Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [176]
Okay, let's say Sid was a product of his environment. I mean, Christ, look at his mother: what the hell was that bitch, with her tricolored hair and the interview she's going to sell Murdoch sheets worldwide, doing crying in front of the cameras at the little shithead's funeral?
And of course absolutely no one had anything good to say about Nancy. The general consensus around the New York punk scene seemed to be that she was just a bitch so who cares or maybe even good riddance. A charming little thing who calls herself Trixie Plunger even said to me: “I actually think it's kinda cool in a way, that he killed his girlfriend, and I liked her a lot!” Steve Jones’ comment was also interesting: “Good, maybe now the album will sell a few more copies.” (Yeah, Steve, and think how much more product you’ll move now Sid's offed himself! You lucky dog! And say hi to Zsa Zsa for me.) Of all the people I talked to in the days after her death, absolutely the only person that had anything nice to say about Nancy Spungen was, ironically enough, the supposedly misogynist Stiv Bators: “They really loved each other, and she took better care of him than he’d ever take of himself. I think all that shit people said about her was just pure jealousy.”
But maybe I’m begging the question again. Like, is, say, Stiv Bators a product of a corrupt society, or just an exhibitionist with masochistic tendencies more or less affected? And perhaps I can begin to consider that by telling you about some kids I knew when I lived in Detroit. They’re all about Sid's age now, or would have been had they lived, and sometimes I wonder whether Sid even in death (or especially in death) might not have been the ultimate extension of their dreams.
Shirley (I’m changing their names, though they probably wouldn’t care) only cared about two things in the entire world: the New York Dolls and Pink Flamingos. Divine was her hero, and one day she paid ultimate testament to her devotion by having a pink flamingo three inches long tattooed on her thigh It looked to me like a blatant act of self-defilement, but she seemed proud of it. She has since attempted suicide, I’m not sure how many times. Works at odd jobs in small shops. When you see her she's always smiling but her eyes, which are pretty glazed anyway, don’t ever seem quite to be looking at you. In fact, you’re never quite sure what exactly they might be looking at. She's rather plain, but that doesn’t entirely account for her never having had a boyfriend. I don’t know what accounts for it, and I don’t think she does either.
Her friend whom I always knew by the nickname Noodle used to take acid every day when he was in eighth grade. This went on for two or three years and then he got into junk. His eyes were just totally gone, not there, worse than Sid's. He always had girlfriends, but it didn’t seem to matter. Neither did much of anything else. He was kind of like a shell with curdled smoke inside. He finally got off junk a few months ago, and last week he was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Jane, who was half in love with him and lived with him and Shirley in a kind of basically asexual communal unit (they were delighted when I referred to it as their “new family”) is a brilliant photographer. She has that rare knack for capturing people at that precise instant that defines them, whether it's Lou Reed or a haggard crone in a luncheonette. She obviously has a much better chance than Noodle or Shirley, but they and people like them keep trying without even knowing it to drag her down. And her ignorance about certain things is so staggering that I was immediately reminded of