i have a bit more to say for now and then i’m gonna let it go… this shit will never go away, BLONDIE has had so many ups and downs its just another in a long list of… i’m not sure what i got one or two messages from irate supposed fans… one goofy letter: “i’m a fan but cause you didnt let these guys play and debbie was so mean to them i’m not a fan any more and all my friends are never going to buy your records bla bla etc” i had two reactions; my first feeling was of course that this person really isnt a fan they just found a good opportunity to take a pot shot… reading stuff that i get from the masses opens me up to all manner of dumb abuse, and as i’ve mentioned in the past, i may get a hundred messages of praise and still react to the one negative thing in spite of how stupid it is… but then i realised today that a lot of people are JUST READING reports of what went down at the award ceremony and that makes a huge difference to their perception… beyond that some of these reports are taken second hand from other reports… so i can see that someone reading that the poor guy asked to play and debbie callously (a lot of editorializing goes into these things) told them ‘she already had a band’ might be taken at surface… just watch the damn show… if those guys really had wanted to play with us the first thing they might have done was to call one of us and ask… of course this never happened… do you know what did happen? a person from our managment pulled me aside and said: “you’re not gonna believe this…” “what?” i said “…the old guys from the band?” “yeah…” “they called and said that they have a girl singer and a lawyer and they want to play blondie songs…” “yeah so? thats weird but fine with me.” i said “WAIT WAIT! they called the hall of fame and said they wanted to do it on the show… the people from the show went ballistic!” so this conversation really took place… i dont know if any of it is true or not or much care… but i really mean it that if one of them had tried to speak to me in person… well i dont know what i would have thought even then but i certainly wouldnt have been mean to them or told them to piss off… debbie said the same thing… any of you who are pissing and whining about us playing without nigel gary or frank, just get this through your heads: none of them ever asked any of us if they could play with us at the event! that would have had to have happened as a first step… none of us was going to call any of them and ask them to do it i will say that… playing music is a very personal thing, any of you who have been through a divorce know the kind of intense shit that goes on… frank wasnt in the band for the last year of blondie before we broke up back then, we did two albums and had number one hits all over the world before frank or nigel joined bla bla bla… our real fans know the deal… i dont know what the hell else i can say… no matter how much any of us go over how we feel about the whole thing or what we think the ‘real story’ is somebody will disagree so ultimately my advice is to find something better to worry about maybe like events in the real world that have a more direct impact on our survival… feuds in the entertainment industry are just that: entertainment no Ric is not singing with the ‘new cars’ its Rundgren… do you think they’ll have that new car smell? and thank you so much doctor Laura, at least one person gets it… oh yeah in the middle of all this “Dreaming” and Bill Burroughs on the Sopranos!!!