Kennedyand Garter in Florida: An Undemogatic Encounter A Pre-Nursery-school Guide for theTeachable Twos lIo$uchThing AsPun[ ...Peoplenoticed the Mudd Club;Blondie went platinum..." Beat on the brat Beat on the brat Beat on the brat with a baseball bat. Oh yeah! -The Ramones I thought I was gonna die. There I am at the Mudd Club, four in the morning and I'm exhausted,aching, malnour- ished.This guy in an M.P.'s uniform is perchedin front of me, pointing a macheteat my heart. Two feet to my right a Legr McNell: girl in a German prostitute'soutfit is doing a heavy make. People call him out scenewith a small teenageboy in a Green Beret uni- the orlglnal form. Her lipstick is all over his face. Somebodyelse thinks punk. Dontt it would be a good idea if I slipped on thesehandcuffs he's even Urlnk of proffering. crorcing hlm. The band onstage,Shrapnel, is in full military regalia and screaming and shooting at the audience. I'm sitting on the stage,the lead singer'sbig black boot crashes down, inches from my hand. Johnny "She wanted to do the goose step lhunderr: with me," the singer sang. "I said no He drlvee t{re way bitch, I got my own countree." audiencer at I'd had a little too much to drink or Martr wild wit{t something and wandered outside. It hir rtiring was hard to leave because so many r.endltlon of people were standingbehind the ropes, "Too Much waiting to get in. Somebodywas wear. Junkie ing an eveningdress. I sat on the hood Buslner;.tt of a limo and watchedSteve Mass, pro prietor of the Mudd Club, usher Andy Warhol through the throngs.Mass was wearing a general'suniform and bark- ing into a walkie-talkie.Some guy with blue hair came over and offered me Lydia Lunch: dangerousdrugs. I went home and collapsedinto my seri- The lead dnger ously disheveledbed and wonderedwhat had becomeof me. ol Teenage Only months ago I was living the life of a nice Jerur and Ure wholesomemother. I would get up in the morning and feed Jertr lr lamous my kid toastedoats, raisins, and wheat germ and walk him for looklng to the school bus. Maybe have coffee with other bus-stop dead and walling llke a mothers.Then do the breakfast dishesand go to work. At banshee. night we did stuff like watch Mork and Mindy. Then the kid went off for summervacation and I was left to my own devices.The long summernights stretchedahead of me and I was looking for thrills. I was sick of the bus- stop mothers and my friendly therapist and cozy nights in Lesley front of HBO. I was bored with everybody. and Jerry llolan: You know everybody.Everybody is gentleand self-aware He war her and eats whole-grainedfood and understandsher anger. dream punk; t{re rcality was Heimel is editor ol Soho Cynthia an the Weekly News. harder to @ 1976 Bleu Disque Muslc Co., Inc,, and Taeo Tunes. handle. Renick. 12 NEW YORK/OCTOBER 15. 1979 Phoogaphed by Marcia I I I : rope succumbed-Blondie's records were playing on juke- I I boxesin obscureFrench villagesbefore most of New York ". I sawthe Screamers, an L.A. punk group. ever heard of them. American punks visiting Europe were hailed as heroes. While their leader,TomatoDu Plenty,yelled. Although teenagerswere snapping up imported British a girl in zombie punk records,America was unaware of the punk phenom- makeup uttered enon until the Sex Pistolstalked dirty on TV. And when Americanand British punk recordsbegan topping British piercingwails. What charts, hungry American record companiescouldn't help was I doing here?.. ." but notice. Then Blondie released"Heart of Glass" and everythingexploded. You can't get away from it now. We're two months away from the eighties,and punk has quantum-leaptinto New York's consciousness.Walk down West Broadwayin Tomato Du SoHo, the trendiest street in the trendiest neighborhood, Plentlr: The and suddenlyall the flowing-manedartists have chopped off most famous their hair and squeezedthemselves into black spandexand L.A. punk is are calling themselvesthings like "avant-punquepoets." prone to scream Bloomingdale's(never mind Fiorucci) has had punk win- "l wanna hurttt dow displays.Punks are turningup at the mostfashionable at regular uptown theaterparties. Fashionable uptown theaterpeople intervals. are turning up at punk clubs,which are multiplyingas fast as cookie stands.New punk clothing shops are opening Everybody is reasonableand self-assertiveand in therapy weekly.Punk publicationstake up shelvesat newsstands, and againstnuclear power and rides a bicycle and thinks and musictrade magsare fat with storiesabout the "new" positiveand has a psychic.Everybody wants to snortcoke music. at Studio54 and talksabout relationshipsand about being Trendy people are calling it New Wave, No Wave, and afraid to getclose. Everybody works out at the gym, doesn't No No Wave, and a lot of peopleare making money. like Saturday Night Live anymore, thinks Woody Allen is What's all the fuss?Punks, according to all reports,are probablyGod. mindless and cruel. My father told me that when he saw But therewere theseother people-scary,strange, pallid, me in my iridescentvibrating-pink Betsey fohnson dress. meanJookingpeople wandering around the streets.I'd been "You keep away from those punks," he warned, Now this noticingthem peripherally for years:girls with starkslashes was interesting.Why was my buttoned-downdaddy fright- of rougeand purplelipstick and miniskirtsand fishnetstock- ened for me for the first time in thirteen years,just like he ings and teasedhair. Boys with black shirts,dark glasses, was theday I broughthome a boy with shoulderJengthhair spiky bleachedhair, and eye makeup. Punks. Suddenly and a buckskinvest? there were a hell of a lot of them. I found myself severely I found myself a punk girl friend named Lesley. I met interested. her at Hurrah, a big punk disco. She was standingnext to The whole punk scenehas beenbubbling under the sur- me, throwing bottlesat the band onstageand yelling. face for so long that its full-fledgedemergence is anticli- "You guys suck," she screamedin tandem with the mactic.We've beenhearing about safetypins forever.But smashingglass. "Why do they suck?" I wanted to know. this is the year that it's blossomed,like a Venus's-flytrap, "They're a pretentiouspseudo-art band, and none of them This is the year that People noticed the Mudd Club in can play worth shit," she told me. I invited her out for shockingprose, the year that Blondie went platinum, the coffee. 'n' year of the Ramonesmovie, Rock Roll High School, We sat at the Snow White coffee shop, drinking coffee the year that mothersin black leatherhit the streets. and eatingcornflakes, while she told me all kinds of neat Six years ago in the art-infestedback room at Max's stuff like: KansasCity, two angry young boys named Richard Hell ! There's no such thing as a punk. Punks used to call and Tom Verlaine approachedTerry Ork, a mad artist/ themselvespunks, but they don't want to anymore,now businessmanand one of the Andy Warhol gang,and asked that the term has beenco-opted by the media, him to help them form a rock-'n'-roll group. They starteda n Most punks live in the East Village-St. Marks Place band called the Neon Boys-mean, nasty,posturing, full has dozensof new punk shopsand is the centerof attention. of angerand energy.Meanwhile, another group, the Stilet- ! Most punksfall asleepwith the TV on. toes,was playinglukewarm music at a weird Hell's Angels ! Nobody goesto CBGB anyn,ore.It's a tourist trap. bar calledCBGB to almostno audience.The Stilettoes.star- n Don't trust anyoneover 25. ring DebbieHarry and Chris Stein,are now calledBlondie. ! The only good music is punk music. Everything else In ForestHills somekids were writing songsabout sniffing sucks. glue and decided to call themselvesthe Ramones.Patti fl Anyone who drinks Perrier water is mentally ill. Smith, a young nihilist poet, decidedshe wanted to be a ! Anybody who lives on the Upper East Side is beneath rock-'n'-rollstar. Then Richard Hell read in an obscure contempt.Better, much better, to live in Queenswith your British fdn magazinethat teenagersweren't mendingtheir parents. I clothesanymore. He thoughtthat was a neat idea,and sud- ! Silk is nowhere-only wear synthetic fabrics, like i denly everybodyhad ripped T-shirtsand jeansheld together polyester. with safetypins. ! We're all gonna die soon, everything is plastic; so On fuly 4, 1976, the Ramoneshit London, where a what differencedoes anything make? group called the Sex Pistols was rehashingold New York tr The best person to cut your hair is Marylou at Sas- Dolls' songs,and a group called the Clash was just form- soon,or William at Pipino Buccheri. ing. Elvis Costellowas nobody.England went punk-mad. Lesley refused to tell her age; she's about nineteen or Bands sprang up from every working-classghetto in the twenty. Her life is centeredin the clubs. She staysout until country. Magazineslike Sniffin' Glue appeared.All of Eu- morning everynight and sleepsall day. Sheworks part-time NEWYORK/OCTOBER 15. 1979 first punk group.I would play my Dolls recordsand dance aroundand look at myselfin the mirror. I pretendedI was ". Thenotoriously menacing Stiv Bators told a rock-'n'-rollstar. I was just a kid; the only other thing I did was sit at my kitchentable and have my motherpass methat whenhe wasa DeadBov the bandused the mashedpotatoes." to tie girlsup and "No Coke, Pepsi," Stevesaid. sexuallyabuse them "The Dolls were the best thing that ever happened to me," Lesley continued."They didn't stand for anything.