Outside the Cure Insurance arena in Trenton NJ.
Trapped under an awning as the rain falls in great sheets, painting this cold December day in shades of dusk.

I’ve been posted up here for ten solid minutes, waiting for a break in the rain.
Across the parking lot a clutch of food trucks idle, their grills steaming up into the skies, smoke signals telegraphing the grilled onions and processed meats within.
I involuntarily drool a bit, thinking of the sandwich I had the day before, a regional specialty that instantly starts a bewildering debate: Taylor Ham? Pork Roll? 
Fuck if I care, I just want another.
But the rain only pounds harder, so I retreat back inside the arena and surrender to some dried chicken strips at the snack bar.

We’re at the Punk Flea market in Trenton, a seasonal holiday bazaar with crafts and gifts covering the arena floor.
The items on sale are all punk inflected, of course: Pyramid spiked tree ornaments, artisanal coffee roasted by over-caffeinated crustpunks. 
At one booth titled, literally, Fuck the Police, they are selling strap on dildos with the MDC logo.
That sort of thing.

Around the outside perimeter are the signing booths, C level actors and voiceover characters, all desperately shilling autographs and photos ops at 20 bucks per.

The DiWulf Publishing crew is here, posted between the voices of Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger force and the Sonic the Hedgehog.  
A few booths down, the line is twenty deep waiting for Doyle to come out and sign glossies. 

Business has been steady but slow, a sale now and then, a few books signed.
People stop and flip through my book, frown when they discover no pictures inside.

When someone actually decides to purchase a book, I sign it gratefully and suppress the urge to kiss them on the lips.
A dying breed, these people who will take a chance and buy a book.
To make the appointment with themselves to soon sit quietly and read some words from the page.

But we are nothing if not hopeful and cheerful, our hardy little crew under the glare of distant lighting, another long day upon the concrete floor.
Steve and Amy from DiWulf, Dave along with Jack from Adrenaline OD.
Offering our wares to the holiday shoppers.
Spreading our words one page at a time, like necktied missionaries passing out pamphlets door to door.

The days of writing words, the daily routine of sitting before screen and tapping at the keyboard, had finally ended by Summer….. 2021!
The “book” finally done. 
What I had imagined as a tight 19 chapters (same number of tracks on London Calling, don’t you know) had bloated to a four part, 140,000 word monstrosity by the time I finally shut off the laptop.

You think it would be a problem, just getting enough content for a book, right?
But no.
The problem was when to stop.
When to realize that no amount of words will convey that ineffable angst that lies just beneath the breastbone.
After a few culling edits to bring it down to a more manageable length, I had to admit that the book was done.

Now what?
I talked to a few published writers I know, and they suggested an agent?
But I soon learned to get an agent they want you to have something published, and to be published you need an agent. 

After playing out this Abbott and Costello comedy routine for a few weeks (38 cold call queries sent, only two replies via automated out-of-office messages) I gave up the avenue.

Oh, I had assumed the publishers would be lined up outside the door, each bearing fruit baskets and thick envelopes of cash.
The only problem I foresaw, should I accept the offer from your Penguins or maybe Simon and/or Schuster? 
Perhaps I would take the noble route and go with Black Sparrow just so I could sit in Vesuvios and see my bold titles displayed in the front window of City Lights Bookstore?

But months went by, as they do, and the world did not come calling.
Stalled, like a ship in a dead zone, I began to panic–what if no one wants this thing?

Does it matter? 
The art is in the creation, that’s what we tell ourselves.
Think of grumpy old JD Salinger holed up in New Hampshire, writing his precious words daily, yet unwilling to have it published for the waiting world.
A Buddhist monk journals his meditations for a decade, only to burn the scrolls beside the smoking incense, offering his thoughts only to the gods above.
Fuck that, brother.
I am vain enough to admit that if I write this crap, I surely want someone to read it!

I look a few booths down and now Doyle is sitting alone in this booth, tapping a sharpie idly on a stack of Misfits posters.
I take the chance to drop by and say hello, hoping I won’t be charged twenty bucks for the privilege..
“Hey man, Doyle,” I say, offering a hand to shake, “it’s Mike? ”
I then add, “Channel Three? Been a while.”
He takes my hand and gives it a weary shake, though he does not look up from his phone.
“Hey there Channel Three,” he says.
When he looks up I search for a flicker of recognition in his eyes but there is none.
It’s clear he has no idea who I am, but why should he?
We are decades removed from when we last shared a stage, my head grayer, our paths diverted wildly.

But here, we are all just vendors today.
Selling our shit, punk to punk, human to human.

The last of the holiday shoppers are staggering toward the exits now, as the vendors all start to pack up their wares.
We all hug it up at the DiWulf booth, make plans for our Las Vegas meet up in January, wish each other happy holidays.

We will each retreat to our corners, recharge, and come back again to offer our books to an increasingly non-reading world once more.
Scattering our words out there one at a time, like the hopeful seeds of a near extinct plant.

I crack the window and peer over the ledge, hoping to see my youth.

I’ve come to New York a day earlier than the lads, doing a bit of last minute book business before the weekend’s events.
Following the worn steps that bring me West coast to East, three hours into the future:
LAX to JFK, Airtrain to Jamaica, LIRR to Penn, F train to Ave 2. .

I’ve been repeating the mantra to myself all day like a henpecked husband wandering the produce aisle, tasked with bringing home just 4 measly items.
Doomed to forget the shallots, ending up in Harlem instead of Soho.

Incredibly, the hipster boutique hotel is right off Houston and exactly across the street from Jack Rabid’s storied old apartment. The very same street where we first stayed in this city, the home of such golden memories.

I hang my head out into the bracing evening air, the Fall bite of breeze perfumed with diesel and cooking oil, the street already a symphony of car horn and deranged soliloquy.
But when I look down upon 249 Eldridge, it is not the charming grime of 1980’s Lower East Side I see, but a swanky awning above security doors, the corner bodega transformed into a Bank America ATM kiosk.
There is a line of tourists a block long for Katz’s Deli, and the stylish locals walk their sweatered French bulldogs, sipping on seven dollar lattes.

Packs of young ladies, some looking no older than the children profiled upon milk cartons, parade up Ave A in skimpy cocktail dresses.
They stare at their gleaming handheld screens, unaware of the dangers that used to rule these very streets.

Could this really be the wonderfully scary neighborhood we spent those early days?

I start to formulate my grumblings, that familiar old man rant of how they are destroying all the good stuff, how much the city has changed, man!
But then I realize I am speaking outloud-to myself- in an empty hotel room.

Sure the city has changed, but who am I to deny the march of time?
My head is all but gray now, and my knees ache deeply from a mere five hour flight
I squint at the TV remote a full minute in search of Power On before tossing it aside in defeat.

The fellas get in safely, and we have a few hours to kill before the afternoon event at Generation Records.
We discuss a few options to spend our day before surrendering to the inevitable.
We take our place in line with the other tourists, the door to Katz’s 60 people ahead.

Sure, there is a Kienholz retrospective at the Whitney, and we could still catch the last of the turned leaves in Central Park…but C’mon man! –That Pastrami!

**************************************************************************

You never say you are writing a book, that much I know.
Utter such an audacious thing aloud, and you are met with sympathetic smiles and encouraging nods.
Oh you are? people might say.
Or, Of course you are! Good for you! in the way you pat a child on the head after they inform you they are going to be an astronaut or pilot the Goodyear blimp when they grow up.

Not quite believing I would ever finish this project, I kept it quiet, at least until after the first trimester.
And then, it was just to inform the principals involved that I would be writing about that one long summer.
Heya, long time, my texts started. Anyhoo, if I was to write, like, a book would you be cool with that?

To a man, they all graciously allowed their characters to be used in the book, after my assurances that this would be a fictionalized account.
And I wouldn’t be writing about, you know, that one time…

Going into Covid’s first birthday, I had one hundred pages written.
I had also painted the bathroom cabinets, watched the entire series of The Wire yet again, and was a 358 pages into Moby Dick.

Daily writing, I found, was a daily exercise in procrastination and self negotiation.
Put down three good paragraphs and you get a half hour of Golf Clash, I’d tell myself.

I bought and sent back three perfectly fine laptops, deeming each unsuitable platforms to capture my vision.
I’d spend a whole mornings playing with fonts and spacing, imagining how these words would look, someday, in print.

Then, finally, after all the excuses were exhausted, after I cleaned the dust off the top of the Pogues poster once again, would I get down to the business of actually writing.
And in this fashion, the words would somehow come out, the pages started to fill.

************************************************************************

There’s a nice little crowd at Generation Records, familiar faces from our many visits to this place.
God love ’em, the people who show up actually buy the book, and I have every faith that they will some day read it.
A dying breed, these heroes that still take the time to read.
To sit still, to put down the phone and turn from the flatscreen.
Read a book

I sign each book gratefully, honored.

We start off with a quick chat with our pal Drew Stone.
The pro he is, he peppers me with softball questions about the book, allows me just enough time to mumble a few answers without revealing me for a goofball.
We play a few songs in the basement of the store, I sign a few more books.
The whole thing is done by 7 pm, and we have time to hit Little Italy for a nice dinner and be back to Eldridge before midnight.

As a wildly unfunny episode of SNL plays out we drift off to sleep, the city out there still pulsing.
And though changed, still open to the wild possibilities of the night.

It’s getting late now, the evening shadows spilling into the storefront, a lot of the crowd already gone.
But we’re still up there playing; nobody wants to call it.

It’s been an exhilarating day, filled with moments of reunion and laughter, friends and family gathered together to celebrate something I’ve long dreamed of.

My book release party.
I say aloud these four words I’ve just typed, then again.
Unbelievable as a desperate prayer to a god you are not quite convinced is listening.

It’s the old fellas up there with me and Kimm, the original lads from the 1983 Lights Out lineup.
Jack’s been playing with a dozen other bands since we last saw him,when? 1983?
Larry’s kept up the bass but hasn’t had this much stage time in years.

I turn and look at him while we play.
He concentrates hard, but can’t lose the grin on his face.
It’s like we’re back, back there in the garage on Cortner Ave, playing the music that drew us together in the first place.

We got together for one brief practice, spending most of the evening catching up: wives and kids, the path we’ve each traveled to return to this same place.
We laugh at the gray hair, turn silent when we recall those who didn’t make it.

We go through the usual CH3 songs, sure.
But then it only takes one of us to play a familiar riff.
The siren intro to Police on my Back, say, or the climbing bass line of 999’s Titanic Reaction.
And then we are those kids in the garage once again, winging it, playing the songs of our heroes.
Hoping to finish one more song before Mom—-Mrs. Magrann the guys would call her–flicks the lights on and off, signalling the end of practice.

Oh sure, I’ve thought of writing a book before.
I mean, who hasn’t?

Perhaps a collection of these whimsy little blog posts?
Written as accompaniment to a satisfying bowel movement, really, wouldn’t a book of these things make for a fitting bathroom book?
Or maybe sprawling memoir, our days in the garage to the hardcore fests that infested the shuttered roller rinks of the 80’s.
A story that everyone already knows: They lived it too.

I soon realized the story of the band is not all that compelling, on paper at least.
I mean, Kimm and I were good kids in high school, long before nerd chic was a thing.
The band never suffered the thrilling tragedies that makes for good pulp:
No drug overdoses, no dramatic breakups.
And as far as successes, we never quite made it out of the “worthy supporting band” classification.

Underrated, that’s the word they often use to describe CH3.
A term not unlike a good sportsmanship trophy handed out to the last kid picked for the team.
The reward for being unremarkable.

But still, there was a story in there somewhere, if I could only find a way to tell it.
To express what these years, what this band has meant to me.

So i turned to the past, took up a worn journal that has sat upon various desks for four decades.
Unread for years, yet always within an arm’s reach.
It was a journal I kept of one long Summer, back in 1983.

And so I took a moment, and I read.
Then I wrote.