CHRISTMAS 2009!!!

On behalf of our entire family, we wish you a Merry Christmas. I close this post as Bill signed many cards - CHEERS!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!

Today is dad's 84th birthday!!! Sto lat (may you live 100 years), Dad!!! As you can see, he's looking pretty good for a guy who had surgery on Thursday.

THE GHOST OF JIM MORRISON

I saw this article on the Rolling Stone Magazine website today and I know it would have been a topic of conversation between Bill and I, so I share it with you...


“Unexplainable” Photo Snapped at Jim Morrison’s Grave

Here’s one for fans of the late, great Unsolved Mysteries (and the still-crankin’, not quite as great Ghost Hunters): A photograph taken in 1997 at the French cemetery where Doors frontman Jim Morrison is buried features a ghostly apparition that appears to be Morrison. Are you with us? We may lose you here: the photo has been deemed authentic, the U.K.’s Daily Express reports (via Spinner). The snapshot shows rock historian Brett Meisner standing next to Morrison’s grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, and in the background, there’s a white figure with its arms seemingly outstretched. Apparently, Morrison did break on through to the other side.

The ghostly image went unnoticed by Meisner until 2002, when he spotted the strange blur and had the photo analyzed. In a book called Ghosts Caught on Film 2: Photographs of the Unexplained, researchers say the photo was in no way manipulated, and also rule out any possibility that it’s merely a trick of the light. The image itself is “unexplainable,” researchers said.



Meisner says now that he regrets going to the Pere Lachaise cemetery because he’s been plagued by eerie events ever since. Meisner tells the Daily Express that his marriage broke down and a close friend died of a drug overdose, and now he’s haunted by people who approach him to say that Morrison’s ghost is haunting them. “At first it was sort of interesting to see how many people felt a spiritual bond with Jim and the photo, but now the whole vibe seems negative,” Meisner said.

As anyone who read one of the many books on Morrison or saw Oliver Stone’s The Doors would tell you, Morrison believed he encountered the ghost of a Native American after witnessing a car accident in his youth in an incident that deeply impacted the singer. In fact, the lyrics to “Peace Frog” feature the lines, “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding, ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind,” which was Morrison’s account of the encounter. So it’s fitting that nearly three decades after his death, Morrison would appear as a specter in a photograph.

OK, OK, there’s absolutely no way to prove whether Morrison’s ghost is actually traipsing around his grave site, but we predict the Lizard King’s resting place is about to get a lot more visitors in the next few months.

FAREWELL JIM CARROLL

One of Bill's favorites past away on September 11. Jim Carroll was a poet, author and the leader of the Jim Carroll Band. He gave us The Basketball Diaries and two songs that I will make me think of Bill when I hear them: People That Died and Catholic Boy (lyrics below - Bill was especially fond of the last line):

I was born in a pool, they made my mother stand
And I spat on that surgeon and his trembling hand
When I felt the light I was worse than bored
I stole the doctor's scalpel and I slit the cord

I was a Catholic boy
I was redeemed through pain
Not through joy

I was two months early, they put me under glass
I screamed and cursed at children when their nurses passed
I was convicted of theft as I slipped from the womb
They led me straight from my mother to a cell in the Tombs

I was a Catholic boy
I was redeemed through pain
Not through joy

They starved me for weeks, they thought they'd teach me fear
I fed on cellmates' dreams, it gave me fine ideas
When they cut me loose, the time had served me well
I made allies in heaven, I made comrades in hell

I was a Catholic child
The blood ran red
The blood ran wild

I make angels dance and drop to their knees
When I enter a church the feet of statues bleed
I understand the fate of all my enemies
Just like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

I was a Catholic boy
I was redeemed through pain
An not through joy

I watched the sweetest psalm stolen by our choir
I dreamed of martyrs' bones hanging from a wire
I make a contribution, I get absolution
I make a resolution to purify my soul

I'm a Catholic boy
Redeemed through pain
Not through joy

And they can't touch me now
I got every sacrament behind me
I got baptism, I got penance
I got communion, I got extreme unction
Man, I've got confirmation

I was a Catholic boy
Redeemed through pain
And not through joy

And now I'm a Catholic man
I put my tongue to the rail whenever I can



Here's the obituary from LATIMES.com:

Remembering Jim Carroll

He was a basketball legend, a poet, a musician, and most of all, a friend. As he would say, 'I miss you more than all the others.'

By Lewis MacAdams

September 16, 2009

Jim Carroll, who died Friday of a heart attack at 60 in Manhattan, was a legend by the time he was 13. That's when the poet Ted Berrigan took him to visit Jack Kerouac, who took a look at some of Jim's writing and said, "Jim Carroll writes better prose than 89% of the novelists working today."

But I was drawn at least as much by his basketball legend: a kid who grew up on the Lower East Side -- Jim said his dad had tended bar for bootlegger Dutch Schultz -- who moved with his family to Inwood at the northern tip of Manhattan when the neighborhood was still Irish, got a scholarship to the elite Trinity School, went on to become the only white kid to make all-city, then turned down myriad college scholarships to return to the Lower East Side to shoot junk and pursue the cruel gods of poetry.

He self-published his first book, "Organic Trains," in 1967, when he was still a teenager. It was profoundly influenced by Frank O'Hara, the elegant, witty and tough poet whose seemingly off-handed brilliance celebrated an impossibly sophisticated Manhattan; and John Ashbery; but the deeper monster was Arthur Rimbaud, who illumined the nightmarish corners of the quotidian world.

Everything Jim wrote was laced with a wise-ass sense of humor. His earliest work was championed by a coterie of young poets connected to the Poetry Project on New York's Lower East Side, including Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, Larry Fagin, Michael Brownstein and Bill Berkson.

All of us loved Jim's work and were even slightly humbled by it. He was so damn good. He was so damn good looking, a tall redhead with pale, almost transparent skin, and a confident, athletic grace. It took a while for it to sink in that he was often controlled by heroin demons that would follow him for the rest of his life.

Jim lived everywhere and nowhere then. Sometimes he crashed at the Chelsea Hotel, sometimes he worked as painter Larry Rivers' assistant and stayed with him. He was a frequent visitor to Andy Warhol's original Factory, a manufacturing loft on East 47th Street.

I was at graduate school in Buffalo in 1968, hanging out in the student union, when a local asked if I knew where he could score. We were soon on the New York State Thruway, heading to meet Jim. To my eternal shame, I didn't understand what Jim was going through: struggling to kick at the same time he wanted this guy's money so he could score. As usual, heroin won. I can still see Jim that night, his big sneakers slapping the concrete as he raced down a dark street looking for his man.

A guardian angel for Jim then was Patti Smith, who worked at Scribner's bookshop on Fifth Avenue. One day I was there when Jim OD'd. Patti kept him awake, walking him around until he came to.

In 1970, Warsh's Angel Hair Books published Jim's second mimeographed book of poems, "4 Ups and 1 Down." Jim was 20 now, and the work was unassailable, the voice completely his own. "It's true, / you are always too near and I am everything / that comes moaning free and wet / through the lips of our lovely grind."

In 1973, Jim came west to Bolinas, a small town north of San Francisco that was a hotbed of poets. Jim could rarely be found among them. I remember him holed up in a decrepit wood cabin or walking by himself across the mesa wrapped in a serape. It was in Bolinas that he met a tall, beautiful blond, Rosemary Klemfuss, who would later become his wife, and after their marriage was over, a lifetime friend and protector.

Bolinas publisher Michael Wolfe's Tombouctou Press would publish "The Basketball Diaries," the hilarious, scabrous, miraculous excerpts from the journals Jim kept from the ages of 12 to 15.

Also at that time, Smith persuaded him to join her onstage to read some poems. Soon he started singing with a Bolinas band. Onstage, looking into the ancient distance, Jim was mesmerizing. Keith Richards helped the newly named Jim Carroll Band get a deal with Atlantic. The first release was 1980's "Catholic Boy" ("redeemed through pain. Not through joy"). Annie Leibovitz's cover photo of Jim with his arms around his parents gave permanent lie to the idea that he was some sort of punk. He wrote lyrics with Rancid and the Blue Öyster Cult, but also with Boz Scaggs.

He was at every turn an elegant artist, gifted with extreme moral clarity. He was a true poet, that most thrilling and rare of human aspirations. He died sitting at his desk working.

Though "Catholic Boy" sold relatively few copies, a song on the album, "People Who Died" -- its title taken from a Berrigan poem -- became a classic, especially in Leonardo DiCaprio's humorless portrayal in the movie version of "The Basketball Diaries." A celebration of the violent deaths of a slew of childhood friends, I can remember in the early 1980s working late at WET Magazine in Venice, blasting music to keep awake. When "People Who Died" came on, the entire crew began leaping around the office naming the names, screaming the chorus: "They were all my friends -- and they died!"

Jim was naturally a recluse, who never remarried after his divorce, who rarely if ever lived with anyone. One of the last things he told me was how amazed he was that he could afford an apartment in a doorman building.

The names and the way they met their fates in "People Who Died" include kids thrown from the roof of an apartment house, committed suicide "on 26 reds and a bottle of wine," snuffed for snitching on some bikers, took a bullet in Vietnam, "OD'd on Drano the night that she was wed," but the ultimate tribute was for his friend who "got slit in the jugular vein." "Eddie, I miss you more than all the others," Jim would sing, sometimes raising a fist. "And I salute you brother." It's a chorus many are singing today.

LES PAUL DIES

As a guitarist, I think the passing of Les Paul would have been of interest to Bill.


Here is the Associated Press story:

Guitar legend-inventor Les Paul dies at age 94
By Luke Sheridan

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Les Paul, who invented the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock 'n' roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.

As an inventor, Paul also helped bring about the rise of rock 'n' roll with multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the tracks in the finished recording.

The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock in the mid-'50s.

"Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music," Paul once said. "To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn't think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system."

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called "The Log," a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.

"I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut." He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.

In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.

Pete Townsend of the Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.

Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie's auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.

In the late 1960s, Paul retired from music to concentrate on his inventions. His interest in country music was rekindled in the mid-'70s and he teamed up with Chet Atkins for two albums. The duo were awarded a Grammy for best country instrumental performance of 1976 for their "Chester and Lester" album.

With Mary Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records for hits including "Vaya Con Dios" and "How High the Moon," which both hit No. 1. Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul had helped develop.

"I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished," he recalled. "This is quite an asset." The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.

Released in 2005, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played" was his first album of new material since those 1970s recordings. Among those playing with him: Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Richie Sambora.

"They're not only my friends, but they're great players," Paul told The Associated Press. "I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message."

Two cuts from the album won Grammys, "Caravan" for best pop instrumental performance and "69 Freedom Special" for best rock instrumental performance. (He had also been awarded a technical Grammy in 2001.)

Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

Paul was born Lester William Polfus, in Waukseha, Wis., on June 9, 1915. He began his career as a musician, billing himself as Red Hot Red or Rhubarb Red. He toured with the popular Chicago band Rube Tronson and His Texas Cowboys and led the house band on WJJD radio in Chicago.

In the mid-1930s he joined Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians and soon moved to New York to form the Les Paul Trio, with Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton.

Meanwhile, he had made his first attempt at audio amplification at age 13. Unhappy with the amount of volume produced by his acoustic guitar, Paul tried placing a telephone receiver under the strings. Although this worked to some extent, only two strings were amplified and the volume level was still too low.

By placing a phonograph needle in the guitar, all six strings were amplified, which proved to be much louder. Paul was playing a working prototype of the electric guitar in 1929.

His work on taping techniques began in the years after World War II, when Bing Crosby gave him a tape recorder. Drawing on his earlier experimentation with his homemade record-cutting machines, Paul added an additional playback head to the recorder. The result was a delayed effect that became known as tape echo.

Tape echo gave the recording a more "live" feel and enabled the user to simulate different playing environments.

Paul's next "crazy idea" was to stack together eight mono tape machines and send their outputs to one piece of tape, stacking the recording heads on top of each other. The resulting machine served as the forerunner to today's multitrack recorders.

In 1954, Paul commissioned Ampex to build the first eight-track tape recorder, later known as "Sel-Sync," in which a recording head could simultaneously record a new track and play back previous ones.

He had met Ford, then known as Colleen Summers, in the 1940s while working as a studio musician in Los Angeles. For seven years in the 1950s, Paul and Ford broadcast a TV show from their home in Mahwah, N.J. Ford died in 1977, 15 years after they divorced.

In recent years, even after his illness in early 2006, Paul played Monday nights at New York night spots. Such stars as Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen came to pay tribute and sit in with him.

"It's where we were the happiest, in a `joint,'" he said in a 2000 interview with the AP. "It was not being on top. The fun was getting there, not staying there — that's hard work."

PREP CLASSMATE REMEMBERS BILL

In the midst of all that has happened this past week, it was a great pleasure to receive an email from Thom, a classmate of Bill's from their days at St. Francis Prep. I can't tell you how much these memories mean to me and my family, so I continue to encourage those of you have been holding any to share with us. If you do, please include your email address. I have some loose ends that I would like to tie-down and based on your memory, there may be a question you could answer to help me do so.

A big thank you to Thom for the following:

I was deeply saddened to find out about your brother's passing.

I best remember him from our Freshman year ('65) at St. Francis Prep. For some reason I keep remembering him at the back of the classroom, row nearest the windows, windows on the right side, entrance door left side front of room. This is most odd as we were seated alphabetically and with B certainly coming before G, logic is not what my memory is - go figure.

He had the broadest smile, intense lightening wit and devil-may-care that made him such fun to be around. He was often outspoken with his witticisms and often sent to the Principal's Office - which he never went to, going to the lavatory and then returning with a "red face" from the supposed disciplining he had received. I asked him how he wasn't suspended with all his infractions. He told he of the lavatory and red face scam. Funny story, one day I get sent to the Principal's Office and I go to the lavatory. Here I am met by one of the school's Disciplinarian, Brother Leon. Leon sees me hanging out in the urinal and asks me what I am doing. I tell him I peeing. He asks, were you sent to the Principal's Office, but you decided to hide here for a while? Oh no Brother. Well says Leon, I don't hear you peeing! You have NO idea how difficult it is to "demand pee"!!! Man almost got caught, but I digress. I DO remember his love of the Stones above the Beatles.

I am so sorry for your loss - my condolences to you and your family.

He has and will continue to be alive in my memory till he and I meet again.

MORE ON DAD

Dad is home from the hospital and in very good spirits. Also, he doesn't seem to have lost his appetite as he had a roast beef sandwich when he got home.

The tumor that they removed (about the diameter of a soda can) is malignant. He will be going back in to the hospital next Thursday to have the other side of the thyroid removed. After that he will undergo needle radiation.


Please continue to pray for a successful treatment and a speedy recovery.

UPDATE ON DAD

Dad is resting comfortable after his surgery. The operation itself went well, although it ran over 5 hours. It seems that he has arthritis in his neck which prevented the surgeon from leaning his neck back. This made the surgery a little more difficult than normal. No word yet on whether the tumor was malignant. We should know tomorrow.


Mom observed that there was a good omen to yesterday's events. The name of the nurse that checked dad in was Suzie (my sister's name) and the surgeon's name was Philip (spelt with one 'l', just like me). I filled in the missing piece by remarking that when he checks-out of the hospital they're are going to hand him a Bill.

DAD'S HAVING SURGERY

For those of you who know my dad you know that he's been pretty fortunate in the health department. He'll be 84 in October and the only reason I can remember him being in the hospital is for varicose vein surgery over 35 years ago.


He is still seemingly healthy, however today at 1:00 PM he is having surgery to remove a tumor on his thyroid. They won't know if it is cancerous until it is removed.

If you pray, please say a prayer for him today.

Thanks!

3 YEARS AGO

As you can imagine, today is a sad day. It marks the third anniversary of Bill's passing. And while it has gotten a little easier, days like today bring back the painful memory of hearing the news that he had died.

Thank you to those who stopped by today to remember Bill.


There is a song on the latest Bruce Springsteen CD that makes me think of Bill whenever I hear it. I thought I would share it with you. I think you'll agree that be around Bill was often a carnival. I think we all loved being part of that carnival and we all loved him...

THE LAST CARNIVAL

Sundown, sundown
They're taking all the tents down
Where have you gone my handsome Billy?

Sundown, sundown
The carnival trains' leavin' town
Where are you now my darlin' Billy?

We won't be dancing together on the high wire
Facing the lions with you at my side anymore
We won't be breathin' the smoke and the fire
On the midway

Hangin' from the trapeze my wrists waitin' for your wrists
Two daredevils high up on the wall of death
You throwin' the knife that lands inches from my heart
Sundown

Moonrise, moonrise
The light that was in your eyes
Has gone away

Daybreak, daybreak
The thing in you that made me ache
Has gone to stay

We'll be riding the train without you tonight
The train that keeps on movin'
Its black smoke scorching the evening sky
A million stars shining above us like every soul livin' and dead
Has been gathered together by a God to sing a hymn over your bones

Sundown, sundown
Empty are the fairgrounds
Where are you now my handsome Billy?

STUDICIOUS AND AMBITIOUS

A few months back I received the following message from the current principal of St. Stanislaus Kostka School in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - the school my mom, Bill, my sister Suzie and I all attended at one time or another. The photo is of the school (building on left) and the convent (right). Thank you Sister!


I looked up the records of your brother William Alfred Bukowski. Here is what I found:

He was a fantastic student; no term average below 91%. He ranked no. 6 in a class of 45 students. Conduct ranged from "satisfactory" to "A." His eighth grade teacher, Sister Theodosia, wrote this on his permanent record: "Studious and ambitious." After graduation in 1965, he attended St. Francis Prep High School in Brooklyn.

God bless you.

Sister Dorothea Jurkowski, CSFN
St. Stanislaus Kostka School, Principal

40 YEARS AGO

Last Monday (February 9) and today, mark the 45th Anniversaries of the Beatles first two appearances on Ed Sullivan. In a way it was nice to have a memory of these two events and also to remember where Bill was on specific days in his life. I know I watched the shows, even though I was two. I can't help but think that Bill convinced my parents to let me.


If he were with us today, Bill could attest to the fact that I was also able to pull Beatles records out of his 45s collection. Bill's liking would later lean toward the Rolling Stones, but I continued (and still do) rank the Beatles as my all-time favorites. I can't help but think that watching them on those consecutive Sundays in 1964 had something to do with this and my continued love of Rock 'n' Roll.

DONNA FROM NYU

Thanks again to Donna from NYU for sharing more thoughts about Bill. Donna made this comment on Bill's birthday:

Hi,I'm "Donna from NYU" whose memory of Billy you have posted from 9/16/08. I've been reading thru this website since then, so I knew Billy's b'day was Jan 3rd & that you'd therefore post something. If you remember, I had written that my brother, Larry, died on 8/28/84. His b'day is Oct 3rd, so he would have been 54 now. The site keeps drawing me back in part because I can relate to Phil's grief, like when he recently wrote about Obama's victory, "Instinctively, I was going to call Bill...[and then] tears came to my eyes." I can relate completely. Phil, I am so impressed w/ all you've learned & shared about your beloved brother's life. When I wrote that every time I hear Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" I will continue to think of Billy, I didn't explain that I listen to the radio in my car all the time & that song is very popular on many stations' playlists, so I hear it alot. So, when I read your birthday blog & you wrote, "May the memory of a moment you spent with my brother make you smile" I had to tell you that on Jan 3rd I heard "Maggie May" on the radio, knew it was Billy's birthday and smiled. I know you're finding, like I have, that time does help, so I hope my post makes YOU smile, Phil.

Yes, Donna - it did! Now, here's something for you:

A COUPLE OF NEW BAND MEMBERS

Back in the 70s, the Righteous Brothers released a song called "Rock And Roll Heaven":

If you believe in forever
Than life is just a one night stand
If there's a Rock 'N' Roll heaven
Well, you know they've got a hell of a band

Well, this week, one member each from two of Bill's favorite bands, joined the Rock 'N' Roll Heaven Orchestra...

Ironically, like Bill, on February 1, Dewey Martin of Buffalo Springfield, was found dead in his home in Los Angeles. For me, Buffalo Springfield will always be synonimous with "For What It's Worth". I'm wondering, how many of you knew that Bill's late 60s-early 70s band - Blitzkrieg - did a cover of the song. I still listen to that tape from time to time.


Yesterday, one on Bill's later favorites, Lux Interior, of The Cramps, died on Tuesday, also in Los Angeles. He, like Bill, died of heart complications. Bill turned me on to The Cramps when he sent me a copy of A Date With Elvis.


Here are a couple of articles that provide more information on the lives and deaths of two of Bill's favorites:


Buffalo Springfield Drummer Dewey Martin Dies

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Dewey Martin, drummer for the groundbreaking but notoriously feuding and short-lived rock pioneers Buffalo Springfield, was found dead February 1 in Van Nuys, Calif. He was 68.

The cause of death has not been determined.

Martin and his bandmates -- Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Bruce Palmer -- formed the group in Los Angeles in 1966, carving out a unique sound that melded elements of country, folk and rock. Their first single, 1967's "For What It's Worth," captured the zeitgeist of youth culture, touching on themes of community, paranoia and the generation gap and becoming a top 10 hit and rock staple.

But that was the band's lone national success, and its famously sparring members called it quits in 1968 after only three albums -- none of which made the top 40. Nonetheless, the group heavily influenced the country-rock scene of the early '70s.

Martin played on all of the band's songs, which also included "Bluebird," "Mr. Soul," "Rock 'N' Roll Woman" and "On the Way Home." Its second album, "Buffalo Springfield Again," ranked No. 188 on Rolling Stone's list of greatest rock albums. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Martin attempted to keep the band's name alive after its split, recruiting members for the New Buffalo Springfield. But lawsuits by Young and Stills prevented them from using the name.

Bassist Palmer and Martin played the oldies circuit during the mid-'80s and early '90s as Buffalo Springfield Revisited. Martin also formed other bands that failed to catch on.

Young wrote fondly of Martin in his autobiography, "Shakey": "You get harder, he hits harder. You pull back, he hits back. He can feel the music -- you don't have to tell him."


Lux Interior Dies At 60; Founder, Front Man Of Punk Band The Cramps
By August Brown, LA Times, February 4, 2009

Lux Interior, the singer, songwriter and founding member of the pioneering New York City horror-punk band the Cramps, died Wednesday. He was 60.

Interior, whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser, died at Glendale Memorial Hospital of a heart condition, according to a statement from his publicist.

With his wife, guitarist "Poison" Ivy Rorschach, Interior formed the Cramps in 1976, pairing lyrics that expressed their love of B-movie camp with ferocious rockabilly and surf-inspired instrumentation.

The band became a staple of the late '70s Manhattan punk scene emerging from clubs such as Max's Kansas City and CBGB, and was one of the first acts to realize the potential of punk rock as theater and spectacle.

Often dressed in macabre, gender-bending costumes onstage, Interior evoked a lanky, proto-goth Elvis Presley, and his band quickly became notorious for volatile and decadent live performances.

The Cramps recorded early singles at Sun Records with producer Alex Chilton of the band Big Star and had their first critical breakthrough on their debut EP "Gravest Hits."

The band's lack of a bassist and its antagonistic female guitarist quickly set it apart from its downtown peers and upended the traditional rock band sexual dynamic of the flamboyant, seductive female and the mysterious male guitarist.

The group was asked to open for the Police on a major tour of Britain in 1979 and reached its critical apex in the early '80s with such albums as "Psychedelic Jungle" and "Songs the Lord Taught Us."

While the Cramps' lineup revolved constantly, Interior and Rorschach remained the band's core through more than three decades. The Cramps never achieved much mainstream commercial success, but instead found a reliable fringe audience for more than 30 years -- they even played a notorious show for patients at Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif.

"It's a little bit like asking a junkie how he's been able to keep on dope all these years," Interior told The Times some years ago. "It's just so much fun. You pull in to one town and people scream, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' And you go to a bar and have a great rock 'n' roll show and go to the next town and people scream, 'I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.' It's hard to walk away from all that."

The band's influence can be clearly felt among lauded minimalist art-blues bands, including the Black Lips, the White Stripes, the Horrors and Primal Scream, whose front man, Bobby Gillespie, allegedly named his son Lux.

The Cramps' most recent album, a collection of rarities, "How to Make a Monster," was released in 2004, and the band continued to tour well into the later years of its career, wrapping up its most recent U.S. outing in November.

Interior was born in Stow, Ohio, on Oct. 21, 1948. A Times report in 2004 said that he and Rorschach (born Kristy Wallace) met in Sacramento, where they bonded "over their enrollment in an art and shamanism class and a shared affection for thrift-shop vinyl before hitting the road for New York City."

In 1987, there were widespread rumors of Interior's death from a heroin overdose, and half a dozen funeral wreaths were sent to Rorschach. "At first, I thought it was kind of funny," Interior told The Times. "But then it started to give me a creepy feeling."

"We sell a lot of records, but somehow just hearing that you've sold so many records doesn't hit you quite as much as when a lot of people call you up and are obviously really broken up because you've died.

57 IF

Today would have been Bill's 57th birthday.

My sister Suzie, her husband John and my nephew Joe were down here in Delray during New Year's week and I was telling Joe how interesting it would have been to see Bill at 57. More so at 65.

But, of course, that will never be.

So, here on my brother's birthday, I wish all of you - his friends that have taken a moment of two to remember him and those of you who have forgotten him - a happy healthy New Year. May the memory of a moment you spent with my brother make you smile. If so, I hope you take the time to share it with all those who visit this blog.

Happy Birthday, Bill! Cheers!