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| Alice Bag greets you from the cover of Slash, May 1978. |
I
come to you today realizing I'd promised a reading wrap-up for last
year. I do have to say that, due to funds, etc., that 2011 was not a
year I either purchased or read much that was new. For the most part,
I caught up on oldies I'd yet to read from either other pals'
collections (such as Charlie Solus' vast James Ellroy archives) or
things I found in thrift stores or used book stores for cheap. In the
case of Ellroy, I had to marvel at his crisp, clean language, the
brutal honesty, the ability to use real life events as a literary
springboard, and his amazing ability to capture marginal life in
mid-century Los Angeles (as well as pulling back the rocks and
exposing the worms and snakes crawling beneath the city's showbiz
surface). What strikes me as Ellroy's peak, American
Tabloid, goes
well-beyond the L.A. city limits to encompass the whole of America in
the '60s, which is a rather daunting task. Still, he accomplishes
that with ease, and the rest of his oeuvre definitely places him as
the latest in a long line of great poets of Los Angeles' underside:
Raymond Chandler, Charles Bukowski, even John Doe and Exene Cervenka.
Bless him for that.
Then
there are my other newfound discoveries: Alex Cox's X
Films: True Confessions Of A Radical Filmmaker
(Soft Skull Press, Berkeley, CA, 2008), which not only offers
frequently hilarious behind-the-scenes accounts of the making of Repo
Man, Sid And Nancy, and
various other Cox films that aren't as well-known, but also serves as
a primer in how to be an independent artist in an increasingly
corporate world, with all the joy, rewards, and ugliness therein;
Mark Evanier's Kirby:
King Of Comics (Abrams,
New York, NY, 2008), a huge, lavish, hardbound celebration of the man
who was arguably the greatest comic book artist ever, Jack Kirby;
Billy F. Gibbons' Rock &
Roll Gearhead (with Tom
Vickers, 2008; softcover edition from Voyageur Press, Minneapolis,
MN, 2011), loads of hilarious philosophy and autobiography around the
edges of beautiful photographs of the vast twin guitar and custom car
archives of the ZZ Top guitarist – eye candy deluxe(!); and John
Kennedy Toole's A
Confederacy Of Dunces (Grove
Press, New York, NY, 1980), possibly the funniest novel I've ever
read, and certainly the best I've read set in New Orleans or in the
early '60s. How this has never been made into an equally epic and
hilarious film is beyond me; Jack Black would certainly make a great
Ignatius J. Reilly....
Of
the few new titles that jumped into my shopping bag last year, my
favorite was Alice Bag's Violence
Girl (381 pages, $17.95
softcover, Feral House, Port Townshend, WA 2011, feralhouse.com).
Subtitled East L.A. Rage
To Hollywood Stage: A Chicana Punk Story,
this should clue you in to what's great about it: It's not just
another punk book. True, Alice Bag is as iconic figure as Darby Crash
or anyone from that Masque scene. She was of that original generation
of fierce punk rock women (Patti Smith, Penelope Houston, Joan Jett,
Exene, The Slits, Poly Styrene) who made questions of gender
irrelevant and inspired with their brilliance, their ferocity, and
their righteousness. But there's a lot more to this book.
Like
I said, this isn't merely an L.A. punk history. This is Alice Bag's
story. So we get taken back to that environment which spawned Alice:
From her parents' origins in Mexico to the Los Angeles barrios where
she was raised. We see that Alice was given an odd mixture of love
and abuse, mostly due to her father. He would tell young Alicia she
was exceptional, that she could do anything, and nurtured her
artistry...then lash out in drunken rage at her mother in the next
breath. She was equally shaped by weight issues and her own
ethnicity, until a mix of the Chicano and glam rock movements in the
early '70s helped her burst whatever shell was there and gave her
pride and determination. Then came punk and the formation of The
Bags. And Alice Bag emerged a sexy, rampaging, intelligent force.
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| L.A. critic Ken Tucker tries to turn the town onto The Bags...and then undersells their 45?! |
Fortunately
for her, despite some inclinations in that direction, Alice only
dipped into the debauchery and self-destruction inherent in punk rock
Los Angeles. Moving back into her parents' home midway through might
have helped, giving her some literal and philosophical distance from
the damage that was developing among her peers. And even after The
Bags' imminent death, Alice kept creating, either musically or in
other areas, and eventually graduated college and became a school
teacher. As a teacher, she remained an activist, centering on
educating and encouraging the underprivileged, even spending time
teaching in Nicaragua in the mid-'80s. She continued following and
acting on her principles and beliefs, and has benefited for that.
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| Amazing, what can be done with some photo booth strips and a Bic pen.... |
Like
the Alex Cox book I mentioned earlier, Violence
Girl should serve as an
inspiration to the young artist and rebel: For once, the heroine
doesn't self-destruct. Alice Bag stayed on the course, rose above,
and keeps doing what she set out to do. Punk rock doesn't have to
kill. Nor does environment. Yes, there are happy endings in punk rock
– and life
– sometimes....
