Time, Souvenirs, and Richard Hell

Writers have always had a love affair with New York City. Only Paris can rival the sheer amount of people who have come to New York to live, love, learn and write.

With so many writers here, readings are plentiful. On any day, at least a dozen readings by prominent writers and authors are taking place all over Manhattan. Even Brooklyn has gotten into the act. They can occur anywhere from a coffee shop to a nightclub to a Barnes & Noble. Most are free or very inexpensive. Sometimes there’s free coffee and cookies. Sometimes there’s a cash bar and a band. It’s the sort of thing most of your friends have no interest in attending. But happily, it’s the sort of event one never feels conspicuous attending alone.

The first reading I remember attending was Paul Krassner reading from his autobiography at a local Minneapolis bookstore years ago. Krassner was one of the early counter-culture heroes of the 60s. Founder of the Yippie movement with Abbie Hoffman, founder and editor of The Realist, a member of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and one of the most influential satirists of the 20^th Century.

I had recently read his autobiography and heard he was speaking. Curious, I showed up at the bookstore one afternoon to hear him read from a book I’d already read. I was the youngest person there. A bookstore full of old hippies, anarchists I recognized from the anarchist bookstore on the West Bank, old men who were bald in the front but long hair in the back, Groupies Gone Grandma----and me.

He talked about his youth. The eerie Cold War shivers of the 50s and trying to conform. And then, the insanity of the 60s, when he just gave in to it all. I listened. Enthralled. I’ve always loved a good story. And Krassner knows how to tell one. AND make it funny. I remember thinking the entire moment was so surreal. Here was a man that J. Edgar Hoover thought was such a threat to National Security that he’d tried to take out a hit on him---and he was just a guy with a bottle of Evian and a book.

And we were laughing.

How subversive can you be standing in front of the cookbook aisle?

His angrier, edgier days had passed. But he was still full of fire and delicious parody. Still a voice. You could hear it and see it in his eyes.

That’s the wonderful thing about readings. Witnessing that fire. Hearing those delicate intonations that make a sentence pop off the page and into your consciousness.

There was a book-signing after the reading. In a desire to complete the experience, I got into the autograph line. Running out of there almost seemed rude. It seemed the thing you were supposed to do. I’ve never been an autograph person. In fact, it was possibly the first voluntary autograph I’d ever sought out.

My mother, on the other hand, has always been a bit fascinated with celebrity. Not in a creepy way. Just very Midwestern.

When I was in fifth grade, I made my Confirmation. Our class was told that the Archbishop would be there to preside over the ceremony.

For some unknown reason, my Mom went out and bought an autograph book. An actual leather-bound book that had the word “Autographs” embossed in gold on the front.

After the ceremony, we were all standing around the gymnasium drinking Kool-Aid punch when she thrust the autograph book into my hand and said, “Honey---go ask the Bishop for his autograph.”

In those days, my cynicism was silent. Sarcasm bound tightly inside my head. Like a gun I didn’t know how to shoot. Not a weapon to be used on anyone---particularly Mom. And I was shy. REALLY shy. But obedient. So I can safely say that nothing in my life up until that point embarrassed me more than being forced to ask a holy man for his autograph.

I don’t know what I mumbled to the man in the pointy hat.

But he signed it. God love him.

A few months later, the autograph book invaded my life again. One of my mother's co-workers was Rock Hudson’s cousin. I knew who Rock Hudson was. Had seen his movies with Doris Day in reruns on the local TV station. It was a few years before he was diagnosed with AIDS. At that point, he was the aging, but still glamorous, Rock Hudson.

One day, I came home from school and my Mom presented me, once again, with the dreaded autograph book and told me to look inside.

There was my name. And beneath it, something like “Best Wishes. Rock Hudson.”

I say “something like” because to this day, the autograph book (with only two autographs) remains in the custody of my mother. Most likely, in a plastic container full of old IRS paperwork and W-2s somewhere in my mother’s basement.

But I like the idea that it’s there. Reminding me less of the person who signed it, than in the actual circumstances of the autograph itself. Rock Hudson couldn’t possibly have known that when his cousin passed him an autograph book at a family reunion it would turn up as a vaguely embarrassing memory of a young girl in a blog years later.

Last week, I heard that Richard Hell would be appearing at The New Museum on Bowery Street.

I think it’s safe to say that all kids, at some point, think they’re adopted. That disconnect you feel when your parents first knock on your bedroom door and tell you to turn the music down.

I was never a punk. The original punk era was before my time. And I only learned of Richard Hell’s music years after he retired from the scene. But it was exuberant, brash, and just frightening enough to seduce a young Catholic girl from the Midwest. He was one of the founding members of Television and later went on to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids. His iconic look was spotted by Malcolm McLaren who took Hell’s spiky hair, ripped t-shirt and safety pin style back to London and copied it for The Sex Pistols. And his song, “Blank Generation” was possibly the most non-anthematic anthem in musical history.

Hell also did a few acting stints---Susan Seidelman’s groundbreaking film Smithereens being the most well-known. And it certainly helped that he was not bad to look at. He quickly became one of the few rock star crushes I’ve ever had. Of course, my school-girl crush never would’ve worked out. He was into heroin and I was into Barbies. You know how those things go.

By the time I discovered him, he’d gone back to his first real love---poetry.

As a writer, he’s had an amazing success not only as a creator of poetry and novels---but also as one of the few survivors of the punk era who has the ability to chronicle those feral CBGB nights.

So yesterday, I got on the train and headed downtown to hear him speak.

As a museum curator asked the audience to turn off their cell phones, the side door opened and a still-devilishly attractive, 50-something Richard Hell stood bearing manuscripts at the door.

No sooner did he get up to speak, than cell phones and miniature video cameras began popping out of bags and pockets. One girl in front of me spent the entire forty-five minutes adjusting camera angles and focusing the close-ups on her iPhone. It occurred to me that many of them were so busy documenting the experience, they were missing out on the moment itself.

He spoke of the early years. Running away from home to New York City, setting up a printing press in his scrappy downtown apartment, and finally forming his first band, The Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine.

Hell’s writing is stark and gritty, but seminally romantic. Germinating from Baudelaire. Sprouting into Burroughs. And flowering into Hell.

At times, he’s been accused of navel-gazing---though with Hell, any gazing is certainly a few inches further down. The “Free Love” era of the sixties almost seems sweet compared to the anonymous, drug-laden sex of the seventies. And poets are supposed to be navel-gazing. That’s part of the job. It’s like expecting a reality show contestant not to be narcissistic.

Introspection is perhaps a better word. That ability to look at the world with a sensory microscope and cough up hypotheses with nothing more than a pen. Autobiography is naturally self-indulgent. Hell recognized this in the chapter on his early friendship with Tom Verlaine; noting that whenever you speak of someone else, you also speak volumes about yourself.

At the end of the reading, original Voidoids guitar player Ivan Julian stepped on stage, strapped on a guitar and together they performed Hell’s song “Time” as an appropriate end to the evening. But, as Julian turned on the amp and checked the tuning on his guitar---even more video cameras popped out. iPhones. Flip Cameras. And then flashbulbs on everything from digital cameras to cheap instamatics were going off all over the place.

It seemed offensive. Intrusive. Just this side of tacky. Or was it just me? I suppose it wasn’t really that horrifying---but the sheer amount of cameras and lack of consideration for the subject seemed impersonal. Almost destructive. The difference between buying some postcards at The Pyramids and chipping a bit of stone from the tombs. Souvenir-hunting at its worst. A museum. Exhibit: Hell. Click. Upload.

Afterwards, a table was set up at the side and the audience was informed that several of Mr. Hell’s books and CDs would be available and he would briefly sign some autographs.

As an avid book-buyer and rabid reader, I certainly wanted one of his books. Not the sort of thing you can easily pick up at a Barnes & Noble. So I bought one that looked interesting. A hardbound collection of his poems and essays. And then, with my own writer’s introspection, it seemed almost insulting to buy a book and then just leave when I was standing two feet away from its author.

I will admit that I do like signed books. But the signed books I own are generally ones written by friends. It’s kind of kitchy and silly to ask your friend to sign their book. But it also acknowledges their accomplishment. They got published. They did good. Congratulations. And they always write something fun inside.

As I stood there with the book in my hand, I didn’t know what would embarrass me more---asking him to sign it or walking past him refusing to let his signature mar my new purchase.

I continued in the line.

In front of me, everyone seemed to want to talk. Wanted to make the moment memorable for themselves AND for him. Strangers trying desperately to imprint a memory on a man. The line was long, and a museum worker was obviously trying to wrap things up. Hell looked concerned at the length of the line and tried to continue being polite while trying to speed things along. He paused his meet-and-greet to let the crowd know that the museum was closing soon and we would have to move quickly. Meanwhile, the two older women in front of me simply walked behind the table and started posing with him for photos. Not even a “Can we get a photo?” More like a sneak attack. Hell obliged. The camera didn’t flash at the proper time and he was forced to do it two more times. They wanted to talk. Imprint. Hell thanked them and then said, “Does anyone just need a signature?”

I was next. He looked at me and I reached around the photo shoot and handed him the book. As a way of hello, I simply said that I’d enjoyed his reading. He asked my name. I told him. I let him sign in peace. He handed me back the book. I said, “Thank you so much.” He smiled.

And then I left.

Outside, I opened the book and read what he wrote.

“With gratitude. Richard Hell”

I wondered if the “gratitude” was for being the one person that day who didn’t want to suck up his time.

I may be a fan, but I’m a writer, too. I understand the value of time. And humanity. And respect. And that the best souvenirs are of the mind.