then end up despising you because you won’t introduce them. Then you get the, “Well if you’re
this famous big shot, what are you doing here?” No one buys the fact that you’re internationally
known, you’re purposely laying low in a safe house while writing some ludicrously epic book,
and intentionally working at a crap pizza joint because you don’t want any responsibility. You try
to use the “Kevin Spacey at the hamburger joint in American Beauty” comparison, but no one has
any knowledge of cinema.
They will never believe you don’t want any scenesters to know you’re in town because
you have to worry about spurning press-hopeful bands when you don’t do something for them.
And they never, ever believe you have to cope with kids that break into cold-sweats when they
shake your hand. They don’t believe that the last 5 girls you’ve dated have all been models or
showgirls, or that you don’t want everyone to read your books, and they certainly don’t believe
for a second that you don’t want anyone to know what you look like, because everyone wants to
be famous.
To make music because it’s what’s inside of you and not to pick up chicks or be famous
is laughable to them. To try and discuss music in general is pointless, because everything I listen
to is ultra-obscure and generally imported from Europe or South America. “You listen to
European metal? You’re a closet Nazi no matter what you say ‘cause you like weird music from
Germany and wear army boots and have blonde hair.” And the usual, “Rock stars are rich, you
don’t have any money, therefore you’re just a hater ‘cause your band must suck since you’re not
on MTV or corporate radio.”
It all goes around in one big, never-ending circle jerk. The conception of art and social
revolution remains miles above their heads. They never have a grip on what the underground is
really like, and you can’t explain the fanaticism that resides in punk rock or heavy metal…
In any instance I’m driven out of the job by unsolicited pressure, weird looks, or axed for
my extremist views. The only saving grace is their usual gross ignorance. They pigeonhole all
weirdoes into one vague classification that appears harmless and unappealing, like your some un-
hip, chess team, honky, pop punk nerd…
THE OSCARS
It felt the way it would if you’d watched it at home -- kind of ignoring the screen but feeling like
you should actually care or pay attention, but you’re too busy fidgeting around with things far
more important at hand, like vacuuming the carpet or feeding the cat.
I hadn’t expected such a ‘blah’ scenario – half awake from Sparks and Flexural, stranded
in Hollywood from a blown transmission. We left the auto carcass on Bronson Avenue, cold as a
dinosaur, too enamored in our plans of chaos to give a second thought towards its fate.
82
It had been our plan to sneak in the Chinese Theater fronting as highly-regarded press
people or caterers, but we’d had no convincing uniforms or documents. One plan was to plant
laxatives in the fruit punch, wriggle in glee at the intestinal crunch of Will Smith. Another was to
cut microphone chords or sabotage anything in sight, really. Skinner & I were gunning for the end
scene of Brain Donors, but the closest we got was the fence across the street, our view blocked by
Italian paparazzi aggressively hunkering their positions in a siege of white, flashing light.
The streets were cordoned off in the fashion of a presidential motorcar train wreck --
bulletproof limousines with tinted windows sluggishly cruised the streets, iron-hard SUV’s and
Hummers. Thousands of star-struck LA people dressed as strippers & lime-light fanatics -- oodles
fro-hawks, canyons of yuppies. You expect Gomorrah glitz and Sodom glam, yet all you get is
some light drizzle rain.
We play the “Where’s Waldo B-List Actor” game, scouting the crowd for identifiable
hacks who couldn’t make it in and hang around like stooges trying to up their fame esteem.
Skinner thinks he spots Andy Dick, I possibly spy Jeremy Piven… Then I spot one, a perfect
example of almost-but-not-quite celebrity. He weaves through a string of stripper-like bimbos,
onwards towards some non-Oscar destination, brow shrugged and intense. “I did it! I found one!
Fucking Delroy Lindo!”
Skinner looks oblivious, the beautiful girl just as lost: “Who the fuck is Delroy Lindo?”
“Well, um, you see ‘Congo?’ That one about the killer gorillas, you know, where Bruce
Campbell gets mauled? The black dude, that militant rebel leader guy. The one that freaks out
and shouts ‘STOP EATING MY SESAME CAKE’ at Bill Paxton. Dude, it’s like the greatest line
ever.” Nope, nada -- totally lost, and my big score is a dud.
Then the day livens up brilliantly. There is a man standing on a metal crate, an eisegetical
freak screaming lines from the New Testament. He’s informing the scourges that he will supply
$10 to take a “Good Person Test,” a sort of Evangelical S.A.T. score. I immediately fly off the
handle, roaring louder in my demagoguery, attempting to outdo his far-from-modest mouth
foaming: “CASH IS THE ENEMY OF ALL CHRISTENDOM!!! JESUS IS THE SOLUTION
TO CAPITALIST IMPERIUM!!! ALL HAIL THE LONGHAIRED PINKO ANARCHIST!!!”
The cockalorum preacher is massively startled, trying to roar over me: “Christ is the way
of salvation…” “ONLY 144,000 WILL BE SAVED AT THE TIME OF THE RAPTURE, ALL
OF THEM MALE VIRGINS!!! EVERYONE WITH VAGINA SHALL BURN!!!”“…the path to
righteousness is…” “GOD SENT TWO BEARS TO KILL 42 CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY
MOCKED A PROPHETS BALDNESS!!!” “…Lucifer and all his lies…” “THE EARTH IS
FLAT & DINOSAUR BONES WERE PUT HERE BY SATAN TO FOOL US!!!” “…the cure of
the world’s ill…” “ALL HOMOS SHALL BE TURNED TO PILLARS OF SALT!!! BLESS
THE GENOCIDE OF THE QUEENS!!!” Et cetera ad infinitum times 10 with a dash of red
pepper & granulated onion…
The illitate crowd parted about us like the Red Sea. The cops were belly-laughing, and
even Mr. Skinner was shocked. I saluted the concrete monk, left grizzled on his podium, and we
pounced towards the charred-flesh line of Burger King.
Munching economical value, the preacher guy slips in, spots me, ducks his head, and flies
into the bathroom. As I’m dipping a fry into a plop of ketchup, he creeps back up: “Hi… My
name is Steve.” I lift up my head and look coldly into his eyes: “I DON’T SUPPORT FASCISM.”
He extends his hand, as gentile as he can arrange, and quietly exclaims: “Either do I.”
After years of wet-dreaming such a scenario, I finally have this symbolic archetype in a
corner. Just sit chumpy down and calmly unravel his view of reality… Yet as I stare at his
trembling hand that won’t retract its quivering position, no real blast of blasphemic fires summon
within. I just sigh, clasp it up and down, and he nods with a fearful respect.
Entheomaniac Steve somberly turns and walks out the door. Mr. Skinner and the
beautiful girl sit dead quiet as I mechanically eat my fries. Nothing is spoken for the rest of the
meal… Well, I’ve had plenty of other relationships that ended on weirder terms…
83
CHUCK THE HOMEY
As a sort of crust punk squat meets James Joyce Dublin flophouse, here at The Villa Winona we
face a choppy stream of irregular visitors. One such frequenter is named “Chuck The Homey.”
From the outside he appears a mere street wino. Well he is, and he can often be seen pushing a
shopping cart full of empty cans. At night he crashes behind the couch in a pile of black garbage
bags filled with clothes. He’s in his mid-50’s, has this foofy red unkempt fro, and collects trinkets
for the toy shrine in the kitchen.
Chuck The Homey has been shit out by the world. He lost everything when his wife died
and Bush cut all his ‘Nam benefits. Ever since he’s lived in the cumberworld fringe and hydrated
himself solely with Steel Reserve tall cans. Agent Orange fucks with him bad, and he’s quietly on
his way out. He is an oldschool hippie that’s explored every inch of California mingling with
surfers and acid-fiends, but the weirdest tales he spews regards the aliens.
Indeed, a former Area 51 officer is on deck. Aliens, he claims, are definitely real. He
hasn’t seen anything like in Independence Day where they are in eight-foot tubes of viscous fluid,
but he’s had strange run-ins. When stationed in Germany he was doing his rounds as an airbase
MP and saw three glowing orbs hovering over the hidden missile site. He radioed his superior
freaking out for an explanation, but nothing was on radar. They simply flew off into the night sky
silently at an unscientific rate of speed. When he confronted higher rank, they just told him to
remain quiet – “we have no answer.”
The other two sightings were at Area 51 itself. He saw a craft in a hangar that was
literally floating. When the lab coats saw his eyes bugging out they slid closed the doors with a
little “shhhh…” finger to the lips...
The other occasion was viewing six men in black – not the typical Tommy Lee
Jones/Will Smith look – but in these stark black paramilitary suits escorting a three foot tall
mystery man with four fingers. He was inside a jet-black gas-masked rubber suit like Darth
Vadar…
Although officially it never happened, they were headed to Level #30 of the 34
underground floors. No one knows what goes on down there because it’s Top Secret below #6.
The base itself stretches for miles beneath the New Mexico desert, and the government has
created a full-scale subterranean city…
THE BASS PLAYER FROM RATT SLEEPS ON MY COUCH
Chuck isn’t the only transient force at the Villa. Another in his early 40’s stutters a lot and cooks
us BBQ as a form of couch-surfing rent. He’s got a graying black goatee and a childlike
exuberance, particularly when WWE Smackdown is on. He has the Nike look and the intense
street handshake with the side-snap. He’s around once every 3 weeks for a few days at a time, but
I’d never bothered actually talking to him until yesterday. ‘So who the fuck are you? What do you
do? I mean, what’s your thing?’
His reply: ‘Oh, I was the bassist in RATT.’ Imagine the slack jawed mind-fuck for me at
this very moment: “I grew up in the San Diego area. In ’79 I met everybody from RATT. We
started playing while we were in high school. Back then we were still in grade school and high
school so it wasn’t all that crazy, except that I learned how to smoke pot with loose-leaf paper, ha
ha. My friend’s dad was an artist and he lived right on the canyon. Where we’re at right now, it’s
about six blocks up. It was a canyon, so we didn’t have to worry about noise calls to the police.
We jammed all the time.”
“We did house parties, school dances until the beginning of Junior year. We did have
some covers, but we had a variety of songs. ‘Round And Round,’ all that. We’re talking
oldschool. About ‘82 we started playing for all the high school parties. By July I left them, a new
bass player came in, he was stung out on drugs, and they all went with it… I stepped out. I knew
something was gonna happen. Sure enough, in ’88, at The Red Onion down on Pacific Beach,
they had a girl and raped her in the bathroom.”
84
“Is that public knowledge?”
Matt James or Mark King (We’re Not Sure): “All over the papers dawg, all over the
papers. They even asked me questions about that too. As soon as I heard that I dropped my bass. I
never picked that up again for about 13 years.”
“Got any weird celebrity stories?”
“I used to surf with Jeremy, the lead singer from Incubus. He’s beautiful man, he’s so
much fun. Him and the bass player, the big red-headed dude. Ever since Incubus has been like my
favorite band. I used to go to some of his local shows at bars here. A lot of beer, it was always
straight.”
“Where did the name RATT come from?”
“That came from the first gig we did. We were in the garage. There were a bunch of
mice, and Storm asked ‘what do you think of MOUSE?’ I go ‘how ‘bout RATT.’ I was thinking
RATTE. You know what, drop the E, let’s just go with RATT. He’s like ‘yeah, let’s do that.’”
“What do you think of the recent stuff they did when the reformed?”
“They put out one album. It was not… They haven’t done anything really. Two of them
got caught raping. They went to jail for that. They did four and a half years… I heard one of them
moved to Canada. Another moved to the East Coast. The other two, they got out of jail and we
didn’t hear about them.”
“Do you plan to get back into a band?”
“Yeah I do. But I’m a little older right now. I have to realize that the people I’m playing
with have the same motivation and drive that I have. ‘Cause I can go in and play for any band.
But I want to make sure that my time is valuable. It’s quality, not quantity -- anything that
expands the mind. You’ve got to connect with the audience. Music is love, and love is life. You
have to convey to them that you’re doing what you need to do. That’s as far as I go. What you’re
thinking, what you’re feeling, what you’re believing, those people see it going on. You know
what I’m saying.”
“What’s just a peculiar thing that happened to you? Anything, something weird…”
“One manger… We had these pit-bulls, all females. He goes, ‘Do it to it.’ He’s like, ‘You
said you wanted bitches, and they’re in heat…’
THE ANTICHRIST AMONGST US
An Asian girl named Steve calls and invites me to a local punk show at Hot Monkey Love. I’m
not sure if it’s a date. I met this girl two weeks ago at a house party, and when she realized who I
was, my reputation caused her to go into this weird, cold-sweat giggling panic. She kept saying
“No, no -- that’s him, that’s HIM… That’s BARTEK.”
She stripped down to her bra and underwear and hid in the bathroom refusing to come out
and talk to me. Her friend crept inside to talk her down. 15 minutes later she’d emerged fully
clothed and quickly evacuated without looking at me, just whizzing by. Honestly, that usually
doesn’t happen…
So this Steve character tells me to come on down, but once I arrive, she
locks eyes with