#chris parker
give her a break!
CBGBtales:Klaus Nomi, Jim Jarmusch (photo no.1) & Christopher Parker (photos no. 1 & 2) photographed by GodlisoutsideCBGBin1978.
Back then Chris Parker, dubbed the “Kid With The Replaceable Head” in a song of the same title by Richard Hell, was an obscure teenager regularly hanging out at CBGB’s with the special talent of being the cool kid that connected/introduced everybody to everybody without ever needing to become famous himself. He was also a pal of Jarmusch, still a film school student at the time.
WhenJarmusch began making his debut movie, “Permanent Vacation”, as his thesis film at New York University Graduate Film School, he chose Chris Parker as his protagonist to play the part of a teenage drifter who doesn’t really have any ambitions and avoids responsibilities, doesn’t live anywhere specifically, doesn’t go to school or work, just wanders the streets of late-70’s New York in search of the meaning of life, a character based on Chris Parker’s real lifestyle, since he actually lived that way, just slacking off from one acquaintance’s couch to another.
…And maybe he did find the meaning of life after all: I read a Godlis interview where he recalls getting a call from Charlie Parker some years ago and got word that he had travelled all the way toThailand to find Maureen Nelly, who had been a bartender at CBGB’s 40 years ago, and they got married!
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