by (epub)
But the loft itself was great. Comfortable and spacious, with brick walls painted white. First there was the kitchen with a large wooden table surrounded by wicker chairs, then a main room with a sofa, an armchair, two Fender amps, a Ludwig drum kit, and two huge PA speakers—behind these a large punching bag hung from the ceiling. On the shelves against the walls, there were a few hundred records in alphabetical order, and a record player on the floor. Further into the apartment, there was more furniture, the dog bed belonging to Steve’s dog, Jackson, and Steve’s own bed. Then, finally, there were three large windows with a fantastic view. You’d think you were in Metropolis, with the power plant ahead, and to the right, at the end of the street, the East River.
The swimming pool right in front of the power plant was only frequented by Black and Puerto Rican kids, most of them no more than twelve or so; they were probably already dealers themselves and fearless. In the summer, they would all come back to the pool after closing time, climb the fence, and spend the night swimming and hanging out. The power plant behind looked like a relic of the nineteenth century and emitted a constant sinister hum punctuated from time to time by loud, mysterious, metallic sounds: “crash,” “vroom!” It seemed to me the whole thing could blow up at any minute. And one night, that’s exactly what happened.
It was July and hot as hell. I was in the loft chatting with Steve when the phone rang. It was Phyllis, the little brunette from Max’s. She was screaming, “Philippe, I’m at home with Sable Starr, and we’re terrified! The electricity went out. What do we do? It’s pitch black!”
“Why are you calling me?” I asked, bewildered. “Don’t you know how to change a fuse? It’s easy …”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s not just us!”
“The whole building is out?”
“No, the whole avenue! We’re looking out the window and we can’t see anything. Help!”
“Wow, okay, don’t worry. It’s gonna come back on right away—they’re taking care of it. Do you have candles? Call me back in ten minutes and let me know what’s happening. … Don’t be scared. It’s nothing.”
As soon as I hung up the phone, I told Steve what was going on. “Hey, they have no electricity on 6th Avenue. That was Phyllis. She’s with Sable, and they’re flipping out because they’re in the dark over there.” At that precise moment, the light bulb above us started to flicker. We looked at each other, thinking the same thing, and wham, lights out! Total darkness. The TV stopped and we heard the powerhouse humming much louder than usual. Then there came screams of terror from down on the street. We dashed across the loft to see what was happening. After stumbling over the drum kit, I blindly groped my way toward the windows when I heard Steve yell, “Phil, look! It’s unbelievable!”
New York City was in total darkness.
Lit only by the headlights of a parked car, you could see all the kids running from the pool and clambering over the fence as fast as they could, absolutely soaked. Behind them, I could just make out the silhouette of the power plant, like a gigantic medieval fortress, humming with rage. Suddenly, we heard a deafening clontch, and the humming stopped. Now we were in total darkness and absolute silence. Soon we started hearing screams in the distance, then police sirens blaring in all directions.
It was the infamous 1977 blackout, during which large portions of the Bronx and Harlem would be torched and looted. It would also fill up every nursery in the city precisely nine months later.
“Call Phyllis and Sable,” Steve said, and we both started laughing.
The telephone still worked, so I invited them over.
“You should be able to get a cab pretty easily on 6th Avenue. We’ll get killed if we try to find one in the dark on Avenue D, and Steve is parked real far away. Let’s face it, there are two Senders stuck here all alone in the dark!”
“Heehee! All right, we’re gonna try. Make sure you hear the bell. Don’t leave us stuck on the doorstep in the dark on Avenue D!”
“Okay, I’ll tell Steve not to play the electric guitar and to turn down the TV! See you in a few.” Steve found a little battery-operated radio somewhere, and we gathered around to listen. You’d think it was 1940. “Things are already degenerating in the poorer parts of town. Army trucks are arriving in the Bronx and Harlem. The president has given the order to shoot looters on sight. Thousands of people are stuck in the subway where the heat is becoming dangerous. Firemen are trying to rescue the hundreds of people stuck in the elevators of buildings but are having a hard time moving around because no traffic lights are working and numerous car accidents are blocking every street. Only use your phone for emergencies, the lines are overloaded. Domino effect: the three New York power plants have broken down one after the other. Three cops killed. Stay home, do not go out, open your windows and take a quick cold shower if you get too hot, but do not waste water because of the fires everywhere. Six cops killed. …”
“Hey, hasn’t someone been banging on the door for a while now?” Steve asked suddenly.
I ran to the door, and immediately Sable screamed, “We’ve been ringing for an hour! You guys deaf or what? We were fucking terrified!”
“I guess the bell isn’t working. Strange!”
From the window, we couldn’t see anything but the headlights of cars passing by. It was like being in a forest on a moonless night. Little by little, candles started lighting up in windows, and the projects were glowing like it was Christmas. The next morning, we decided to take a walk to St. Mark’s Place. The streets were one big party. Everybody was outside, gathered around restaurants and ice cream shops, which were handing out the entire contents of their refrigerators before everything melted or rotted. There were broken storefronts everywhere and other signs of the havoc from the night before. It was like we were in Beirut. Nobody had any idea when the electricity was going to come back on, and everyone was preparing for a second night in the dark. Some supermarkets were open—although without electricity—and people were lining up to get candles, flashlights, nonperishable food, etc. Cops were everywhere, and we saw a few army trucks headed toward Harlem, where the looters were apparently organizing for the night to come. Then, around 8 p.m., right after the sun went down, the electricity came back on, and as suddenly as it had started, the 1977 blackout came to an end.
Summers at CBGB, there were always as many people standing out front as there were inside the club. The sidewalk was where everything was happening. Inside, it was too loud and too hot, but in front of the club, you could breathe and chat and smoke a joint, which was prohibited inside.
One night, I was sitting on the hood of a parked car with Steve, Debbie, Jimmy Destri, Arturo, and Ty Stix listening to Dee Dee Ramone’s hilarious rambling, when two Puerto Rican guys walked past, and one of them jeered, “Punk rock!”
“Fuck you!” Ty slung back, sounding jaded and bored. The guy immediately whirled around and punched him in the face. Bam! Then he just kept on walking as if nothing had happened, while Ty collapsed onto the sidewalk.
“You shouldn’t have said anything!” Arturo said, as he helped Ty back up. We all started laughing, even Ty, though he was sporting quite the shiner.
Around two or three in the morning, the round trips back and forth between Max’s and CBGB would begin. This was especially true for the girls, who would meet up with each other along the way, asking, “Have you seen Johnny? Is he at CB’s?”
“No, they were all going back to Max’s. Did you see them there?”
“No, we were just there. Television is playing. Who’s playing at CB’s?”
“The Dead Boys. We got sick of it. We’re going to Max’s.”
They would meet at the same spot half an hour later and repeat the same conversation: “Have you seen Jerry? Is he at Max’s? …”
There were always at least two or three of them dashing between Union Square and the Bowery, worried they were missing out on something. Around four or
five in the morning, the action would mostly be in front of CBGB’s, because there’d be the option of going to Arturo Vega’s—the Ramones’ residence around the corner—or to Blondie’s loft a little further down, or Studio 10 right across the street. Or Bruce’s on Elizabeth Street right around the other corner.
On my way home, around six in the morning, I would usually see one last girl somewhere on the Bowery, makeup running down her face, a glass of vodka in her hand and a cigarette between her lips, and she’d ask me, “Have you seen Dee Dee? Is CB’s closed?”
Although most bands played in both clubs, there did seem to be two cliques: Max’s bands and CBGB’s bands. The Heartbreakers, the Fast, Wayne County, Robert Gordon, Suicide, Cherry Vanilla, the Blessed, the Cramps, and The Senders, to name a few, were Max’s bands. On the other hand, the Ramones, the Dead Boys, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, the Sick Fucks, and the Dictators were CB’s bands. It mostly depended on where they had first started and where they played and hung out the most. For some bands it wasn’t too clear, but for others, the connection was obvious. The Ramones, for example, were strictly CB’s. I don’t recall seeing them much at Max’s.
Though only separated by a short distance, the two clubs were in completely different neighborhoods. CBGB was in the middle of nowhere, on the Bowery. It was Desolation Row, little broken-down buildings, vacant lots. Max’s, on the other hand, was on Park Avenue South at Union Square, surrounded by huge and fancy buildings, most of which were office buildings or banks. Every afternoon, between 4 and 7 p.m., the ground floor at Max’s was completely packed with businessmen in suits. It was happy hour, when people left work and came to drink and unwind a bit before going home to fight with their wives.
Drinks were half price during happy hour, and there were free hors d’oeuvres—mini hot dogs and tiny chicken wings in barbecue sauce—scattered around the room on hot plates. Happy hour was at the same time as sound check upstairs, so there would always be two or three punk rockers trying to make their way through the crowd of businessmen downstairs to catch the last of the free food. There were also the real desperate guys, like me, who would go to eat the free food even if they weren’t playing at Max’s that night. There were times when those mini hot dogs were all I survived on.
In front of CBGB, it was always the same twenty-four seven: drunk bums sleeping on the sidewalk and not much else. But in front of Max’s, it was literally day and night. Since this was a business district, it was bustling with activity during the day—thousands of people in suits running in all directions—but at night, there wasn’t a soul. Nobody. It was a ghost town, and the whole block belonged to us. Sometimes, we would pass each other, the businessmen and us, the punk rockers. Like vampires, we’d just be going home at dawn, as they were all arriving for work.
I loved the atmosphere outside Max’s at night. It reminded me of a book from my childhood: Tintin in America. Nothing but big beautiful buildings from the thirties. No one there but us, drunk and stoned. It was easy to forget what that avenue was going to look like in just a few hours. Until sunrise, it was our private universe, our secret New York. When Park Avenue was Punk Avenue.
If you wanted to keep partying even after the sun came up, it was better to move to CBGB, where there were no offices to open, or executives to show up. Just the same old bums and Hell’s Angels.
Late one night, I was smoking a cigarette in front of CBGB, chatting with Paul Zone, the singer of the Fast, when two huge Hell’s Angels approached us. One of them, staring at my leather jacket, demanded of me, “Hey, you! You got a bike?”
Johnny had told me how a couple of Hell’s Angels had once “confiscated” his motorcycle jacket for answering that same question in the negative. Apparently, they’d said, “Those leather jackets are for bikers only, faggot! Take it off or we’ll beat the crap outta ya!”
“Too bad,” he had sighed to me. “It was a real nice one.”
With that in mind, I answered falteringly, “Um … yes.”
The biker stepped closer. “Oh, really? What you got?”
He clearly didn’t believe me, and I was starting to sweat. What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I thought I might have a better chance of getting through this if I dropped some unknown brand. I mean, I wasn’t going to say I had a Harley. I thought back to my brother Eric—a “trial” expert—and his bikes, and I blurted out, “I have a Bultaco.” I was shaking like a leaf.
“A Bultaco? Wow, great! Those Spanish dirt-bikes are the best in the world!”
Fuck! He knew his shit.
“What model you got? Where is it?” he asked, looking around.
“It’s a 250 CC,” I said, almost crying now. “It’s in the garage, unfortunately.”
This guy got right in my face, reeking of beer, and said, “You’re cute,” before heading into the bar with his friend, laughing all the while.
“Holy shit!” I gasped. Paul Zone seemed to think it was hilarious.
“He only spared you ’cause you had the balls to try and bluff him. You gained his respect with that move. Well, almost! A Bultaco, hahaha!”
Paul told me about a Hell’s Angel at CBGB who would walk up to every girl he saw and say something to the effect of, “How are you, darling? Don’t you remember me? I’ve been nuts about you for so long, you know? You’re all I think of, baby, to the point that I’ve even got your name tattooed on my dick to prove it!”
The girl would of course protest, “You don’t even know my name!”
“Are you kidding? You wanna bet? I’m willing to prove it to you right now, darling. You calling me a liar? We’ll both go down to the men’s room, and I’ll show you my dick, and if your name isn’t tattooed on it, I’ll give you a hundred bucks. But if you lose the bet, you have to blow me, okay?”
Incredibly, a few of them actually went for it, convinced he was lying—or else they were very drunk. Possibly both. They’d find themselves stuck with him in the toilet, not knowing what to say when he pulled out his dick, on which was tattooed Your Name in blue lettering.
One of them, a bit more clever than the others, apparently told him, “All right, you lose. You said you had my name—not your name—tattooed! Hand over the hundred bucks.”
We went to a party at Arturo Vega’s and all the Ramones were there. At one point toward the end, when everybody was completely fucked up, I found myself right behind Dee Dee and Arturo, and I heard a little bit of their conversation.
“I’ve done everything. I’ve done every drug, every kind of sex, it’s all become a bore. I’ve tried it all. What can I do now that I’ve never done before?” Dee Dee asked Arturo, who offered philosophically:
“You’ve never killed anybody!” There was a little pause, as if they were both contemplating, before Dee Dee said, satisfied, “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right!”
Hahaha!
The Ramones got along great with everybody, which was funny because they couldn’t stand each other. They were at CBGB’s all the time, and if they weren’t there, they were probably around the corner at Arturo’s. Johnny Ramone was always very calm, really nice, and very funny. He spoke in a nasally tone and had a strong Queens accent. All fast, short phrases. In a way, he was completely straight: a big sports fan, baseball card collector, the kind of guy who could tell you which team won what game at Shea Stadium in 1967. He was your typical All-American boy, a complete redneck with US Marines badges proudly displayed on the collar of his leather jacket, and he had a strong reputation for having right-wing political ideologies and for being a tyrant with the rest of the band. I’d been told he could be a real bastard and that he was hard to work with. Fortunately, I never had to work with him, so I only knew his good side; in my view, he was a very cynical guy, but he always had something funny to add. He was proud to say that he didn’t think of a guitar as anything more than a piece of wood to slam three chords on, and he couldn’t see any point in learning any more than that
, or in having a “proper” guitar. “To do what?” he would reason. More than anything, he loved horror movies.
Joey Ramone was harder to get to know, because he was extremely shy. Tall and skinny, he would loom hunchbacked over you, give you a little wink from behind his thick glasses, and go on his way. It was two or three years before I finally got to have a normal conversation with him, and then I discovered he was a brilliant and extremely funny guy.
Tommy Ramone was even more shy than Joey. He had zits all over his face and never said much.
The one I knew best was Dee Dee. He was exactly like Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was absolutely hilarious. Basically, he was the village idiot. He would look at you like a four-year-old who’d just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. What a character. There was always a problem with Dee Dee, but never anything to be too concerned about. It was more like: “I don’t know where my bass is! How am I gonna play without a bass? How am I gonna play?”
“Dee Dee, your bass is right behind you, against the wall.”