Tour Diary - Lancaster, December 5, 2009 A Good Hair Day, among other things...

On the morning of December 5, my second morning in Lancaster, I went to the adorable and highly recommended Chestnut Street Cafe to get some coffee (and a red velvet cupcake) for breakfast... I brought with me some flyers for the exhibit's opening night, which coincided with the town's monthly First Friday art crawl.

I had a nice chat with the barista about which particular coffee they were serving that morning was the darkest, smokiest brew, and casually asked what that nice young man was doing after work. I handed him a couple of flyers and asked him to share with his co-workers, when one of them asked me "Are you the photographer?" And she said that she had read about me in the morning paper. At that time, I had yet to see the morning paper, which would be waiting for me at Metropolis. I knew I was going to be in it, but to what extent remained a mystery. The previous day, both a photographer and reporter spent time with me and overnight WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM... a photo of me "in action" was not just above the fold - it was under the banner!!! This is as noticeable a placement as the headlines... only better... because its a color picture. Move over Kennedy's... my publicist can kick your publicist's butt.

Punk Rock as a headline in Amish country. Whoo Hoo! Hey Stiv - we did it. I sorta feel like Obama... yes we can; yes WE DID.

All day long, when I was finally doing my little site-seeing in Lancaster, and handing people flyers, they were saying "I read about you in the paper." Wow. Almost famous. Infamous, I know. Celebrated? Who knew?

Lancaster is an interesting town. Its a college town and it is the heart of Amish country. A great and wonderful thing about Lancaster's downtown -- there are almost NO CHAIN retailers! Yes, yes, Goodyear is a chain, but this is on the outside perimeter of the renovated downtown. There is a Dunkin Donuts, but their storefront fits in perfectly with the rest of the storefronts, and of course, there are banks such as Wachovia, Bank of America... but there's no landscape of garish neon making this town look like any other. I applaud that!

Additionally, it is fair and accurate to say that the revitalization of Lancaster's downtown scene can be attributed to Gallery Row. We know it is true, when the economy cannot support industry, both service and culture become the revenue stream. I'm hoping that the economy rebounds, but gets steered more by culture and service than say.... the war industry.

President James Buchanan is from Pennsylvania and died in Lancaster and the Masonic Lodge (#43 to be exact) where he and his fellow cabal of Masons did their thing is basically behind Metropolis Gallery. Fourteen US Presidents have admitted to being Masons - even the Skull & Bones men. Then I hear that ALL the Presidents have been Masons. Makes me wonder about Obama.

Can we get a punk rock secret society going? I'm not talking about the cult of the Germs burn... I'm talking about wielding power at "leader of the free world" level. Kind of. Really.

Another olde time tradition I experienced in Lancaster was their Farmers Market - the oldest continually running Farmers Market in the nation. Those of you who know me know that I'm all about buying directly from growers and supporting local farmers and businesses. This market obviously has a lot of Amish and Mennonite vendors, and I bought a $2 Amish cookbook. Then there's the Pennsylvania Dutch thing (they're Germans... Dutch for "Deutschland")-- if you saw the movie "Witness" (Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis), you'll know I really can't explain it - you have to be there. Suffice it to say, its a lifestyle that's the polar opposite of all I know.

But that's what is so wonderful about being able to travel - to experience lifestyles and places different from what you know and are familiar with.

The opening itself was amazing. Throughout the day, there was a steady stream of people stopping into the Gallery... it was about as cold as cold gets, and windy too... yet people were getting their culture on! I met a group of people who were not just punk fans but bonafide record collecting aficionados. Its pretty exciting to learn that all the trials and tribulations of your attempts to get on the map actually put you there.

At the opening, I autographed copies of The Germs "Forming" single and also a couple copies of Stiv Bators solo album "Disconnected." Someone even had a Pandoras "Hot Generation" single with autographs of all the band members. A completist, this man now has even the photographer's signature!


Frank Secich, Stiv Bators, Greg Shaw

Of the three men pictured above, two are from these parts (Frank, from PA and Stiv from Ohio) and one is from liberal, artsy, hipper than thou San Francisco (Greg). They are, however, three of the most important men in my punk rock life and career. Greg Shaw threw a lot of work my way, and Stiv the big brother I never had was the best photo subject you could dream of. Frank was then and continues to be the voice of reason.

In closing, there are many people to thank for this wonderful time... it all starts with Gregg Kostelich of Get Hip and The Cynics (Pittsburgh) who introduced me to the Gallery - Angelo and Lisa Madrigale. Fabulous people... and Angelo's brother Mike, who owns the record store (all vinyl!!) around the corner, Mr Suit, and Angelo & Mike's dad, Jerry, who lent me his apartment during my stay. Then there's the Jeffs - Breil and Royer. Without them... and without Debra Anderson, I'd be anonymous. Mike's girlfriend Amy pulled a favor and got me into the salon where she gets her hair cut so I could look good for my opening. She saved the day!

Next Tour Date - December 5, 2008 - LANCASTER, PA

We open for a 2-month stint at Metropolis Gallery and Store in Lancaster, PA.
The opening night party is Friday, December 5. I hope to see some 717 punk rock fans that night!

Yes, that is indeed the heart of Amish country. I love the juxtaposition.

Metropolis Gallery
154 N. Prince St. Lancaster, PA 17603
Phone: 717 572 9961
Mon-Thur:11-6, Fri-Sat:10-6
www.metropolis-store.com
www.myspace.com/metropolis_gallery

Tour Diary - Halloween in Harrisburg

I have wanted to do a party with husband & wife DJ's, The Thing With Two Heads for quite a while. Back in 2005 or so, the moment I walked into Magnetic Field, where he was spinning, Bazooka Joe's very next record to play was by the Oblivians, called No Reason To Live. That was my favorite punk rock song of the 90s, and most of my friends know that. So, I gotta give props to a DJ who knows my fave song and plays it when I walk in the room. That sealed the deal for me and TTWTH...we'd do a party together sometime somewhere.

I have written at length about how I believe the Oblivians restored my faith in a post punk rock kind of punk rock, devoid of new wave stupidity and the fashion applications of grunge. No Reason To Live was a song that also hearkened back to real 1970s punk rock - all nihilistic and noisy. No Reason To Live completely connected the dots between Bob Dylan's Queen Jane Approximately and punk rock. Weird to you, but a completely and perfectly normal association and correspondence for me. If you are still confused, I suggest you pick up a copy of EMW Tillyard's slim volume entitled, The Elizabethan World Picture and many things will become clear to you, Shakespeare included. Would I steer your wrongly?


Pictured here are Bazooka Joe Diddley, Billy Synth, Christine Sixteene and Sarah Bellum - not any of their real last names, of course... as is the punk rock / underground hipster way. On my first night in Harrisburg, October 30, Joe, Christine, Sarah and I paid a visit to Billy Synth, an 80s punk rock underground icon from Harrisburg. He lives in a tiny record-and-CD-filled apartment near the Susquehanna River. The neighborhood is a quaint collection of colonial style row houses and blocks, probably there since the Colonial days. The scale of the rooms is small, as is the scale of the buildings and their narrow entry ways. I just don't see a bigger than life size flat screen TV fitting in here... but I digress.

Seeing that I started with this tale in mid-point progress, let me re-digress and take you to the beginning of the journey.

My journey began at 6 AM Thursday morning, October 30. The taxi I called was coming to get me at 7 am for my 8:30 AM flight. As usual, I worked on all number of things til about 3 in the morning, as I do every day. Basically, I took a nap and then jumped in a cab. I brought only a carry on bag, filled with smaller size prints. In a separate art box, I had a 20x24 poster and a framed 16x20 print. You know these art boxes - they're basically flat and measure what your print measures - this was a 21 x 25 x 2 inch box - not heavy, but completely unwieldy, so, I used a luggage trolley to cart the art box and my carry on bag in one simple space/time continuum. However, the airport and the airlines saw things differently.

I am not a morning person to begin with and the alternatingly chipper and cranky airport personnel, from greeters to Transportation Safety Association people pretty much made sure that I continue to be not a morning person. I learn in ways both nice and nasty that my little trolley is considered a whole piece of luggage! WTF? Who made up that rule? Its wrong, I tell ya! One airlines "customer service" lady snappped that I had 4 carry on items - the trolley (give me a f***ing break!), my art box, my carry-on and my purse. Well, I shoved my purse into the carry on, taking out just my money and iPod. I had to ditch the trolley and this was the most difficult task of the morning. Airport people suggested a wild goose chase path... but I took that trolley all the way up to the boarding gate. A nice gate agent offered to tag the trolley and take it to the luggage office and I could reclaim it on my return trip. That was the nicest thing to happen to me all morning.

You see, prior to my getting to the gate, I was turned inside out at security, where my carry on bag was unpacked by a bitchy white trash lady and well groomed Black man. Yes, yours truly was singled out and given the full-on terrorist screening. The rivets on the corners of the pockets of my jeans made the metal detecting wand go off, and that prompted the bitchy white trash lady to have to pat me down. Just to enhance the level of discomfort, I said "good thing I'm not wearing my regular bra. The underwire always made the metal detector at the IRS go off." I don't know why, but that statement just unnerves people. Its just an undergarment with metal in it!

I think that bitchy white trash lady saw it as a form of assholery on my part, and well, it was. But what's a gal to do when she's getting electronically frisked and then felt up by a TSA bitch? When the TSA lady and man started rifling through the carry-on bag, I got concerned that they'd manhandle my photos to the point of damaging them. Luckily, I've been singled out as a potential terrorist before! I brought with me the copy of the MODE, Harrisburg's version of the Village Voice / LA Weekly / Nashville Scene / Memphis Flyer / Chicago Reader... you get the point --- there was a big full page article about me and my show and one of the photos in the paper was a photo I was carting around with me. I was able to prove to them that some people like and even buy my pictures and they should take care not to fuck my shit up.

I do believe I have "Troublemaker" invisibly tattoo'd on my head - either that or there's a neon sign over my head that I can't see. This happened to me in 1978 when I was returning to the States from Tijuana in my very own car with Pleasant, who had switchblades, fireworks, valium and who knows what else. The border patrol disconnected the horn in my car when they turned it inside out. Pleasant and I tried our best to make the border patrol matrons uncomfortable with us. Just because I was a smart ass punk, I opted to speak French to the border patrol. You know - because I could... and because it was illegally crossing Mexicans they were concerned with - not French school girls.

Thirty years later, and I'm still getting stopped by security people. Since I'm on the soapbox, I do want to say that I'm fairly certain that none of the people who get pulled aside and searched with full terrorist treatment is anything near a terrorist. In fact, one of the hallmarks of a successful terrorist is that they can evade detection. I think the TSA is going about it all wrong. Just because I look like a deadbeat doesn't mean I'm going to blow up a plane or hijack it. I also don't see how taking away my bottle of Clarins moisturizer and my Chanel lipstick are going to make the world safer. The TSA at Nashville airport made me $80 poorer before I event left town. For the record - the moisturizer came in a bottle that was 0.6 ounces more than the limit - but since it was half-empty, I really really don't see why it was even an issue. And I think the white trash TSA bitch just wanted my lipstick. Its Chanel - even the white trash knows that is a fashion name of some renown.

Eventually, I get out of there and on the plane for the first leg of the journey which takes me to Detroit. I know the airport very well. Its got a Taco Bell! Also, because its a hub for Northwest, there's a lot of Japanese influence - two sushi places to eat, announcements in Japanese and this fabulous disco walkway through a tunnel in between the concourses.

The plane from Detroit to Harrisburg is a tiny tiny plane. I'm 5'2" and conked my head twice on the overhead bins. Other than that, it was an uneventful flight. I manage to find a poorly marked bus stop at Harrisburg's airport, board a bus, and for $2.05, ride to the center of town where Joe and Christine Almeida - aka The Thing With Two Heads - pick me up.

Joe's prepared machaca for our dinner. And the city of Harrisburg has declared that Thursday night - October 30 is the night that children will go trick or treating. Weird, but the Almeida's are prepared. And when trick or treating and our dinner of machaca tacos is over, we go off to visit Billy Synth with our friend Sarah.

Billy Synth is a local legend and mostly unsung hero, but not to Bazooka Joe. Joe pointed out that in the early 80s, no punk bands were covering the kind of neo-garage obscurities that Billy was... and that Billy, as a collector and expert was responsible for suggesting many chestnuts that ended up on many of the garage compilation records you love so much (on the Norton or Get Hip labels, to name but two... I think Billy worked with Bomp a bit as well).

Joe, an avid record collector himself, pretty much makes Billy show us everything he owns, and plays a lot of it too. We girls are all extremely tired and ready to go to bed, but Joe could stay up all night... eventually we leave.

Halloween Night itself is a blast. Spent the morning scouring Good Will and Salvation Army stores for funky picture frames, then we installed the exhibit and before we knew it, the party began. People showed up in costume, Joe & Christine were throwing down an eclectic set of jams ranging from punk to garage and a little bit of soul and roots rock. People who came to the party left with The Ramones and Stiv Bators....

And then began the return home...

For all my own airport hassle getting to Harrisburg, going home was flawless, except that I had a 3-hour layover in Detroit, and that's just too much time to be waiting for a plane. I was surprised in Harrisburg that the people in the security x-ray checkpoint ahead of me had BULLETS (a big ole box of em) in their carry-on and were allowed to keep them.

Needless to say, had I attempted something like that, I'd be in jail.....


If you haven't already done so, GO VOTE TOMORROW

Tour Diary, October 4, 2008Punk Rock Autumn Almanac

If it's September, then its Autumn... yes yes yes... beautiful weather and a sense of actually working and getting things done. Summer is play time, and Autumn is the harvest, its back to school and back to work.... that's the Almanac part of this. The rest of the title means you should invest in Kinks records.

Almost exactly a year ago I was getting ready to head out on the tour you've read about in these very pages. Last year, I was torn between my Day of the Dead special show in Memphis and possibly jetting over to Paris for a one-nighter with the Andy Warhol Factory crew in an homage to the Factory's famous photographer, Billy Name, with whom I share an agent... the lovely and talented Kevin Kushel, who organized a Billy Name / Andy Warhol appreciation show during the Paris Photo event. However, I got an once-in-a-lifetime command performance by Jack Oblivian and Tyler Keith as punk rock mariachis.... and I spent several days in Mississippi, a place that I hold dear because of William Faulkner, Elvis Presley and Jimmie Rodgers.

Just like last year, I am busy making exhibition prints.

There are three shows coming up for the rest of this year...

October 11 in East Nashville at Creative Space (400 Davidson Street, near LP Field), a group show and fashion extravaganza called Kaleidoscope, where I will be hanging up Punk Turns 30's greatest hits.



On Halloween, I'm in Harrisburg, PA with my friends Joe & Christine on the DJ decks for Punk Rock Day of the Dead... a show that will be a perennial.



In December, opening on the 5th in Lancaster, PA at the Metropolis Gallery, Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond will have its final showing. The show will be up through January 31, so instead of a hazy shade of winter, we will make it kind of high contrast and neon for you.



During the course of the tour, I've met a great many wonderful people, and I have seen a great many wonderful places. A lot of great punk rock bands have entertained me and you. My sojourns in each city have been both one-night-stands and never-ending stays. I feel like Bob Dylan on his never-ending tour!

As I look out on the Nashville Skyline - the Bat Tower, the Shelby Bridge, the ridiculous scrap metal heap right by the interstate and the capitol in the shadows of downtown... I do think of three albums recorded here... three of my favorites - not punk rock albums, but Bob Dylan albums. Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline.



"All Along the Watchtower," a track from John Wesley Harding comes to mind more for me when I look out my window than even the term "Nashville Skyline."

We live in scary times. I just watched the honorable Joe Biden and the ridiculous Sarah Palin participate in a "debate" and in a couple days, this town will welcome Barack Obama and John McCain to debate at Belmont University. I shudder to think what may happen if things don't go as I want them to.

Weird times make for good art, though. Last time politics were this ridiculous, punk rock was born. Europe gave us the Theatre of the Absurd during political repression, and the Absurds playwright, Vaclav Havel ended up presiding over his country decades later. Perhaps someday we will elect Wayne Kramer President. He could kick out the jams, huh?


Wayne Kramer, MC5

Anyway - please vote. If you're not registered, you have til Monday to do so. I don't care who you vote for - although I would really like if it you voted for Obama/Biden. Just vote. If you don't vote, then you have no right nor reason to complain.