15. Busted!
My first brush with the law was when I was ten years old. I was in the grocery store, standing in front of the candy. I had a Butterfinger in my hand, and was trying to figure out how to get it into my pocket without getting caught.
I had the candy bar completely concealed in my hand. Staring straight ahead, I slowly moved my hand back toward my pocket. I got my fingers to the opening of the pocket of my jacket when I heard a booming voice call “Hey! Have you got any money to buy that candy?”
I roared around on my tennis shoe and stared into the face of a grocer. He had short brown hair and a big mustache. He was peering into my face, right into my eyes.
“No.”
“Then put it down and get outta here!”
I just stood there shaking.
“Now!”
I ran out of the store.
Suddenly the world was full of police cars. Sirens everywhere. They were after me. I ran for home as fast as I could. Half way there I got a side ache and sat in a bush for about twenty minutes. When the ache was gone, and the coast was clear I innocently walked the rest of the way smiling to myself. I’d almost had it.
My next encounters with the man were quite different. Getting pushed around by SFPD and the UC Police was routine. They liked to feel up little boys, and my special friend in the Berkeley Police had a special crush on me. Until I was full grown anyway. Then he treated me like everyone else.
Damien and I were in the alley next to to the Mab. We hadn’t been able to get in, so we were lighting paper bags on fire and watching them rise into the night sky.
After one really good lift off, two cops walked into the alley.
“Uh oh.” Damien said.
“Fuck.”
“Looks like you boys have been having fun in here.”
Silence.
“You two get your kicks from lighting things on fire do ya?”
Not a peep from either one of us.
“Ok, how about you both turn and face the wall.”
We turned and faced the wall.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
The cops began to search out pockets, and drop all our things on the ground. There wasn’t anything to find, so we weren’t freaking out.
“You’re a tough guy” My cop whispers into my ear.
He reaches around to my front pockets and slips his hands into them. I flinch as he starts to fondle my scrotum. He laughs softly. I can’t tell what he’s doing with his other hand, but I hear his keys jangle.
“You like that don’t you punk?”
“No.”
He grabs my nuts and pulls on them hard.
“You like that, don’t you punk?” Through gritted teeth.
“Yeah.”
He massages me until I have a hard on, and laughs softly in my ear.
“Get out of here before I arrest you for curfew violation.”
We run.
They laugh.
For a while it seemed like I could do anything I wanted. Break the glass of a video game, steal from the grocery store and the corner market, throw shit at people, get into fights, and nothing would happen. Once in a while some cop would take my fake name, and get frustrated that I didn’t have any ID. But nothing would happen. No hand cuffs.
Our friend Joe got a motorcycle. He drove it up in the sidewalk to impress us. We were thrilled. Joe was usually holding, so we were impressed by almost anything he did. The party didn’t last too long. Three cops walked up and asked whose bike it was. Joe says it’s a friend of his. They start running the plates and searching Joe for ID.
“Officer…” says Josh in his annoying little voice. His voice wasn’t usually annoying, but it could be sharp and completely nasal when he wanted it to be.
“Officer…”
The cop stops searching Joe, turns and looks at Josh and says “What?”
Josh pulls out a cigarette and pops it into his mouth and asks, “How old do you have to be to smoke?”
The cop sputters a little; the second cop is beside him now too.
“Sixteen, how old are you?”
Josh lights up the cigarette, takes a drag and blows the smoke out at the cops.
“Fourteen, why?”
The two cops just about lose it. They look like a pair of light bulbs about to blow. The first cop is speechless and the second one is grasping at his holster.
“Let me see your ID young man.”
While Josh is saying “Don’t have any, sorry.” Joe has casually walked away. By the time the cops realize what’s going on, they’re pissed. They look at me and josh and say, “Stay right here.” And they run off in two directions. Neither of which is the direction Joe took. We leave and stay away for a couple hours.
Somehow I found myself at the first Depeche Mode concert in the United States. Don’t ask me how or why I ended up there. My friend Lisa J. worked for BGP and gave me free passes to see them. I brought Damien with me, and we dropped acid before the show.
The club was weird. Everyone there was fluffy, and wearing scarves. They danced together, like couples dancing. It was funny. Depeche Mode stood perfectly still while they performed. I thought the guy on the left was looking at me the whole time. At the end of the show the singer introduced the tape deck at the back of the stage as their drummer. They’d had a spotlight on it all night. I liked watching the reels go around. I didn’t tell Damien this, but I really liked them.
After the show we spend a few minutes with Lisa, and she complained about how boring the band was. She liked their music, but they’d sat backstage for hours playing with some foam core crescent shapes, pretending they were really big ears. Lisa thought that was stupid. I thought Lisa was pretty, so did Damien.
Then we walked to the bus terminal. It was a long walk and we got lost. We walked around the parking lot at 3rd and Harrison about six times before we realized that we had passed this huge yellow Park’n'Pay machine before. We walked around one more time to be sure. When we rounded the corner for the seventh time and saw the slim, but tall device smiling at as in the middle of the block was were completely blown away. We stopped in front of it for a while and discussed the possibility of the machine following us, and not being lost at all. We agreed that that would be weird, but it was not very likely.
I loved the little metal slots on the face of the Park’n'Pay sign. It was totally mind blowing to me. The idea, as I so clearly understood it in that moment, was that people folded their money really, really small… maybe they had to tear it up, or shrink it somehow, and then slipped it into these little slots.
“Yeah, but how do they get it out?” Damien asked.
Heavy question. We laughed and pondered the answers. I started to look into the holes. There was something inside this thing. It was moving. Damien kicked the sign, and it gave off a sound like a hollow aluminum ball. The sound seemed to go on forever. I kicked the device. That was the most amazing sound either of us had ever heard. I looked up into the slots again to see what was inside of there…
“Put your hands over your head and back away from the sign” Said the very loud voice.
“Woah…” Damien and I looked at each other in total disbelief. “What the hell was that?” There was someone inside this thing. That was amazing!
“Put your hands over your head and back away from the sign” Said the very loud voice again.
“Um… I think we better get out of here.” Damien said.
“Why?” I asked him calmly.
“Look.”
Three SFPD Card had arrived, and the doors of the cars were open. A police officer was resting on each door with his arms on top. In each of their hands was a gun. They were pointing the guns at us.
“Get away from the sign and keep walking.” Said the voice.
I understood. One of the police officers was saying that stuff.
“C’mon…” said Damien. His voice sounded like he had a lot of snot in his nose.
I looked at his nose and said, “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
Damien and I seemed to be meeting the police a lot together. So I sorta stopped hanging around with him. He was getting cocky and kind of no fun anyway. There was only enough room in my friendships for me. So I thought I’d put some distance there.
The last time I enjoyed the company of the police some time had passed. Things were starting to look up for me. Everyone had quit the record store I handed out dollar off coupons for. They had been fired because they had a sale while the owner was gone. He was pissed. Since I was still there, it looked like I had a shot at getting to work inside the store. It was looking like I might be able to sleep in the office more often. Things were looking good.
I was on Broadway at some show. I wasn’t going in. I was outside fucking around. Cindy was there. Cindy had freckles, these sleepy green eyes and the prettiest voice. I was into Cindy. If I could keep track of her, I followed that girl wherever she went.
There had been a night a few years earlier that she and her boyfriend let me come back to Cindy’s dad’s house to sleep. I didn’t sleep. I laid on one side of her, her boyfriend on the other. Cindy was wearing a T-shirt and clean white panties. She was laying on her back. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. I caressed her arm, and her stomach, her thigh and even her knee. I didn’t go any further because her man was laying there in the bed next to us. Also I controlled myself because I really liked Cindy. It felt like love to me. She made me want to take a shower. My heart beat faster whenever she came around.
So I was laughing it up with some guys. We were talking about how we hated “peace punks,” and pantomiming what we’d like to do to them if they came around here.
“I’d be all… Blaam!”
“Totally.”
“Fucking hippies.”
I felt a tug at my wrist, but I was doing something so I didn’t turn around. I felt it again, a little harder. I had to remember that I was on Broadway. I owed a lot of people money, and had fucked over a lot of people. Being out in the open like this was dangerous. When the tug came the third time, it definitely felt like someone grabbing my wristband. So I just turned around, shouting at the top of my lungs, and slammed into whoever it was.
It was a cop.
I was so busted. I was face down on the sidewalk in about three seconds. I’d slugged the cop pretty hard in the face, and now he was going to have to make an example out of me.
“Anybody know this clown?” Asked the cop I’d punched rubbing his jaw.
“I do.” Said Cindy. She called the cop by name, and they talked a while. What the fuck was this all about? I head Cindy describe me as harmless, and really nice. I really liked that. The handcuffs were tight. They hurt. Soon the cop I’d punched helped me get up to my feet and we talked things over.
“My cousin here says you’re a really nice guy. You don’t look like a really nice guy to me.”
“Who’s your cousin?”
“Don’t you know Cindy here? She says you two are friends.”
“Yeah, I know Cindy.” We nodded courteously like two associates being introduced at a business meeting. Ms. Stroys, have you met Mr. Dumbass? Mr. Dumbass, meet Ms. Stroys.
“Well striking a police officer isn’t a very nice thing to do.”
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know…”
“What?”
“I’m sorry officer.”
“That’s better.”
I looked like a fucking idiot out there on the sidewalk in front of everyone. This pin dick cop humiliating me, making me apologize. The cops talked it over and they agreed that I was a scumbag and that they were going to take me in. Cindy came over to her cousin and asked him not to beat me up.
“We’re going to have to teach him a lesson.” He said softly to her.
She came over to me and said that everything was going to be ok.
I hoped so, but I didn’t think so.
They stuffed me into the back seat of the police car and we drove around the block a couple times. The cops were talking about punk rockers, and criminals. The radio was announcing things in code.
“You’re not too bright are you kid?”
“What?”
“I said you’re not very smart, are you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“What are you wearing those wristbands for anyway?”
“What?”
“Those spikes. What are they for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it a sex thing?”
“No.”
“What are they for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do they make you feel tough? Are you a tough guy?”
“No.”
“I’ll say. That was a pretty lousy punch you threw.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“I know. I heard you.”
The other cop chimed in “You know son, it’s not all right to go around punching police officers.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I thought you were someone else.”
“Who did you think we were?”
“I didn’t know you were cops.”
“You do now, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
We drove up to Telegraph hill and parked in the parking lot of Coit Tower. They talked to me some more, trying to find some way to get angry with me. I just played stupid and they got frustrated. When we got out of the car, I thought they were going to let me go. I was calm, and only shaking a little bit. When Cindy’s cousin punched me in the face everything flashed white. It hadn’t even started to hurt yet when another punch landed in my abdomen. I was down. They hit me a few more times. I held my breath. I wasn’t going to cry, but I felt like it. I could feel the blood pulse out of my lips, and the swelling already beginning on my face.
I woke up in the holding tank reserved for drunks in the Broadway police station. I was sitting in a dirty yellow room with a gate in front of me. Bars, just like on TV. There was a heavy door next to me with a little window in the middle. All the glass was blueish, and thick with what looked like chicken wire in the middle of it. My wristbands and chains were gone. So were my belts and boots. My wallet was gone too. I wasn’t wearing my jacket. Sitting there, my face swollen, tight handcuffs keeping my hands behind my back, it felt strange to be wearing only a t-shirt and jeans. I never took my boots off. The bottoms of my socks were eaten away. My feet rested on the cold cement floor. I felt like shit.
“Are you awake in there?” Asked an officer I didn’t remember seeing before.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“I wanted to let you know that you have not been arrested. You have been detained. We’re keeping you to see if your story checks out.”
“My story?”
“Son, you assaulted a police officer. That’s a serious offense.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re getting a break, we’re going to let you go after we run your information.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
It’s a very strange feeling when your whole face is swollen up, and you’ve been bleeding, but your hands are restrained and you can’t reach up and touch the wounds. The urge to dab at them is irresistible. I sat there for a long time. People came and went. Drunks were brought in and put into the dark room inside the cell I was sitting in. The cops didn’t look at me. No one else spoke to me.
The cop came back with Cindy’s cousin.
“Tell me about your whole get up here.”
“What?”
“Your little outfit.” He was holding my belts. “What’s all this about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t your daddy love you enough?”
“Fuck you!”
“Settle down son.” They snickered.
“What was it? Did he beat you?”
I glared at them.
“Maybe one of those ‘Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”‘ guys?”
I broke. I started to cry. My father had said exactly those words to me. I remember my brother would always get spanked first. I could hear the crack of my dad’s hand, and the silent pause before my brother started to wail. I was next. I was always next. Even if I hadn’t done anything wrong, or didn’t understand what was happening. My father would come into the room, sit on the foot of my bed and ask me to climb onto his lap. This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you. All the air in the room would rush upwards as he raised his arm.
The cops liked that they’d made me cry. I think that’s really what I was there so long for. They wanted to break me. They needed revenge. I was good at getting beaten up. It didn’t mean shit to me. But tears, real stinging tears seeping out of my swollen slits for eyes were proof that they’d gotten through to me.
“You are going to need to figure out something else to do with your life. You can’t just go around in your little clown suit striking police officers. That’s not going fly.”
“We are going to let you go.”
“We are going to give some of your things back to you, and you will be presented with a Bart ticket. My partner and I strongly suggest that you leave San Francisco and don’t come back until you’ve found another lifestyle.”
The cop unlocked the door, and slid back the gate. It wasn’t loud. Not like in the movies. There was no roar of freedom. No reverb. Just a click as the door locked into the open position.
“Stand up.”
I stood up. They removed the handcuffs. The blood returned to my hands, and I immediately reached up and touched my face.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you getting smart with me again?”
“No sir.”
They gave me back my jacket, one of my belts and my boots. They kept my wallet, three wristbands, all my chains and whatever had been in my front pockets. I didn’t ask for them back. I just got out of there.
I walked through North Beach, the neighborhood I had once lived in, as fast as I could. The smell of roasting coffee, and pastries baking nagged at me. The cool afternoon was crisp against my face, which throbbed and ached now that I was up on my feet. I tried to gage what sort of shape I was in by the faces of people who passed me. I couldn’t tell. I stopped and looked into a shop window at myself. The reflection didn’t look familiar, but it was hard to make out details. My eyes were swollen shut, and my lips looks impossibly huge. I couldn’t really tell. I sold my Bart ticket on Market Street, and walked to the bus station. In the bathroom I washed my face and checked out the damage. I was fucked up. Fuck, I was fucked up. Stupid cops.
Soundtrack:
Depeche Mode ‘Photographic’
flash player required
56 Comments
thank you for sharing these chapters…i’ve really love reading them and I look forward to more.
Love!
Thank you for your response.
I’ve written this book already. This is the rewrite process (the first one anyhow.)
It’s slow, because I rewrite as i go, sometimes removing huge parts of the work, other times expanding into totally new areas.
I’m ok with how it’s coming along.
Your appreciation, as my sister and friend, means a lot to me.
thanks.
sunshine,..
keep writing, and i will keep reading.
these stories are amazing.
it’s really heavy shit. vivid, the part
in chapter 5 about the first time
shooting up in the shower. it made me
queezy, and i don’t get queezy easily.
i really respect your writing and your
honesty in shareing these stories so
openly.
thank you.
I hope, in and among the heavy shit, you’ve got some perspective and are able to laugh too. It’s true, most of this is the abolute worst of my life. But there’s a lot of love in my writing, forgiveness, and hope. I hope you are laughing along with me, even if you are horrified or disturbed.
we’ll see.
1311 more chapters to rewrite.s.
sunshine,
your writing is filled with perspective.
you’ve got me laughing, singing, smileing,
sad, happy, forgiveing and hopeing. it’s as if
i was following you around while it was going down.
all i’m saying is i can feel the love in the stories.
no worries.
love
gino.
Now if only i could actually say what it is i want to say, the way i want to say it without a non-stop-run-on-sentence, we’d really be making some progress.
style=content
s.
Reading this memoir (I’ve read through chapter 8: ‘Call Home’ so far) is so interesting for me. It boggles my mind that you were out having these experiences while I was at home being a little girl. I have spotty images of you as a ‘punk’, but it never ceases to amaze me how little I know of your history. Your experiences. Your trip (both kinds). How carefully sheilded I was from the reality of the situation.
That all being said. ‘Call Home’ made me cry. I love that chapter.~~Another thing I love is when you’re telling the story and then you suddenly admit that that’s not the way it really happened. I remember you once told me you used to make up stories that were completely not true and to be honest, I’ve done that too, so I relate to rearranging events and making them work out better in your imagination. It’s a great writing tool for you!
I love the honesty, the unapologetic voice, you’re using to tell this story.
Thank you! I’ll keep reading…
*a.
Meaning comes from contrast. What is a good existence?
The sociopath lacks any conscience at all and lives inverted; their life the opposite of meaning, a black hole, sucking pieces of other lives into the bottomless chasm. Evil.
The schizophrenic falls out of reality or never enters it, and lives doomed to an infinite spectrum of secret meanings that can’t be validated. We give them medication, trying to help them find some kind of contrast.
Finally, an existence more ironic than all others.
The one who strives and yearns to always do the right thing, to please, every breath hoping, that they are a good person, yearning for meaning through purity. Perpetually striving to burn off the impure within. Any weight to even the small inevitable mistakes and rebellions simply evaporates; a puff of smoke incinerated by the never-ending guilt, the screaming hypocrisy. Purity isn’t goodness. Purity is nothing. This one never existed at all.
Blessed are the contrasted.
Nate, that’s beautifully said.
impressive.
I’m going to spend some time re reading and reflecting on your words.
Thank You.
s.
sunshine, fyi.
some people are signifigantly more resistant to HIV than other people.
interesting stuff. specially bout the needles.
i cant stand needles now.
very interesting, very cool (is that the right word?)
erich
Well, Thankfully it seems I was in and then out of the IV Drug world before patient zero arrived.
I have no idea why i don’t have AIDS or HIV. I was seriously depressed about that for many years. Felt that i should be dead, while other, much more wonderful people should be alive.
I have forgiven myself, and today I count my lucky (fucking) stars.
It’s hard, i think, for a young person of today to relate to what the hell we were thinking in the late 70′s. It was truly another time altogether.
However, I am deeply grateful that we can relate so much better today than we could then. The disparity between decades was so vast and impossible to breech.
It’s better now in so many ways.
Even if there is a Bush in the whitehouse. It’s still better.
I’m done.
(with the second re write)
I’ve read it all now. And as I sit here alone, fighting tears from running down my face, I simply feel so supremely grateful that you are here, alive, and are my family, my friend.
While I cannot imagine how cathartic it may have been for you to write (re-write and publish it here) it has also been cathartic for me to read. I understand you more now. Understand why you tell me certain things. Adivse me in certain ways. And I am even more proud now to have you as my brother than I was before. Because you’re really fucking brave and wonderful!
A Third revision is now reposted here. I went through and corrected all the spelling, grammar, syntax, and tense issues that I could find.
A few things were revised, other lines added, and a few portions removed. I also included an incomplete errata section. So if you have questions about language, frame of reference, or slang used in the work, let me know and i’ll add it to the errata portion at the end.
I have a .pdf of this now too if someone preferrs to read things in a different way.
Draft 2 technical revision 3 is now complete.
sunshine,
this was an amazing read. i feel
like i know you on a different level
now. i’m not sure how to explain it,
or if those are the right words.
i am so happy to have met you
and to be able to call you a friend.
again, thank you so much for shareing
these memories.
love,
gino.
Thanks Gino and Ali,
I really, really appreciate your input.
Sunshine,
I have a freind who I belive would love to read your book.
His name is Tomas. We met about 13 years ago when he came to Amsterdam. He is a light engineer for parties. Before coming to amsterdam he moved from a smalltown on the Swedish coast to Big town Stockholm. There he got into contact with punk culture.
Our conversations often come to this period but i have little knowledge or experience about and with punk culture, nor such a ‘life period’. I think he’ll really relate to your book
Tomas not having internet, it would be great if you could email me that pdf file. If this is to far fetched for you, i’ll understand. But i think we can make someone happy here
Joera
Joera,
It’s at the end of appendix II, at the bottom of the page.
Dear Sunshine,
I started reading your memoir today and didn’t stop until the end. It’s some of the most engaging writing I’ve read in some time. All I can say is…wow! What a story. In some ways it cetainly did take me back; it has been a long time since I’ve heard mention of Martha and the Muffins or Japan, or a number of the other artists I used to listen to as in the early-80s. At one point you mention this as fiction, but in most of your comments you discuss it as autobiographical. That has left me a little unclear…these are your memoirs? Anyway, it sure is a compelling story. What’s next?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Astral
I’ve corrected a few pretty awkward paragraphs today, and reloaded the .pdf file with revision 3b instead of the old Rev 2. Just too many errors in the pdf to leave it up here with any degree of pride or good feelings.
Enjoy the corrections.
i miss the pics in the chapter headings in the pdf.
me too.
The online version is much better.
: )
FYI: While I’d prefer to talk about this book here, there’s also a thread about it over on the imperial DUB message board. That’s located here
One very minor thing. I really liked the song samples, and when I would get to the bottom it was nice to listen while finishing up the end of the chapter. Then I would move on to the next and the sample would stop, and I was too anxious to keep reading to go back and listen to the whole track. If the sample was listed at the top of the chapter, then it would make for good background music while reading. I’ve never read a whole book online before, but sure was drawn in to your tale.
You know, I felt that the “soundtrack” was essential. And i toiled over how to present it. I thought about adding the music at the head of the chapter, and realized that it was difficult to read while listening. Next i thought of only including the music in the musicology section at the end, but that would alientate the songs, isolate them and leave them hanging out back for no real reason.
Finally, i felt that adding them at the end was best. When you are done reading the chapter, you can sit a minute and just listen. Sometimes it’s irony, but most of the time it’s release.
That’s what i was thinking anyway.
s.
i have a couple of friends in boston that were in to the punk scene here when they were growing up and i let them know about the book. just wanted to let you know that they’re both enjoying it and tellign their friends too!
erin
Well, it has been a long time. Thanks Mr. Shine. The time we spend on this planet is a human journey. We interact with others, take obsevations and construct patterns. Style, economy, hopelessness, biology, cities, come and go. At the root of it are our connections with others. The reflections we see of ourselves in those on TV, in person, in a book, over the phone. China today, or perhaps Central Asia, is the place of new emerging art and social condition. Yet, the old west, the Transbay Terminal, the blue jeans, the United States, from Douglas MacArthur to Sally Mutant, are worth recording, and examining – All before the environmental and economic collapse. Still connection and a shoulder to lean on make it worth it. Girls, boys, love, music, drama, sly eyes, and the beat beat beat make it real.
Love, -Peter
Peter,
you are stealthily buried in there too. disguised under your former psudonym. i wanted to tell the story of the night that i snorted all the rest of the speed off your living room table so that the yucky girl i’d been with all night wouldn’t do it, but i felt i’d described my state of mind well enough to leave that out.
Also, fine a fellow as you have always been, there just wasn’t a lesson to learn or point to make about people like you who were (or seemed to be) wise, and thoughtful, enjoying themselves and never terribly judgmental.
That and a fucking great artist!
I’m saving the blossoms for the next book. It’s begun…
Hope you enjoyed this read, and found mercy, and all the love i put into it.
I wrote it very specifically for you, and all of us who chose some of the more difficult paths.
love,
Sunshine
i really enjoyed reading this.
Thanks, Sunshine!! :)
I’m loving the book so far.
I really hope you keep writing.
-jason
** reprinted here in part from another entry. Placed into context for the benefit of those who come to links here, and read without browsing the rest of the journal. **
I am the ex-bass player, not singer, of Animal Things. This is not my superhero status. I read what S. Jones wrote about me and am pleased that my maternal instinct has been consistant…I have a three year old son, Emilio, and based on the parenting I got I’ve wondered how it is I know how to be a good one. We can react to what we didn’t get and provide it, or we can live an unexamined life and just pass the shit on. Who are you S. Jones?
Tresca
Wow…
I’m so blown away to hear from you.
Not only did I miss spell your name, but I forgot that you were the Bass player…. Of course you were.
[color=green]/* slaps forehead */[/color]
I will write.
Thank you for your reply.
I just re-read the piece…amazed that it was edited so swiftly….but the part about your accent..the fake british one…i remember you! I just started writing a memoir of sorts…memory is so strange…it almost doesn’t matter what actually happened, but how it made us feel..or how we interpreted it. ….which is based on our hardwired, yet hormonally fluctuating neurochemical responses, formed of course by previous experiences which may or may not have happened..etc….etc…I have basically gleaned from what I’ve read that you are in the city with a wife and child..or children. I didn’t read much, but want to know more. How old are /is your child/ren? What gender and name? What do you do? WHY is your name sunshine? The last time I took lsd was a long time ago..my friend Brad asked how much I wanted….in an offhand way without turning around i said, “whatever you’re having”…that turned out to be an awful lot. Twelve hours later I could actually see enough through the patterns to make out two enormous cats laying on top of me….they were sitting on me as if I were a warm dryer….just purring in time with my vibe…soaking it up, staring intently into my face. Several hours later Brad, Peeyok, and a couple of members of the Sea Hags took me out to the beach on the west side of the Golden Gate bridge. They buried me in the sand for safety and frolicked with dogs.It was two full days at least before i could get on a bus back to the east bay. I truly thought I would never come down….that i had flipped the irreversible switch. My mom asked why I didn’t call her to pick me up when I told her later….I realized I never thought of her as someone who I could depend on for help. I loved her but… That was in the late eighties. Ok, I have to ask again: why is your name Sunshine? Tell me more, Tresca
I wrote you back.
Right… that was me. A melodramatic poseur all the way… faked it until it was real.
Those were the days!
If you’re looking for any party fun from the past, check the bottom of the second to the last page of the book. There’s a link there to a group on tribe.net that I started. Lots of people from the past. I already posted in there about having heard from you.
Wonderful that you are alive, and well, and seem to be thriving!!!!
But of course you are.
: )
Chapter 5 really hit close to the heart for me. I have spent 7 years of my life fighting that monkey on my back. I had a child and that is what made me stop, but the urge is still there and will always be. I love your writing. It may seem dark but it is inspirational if you look deeply into it.
I really enjoyed the “war stories” from the early SF Punk scene.I remember a guy named jake action who used to get every high on huge metal bottles he carried in a truck to shows.The first real high in the punk scene was black beauties and whatever booze was available. I played in punk bands in SJ and went to SF for lot of early shows. The Mab, On Broadway, 10th street hall, the Elite club. It all seemed very agro going into it, but everyone did care for each other. Razors, chains & spikes maybe, but in those days if you fell down on the pit, people helped you up. I think the suburbanation of the scene, the unflux of jock mentality kind of ruined the scene for me. That, and trying Herion. Funny after all these years, I may be playing in a new band with Rockin’ Rick and Johnny Genocide.
GASP! is that you? Don’t ask how I got here but I am glad I did! Lets see if you remember….. I am so clad that somebody took the time and effort to do this…yes oh boy which bathroom was worse? The one at target video or the one at the Mutants????
Jennifer
Jennifer,
baby, i met you in the bathroom at 10th street hall… remember?
Biff, if you need a bass player, or a sound engineer, let me know.
I’d love to see you guys again.
I don’t expect you’ll remember me; I was part of that extended Telegraph scene so long ago and so far away. I was going out with Juliet Harris when I knew you. I discovered your memoir and I’ve been sitting here at work reading and reading, at first (I admit) looking for people and places I knew (not so hard, since that scene wasn’t so big) and then just getting into the whole story and the dead-on descriptions (for a minute there I swear it was 1981 and I was with my girlfriend in the bathroom at the 10th street hall snorting a punk dime of bad meth out of the same bag at the same time with McDonald’s straws). I’m looking forward to enjoying it in its entirety at my leisure. But I’m glad to see the punch line is that you’re happy. And congratulations on your son. I have two kids; Juliet has a really cool son. Who’d have thought we’d all grow up?
Benjie,
I totally remember you. Couldn’t forget your calm, and gentle face.
I agree, it’s bizzarre that we’re alive, and it’s actually pretty fucking cool.
: )
That’s not the way I remember it…..
25 + years is a long time Maudy. what the fuck do I know?
Probably even less than I think…
Nice to see a sign that you’re alive my friend. So nice!
“They just couldn’t keep up with our decline.” Such crisp, clear, elegant writing!
It puts me right back there, only this time with context.
It was different, being a young-and-small-but-tough-enough girl, especially one who initially did the reverse-commute to run away from SF. I wasn’t aware yet that some-somewhat-coherent-one or two or three were sort of watching my back, and neither was Carol, but it turns out I could fight girls just as well as I could fight whichever skinheads were lame enough to pick on me in the first place.
I never quite got the beer-at-the-tennis-courts culture, and was never invited into it – though I imbibed plenty of other things one-on-one with most of the cohort (the gender thing, I’m guessing). It’s great to [read] that Benjie’s doing well. I wonder what became of Corky, of the Speed Queens. And Julie, who apeared one day from Lawrence, KS and who taught me one of life’s toughest lessons, by demonstration. And Vonda, and Summer, and Oliver, and the fabulous Buttfest sisters. Some souls still seem exactly the same, and seeing them on the street kind of sets me in a tailspin: once the jailbaitiest of punk rock jailbait, witnessing that intertia makes me feel so, so old.
Thanks for putting that whole scene in such a clear, shifted perspective.
Jessica,
You have a very nice blog, photoblog, travelog, and biolog yourself. I really appreciate your photos, and the commentary.
I remember Julie from Lawrence Kansas, I actually have a really funny picture of my sneering my head off with her in a headlock. She’s calm, shaved headed and you would think I wasn’t even in the picture.
You didn’t miss anything at the tennis courts. Maybe some of my vomit, and a lot of Johnny Puke’s non stop talking and laughter.
I don’t think it was a gender thing… In those days, the first blossoms of our advanced stages of alcoholism, we were mainly more preoccupied by how much there was to drink, and how frustrating it was that it was never enough.
I’m so glad to see your politics refine and define themselves and that you have embarked upon a journey of productive and insightful revolution beyond self-destruction.
I’m so glad you are alive.
Yes…I’m alive..and well…and so is Nina…You should come and play with us one day!
WOW! I just finished the paperback version last night. The book was riveting, raw, and deeply depressing, but somehow uplifting at the same time, if that makes any sense. I have absolutely no experience with the punk scene whatsoever, so the journey was especially incredible. You book gave me so much to think about. So beautiful to see so much love rise from so much angst and sorrow. We are moving ourselves so time is scarce lately, but I’m excited to see I popped in just in time for the rewrite. Looking forward to getting the chance to check it out.
much love
Hey Fee.
I’m so glad you read the book. You know, after some behind the scenes difficulty with the content of this book I lost momentum. A few people read the book half expecting a history book, or maybe a modern politically correct view of the past, my past. I realized after being accused of sexism and homophobia that I hadn’t put this book together correctly.
I mean to say that you don’t see any insight until you get to the end. How could you? I made every effort to present my state of mind in that moment without any apologies. The idea being that my experience as a punk, with all those people was that of a sociopath, a liar, a broken child with a lot of problems struggling to work it out. And not as a condemnation of punk rock, or society, or anyone else, but rather a kind of a celebration of how punk rock actually saved my life.
How other peope had other points of view, other behavior, but I was almost entirely unaware of them. Unwilling, and unable to hear them, or to learn from them.
A friend of mine is reading the book now, and we talked about it last night. I stayed up late re reading it. I haven’t picked it up in some time. It was good to read it again. I’m not sure where to begin with the re write. But I can see how it needs a complete reworking, and intend to give myself to that project.
Mod is nearly ready for presentation. I may wait to rewrite until all three books are done.
I couldn’t get it to come up on line, so I ordered my own copy. I would rather read it like that anyway.
How come you couldn’t get it to come up? Can you explain exactly what the trouble was? Maybe something’s wrong I’m not aware of…
OK, this is very strange, becaust thismornig, I was able to pull it up, but yesterday said something like “sorry such and such cant be found”
dunnoe
but I am happy to have a copy, or will be rather.
weird…
but what exactly was the problem? like, the page wasn’t found??
yeah, there was nothing except
sorry your document can’t be found
but I found it today.
good!
: )
Wow.
Incredible story.
You have no idea how much I enjoyed reading this, because I really enjoy the punk music/lifestyle and this was just amazing for me.
Is there any chance you’re selling your book in a store like Coles or Chapters or some store like that?
I’d do anything to own this book.
Thank you, so much for this.
I must have more.
Alex, you can buy this book in paperback at lulu press.
For more info follow this link:
http://sunshine-jones.com/inprint/