yes a certain British airline did manage to lose ALL of the bands and some of the crews luggage, (this brings the level of luggage loss to a new height) i’m not sure how this info was leaked to the general public but somehow it was… let me say that i am happy to wear the same t-shirt for three weeks if that will put a halt to the menace of international terrorism, curse them… see, the day we arrived sans bags i saw i thing on tv here that there are some twenty thousand bags floating around Heath row all due to various new anti terror tactics… so i feel so much safer in spite of having ALL MY SHIT MISSING!!!! that and knowing that Paris Hilton is behind bars where she cant threaten the well being of humanity the gigs here have been really well received… Hammersmith was a technical struggle but was perhaps made even better as a result… the crowds have been amazing, thnx to everyone for the positive energy we had some six thousand people in the cold and rain in Edinburgh… so just thnx really to all of you who make it less of a grind for us by showing up and supporting i miss the family a lot this time, the tour routing made it impossible to bring em… Akira is 4 years old, happy b’day i’ll report at greater length in a while have you noticed that the world keeps getting weirder?

i cant say that we are gearing up for the summers dates cause Debbie is out on the road and everyone else is here and there doing this and that but we are coming in the meantime i see that the Chelsea Hotel is about to be thrown to the proverbial dogs along with the rest of NYC, that is Stanley Bard the long long time manager is being ousted in what is likely an attempt to ‘update’ the hotel… this is really gruesome, for a lot of people the Chelsea was even more of an iconic landmark than CBs and to see it go the route of boutique hotels is a genuine loss… a few months ago Stanley old me he was being pressured to compete with these same boutique style places and he was concerned about not being able to give breaks to people in the arts… we at least have Dee Dee Ramones great funny book “Chelsea Horror Hotel” which should be on everyones list in the same vein i just saw an article in the NY Times about pastry chefs… in the accompanying photo we see a fellow with sleeve tattoos dressed all in rock style black clothes with the caption being something about pastry chefs now being tough customers etc… somehow i think that this thesis is presented backwards that the actuality is that everyone who is covered with tattoos and wears black rock and roll gear is not necessarily tough at all or that they are indeed as tough as a pastry chef… now least i get letters from cooks my point is just that we are firmly implanted in the midst of this cultural question… recently too i saw one of the local magazines (new your time out i think) with a whole episode (issue) devoted to the ‘death of hip’ idea… for the last fifteen years people i know have been musing over this idea; that is if EVERYONE is hip isn’t that the same as no-one… we have the trappings of hip rock and roll culture co-opted by the very-same commercial entities that 30 years ago were bent on keeping these styles far away from the mainstream… this stuff has become such a spin cycle… that elements of style and dress are so confused, maybe more so today than ever before there is no ‘in’ or ‘out’ any more… the really hip kids wear stuff that reminds me of clothing one would lose in the woods after getting from their grandmothers on Xmas. its perplexing that anyone would think hideous plaid button down collar sport shirts were ‘cool’ but i suppose its all about context so no i dont have anything to report, kids are great, today i think we actually saw an eagle but that was here in “the country” a few months ag we did see a hawk eating a pigeon in the middle of Thopmkins square downtown, he (the hawk) had a big crowd watching him…

Our friend, photographer, video artist, director, and performer Rob Roth, has participated in MIX NYC’s 2nd Annual Naked Eye Camera Benefit, where creative folk from all walks of art personally fill a unique, unprocessed disposable camera with images from their day-to-day lives. Included in the package is one unprocessed disposable Fuji camera (27 exposures), one photocopy of the participant’s signed release form (for legal purposes) and one autographed note written by Rob: “I created a persona out of a hand puppet named ‘Monkeysex’. I kept Monkeysex with me throughout the month and took snapshots with the puppet representing me. Snapshots with friends like Debbie Harry and Justin Bond, at events as varied as Badass Burlesque in NYC and the Radical Faerie Gathering in Tennessee with other ‘private’ moments in between.” MIX NYC is a 20-year-old 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose board members board & staff are volunteers. Their signature event, the New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film Festival, will take place in November 2007. In 2006 they launched a free summer media-training program for disadvantaged queer youth, and a film preservation program to save essential queer films from being lost to future generations. Throughout the year they host free community screenings in greater New York City. MIX also produces the ACT UP Oral History Project (www.actuporalhistory.org), which is documenting the history of AIDS activism. 100% of the final sale price will support MIX NYC. MIX NYC: www.mixnyc.org Direct link to auction on eBay: eBay Auction

Deborah Harry’s new single “Two Times Blue” has been released in the US on iTunes: Deborah Harry – Two Times Blue (Digital Release) iTunes reports to SoundScan, so buy it soon and let’s spread the word! Check www.deborahharry.com for banners that link to the single, for your MySpace page or other web site.

Debbie visits the spa at “The Dame Edna Treatment” (ITV, UK) on Saturday for some “serious pampering” and “vocal therapy a la Edna”! For more information check out Dame Edna’s web site.

sorry to not be around lately not due to anything but life etc. lots of baby stuff, Vali the little one now says her name when you ask her what her name is… well she says “Lalee” anyway, has trouble with ‘v’ i am hearing now that we WILL be over to the UK in the summer for festival season, that is July ’07 sometimes, i dont know if it’s confirmed yet, but seems likely then there’s our YOUTUBE project “FIENDS” which is a parody of ‘friends’ the awful tv show, i mean i never ever even so much as watched the credits for friends but i knew what it was, very popular etc. so when Barbara my wife and her friend Elenor wanted to do this thing, i actually had to watch the credits… so i shot it and did the music, the singer is my friend Jason, Barbara directed it… please help promote it if you like it, we are trying to get it up there in hits, so far we are doing ok with it one can see it at FIENDS
click there or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6vJPPB0cHM i will get some more stuff up here soon meanwhile i am getting so many autograph and picture requests its crazy, again (again again again etc etc) i’m sorry that i cant do anything about them here but there are just too many and we aren’t set up to deal with em

by coincidence i picked up a copy of the book accompanying the Victoria and Albert show of Arbus’s work that is up now in London… you all over there should check it out, i certainly would if i were there… coincidence being this weird ass film about Abus starring Nicloe Kidman that is out about now… i have nothing too much about fantasies portraying real peoples lives but Arbus is still quite an enigmatic hidden figure and for her to be ‘introduced’ to the mainstream in this fashion just feels wrong to me… i checked out the Fur the movie site and the most bothersome thing to me in the synopsis of the film is the usual portrayal of a powerful female as a tentative uncertain almost victim… the difference between my personal vision of her and the one described is extreme to say the least… as in the Francis Farmer film that ran some years ago we have an imaginary male character spurring the female protagonist on, creating and inventing her, this underlining the same standard dumb concept of the woman being incapable of action without the dude to point the way… “much as an actual Arbus photo transports us into strange and unfamiliar worlds” says the movie’s hype sheet; again from my way of seeing really off base as her photos showed us glimpses of our very familiar mundane world with totally unique insight and vision, i would always see one of her images and be amazed at seeing something familiar from another alien angle again i would urge any of you in the UK to see the real deal, the V&A site is at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1355_diane_arbus/index.php its apparently only up through January… what is the point here? why must we have history glossed over and made into something its not… i cant go too far in complaining about this particular film here, it just seems completly crazy, her ‘real’ life is/was amazing enough… as a lifelong fan of her work and as a photographer i just think she didnt deserve such a cheap shot, leave it to hollywood again merry Xmas

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me and Hilly at a recent symposium (ha) about CB’s and punk in NYC (pic by Eddie Sung) i just wanted to wish you all happy holidaze from here and let you know i am still around and thinking of everyone… i am trying to figure out what to do next, i get lots of messages from the uk and elsewhere about us coming and doing shows, it may not be for a while yet… i spend a lot of time with the kids, they are increasing rapidly and time with them is short… Akira is just starting to go to school a bit and we are trying to decide where she will spend next year, what little kid school… this is tough for me cause i hated school sooo much and every school we look at appears to be a million times better than what i was stuck with, so its hard to be objective its 6 a.m. im gonna try and go back to sleep… more shortly again much love to you all for the new year i hope you all get at least some part of what you want

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is this the oval office today, the day after the election? no its CBGB’s a few days after the fall… the bar used to be on the left…

xxximagesxxx

wait ok ok… i right away got some messages from you all about the ‘big brother’ person one Pete Burns, but the guy i am enamored of is i believe Pete Bennett, anyway the kid with tourettes… and no i dont think he’s being exploited cause its rare to see anyone who is that much themselves no matter what is right or ‘wrong’ with them… so no slight meant to Burns who i am not familiar with i have made several trips back to CB’s after closing night… today i was there with a BBC crew and together we saw some stuff that i hadnt seen in the thirty years i’ve been going there… a couple of wall paintings; a mural of derelicts that dates to when Hilly opened the place and a painting of race horses that Hilly said likely date back to the twenties apparently there is by now a concrete location in vegas for a new CBGB’s so theres that also