Ring It Off The Wall

Today, whoever it is who handles Things Digital for Miss Debbie Harry and company decided to startle me by pointing out that this little ditty first thrilled the waiting world 37 years ago today. As is now quite routine, I feel Old.

Birthday Girl: Folkbird?

Well, here's a surprise with which to start off July...

Rockbird Superstar

If the photo evidence is to be believed, much of the fashion worn by the preening guests at last night's annual Metropolitan Museum gala was pretty woeful.  Even so, the organizers of the celebration - in honor of the Costume Institute's new "Punk: from Chaos to Couture" show - certainly got one thing right: they hired Blondie as the evening's headliner, and it certainly looks like dear Miss Deborah Harry delivered.

I don't know about you, but I'm always touched by her presence, dear.  I bet Mrs. Vreeland would have been, too...

The Near and the Dear Ones

While much attention this week has been focused on Blondie's latest release, a timely if rushed-sounding version of We Three Kings, I was delighted to find this little extract from a Very Lower Manhattan Christmas, featuring the spectabulous Miss Debbie Harry and what is billed as the Middlechurch East Village Gospel Choir.

I think it makes a nice opener for the Café into the holiday season, as well as one of the few contexts in which I can imagine feeling - let alone admitting - that it makes me rather miss Yoko Ono...

Koo Koo

The Harry, now and forever my favorite Sunday Girl, even on a Tuesday. Somehow I think those boots were made for more than walking. And don't you want to know what she's got in the box?

A Nod to the Season, II

Lauren Hutton was a bunny, although she apparently diguised herself as Karen Black to throw people off;

Gloria Steinem wrote about her stint in bustier and ears; I remember reading "I was a Playboy Bunny" and being blown away at what was, it turned out, the first of many revelations that the glamourous and the tawdry are all too often intertwined...

And this bunny we've seen before. Fortunately, the 21st century has, in fact, turned out to be much better for a girl like her.

I have my own bunny tale; when I was about 10, my father had the chance to go to some convention at the Playboy Resort in Great Gorge, New Jersey. He dragged my mother and me (in our Pontiac Grand Safari station wagon) halfway across creation so that I could spend three days having my cheeks pinched by half-dressed scary ladies with big hair and bigger bazooms (a word I had picked up from Match Game) while Mother silently and grimly downed Piña Colada after Piña Colada. Somehow, I think this explains a lot.

But anyway: Happy Easter, from Lauren and Gloria and Debbie and me. I'll have to rummage around someday and find that picture of mini-me surrounded by Watergate-era bunnies. And burn it.

Time Stands Still

...in the presence of greatness. From the Telegraph comes this remarkable juxtaposition of a recent concert photo of Miss Deborah Harry (so recently on my mind) with a T-shirt from her gloriously misspent youth.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't get away with a single item of clothing I wore in 1978. But then again, I probably wouldn't want to, given that I wasn't dressing exactly like that back then, more's the pity...

After (During) and Before: Touched By Her Presence, Dear

Showbiz survivor;

Sunday Girl;

Surprise! She wasn't always a Rockbird.

The Harry. Always loved her; always will. Everytime you think she'll fade away, she radiates, from "French Kissing in the USA" to "Two Times Blue". What will she get up to next?