Ultra...

Here is one of my very early influences. I cant remember how old I was when I read this book but I was early to mid teens and it came out in 1988 when I was 13 so somewhere around then...

I never felt like I fitted in with the present so maybe that's why I became obsessed with the past? I cant remember what attracted me to Andy Warhol's art but it was probably the Marilyn connection because she was one of my first obsessions!

Anyways, Ultra Violet, who was really on the fringes of the factory scene but has managed to still make a career out of her limited involvement, became one of my first real influences when it came to fashion, attitude, and what life really could be like outside of a small town. Reality never lives up to anything that you think, But its nice to believe there might be more out there!

She wore nothing but purple (which was always my favourite colour), actually there is one image that always stuck with me, of her using beetroot to get the right colour lipstick, pulling it out of her bag and cutting a piece off for a touch up whereever she was! And even though she was part of that scene, didn't let it swallow her like it did so many others. So this is Ultra then...

And this is Ultra now...

Looking and thinking about this post has brought back memories of an Ex-friend, O. We had been friends in primary school and re-connected when we were 16. Again, one of the first times I felt I found somewhere I fitted in (I seem to be going though a lot of that lately!). She was interested in art, and 60's music too. She introduced me to the Velvet Underground and Old Movies and the Camperwell Market. But it wasn't to last... she dumped me, in the heartless ways that teenagers dump each other. She wrote me a letter. This long drawn out thing that I wish now I had kept because I'd love to read the melodrama in it! It was all so weird. It was like breaking up with someone who I was never romantically involved though we were closer than any boy/girl style relationship when your 16/17 so it really did hurt a lot more. I think I was just bewildered by the whole thing.

I've had a couple of other similar situations since, where a very close friendship has soured and it always hurts worse than a romantic break up because you expect that of the romantic relationship, not of friendship. But at least those times it had all been brewing and simmering for a while and to be honest it really was a relief. But O was just weird... It came out of the blue and I think it was one of the first times I really had my heart broken.

She did try to come see me again a while later, I think to try to explain but I gave her such the brush off I wouldn't have a clue what we actually talked about. I've always had a mean streak that lasts long after a relationship has ended!!!