by Richard Boch
Better or Worse
I survived that endless Saturday; Sunday and Monday disappeared. Back at work Tuesday, I was happy to see Anita at the turntables. I tried getting used to the new crew at the door but they kept changing. I started feeling outnumbered, even a bit creeped out. Luckily I had DJ David, Anita and Chi Chi to lean on.
A little guy named Little John was the new Mudd Club manager but he had no idea what the place was about. Peggy Doyle, who owned a joint around the corner on Franklin Street, recommended him, and for whatever reason, Steve listened. John had a wife who was always staggering around and falling over while he was busy snorting coke, ordering liquor and “counting” Steve’s money. She was a pain in the ass and I paid as little attention to him as possible.
Other than DJ David, Greg the bartender was the last holdout from the original crew. He was a much nicer guy than Little John but shared the latter’s questionable taste in women. When he met a girl named Briana at the club, they fucked around for about five minutes, did some coke and got married. Greg was in love but three days later she was back to picking up guys at the bar, getting high in the bathroom and making out in the alley. He kept busy pouring drinks and freaking out. The honeymoon was over.
I tried to mind my business but sometimes it was easier to stare at someone else’s shit than look at my own. Life on Murray Street and my relationship with Gary was challenging at best. Drug-fueled and codependent, it was a constant stream of drama and deceit that caused scene after scene at Mudd, One University Place and at home. Fists occasionally flying and drinks being thrown, “fuck you,” “I hate you” and “I’ll kill you” were all part of our disconnected connection. I think we cared for each other, possibly even loved each other; but it was so out of control that even a diversionary basement interlude, a midmorning hookup or a pile of cocaine offered little distraction or relief. Too much alcohol made things worse. Sometimes heroin made things better.
Crazy Person with a Gun
In spite of the drama, I still loved my job. I even tried to be patient with a new security guy named Clay—a hothead psycho who liked to throw punches and carry a loaded weapon. My only thought: Oh shit, now we have a fucking crazy person with a gun working here, and I was right.
Clay had only been at the club a few weeks when he busted into an upstairs bathroom and punched Lounge Lizard John Lurie in the face. Leisa Stroud and Wendy Whitelaw were on either side of John and drugs were somewhere in the middle. John lost a tooth, Leisa was furious and everyone else was shocked. The scene created a Muddcentric cause célèbre, put a black mark on the club’s reputation and temporarily damaged John Lurie’s relationship with Steve Mass. Given my frequent trips to the bathroom I was an eyewitness and later deposed by a lawyer representing John. I was in a tough situation but I told them what I saw. It wasn’t long after that I realized there was an even darker side to White Street than bootleg Quaaludes, heroin and bad relationships.
The drugs and the people who loved them still hung out in the bathrooms and Clay stuck around for another month. He fucked a few girls in the basement but luckily his gun never went off. Then, finally, he disappeared. After numerous fittings and adjustments, John and his new tooth returned to White Street. I kept working the door and Lurie got his saxophone to sing again. Steve handed out free drinks and paid some dental bills.
Maneuverings
Reality did and does occasionally suck and by the late fall of 1979 all I had to do was figure out how to keep going. The mirrors lying on my kitchen table and hanging on my bathroom wall were showing me more than just flashes of crazy. The occasional speedball had me pointed in the direction of a brick wall that wasn’t there a year ago. Painting and not painting was another part of what was happening. The Mudd Club was the rest.
My reality was knowledge that doing the door was never an exact science: it was a sociological mash-up, part politics and part schmooze that required a thick skin, a lot of drugs and at least one person you could trust. When Louie, Joey and Robert left, Chi Chi became that person. I was impressed by her looks and charm, and she was impressed by my patience and tact. She was a smart woman who even likened a few of my moves to the reconciliation policies and diplomatic maneuverings of Bishop Desmond Tutu. I’m not sure how Bishop Des would’ve felt about the comparison but I took it as a compliment.
The door was about being a realist—friends and regulars always came first. As for everyone else, some had to pay to come in, some didn’t and some couldn’t come in at all. It was all gut feeling and going with your first impression—the once-over once. A second chance, usually a mistake. Sometimes it worked out; sometimes it didn’t, but that’s life.
Ford to City: Drop Dead
New York City, along with the rest of the world, was having an equally that’s life kind of year. A tugboat strike (seemingly the last thing anyone was worried about) left barges stranded in the river and garbage piled up in the streets. Crime was out of control and the newly founded Guardian Angels were running around, sometimes helping and sometimes not. Etan Patz, the six-year-old from Prince Street who disappeared back in May, was still missing and the posters were still everywhere. Former U.S. Congressman and Democratic leader Ed Koch, an open-minded guy except when it came to graffiti and his own sexual identity, was already two years into a twelve-year run as the city’s mayor. Everyone else was trying to get out from under the financial crisis of the mid-seventies and live down the infamous Daily News headline, FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.
Far and near, the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran fucked everything up and brought down Jimmy Carter. The Shah of Iran, seeking exile and upset by Mexico’s rebuff, continued to look for a new home. Margaret Thatcher became England’s prime minister, forming a not-so-curious bond with soul mate Ronald Reagan. Moving south, then farther east, the Sandinistas liberated Nicaragua, and China instituted the one child per family rule. In the biggest name change since Muhammad Ali, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. It sounded better; or so I thought.
For those who had the time, Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, a thousand pages about Gary Gilmore and a firing squad, won a Pulitzer. Closer to home and more culturally relevant, The Warriors, a gang war saga directed by Walter Hill, developed a cult following. The art scene in SoHo was thriving while filmmakers from the New Cinema on St. Mark’s, and East Third Street’s Little Hollywood, were hanging out at Mudd. Alphabet City was still dangerous—a war zone—both inhabited and visited by a large number of the White Street contingent. There was a lot going on and that was just the half of it, or less.
Primal Scream
That’s life continued to be—though I tried to avoid complacency and boredom. Mudd kept me busy while my personal life left me chasing after drugs and sex. My studio work continued but my painting often reflected a scattered focus. Moving forward only meant days passing, turning pages on a calendar.
Looking back, I can still get lost; other times, it’s possible to grab hold of a moment and clearly describe it. Sharon D’Lugoff even remembers what she was thinking after that Mudd Club bathroom encounter but cutting thru the fog isn’t always so easy. Glenn O’Brien claims his “memories are sort of spotty regarding the Mudd Club—they’ve all sort of blended into one.” He continues, “Maybe primal scream therapy would help get them back?”
For me, I’ve tried screaming and sitting quietly, waiting to see what shakes out or which tongues start speaking. I’m not sure either works.
The anything could happen world of Mudd was pretty blurry then; how could it be different now? Trying to line things up with a mark in time is even more difficult.
Glenn thinks he remembers my “long-suffering, remarkably patient and polite tenure” at the door. (I’m not sure about all that, but his memory is kind.) He recalls Steve Mass “running the club like an art project” but at the same time “doing a lot that was counterintuitive.” He refers to Steve as “The Master of Irony,” a grand title and a perfect fit.
Alice’s
We started the evening smoking pot and drinking vodka. We wound up eating spaghetti, salad and garlic bread at Alice’s 2 West Sixty-seventh Street apartment. The view across Central Park from the ninth-floor duplex was a New York City dream; the scene inside, a sort of VIP annex to the Mudd Club. Dinnertime, party time and crash-pad luxury, there were regulars hanging out, others just passing thru.
The faces around the table were often familiar. They were at Mudd the night before and I’d be seeing them again later on. Judy Nylon and Mary Lou Green, Little Debi Mazar, Lynette Bean, Gary Kanner and Ricky Sohl were part of the crew at 2 West. A revolving cast of British rockers and downtown Punks, friends from Toronto and itinerant strange added to the mix; Cheetah and Gyda, Johnny Thunders and Chrissie Hynde—a who’s who from who knows where—rifling the medicine cabinets, taking a nap or just hiding out.
I was usually the first to leave and someone always shared the cab. I’d get to White Street just as DJ David was getting ready. Before the club filled up I’d make a slow trip across the room and let the sound wash over me. It was midnight, the stars were out and Wilson Pickett stopped waiting. An hour later, Iggy Pop was singing about his “lust for life” and the music, dance floor and DJ were one.
David
I met DJ David Azarch at the Mudd Club. He was a skinny Rock ’n’ Roll kid with a modified moptop and a great record collection. We became friends early on, hung out and got in trouble together. If or when we got caught, Abbijane would read us the riot act. David just smiled and kept cuing up the Motown. I stood there while she wagged her finger in my face. Then she’d grab me and we’d dance.
A year after the club opened, DJ David was as much a star as anyone; for him the Mudd Club became “a real education for a boy from Washington Heights.” He played the big and not-so-big hits and the dance floor went wild: he felt that “the room told him what to play.” When he cued up Roxy Music’s “Street Life” you could feel it in your gut and the beat took you away. He’d play a song you never heard before and bring it back home with something you heard a thousand times. David could take that old song and hand it back to you for a first-time experience. You’d hear it and start to dance.
Tonight David Bowie’s in the house and DJ David is kicking off an early morning set of Mott the Hoople and Iggy Pop—no real Bowie Bowie, just a little Idiot “Funtime” instead. The dance floor is crowded, security’s watching the door and Chi Chi’s watching the stairs. I’m on my way to the basement, a bottle of beer in each hand with my friend Edward right behind.
It was once in a lifetime every night. We ran wild on White Street because we could; allowed is the word I keep coming back to. With a vision wider than his reach, Steve Mass opened the doors, “allowing” everything and anything to happen.
Walking thru those doors, I came inside when David cued up “Pop Muzik” by M, a one-off hit from behind-the-scenes pop music veteran Robin Scott. The DJ booth at Mudd was the launchpad for new music and the dance floor was the acid test. Like “Lust for Life,” “Sex Machine” and “Take Me to the River,” “Pop Muzik” became a song people identify as part of the Mudd Club soundtrack. When it landed on the turntable, heads started bobbing. People hit the dance floor and everybody was talking about “Pop Muzik.” Today it’s just a memory, not much of a song.
Bless Its Pointed Little Head
Ten minutes later and back outside I do a double take twice. Jack Casady, the legendary bass player for Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, is in front of me on the other side of the chain. I grew up with those early Airplane albums and for me there was nothing like them. I listened on the way up and on the way back down from the tripped-out Orange Sunshine adventures of high school and college. The front cover of Volunteers cracked me up and the sound on Bless Its Pointed Little Head blew me away. I heard them play it live a few times and felt the rumble—body and mind. The Airplane crashed in the summer of ’72 and Tuna’s on hiatus, but Casady’s in town with his new band SVT.
Brian Marnell was SVT’s singer, songwriter and guitarist, a great talent and a beautiful guy. He hung out at the loft on Murray Street more than once and loved the Mudd Club as much as anyone. Then one night I looked at Brian sitting in a booth upstairs and saw what I often felt but couldn’t see in myself—trouble, and the uneasy feeling of almost fitting in, but not. Biding his time and getting high, he wasn’t sure of what he wanted, or what was next. Marnell thought the Mudd Club was the greatest place and found something bordering on comfort in a booth or a bathroom on the second floor. A sweet guy, the desperation neatly tucked away; I knew what it was like and I went looking for that same comfort. Some nights I found it on White Street, some nights I found it with my friends. Not sure Brian ever did. I’m wishing he were still around.
A “Hey, Jack” across the chain was the beginning of Casady and SVT’s relationship with the Mudd Club. We went inside, I got him a drink and he asked me if I had any coke. I introduced him to Steve, told the bar “Take care of him,” and we headed for the bathroom. Five minutes later, Jack returned to the bar and I went outside. A couple nights later, Jack was back and I was running around—upstairs and down—still searching for my own version of comfort.
Trustworthy and Reliable
Not everyone who showed up at the door was an easy choice, or as much fun as a Rock ’n’ Roll hero. Darwinism and natural selection aside, a small degree of tolerance was a big part of the job. Publicists and managers accompanied by terrible bands with a sense of entitlement were one thing; celebs with big egos and a bag of coke they rarely shared were another. Tourists who read about the club in People or New York Magazine tried White Street first before they tried someplace else. If anyone offered a bribe, generosity was key.
The Mudd Club was the toughest door in the city and for some strange reason I knew what I was doing. Calling it my job sounds funny (at least to me) and despite my own bullshit, confusion and frustration, it felt like the best job in New York. The training was nonexistent—it was watch, look, listen, and then do whatever you want. I can still hear Louie saying, “I’ll be right back” before he headed inside. Thirty minutes later, he was still missing and I was learning fast. That’s pretty much how it went.
Steve Mass hired me because he thought I knew everyone. Years later, when I ran into Mudd manager Glenn McDermott he said, “You were meant to be there,” and I guess I was. I showed up, tried to fit in and never missed a night. No one second-guessed us, and after Louie left, there was no one second-guessing me. I said, “Hi, how many?” and decided whether or not to open the chain. After any number of drinks, not to mention the occasional speedball, I was still breathing, standing and working hard. I was a trustworthy, reliable employee and whether it was Mudd Club destiny or mine, it all worked out and I lived to tell.
Today the word speedball doesn’t even sound like a real word.
The Lamest Song
Real or unreal. I was staring into the street, trying to focus, when a former classmate from New Hyde Park Memorial arrived with The Knack. She appeared shocked to see me and the only thing she could say was, “Richard?” Her name was either Margaret or Maria and she may have been the band’s publicist, handler or babysitter. I wanted to let her in for free and buy her a drink but in this case I just couldn’t do it—The Knack being responsible for “My Sharona,” 1979’s lamest song. There was no warm and fuzzy reunion; instead it was “Five dollars each please, pay inside.” They paid, went in, hung out for a while and left. I never saw Maria again and The Knack never came back, musically or to the Mudd Club.
Scott Severin was standing outside that night, watching it all go down. He remembers me pointing him out in the crowd and telling security, “Let that kid in.” Scott was mostly a weekender until he left home in Canarsie and fou
nd a place in the East Village. After that, he started coming around all the time and the White Street experience turned into a rite of passage for another kid from Brooklyn.
If we liked you and you didn’t annoy us, if you were cute, had drugs or any combination thereof, sooner or later you came in for free. I liked Scott, he never annoyed me and he was sort of cute in a snotty kid kind of way. I have no idea if he had any drugs but we always let him in.
Thirty years after the fact, Scott told me I shouldn’t ever have let The Knack in, even for five dollars each. There’s no second-guessing at this point but he’s probably right. It’s funny the things we remember. “My Sharona” I’ll try to forget.
Russians Are Coming
I still remember going to an upstate drive-in when I was twelve, where my biggest problem was not enough popcorn. The movie was The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, a 1966 submarine-comes-aground-in-New England comedy. The thing I remember most is the title.
Twenty-three years later, the Russians came back. They left Queens Village, landed on White Street and stepped up to the door of the Mudd Club. No submarine or popcorn was involved.
Mia and Lenny, Eddie and his sister Bella, Julie, Misha and a couple of others were half Punk-half Punk poseur, and none wanted to pay. Mia was a beauty and worked in a downtown peep show. The blond Russian guy in black leather looked to be straight out of gay porn. Some were junkies, one or two sold coke and all of them played To Pay or Not to Pay at the door.
