He was a year ahead of me in high school and we were in a bunch of plays together. At lunch one day I told a joke and he snorted a gummi bear out his nose and we teased him unmercifully about that for years. Once he was coming to pick me up to go see Vincent Price at the St. Paul Student Center, and called to tell he he'd gotten not one, but TWO flats. Blew out both right side tires racing over to my place (we were out in the boondocks), and slid sideways off the road.
He's been in my car for two of my most major accidents: the time I
slid backwards through a telephone pole in my RX-7, and the time I
spun around on I-94 and ended up hung up on the left guardrail. The latter
time we finally had to do an emergency blind U-turn into oncoming left-lane traffic off the guardrail,
and onto the opposite shoulder. Thirty seconds later a pickup truck hit the
same patch of ice and smashed into the place we'd just been.
Moldy and I shared an apartment from 1984-1986. Ah, those were the good old days. Sitting in the living room with my girlfriend, watching TV, and listening to Moldy have noisy sex with his girlfriend just on the other side of the wall. (Here's a hint for all you roommates out there: turning up the stereo real loud doesn't mask what's going on.)
Well, unfortunately a couple of years ago Moldy got skin cancer. He's never
been a rich man, and the treatments for skin, then brain, then brain and now
liver cancer have been hard for he and now his wife Blondie to manage.
So when I learned that some of the biggest punk bands in town were gathering
to hold a benefit concert for him, I knew I had to be there. And
Tuesday night's Punk Rock Benefit Concert for Moldy Ramone was a hoot!
Now, walking into a punk club, I would normally feel nervous and out of place. However Tuesday night I felt right at home. I was there for Moldy, and I had as much of a right and responsibility to be there as everyone else.
Guests of honor were Blondie (this evening with red hair!) and Moldy Here they are with Emily and Ollie at the start of the evening. And no, that's not Moldy's real hair! He looks puffier than he actually is because of the treatments.
Emily, beside them in the picture, was lookin' sexy in her punk schoolgirl outfit
with saddle shoes and cigarettes tucked in her bobby sox. Rrrowr!
She was also diligent and persistent in carrying around the donation bucket for Moldy, so she's a good person, not just good-looking!
Ollie Stench, was emcee ("Hey you motherfuckers
I ain't gettin' paid to do this so shut the fuck up and put money in
the bucket for Moldy!!!"). At one point I yelled "Take it off!" and
he yelled back he'd take it off if I bought him a beer. So I bought
him a beer and sure enough, he took it off...
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(And there's Emily, workin' the donation bucket!)
Bernie the Trailer Park Queen earned my respect, belting out not only
a hilarious cover of "Only Women Bleed," but her original songs "I
Don't Wanna Throw Up" (3.5M) and "TCPunk", an anthem to a late-lamented punk
website (covered
here)
Red Vendetta took the stage next. Mind you, during this entire concert I
could barely make out a single lyric (despite the sound being loud enough to
shake loose my kidney stones), but they were everything a punk girl group
should be, loud, angry, and spouting obscenities. You can tell you're at a punk
concert when "fuck" replaces "love" as the most common word used.
The crowd was full of all sorts of interesting characters, including the fellow
on the right who I recognized from my YWCA. And Moldy knew all of them and made sure to take a moment to talk to everybody he could.
Finally it was time for Moldy to take the stage himself... but first, Deanna and Molli stepped out to present Moldy and Blondie with a special gift. Round-trip airfare, hotel, and rental for two to Los Angeles to see the Rezillios reunion concert this coming weekend!
Deanna and Molli had never met Moldy and Blondie, but they'd heard
about his cancer through the punk grapefine and put together the
entire benefit!
Moldy accepted gratefully and took the microphone to thank a bunch of
people. It was funny watching a room full of spike-and-leather
hardcore punks get all verklempt when Moldy thanked his wife Blondie,
his "pillar of strength".
Finally Moldy took the stage with Plate-o-Shrimp, and they really got
the crowd going. At one point I got dragged
out onto the dance floor. Now, normally this would be all very cool,
but a punk rock dance floor is basically a tightly
packed crowd of people wearing metal spikes slamming each other
around like pinballs. And I had my enormous phallic Olympus 2100
hanging around my neck. So I kept
my slamdancing to a minimum and quickly escaped to the back of the
bar.
Moldy was up on stage singing "Hey Ho, Let's Go" (3Meg), and the entire crowd who had shown up to support him was making enough noise from the Seventh Street Entry annex that it was drowning out the performers next door at First Avenue. It was time for me to go.
Moldy's got a tough and uncertain road ahead, but he's survived a lot during the 27 years I've known him.. But I'll always remember him like this: at the top of his form, surrounded by all his friends, rockin' out at the top of his lungs in a punk rock bar.
I didn't know what to expect from a night of punk rock, but what I witnessed was connection, caring, affection, strength and support.