Hey, Miss Attila, I want to make a bid but I do not have access to the donated funds to promote Condoleezza Rice for President.

Since we will be seeing your blog at CPAC, I can think of no better way to welcome you than to advertise on your blog.
You will see a tremendous groundswell of support for Condi at CPAC, and I hope to share some insight with you and our national chairwoman, Jessie Jane Duff.
You Go Attila Girl!

"...or make my site more entertaining with their brilliant comments"

Moi?

Aw shucks... (hands behind back, looking at ground, blushing, tracing half circles with toe...)

Must be you, DC, 'cause I don't comment here often enough to have much impact, statistically speaking.

Well y'know it's an odd feeling, waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Ya stick your neck out with false modesty and self-aggrandizement, and ya expect *someone* will take the bait.

I mean, who can resist a good ego-thwacking opportunity?

Oh. But I agreed with the premise that you're a major contributor here. So your comment was cute, and seemed to stand on its own.

And I can't seem to do the frontal assault ego thumping very well: I'm more of a stick-the-knife-in-when-they-least-expect-it type.

I'll bet it's a man-woman thing.

hey DC, I got you beat as a three out of four! you got the others but I am broke and you are NOT! so there!

Not to mention being the most lame-ass blogger of a blogdaughter two such illustrious blogparents could be embarrassed to claim.

smirk smirk.

No false modesty here, guys.

heh heh!

we're a happy family
we're a happy family
we're a happy family
me mom and dad-dy
--the ramones

...sitting here in Queens
eating refried beans.

But I agreed with the premise that you're a major contributor here. So your comment was cute, and seemed to stand on its own.

(Pang of guilt...I'm so bad...and I'm gonna admit it too...)

When trolling with a lightweight fuzzy spinner doesn't produce any hits, it's time to switch to a flashier rig.

(*cough cough* *hack!* *youreanattentionwhoreDC* *cough* *ahem*...whew, got that off my chest...)

Hi, Desert Cat! How are you? How are things in good old AZ? I hope Daisy is doing well, and you haven't had to go to Phoenix lately. What's your favorite Bible translation? I'm going through the Catholic One-Year version right now, but I'm thinking of trading up to something more accurate--this one is the Living Bible. Paraphrases are yucky.

Hope it isn't getting too cold out there in the desert: the temperatures there drop so drastically this time of year. I haven't dropped by your blog lately; maybe I'll stop by tomorrow after my medical procedure.

Love,

Joy

P.S. Have you guys gotten rid of McCain yet? Okay, bye!

skewered...

we're in all the magazines
gulping down thorazines!

Oh, yeah. That 80s vibe is coming through loud and clear . . . ;)

80's? naw, that was 70's. Went down to La Mer Viper by Armitage and Halsted, dancing the night away at the world's first punk *disco*, meaning they played records instead of live bands...1976, 77, like that.

Ya know. Back in the day.

Is the "questionable content" detector broken again? It's hassling me over inocuous words.

I s h u d d e r to admit that I was very into punk rock for a couple of years around 1980 or so.

Why s h u d d e r? It was fun. It remains some of the most danceable music around. A lot of nice dry humor in there, too.

Maybe once or twice in a person's lifetime, they get to be on the cutting edge sweep of some new phase of an art form - music, painting, dance, poetry, movies, blogging, whatever - and music is one of the most moving, enduring, all-encompassing art forms of them all.

If it happens in one's early adulthood, that's a very lucky person.

Born in 1958, I was able to get into bars (the local intimate music scene) at age 15. Then, it was legal to go in when I was 18, yay! Then a couple weeks before my 21st birthday they changed the law to 21 again. So I could submerge myself in that new music scene, up close and personal, at a wonderful age for it.

I never pierced my lips with bobby pins or shaved my head into a Mohawk or dyed my hair green. But that breath of fresh air, that extraordinary burst of creativity and newness, and of acceptance of one's self not just despite - but also (right or wrong) because of - one's idiosyncrasies?

God almighty.

It was great.

Oh, I saw Talking Heads playing at the Quiet Knight, with a total of maybe 50 people in the audience, and suits from - who was it? Arista? Sire? - more or less auditioning them for their first "real" album...Went to see Rock and Roll High School, and had half the theater dancing in the aisles...Got up on my feet to dance on (and over and around and upside!) my folding chair or velvet seat while seeing Iggy Pop, the Ramones, Roxy Music at beautiful old Chicago venues...My home-town-band friends the Cleaning Ladys, whose very first performance I witnessed - in a suburban basement no less! - made me an Honorary Lady one beery exhilarating backstage night...Dancing at Le Mer, I saw some seriously naughty behavior, sure. But no one ever - EVER - did one thing to hurt me there. Unlike the environs of great wealth and *taste* and *class* I also forayed through at the time.

I can't dance for shit. Really. Just don't know how. But back then I sure could jump around and pogo and do a half-assed new wave-y twist on the twist, and mostly, see, I have Happy Feet and couldn't quit grinning when I danced. And any guy that wasn't embarrassed to dance with me spent all his dancing time grinning, too. Happy. If he was uptight - well then, he's not the right dance partner for me anyway, huh?

Nothing wrong with youthful silliness. Especially when you're still young and not, say, 55.

I had some very hard, some truly terrible things going on in my life, too, with my husband and with other things besides. Fears, like any late adolescent, and probably worse for me than for many others. I'm both intensely curious and counterphobic. That can be dangerous indeed. But I am what I am, and living a (mildly?) wild youth probably had a lot to do with helping me stay alive and stay sane.

And when I look back, I think it was a very good thing that I lived hard and fast when I could. Because by the time I was 32, my health was destroyed. (NOT due to lifestyle, thank you!) So it was all over. I can't much travel or work or often even leave my house any more. Worse, too, as you know. Sure can't dance.

When we keep growing up - often it's as we're approaching middle age - people sometimes get embarrassed about the things they did in their youth. The styles they loved, the life they led, the politics, religious beliefs, whatever.

Not me. I still value things like generosity and stopping to smell the roses and helping others and good food and good friends and growing flowers and tolerance and being independent and thinking for yourself. Music. Hugs. All that old corny shit. Hippie stuff. Why not? Those are still good values to have. As far as I'm concerned, make love not war still holds.

Fools who try to pounce on that and call me names and laugh at me for supposed attributes like inexperience or ignorance or naivete (!) only embarrass themselves, not me. I know the difference between *right* and *wrong,* and between *parroting a not-thought-out position* and *I just disagree.* The difference between name-calling BS and civil discourse, too.

So here I was, bemoaning my own blogdaughterly uselessness, way too wrapped up in hurricane recovery and health things thus not posting - lazier yet, spending posting time COMMENTING!!! - and then, sunning myself toasty warm at blogmama LMA's, I saw I have fine cause to remember that some nice things run in families, and blogfamilies, and THEN...

Hey, Mr. DC! Who else here could have come right back at me with the next lyrics to that song? Not many. God above! I had NO idea! How perfectly delightful.

So, Pops, your blogdaughter orders you to not s h u d d e r no more, or she will hold her breath till she turns blue.

there's a girl
I used to know
her face is her fortune,
she's got a heart of gold...

Maybe because it was a very raw and painful time in my life. The music fit. Later it didn't fit so much anymore.

Lucky you though. You got to see the cutting edge side of punk. I only caught on to it after the first wave was past (but fortunately before the "abomination of desolation", which was the Clash going pop.)

I clearly missed a few things, it seems. I don't recognize those lyrics at the end of your post.

I did wear an oversized safety pin in my lapel for a few years, and once, just once, I wore a studded dog collar.

Soo...did you get the opportunity to see that penultimate punk movie "The Decline of Western Civilization"?

I severely regret not being able to join my friends when the Pretenders came to town. This was, again, before Chrissy went pop, back when she was still punk and cool.

She never goes out much
But boy--when she does,
Then you know.

She´s got no money,
Well, maybe a dime.
But she knows what she´s worth,
And that´s reason why
She´s gonna make it
--She´s got what it takes,
You´ll appreciate that
She´s probably late--
But I know,
And you know:
We all know
She´ll have a really good time.

Lucky, yes. It was just one of those right place right time things. And having that raw harshness in my life that made that scene such a perfect union was too. I'd say I was in the last half of the very first wave - starting around late 1975, at 17 - but pretty much out of it by the end of that first wave, 1980 or so. Like with you, it just didn't fit so well any more.

In a way that was lucky, too, since I wasn't emotionally involved in the disintegration that naturally follows the first blast. And Chrissy Hynde always struck me as inherently more pop than punk - like Blondie vs. Patti Smith, or the Police vs. The Clash - but that was okay by me. They each had their place. Selling out after an honest start is different in any genre - leaves a bad taste in your mouth. (Walt Disney.)

Oh, such a tiny but dense record collection still remains! Original issues of the Clash, some Sex Pistols 45's, The Vibrators, Roxy Music (European edition of Country Life, with the naughty pix on the cover), David Bowie, Lou Reed, Blondie, Ramones, The Jam...

I had totally forgotten about The Decline! Never saw it. The Chicago punk scene was allied with the New York one, but LA seemed inexplicably different to us. Perhaps because of the lack of the bitter cold years of the late 1970's? How could people in California ever tap into that broken glass edgy urban rawness that powered all that music?

(They certainly could, of course; it just seemed so counterintuitive to us up there in Chi-town.)

The lyrics are from a Roxy Music song, a quiet one, very sweet and simple and direct, called *A Really Good Time.*

You´re heard enough
Of the blues and stuff
You´re pretty swell now
´cause you´re pretty tough
But I don´t have to tell you
How hard it can be to get by
You never bothered
About anyone else
You´re well educated
With no common sense
But love - that´s one thing
You really need to get by
All your troubles
Come from yourself
Nobody hurts you
- they don´t care
Just as long as you show them
A really good time
All the things
You used to do
A trip to the movies
A drink or two
They don´t satisfy you
They don´t tell you anything new
You know I don´t talk much
Except to myself
´cause i´ve not much to say
And there´s nobody else
Who´s ready and willing
And able to know me - I guess
Listen to me
I´m not finished yet
There´s something to tell you
That I can´t forget
Just have a really good time
There´s a girl
I used to know
Her face is her fortune
She´s got a heart of gold
She never goes out much
But boy - when she does
Then you know
She´s got no money
Well, maybe a dime
But she knows what she´s worth
And that´s reason why
She´s gonna make it
She´s got what it takes
You´ll appreciate that
She´s probably late
But I know
And you know
We all know
She´ll have a really good time

whoa! mama knew!

Some things run in blogfamilies...

I know a guy who was an "early adapter" with punk, so he was in it in the late 70s. I was probably more New Wave; I listened to a lot of Elvis Costello. Graham Parker.

I think some people did think that colder cities created more "authentic" music than warm ones, but there was plenty of raw stuff coming out of the South Bay at that time.

I did go to a lot of clubs in the 1980s. Mostly in small groups, which meant that I could dress as trashily as I wanted: I remember getting skirts in thrift shops and hemming them within an inch of their lives, then wearing 'em with fishnet stockings, heels and a black velvet jacket.

And, of course, a stud earring in one ear, with a dangly one in the other.

Oh, FUN!

Hey guys. See that girl up in the left hand corner? Any of you who haven't gotten past those Glorious F-F-Formidables should be alerted that our Little Miss Attila is also blessed with a pair of million dollar gams.

Which used to grace the streets of LA all dolled up in the *shocking* attire described above...

--I think I just heard a collective *sigh* emanating from the blogosphere...

and now I'm wondering if DC still has that studded dog collar somewhere, stashed away in the back of the bottom drawer of the dresser?...

I was getting dressed once, because a bunch of us were going to see one of the local bands, and a friend of mine was visiting--also getting ready for the outing. When I was ready (or thought I was), she said, "you know, you should dial it back. You look like rape bait." I think I changed into a less-short skirt to make her happy: after all, she was--and is--a much more practical person than I.

My legs used to be nice; I don't know, now, what with my new chubby middle-aged look . . .

This is why it's such a fine thing to more or less hang with your peer group. Once past what I call the Gorgeousness of Youth period, the good thing is, none of us can see quite as well as we could.

Then, just as we're regretting our newly acquired affinity for Gorgeousless Gravity and Puffier Parts, what happens? Why, we're all in the same boat! And those bits that would have been inexcusable in our youth, don't look near half bad any more.

Not even if we could see them nice and clear.

;)