A dozen brushes with the once rich and or I guess kinda famous.

These stories are all true, all from random points in my adult life, and all ranging from the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now that I am much older, living in a small city, and am more of a homebody it is hard to believe that any of this stuff was the norm or at least my norm. These bits and pieces are far too obscure to be considered hard cover book worthy memoirs but they are little shards of memories I want to jot down before I forget about them all together. I have a shamefully poor ability to recall anything from the past so it is remarkable that any of this silly stuff has lasted this long in my memory bank. Who knows what I have already forgot.

1) Twink of The Pretty Things / Pink Fairies came into one of the record stores I used to work at pawning his solo records autographed, seemingly desperate for money. Besides thinking his name sounded like a yummy snack food, as a kid in my early 20s, his fame was lost on me at the time. After rediscovering S.F Sorrow rather recently and realizing it is a psych-rock masterpiece, I could kick myself for not spending more time chatting with him.

2) On more than one occasion I watched Dee Dee Ramone stumble up to CBGBs with a guitar in hand begging to be added to a bill so he could make a few quick dollars to support his serious junk habit. As a side note, the club always turned him away at the door.

3) L'amour, a classic metal venue in Brooklyn not only holds a special place in my heart because I saw one of my first small club shows there in the mid 80s but I stood next to Bjork during a Cannibal Corpse set. Her son and boyfriend Matthew Barney are both into metal but I don't recall seeing either one of the at that show. I did however sit a few rows behind Bjork and Barney at an Iceland opera in Reykjavik the day after the Sugarcubes reunion show.

4) In the late 90's I was standing around a NYC small club called Brownies (RIP) to see a friend play (Tiffany Anders, daughter of daughter of independent filmmaker Allison Anders) and she introduced me to a circle of people she was friendly with including a bloated sorta unwashed looking fellow named Kevin. We all stood around chatting for about ten minutes and when we eventually walked away I realized she seemed terribly nervous and was shaking. It turns out that the Kevin I was introduced to was Kevin Shields and he being a mutual friend of one of hers, had come to check out the show. She was terrified to play in front of a man she considered to be a musical genius.

5)Macaulay Culkin in a drunken state once harassed my ex-husband backstage of a White Stripes show for drugs - convinced he was a member of The Strokes...which he is not...nor does he / did he ride the white horse.

6) Part two of this was being on a short tour with the White Stripes was because my ex was in an opening band at the time. My only lengthy exchange with Jack and Meg involved a box of Powerpuff Girl cereal which popped in your mouth like Pop Rocks.

7) A co-worker of mine back in my C/Z Records days was old friends with Eddie Vedder and his wife to be at the time. We were dying her hair from blue to brown for their wedding and while we were in the process of this Eddie called looking to speak to her. She couldn't talk because her head was covered with dye so I played middle man between she in the room with me and Eddie on the phone.

8) I had the responsibility of getting this guy a cab after he made an appearance at the music distributor I was working for at the time. Believe me when I tell you NOBODY wants to pick up a guy who looks like a villain elf that lacks a hair brush. Seriously, he looked just like this picture.

9) J Mascis lived around the corner from me in NYC and after having brunch together (his girlfriend was a friend of mine) we all went shopping at a dollar store where J was on the hunt for slippers which I want to say ended up being pink.

10) In the early to mid 90s I went up to Montreal to see the pop punk band The Doughboys play with Joan Jett. A French speaking man proceeded to try to pick me up, I mean he was the wouldn't leave me alone kind of creepy pest, and when I said I didn't speak French in my crappy I took French in grade school broken baby French, he began to curse at me loudly for a good minute and stormed off. A few seconds later a stranger approached me and asked what I did to piss off the hometown hero from Voivod. To this day I can't recall which guy from Voivod it was.

11) There is nothing quite like standing next to Kathleen Hanna and Adam Horovitz at a late 90's Fugazi show in NYC and watching annoying frat dudes AND third generation Riot Grrrls circle them like birds of prey.

12) Once upon a time my old band was popular enough to warrant ridiculous A&R types to come and check us out...or at least we were on bills with bands who were being wined and dined by the major label community. The funniest of the industry bunch was not one but two members of Blondie acting as talent scouts for some major label. They proceeded to walk out of our show with a look boredom meets more boredom in a matter of minutes. The next Deborah Harry I was not.