You won't put this book down.
approaches. She decided to use the Gogo Germaine byline in order to not conflate her career and life as a mom with the PBR-swilling, headbanging, rebellious grrrl with punk-rock proclivities and two middle fingers thrust at societal expectations.
Glory Guitars in October of 2018. I just remember being so burdened with responsibility. I was a new mom, and I had to work a lot just to survive in this society, especially as a creative, so I had, like, eight jobs," Barnes recalls."It was an escapist thing to think about: The idea of running through a field, ditching class as a teenager with very little responsibility, was just so magnetic to me."The Music District in Fort Collins , where she met with her old crew to see what they remembered of their debauched antics."I hung out with all of the girls that are in the girl gang," she says."I hung out with, like, my first boyfriend, Johnny Gutpunch. I would just reminisce with them, ask them about their memories and talk to them about my memories. If they just totally didn't remember it, I wouldn't put it in the book. "Most people don't know what it feels like to rob a bank because their morals stop them from doing that," she continues."But as a teenager, you can kind of explore the boundaries of creating situations that are almost movie-like. When we ditched school, it felt like a movie, and it felt like we were getting away with something big, like we were robbing a bank." The stifling atmosphere of Fort Collins was the impetus for her girl gang's plucky, defiant nature. In a chapter about skipping class, Barnes writes:"Your 15-year-old self might say you don't need to explain what's cool about ditching class, playing the drums, or subsisting on a diet of coffee, cigarettes, malt liquor, Lester Bangs, and smashy guitars. It's a natural predilection. The only reason people assume it's indicative of emotional trauma is because you're expected to like pink and cheerleading. The truth is that some people are happiest wearing black and listening to fucked-up music, and you're one of those people. It doesn't necessarily indicate a deeper emotional trauma, it's simply the tendency to dig deeper and burn harder."And she burned hard. Barnes and her skater-girl gang did their best to escape the boredom that thrives in suburban sprawls."By age fifteen, we had discovered an intricate infrastructure of debauchery across Fort Collins," she writes."Our entire network of punks and degenerates knew its secrets. We knew which liquor stores sold to minors: the cramped chunk of cement on Riverside Drive with a view of the train tracks; the more wholesome, suburban wine shop where parents might shop, yet they surprisingly didn’t ID. We knew which cafes would let underage people smoke inside: Max’s Subsonic — an old house turned café with rooms to get lost in that threw actual parties for underage kids — plus late nights at IHOP, and within the dingy, red-painted walls of Paris on the Poudre, the goth cafe. While I’m glad for the health of today’s youth, I almost feel bad they won’t ever experience the dirtbag tang of indoor smoking." Barnes has grown up a lot, of course, and has insights into her teen rebellion."Some people just have to be subversive in life," she says. But some things remain the same: While she appreciates Fort Collins more as an adult, she says,"that sort of American neighborhood has always felt hostile to me. You know if you don't have your lawn perfect and there's HOA? Yeah. I hate all that." Barnes has synesthesia — a phenomenon in which people associate certain senses with others, such as seeing colors upon reading words or hearing music. That's reflected in the soundtrack she suggests at each chapter break to supplement the events she's describing. She's lyrical and imaginative, homing in on intricate details and making them blossom like flowers — even when the topic is her best friend's illuminated breasts while she's stripping on a pole at a local club. Her style brings a delicacy to torrid darkness, from rape to blowing cocaine in junior high, to her friend being unwittingly dosed with 100 hits of LSD while sleeping. Those situations were the most difficult to write about."I realized that I was editing out the hard parts; it was just this really fun party book," she says."So I was kind of forced to reckon with, 'Okay, there were really dark things that happened.' One of the reviews that came out...compared it to. And when I wrote it, I didn't mean to at the time, but I was like, 'Yeah, this reminds me ofAs for whether Barnes still considers herself a punk, she pauses."I believe that punk is an ethos," she says."I'm into the ethos of punk — I'm not into wearing a punk uniform or those people in the scene who make it exclusive, with the 'Name three songs' question, where you have to know everything about these exact bands or you're not punk. That's just more gatekeeping; I don't like that. I just believe that punk is an ethos of being countercultural and being authentic, of challenging arbitrary authority. And so in that regard, yes, I definitely feel punk." Barnes will be returning to Denver from her book launch in New York for a book reading and signing at 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 11, at the
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