I met Joe Strummer volunteering at WFMU. It was July 2001. I had just started working there stuffing envelopes, might have been the very first day. I had just my job at an art supply store and had not yet had to get another job in another art supply store, so I was already feeling pretty good that day. Strummer was taping a guest DJ spot. If it was live, I might have planned to be there that day to try to meet him, but there was no reason to expect the man who myself and fellow recent ex-bandmates nearly worshiped for the previous two years would walk through the open doorway I was standing next to and shake my hand. He wanted to meet the volunteers.
Naturally I was shocked, but didn’t miss a beat. Still grabbing his velvety palm I quickly headbutted and spat in his eye because
P U N K R O C K
…his eye immediately became infected since I, a Punk Rocker, am filled with disease. Not missing a trick, he pulled a dagger from his boot and stabbed me the thigh. We embraced and shared a hearty Punk laugh. Treating our wounds with cheap grain alcohol, we sat for a bit smoking butts from the large communal ash tray. WFMU volunteers routinely scavenge the Jersey City shore for smokables, collect them in an old oil drum, and just sit around all day enjoying urban nature’s bounty, stuffing envelopes and listening to old scavenge stories. It was pretty sweet. But after a few hours of this, he said he had to go tape his show. I spit in his other eye and called him a poseur. It was glorious. He laughed and gave me 20 quid “to piss off”. I asked what I was supposed to do with “quid” in America. He suggested I buy a new dagger. Bollocks! It was true, I had no dagger. It was I was was the poseur.
I went down to Quidley’s Dagger Shoppe, were they accept bollocks and bought that dagger, then I went home and thought about daggers. And Joe Strummer. Punk Rock.
No one knew it would be the upcoming Mescaleros shows would be the last. I remember missing them, but don’t remember why. Probably drunk.
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