.SOME even looked better than when the were youngsters GREG LANGSTON of the AVENGERS looked like a movie star…SALLY MUTANT has loss a ton of weight and her face has thinned and she is as georgeous (as her personality always was )these days..my old bandmate CRAIG GREY now has a name to match his hair.. seemed thin and jubilant…PENELOPE was lookin’ DAMN fine..as always…still married..I think??

 
. meeting RICKY SLEEPERS teenaged son was heavy…brought me to tears a couple of times…finally I pulled him aside and had a talk with him….I know how hard it is for mak growing up in my notoriously dubious shadow…and Im alive to explain things.. looks hauntingly like his pop RICKY..good kid..having a great time

zack an Kei

 
A GOOD MANY of the old crowd fell into the kinda getting paunchy, middle aged and relatively healthy & Happy catagory…PAUL DRAPER,PETER URBAN,VINCE (who is now a woman named domenique.)…BOBBY CLIC,JOE REES of TARGET VIDEO… I think RESA (BELFAST COWGIRL EXTRORDINAIRE) aged remarkably well..so did I ,frankly..the main thing is that were all still alive an kicking..any day above ground is a good day indeed

 
.I may not have been up there belting out THE BLACK AND RED…but thats thier loss,..coz Im a much better singer now…..I was “THEE VERY WORST SINGER IN THE SCENE “according to Howie Klein , and it almost got me a gig with the SEX PISTOLS LOL.,,,MICHEAL BELFER looks the same …only really long blond hair….

 
.. as much as it was good to see NEGATIVE TREND be barely mediocre without me…that is a franchise close to my heart ..and I would like to see it snarling,snotty engaging the audience in a compelling provacative way…rather than meandering lifelessly thru once GREAT SONGS…if they contine playing out though Im confident with some polish and energy ..they could recapture the LUSTRE  of the old NEGATIVE TREND…without Will though..its hard..smaller venue would definetely help

 
I heard countless times “why arent you singing?” and “they are sucking hard” and”how fucking lame”…”it be so great if you were singing..why arent you?”..I wasnt asked..and these commentS were from thier friends and peers.”Well,..maybe NEXT TIME..”I said graitiously to well wishers..its weird… I like paul hood.. visiited extensively with PAUL HOOD…he’s a great guy…saw him open for the RAMONES IN 1976..when he was a teenager in a band called the MYCE…And PAUL CASTILLE is a good guy and competent singer…it was just lifeless for some reason…and the audience seemed as disinterested as the band…but they played ..and that was great for that fact alone

 
but all in all…a great night of nights…more notable was who was not there…JELLO…JENIFER MIRO..of  course DIRK is dead…and personally I missed DEBISOU…didnt see GINGER COYOTE…but it was a fantastic gathering of new and (mainly) old faces…my camera batteries were dead..so like I have many times before over the years…I departed during FLIPPERS closing set as did most of the over 40 crowd…

 
I was chatting with RESA and simultaneously we looked at each other and exclaimed “I cant take anymore FLIPPER ” …though I do like them in a greatful deadish way…with that we both said “jinx” and joined many others shivering outside to say our goodbyes…what fun!..it was….LETS DO IT AGAIN IN ANOTHER 30 YEARS…there will probably only be ten of us left…will just book a room at the ROYAL PACIFIC MOTOR INN and bring accoustic guitars and tamborines

east bay/rozz

One of the more interesting aspects of the Punk pioneers get together was that YOKO had never met any of these people…So when we returned home we combed thru PUNK 77,X-CAPEES, BRUCE CONNERS MABUHAY,HARDCORE CALIFORNIA, and my pictures for images of the people I had introduced her to…as they were in 1977 and 1978…the BEFORE PICTURES…she met the AFTER PICTURES in person….

ROZZ,valim,mary,domenique AKA vince

she was especially shocked at young JOE REES (TARGET VIDEO), PETER URBAN,PAUL DRAPER, and the various DEAD KENNEDYS excluding YELLO (who was a no show) as well as the transformation of luminaries such as SALLY MUTANT and VINCE AKA DOMENIQUE, …

I forgot how handsome that scene was…YOKO fawned over a dashing young PETER URBAN in the X-capee’s book…lot of young sexy punk rock bitches we was…I had forgotten… the music and the girls in that iniatal explosion of the SF77 scene…gorgeous in a primal sorta way…

I was sorry to hear of the passing of photographer/artist BRUCE CONNER who took the single most ICONIC picture of yours truly, perhaps one of the ten most notable pictures of the punk rock era in general…I feel that photograph of the target on my chest,.. and the one with I HATE ART written on my pants (that won the ART FORUM award) are partially responible for my marginal success…they kept my name and image out there over the years in book,gallery shows,magazines and even the news papers…appearing on the cover of the BAY GUARDIAN in fall of 97.THE VILLAGE VOICE NYC in january 2005…RIP BRUCE CONNER…you will be missed

unknown glamazons

GREG INGRAM, VALE, RESA,MICHEAL BELFER,and PENELOPE to some degree are essentially aging in the DICK CLARK tradition (before the stroke anyway) and look pretty much the same aside from a scant few pounds and barely visible crows feet…I consider myself in this catagory..my strategy was to distract everybody from how hammered I look with the tight red pants and FLEUVOG shoes…this was as close to a high school reunion for me so I took note of every detail…

mary,craig grey,belfer

SMILE LINES and the overall continence of facial feature usually indicate a life of LaUGHTER, or a life of UNHAPPY STRUGGLES…most everyone looked as if they had been living a good life…only a few had BITTERNESS burned on thier brow…

one other thing that gave YOKO the HEEBEE GEEBEES was looking at pictures of the late RICKY WILLIAMS after meeting his son ZACHARY and mom REBECCA….The likeness is absolutely eery…I wanted to take pictures of ZACH but thought it might appear exploitive and inapropriate…he is very handsome and a sweet young man…I didnt realize he was twenty or I would have took pic’s…he looks 13 or 14…

so YOKO saw the AFTER…and now were cross referencing books for the BEFORE….and it is bizarrely perveresly fascinating…there are two other notable stories from the trip I will recant when possible

domenique and ?us in 78rozz/paul draper