{"id":8285,"date":"2017-08-22T23:37:29","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T22:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=8285"},"modified":"2017-08-24T14:53:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T13:53:40","slug":"american-girl-by-roxanne-fontana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/american-girl-by-roxanne-fontana\/","title":{"rendered":"American Girl by Roxanne Fontana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image:<\/em> Left: Joanne Triolo,<\/strong> Right: Roxanne Fontana<\/strong><\/p>\n

Excerpt from Chapter 4\u2028 <\/h3>\n

\u201cAin’t this baby great, and ain\u2019t that guy beautiful?\u201d\u2028 – Iggy Pop<\/p>\n

It would be years before I\u2019d be keen into astrology and all other sorts of divination, but nevertheless, there was something very fateful about that day in early July of 1976 when Josephine and I set out for New York City from Elmont.<\/p>\n

I thought our mutual buzz was more about \u2018going to the city\u2019 than to see this seemingly strange woman named Patti Smith, perform. We both had no idea what to expect musically didn\u2019t even talk about it. All we knew was what we had learned from Rock Scene magazine, that she was some sort of queen of a \u2018scene\u2019 that we never heard or read about anywhere except in that solitary publication. It almost seemed as if it was fictitious, this scene reported on with much excitement. The only reference points ever given to anything in the \u2018real world\u2019 was the occasional mention of the Stones, so of course, that was enough to get me and Jo interested, and it was enough for me to keep track of things. Plus, Rock Scene magazine was nice enough to pay attention to little me in Elmont by advertising my Brian Jones fan club. The first sign for me of this scene starting to take shape was when I saw a small mention in the daily newspaper about Central Park concerts and therein listed was the \u2018Patti Smith\u2019 show, so off we went.<\/p>\n

It was to be the last \u2018date\u2019 in our friendship, which I hadn\u2019t anticipated at the time; but I guess she did. She wore that open-mouthed Gemini smile I\u2019ve learned a lot about since then \u2015 which, although sincere, was completely detached. I don\u2019t know whether or not Josephine really knew what she was doing, but basically, she was dropping me off and giving me away to this scene \u2015 and a new life \u2015 now have fun.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful day, and as we filed into Central Park we were excited to see that there were so many people to see Patti Smith. We wondered who they all were and if they\u2019d seen her before; in short, how much did they know about this scene? We were pretty far back in the audience, and then the show began. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. It was rock \u2018n\u2019 roll alright; but not exactly like the Stones; not like the 60s or 50s, and thank the good Lord, nothing at all like the day\u2019s current sounds. Besides rocking, it was also highly emotional \u2015 almost \u2018sick\u2019; you know, \u2018mental case\u2019 – like. I would learn in the coming months that it was ‘art’ (or art\/rat).<\/p>\n

From the moment the band got on the stage though, I was very much fixated on the guitarist on the left side. The energy I was feeling from him was unbelievable. I couldn\u2019t see his face and had no idea what his name was. All I knew was that he had skinny legs and a big red Stones tongue on the back of his white and green windbreaker. His hair was fair and he played the hell out of that Gibson guitar. His energy seemed as sunny as the day; nothing dark about it, In fact, it was a perfect juxtaposition to Patti and her more sullen energy, voice, and lyrics, as well as to the guitarist on the right and the keyboardist\u2015all of whom projected a distinctly moody tone.<\/p>\n

One had the feeling though that the majority of the musical talent as well as the \u2018fuck\u2019 energy causing everybody in the place to rock \u2015 including the band \u2015 was all coming from this sunny guy with the dirty blond hair. I discovered this observation was truly correct as I later learned he was the Venus ruled one (Taurus) and the others, Saturn (Capricorn). Josephine and I didn\u2019t confer that much at all; we were under the spell of the performance \u2015 standing the entire show with the whole audience and dancing in our spots. We\u2019d never heard a single song before except \u201cLand of a Thousand Dances,\u201d which Patti broke into during one of the original numbers.<\/p>\n

It was such a cool moment for us; we couldn\u2019t even say or scream it \u2015 we just were part of it. Josephine, though, was really excited about the few things I did say to her like, \u201cWho is that guy?!?!?!? Who is he?!?!?!?!\u201d She was laughing away and then leaned back and asked some guy to borrow his binoculars. She looked through them and said, \u201cHe\u2019s cute \u2015 look.\u201d I took them from her and that was it. The music blasted around us and I could hear her laughing as I was falling in love through the binoculars. His jaw and high cheekbones were his prominent feature, and he was as pretty as a prince from another age, adorned with modern rock dress and a guitar. All I knew was that I had to meet him.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the concert, another guitar player named Tom Verlaine was introduced on the stage. The whole audience seemed to know who he was and gave him a big hand. His name was familiar to me from Rock Scene magazine; that make believe the world was all of a sudden becoming real for me. The band did a wildly emotional song, \u201cBreak It Up,\u201d and even though it was the first time I had ever heard it, I felt as though something was happening to me inside my heart and making me want to cry \u2015 even though I was as happy as a lark.
\nCore premonition.<\/p>\n

Our ride home was pretty quiet. In fact, it took blocks for us to even say, \u201cThat was great, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d My mind was spinning around with plans about locating their album and finding out everything I could about that guitar player. But I wouldn\u2019t have Jo to share all this with, because even though she had a great time, she apparently thought it was time to break away from our friendship and try something new\u2015discover life on her own\u2015with neither regrets nor our once-a-year get-togethers. Our friendship was just over\u2015Gemini-style.<\/p>\n

Had I not had a new obsession, this probably would have really hurt me deeply. After all, my father had constantly said \u2015 and still, does \u2015 that Josephine \u201cruined me.\u201d Whatever that means. He was referring to our mutual and intense Rolling Stones obsession, of course.<\/p>\n

I soon bought the Patti Smith Horses album and loved every minute of it. I got \u2018possessed\u2019 by all the spirits therein, found out that the gorgeous guy\u2019s name was Ivan Kral and thought that I wanted to dress like Patti on the cover of the album\u2015at least as far as my senior year back-to-school wardrobe was concerned. I didn\u2019t think it would be too hard to pull together.<\/p>\n

I found out in the latest Rock Scene magazine that CBGB had their own recording label, and an album out as well. I thought that it would be wonderful if I were to go there late one Saturday afternoon, buy the club\u2019s album and check out the place when it would be empty. And I knew just who my accomplice would be.<\/p>\n

The thing I liked about Margaret\u2019s friend Joanne, who lived across the circle from her, was that she was quiet but upbeat and liked to laugh. And even though she wasn\u2019t much of a conversationalist, she was lively and seemed like she was into doing new things, like going into the city \u2015 the Village \u2015 Avec moi, Roseann Fontana! I nervously called CBGB one day at about 4 p.m. and asked them if I could come by on Saturday around that time to buy the album, and they said \u201cSure!\u201d<\/p>\n

Joanne had learned all about my magical experience at Central Park, and she was a great audience for me. She was going to be a very good friend, I thought. Lisa Uterano was really my best friend by that time; but her dad, Mr. Record Company Big Shot, had obviously seen too much rock \u2018n\u2019 roll nightlife \u2015 70s style \u2015 to let Lisa explore it; especially at fifteen years old! Lisa wasn\u2019t as rebellious in her fashion as I was \u2015 unfortunately for her! But I didn\u2019t have to worry about Joanne disapproving of me, or not thinking I was cool; everything I did was A-OK with Joanne. In fact, she actually somewhat idolized me.<\/p>\n

She was beautiful \u2015 a beautiful Italian girl with very black straight hair parted down the middle. She looked half goth, and half hippie really, and she was into all of that. She had pretty eyes and white, white porcelain skin \u2015 very odd for an Italian, I thought. I guessed she might be of Northern Italian descent. She was only 5 feet tall and had a decent figure, but you never were allowed to notice it. She seemed to be a bit hung up about her body and her sexuality, and so she draped herself in baggy clothes of beautiful fabrics. All of her life-force was seemingly concentrated on her face. She was a fantastic listener and would let me talk and talk and talk. She didn\u2019t ever want to contribute much it seemed, and that was fine with me. In this sense, there were times during our friendship when I felt like a bit of a vampire \u2015 that I was draining her completely and leaving her for dead.<\/p>\n

She was Aquarius as Lisa was; but Lisa had an incredible personality, even though she also had that Aquarian trait of not letting on too much about themselves. Curiously, Joanne and Lisa didn\u2019t like each other at all, even though they really didn\u2019t know each other. I thought it was an instinctive thing. Or, maybe they were just fighting over my attentions, which was probably the case. Despite all of Lisa\u2019s affected, regretful declinations to my city invitations, she insisted on knowing every last detail of every adventure I went on… She would beam at me \u2015 all wide-eyed \u2015 while smoothing down her short blonde curls.
\nYet for all her feminine looks, she was oddly masculine; chain-smoking as her beloved Leon Russell records blasted from her bedroom in her family’s upscale home.<\/p>\n

Joanne and I entered the sweet-looking record shop Bleecker Bob\u2019s on MacDougal Street. Behind the counter stood Bob, who I noticed had home-made magazines hanging behind him on a wall. I immediately introduced myself as the President of the Brian Jones Memorial Fan Club and asked him if he\u2019d sell my fanzines. He didn\u2019t hesitate to say yes and got into a conversation with me about Brian. He told me that at the Monterey Pop Festival, Brian and Jimi Hendrix ingested the DMT drug by putting it under their eyelids. This revelation freaked me out a little.<\/p>\n

I then noticed hanging behind Bob a large-size newspaper called New York Rocker, with that Blondie girl on the cover. Next to her body were the words Ivan Kral. I cut Bob\u2019s ramblings short and asked to immediately have the newspaper. I bought it and as we walked out in the direction of CBGB, we had the paper open, looking at the pictures and skimming the article. \u201cI knew he couldn\u2019t be an American!\u201d I exclaimed, as I read he was from Czechoslovakia. I didn\u2019t even know where the fuck Czechoslovakia was. I also learned from the article that it was a communist country. All this was absolute food for my romantic head. A communist! Is that why he\u2019s beautiful? Is that what communists look like? When Joanne and I got to CBGB, we were both nervous.<\/p>\n

When we entered, we found it looked even more dank and dingy than in the black and white pictures in the magazine. It was, for God\u2019s sake, just a bar of an odd shape. In the middle of the place, sitting on a bench was Hilly, the owner and a girl with an acoustic guitar. He was teaching her how to play \u201cYour Cheatin\u2019 Heart.\u201d I was touched by this and tried not to interrupt. My mother had gotten me a cheap acoustic guitar when I was twelve and I even took a few lessons myself. I was a dabbler and found it enjoyable; I had even written a song.<\/p>\n

When Hilly stopped and looked up, I stepped forward and announced that I was there to buy the album\u2015trying to sound as cool as possible. He got up with a stretch and walked slowly back to the front with a wave of his arm. In those days he was so very nice and open; he was almost too nice to be \u2018cool\u2019, but I would eventually learn that most of the CBGB scene was like that \u2015 very nice people and very similar to the Max\u2019s Kansas City scene; well, almost.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo the groups Television and Patti Smith really hang out here besides just playing?\u201d I asked, taking advantage of his kindness.
\n\u201cOh yeah!\u201d
\n\u201cDoes Ivan Kral hang out here?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, they all hang out here!\u201d
\n\u201cI would love to come here but I just turned seventeen; I have to wait.\u201d
\n\u201cOh no, we\u2019ll let you in. Don\u2019t worry, come on down, just don\u2019t drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those days you could do that sort of thing. I guess. I mean, it was still illegal of course; but such policies got very strict in the post-punk era when there was a lot of rowdiness with the hard-core post-punk scene and CBGB had to start staging matinees to keep everyone happy. When we walked out of there, with me holding my CBGB album containing music of more bands that I\u2019d never heard of at all, Joanne and I were over the moon. Life was getting good, I thought.<\/p>\n

GRAB YOUR COPY HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It would be years before I\u2019d be keen into astrology and all other sorts of divination, but nevertheless there was something very fateful about that day in early July of 1976 when Josephine and I set out for New York City from Elmont.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":8289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,6,128,69,71,106],"tags":[1385,580,1384,1383],"series":[],"class_list":["post-8285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-features","category-hot-plugs","category-literature","category-music","category-picks","tag-cbgb","tag-eyeplug-net","tag-ivan-kral","tag-roxanne-fontana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8285"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8310,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions\/8310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8285"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=8285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}