucky to be alive and that's not a small thing.

Lame Ass Poser

Editors and agents have asked for a definition of my writing. Corporate executives like neat niches. I tell them the easy answer, "Semi-fiction."

"What's that?" None of them are familiar with that genre, since it doesn't really exist in their marketplace.

"Whatever is interesting is true." My employer Richie Boy had once described my story-telling technique as that. I have never disputed that my tales are a melange of truth, demi-truth, and outright fabrication. The same goes for my grammar.

Most recently I had written a story about a concert by the English punk band, the Damned. I recounted the evening to the best of my memory's ability. One reader took exception. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys lambasted my remembrance of that night.

"Nice story , too bad it never happened. Do yer research man.The only gigs we ever did with the Damned in the US were at CBGB.The only tour we ever did with them was in England. Documented fact. Christ, you lameass posers."

Lameass poser.

Coming from Cheetah Chrome, I consider that a comment.

Thank you for SONIC REDUCER.

The Damned Live 1978

Hurrah was a walk-up nightclub on 32 West 62nd Street. The second-floor had been a disco in its previous reincarnation. Studio 54 put it out of business. The new owners brought downtown uptown by booking having Jim Fouratt book punk bands.

Between sets video monitors played music and strobed a kaleidoscope of images. My friends and I worked the punk disco throughout its heyday as barmen, DJs, bookers, management, security, cashiers, and me employed as the doorman.

Our crowd were cute high school girls, long-legged models, generous drug dealers, wild movie stars, aspiring musicians, though teenagers from the outer boroughs, off-duty cops, druggy diplomats, doctors, and ne'er-do-well artists as well as a diverse collection of undesirables.

$20 bought entry for anyone other than a rat pack of macho boys. They were trouble.

The live music was the main attraction to Hurrah. The bookers loaded the stage with New York bands such as Klaus Nomi, ESG, Polyrock, and Ballistic Kisses to opened for headliners like the B-52s, Gang of Four, the Dead Boys, and the Ramones.

In June of 1979 The Damned from the UK hit Hurrah for a one-night stand with the Dead Boys. I was familiar with the band from their newly-released LP MACHINEGUN ETIQUETTE. The Jefferson Airplane’s WHITE RABBIT was a cover from the album. I had the single. RABID was on the B-side.

Aside from letting in underage girls from Fieldston Academy and cuffing twenties for extra wages, one of my tasks as doorman was to lead the top billing bands from the dressing room in the rear corridor through the crowd onto the low stage.

A distance of 150 feet through a crowd crammed past capacity, since a cashier and I had racketed the door and resold tickets to SRO shows.

The night of The Damned’s concert I probably had packed another hundred fans into the club. The Dead Boys had torn up the 700+ boys and girls. They wanted more and the more that they were going to get was The Damned. Hundreds chanted for the band. Their boots stomped hard on the wooden floor. The booker signaled me that it was time to get the band onstage. I went to the dressing room. The band was sitting on its asses, surrounded by the usual punk groupies. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys sulked in the corner. The lead guitarist was not used to being ignored by his faithful sluts.

“What’s the problem?” It was obvious that the Damned were going anywhere.

“No Vodka. Our contact stipulated four bottles of Vodka. We ain’t got none.” The lead guitar was wearing a gorilla suit. Pink top. Yellow bottom. It was a warm June night and sweat rivuleted down his face. Hot pants and a tube tops would have been a better choice.

“No vodka. No show.” The black-haired singer announced with folded arms. His skin was covered by a film of white. He so wanted to look like a vampire.

“Gimme a minute.” I reckoned that the owners had refused the vodka fearing the band would hit the stage drunk, but if they wanted vodka, I was going to get them some. Jhoury was the head bartender. Long thin and gay, he had a thing for the lead singer. I told him the problem and his hands elegantly seized four bottles of bar-well quality.

Old Cossack.

“Lead the way.” The bottles, glasses, and mixers appeared on a tray, as if Jhoury had been waiting for this call all evening. He had a thing for straight boys with English accents and reveled in his glory, when the band sprang to their feet at the sight of the vodka.

“Good man.” The albino lead singer grabbed the bottles and distributed to his fellow band members. He waved away the glasses and mixers. “We’ll be drinking it neat.”

The Damned screwed off the tops and lifted the open bottles to pour the vodka down their gullets like baby birds swallowing their mother’s spew. Some of it made it down their throats. The rest spilled onto their clothes and floor. Jhoury was in wide-eyed awe. He like his drink too. The bottles were half-empty within a minute. Cheetah Chrome drank most of one. The drummer Rat Scabies smirked at him and said, “It’s showtime. Get us on the stage and keep any lit cigarettes away from us. We’re combustible.”

“Jhoury, you’re coming with me.” I eyed his tray. Jhoury smiled with thanks. He never got out from behind the bar and now he was leading rough boys through a thick crowd. He didn’t have to be told twice and we wedged out way through the phalanx of fans. The band picked up their instruments and opened the set with NEW ROSE.

It was a great show.

They performed WHITE RABBIT as an encore.

By 3am Hurrah was empty and the band ready to hit the road on their bus.

The Dead Boys with them. They were a double bill for the tour.

Destination Cleveland.

No one could find Cheetah Chrome and the bus pulled out without him. It wasn’t until Buffalo that someone opened the storage area under the bus and found Cheetah passed out on the speakers. He didn’t wake up until Cleveland.

The lead guitarist knew the smell of his hometown.

I never saw the Damned again, but Jhoury and I spoke often about their glugging the vodka. They were our heroes, then again so were so many of the bands that appeared at Hurrah.

It was the best of times.

ps Cheetah Chrome called me a phony for writing him into the story, but I recall him under the bus.

Plus this is semi-fiction and I love the Dead Boys.

Check out NEW ROSE by the Damned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTfyUqVqX-0