"The table had not been cleared away after last
night's meal; at each place lay a half-eaten custard"
Paul Bowles: Up Above The World
The New York nights are populated by numberless ghosts, noisy, unchained army
of skeletons, clothed in otherworldly colors, capable of doing anything. From
every region of the globe, from every regional nightmare, from every provincial
cataclysm these doomed souls gather at the Gate of the Empire for salvation:
desperate for money, fame, hiding place. All the creepy creatures of human
imagination can be found here, among those clawing at the gate: there are
centaurs and dragon-ladies, monkey-devils, cobolds, witches and missionaries,
magicians and popes, dog-deities, cats, rats, cockroaches, germs and unstoppable
viruses. Ice-demons from Iceland dance with jungle-spirits from Madagascar; all
the buried dead from the Pére Lachaise cemetery of Paris seem to be here, just
like you can feel the strong presence of the hordes of Dinghies Khan. There is
Cain rattling, there is Pilate, washing his hands, there is Nero, writing poems,
there is Hitler, painting postcards. All the roads lead to this city, the Last
Judgment is made here, which is announced daily at dawn, through the slightly
open gate. The guilty ones are taken by perky employees of Time under the
diesel-fuel, organic and radioactive wastes soaked ground. The chosen ones -
maybe one (or less) in every hundred million souls - are let into the light,
through a side-door, after full body search for contraband.
It is raining in New York, on Fifth Avenue. Yellow cabs cut through the steam
and rain, the drivers yell curses in Arabic or Urdu, the passengers are grinding
their teeth, scared to death on the back-seats. Not bothered by the traffic a man
is taking a shit in the middle of the road, injecting heroin into his penis at the
same time. There are policemen on horseback, riding against the traffic, as they
are chasing hopelessly after a bicycle-thief. The thief falls off his bike several
times, still he manages to get away from his chasers. There is a late-middle aged
guy at the front of Tower Records, on Broadway. He is drinking egg-nog from a box.
There is his guitar, leaning against the wall. Walking closer I recognize him: he
is Lou Reed, waiting for his man. I see Nico at a table in a nearby Greek diner.
She did not change a bit since I saw her last time in the bowels of the Squat
Theater. She looks like an alcoholic German schoolteacher, waiting for assistance
in the welfare office. Commanding his harem with his booming baritone Iggy Pop is
crossing the street. He is covered with blood and peanut-butter, looking like the
god Dionysos. I am going to meet Chris Giunta, of the retro-formation CUSTARD WALLY
tonight, at the 7A cafe, on the corner of the 2nd Avenue and 7th street, which is
the most famous meeting spot in the East Village. This is where Bob Dylan met with
Jimi Hendrix, Ginsberg with Kerouac, the Kraftwerk with David Bowie, Janis Joplin
with Jim Morrison and Prodigy with Picasso. The 7A cafe is a historical place. You
can find the best documents of the end of the 20th century here, scribbled right on
the wall of the john. Like the one I saw today, written with black lipstick on the
door, at eye level: "PEOPLE'S POWER SUCKS". Amen.
Chris is late, like always. He was watching my arrival from the bar right across the
street, I suspect. Then he'd wait with his grand entree until I'm about to leave. He
walks in the last moment, with two drunk real estate agents on his arms. The girls
look like typical modern, independent creatures: 16 hours long workdays, seven days
a week, quickies in lunch break. Their bank accounts would grow nicely if not for the
extraorbitant amounts spent on relaxants, stool softeners and chiropractor. Chris
smacks them on the ass, which makes them sit down and ask for cocktails. They can't
talk, they just chirp and babble, they are so wasted.
Those with a taste for PC should not look up Chris Giunta. He's everything but
politically correct. He's got two main interests in life: punk-rock and sex, not
necessarily in this order. He fucks with a vengeance out of sheer hatred, he loves
to torture and humiliate his partners. This program attracts a populous harem, cast
from the masses of hard working emancipates of New York City, they are all of designer
bras and sneakers. Chris gets to sodomize another yuppie every night. He kicks them out
in the morning, then writes poems about them. The music of CUSTARD WALLY reminds me of
the early Clash, Ramones, Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Virtuoso, minimalist instrumentation,
real, well founded anger and a penchant for uncompromising truth. All this is embellished
with the red-blooded charm and temperament of a classic Italian troubadour. He knows all
the English accents there is, and employs them with a precision he must have learned from
David Bowie. The latest CUSTARD WALLY CD - Have A Lick - contains ten great, Pasolini-like
sadistic compositions, in a well chosen order, from the first 'I Love Women' to the last
'Until She Talks'. The last time I had such a fit of laughter while listening to music
was when I first heard Captain Beefheart's 'Trout Mask Replica': there is no taboo left
here unviolated, including the narcistic taboos of religious and national identities,
codes, formulas, the taboos which spring from the largely mischarted territory of human
relationships - not mentioning sexual no-no-s. Generally he likes to narrate the opus while
his prick is up in the ass or nose of some ethnic minority, delivering the cruelest verdict
possible on his voluntary victims. CUSTARD WALLY can be reached at the
http://www.custardwally.com/ web site.
Computer illiterates can request a few unfriendly
words and a good, old fashioned whipping by writing to P.O.Box 02-1269, Brooklyn, NY, USA,
11202.
We talked about Ultravox, rhythm & drum, X-ray Spex, about the deserts of the American South
West, while the two female types got scandalously drunk. Chris graciously offered one of them
to me, a blonde fairy from the state of Michigan, saying that this specimen really likes the
stick. After some hesitation I politely refused the offer: according to the latest statistics 47%
of New Yorkers suffer of some sort of sexually transmittable disease, genital herpes, syphilis
and the incurable South American obeyah supreme (which cause de-sexualization, digestive system
breakdown and the rotting away of brain-cells) being the most common of them. I helped Chris and
the yelping females into a block-long stretch-limo, then I took a cab back to my crypt in Brooklyn.
