Stomposition was the Bully’s debut album, released in 1998. As a New York City band with Rockaway roots, Marky Ramone thought we should meet. They were gentlemen, smart, polite, hardworking and they held their ground. Like me, the Bullys were baby-faced and ready to kill, so we got along.
On 9/11, when the twin towers fell Johnny Bully, guitarist and founder, stood in full stompostion for FDNY, for NYC, for America. He held strong until the towers collapsed and took him out. When it was confirmed the he perished that day, I published FF John Heffernan’s obituary in the Village Voice where I had once listed the Bully’s shows at Continental and CBGB. The obit remains posted on my website in the Shrine section along with memorial essays to other cultural heroes—Johnny Thunders, Johnny Cash, The Ramones.
But it was in the Bullys 1999 album release, Tonight We Fight Again, that I found my own personal anthem, the title track that underscores a recalcitrant spirit with a need to kick the crap out of any person, place or thing that hurts, me, my family, friends, community, my people, my world. A triple Aries, with Pluto Rising trine Mars, trained to fight back by a warrior woman mom, a combat veteran dad, a Rockaway childhood and an understanding of the brutalities of history, I never had choice.
Like any two-fisted NY woman of letters now living a serene, and sober life odaat, I’m about one drink away from pure mayhem. Even now, living prayerfully meditating, practicing Reiki, I still can’t back down. I was born fighting back, kicking out against injustice, cruelty, fear, shame and grief. Against childhood bullys who made me hate the world, myself, and life. Never forgive, never forget, but still I’m trying, one day at a time.
So here’s how it went down. I’m a surfy senior citizen walking down the boardwalk in my City by the Sea, the Rockaway-adjacent barrier island of Long Beach. It’s crowded so I’m staying in my lane mindful of others, walking West towards Rockaway when some guy—my age, maybe younger walks towards me, strident, determined, he won’t yield right of way to me, won’t even compromise, not as a lady or an elder. I figure if he can’t respect me as a woman, I’ll have to discipline him as a man. So I keep on walking, I will not give, I walk right into him. He’s assuming I’ll defer to him, move to the side, he’s expecting me to back down, to submit, maybe even smile. After all that’s what girls do, but I won’t. No more nice girls, in re Dobbs.
I give him my best left shoulder slam, perfected after years of body surfing in volitile ocean waters and before that, the mosh pit. He curses at me, Yells at me for doing exactly what he was doing, so I flip him the bird Italian style, (hard fist to forearm) then tell him to…and I keep walking, humming the Bullys Rockaway anthem, tonight we fight again. The music propels me, gives me strength and courage, like I’ve got the Bullys in my soul. On the way back I run into my friends, childhood buddy Tank Gallagher and his wife Janet. I recount the fight blow by blow, because that’s culture, Rockaway style.
These days of rage keep pressing on me, everyone is angry, tired to being pushed around, sick of placating bullys who want to degrade and treat others like dirt. 99% of the time I’ll do my best to just walk away, let it go hoping to protect my serenity, sobriety and my life. But sometimes, you gotta hold your stomposition. As a new election cycle kicks in, and the fear, confusion and displacement of rage kicks hard against the psyche, and people struggle for dignity, liberty, rights and reason, remember the Bullys’ battle cry. Remember who you are, know your rights, cherish them, stand up for yourself and the people you love. Don’t stop, don’t back down. That’s the engine of history. It promises to be another long hard season, so tonight we fight again.
Donna Gaines, 11/15/22
"Writing
about fighting is the textbook definition of Mars in Gemini" -Monte
Farber, Astrologer.
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