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. ]