One late night of writerly brooding in the small hours when the dogs were sleeping at the world's feet I happened to turn on my radio, just to alleviate the gloom of whispers, when I heard the most frenetic, god-awful racket an intelligent sort could ever apprehend in their home office of books, nostalgic mementos, and computer equipment-- cruddy punk rock from the depths of a scratchy record vault. Obnoxious rockabilly young-men from the 1960's were snapping their fingers in a parody of Doo-Wop and singing about "pudding"-- a veiled reference to the female genitalia while making a popping sound with their fingers like hot-dog gnawin' primitives in the industrial ruin of our American cities.

And then came on the voice of a child-woman who sounded like a 15 year-old having a slumber-party over at the local community radio station and "talkin' trash" on a dare like so much hopped-up bad judgment with a room full of stuffed animals. I was so charmed by this youthful impertinence, this peppy spark of girlhood that would soon peter out with the raining down of sparks and the dead-eyed heaviness of our city's burnt-out, husk of comportment.

She dared someone to call up the station; I did (-- the phone was at my elbow).

Who picked up the phone was a very shrunken, self-conscious little D.J. whose bluff had been called. I asked about the show, how long it had been on, what kind of music it played-- like a Texan with his boots up on the desk, talking into the receiver.

I hung up the phone and she went back to the show. I adored her right then and there. She was the stuff of bathtub acid and Xeroxed punk zines and messy closets and vowing to herself and her friend that "she'd never get old". Idiocy, grimacing faces, she played bass in a local band.

She was my little punk rock princess.

(Artist's Representation)

Here was the perpetually-depthless state of the present, arrested by our own self-consciousness that stops us from being heroes and singers and statesmen. You had a random "News of the Weird" moment when some goggle-eyed fat woman tackled Gary Coleman when he couldn't fulfill all of her tv-land dreams 15 years after "Dif'erent Strokes" was canceled and he was working as a security guard in a department store.

One morning the flat-affected D.J. at the radio station was interviewing the front-man of Gogol Bordello, a strange band that combined punk rock with Gypsy, Jewish, and Ukranian folk music. The New York City leader was self-conscious, unsure of how to respond to this vacuum, as he put on a defensive "come on out and see the show" posture in a strong Russian accent-- the voice of a feral, unrealistic idealist.

I felt so sorry for the band because this was the most awkward radio interview I had ever heard. In my mind, there was the impression that only 20 people would show up to partake in this festival of the grotesque. Who would buy into this uncanny act? The strange, twerpy romantic spirit of the broken-down Slavic peoples?

But hundreds arrived at the tiny club, the plywood walls painted black and littered with posters, flyers, and stickers. They but standing there with a bowler-hat over the eye like a bunch of "plug-uglies" as girls tossed their heads like flappers, taking vinegary drags off of cigarettes as if they had been dipped in the embalming fluid of timeless "modern" attitude whose home was the morgue in some city ward. Once again, it was the pathos of the turn-of-the-century. . . . . a one-act Vaudville play about an Irish mother clasping her hands together for her dear young boy, Willie-- taken off by the sickness of the slums. The whole hall is in tears, but would otherwise step over the sprawled legs of a sleeping drunk without a second look. Or even spit curses at a fish-eyed leftist agitator standing for such things as atheism, free love, and universal suffrage.

Funny how that stuff took over. . . . .

After a punk band ended, a skinny guy in a sailor's cap and sunglasses making a quirky yet confident stage presence, the main draw took to the stage. The crowd went wild at this over-the-top caricature of Slavic culture, the weeping violins and clapping cymbals, the costume dress and punk-rock abandon. Gypsy girls ran out and screamed into the microphones on cue in a wild moment, before retreating back stage to do it all over again.

The front-man who stalked around with a guitar like some kind of scowling cat was described as some kind of activist, but they never mentioned what kind of activist. Radical, probably. Just seeing him there, he could probably momentarily inspire a torch-lit parade at his heels down to city hall where the cops would beat in our heads with clubs with the sound of bells.

Today's extremism is tomorrow's clichè. . . . . or is is the other way around?

What I learned from the whole thing is that if you're needy you have to get it yourself and cannot necessarily rely on others. If someone has ever been thought of as a stalker, it's because that poor soul believed there was only one person who could give them what they desperately needed-- akin to a tool to fix themselves, a key to unlock a door, or fill that hole in their hearts with that missing piece of mere emotional confirmation that so many in "the living world" take for granted while a minority orbit through the void through space. . . . . such a lonely thought sailing alone throughout the empty eternities.

Some have been punished or ostracized because "they chased" and should have "let the matter drop"-- in fact "chased away" like a stray dog who didn't belong. . . . . a tragicomic "Charlie Chaplin" figure turning the corner with one foot halting in the air with a hat and cane. Those "on the losing end of society" who have so little are punished over and over when they make some kind of wrong-headed attempt at betterment that leaves them even poorer, retching in an alley as if they had been stabbed. We have more of that in our society because the last couple of generations have not been taught to emotionally "fend for themselves" in a heartless world.

Build character. . . . . build a website. . . . . and may God keep you always.

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"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'

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(Rheeee of Crickets)

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