At Home With Blondie (my home)

Debby Harry and her musicians used to store their band equipment in my loft, when I lived on 14th & 9th.

It was a commercial space that my roommate had been living in, illegally, for like 20 years. All the residential tenants were there illegally and because of this the lot of them formed a union (the law doesn’t apply to us union?). These guys were in a chronic legal battle with the owners of the building who, naturally, wanted them out. I mean, the place was like 2500 sq feet in the Meat Packing District and the rent was $1,100, of which we (me and a ‘friend’) paid $1,200 (believe me, the math makes sense in New York).

This was around the year 2000, I guess, and Debbie would come to some of our parties because she was tight with my roommate, Gretchen, who basically owned the apartment, since there didn’t seem any way in hell they were getting her out.  Gretchen was Debby’s age and a musician, too.  They would reminisce about the 70s and then get on the bongos or piano or whatever and just jam and drink and jam and drink.  And I would dig it so much and feel viscerally I was born too late and how sad it was that I missed the real glam rock that I couldn’t recreate 20 years later no matter how vinyl my pants, red my lips or jacked my brain got.  I knew I missed out.

Those times were awesome, though.

My mother was even there once.

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