Kitty Kultists

My girlfriend Amy and I are still unpacking boxes from our September move into a new house. We packed a lot of junk, of course, that we are having second thoughts about holding onto in our new, smaller digs. But there are also some legitimate treasures buried in all those Home Depot and Extra Space Storage boxes. Like Amy's 1984 diary/journal in which she saved a City Paper clipping that mentioned her and her former husband, the late musical legend Mark Harp (1957-2004), as "Kitty kultists" talking about their Hello Kitty collections.

Amy was very excited to find this clipping, pasted in between her exemplary cursive handwritting (a beautiful thing to observe, if you're a Cursive Cultist!).

Amy is vaclempt after finding her name published in the "City Paper."

"Wow," I said, scratching my head. "That sounds like something I would have written up back in my days at the City Paper. I remember I did a story on Hello Kitty back in the '80s."

Amy pulled out her journal, and lo and behold, it was written by me! I recall I went down to the big East Coast Sanrio outlet in Tysons Corner, Va., to research the story and I have a vague memory of  visiting Mark and Amy's Charles Village apartment at some point (it may have been during a party) and being impressed by their Sanrio collection. Amy doesn't remember that, but then again this was almost 30 years ago and we are now AARP members with sometimes faulty memories. (Like, we've been together eight years, but we only vaguely knew each other back in the day as acquaintances because we were part of the same Punk-New Wave social scene that frequented clubs like the Marble Bar and Galaxy Ballroom. Then we didn't see each other for decades until we ran into each other at a musical tribute-wake for Mark Harp in January 2005.)

It may seem trite today to see a story about the Hello Kitty phenomenon - after all Sanrio products are seemingly available everywhere one looks and for every imaginable use (from stickers and pens to TVs and even vibrators) -  but the first Sanrio shop in America didn't open until 1976 (and that was in San Francisco), so Kitty curios were still a relatively new thing in 1984.

The full article, called "Hello, Good Buy: Pet Peeves," appears below. (Naturally there were factual errors, which fact-checking proofreader extraordinaire Amy clarifed in her cursive script comments; to wit, she was asked how old her kids were at a Highlandtown store selling Hello Kitty items, not in Tysons Corner. Geeze, everyone's a critic! Did I mention I was a hack writer, Ames?)

What Is and What Should Never Be

On June 19, 1987, Baltimore's City Paper celebrated its 10th anniversary of publishing with a giant special issue called "10 Years in Baltimore." One of the outstanding features, previously never archived on the Internet, was Michael Yockel's history of Baltimore's music club scene. It's a great reminder of "What Is and What Should Never Be." Along with John Strausbaugh, Yoke was one of CP's greatest writers ever. Fans can still enjoy his prose at the online site, Baltimore Fishbowl (www.baltimorefishbowl.com).

Following is the full scanned-in article; click on each page to enlarge it, then use the magnifying tool as needed to magnify the text to your taste.

The New "Harry" (May 1991)

20 Years Later: Same Town, Same Needs


Volume 1, Issue 1, May 1991

Going through the bottomless piles of papers, magazines, and assorted rubbish/detritus in the firetrap I like to call Tom's Toxic Townhouse (see picture below)...


Tom's Toxic Townhouse

...I ran across the May 1991 premiere issue of the "new" Harry. Harry was Baltimore's "underground paper" of record from 1969-1972 that was rebooted by Tom D'Antoni in 1991, probably because he didn't feel Baltimore's putative alternative press (i.e., the City Paper) was up to snuff.

As he wrote in the masthead of this debut new Harry, "This newspaper exists because a lot of people want it to...This is the first issue. It's a start. It's the first attempt at realizing the ideals set on the page before this one..." (see below):



It's Time: The "Harry" Mission Statement

Along for Harry's brief reemergence on the scene were writers like Tom Nugent, Skeeter Snyder, and future Creative Alliance honcho Megan Hamilton; poets Tom DiVenti, David Franks, and Sandie Castle, and illustrator George Wilcox (artist brother of musician David "Steptoe T. Magnificent" Wilcox). These names, and countless more, appear in the May 1991 Harry masthead, as shown below:


"Harry" Masthead

Harry's editorial tone is typically combative and confrontational, with D'Antoni getting right to it on the first page, reprinting his January 17, 1991 letter to the City Paper - "We don't need you...We're sick of you. There were a lot of people who went to jail (I'm one of them) for the freedom you squander every week. Go somewhere else and play it safe. This town is in big trouble. You treat it like you're making a John Waters movie. This town has a lot of great talents. You haven't found them. This town has thousands of great stories waiting to be told. You missed them. This town cries for a paper that speaks by and for the people who live here. You act like your bags are packed and you're waiting for the phone call from something better" - right next to former City Paper founder-editor Russ Smith's reply, Both pieces are shown below:


D'Antoni and Russ Smith square off!

Below Smith's letter, D'Antoni adds: "When the City Paper published this letter, the neglected to inform their readers that it was written by their founder, and former publisher, who sold the paper to a company from Scranton, Pennsylvania and skipped town the next day. He currently publishes a similarly mean-spirited paper in New York City."

Here's poet-musician Tom DiVenti's article "Confessions of a Freak":


Tom DiVenti: "Confessions of a Freak"

The paper notes that DiVenti sold copies of Harry when he was a 13-year-old back in the '70s!

For film fanatics, here's Keith Tishkin's review of the East Coast Independent Film Festival, curated by George Figgs and screened at his old Orpheum Cinema theater in Fells Point:


George Figgs' "East Coast Independent Film Festival" at The Orpheum Cinema

From May 6 to May 12, Figgs screened new local works by Dan Bailey, Alan Price, Phil Davis, Steve Estes, Rebecca Barton, and tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, as well as older local films by Steve Weiss, Chris Mosner, Peter Walsh, Jill Johnson. A third program screened the "funky, futuristic" films of New York director Alyce Wittenstein. Many of these local films are only available as 16mm prints at the Enoch Pratt Central Library. Tishkin's review gave a lot of ink to Chris Mosner's award-winning Towson State University student film project, Home Movie (1990). Home Movie is a 45-minute documentary about Mosner's drug-addicted brother and the effect his self-destructive 20-year habit has had on his Lutherville family. It screened at the 1990 Baltimore Film Forum (honoring winners of the Baltimore Independent Film/Video Makers Competition) and I recall Skizz Cyzyk screened it in 1995 as part of his Mansion Theatre Film & Video Screening series. (Home Movie is available in both video and 16mm formats from the Enoch Pratt Central Library.)

The new May 1991 Harry included an eight-page insert called "Old Harry" which reprinted some of the best pieces and comics from vintage issues past. I like the photo of the 1971 Harry staffers:



"Old Harry" insert section

The 1971 Harry staff depicted in the photo are (left to right): Unknown neighborhood kid, Christianne Cottrell, Glen Ehasz, Alan Rose, Thomas V. D'Antoni, Michael Klahr, Anita Monique (Dolores Deluxe), Patrick Jake O'Rourke, and Emily Jenkins. "Dolores Deluxe" is, of course, the designer wife of John Waters artist/production set-designer Vince Peranio.

OK, back to digging through my trash, er, archives!

Baltimore Babylon

The Terrors of Tinytown: Sex, Sleaze, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, and Other Nefarious and Notorious Goings-On


(Baltimore City Paper, December 2, 1992)

As part of my Spring Cleaning this weekend, I ran across this old article I worked on with fellow Baltimore City Paper scribes Tom Chalkley (who also drew the pictures), David Dudley, Mike Guiliano, Brennen Jensen, and Michael Yockel. I'm posting it here because I don't think the City Paper ever uploaded it to their online archives. Which is too bad, because I love scandals and it's one of the best run-downs of Baltimore's Hall of Shame. So take a gander at our Rogue's Gallery of Charm City Charmers like Spiro T. Agnew, Wally Orlinksy, Clarence Mitchell III, William Zantzinger, Joan "Dragon Lady" Bereska, Alice Pinderhughes, Jeffrey and Karol Levitt, B104 DJ Willie B, Patterson Park investigative journalist Marty Bass, B'more political oddity Monroe "That's a bunch of junk!" Cornish, and child-molesting serial killer Arthur Goode. You'll have to click on the images to enlarge them (sorry, I'm not very good with scanning stuff in!).


Baltimore Babylon left cover


Baltimore Babylon right cover


Baltimore Babylon page 1


Baltimore Babylon page 2


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