I BELONG TO THE BLANK GENERATION....IN MY PAJAMAS

Tele-walking to the store in New York City with Abigail! However, out of "grocer avoidance" myself, I've enjoyed Chow Mein noodles and a Krispy Kreme for dinner, washed it down with Diet Coke, followed it up by Twizzler's Strawberry Twists for dessert... and now, time for a cigarette! Oh the life... but that's beside the point, the snow keeps falling and I'm trying to occupy my way overactive brain with something to do, other than junk-food...

Thought's of New York are swirling around my head. Thinking about coffee and chitter-chatter at the Odessa Restaurant and bars I like in the East and West Villages, a train ticket crosses my mind. Scratch that! I'm not gonna go to the train-station on a snowy night, my hair and nails aren't "ready" and I'd have to put on something other than my pj's! Too much work, so in lieu...

I think I'll watch Blank Generation, the [goofy] great "end of the 70's" film made by Ulli Lommel, starring Richard Hell and his own band, The Voidoids, and French film star, model Carole Bouquet. A very young RH stars as Billy Soon, a rising [punk] rock star and CB is Nada, the French journalist sent to New York, specifically the Bowery, to cover a story on the handsome "sod" and his music. They meet, there's mad chemistry, and bam, naturally, a love affair starts! (Nada's unwitting boyfriend is meanwhile trying to get a story, on the other "King of POP") A fairly campy show, with shining "moments", but, looking back at it from 2010, thank goodness this movie was made [at least from the vantage point of a lover of New York and it's gestation and birth of the punk and roll scene that would change music history as we know it!].

The story isn't necessarily high art [please read with a touch of irony], BUT, it's in the moment, and that moment is 1979, New York City. A brilliant, gritty vision of the LES is depicted, not the gentrified place I now know [The Village Voice's "Where Have All The Junkie's Gone" billboard pops out of my minds eye, high above very chic, expensive flats], but the sleazy, dirty rock and roll wonderland of the late 1970's, CBGB's at it's height and, among other finishings, the REAL Andy Warhol, playing the REAL Andy Warhol, lurking about for the customary 15 minutes! The look is the edgy punk/new wave of it's time. The musical performances are really what give this flick weight, well produced, great footage, that very well may not have been captured in such a way had the film not been made. Members of The Voidoids and The Ramones appear, and the film is truly a time capsule, another [fictionalized] love letter from the underground. Which never fails to entertain me, especially on nights when I'm thinking of New York City and I don't want to do my hair. Ginah gives it 5 stars for it's ambience and great band footage.