I wrote this for myself in 1997. It was never published. This is the first time it's seen the light of day. I present it to all of you as my gift. Enjoy.
Hell is in Los Angeles
I was invited to see a monstrously talented band that's been knocking around Los Angeles for the last five years, trying to make it. They're extremely nice guys whose publicist always gets one of the following three aspects of her band’s shows wrong: Date, place, or time. She said this gig would be at nine on Saturday night at a club on Santa Monica Boulevard.
I drove the forty minutes there and found the band’s name on the marquee and my name on the list. Things were looking good. Inside, a quartet of thirtyish white men in jeans and J.C. Penny button-front shirts played "Johnny B. Goode." The audience of twelve pumped their fists and let loose with an occasional “Ow!” After a fifteen-minute version of the song, complete with bass and drum solos, the band launched into "House of the Rising Sun." The guitarist kept hitting the wrong fret and quickly correcting himself, producing a Charles Ives effect that made my teeth hurt.
I went into the front lounge, where the bartender--a twentysomething woman in a tank top and ripped loose-fit jeans--stood behind the bar, smoking. She’d adopted a ridiculously contrived stance, her right leg and buttock on the counter, her left foot planted on the floor, like a composite photo of one woman sitting in a lotus position and the other standing at attention. She had an enormous Carly Simon mouth and long streaky-blonde hair, and her low-cut top displayed her deep cleavage to a babbling middle-aged drunk on a stool in front of her. He poured out a flood of incomprehensible sounds, just mah-meh-bleh-mah-meh-mi-bluh as he kept his eyes locked on the bartender's magnificent chest. She ignored him, a woman patiently waiting for a bus.
I went out and checked the schedule tacked to the front door, which I should've done earlier, and saw that my band wasn’t playing at nine; it was playing at midnight. That meant that after the hour-long show, the schmoozing, and the drive, I’d get home at three. Ever since I stopped drinking seven years ago, my stamina has steadily decreased. Who knew that alcoholism kept you in shape? I’d have to tank up on Diet Coke to make it through the night. I ordered my first from the wide-mouthed bartender and tipped her a dollar. "Think you," she said with a smile, her eyes lowered demurely as her hand snatched the money with the speed of a chameleon's tongue.
Two more bands played before the one I was there to see. The first was a Rush cover band whose lead singer kept saying things like, "So this is L.A.!" and "We've heard so much about L.A. audiences, so give it up!" That meant they were touring. I was floored. They were popular, too, because as soon as they started playing, the room filled with cheering people. This despite the fact that the vocalist-guitarist didn't hit a single note dead center the entire show. He'd adjusted his microphone to tower over him; to reach it, he had to throw his head back, making him look like a plucked turkey on a butcher's hook. I could hear his vocal cords shredding, every vein and tendon standing out on his neck and forehead.
Another bar faced the stage. I sat at one of the tables in front of it and eavesdropped on the conversations taking place around me. Everybody bellowed and roared to be heard over the music, spraying each other with saliva.
Most of the activity centered around a tall woman in a black cocktail dress that half-concealed the large tattoo on her right shoulder. She had a nest of porny blonde hair and was somewhere between thirty and fifty. A roll of back-fat slopped over the top of her dress and her gigantic breasts were balanced by a gigantic rear. Her fishnet stockings showed off her dimpled thighs. Two men interacted with her. One was a fat biker with sleeves of tattoos peeking out from under his black T-shirt, and the other looked exactly like Peter Hook, with the same leather pants, surfer’s hair, and sleepy expression. These two joked with and hugged everyone around them, but they gave off waves of imminent violence, a kind of radar that scanned the room for targets.
I've taken lessons from my brother on how to deflect this sort of attention. It's very easy: sit or stand as tall and as straight as you can; hold your head up; don't look anyone in the eye; and don't swing your arms when you walk. Humans slouch, make eye contact, and swing their arms when they walk; creatures that are other, don't. Since the brains of most human males will register only rivals or possible mates, you--a member of a different species--won't even be noticed. I sat up on my stool and stared into the middle distance, and these men no more than two feet away didn't see me.
The tall blonde shepherded a flock of girls who looked to be no more than sixteen. Most had nose-rings and baby tees, which distinguished them from the Original Rockers, older ladies with big hair, skin-tight jeans, and black T-shirts. Skinny sideburns and gas-station attendant shirts differentiated the young males. The boys and girls looked touchingly childlike next to their craggy older brothers and sisters, but both age groups pounded beer, sucked on cigarettes, and went "Ow!" together. It’s called "modeling," something I think about a lot because my three-year-old nephew is now allowed to call me on the phone and ask me to come over and play. When I do, I have to be careful, because he’ll copy everything I do. If I clear my throat (one of my many nervous tics), he'll do it too. If I cross my legs, he'll cross his legs. It’s a terrible responsibility.
In front of me, Peter Hook took his hands off the shoulders of the two teenagers he'd tucked under his arms and brushed his fingers down the front of the tall blonde’s dress. She arched her back, her breasts popping out like ICBMs. She’d been playing with a cigarette for five minutes, mouthing it and caressing it but not lighting it.
"Hey," Peter yelled. "Don't be wearin' dresses like that."
"Why not?" she screamed. Her voice not possible, a piercing croak.
"Well, you don't wanna go showin' yer... yer... t*tties like that."
"Why not?" she asked again. "You already seen the whole package."
She lit the cigarette, inhaled massively, and released only a tiny wisp of smoke. The nose-ring girls swiveled their heads back and forth. Peter stared at the blonde for a few seconds, his lips moving. Finally he came up with an answer.
"'Cause I might wanna see the whole package again!" He spun away and did a head-bobbing hula victory dance, his face scrunched up, snickering with his tongue jammed into his lower teeth like Robert De Niro: A-hyih-hyih-hyih-hyih!
The blonde rolled her eyes and told two of the nose-ring girls to ask me if they could sit at my table. My humanity was obviously showing, so I stood and bore down on the girls, my arms hanging at my sides like dead things. The girls scattered and I went up to the VIP lounge to see if anything was happening. I'd been given an "All Access" sticker, which was funny because there was no backstage or dressing rooms, just the tiny bar upstairs. A gargantuan bouncer grabbed me on my way up, and I thrust out my own chest so he could see the sticker. He leaned in and peered at it, his brow knitted; I wondered what would happen I shook my shoulders and squealed "Boop-boop-be-doop!" Upstairs the crowd consisted of bloated, sweating, florid, older men and their heavily made-up robot trophy companions.
I went back downstairs just as the the Rush cover band finished, the singer's cracked "EEEEEEEE-YAY-YUH!" causing my face to tingle and my spine to chill in vicarious humiliation.
The next act was a Led Zeppelin cover band. They all appeared to have had cosmetic surgery to look more like their idols, and their milling crowd of a road crew wore T-shirts that proclaimed them "The Best Zepp Cover Band Touring Today." Introducing each song, they used cheesy Spinal Tap British accents, saying things like, "This is oaf ah fird owbum," or "We 'ad a loat a fun recoadin' this tewn." For someone with as tenuous a grip on reality as I have, it was terrifyingly disorienting, especially since they were tremendous musicians. They brought in an even bigger crowd, most of whom were in their forties. There were a few very young fans, all with muffin tops under the hems of their baby tees.
My band went on at midnight, and the room instantly cleared. They killed; nobody was there to see it except me. My heart ached for them. After the show, I spoke to them, telling the bassist that it was the best show they’d ever put on. He thanked me the way a mourner accepts condolences. I was out of the club by 1:30. On the drive home, I pondered the fact that I’d had absolutely no idea--even after five years as a music journalist--that there were cover bands that toured the country. And after the show they’d go up into the VIP lounge, meet with some boozy Industry hangers-on, and then go back to their Motel 6 with some muffin-topped groupies before hitting the road again the next day. It was as though they'd sold their souls to an incompetent, delusional Beelzebub, a big-talking loser-devil whose two-bit powers could grant them only a crappy, rinky-dink version of stardom. But they went for it anyway.
This is an unbelievable business.
(Note: The band in question finally made it. They're all happy, healthy, wealthy, and famous now. God bless 'em.)
