We jumped turn styles, drank $.99 Arizona iced tea tallboys and slept in the destitute McCibons lofts. This was six months before CBGS’s lost it’s lease and stories about its closing were making fount page print in the New York Times. For me, there was nothing more important to see. America is an ignorant teenager in many ways, our leaders are actors, our actors are our leaders. All but few of our landmarks are more than some pop culture nexus. In Hollywood one goes to Man’s Chinese Theater and puts there hands in the bacteria bath handprints of the stars. In Nashville you go to the Grand Old Opry and buy a cowboy hat and an engraved flask.
In Vegas you get married and buy a shot glass. Even our historical land marks are more notable for the celebrity events that took place there; the Alamo was where Ozzy was arrested for urinating in public, Bourbon Street is where they shoot Girls Gone Wild. 
Taping into my hardcore sensibilities, I walked across half of the city refusing to pay for the subway. This was essentially a pilgrimage my teenage Mecca. Growing up, I watched the Filth and the Furry a few times a month, my room was wallpapered with a hand made Ramones collage, and although I listened primarily to contemporary hard-core I knew that the music I loved and wanted to play would never have come about without this edifice to defiance.
New York is mean; the only kind of place where a club like C.B.G.B.’s could survive. In all honesty, and I was a coy tourist, asking strangers for directions and getting lost in a big scary city.
I have done this other places and I’m ok with looking out of place in foreign countries, fumbling with unfamiliar syllables, usually resorting to the international sign language of point and nod. I have had unreasonable expectations of the beauty that I had traveled to see and been disappointed by the pile of rocks that was supposed to hold some profound spiritual significance.
In the end the culture of the new people I am encountering has so much more intrinsic worth than the picture taken of me in front of said pile of rocks, therefore the trip is worth it.
But this is New York, and New York is mean, and I had in fact traveled to see something that was the antithesis of beautiful.
As I turned the last corner my hands were clenched balls of anticipation. I was wearing my ugliest, most apathetic scowl prepared to encounter an army of syringe thin, spike studded crust punks talking about class war in an apathetic yet relevant way. I expected to see a loaded marquee and a road worn band loading in. I expected to smell piss, aggression, body odor and beer. I broke the cardinal rule of punk rock tourism; I expected what I had seen in the pictures.
Instead I was assaulted by consumerism; anarchy symbols turned dollar signs. From a block off every boutique and storefront was selling nock off chunks of punk rock memorabilia, CBGB’s coffee mugs, and New York Dolls shot glasses. Of course there is much to be said about the all out lack of sincerity in punk rock (that was the point rite?), but this was just kind of pretty, well organized and pleasant.
There was nothing on the marquee and the club was closed. However, the CBGB’s art gallery/coffee shop/gift store next door was open and it appeared to have a long list of “CBGB’s like” events in the coming week including book signings, wine tasting and poetry readings.
This was diet punk, the walls of the place looked like a low-budget Hard Rock Café. I didn’t buy a tee shirt or take a picture of me standing in front of a smashed guitar.
In order to motivate myself to finish the tour and to keep up the steal toe lifestyle I had entertained since I was a teenager I needed to remember this landmark as what it should have been, and not what it was. That is part of the beauty of America, our history my not be accurate, but since most of it was written by the same sweaty palms that built the entertainment industry (a business of putting a price on creativity) it certainly is cinematic enough to enjoy with some popcorn and ignorance.
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