See How We Are: Extended Play

Rebel Girl's summer travels find her much closer to home than her comrade B. von Traven. But she still has her adventures. Yesterday's perambulations, for example, found her at the Lutheran Thrift Shop in Orange.

Rebel Girl likes the Lutheran Thrift Shop for many reasons especially their unparalleled collection of boy's clothing, all in pristine condition, even the pants because, of course, those Lutheran boys are so well-behaved they don't even wear out the knees of their Levis so Rebel Girl's little atheist can have that particular pleasure for a couple bucks a pair.


Yesterday, at the check-out counter, where two, sometimes three Lutheran ladies often do the tasks that could easily be done by one, thus extending the check-out time exponentially, Rebel Girl admired the stash of the woman in front of her.


It was spectacular. A collection of old parochial school bulletin board pin-ups. Cardboard Biblical characters. Jesus in his robes, various bearded men, little lambs, shepards with their crooks. Faded construction paper silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington. A giant ziploc baggie of all the lost plastic playing pieces from all the old board games in the world: Stratego. Sorry. Battleship. Monopoly. Life.


Who would buy this eclectic hodgepodge? Other than, of course, Rebel Girl, who examined the jumble with some envy and wistfulness. Rebel Girl glanced up and saw that the buyer defied the usual clientele of the Lutheran Thrift Shop which runs to Lutherans, Latino women with children in strollers and disaffected high school students looking for clothing in which to cloak their anxieties.

Then she recognized her.

Exene Cervenka, lead singer of the LA punk band X. Could Rebel Girl count the number of times she'd seen X in concert in clubs, concert halls, demonstrations, festivals? No, she couldn't. Could Rebel Girl sing along, track-for-track to all of the X albums? Yes she could. In that moment of recognition, she resisted that impulse.

She said instead: "Excuse me, I think I've seen you before."

Exene smiled and said, "Do you come to this thrift store often?"

Rebel Girl said, "Yes, but that's not what I mean."

Rebel Girl tried not to gush too much but thought she should say something to this woman whose music has meant so much to her. So she did. Something like: Thanks for the music. It meant and means so much to me. She may have even said, it saved my life, metaphorically, of course.

Yikes.

Exene is older now, like Rebel Girl. They are two middle-aged women counting out their change and handing it over. Exene is in her mid-50s and was recently diagnosed with MS. But she still rocks and she goes to thrift stores and finds what she finds and, Rebel Girl imagines, makes her art of it all.


Before she left, Exene told Rebel Girl, "I'm playing this Saturday."

"I don't get out much," Rebel Girl said and by way of explanation, "I got a kid now, but yeah."

Rebel Girl wanted to say more, so much more, but she didn't. No need to tell Exene who she was and what she meant. She knew. Rebel Girl saved it for the ladies behind the counter and after Exene exited the store, she said, "Do you know who that was?" and launched into an adrenaline-fueled account of Exene's life and career which was lost, alas, on the trio of service-oriented Lutherans behind the counter.

See how we are indeed.



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From today's OC Register: Exene tells it straight on X, illness and O.C.

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