PowerPop: Sisyphus in Hackensack, New Jersey

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Sisyphus in Hackensack, New Jersey

Had a lot of fun on my birthday...

...and I'm paying for it this morning.

Regular posting resumes tomorrow, cross my barely functional heart.

4 comments:

Unknown said...: I am soooooooo happy to hear that you had a mind-blowing birthday, Steve! When you turn 50, it’s important to stop whatever you’re doing, take stock of your life, and as the MC5 said, “Kick out the jams, motherf***ers.”

Which reminds me of a story. I recall turning 21 in ..... , and my then boyfriend, Carpe (a forgiving sweetheart if there ever was one, and who later became one of my husbands) spent a summer following Quicksilver Messenger Service on their Pride Of Man tour, which would later find its way onto the Happy Trails album. The tour was a blast, and especially so because of a Motor City stop where Carpe and I met up with John Sinclair and MC5 members Wayne Kramer and Rob Tyner, and found ourselves in the audience for the recording of Kick Out The Jams at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. That’s me yelling, “Sun Ra, where’s Carpe?” during the recording of Starship.

Lester Bangs may have thought the album was a worthless piece of crap, and the term punk had yet to be used to describe anything other than two-bit criminals, but I distinctly remember telling a very young Jimmy Osterberg, who at the time was seeing a gal-pal of mine, Simone Boudoir (who was at least ten years older than Jimmy) and John Cippolina (who played his guitar like he was ringing my bell) that the MC5 had a sound that was a load of punk. Now John, who built public address speakers, had lousy hearing, and thought that I had said PROTO punk, and since his younger brother, Mario, who played bass with Huey Lewis, had a schnauzer named Proto, John kept telling everybody that MC5 played Proto punk music, a term that John used to describe MC5’s music as “for the dogs,” but Little Jimmy, who adored Blackboard Jungle, kept describing himself as Proto punk, which led to Igster recording I Wanna Be Your Dog in 1969, and his music being referred to as proto punk. All because of moi!

It also led to an evening I’ll never forget with Little Jimmy, Simone, John and oh yes, Carpe, where we danced beneath a diamond sky with one hand waving hello to Detroit autoworkers fresh off the midnight shift, and downed Oreo-sized tablets of I90, a popular hallucinogen I got from Owsley Stanley in return for an original copy of the very first United States of America album, signed by Dorothy Moskowitz, and still sealed in its brown paper bag packaging.

I remember waking up the next day in a motel room I don’t remember entering with a headache the size of Sturgis, South Dakota, looking for Carpe and some aspirin, when I said to myself, “Carpe adores me ….. he’ll find me,” and “Why trade a headache for an upset stomach when I can have both?” and then downing a half-finished bottle of Southern Comfort. Unfortunately, Carpe was abducted by a group of Pentecostal bikers who followed the teachings of Dennis Edmonton, the musician also known as Mars Bonfire, and the dude who wrote Born To Be Wild. I forgot about him in a matter of hours, and I didn’t see Carpe for another 30 years, but that too is another story completely. Oh, time DOES pass too quickly when you're having a good time, doesn't it?

Now that’s a birthday to remember! I became the first person to use the term proto punk, and it was all the result of a big misunderstanding. Such good times! So listen to me Steve, your birthday party was worth it, no matter how much you suffer today! I know better than anyone. ANYONE!

-- Penny Podium

Currently on an AARP-sponsored lecture tour about the good old days along with Goldy McJohn and Medulla Oblongata (of The Gurus), and still searching for the meaning of life, which I still think has something to do with me. Oh yeah, and ….. Carpe, the man who spent 30 years searching for me, the fool!

Kick Out The Jams by MC5

Kicks by Paul Revere and the Raiders

Kick In The Eye by Bauhaus

Bauhaus To Our House by Tom Wolfe

Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran

Wolf Moon by Type O Negative

The House Of Wolves by My Chemical Romance

Wolfie’s Restaurant in Toms River

Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega; 10/22/2014 4:50 PM
pete said...: Sisyphus - isn't that one of those Carvel ice-cream cakes?; 10/22/2014 8:45 PM
steve simels said...: Penny -- please e-mail me.; 10/23/2014 11:50 AM
Anonymous said...: Not to mention:

Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

I Can See For Miles by Cohen's Fashion Optical

Fashion by David Bowie

I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt by Right Said Fred

I'm Telling You Now by Freddy and the Dreamers

Dream On by Aerosmith; 10/24/2014 7:36 PM