white after labor day.

Today.

Fashion week and labor day tell me it's the end of summer. I'm not ready to give it up quite yet. We're told that tweed and fur, round toed shoes and brooches are the look of the season. I'm not ready to wear them yet. Fall Beauty events, cocktail parties, launches, openings, runway shows, business trips, out of town guests, appointments. I'm not ready to do them yet. The weather report shows sunny days for the rest of the week. I want to go to sheeps meadow and lie in the sun with the newspaper, a bottle of water, and my dog - belly up soaking in the sun. I covet the thought of toasting myself too.

I don't want to be white after labor day.

portrait.

Most people show photos of themselves, thier pets, thier children.
Most people say you can tell a person from the shoes they wear.

Maybe we should all post photos of our shoes.

high hair.

My friend Liza and I used to think that the higher the hair, the closer to god you were. It's something along the Ann Richards line of "the bigger the arse the bigger the hair" as then you didn't notice the arse. But our whole concept was based on the idea of a new religious cult whose god could be a can of aerolak hair spray. Of course it was taken off the market years ago because it was bad for the environment -- really bad. But we loved it as it was such an important icon to drag queens and big haired 80s girls everywhere. We even made a stencil that said "the higher the hair the closer to god" and spray painted it on street corners all over lower manhattan -- and xeroxed up a little brochure with 1950s photographs of hairdos, beehives etc. which we snuck into the flyer racks of several churches. Right next to the information leaflets on finding god and the meaning of the gospel.

I hadn't thought of it again until Hurricane Charley hit recently. I don't know why.

snapshots no.107 + 289

Summer of ’81. “Girls on Film” and “Radio Free Europe” are huge hits. Everyone is going to Interferon and Mudd Club but not till late. First something to eat and an egg cream from Gem Spa. We’re broke – we have potluck spaghetti dinner at my apartment on St. Marks Place. Someone brings the pasta, someone the sauce, someone the bread. A couple of people pitched in on a bottle of wine and we drink it in coffee mugs. It’s very hot – sweltering. Sitting on the stoop is the only relief – we know everybody who walks by. I’m really proud of my outfit tonight – I made it with blue iridescent vinyl I found at Industrial Plastics on Canal Street. Sleeveless tee shirt top - short, mini skirt. Patent leather stiletto heels from Fiorucci with black lacing up the back heel. We walk. I know I won’t be home till very late at night – in the morning I’ll be awakened by loud disco music playing in the courtyard between the buildings – and someone yelling “shut up turn that shit off” until at least noon. It works better than an alarm clock.

Autumn ’77. I don’t get along with my roommate very well –every day I take the bus to school and back again. Haven’t found anyone there either. Just some nice kids to talk to in class. It’s lonely. I have to find my way. There’s a little club a couple of blocks away that always has a crowd in front of it – cool kids, the kind that are way too cool for me. Japanese girls with pierces in their nose who wear outfits made out of black plastic garbage bags. New Jersey rocker girls with spiked hair and red leather jackets. Punk boys shiny from the egg whites in their hair wearing huge steel toe boots or mods in white jazz shoes. It’s called CB something. I have $8 in my pocket – I wander over in my blue jeans and frye boots, pink shirt. I look like a sore thumb. It’s $8 to get in – I hand over my entire wealth. I walk past a bar filled with hells angels and punkers to the tables up front. A waitress with red dyed hair and talon nails has the words “tip me” written on her stomach in lipstick. You have to buy drinks to sit and it is getting crowded. There are huge monitors in the corners of the room – at the left there is a girl sitting on top. The right one is empty so I perch and pray nobody will ask if I want to order a drink. The room is full and the bands come on. It was a double bill of the Ramones and the Dead Boys. My life is changed today.


[ I remember everything by what I wore. ]

I must.

[I must have france on my mind.]

he.

morning in paris. It's always chilly. We settle in, unpacking our bags, turning on the electricity and opening the windows to clear out the musty air. Nobody has been there in weeks.

sun is up. the sweater goes away and we wander out to the corner tabac for a cafe creme and brioche. the croissants have long since sold out. Jet lag has instilled a hyper-realism, exhaustion awaits. We shop at the fran prix for our usual groceries - fruit and vegetables, ham, butter, cocoa, wine, apple juice, cornichons, pate, cheese, fresh eggs and cream. We walk to the tuileries - another cafe en route - and sit in the sun smoking cigarettes and watching. We grab the metro back to our stop - Argentine - pick up a baguette and put together a charcuterie platter at home. We pick through our delicacies and quietly talk. More coffee, more cigarettes. Exhaustion hits. We go to sleep.

At midnight we awaken to loud noises in the streets and go out to see. Young boys, grown men and CRS running through the streets, red lights squealing we-o we-o at each corner. At the Etoile cars are honking with whole bodies waving out the windows and sunrooves and tourists run in fear as store windows are broken along the Champs with everything not bolted down. The French have won the soccar match.

Somewhere between all of that he asked me to marry him. I said yes.

pattern baldness.

so, I'm walking down 32nd street between 5th and 6th avenues during rush hour yesterday. Having paid little attention to the threats of NYC emptying out completely of all local residents during the Republican Convention, the street does strike me of having an unusually large amount of open space - something of a pattern baldness. Usually on this particular block [known as little Korea] I have to elbow my way through desperately trying not to drop kick the random old Korean lady with 12 bags of groceries as I go. They're short, I'm not, my visual horizon line is far above their heads, but not beyond hearing the screeching of expletives as I accidentally cream a bag of bok choy with my gallianos. So this being what I assumed was still a somewhat normal day, I was quite surprised to have a clear red carpet of walking space, as well as a seat on the usually crowded B train.

then it hit me. I heard random conversation on the train -- thick southern accents, midwestern twangs, new england lockjaws -- and as I looked up from my game of mineshaft -- khakis. levis. pappagallos. lacoste. docksiders. brooks brothers. lands end. navy blue as far as the eye could see. Clearly by remaining in NYC I have gone on an accidental vacation to connecticut during the golf season.

Should be a great time to get a reservation at Nobu....

hot pink + smoking.

It began as a dare.

Finding them hard to resist when they don't include futile attempts to get me to render myself naked and/or ingest unfamiliar things, it seemed a reasonable dare. With little to hide the idea of keeping an ongoing blog was intriguing - especially as I do seem to have more cat lives than most - and on occassion I get further dared to tell stories of some of the livelier moments. Regardless of time/age/space, they never seem to quiet down when you live in the middle of NYC's more eccentric characters. Rethink. MOST eccentric characters. Myself excluded of course.

Point in case: I came here as an extremely naive 16 year old when Abe Beame was mayor, crime was a fact of life, graffitti was art, and drugs were a food stuff. I moved to a small one bedroom apartment across from the Mothers Sound Stage on 5th street between 2/3 aves where every morning a drag queen in full makeup sat on the stoop in a hot pink quilted housecoat with coffee and a fresh pack of cigarettes. I had no idea at that point how she managed to keep her skin so smoothe with all that smoking going on [this is before I understood the subtleties of full on makeup and how much it could hide] and though i was from a "nice town" outside of the city, I somehow knew that she was indeed a man. It amused me no end.

I miss seeing her on her stoop every day.

.

..........................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................