Talking To Myself In Public

At the height of my band’s popularity many fanzines wanted us in their latest issue but were too lazy to interview me. They always asked me to interview myself, which was a novelty the first time around, but repeated requests for me to interview myself became very dull soon thereafter. Not only did it expose a true lack of interest in what I was doing, but it always felt as if I was simply talking to myself.

So allow me to talk to myself a little bit more, but this time the subject is yours truly. Not the band I literally built from the ground up – no help, no partners – a band I created alone and dragged all the way up from the depths to The Roxy Theater and The Hollywood Palladium. Not bad. I’ve created and reinvented myself time and time again.

Since I’ve made an art form of talking to myself in public I’ve decided to mention a few details about me. Some people will believe what I’m about to say and others (fools) will think I’m merely telling tales.

Playing in other people's bands never got me much attention, and one of the great ironies was I got a record deal simply for looking cool. The head of Sympathy For The Record Industry saw me walking down Melrose Avenue, and offered me a record deal without having heard a single note of music from me, and didn’t really want to. Talk about your Lana Turner discoveries.

Four years later my group broke up, my choice, which made me a pariah on the scene. That was fine, because playing music never made me any money. In fact, at the height of my popularity I lived out of my car because I pumped what little money I had into my band. The same people who ostracized me for breaking my band up thought it was funny I was living on the streets while I was headlining some terrible Hollywood dump. Assholes.

But the next step, and there’s always a next step, was working for local government, and I always found myself in the Executive Office of the LA County Fire Department, Department of Children & Family Services, and finally the LA County Board of Supervisors (my last hurrah). During that time I worked for a varied list of city councilmen, mayors, law enforcement officials, and prominent judges. I won several citations and awards for my service to local government.

But municipal service can be as boring as playing sax behind tuneless punk singers, so I joined forces with my ex designing wardrobe for movies, television, theatre, metal bands and even video games, like Twisted Metal (some video games take live action green screen footage and incorporate it into the game, so we'd fabricate and style the costumes worn for the footage). We’d guzzle endless pots of coffee and stay up for several nights cutting fabric, sewing outfits, distressing and dyeing, whatever the job called for. I did most of the shopping and learned who the good fabric stores were and which ones to stay away from.

In between sewing jobs I began writing serials for my blog, Out Demons Out. The serials then transmogrified into novels. All my novels, except Hot Wire My Heart started out as serials in my blog. My novels, six so far with a seventh on the way, are all available on every eBook outlet – Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo Canada, and they can even be taken out like library books at hoopla.com.

But it all began to get real when I took on a weekend delivery job, when I drove around on a drizzly afternoon, listening to The Beatles’ “Got To Get You Into My Life”. The dispatcher told me to head on over to Stella MacCartney’s boutique, a lovely baroque building with vines of ivy crawling all over the entrance.

I came in for the pick-up and the salesgirl told me to take this to Olivia Harrison’s house. Holy shit. I’m going to George Harrison’s house. It was all too much, delivering to George’s widow from Paul’s daughter. All I’m going to say about George’s house is that the walls are VERY high – can you blame him? – and it’s very Spanish styled. When the housemaid came out to pick up Olivia’s dress she halted at the sight of me for a moment, smiled and then handed me a crisp twenty dollar bill. When I die that’s all I’m going to remember.

Reality Begins With A Dream

When a couple romantically fall in love with each other one of the most common cliches uttered is, "Let's grow old together". The reality of it is, and check your marriage vows is, "Let's get gradually ill together" or "Let's get poor together". Both happened to us which is partly responsible for the closing of Viva Rebecca LLC, also known as Suite 103.

In between designing her own fetish party clothes under the label Viva Rebecca she sewed wardrobe for TV, movies, rock videos and an endless chorus line of metal bands. Life was simple then; we didn't have a lot of money but we had each other and the fetish parties we'd go to to sell our weird clothes. She was the designer and I was her partner. Ahem.

In the beginning Viva Rebecca headquarters was our living room in a small apartment in the Miracle Mile district, which was largely inconvenient until the Northridge Quake of 1994. The hundreds of after shocks we experienced were largely tempered by our sleeping under an army of indestructible sewing machines largely made in the 1920s and 1930s.

International television camera crews from Canada and Germany filmed us in our native habitat working and goofing around. We were famous but broke until a government agency finally picked me up for permanent employment. Then the money rolled in, quickly followed by a move to newer digs in a soon to be trendy hipster neighborhood.

Viva Rebecca was still located in our spacious living room with me helping out diligently on my time off from working for the LA County Department of Children & Family Services (who still have me listed in their phone book after all these years!).

In 1999 our next door neighbor, a very old, eccentric shut-in accidentally died (his portable television fell on him in the middle of the night - he slept on the floor). When the apartment was up for rent we moved in and turned it into the new home of Viva Rebecca. Things were getting better.

I still managed to find time to help Rebecca with her projects, even sometimes getting up in the middle of the night in my pajamas to help her with an all-nighter. I could always be counted on to trace patterns, cut material and even do some light sewing duties. Rebecca thought I was great.

Two years down the road I transferred to the Executive Office at the LA County Board of Supervisors for a radically large promotional position and a much higher salary. Rebecca was doing well, too. She was getting more popular and in demand for her ability to finish projects ahead of schedule. We were both getting hot in our careers.

Getting hot in your career largely means you're more in demand by everyone and have less time to goof around, party, see friends, vacation, you name it. Rebecca didn't even have time to sleep any more; the all-nighters were happening more and more. We had money and no freedom.

I was the first one to crack: in 2011 I walked out on the Board of Supervisors. The mental abuse I endured there was like none I'd ever experienced. There were weeks when I was called on the carpet by management at least five times a day. The discipline at that job was severe to the point of insanity. My insanity.

After leaving the Board I still worked as Rebecca's assistant - projects included a great fruit juice commercial building a monster truck designed like a poodle, and then there was the Twisted Metal project and I did some scattered work for LA County.

When Rebecca was on the road working I'd go into Suite 103 and sew up some great shirts or accessories for myself. I had a lot of fun sewing things for myself and learned a lot about menswear that way. I even managed to find time to design and sew some dresses for Rebecca!

I saw less and less of Rebecca. Either she was doing more all-nighters or going on the road working on more sewing jobs. When Rebecca returned from these jobs I would offer to help and she refused, no longer wanting my help. My best was no longer good enough.

Because of the new demand for her to sew for an endless army of stylists there was no longer any time to design or sew Viva Rebecca originals. It was over. The jobs were never ending and Rebecca took them all, mostly as a one-man band. It wouldn't be exaggerating to say she did the work of a ten-man crew all by herself in 48-hour spurts. I hardly ever saw her.

When she did accept assistance it was largely from women who "liked fashion" but had no real sewing skills. When I occasionally offered to help I was turned down flat by her. She finally reached a point where she couldn't run the whole show by herself any more. Viva Rebecca had been run into the ground.

Physical and mental health problems in addition to astronomical debt closed down Viva Rebecca. Having had enough, she decided to close down the work shop for good. Many of her clients didn't take her decision very seriously, still calling with projects they wanted her to work on.

For weeks Rebecca worked hard at closing the workshop down. I was left with putting the finishing touches to clearing out Suite 103. It was one of the saddest experiences I've ever had.

Rebecca left for the next three months to convalesce with a nurse, and I think it's all for the best. She needs a little time to re-evaluate things and understand what's really important in our lives. Yeah, there's still "us" as far as I'm concerned.

After 16 years I'll always remember Suite 103 and miss the early years, but what it turned into won't have me missing it too much. Things may come and things may go, but we'll still be here. Someday we'll be together.

Moonlight Mile With The Dandy Warhols

Rebecca had me on standby late Friday night, making me wait for her to finish a dress that she had to deliver up in the Hollywood Hills. While I was waiting on her I banged out the final chapter of my crime novel while The Dandy Warhols Come Down played in the background.

The space drone of Be-In washed over the room as I typed, so quiet and hypnotic, sinuous sounds with reptilian guitars wrapping and unwrapping themselves around my mind as I typed furiously away.

Rebecca finally came in and said the dress was ready and we could go up and deliver the dress. It was well past midnight. We drove up to Beverly Hills and drove past dark, grainy streets punctuated by endless rows of palm trees with their shadows leaning over us like some unholy tribunal.

The streets were empty and quiet with the artificial street lamps flickering light on us like some defective strobe light. And Be-In just played over and over in my mind as I drove. The drone, the guitars and chanting voices which may as well be the palm trees singing to us.

"Turn here!" Rebecca said. "This is the street! Cielo Drive".
I froze.

Cielo Drive, the street where the house of the gruesome Sharon Tate-Jay Sebring murders committed by the Charles Manson Family, long remembered as the one of the ugliest murders in Hollywood history. As we went up a steep, hilly road I noticed that the street lights were getting scarcer and scarcer and that the road was almost pitch black. And The Dandy Warhols still played in my head. "Am I, Am I, Am I", the chanting went.

Higher and higher we went, and it seemed as if the higher we went the road got darker and darker. So dark, that whenever a car quietly drifted by us with its low headlights it looked like a slithering shark around the bottom of some dense ocean. As I drove towards the Sharon Tate murder scene I wondered what kind of music Sharon and Jay and Abigail listened to that night: was it bad hippie shit like Crosby, Stills and Nash or was it dark, hypnotic drone like The Dandy Warhols?

Finally the GPS told me we'd reached the house of the drop-off. We reached a cul-de-sac in front of a gated estate where the lights were out, looking like there was nobody home.
"Are you sure this is the place?"
"Yeah, they said it was a corner estate and no one would be home. Just leave it on the gate".

Rebecca got out of the car with the dress in a five-foot long garment bag. I sat behind the wheel with the motor running, only my headlights providing any relief from the darkness.

Rebecca decided to push the security bell, again and again. No answer. Double checking the address, this was definitely the home for the drop off. She hung the dress on the gate in the darkness, and ran back into the car.

And as I drove down the hill, away from the darkness, towards life and light and the mortality of Beverly Hills, all I could hear in my head was the haunting drone of The Dandy Warhols playing Be-In. Later on, later on, later on, later on.

Werk! Werk! Werk!

“My week beats your year” – Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music

If there’s no rest for the wicked then we have been very, very wicked. There was the assignment to do linens embroidered with Gary Baseman images for his upcoming show, “The Door Is Always Open”, which is now showing at The Skirball Museum in Bel-Air. The show replicates Baseman’s surreal vision of a middle-class Jewish household and all the century-old traditions and customs twisted through his surreal vision. Rebecca skillfully reproduced all of Gary’s characters and idiosyncratic lettering and embroidered them to his specifications.

We created chair slipcovers, a dining room tablecloth and a bedspread with Gary’s many images embroidered them. In addition to sewing the fabrics I also had to digitally edit the images prior to embroidery. Placement on the linens had to be done with absolute precision, otherwise the desired effect would be lost. The results turned out very well and Gary’s opening was a big hit. Also on display was Rebecca’s tapestry she created for Gary’s “La Noche De La Fusion” Culver City show in 2009.

After the job we wanted to take a break but the phone rang with an assignment to fabricate 350 waiter outfits for Napster co-founder Sean Parker’s wedding in Big Sur, California. The outfits ran a large variety of sizes which had to fit the staff that couldn’t be present at our studio for a fitting, so in some ways we were flying blind. Any alterations had to be done at the wedding site before the ceremony.

The outfits involved quite a lot of detail, and most of the outfits once brought up state fit pretty well. The wait staff outfits involved a lot of pleating which I handled pretty well after the first 200. Just kidding, the costumes were designed by Doug Hall who did wardrobe for the movie “Sling Blade”, and any comments, any direction came directly from New Zealand where she operates.

During that job Rebecca got a call from Nick Cannon’s costumer requesting a James Brown-style Uncle Sam outfit he can wear for the season premiere of “America’s Got Talent”. This entailed a star spangled tail coat and long striped slacks as well as a big cray cray top hat. A lot of time management came into play for this one, i.e. we were up all night cutting and sewing this whole extravaganza. Once completed it was given to Mr. Cannon who didn’t want to take it off and spent the whole day dancing around the set with it on posing for pictures.

After the Napster wedding job was over I stopped to scratch my ass when the phone rang and we got the assignment to make a C3PO outfit for film star Alexis Denisof, who was going to wear it when he ran for the fund-raising Course of the Force, held at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. Course of the Force is a multi-day benefit in support of the Make-A-Wish foundation and begins at Skywalker Ranch and ends at Comic-Con in San Diego, California. Jeeeezus!

The C3PO outfit involved a lot of gold spandex with a few mixed-media items. Alexis chose to wear runner shorts to keep his lower extremities family friendly. Several vents were built into the outfit so he wouldn’t suffer heat prostration in the dead of summer. I thought the outfit turned out brilliantly and the photos of the event looked terrific. Alexis looks happy just like Nick, just like Gary, and baby that’s where it’s at. Keep the customer satisfied – Paul Simon said it and he probably got it from The Bible. Or Mr. Blackwell.

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I'd like to say a few words about Lorna Knight's book "The Dressmaker's Technique Bible: A Complete Guide to Fashion Sewing". It is absolutely indispensable! Yes it's a $30 sewing book, but it's the best sewing book you'll probably ever own. Every component used in the craft of clothesmaking is explained in simple detail, from the design of each outfit to fitting weird body parts (pear shaped bodies, big bootays, big hips, yow) to the essential art of finishing, etc. Every page is jam-packed with helpful illustrations and broken down point by point that even a little greeen man from outer space could follow. If you were previously too scared to sew this is your life preserver.

How To Stuff A Wild Poodle

It started with a phone call, a call from an art director who specializes in gigantic pieces whom we’ve worked with in the past. The new project assigned to Rebecca was for a Dole television commercial, to dress a monster truck up as a huge white poodle. Why not? When it comes to Rebecca all things are possible, except cooking. I do all the cooking. Otherwise with Rebecca all things are possible.

If anyone had the chops to dress a monster truck up to look like a Fifi pooch it was her, who built an electronic dog for the Nick Swardson show, a raw meat outfit for the Weird Al Yankovic parody of Lady Gaga, and even a 7 foot tall pot head cat mascot for a music video. No job is too weird or too small for Viva Rebecca (staff of two: Rebecca and me, her assistant).

Construction on the outfit would be made in a small loft in Eagle Rock. The studio looked very similar to a body shop or car paint garage. Rebecca had her Juki industrial upholstery machine moved in towards the back. For pattern and fabric cutting we employed a large ping pong table because we required a lot of space. We also brought grommets and grommet setter, a Pfaff portable machine and a large flagpole of endless pattern paper, which we were going to tear through for drafts and re-drafts.

And drafting we did. The monster truck lay in the middle of the loft in pieces. We measured the fenders, the roof of the cab, the hood, the truck bed and the height of the cab in proportion to the bottom of the chassis. After taking all our measurements we then applied them to pattern paper, scaling to suit the coach and then cutting the gigantic pattern pieces.

Before I go any further I need to mention that this was early January, temps were in the forties and the loft had no heating so everyone toiled all day in coats, heavy boots, scarves and gloves. While it wasn’t Siberia it was cold as fuck. The intense cold of the operation made me learn a little sumpin’ about myself. Just like a body can be preserved in suspended animation so did my basic body functions in this glacial environment. In other words, my exposure to the cold was so prolonged that I hardly went to the bathroom, felt hunger or got tired. It’s like I was a jar of pickles kept in the freezer!

In addition to cutting the patterns with Rebecca I cut the fake poodle fur which spread all over the place and got all over my clothes, in my eyes and even in my mouth. Protective eye wear sometimes worked but wasn’t always effective because it was the spreadingest shit I’ve ever worked with! In order to pad the dog fur I spray glued the fur to foam which was a very sticky (ouch!) process. Precision was very important to line the two materials up together. Rebecca sewed one segment and then another until they became so enlarged I had to hold it up while she ran it across the machine. It’s a bitch to sew over ten feet of material without dragging it all over the floor, and this fur was supposed to stay as white as possible.

Another obstacle was stuffing the poodle’s big white pompadour on top of the cab, which necessitated stuffing tons and tons of fiber fill and foam into a big poof ball pyramid type thing. Simple, right? Well if it’s not stuffed equally around the head you’re stuck with a lopsided quiffle, so careful attention had to be paid in filling out the dog’s topper properly. Rebecca also supervised the construction of the truck’s chipper pom-pom tail, which had to be large enough to be caught by the camera without being too heavy and falling over.

After all the poodle fur pieces were sewn together we had to install them on the chassis, so grommets had to be set so cables and bungee cords could tie them around the truck. Since the truck was going to rock a few jumps we had to be damn sure the cables could withstand any rocking and reeling. Rebecca also stuffed the dog jowls and made them nice and furry. After six long and cold days we had the truck to resemble a perky, white poodle.

A month after we completed the assignment we were watching “Project Runway” seeing all these young, aspiring hopefuls grapple over designing a dress made out of popcorn or license plates or whatever. When the show broke for a commercial we saw it in the flesh on TV: the poodle monster truck, 30 seconds of dementia just to sell Dole fruit drinks. And the commercial was shot in The Mojave Desert all night. Now that’s cold!

No Excess Baggage

One of the cool benefits of working with Rebecca is the opportunity to create new things on the side. The focus this past month was on bags, different variations on them. This month alone we made four bags, and shown here are three of them.

Pictured above is a cargo bag, based on the All-Saints bag only enlarged and expanded for more items for loading. Actually, this bag is big enough to bear a load for a weekend’s trip anywhere. It’s made of crocodile-embossed cowhide leather, shown here dyed red. The same bag was made with dark blue dyed leather. Two interior pockets were sewn in for easy access to wallets, passports and cell phones.

Pictured above is a small accessories pouch for my iPhone. I use it to keep my phone charger, iHome music speaker and other things phone-related. It’s made of pleather (leatherette) from a pair of pants that a client left at our studio. The letters on the material was some sort of word jumble that looks like “SEX”.

Pictured below is a tote bag made of a fake reptile-textured cowhide with leopard spots. Again, two interior pockets were installed for easy access to the usual necessities of life. It’s based on a leather tote bag made by Ralph Lauren. This one really turns heads!

After a background of making wallets, purses and bags for Retail Slut, Tasty and Patricia Fields it’s cool to move up to fabricating large bags, almost suitcase-size and working on a larger scale. I’ve always enjoyed creating new things I can wear or use and fabricating these items and watching Rebecca and I use them has been pretty damn exciting.