THE BRAZENBLOG MUSEUM, PART 3: RELICS OF A BRAZEN CHILDHOOD

"PAUL STANLEY," PATERSON NEWS, JULY 5, 1978 -- Here I am at age 13 at the face-painting booth at Elmwood Park NJ's Fourth of July Hometown Fair. This was the second of three times I masqueraded as a member of Kiss; I got made up as all of them except Peter Criss at various times in my youth, I now (somewhat) shamelessly confess. Applying my makeup this time was the wife of my hometown's mayor, who held that position for 50 damn years until he finally died in office, and whose daughters I shared classes with in high school. (You'll notice she put the star on the wrong eye!) A local news photographer wandered by the booth as I was being made up and boom, I was front page news the next day. My first brush with fame!

UNCLE FLOYD SHOW MEMORABILIA, 1979 -- On the left is The 1979 Uncle Floyd Convention Official Souvenier (sic) Photo Book. It's a xeroxed collection of tons of screen shots of Floyd and his cast from what I consider his classic era (WTVG/WWHT Channel 68, 1978-80), captioned with dialogue and tons of jokes. There's also a cast guide with comprehensive lists of all the characters each one played. This thing would be pure solid gold to an old hardcore Floyd fan for sure, but I sure ain't giving up mine. Meanwhile, on the right, we have the July 1979 issue of New Jersey Monthly magazine and a big feature-length article on Floyd that makes some rather unflattering personal revelations about him, which led to some controversy within his fan base. In all fairness to Floyd (who is currently recovering from a stroke), I won't go into the grisly details here, but I will say the whole mess cost him some fans...

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, FEBRUARY 3, 1979 -- Pretty surprised I still have this one! The article on Sid's OD goes into QUITE a bit of detail, but the coverage of Rockefeller's funeral doesn't say one word about the fact that he died in the midst of a sexual encounter with an intern young enough to be his granddaughter... 

ELMWOOD PARK HIGH SCHOOL PUNK CREW, JUNE 16, 1980 -- This photo is a MAJOR snapshot of my teenage years frozen in time. It was the last day of the school year and my crew decided to show up in our most outrageous punk outfits to say goodbye to the teachers for another summer. That's me at bottom right, wearing my imported Elvis Costello t-shirt I paid far more than I should've for at Trash & Vaudeville, and my vest covered with punk badges. All of the Executives (EP's first punk band) are also in the shot as well as future members of Adrenalin OD and Mourning Noise (I'll let you figure out which ones), and after we posed for John Allen's camera, we all went to Tommy Koprowski's house (thanks for the HQ scan, Mr. K!) to celebrate the start of summer recess. His folks were out of town and in their absence he'd transformed the living room into a temporary practice space for the Executives. We blasted loud live punk rock music from that house all afternoon long. It was glorious. 

As an added bonus, here's a page or two from my teenage diary with more details on the afternoon's festivities. We'll get back to this diary in a bit, but first...

HENRY WINKLER AUTOGRAPHED PHOTO, 1977 -- When I was 11 years old I absolutely fucking worshipped Fonzie. I never missed an episode of "Happy Days," and I sure didn't miss a single piece of Fonz-related merch either. I bought the books, the t-shirts, the posters and yes, unfortunately, the cash-in records (the Heyettes and Laverne & Shirley albums are truly two of the worst records ever made). So when it was announced one week in the Daily News that the man who played The Fonz would be doing a special Saturday morning live Q&A session at Radio City Music Hall, with free admission, I managed to successfully talk my mother into taking me to see him. 

We set out before sunrise fully expecting the place to be mobbed, but surprisingly, given his popularity at the time, only a small crowd turned out for this thing. Henry was soft spoken and full of good humor throughout. I don't remember much about the session except for one part where he humorously answered some 3-year-old's query, "How do you put on your pants?" ("I zip first and buckle second!" was Henry's reply.) After about 45 minutes or so he sent us on our way saying "I don't have time to sign autographs right now, but I didn't want to disappoint you so I signed a bunch of photos earlier and you can get 'em in the lobby." I got mine as you can see. I was so big a Fonzie fan it wasn't funny. And I still think Henry Winkler's cool to this day. (Does anyone else out there remember this event? Mine could very well be the first ever online mention of it.)

BRAZEN DIARY ENTRY, MAY 5, 1979 -- The staff of Sam Goody's at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ deserve very special recognition here. Shortly after I turned 13, two record saleswomen named Diane Walsh and Carol Tatarian began taking me on field trips to Greenwich Village, which of course was where all the punk record shops were at. These two ladies, along with many others at Goody's, treated me like a brother and offered friendship, understanding, and respect at a time when I needed those things most in my lonely misunderstood life. I'd been dropping in on them several times a week up to then, especially on Saturday afternoons, and the fact that we shared such similar interests in music despite the obvious age gap just blew their minds. 

To a suburban kid being bullied and laughed at daily for his punk ways, these weekend outings were trips to heaven and back for me, guided by the saints themselves. I cannot express in words how deeply my first visit impacted me. It absolutely blew my mind to see so many punks walking around like they owned the place, and taking kindly to this little "mini-punk." This diary account of what I did with all of fifty bucks of my hard-saved allowance on my second of many trips to Greenwich Village one beautiful spring Saturday in '79 is a true punk/new wave shopping list and field trip report of its time. Oh, to go back to those Village field trips and the pure, raw NYC I used to... some of the best times of my life. Carol, and Diane, and all the Sam Goody guys (wherever you are), Brazen will ALWAYS love you all. Seriously, you cats saved my fucking LIFE. 

(This, by the way, is one of a number of such old entries, and you dear readers may get to read other juicy parts of a 13-year-old punk's diaries in a future post...)