Mixed-Up, Shook-Up Girl
Well, in the vein of the post below, I will take you on a little trip down memory lane, gang. Even though I need to be making some serious progress today on the adaptation, darn it. And on the various forms of the French verbs pouvoir, devoir, vouloir, and savoir.
Anyway. The mid-1980s. Can you imagine what the East Village was like back then? It was only slightly better than what it was like in the late 70s (which was Hell on Earth), but not much. You couldn't ever get a cab down there because it was so dangerous, cabs wouldn't go down there. It was full of "bombed-out" buildings called shooting galleries because heroin addicts hung out in them to shoot up "in private". Sometimes even O.D.'ing there "in private" and laying there dead for several days before anyone would do anything about it.
The tenement I lived in on E.12th street was stuck between 2 shooting galleries and was a real hell hole -- infested with thousands of cockroaches and overrun with mice. Which is why Kitty came into my life -- the little black & white cat I had for over 18 years! What a great mouser she was! She killed many, many mice and sometimes brought them to bed during the night as proof of her prowess. (Thanks, Kitty!) A woman I was in love with back then (see my essay A Picture in A Frame if you're into the details, but the essay is extremely graphic and hardcore, so be forewarned). Anyway, she gave the kitten to me. It had followed her home one day.
During those years, I was very, very, very, very, very poor. I was a singer/songwriter and I had a band. And even though I worked at the Museum of Modern Art, which went through phases of paying exceptionally well, and then dry patches; being a musician in NYC in those days cost a cool fortune. It ate money. Paying for rehersal space, for studio time, for transportation of the instruments and the sound equipment, tipping everybody imaginable, and then making/packaging demos, and publicity, etc. It was just unbelievble. I was always flat broke and usually had next to no food to eat. (But what's the upside to that, folks? That's right! I was really, really thin!! Yay.)
In those days, I was a hardcore James Dean fanatic, and I was also in love with Frank O'Hara. And I mean, in love with him. Yes, he was totally gay, and yes he was very, very dead by then (he died in 1965), but I couldn't help it; I was in love with a dead gay poet and obsessed with a dead, (bi or gay) movie star. (I was also totally obsessed with my biological father and with trying to find him, but that's sort of another story; hence my upcoming memoir, Manhattan, Mon Amour.)
My tenement on E.12th Street was only a few minutes' walk from where Frank O'Hara had lived at the time of his death. He had spent a good portion of his life as an established poet right there in the East Village. He had also worked as a curator for the Museum of Modern Art. (Can you see just a little of how obsessed I was with a dead guy? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.) I used to walk around my nieghborhood, as well as MoMA, and I used to hang around outside the building Frank used to live in near E. 10th Street, trying like crazy to make contact with his spirit. Parts of MoMA had been completely remodelled since he had died, so I would seek out places within the building that I knew for sure had been left the same since 1965, thinking this would help me contact him. Wow. Bet you're not at all curious about why I tend to live alone, are you?
Anyway. Back then, all of my friends were artists of some kind and 99% of them were drunks or drug addicts and/or dying from AIDS. I drank an astounding amount of bourbon in those days and tended to take speed. I was not into coke or heroin, although sometimes I dabbled in cocaine just because it was absolutely everywhere. But I was very fucked up. I was into BDSM but it really bothered me -- I was not at peace with that side of myself. And I was so unbelievably poor that sometimes I turned tricks to pay the rent, or to keep the electricity on, etc. And I was way too nice and naive for that kind of activity; I was sort of like Mary Tyler Moore trying to turn a trick, you know? I was terrible at it and I got taken advantage of money-wise and I got attacked (i.e., held down & raped anally while I screamed louder than I even knew I could scream, it hurt so bad) and I was so horrified by the whole scope of my life by then that I refused to go to the emergency room and get help. I just went to my room and stayed there and read a lot of Baudelaire, wrote in my journals a lot and just sort of went crazy.
One night in late fall when there was a tortuous full moon, in utter despair, in my usual attire of black Levis, a black tee shirt, white Converse high-tops and a red hoodie, I went out into the full-moon night and just wandered around my neighborhood with my walkman on, listening to a cassette of Mink Deville's Greatest Hits. Over and over and over. The songs saved my life, really: "A" Train Lady; Just To Walk That Little Girl Home; I Broke My Promise, Guardian Angel, and, of course, the mighty-mighty Mixed-Up, Shook-Up Girl.
That night, I didn't know how I was ever going to fix the mess I was in, or how I would ever get to that place in the world where I wanted so desperately to be, but listening to those songs made me know for sure that I didn't want to just struggle and die -- I wanted to create. I wanted to create something magnificent, in fact. It was a very intense night for me. I will never forget it (or that red hoodie, in fact -- it was really cute!). And Mink DeVille was the soundtrack that kept me living; that kept me shooting out those rockets of desire until here I am, so many years later with everything finally going right. Thanks for that precious gift, Willie! Vaya con dios, amigo.
Anyway. The mid-1980s. Can you imagine what the East Village was like back then? It was only slightly better than what it was like in the late 70s (which was Hell on Earth), but not much. You couldn't ever get a cab down there because it was so dangerous, cabs wouldn't go down there. It was full of "bombed-out" buildings called shooting galleries because heroin addicts hung out in them to shoot up "in private". Sometimes even O.D.'ing there "in private" and laying there dead for several days before anyone would do anything about it.
The tenement I lived in on E.12th street was stuck between 2 shooting galleries and was a real hell hole -- infested with thousands of cockroaches and overrun with mice. Which is why Kitty came into my life -- the little black & white cat I had for over 18 years! What a great mouser she was! She killed many, many mice and sometimes brought them to bed during the night as proof of her prowess. (Thanks, Kitty!) A woman I was in love with back then (see my essay A Picture in A Frame if you're into the details, but the essay is extremely graphic and hardcore, so be forewarned). Anyway, she gave the kitten to me. It had followed her home one day.
During those years, I was very, very, very, very, very poor. I was a singer/songwriter and I had a band. And even though I worked at the Museum of Modern Art, which went through phases of paying exceptionally well, and then dry patches; being a musician in NYC in those days cost a cool fortune. It ate money. Paying for rehersal space, for studio time, for transportation of the instruments and the sound equipment, tipping everybody imaginable, and then making/packaging demos, and publicity, etc. It was just unbelievble. I was always flat broke and usually had next to no food to eat. (But what's the upside to that, folks? That's right! I was really, really thin!! Yay.)
In those days, I was a hardcore James Dean fanatic, and I was also in love with Frank O'Hara. And I mean, in love with him. Yes, he was totally gay, and yes he was very, very dead by then (he died in 1965), but I couldn't help it; I was in love with a dead gay poet and obsessed with a dead, (bi or gay) movie star. (I was also totally obsessed with my biological father and with trying to find him, but that's sort of another story; hence my upcoming memoir, Manhattan, Mon Amour.)
My tenement on E.12th Street was only a few minutes' walk from where Frank O'Hara had lived at the time of his death. He had spent a good portion of his life as an established poet right there in the East Village. He had also worked as a curator for the Museum of Modern Art. (Can you see just a little of how obsessed I was with a dead guy? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.) I used to walk around my nieghborhood, as well as MoMA, and I used to hang around outside the building Frank used to live in near E. 10th Street, trying like crazy to make contact with his spirit. Parts of MoMA had been completely remodelled since he had died, so I would seek out places within the building that I knew for sure had been left the same since 1965, thinking this would help me contact him. Wow. Bet you're not at all curious about why I tend to live alone, are you?
Anyway. Back then, all of my friends were artists of some kind and 99% of them were drunks or drug addicts and/or dying from AIDS. I drank an astounding amount of bourbon in those days and tended to take speed. I was not into coke or heroin, although sometimes I dabbled in cocaine just because it was absolutely everywhere. But I was very fucked up. I was into BDSM but it really bothered me -- I was not at peace with that side of myself. And I was so unbelievably poor that sometimes I turned tricks to pay the rent, or to keep the electricity on, etc. And I was way too nice and naive for that kind of activity; I was sort of like Mary Tyler Moore trying to turn a trick, you know? I was terrible at it and I got taken advantage of money-wise and I got attacked (i.e., held down & raped anally while I screamed louder than I even knew I could scream, it hurt so bad) and I was so horrified by the whole scope of my life by then that I refused to go to the emergency room and get help. I just went to my room and stayed there and read a lot of Baudelaire, wrote in my journals a lot and just sort of went crazy.
One night in late fall when there was a tortuous full moon, in utter despair, in my usual attire of black Levis, a black tee shirt, white Converse high-tops and a red hoodie, I went out into the full-moon night and just wandered around my neighborhood with my walkman on, listening to a cassette of Mink Deville's Greatest Hits. Over and over and over. The songs saved my life, really: "A" Train Lady; Just To Walk That Little Girl Home; I Broke My Promise, Guardian Angel, and, of course, the mighty-mighty Mixed-Up, Shook-Up Girl.
That night, I didn't know how I was ever going to fix the mess I was in, or how I would ever get to that place in the world where I wanted so desperately to be, but listening to those songs made me know for sure that I didn't want to just struggle and die -- I wanted to create. I wanted to create something magnificent, in fact. It was a very intense night for me. I will never forget it (or that red hoodie, in fact -- it was really cute!). And Mink DeVille was the soundtrack that kept me living; that kept me shooting out those rockets of desire until here I am, so many years later with everything finally going right. Thanks for that precious gift, Willie! Vaya con dios, amigo.
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