17. Listen to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers

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Wow! The Johnny Thunders covers compilation was released this week and I have a track on it. We recorded the song “I Love You” a while back and I love our version- Danuta from Fur is on bass and Jesse Malin is on drums and I sing and play guitar, great line up. You can get a copy of the 3 disc cd at at http://www.skykrebsrecordslimited.com/....

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Anyway……....

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It all happened on a freezing Christmas night. I was 14.  My sister and her boyfriend  Keith had agreed to take me to see Johnny Thunders at the Peppermint Lounge on 45^th street, where my grandmother had danced years ago. We left the family dinner at 9 and drove downtown in the La Mans I wore fishnet stockings, a black mini skirt, black pointy pumps and my leather motorcycle jacket, lots of eyeliner, very much the London style. Inside I was dancing to Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part I. Keith went and got us beers. I sat down on a wooden platform near the stage to drink and save a spot to see the show.  And then I saw him, X (can’t say his name, as it is too good a name to change and I do try to protect the guilty in these stories)!!!!! It was like a dream come true. The cute guy that I liked was out at a club with me!....

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I knew X because he worked at crazy Eddie’s on 8^th street and Sixth Avenue where, coincidentally, I had bought a Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers record, LAMF. X came up to me and started talking about the record. He told me his name and I told him mine. He had cool spiky black hair worn just like Sid Vicious and pale blue eyes and milky white skin. He was almost transparent, luminous and beautiful. X had a slight eastern European accent mixed in with his Brooklyn accent, and it was so hot. I had never met anyone who looked like him. I couldn’t believe he had approached me. I went home with a huge crush and couldn’t wait to get some money so I could go back and buy another record and see him again. And here he was at the Thunder’s show.

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X came over and sat with me and that cemented the deal. We were an item, for the moment at least. We were talking for a while and soon we were kissing, which happened effortlessly in a dark corner of a dark club with a beer, and had been so impossible to achieve in the sunlight on the sidewalk outside and electronics store, even if it is in the village. X tasted like cigarettes and alcohol. It got later and later and Johnny hadn’t taken the stage yet. X moved his hand higher and higher up my leg. ....

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X had come to the club with a friend, who sat next to us the whole time. My sister and Keith were also on the platform with us. It started to sound like the band might be coming on soon so we took a break from kissing so that X could get us beers. That’s when his friend, whose name I didn’t know, moved in on me. “Lets go back stage” he said and he grabbed my hand and we went through the door that led to the dressing rooms. I had never been backstage before. It was very exciting to see all these mysterious adults getting ready for a gig. We went past a bathroom where I could see two pairs of feet facing each other in the same stall. It was two men because the feet were big, one guy wore high top sneakers, the other had on tight black leather pants. We snuck around, holding hands, and peeking in rooms. It was hard to process everything I was seeing because it was so new and amazing and my adrenaline was soaring. Who are there cool looking people? I didn’t know but I wanted to hang out with them. X’s friend put his arms around me and started to kiss me. Given the excitement of the moment, this seemed appropriate and perfect.....

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Suddenly we were pushed against the wall as a line of guys walked by, some of them were holding guitars. Roadies and the band passed by and then a man not much bigger than my 5 foot-nothing petite frame stumbled by. Our faces were inches away from each other. It was Johnny Thunders. I had never been close to someone so cool and it was amazing to see this person, who made music that I loved, walk by me inches away in the privacy of backstage and then into the spotlight. I heard the crowd roar as Johnny came on stage and me and the guy went back to our spot to watch the show. X was mad at me and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t think I had done anything so terrible. We drove back home that freezing night in the La Mans and I held a special feeling in my stomach, like a pearl in my hand. I was getting closer to my destiny, to the exciting life that I wanted to live, getting a little freer from my dreary upper Manhattan miserable small town life.                                                                                                                              ....

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I met Viva on the Delancey street platform, to catch the F train out to the parade. We both had on summer dresses with our bathing suits underneath and we both carried our costumes, hers was a green fish head and tailpiece, mine a pink satin mermaid fin. Like most fins, it was hard to walk in, as it binds two legs into one tail. There was no way I could have navigated the lower east side streets in it. Most other years, I had gotten dressed at home and had a ride to the beach. Much easier. This was my first time taking the subway. The train arrived crowded with lots of young people heading out to the parade. We stood uncomfortably pressed against the throngs of strangers, wondering how we would ever change into our costumes. Luckily, the only two people on the crowded train who were not going to the parade were sitting next to Viva and I. They got up to exit we got their seats. Sitting was mildly more comfortable but still peoples bag and elbows were inches from our faces. The train was filled to capacity but still accepted more and more mermaid fans at every stop, till it was comical in a Marx’s brothers kind of way. At one point a one man band got on the train and played a few songs on a horn in the New Orleans jazz style, with recorded accompaniment and a tambourine on his foot. The crowd went crazy. Everyone was yelling and singing and stomping their feet, throwing dollar bills at the guy. It was then that we recognized that our subway car was in it’s own anarchic dimension and decided to get changed into our costumes right there. We took off our dresses, stopped to take photos of ourselves in bathing suits on this inhumanly-packed subway, and then ... please go to my blog to finish this story and others http://hollyramos.blogspot.com/

It was a muggy summer day in New York City and I had on a short cotton summer dress and flip flops. I shivered as I took the overly air conditioned 6 train deep into the Bronx to catch a bus to St Raymond’s cemetery, where my father was buried. He had died over a decade ago but I had never visited.

The sun was beaming and the sky was blue as I asked an attendant in a golf cart where the grave was. He told me to hop in and dropped me at the grave. “Looks like rain,” he said, and drove away. During our short ride, the sky had become dark purple but a few rays of white light shone through a small hole in the cloud cover, just like some religious card or vintage gospel album cover.

Seeing my father’s name engraved on the stone, with such finality, broke me open. I knelt besides the tombstone, threw my arms around it and started sobbing. Immediately, rain started pouring down in buckets, soaking me to the skin. I cried just as hard, so hard that my insides ached. I howled at the top of my lungs but no one heard me. There was not a soul to be seen. The sky was close to black now but I didn’t feel creeped out by being alone in a dark empty graveyard. (“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” normally terrifies me!) Instead, I felt safe and peaceful. A few rays of light were still poking through the hole in the clouds. After about 20 minutes, as I stood up and said goodbye, the clouds blew away and the air dried. The electric charge of negative ions created by the falling water dissipated and a depression of hot air embraced my wet body.

Leaving years of pain and grief behind me, I began the long walk back to the bus. My arms and legs had air dried in a few short minutes and my hair and dress were starting to. Then I noticed the strangest thing, had never seen anything like it in my life- a thick white cloudlike fog had formed around my legs and feet and followed me as I walked....

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Dark club, loud music, alcohol, some guy walks into the room and time stops. I watch his jaw move in slow motion chewing out a rhythm on his bubble gum., lips come together to take a drag of his cigarette, bandaged hand coming up to brush the shaggy dark hair out of his eyes...I melt. I know we are destined to be together, even though we have never spoken a word to each other. We’ve known each other in other life times, he is familiar on a deep, cellular level- my cells recognize him and call out. I have little say in the matter, which suits me fine. I am there, along for the ride. I am in L-O-V-E! He sees me and seems to have agreed to the contract, signed his name in blood. We go off into the sunset together.

It seems to happen all the time. Some people call it love at first sight. The thing is, it happened to me many times over and each time the ride was the same, infatuation leading to disappointment and eventually ending on bad terms. What an asshole! Thank God it didn’t work out, could you imagine if I were still stuck with that jerk! Love at first sight is just addiction, or a drug induced illusion, come on people!

Then...
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The first time I saw her was about 16 years ago in NYC, when...

hi dolls! it's xmas time and the world is changing. so much is happening and all is calm all is bright on this end.

can i tell you about the time i once got to sing my FAVORITE xmas song, darlene love's "christmas, baby please come home" with joey ramone and jayne county, on stage!

i once got to sing back up vocal on that song with an all time hero, jayne county. joey ramone sang the lead. can i say that again, i once got to sing back up with jayne county for joey ramone. it was a little christmas miracle i will always cherish. jayne and i were doing the "christmas" parts and we probably sounded like hyenas but it was a moment in rock history and it was beautiful and so fun.

in honor of that, i posted my infamous xmas song recorded with fur, "don't need no xmas tree" for your listening pleasure. the song is inspired, clearly by girl groups and phil spector. please enjoy the rare and beautiful raw power in this age of clean processing. cause we never ever do anything nice and easy...

i guess my second fav is fairy tale of new york. i got to sing the girl part with jesse malin once but what i really love the guys part....
It was christmas eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, wont see another one
And then he sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
Ive got a feeling
This years for me and you
So happy christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

in any case, we both sang the beautiful chorus
"the boys in the nypd choir were singing galway bay and the bells were ringing out on christmas day!" perfection.

yes, i love xmas , the giving and the lights and the good will towards man and woman.

lastly, i will mention that one year i got to play tiny tim in a christmas show at Jackie 60! Those were the days my friend and yes i got to say the last line, god bless us, every one. and i say it again now, god bless us, everyone. as the new year approaches, i have so many blessings and so much to be grateful for. i have an amazing life filled with love and happiness. i wish you the same but if you are going through hell this year, as winston churchill would say, keep going. it will get better. it always does. count your blessings, pray for the less fortunate, love your family, and be a good friend. we are all so lucky.
i wish the best for all of you this holiday season and upcoming new year! i wish the best for all of us. i am glad you are in my life.

please tell me about your fav xmas memories, songs and/or gratitude
xHolly

yes, its true superstar antony of antony and the johnsons is singing with me on my humble little song, don't need no xmas tree, on my profile page right now! i forgot to mention this supersonic trivia in my last post. its way too late and i need to sign off!
xh