These recent images from Yohji Yamamoto are so appealing to me, I could practically eat them.   The girl’s Snow White coloring is an idealized version of how I like to imagine myself.   The clunky Docs combined with the feminine lines of the clothes is a classic look at this point, transcending punk but still recalling Vivienne Westwood. I also love it because it’s the opposite aesthetic of what I grew up with in California: the tan surfer-girl look.

While the Morticia look came naturally to me, I’m aware it can’t work forever.

But here’s what I don’t want to evolve into:

No no no no no.   It’s just not on. I’ll be wandering around in a long nightgown before I go Biker Granny. Let’s   hope.   If you see me at 80 years old, rocking the Biker Granny, please kill me with a swift blow to the back of my head. Thanks in advance!

“Really love the studded coat that closed the show, it just reminds me of ALL my friends growing up and their leathers. As much as it makes me laugh to see our teenage looks adopted into the fashion world everywhere, I’ll never tire of seeing it because I’ll forever think it looks hot as hell.”

Who else but Gnarlitude could have written those words? I have yet to discover a person so full of their own punk street cred. Whoever you are, she is cooler. You’re probably just copying her. She wore that shit first. She cried harder when Dash Snow died than any of you lame asses.

Normally I can find pleasure in displays of pretentiousness. Why does her persona torture me so much?! Is it the proprietary way she says she’s “so proud” of any designer, musician or artist, like she has something to do with it? Is it the non-stop mention of Ksubi and bikers?

In this fawning interview, Gnarlitude pays homage to her vintage monkey fur coat but inexplicably forgets to bring up her Old Man. The very best and most gnarly part of the interview is this closing exchange:

BN:   Describe your look in three words or less
JH: Miserable Mornings, NeverEnding Nights
~

Feel free to weigh in on this and/or complain about my surly nature. Unless you’re from Dallas.

On a rare night out with my husband, we drove to an independent bookshop where a guy we like was reading an excerpt from his new book. I felt tentatively hopeful. I almost never go out in the evening.  I was pleased to be doing something arty for a change.

We sat in the front row of chairs, since there weren’t many set up in the aisle at the back of the store. An affable guy read from his book about encounters on the bus. Then, the guy we came to see introduced himself and read a short chapter of a charming, offbeat memoir of his childhood in New York.

Another guy quickly replaced him and introduced himself. His name was Chris D. I should have been warned by that D.

He gazed at his shoes and began a rambling account of his various artistic endeavors:  He was involved in music for 20 years, he had written several unproduced screenplays, poems, and short stories. He noted that some of his stories were based on dreams. He introduced a story about a couple of  war veterans from Vietnam, describing their convoluted situation.

He began to read the worst piece of writing I have ever heard in my entire life. He read in a deep-voiced monotone. Some GI was shooting dope with a Vietnamese prostitute named “Lucky.” The dope-shooting was described in lurid, over-the-top detail.  Veins, blood, abscesses, verbs, more blood, adjectives, then sex. “They fell to the floor and fucked each others brains out.”

I stared at my hands and played with my hair. I wanted to kill that fucker. I imagined a question and answer period after the reading, where I would confront him with the question: “Are you a junkie or just a fucking idiot?”

He read for close to 30 minutes. No cliche escaped him: It was hackneyed melodrama, both dismal and pointless.

We left the second he stopped reading. Outside as we walked to the car, I exclaimed, “What a fucking motherfucker!” My husband agreed. He added that the guy had once been in a band called The Flesh Eaters.

Back home, I googled Chris D and saw how important he was to the L.A. punk scene.

Nothing is sacred, not even old punkers.

I am left with these two thoughts:

1. I am fucking Tolstoy compared to that bastard Chris D.
2. I can’t even enjoy a simple night out.