She's Alive... ALIVE!!

Friday night I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland to see the documentary about the band The Damned, "Don't You Wish We Were Dead".   It was the only area screening of the film, it was about a band I love, and it was free.  What more could anyone ask for?  I'd been looking forward to this night for weeks.  The man even wanted to go.  Shocking I know.  The man has made it his life mission to never experience anything outside of Akron ever again, or at least it seems like.

From the moment we parked the car I knew it was going to be a great night.  I even found a rare, lucky free street spot near the Rock Hall, further solidifying that this is going to be a great night.  We took our seats, our friend V having come with us, and very soon a representative from the Rock Hall came out to speak for a few minutes, then he introduced the director, Wes Orshoski, who also spoke briefly.  Now it's time for the movie!

The movie was fantastic!  I loved ever single minute of it.  The attention to detail, the flow, the personalities, the history, and the music... oh my god, the music!   And while the outcome of the movie is a little sad, this fan was left very very happy with the experience.

But it's the aftermath that compelled to write today.  Being out, in Cleveland, the city I love, being a part of the music scene I love.  This is what it's about.  This is what makes me feel alive.  I didn't run into anyone I knew at the movie.  I didn't need to.  I just needed to be there, and feel all the feels.   And experience the music.  Be out.  Be involved.  Enjoy life.  It's times like these that I never feel more alive.  It may seem like a large reaction to just going to a movie, but it's part of a bigger picture. That feeling of being alive, it gives me peace as well as piece of mind in knowing that the decisions I have made for myself, the actions I'm going to take, are the right ones.  I'm addicted to feeling alive.  I crave the feeling.  I want it more and more.   So I have to ask myself again... if not now, when?  The answer is now.  Taking my life back is the best thing I ever did.

All Women Are Bad

This song has been stuck in my head for a few days now.  Ahh the Cramps.  What's not to love really.   RIP Lux.

First

In a the bloggers group I am a part of, we've been talking about the first blogs we've written.  That discussion has led me to think about a different first.  Yes, that first.  I remember so clearly the day I met him, the guy who would be my first.  It was 1986 and I was 20 years old. Yes, I was really still a virgin at 20.  Growing up Catholic can really fuck with your head on so many levels.  And I was terrified I'd be damned to hell if I had sex.

It was the Husker Du concert at the Phantasy Theater in Cleveland.  The place of many many fine shows back in the day.  I so clearly remember that night, meeting H.  I was decked out in all my punk rock finery.  Long black skirt to the floor.  A black and silver top with my Grandma's rhinestone brooch pinned to the top button. Hair with my trademark skunk streak in it and lots of jewelry.  And the pièce de résistance, my BFF's aunt's fox fur around my shoulders.  You know the ones that are basically full fox pelts with a clip put into their jaws so you can clip a few of them together, mouth to tail, and wear them around your shoulders?  Oh yes, I was a vision.  At least I thought so, and as it turns out, so did he.

He struck up a conversation with me in the back of the theater between bands.  BFF had met two guys that night and they were kind of fighting over her.  How this happened I'm not really sure, since I was the one wearing that dude magnet fox fur.  But when I saw his stunning blue eyes, I forgot all about BFF and her troubles.   I was mesmerized.  He swept me right out of my granny boots.  He wasn't a flag waving punk, but he was at a great show so he was alright in my book.  We talked, went to watch the show when Husker Du came on and he held my hand while they played.  Then we made out a little until BFF really did need help and H came to her rescue.  Ahh blue eyes, good kisser and was there for my friend in need?  It might just be love.  We exchanged phone numbers.  And he called, he actually called.

We made a date to meet halfway between where we both lived.  We lived about an hour away from each other. I was excited and mom was thrilled.  I was 20 years old and didn't have a boyfriend.  This is a calamity for an Italian mother!  At this rate I'll never get married, at least that was her line of thinking.  Our first date got off to a rocky start.  I thought he stood me up and called my mom in tears from a pay phone where I thought we were to be meeting.  These are the days before cell phones. Lucky for me though, mom had call waiting and he called on the other line while I was talking to her.  He was waiting for me at a different Bob Evans.  I went to the wrong one.  Since that night, we were inseparable.  My family loved him, especially mom.  He was polite and spoke to her when he came over, he didn't look weird like all my other boyfriends had, he was half Italian.  And those eyes... have I mentioned those eyes?

Things had been pretty hot and heavy between us and he was starting to put on a little pressure to seal the deal.  I did agonize over whether or not to do it, but my hormones were pretty sure I would.  I cried, a lot.  Felt very alone in this decision process. Would I be able to do it without excessive guilt? Would my (to borrow my friend L's perfect phrase) Roman Catholic clitoris even work?  Would I go to hell?  Would lightning strike us dead while we were fucking?  And then he said the most perfect thing that in my eyes made everything alright... "I love you."  True love and my hormones ended up being stronger than the nuns damning me to the fiery pits of hell for all eternity so I went to my doctor to get put on the pill.

So much planning was made for the big event.  About a month and a half into our relationship we were going to the Jesus and Mary Chain concert.   

He had come over early that day and my parents were having a cook out or something in the back yard (in March?  weird.. must have been unseasonably warm that year, but I remember everyone being outside).  I was on the pill by now and we were just waiting for it to kick in. We were in the house listening to music and making out, when it just became all too much and we did it right then and there.  No more waiting, all plans for the big event... the sex, not the concert, tossed out the window.  And he had condoms with him so we were doubly protected.   We did it in a room that faced the backyard with the rest of the family right outside the window.  It was over fast but hallelujah and saints be praised, my Roman Catholic clitoris did work!  An orgasm, on my first try!

I'm not exactly sure I felt different, but I definitely knew I'd be doing that again.  And again.   And again....

Interestingly, while I write this I discover that every event with H is tied to a musical event.   We met at Husker Du, we had sex the day of Jesus and Mary Chain, and we broke up at the big yearly outdoor music festival at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland some months later.  It was a painful break up, but it was the right thing to do for various reasons.  At the time, when I gave him my virginity, I truly thought I would marry him, but never regretted having sex with him.  He loved me. To me that mattered.  Sorry Sr. Mary Oppression, in the end I made a decision I could live with and the church has since stayed out of my sex life.

Soapy Punk

Once upon a time, there was a girl who, at a young age, discovered that being herself really mattered.  It mattered to her.  And if it didn't matter to anyone else, then fuck them.  There are no rules that say because I am into punk rock that I can't watch a soap opera.  There are no rules that say because I'm 44 years old I can't have purple hair.  I do my thing.  My thing is just that, MY thing.  I don't give a rat's ass who doesn't like it. 

So what came first, the soap or the punk?   It was the soap, but not by much.  I started watching All My Children in 1979.  My roots in punk go back to 1980.  The funny thing is, the way I started each of them is so very different.  I started watching AMC because "all my friends were doing it."  I got into punk all on my own.  I discovered it myself, I learned about it myself, I made new friends because of it.  Those friends who were all watching AMC and turned me on to it, gone.

AMC took a back burner many many times in my life.  This goes back to the days before every household had DVR's or even VCR's.  So when I was in school, I missed it.  I never missed a new album I wanted though.  Yes album, vinyl.  I'm old, deal with it.  I do.  Badly sometimes, but I do.  So AMC became a show I watched on vacation or on a holiday.  Nothing more.  And when I was 21 and moved out of my parents house, it was years before I saw more than one show here or there if I was home sick from work or something.  But I always went back.  I can't really explain it other than it's probably part of my addictive personality. 

Punk rock never went away.  It was never put on the back burner.  It was never disregarded or forgotten.  It was always within reach.  It was there for me in my darkest hours.  It was there for me in my happiest of times.  It was there always.  And it still is.  It will always be a huge part of me.

Back in 1991, when I first got on the Internet, I looked up All My Children to see if I could catch up on what was happening in Pine Valley, like I would look up a old friend.  It was then that I struck up a conversation with the owner of an AMC site and before long he had asked me to be a contributor.  He encouraged me to write what I thought about the show when I watched it, no matter if it was good or bad.  It became a weekly review/column from a very snarky (who me?) perspective and I'm kind of proud to say, it was really quite popular.  But then the man tried to change who I was and that did not then nor does it now, fly with me.  I left and went on to start my own AMC site.  By now I had a following.  I have achieved some creepy and bizarre level of fame.  And I kind of get off on it.  I went to some AMC events through the years, and people always knew who I was.  I was the punk soap chick.  I had blue hair.  I had pink hair.   I had red hair.  I had purple hair.  I had a different color hair for every event.  Was it calculated?  Not really.  It was just me being me and doing my thing. 

Because of the AMC site, I've been stalked.  I've been hounded.  I've been hated.  I've been loved.  I've been proposed to several times.  I've had people ask for my autograph.  I've been recognized in places I never thought I'd ever be recognized.  I've been cruelly and miserably hurt by people.  I've met many many of the stars of the show.  I've been sent incredible gifts by grateful fans.  I've had some insanely good and insanely bad experiences.   And I've made some amazingly good friends who, in any other circumstance I never would have met. 

I've already written about how punk rock saved me.  And it did.  Because of punk rock I've been loved and hated.  I've been harassed.  I've had my car vandalized.  I've gone to 100's of concerts.  I've heard the best music in the world, up close.  I've heard some really bad music up close too.  I've made the most incredible friends that remain my friends 30 years later.  Because of punk rock, I've lived.

If I had to chose between these two crazy lives I lead, which would I chose?  It's no contest.  Music is infinitely more important to me. And if I gave up the AMC site today, the friends I made through it would still be my friends.  No matter who you are, your friends are the people who are there for you and care about you through thick and through thin.  They wouldn't care if I can no longer give them a scoop about who Erica Kane's next husband was going to be. 

In the end though, I'm always me.  I can't be anyone else.  If someone doesn't like it, that's their problem, not mine.  I'm just a woman who loves her punk rock and makes an escape to Pine Valley for about 42 minutes a day. 

Punk Rock Saved Me

One of my most memorable defining moments happened on January 26, 1980.  I had just turned 14.  I was up late, watching SNL.  In those days, everyone watched SNL.  It was the '79/'80 season, before the show went to hell and almost got canceled. Terri Garr was the host.  The B 52's were the musical guest.  The B fucking 52's!   This was so new to me.  It was my first exposure (other than my sister's insane love for David Bowie) that I had to anything remotely interesting musically.  My brothers were listening to Boston and Foreigner and other shit like that.  My friends were listening to Andy Gibb and the Bee Gee's.  But this, this was exciting and strange and good and weird and so many things.  They performed twice that night, the classic Rock Lobster and Dance This Mess Around.  I was mesmerized by them.  And in the course of that 90 minute show,  my life completely changed.

Why did my life need to change?  Oh it did.  Something had to change.  It's 1980.  I have zero relationship with my father.  I sometimes wonder if he knows of my existence.  He never speaks to me.  Never.  It had probably been years by this time since he had spoken to me.  It will be many more years until he does.  Every day he comes home from work so fucking drunk he can hardly walk.  He stinks of beer.  He falls asleep at the dinner table.  My mom screams at him until he goes to bed, and the next day we do it all over again.  There's my mom again, dealing with it so that we wouldn't be without a father, she wouldn't be alone.   I can't imagine what it was like for her then.  Worse than it was for me and my brothers and sister, no doubt.

My transformation was kind of slow, but steady.  The B 52's lead me to more new and more exciting music with each passing day.  It was soon after that I discovered more and more music... Adam and the Ants, The Go Go's, Billy Idol, more and more and more.  I wanted more, I got more and with my new love, I lost every friend I had.  They didn't like the music, they didn't like the look, they didn't like the attitude I was now sporting.  Well fuck them!  I finally found me and I liked it and I wasn't turning back into just another clone at my Catholic school.  I found new friends, friends who had similar revelations.  And we found more and more music.  By 1984 we were going to so many shows, it was almost a weekly occurrence.  We still had our beloved Adam Ant and Billy Idol, but now we had The Ramones, Dead Kennedy's, the Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Black Flag (have you ever seen Henry Rollins live in any way?  He's fucking genius).  It was intense and wonderful.  Everything was new and amazing.  Music saved my soul.  Music took me away.  Music made me happy again.  Thank you B 52's.


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