And so we did. On so many levels.

It was the summer of 1982. At least the beginning of it. I had graduated from CW Post Center of Long Island University. I had already seen all three Asbury Park Clash shows and my friend Charlie (also a Post toasty) and I were about to embark on a month long trip to England and France.

Charlie and I were both photographers. Me having hot new photos of the Clash plus my other photos from Bonds and The Palladium shows, and Charlie had his more social documentary black and white portfolio. Our first week there would be a mix of business and pleasure.

Before it all started there was a ton of preparation to get ready. I went out and bought 40 rolls of Kodachrome. This was going to be the biggest trip of my life, thus far, and it certainly needed to be documented in all its Kodachrome glory.

If documentation was in order I also needed at least three new thin red journals and red Flair pens to go along. On some level I have to thank Dorothy for getting me into journaling. I had started journaling shortly after we met. It’s especially wild to look back on any of those journals so many years later. It sure helps to fill in some of my memory gaps, but also sometimes stirs up feeling I had long since put behind me.

I have to admit, that as I post excerpts from my journals, they will be heavily edited. Never adding unless [indicated] and way more “removal” than anything else. More to protect the innocent, and at times, the not so innocent. As verbose and telling as they were, sometimes they were just the rantings of a 20-something year old man-boy-child groping his way through the world in the process of “coming out of the cupboard” / closet … literally.

The New go2jo.com …

When I lived out on Long Island while going to CW Post Center, I use to work for a company called “Crazy Eddie’s“. It was a NY based electronics and music store. You could buy anything from component stereo equipment, car stereos, to records. Remember vinyl? At Crazy Eddie’s there would always be a Christmas In August sale. Why? Because Eddie was crazy! Well …I’m feeling a bit like that now. Crazy. As you can see I’ve grown weary too. In less than a year, though it does seem longer … it was time for me to abandon my last WordPress theme and opt for a newer one. Though I liked my last theme, for its graphics heavy front page. I also didn’t like it because

In 1980 I was attending school at  CW Post Center of Long Island University. I was also sharing an apartment in Oyster Bay Long Island with 3 women: Cande Roth, Ellyn Solis, and Dorothy (Orant) Morrison. The night I moved into this insane asylum I ended three years of being a non-smoker. I purchased that pack of Newports … and torched up the first smoke, and didn’t quit again until the early 90′s.

In my years at Post I was a communications major and later film major. I also did radio shows on the college station WCWP 88.1 on the FM dial. I also was a photographer for an NYC club magazine called Non-LP B-Side. Those were some exciting times. Musicly there was the whole UK & US punk explosion that brought so much amazing and exciting music. I use to spend a lot of my extra cash either at Bleaker Bob’s in NYC or a few of the independent music stores on Long Island that specialized in British imports. Buying the latest import singles & LPs my radio shows were something to hear. I loved bands like The Clash, The Jam, The Sex Pistols, XTC, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury And The Blockheads, Fashion, Richard Hell And The Voidoids, Tom Verlaine with or without  Television, Graham Parker, The Undertones, Ultravox, The Ramones, Talking Heads, all the assorted Stiff and Two-Tone bands and so much more. And what money I didn’t spend there I was spending on photographing some of these bands and paying to have the film processed at professional color labs, in NYC or on “Lonkisland”.

Dorothy was also an avid musicologist and fan girl of so many of those bands. That was one of our many connections. She also turned me onto a lot of stuff that she loved too. We influenced each other. Hell … when I met this girl she was “sittin’ on the hood of a Dodge” in the parking lot at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. A friend of mine and I were waiting to buy Springsteen tickets. We drove in from southern NJ the night before and slept in  my car. Early the next morning, before “the line formed”, I was wandering around the parking lot and here was this beautiful blond wild child, sitting on the hood of that car (but no soft summer rain) and asking me … “hey you like Costello too?” I was wearing an Elvis Costello t-shirt at the time. And that was that. We talked and that started the long slow process of friendship … and years later … a bit more.

Dorothy and I were in L. O. V. E. with the Clash. There was always something about their music, attitude and politics that resonated with us, and the world. They were so much less nihilistic than the Pistols. Plus they had huge hearts. You could see it in the passion they showed onstage and off.

Update:Added more photos 04/22/2009

Back in 1978 I was attending CW Post Center of Long Island University. I was a communications major. I aspired to be a radio DJ like my radio heros Vince Scelsa & Dave Herman from WNEW FM in New York. There were other reason that brought me back to school … and yes Bruce was one of them.

I also experienced a friend dying from carbon monoxide poisoning because he was too drunk to get into his house. He slept in his car with the motor running so he’d stay warm … and never woke up. But I certainly did! I didn’t want my legacy to be one of drinking and drugging in some backwater town in the Jersey pine barrens.