The Runaways at CBGB's and Palladium, 1976-78

FFotos (c) Robert Barry Francos

I was interested in seeing the “Queens of Noise” (as opposed to the noise of Queens) when they played in New York City for the first time, in 1976. The five barely-post-adolescent The Runaways were scheduled to play CBGB. Their self-titled album was rocking, but was still a more pop version of what Suzi Quatro was doing – which was rock on out like the boys.

Before compromising her credibility by appearing as Leather, Pinky Tuscadero’s twice-thigh-slapping-and-pointing sister on Happy Days, Suzi was a guiding force and prime inspiration in woman-led rock. She was cute and she could pound her ax, growl, and “rock hard” with the best. When I saw her open for Alice Cooper at Madison Square Garden, I went out and bought a few of her LPs.

[Joan Jett, The Runaways, CBGB's, 1978]
The Runaways, as envisioned and “created” by mentor Kim Fowley, were a group of valley girls (well, at the time, any teenage female from LA was a valley girl to any self-respecting New Yorker) who could fill the fantasies of teenage heavy music boys (and some horny old coots). The music press couldn’t get enough of the band in the late 1970s, covering them in several magazines, including People, Rock Scene, Trouser Press, Crawdaddy, and Who Put the Bomp (where I first read about them).

The album started off with the instant classic tease, “Cherry Bomb” (“Hello daddy, hello mom/I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!”: see video below), which was written by co-member and guitarist Joan Jett (aged 16 – the ages were duly and helpfully noted on the album cover), ground out by fellow guitarist Lita Ford (oldest at 17), and accompanied by drummer Sandy West (16) and bassist Jackie Fox (16). Sung with a smugness that befit the lyrics was Cherie Currie (16), who had a penchant for wearing a widow corset and bustier on-stage, and swinging the microphone through her legs. While no other song on the album could hold up to “Cherry Bomb,” the music piqued our interest. Bernie Kugel and I knew that they would be interesting to see live, as a media event in its own right. We had wondered how much of the sound was studio, and how much of it was the Runaways. With Kim Fowley backing them, it seemed a valid question, him being known for media manipulation, and I don’t mean that in a necessarily negative way; he’s a showman much like Malcolm McLauren, or more likely akin to how David F. Friedman was to films.

[Lita Ford, The Runaways, CBGB's, 1978]
When we arrived at CBGB’s, early as usual, there was a line just starting. We were near the front, fortunately. Seems the record execs had set this show up as an industry showcase, so the place was packed with lots of suits (if you can imagine them in 1976 CBGB) who were more interested in either the free drinks, the shmooz-factor, or the possibility of seeing some cute young rock chicks. As always, we were there for the both the music and the joy of being at this historic concert.

When the management finally got around to acknowledging and letting in the relatively long line of fans, there was only room enough left for about a dozen or so of us. Despite being near the front, we were at a table way towards the back of the club, against the brick wall opposite the bar. Luckily, with the tiny stage being on the same side, we had some possibility of a view. This was more than a year before I would have my camera, so I have no photos of the event. We both stood on our chairs and leaned against the wall. The waitresses were too busy with the execs to have time to abuse us. The concert was everything we had hoped it would be – a good old rock’n’roll show.

A year or so later, the Runaways were big hits in Japan and their second album, Queens of Noise, had been released. This collection was quite a bit more “glossy” on the production end than the first, again with a few memorable songs, like “Road to Ruin,” and the title cut. The band played at the Palladium (nee the Academy of Music), a much larger venue, opening for the Ramones on January 7, 1978.

[The Runaways, Palladium, 1978]
Our seats were pretty far back, and the gig was great for a theater show, One of things I remember the most about this concert was an incident involving the intermission. As the lights went down after the Runaways finished their set and we waited for the Ramones, suddenly the intermission music started, which was the opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The audience became suddenly very tensely quiet, waiting… When it became clear it was really Beethoven’s Fifth, and not the dreadful Walter Murphy travesty, "A Fifth of Beethoven," the audience gave a huge sigh of relief and the conversations started once again. We were punks, but we were not ignorant masochists.

The third and last time I saw the Runaways play New York, they were again at CBGB’s. Cherie Currie had already left the band (as did bassist Jackie Fox, who was replaced with Vicki Blue) and Joan Jett rose up the ranks as the lead, giving Lita Ford more of a chance to show off her metal-influenced guitarwork. They were quite competent, which did not surprise me, since Joan had been handling some of the songs even while Cherie was in the band. This time, near the new stage on the right side of the club, Alan Abramowitz and I sat by the speaker on the right.

Opening for the Runaways was a Toronto-based band, the B-Girls. I had their single, “Fun at the Beach,” b/w “B-Girls” (on the Bomp! label) and enjoyed it, so it made sense to go to the show. The B-Girls had attitude, but they were a good surf/pop/rock’n’roll style band.

The Runaways, too young and immature at the time to grow more formidable as a whole, drifted apart and some became famous names with their own careers. Cherie Currie released a couple of decent but not overly strong albums with her twin sister, Marie (though their song, “Since You’ve Been Gone” is a standard listen for me), came clean about her drug use on some daytime talk show, probably in 1989 when she released her autobiography for the first time.

[Cherie Currie, Chiller Theater, 1999]
The last time I saw her in person was in May of 1999 at the Chiller Theatre Horror and Model Convention in Secaucus, New Jersey, where she was, I’m guessing, still trying to break into B-movies (as she’d already appeared in Parasite – which was also one of Demi Moore’s early flicks – and Foxes, co-starring Scott Baio and Jodie Foster; her character dies in both...anyone looking for an omen?). She looked buffed and was signing autographs (for money) at a table next to Neal Smith and Michael Bruce from the Alice Cooper Band. She smiled pleasantly for my request for taking a picture of her, and when I mentioned that I had seen her play CBGB’s about 23 years earlier (at that time), she became very cold and distant, and gave me a “who gives a fuck, fan-boy?” look. I said thank you for the snap, and beat a hasty retreat. Brrrrr..

The Rock and Roll Hierarchy: The Myth of Elvis

Chuck Berry Live at The Heat, NYC 3/1/80 (c) Robert Barry Francos

After having heard Elvis Presley being called the king of rock’n’roll for my whole conscious life, the possibility of seeing Chuck Berry in the 1980s was very exciting to me. I’ve come to believe that while Elvis’ (pre-army) music could be hard-hitting, he was overrated. What made him so big, from my perspective, was he bridged “white” pop music and what was then commonly known as race music, or rhythm & blues.


In the pre-Elvis 1950s, if black artists wanted their music to be played on “mainstream” radio or television, they had to not only sell away their rights, they would have to let a white musician play it, with all the “slang” and soul eradicated – hence, the popularity of the largest-selling bridge-stander of the period, Pat Boone. Have you ever heard Boone’s version of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” or Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” (reduced to “What Did I Say”)? I remember a taped, televised image of Boone singing “Tutti Frutti,” snapping his little fingers and trying to look so cool while actually looking uncoordinated and rhythmless, with a big, goofy smile across his face. Surely, the bridge on which he and other white musicians stood was the backs of the black artists, who were measly compensated for the use of their material.

Elvis, on the other hand, was a white musician who whitewashed the sound of a song. This made the possibility of soulfulness of the black artists more acceptable to the mass 1950s white audience, presenting it in a way imaginable to opening the door to more competent musicians who could actually play their instruments and write their own songs. Elvis famously yearned to be Dean Martin and Bobby Darin. He didn’t necessarily want to be a rock’n’roller; he wanted to be a pop crooner.

Even before the popularity of Elvis, he was not the first sincere white “bridge” bringing the soulful music of rhythm and blues to a mainstream white audience; some pioneers include songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, disc jockeys Zenas “Daddy” Sears (Atlanta), “John R.” Richbourg (Nashville), Hunter Hancock (Los Angeles), Dewey Phillips (Memphis), and Alan “Moondoog” Freed (Cleveland, then New York), and record producers and label owners, such as Leonard Chess (Chess Records, Chicago) and Sam Phillips (Sun Records, Memphis).

I see rock’n’roll having a whole different hierarchy of royalty. The true king of rock’n’roll is Chuck Berry. It was Berry that brought an “almost grown” rock’n’roll sound to the fore. While based on basic I-IV-V R&B and Blues chord structures (“Johnny B. Goode” is one example) with a mixture of pop and even some country, Berry was also intelligent in his use of manipulating and playing with language (“As I was motor-vatin’ over a hill/I saw Maybellene in a Coupe DeVille”), witty in his phrasing (“Roll over Beethoven/And tell Tchaikovsky the news”), and steamrolling. He expressed the sheer joyousness of the music for the music’s sake: “Hail, hail, rock and roll/Deliver me from the days of old/Long live rock and roll/The beat of the drum is loud and bold/Rock rock rock and roll/The feeling is there body and soul.” And I agree with his sentiment that “It’s gotta be rock and roll music/If you wanna dance with me.”

The “queen,” or diva of rock’n’roll is Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard. This is not meant in any reference to Richard’s varying sexual preferences, but rather that he brought a “fem” edge of flamboyance: glitter and bouffant hair, the make-up and the whooping, and a strong flavor of sexual tension that was different than any previous rock’n’roll headliner. In one “whooooo,” he could convey more overt sexuality than Elvis did with any hip wiggle. He brought to rock’n’roll a sense of camp and grandness.

The brother of the king (next-in-line) is Jerry Lee Lewis. His stylings are similar to Little Richard’s, both being heavily influenced by a combination of R&B, gospel and boogie, but Jerry Lee’s message was devious, less subtle, and a whole lot hornier. While Little Richard was the sex object from the ying perspective, saying, “take me” (“You keep a-knockin’ but you can’t come in/Come back tomorrow night and try again”), Jerry Lee Lewis – nicknamed “the Killer’ – was pure yang, into being the seducer and predator (“C’mon baby, don’t be shy.../You leave me/breathless-a”). Both also used the piano (along with their own physicality) as a raucous instrument of tension, frustration, and longing. Marshall McLuhan probably made a notation somewhere about the piano being a different kind of extension of these two artists.

The crown prince is Buddy Holly (during and post-Crickets). He managed to merge mainstream pop with country and swing, codifying his sound with emotion and meaning that people like Pat Boone could never achieve. It also explains Buddy’s successful gig before the infamously demanding audience at the Apollo Theater in New York. His message was one of innocence mixed with longing and, well, a Lubbock-fed Texas twang. His phrasing, both musically and lyrically, was unique (“Well All Right,” “True Love’s Ways”), sounding simple while actually being built upon innovative, complex and intricate rhythms. To take a slogan out of context, on the sexual battlefield, Buddy wanted to make love, not war in the musical arena.

Elvis, being a bridge, albeit an important and groundbreaking one, even while pre-dating Holly’s rise (and literal fall), actually brought the least to the table, except for his voice. He did not write his own music, and his guitar playing was nothing more than rudimentary. I tend to think the importance of the big “E” as the messenger, spreading the gospel of rock’n’roll to the masses, sort of like the role Paul was to Jesus. What he brought was important, but he was not the innovator.

There were also many strong women who had a pull on the direction of rock’n’roll as well, such as Big Momma Thorton, Wanda Jackson, Etta James, and Ruth Brown, but because of the period of history in which rock and roll developed and came to the forefront, women’s roles were mostly marginalized. There were more women with power behind the scenes than there were in front of the microphone. This included production, session musicians (such as bassist Carol Kaye, who, for example, played the intro to the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”), promotion (British series Ready, Steady Go was produced by Vicki Wickham), and especially in the area of songwriting (Delores Fuller, Elli Greenwich, Carol King). It was not until the folk scene in the sixties, which had a heavy focus on both class and gender politics, did women start getting the acknowledgement they earned. Punk, too, would be heavily have a female influence, such as Patti Smith and Debbie Harry. But even then, many were treated as second class.

AC/DC at CBGB's, 1977

AC/DC live at CBGB's FFoto (c) Robert Barry Francos

On August 24, 1977, I went to CBGB's to see one of my favorite powerpop bands, The Marbles (and they did not disappoint).

As their set was ending, suddenly there was a commotion at the back of the club and I figured, oh, I bet some drunk was getting tossed. Then I noticed part of the crowd moving toward the stage, surrounding a cluster of people. That’s when they announced the next band to play over the speaker, and it was not one who was scheduled. One of the group of people had long-hair, muscles and a grainy face; the one behind him was diminutive, wearing short pants that looked like part of a school uniform, and was carrying a guitar case. Of course, I recognized them from seeing them on some Friday night in-concert television program.

It seems AC/DC had been playing in town at the Academy of Music (which would be renamed as The Palladium) to support their High Voltage album, and wanted to check out the club. The band proceeded to play an impromptu set, which actually lasted longer many other local bands’ turn at the mic. And this was after their playing a full concert uptown shortly before.


The late singer Bonn Scott ran around the relatively small stage, ripping his shirt off along the way. Meanwhile, guitarist Angus Young also frenetically moved like a madman, brandishing his guitar like a weapon of noise, and playing their fun version of pop metal. I’d never been enough of a fan that I would have paid to see the band, but I definitely had fun viewing them that close.

At one point, Angus switched guitars that either had a remote or a really long cord (I can’t remember which). He then made his way through the crowd, while playing wild solo licks, and went outside. So, there was little Angus, while still playing, talking to the transient gents from the Palace Hotel milling outside CBGB.

Luckily, I caught the gig on film. The band was moving around so fast, and I did not have a flash at that time, that all the pictures were blurry due to the movement. At first I was disappointed by the blur, but after some time I found that the effect was almost like echo from the guitar, giving a true feel to the motion of the moment.

Soon after,I even bought the album for a buck at a cut-out bin. I was satisfied on many levels.

The Dictators at the Bottom Line, 1977

FFoto: The Dictators live (c) Robert Barry Francos

In honor of reconnecting with a long-missed friend, Donna Lethal, I present this photo I took of her boyfriend, Dictator's guitarist Scott Kempner/Top Ten, and Handsome Dick Manitoba. It was taken on October 21, 1977, at a New York caberet once known as The Bottom Line.

Live at Hank's: Chesty Malone and Sister Anne, 10/31/08

Live FFotos at Hank’s © Robert Barry Francos

Last time I saw lead singer Jacqueline Blownaparte (love that name), was when she was lead singer of Lady Unluck (as Vikki Voltage), both at Peggy O’Neill’s in Brooklyn, and CBGB’s. But that’s a couple of years now, and I’ve been just itching to see her new group, Chesty Malone and the Slice-Em-Ups. I’d recently done a review of their incredibly fun new CD for Jersey Beat (www.jerseybeat.com/quietcorner.html), Now We’re Gonna See What Disaster Really Means, so I was looking forward to seeing them play.

Turns out they had a gig coming up on Halloween (the perfect day to see them) at one of my favorite haunts (pun intended), Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn. Hank’s is supposedly closing down for redevelopment (let’s finally get rid of that miserable mayor Bloomberg already, willya!?), so I was happy to not only get a chance to finally see the band, but to support one of my favorite remaining local music centers.

As for a costume, well I’ve never really been one to dress up, so I wore my official canary yellow Day of the Dead sweatshirt. It had been given to an editor of Fangoria by the film crew for appearing in the Romero film (as a zombie, of course), and he gave it to his girlfriend, Dawn. When they broke up, the girlfriend gave it to me. I don’t wear it often, but this was a special evening.

As the first band was setting up the crowded, tiny and slightly elevated stage, I saw Chesty Malone arrive all together. I went over and introduced myself to Jacqueline, who almost seemed a bit shy, and guitarist Anthony Allen van Hoek. Am I crazy, or was it just pre-show jitters? Or maybe it was the projection of myself who was bashful? Anyway, I found it kinda charming. While the band usually has some kind of blood-spattered appearance, for this show, Jacqueline wore a zombie Star Trek Yeoman Rand outfit that worked quite well, so I felt confident in my choice of “costume.”. At some point before the first band, Anthony came over and gave me a Chesty Malone t-shirt, and I truthfully told him that I would wear it with pride.

Got By Buckner
The first band up was the all-attractive Got By Buckner, the second band I know of that was named after the Met’s-winning 1986 World Series (other one is Miracle of 86). My guess is this is a one-off cover band made up of members of other bands, just having fun (I did a search through some Websites and came up with bubkus). And some of the crowd, obviously made up of their friends, seemed to be getting into it. I had some problems though, part of which was their choice of obvious Top-10 covers, from the good (e.g., Proclaimers’ “500 Miles, B-52’s “Love Shack” and CCR’s “Fortunate Son” – although I bet they were doing the U2 version), to the awful (e.g., Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean”, and Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone”). The band's musicianship was fine, based on guitar (acoustic), drums, bass, and keyboards, but the lead vocalist was not. Her voice was incredibly reedy, and mostly tuneless. The guitarist had a much better and stronger voice (and in hair-band mode, looked like that blond surfer dude on TMZ). Their audience was tall and thin, preppy types (one of the great things about Hank’s is their diversity of bands), who danced in front of the stage. As good as GBB were to look at, I was honestly glad when they were done.


Chesty Malone and the Slice-Em-Ups
Next up was the band I had come to see, and Chesty Malone and the Slice-Em-Ups certainly did not disappoint. Immediately, there was a change of crowd, as an older, rowdy and fun group came to the forefront, including Lisa Brown (of Mongrel Bitch),who I had seen before at She Wolves shows.

CM&TSEUs are as horror-focused hardcore punk and horror-focused hardcore punk can be. In a long tradition of bands that focus on the macabre, horror film (gory-type), and serial killers, they sound like the howl of an angry wind in which you hear voices calling for your soul. Jacqueline is loud and angry, pulling the listener down and stomping on them until they submit. Hunched over and clutching the mic while standing in the audience, she rocks back and forth, spilling her vocal guts to the level that Lucio Fulci (were he not at the Quella villa accanto al cimitero) would be proud. Anthony, tall and imposing, played his Frankenstein monster on guitar to the hilt, making horror faces at the crowd and strum-pounding on his instrument. Jeez, it’s a fun band.

Jacqueline Blownaparte and some Queens of Pain

They went through a number of their songs from the CD, and I even videoed one of my favorite songs from the CD, the opening cut, “Satan Met a Lady,” but like a fool I did half of it at vertical (when I take photos, I'm not locked into vertical or horizontal), and of course, there’s no way to view it that way. Oh, well. That’s why I’m a photographer rather than a videographer. They did “13 Killers,” “Eat Shit” (aka “BPPS”), “Dotti Douchebag Sings the Blues,” and “Trouble With Cannibals” (another of their tunes I really like). The set list is copied below the band line-up.

This was the first time I saw them play, and I’m certainly hoping it will NOT be the last. They are exciting and fun, in an insane asylum, hardcore, take-no-prisoners, 28-Days/Weeks-Later-speed kind of way.

Chesty Malone and the Slice-Em-Ups:
Jacqueline Blownapart: Vox
Anthony Allen Van Hoek: Guitar
Ernest Anderson III: Bass
Angel Cotte: Drums

Set list (as listed on their sheet):
Wasteface
Eat Shit
Satan
Livereaters
Meat Factory
Exit 13
Skincrawl
Everybody Hurts
Cannibals
13 Killers
Ghouls
Dotti Douchebag
Beavershot

chestymalone.com
myspace.com/chestymaloneandthesliceemups
Anthony’s excellent blog: rnrruinedmylife.blogspot.com

Sister Anne
After CM&TSEM’s set the crowd mutated once again, into one that was younger with urban-coolness, as we waited for the next band, Sister Anne. They are developing quite the following, though honestly I had not heard of them before. But there always is a first time anyway, right?

They all arrived in costume (listed next to their names below), and were very vibrant. There were tickets given to anyone who was in costume, and the winners got to take home basically stuff that the band wanted to get rid of. I remember the Nerve used to do that, too. It really produced some laughs and joy from the crowd, as one of the band’s bassists, Leon – dressed in full Queens of Pain Roller Derby gear – read off the numbers. The lead singer, Kitana (who also goes by the name Pink Chocolate), is tall and lean, with a performing strut-style stance, almost like an Egyptian empress. Next to her was diminutive Michelle, decked out in full nun outfit and carrying a huge guitar, which she played beautifully, I must say.

What I liked about Queen Anne is that they seem to really be having fun and enjoying themselves. They also play a mean, lean R&B rock. Kitana’s easy manner on stage and frank, sexual-based straight-talk between songs proved that she is a primed front-person. As I watched, she moved around the stage with a both a grace and slink. At one point, she swung her head, and her neon blue anime wig went flying into the audience (and was promptly worn by a male fan in front), followed by the nylon head cover, so her own hair broke free of it’s further binds and was free to move on its own.

Rather than having a set list, Kitana and Michelle had quick discussions, e.g., “Let’s play 'So-and-so'," which worked for them. They are definitely an up and coming band to look for.

About 20 minutes into their set, I left. It was Halloween night, and I wanted to get home. On the way to the train, outside of Hank’s, I saw Jacquline, Anthony, and Lisa, so I got to congratulate the band on a good and solid set. It was good to let them know in person.

Sister Anne (costume):
Kitana aka Pink Chocolate (Anime): Vox
Michelle (Nun): Guitar
Leon (Roller Derby Queen): Lo-bass
Sherry (Derek Smalls from This is Spinal Tap): Hi-bass
Jeph (Animal from The Muppets)

www.myspace.com/sisteranne

Epilogue: On the train ride home, I was listening to people talk about how crowded the Village Halloween Parade was (someone said they got there two hours before the its start, and couldn’t see because of the crowds, estimated in the news reports as in the millions along its route. Going to Hank’s was definitely the right choice.

Getting on the train at one point was a guy in the following costume: gym shorts, a t-shirt (yes, it was warm that night) with painted in sweat stains, and a gym bag. Oh, and he had an enormous soft rubber dildo and balls hanging out of his pants. Now that is just part of what disaster really means.

Fire Outside CBGB's

FFoto (c) Robert Barry Francos

I left CBGB's after a February show early one crisp morning in 1978, and saw this huge trash fire in the street. There was a man looking at it carrying skis. So I snapped one off.

School Black and Blue Days

Photos from the Internet or RBF's personal collection

People wonder why someone will take a particular stance or action. They will say to themselves, “What happened to that person that made them turn out that way?” For me, I thank the Brooklyn public school system. It is perhaps the most dysfunctional family to which I’ve ever been associated.

They didn’t have pre-school back then, not in Bensonhurst, anyway. My first class was kindergarten at PS 128, which I was anxious to attend. I was looking forward to learning. While I was the smallest kid in class, sans one girl named Patty, I felt confident that I would do well. The two women who ran the class were wonderful, and took me as the smallest boy under their wing, protecting me. I became sort of teacher’s pet, though I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. It was all just having fun and prepping me to learn.

Each grade was broken into two classes, the “1” classes (1-1, 2-1, etc.) which was more academically advanced, and the “2” classes (1-2, 2-2, etc.), which were the ones who struggled some and needed more help (i.e., geared more toward trade jobs than anything academically challenging, in the school system’s playbook).

RBF, First Grade
I entered the first grade at 1-1 with a strong desire and determination. Then I met the teacher. She liked little girls, and was not fond of little boys, especially those who were the teacher’s pets of the kindergarten class. She set her sights on me, and never let up. After class, we all lined up in the street, and our mothers came to pick us up (it was rare to find a mother that worked back then). One day she made an announcement, “I just want everyone here to know that Robert is a thief. He stole a box of crayons.” The mothers pulled their kids away from me. When we got home, my mother asked what happened with the crayons. I told her that the shelf I was supposed to return them to was too high for me to reach, and I put the box on a lower shelf. My mother went over the next day to see the teacher, and sure enough, there were the crayons right where I said they were. She refused to make a correcting announcement, and for years, there were certain kids I was not allowed to play with because I was a “thief.”

But she had not even begun. The highlight was one day when she decided to punish me (though I cannot remember the cause). She took the green metal garbage can that was under her desk, and dumped it on the floor. She then made me sit in it with my arms and legs hanging out, and my butt hanging in. With her foot, she pushed the can I was in under her desk, and then had the entire class line up and kick the can. One kid kicked it low, causing the can to fall over. She yelled at me for it, and I had to straighten it out, put myself back in, and then the line continued until everyone was done. I was so mortified by the incident, that I didn’t tell anyone – including my parents – until years later, after she had already left the school. At some point, I read that the exact same thing happened to Bruce Springsteen. I wonder if it was either a taught training method both teachers had followed, it was the same teacher, or just coincidence. Whichever way, it was not fun.

Second Grade
Her strongest act against me, though, was that for the next year, she put me in “2” class. I started acting out. Now they would probably say I had ADD, but the teacher was helpless and could not control me. She tried to punish me by making me sit in a chair under a bookshelf that was very low, so I had to crane my neck just to sit there. Repeatedly, she called down my brother from a higher grade, and he would try to calm me down. I was a wreck, and no clue how to learn. All they wanted me to do was sit quiet. For the next year, she put me in 3-2.

Third Grade
That year I had the same problem. Could not sit still, and was uncontrollable. My brother’s teacher would not let him out of the class to handle me, because she understood that he had to learn, too, not just discipline me. One day I came home with a handprint across my face, where my third grade teacher had slapped me. My mother went there the next day, all literally 5-foot of her, and she told the teacher that if she ever touched me again, she would beat the crap out of her. The end result was that the teacher had me sent to a psychiatrist. Dr. Hand saw me for one session, and his conclusion was that I was too smart for the “2” class and was acting out because I was bored. He recommended either bumping me up to the “1” class, or give me more work. The teacher felt that since I was in her class, I should do her curriculum. Needless to say, I just got worse.

Before a Fourth Grade class show: Julie, RBF, Elise, Patty
The 4-2 class, due to reasons beyond our control, had a string of four teachers, none staying long enough to be effective. I don’t remember any of them. I was still out of my mind. While I don't remember it, I heard years later that I had stabbed one of the students in the hand with a pencil during an argument. Every day felt like a struggle. I read a lot on my own, including books older than my reading level, like the Dr. Dolittle series, and my absolute favorites were the Happy Hollister family of detectives series (much more so than the Hardy Boys). My parents were also willing to spend a bit more on books. Seems like I either was trying to distract from my life, or almost trying to learn by myself.

Fifth Grade
When I got to 5-2, we had our first male teacher. I figured, okay, I could associate with another male, so maybe it will be better and I’ll buckle down. After a few months, he disappeared. Off the face of the earth. One day he was here, next day, gone. I learned much later that was being intimate with one of the girls in my fifth grade class, who happened to be the daughter of a high-level gangster. At the time, they were filling in a local bay, which would later be known as Ceasar’s Bay [sic], to build a department store called EJ Korvettes. My guess is that is where the teacher was squirreled away.

We burned through 5 teachers in fifth grade. Only one other was memorable. She had one of those gynormous hearing aides, the kind that fit in the ear, and a wire led to the receiver that was in her shirt pocket. The class was not fond of her, as she was kind of cold and unfriendly. Myself, and my pals Dominick and Joel (who usually did not get along), conspired to get the class to mutiny. We would do things like organize everyone to gradually talk lower and lower, so the teacher would raise the volume of her aide up higher and higher. Then on cue, the whole class would scream, scaring her. Or we would talk in fake broken words, so it sort of sounded like a cell phone breaking up now, and she would be either banging on or shaking the aide receiver. She left after about 4 to 6 weeks.

Sixth Grade
In 6-2, we had either 4 or 5 teachers, I can’t remember now. Again, most were forgettable. The one I do remember was the very last, Mrs. Lowenberger. She was strict but fair. We were all a little scared of her, but in a good way, and I think I learned more from her than anyone in the previous 3 years or more. If she had been our teacher for the whole time, our lives would have been vastly improved. I remember she was totally into the Opera (which none of us were), and on a class field trip, she brought us to Lincoln Center (my mom was one of the class monitors for this one). Because she had such an in with the place, we got a personalized backstage tour of the huge hall. It was amazing.

On the next to last day of class, Mrs. Lowenberger announced that she wasn’t feeling well, and she expected each and every one of us to come to her house to pick up our report cards. It was mandatory, and she gave each of us two bus tokens, for each way. We rode as a group, and when we got there, she was fine; she had a planned surprise barbeque. Her husband took the day off and cooked for us all. Because she was not into popular music, the only record we wanted to hear that she had available was “Penny Lane” 45 (which belonged to her daughter).

Looking back, there was an inherent level of racism that ran though that school. Our area of Bensonhurst was almost exclusively white, at about 40% Jewish, 50% Italian, 9% Irish, and 1% the rest. There were two Chinese families (one that owned the local Chinese restaurant), and an elderly African-American alcoholic man who we knew as Rochester (I’ve never found out if that was his real name). He lived by himself and we, as little kids who didn’t know better because we weren’t taught better, would demand he dance for us, which he would oblige in a tapping, stumbling way. There was another African-American family with an uncle looking after his nephew and niece. The niece, Vivian, was in my class, and we were friends. I’d been to her house a few times, and even gave her my roller skates (which annoyed my brother, because he wanted them). In total, my class was all white, with the exception of three girls of color: Vivian, and two bused in from Coney Island. Some teachers would ask (i.e., demand) that Vivian stand in the front of the class and sing, “He Got the Whole World.” Looking back, I cringe at incidents like this, and how we behaved to Rochester.

When I started JHS 281, or Bensonhurst Junior High School (later renamed Cavallaro JHS), I was glad to be out of grade school and heading into a new one. The first day of class, I ran into Dominic. I hadn’t seen him all summer. During the school year, we would hang out together after class and play “Lost in Space.” He was just an average ordinary kid. I said, “Hey! Dominic! How ya doin’?” He said, “Oh, hey. I spent the whole fuckin’ summer at the fuckin’ beach getting’ fuckin’ wasted and fuckin' hangin' out with chicks. It was fuckin’ great!” I thought, whoa, what alien kidnapped my pal and turned in into that guy? Later I ran into Vivian, who was walking with two of her friends. She was wearing a dashiki and wore wooden beads and a huge afro. I said, “Hey, Vivian, how ya doin’?” She responded, “Who you talkin’ to you white motherfucker?! Get the fuck away from me!” I thought, as she and her soul sisters stormed by, with a bit of a sob, “…But I gave you my skates….” It was a summer of revolution, 1967, and I was left behind.

As scary as elementary school had been, junior high was way amped up, adding a racial tension within the school. There were problems between the Italian kids and those of color. Us Jewish kids were just trying not to get caught in the crossfire.

While teachers tended to be a bit better, there were some definite winners in the abusive column. For example, while math has never been my forte, I still tried. In Seventh grade, I took my first advanced math class, and was lost and befuddled. At one point the teacher said, "Come to the board and do this problem." I responded, "Well, I don't know how to do it." Her answer was, "Do it, make the error, and we can figure out how to do it correctly." That made sense, so I went up, did what I could, and made the error. She then started berratting me in front of the class about a solution I already told her I didn't know. After a few minutes of constant demeaning by her, I just walked out of the class, hiding in the staircase because I did not have a hall pass.

My mom brought home a (manual) typewriter when I was a little kid. I sat down at it and within a year I was typing at quite a clip. Again, in seventh grade, typing class was manditory. By that time, I was typing at 55 words per minute. The teacher gave me a grade of C. Confronting her, I asked, "WTF?" (but not in those words). Her illogical reasoning was I didn't show improvement. I said (and this I did verbalize), "Improvment? I'm a 13 year old kid on a manual typewriter doing 55 words a minute.  How much more of an improvement could I made when the keys on these machines lock up if you try to type faster. They can't GO faster than than 55 words per minute." She replied that it was not her problem. I asked her, "If this was a bowling class and I started bowling 300 at the beginning of the term and finished with a 300, you would give me a C?" Her response was to the affirmative. She refused to change it, and somewhere in her response she claimed that her job was to teach us, and I did not learn. It didn't matter that she could not teach me more than I knew. She was punishing me for something I already knew. It was all her ego.

By the time I got to Lafayette High School, it had gotten even worse. Race became an even stronger dynamic. One had to know the right bathrooms to go to, which part of the schoolyard to avoid, and to not cross the line into the Marboro Projects across the street to the north (similarly, the kids of color did not stray a block to the south of the school). It all came to a head one afternoon. I was sitting in class on the fourth, top floor, and heard a loud noise outside. The whole class went to the steel grated window. We saw two masses approaching each other in the cement yard, one being the Italian kids, and the other being the black and Latino students. They were all ready to fight to make the school their own turf. It was just getting to the pushing stage, when a line of huge black Lincoln Town Cars pulled up to the curb. Out them stepped groups of wiseguys. Suddenly, all the kids started running, because the black and Latino kids didn’t want to be seen beating up the Italian kids, and the Italians didn’t want their parents to know they were causing trouble. So one minute they are literally ready to beat each other to a pulp, and the next, they are helping each other over the link fence. The end result is that the intent was clear that they didn’t like each other, so that did not change, but no more riots broke out while I was there.

While that situation was totally out of my control, there was a time when I took some back. While in Junior High, most of the Jewish kids took Spanish or French, but I figured since I lived among Italians, it would make sense to learn that language. Plus, I've always liked the way Italian sounded, being so melodic (still do). I was the only Jewish kid in the class, and most people there took it as an easy mark, because they already spoke some degree of it. My first year, I did okay. The second year was tougher. The teacher, Mrs. Alleva, lived around the corner from me, and was very nice. When I went to High School, I had to take a third year of lanuage to get an academic degree. It was obviously taught by a different teacher. He was interested in control of the students. Somewhere in the middle of the year, I made an error in translating, and he said something insulting at me in colloquial Italian that I didn't understand, but the whole class laughed. I responded by saying, "Gai kaken oifen yam." He flinched and said, "What was that?" "Yiddish," I replied (the translation is "Go shit in the ocean"). He squinched his face and spat out, "Oh, you're a Jew?" Needless to say, he made the rest of the year hell. He kept cursing me out in Italian, and I would make up curses in Yiddish back (as I only knew two). I just barely passed the Regents, so on the last day of class, he said to me with a smirk, "Because you did not do well enough on the Regents to guarantee a passing grade, I'm giving you a 64 in this class." A classic spite mark, since 65 is passing. "Fine," I relied calmly turning my back on him walking out of the classroom, "You're the only one who teaches this class and I need it to graduate. We get to do this again next year." When my report card came, he had given me a 65.

But I had enough by this time. I started cutting school. It wasn’t a thoughtful, “Okay I’m going to hang out with my friends, I don’t like school, I’d rather take drugs,” kind of thing, but rather it was where I would just hide in my room, or go to Korvettes and spend the day there, or go into Manhattan to play skee-ball on 43rd Street. It was more like mini-anxiety attacks, where I just could not face going. I was truant, showing up 39 days that whole year. My mother had started her job at Metropolitan Life Insurance as a keypunch operator, so I was home by myself when the mail came. I ripped up the cards that said I missed school. They didn’t call, because Lafayette had such a high truancy rate, they couldn’t keep up.

At the end of the semester, my parents found out. I can’t remember if they finally called, sent a letter that I missed, or it was just the report card. What I do have a memory of is that my dad was furious. He went to the school to meet with someone in authority, and at the time I had a fever. When he got home, my fever was pretty high, so my mother made him wait so I could get better before he could get his hands on me. Luckily, by that time, he had sort of calmed down (he was often angry anyway, back then). The solution was that I would go to a psychiatrist to figure out what my problem was. Naturally, my parents picked Dr. Hand, who I had seen in third grade.

I sat in his office in a huge leather chair, he sat in another one directly across from me, and on the other side of the room sat my mother. Dr. Hand asked me questions like, “Do you masturbate?” I looked at him the equivalent of “Are you insane? I don’t know if I would answer you if we were alone, but do you really think I’m going to say anything with my mother sitting RIGHT THERE?” So I stared at him, and wouldn’t answer any of his questions. He started asking my mother about me, as if I wasn’t there. She mentioned that I had a temper. He quickly turned to me and said, “Oh, you have a temper, do you? Seems like a stupid thing to do.” Immediately, I knew he wanted to make me angry to see what it was like, so I very calmly answered, “I guess.” And the more he baited me, the calmer I got, and the redder in the face he got. When the session was over, he was breathing hard and his face was beet red. My mother paid the receptionist for the session, and we put on our coats. I said, “Mom, do I really have to come back here?” She said, “If you’re smart enough to out-think a psychiatrist, I don’t believe he’s going to do you any good.” Instead, I went to summer school.

Needless to say, I was left back that year, which in the long run worked out well for me because it was there that I met Bernie Kugel. He was a year advanced and I was a year behind. It turned out to be one of the key turning points in my life, and he remains one of my best friends.

As I was starting my Junior year, I went to my advisor, who was a miserable person. The line to her office was always twice as long as anyone else’s; she did not really help anyone because she just didn’t care about anyone. I asked her if I had enough credits to graduate to Senior level, and she said yes, without even looking at my file. I asked if she was sure, and she said yes, as she was looking at something else.

Summer after High School
Sure enough, I was one credit short to get out of my Junior year, so I had to take my Senior classes while still being considered a Junior. That is how I graduated, as a Junior. I did not get my photo in the yearbook, did not get to go to my prom (not sure I would have gone anyway), and did not get to go to my own graduation.

So, from first grade on, my life was tossed and turned by most of my teachers who had their own agendas, and who did not see me as an autonomous person but as someone who sat in their class, demanding we learn how to be still with our fingers folded rather than giving us ideas, of possibilities. I don’t know what would have happened if I ended up in 2-1 rather than 2-2, but I would like to think that it would have been more nurturing.

It’s with no small wonder that when I first walked into CBGBs and saw the Ramones, it would have such an impact on me, feeding my resentment with volume, non-complex but out-there, reactionary lyrics, and blazing rock’n’roll. I gave myself into it, because it was how I felt.