I listened as Richard Hell started to quote Proust

until his voice cracked, he began to cry (?!), covered that possible indiscretion with a laugh, and jumped to the last paragraph of the last chapter of his forthcoming autobiography, vowing to cut the quote. He's right. I don't think he needs it.

His reading yesterday took place in the sunshine sucking basement of Cake Shop and somehow made me forget about the smell of beer, booze, and shame covered with chlorinated, yet dirty mop water that can only be experienced in a bar in the middle of the day. The book sounds angry and honest and wonderful. He's as pissed as ever at Tom Verlaine and seems to me to be the personification of Richard Katz in Franzen's "Freedom". It's probably pretty punk rock to hold a grudge, but it's definitely pretty poetic to write a whole book about it 5000 years later conflating only a moderately dimmed rage, a bucket load of insight, and the kind of love made possible by a healthy dose of hate. Gosh, I can't wait.

I bought "Blank Generation" in high school at the local record store, City Lights (RIP). Record stores run by too cool, grizzly, middle-aged dudes in Creepers are supposed to be intimidating, but it was actually the frozen yogurt place next door that was run by assholes (even though it's decor was strictly teddy bears) that was the real fear inducer. I guess I should be thankful that I grew up in a place where it was easier to ask for music recommendations than extra sprinkles.

I feel kind of proud that I knew and loved Richard Hell before I knew and loved (let's be honest, loved and love more) Television. I didn't have anyone cool in my life helping me out, but providentially, I found this paperback book of punk rock sheet music at a thrift store and used it to further my obsession with anything punk rock and new wave and basically not central Pennsylvania (except for that other genre I was equally fascinated with at the time that was quintessentially Pennsylvanian and small town and terrible--I'll call it emo-straight-edge-sometimes-Christian-discordant-whining--but that's another story).

One of the few CDs I still have around...I guess because my cat likes it.

It's funny how this book was like a blue print to the ultimate mix tape. I learned the piano via the Suzuki method, so it's not like the bars meant much to me, but if this book was my bible, these tracks were the Letters to Corinthians…if those letters were full of tips and musical lineages to look up, download, and sometimes buy...were they? If so, I get it. Anyway:

Richard Hell ended his reading with the sentence, "This isn't a book about a person through time, it's a book about time as lived through a person." Or something like that. I thought that was nice.