PopKrazy!

So I'm going through all my books because times are hard, and I need the cash & maybe the local dumpster of a used bookstore will take whatever I don't want & give me a buck or two like the record stores used to do, when there actually were record stores & rock critics like yrz truly used to get record service from all the labels.  

And then I come across this book called (I'm not kidding), "Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film," the idea of which is that the female victim who gets all maimed & cut up in a slasher movie is not just being viewed by male viewers sadistically but is actually an example of something called "a climactic moment of female power."  The author, Ms. Carol Clover, states in her best academic voice that the modern horror movie possesses this positive subversive space where gender ambiguity can be explored and where the traditional boundaries of male & female identity are dissolved.  In other words, when the dame gets stabbed to death, the women like it too!

Well, you can imagine, even though it was published by Princeton University Press & therefore worth more than a buck at the university textbook store nearby, I almost threw this high&mighty gibberish in the trash.  I mean, I've seen "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" quite a few times, and not once did any girlfriend of mine cheer when the saw ripped through female flesh or when the hammer slowly beat the captured girl's skull during the dinner scene. In fact, most of the women I knew left the room & then never returned my calls!!

So I decided to see what the stupid book is worth on EBay.  I figure, despite the book's premise, slasher collector sickos might pay me $25 for the thing.  But before I get to EBay, as usual I check out my Facebook page (I'm hooked on FB, what can I say?), and lo & behold, there's some attractive blonde from the West Coast confirming friendship.  Well, to be truthful, ANY attractive female from the West Coast can be my friend, but this one struck a real memory bubble.  
Cherie Currie?  Cherie....currie?  I couldn't place the name, but I knew I knew it from way back when & had maybe met her at a party or....I just couldn't place the name, you know how it is.


Then I realized I gotta figure this out because right there in her info file was this amazing fact. (You know, life works like this sometimes & then it just seems like, well, there ain't a problem worth sniveling over....).....

CHERIE WORKED WITH CHAINSAWS!  I mean, that's what she did for a living!  Cherie carves stuff out of wood & does a damn good job at it, and even poses with the chainsaws so the guys will go buy her product.  She's like this total marketing genius!! Here it is, guys:   http://www.chainsawchick.com/  ---an unbelievable example of how great life can be if you just let it happen sometimes.  
And what was even stranger, I realized that this was some kind of sign...not only was that academic chick absolutely correct in her chainsaw/horror theory (I know, I know...it's not really proof because Cherie actually uses the chainsaw to create things pg beauty while in the slasher movies the guys use the chainsaw to destroy flesh...but that's the way my mind works, okay?), but now I had to read the f***g book just to solve the mystery of why women & chainsaws seem so culturally connected.

And then, as I read through Cherie's info even further, I almost lose it. .....Holy shit, where have I been?  Of course!  She's the pretty blonde from that punk band, the Runaways, & I actually liked that first album when it came out, even reviewed the damn thing, and played it over & over.  But I guess I lost track...never really heard Joan Jett or anymore Runaway albums...but then had to admit that the only reason I played that album in the first place when it came in the mail via aforementioned record service in the ‘70s was because I had an immediate crush on CHERIE CURRIE.  (Hey, come on, gimme a break...you can see why.)

Those of you more up on rock history than me know that Cherie was the lead singer of the Runaways, and on the band's debut album on Mercury in 1976, the first track on the album was called "Cherry Bomb," which was indeed referring to our beloved Cherie. The track was actually created off the cuff because Cherie was told to prepare a song that sounded like Suzi Quatro, but she picked one the band didn't like.  And so, the other charming band members made the "Cherry Bomb" song up to make fun of Cherie.

Feeling a bit moved & nostalgic by all this synchronicity (and, believe me, I hate the Police, so I don't like when this kind of stuff happens), I pulled out the Runaways first album, and started playing it.  I actually even got the courage up to re-read words I had written in some old tattered issue of a long-forgotten magazine named after jizm:  "The Runaways' album can easily be earmarked right alongside the first Stooges record in its expression of teenage passions, its slurring of lyrics into pouting mono-syllables, and its final call to dance to that punk-rock vision." And lots more great stuff in the review, too...on & on about what a great band these young ladies were and how they'd change the world blah blah blah....

I felt kind of lost & alone in this weird experience, so I wrote a short but respectful email to Cherie via Facebook (she is, after all, supposedly a friend) asking her why she made the move to chainsaws after being a punker for so long.  But I ain't heard from her yet.  

On the surface, it makes sense to me that she's into chainsaws, but I wanted to hear her side of things.  Maybe it all has something to do with gender studies or something, but I don't think so.

REFERENCES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BZk_i203Q
http://www.cheriecurrie.com/
http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palms/6923/truth.html
http://www.therunaways.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShB4azq9WEk