Gibby Haynes and Jonathan Shaw / Photo by Gerry Visco
Salvation was there Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass at the powerHouse Arena. Salvation was not a saving of my soul, but the hardcore band from Philly, along with a trio of kick-ass writers: “Bloodclot” John Joseph of The Cro Mags, the “Indestructible Wolf” Max G. Morton and old-school New York tattooist Jonathan Shaw, all of whom have written books for Heartworm Press recently. We’re talking Outlaw Lit 101.
Morton, with a tattooed bat on his neck and a teardrop on his cheek, is labeled “the guru of the murderous American underbelly.” Shaw just published a small collection of his 1970s dope-sick poems, but read from Narcisa, his novel of a narrator who falls hopelessly in love with a 16-year-old crack ho in the teeming, lice-infested flophouses of Rio. And Bloodclot, well, I loved his heartwarming tale of pretending to be a retarded wheelchair-bound Santa Claus in a Staten Island shopping mail, extorting scared mothers into giving him cash.
After the event, which doubled as a listening party for the re-release of Love Comes Close, the fab album from Cold Cave, Heartworm founder Wes Eisold’s band, I tagged along to the afterparty.
“When a woman hits 50, she grows balls,” Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black announced to the table, vouching for me, a non-big shot and barely even a hoodlum. This was the old bad boys club, oozing of testosterone and dropped names; “You know, The Lemonheads, my friend Evan.... ” We were supping by candlelight at Frankies Spuntino in Cobble Hill. There I was, twirling homemade pappardelle with braised lamb on my fork. Gibby Haynes of The Butthole Surfers munched on the pork braciola marinara, and Shaw was scarfing down the cavatelli with hot sausage. The restaurant was playing The Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”
“I hate that song,” Haynes snorted. “There’s not even any guitar. It’s on Their Satanic Majesties Request.” But I knew he was mistaken. “Naw,” I said. “Between the Buttons.”
“When Mick Jagger came down to Brazil,” said Shaw, who lives in Rio, “he was a total wimp. He had all these bottles of vitamins, his special water, creams. All he cares about is his looks.” Shaw had been friends with Jim Morrison and he ran briefly with the Manson gang. He knew the wusses from the punks.
I spoke up as best I could in the situation. “Jagger looks like crap. But I love Marianne Faithfull—she’s looking good and playing good.”
“Yeah, she’s great,” Shaw agreed. “That broad has definitely grown a pair of balls.”
