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.

April 21, 1978 - Journal - East Village

Last night Richard Hell played at CBGBs and his performance was less than extraordinary. I had to sneak by the doorperson Roxy to get in for free. Lisa the cashier waved me inside. The club was packed with assholes drawn there by good press or the Voidoids. Xcessive from the Ghosts kept shouting, "Richard is a forkhead."

hell's numerous female fans yelled back at sixteen year-old guitarist.

His lead singer Markey joined in and we all had a good laugh.

This morning I am running late to make my job at Rector Street.

I'm always late.

I couldn't care less.

This waiting tables for nuclear engineering executives is meangingless, especially since it pays so little.

$80 a week.

I need money fast.

More money than I can get selling blood.

Ann wasn't home when I called this morning.

Her theater gig is eating up her time.

11am to midnight.

She isn't getting paid.

I've seen a number of films about the theater.

The boyfriends and husbands wait at home.

The actresses stay out all night pretending that art is life.

I say nothing about this, because Ann is in her glory.

LATER

At work I overheard another conversation in the executive dining toom about shoot-to-kill policies at the nuclear power plants in foreign countries and wondered whether the ones in the USA had the same orders in defending the plants against protestors. They never speak about atomic bombs, even though they think I'm Spanish like the rest of the waiting staff.

Our country should change its Cold War attack strategy. The USSR is huge, spanning two continents. It's factory cities are scattered over its vastness. Any attack on the Soviet industrial capacity would have to be intense.

So where to strike?

The farmlands of the Ukraine, the steppes.

Carpet nuke their underbelly.

The inhabitants of the Soviet factory cities will starve, but the price for the USA would certainly be the loss of Detroit and New York. This afternoon I ran into Klaus. The gaunt German opera singer said, "I have no emotion."

His mother's ill-timed vist from Essen has shocked him into a state of apathy.

"I don't care in the USSR and the USA bomb each other. Or even if I am here. I grew up in a bombed out city. Ruins everywhere."

"Like the East Village?"

"Worst. You want to come over to my apartment and have some strudel?"

Klaus has been cooking cakes since quitting Serendipity 3. According to joey Arias, the manager of FiorucciI appreciate his generosity and said, "I love your strudel."

"I know you do." Klaus is very German, but he fights his Teutonic traits in New York. I bet they would be very strong in Essen or Berlin. Klaus doesn't drink anymore. He has been sickly as of late and eats a special diet to regain his health.

"I hate feeling tired all the time. And more I hate watching American TV. Such schiesse."

212-982-4052

Former guitarist for the Ghosts and present strummer for the Bowerytones Jahn Xavier posted a New York telephone number on Facebook. 212-982-4052. I can't believe I remember that phone number, but there it is. Anybody out there know where that bell rang? Within two minutes a woman called Dusty recognized the number to CBGB's telephone booth. The legendary punk bar on the Bowery closed October 31, 2006, which was a good run for a club in New York, especially if the owner wasn't paying the rent. I tried the number. As expected it was out of service, but only now. Someone always answered the phone in the heyday of punk. Hopefully it wasn't Hilly's wife.