Random Riot

Hi, it's me the guy who threw up in your purse the guy who hurled Japanese finger food against the wall in your kitchen and never got invited again to your home you hypocrite it's me the guy who screamed for hours in the nightclub which doesn't even exist anymore I'm not that guy anymore and haven't been for some time but there are people who don't want to let go of their stupid memories of who I was they just want to hold on to the outlines of an unhappy and outraged and angry man who wanted to kill banality like a hunter in the dead of winter. I'm no longer on your radar I'm no longer in your orbit I'm not dead I just don't care about being in your petty and stupid life so there it is and the funny thing about it is you resent the fact that you can't complain about me and you can't attack me anymore because I don't care your dirty little sand pit is all yours sit in your shit and make your own mess it must suck to not have me to blame for your own kill switch you call a brain insane.

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It's so sad that within the past few weeks several cool stars from the British Invasion have passed on, notably Rick Huxley of the Dave Clark Five, Reg Presley of The Troggs, and early Beatles colleague Tony Sheridan. Granted they were pretty high up there in the years but they still rocked like crazy and gave me hours upon months upon years of listening pleasure. Their work was always exciting and fresh to listen to even in year 2013.

Special mention should be made of Reg Presley's excellent range as a rock vocalist. I don't think most people realize what an extensive range he had, going from raunch god on the classic "Wild Thing" to leering Peter Lorre soundalike on "From Home" to whisper gnome on "Night Of The Tall Grass" and "Strange Movies". And just when you thought he hadn't a shred of sensitivity in his sleazy bones he could tug on your heart strings with the beautifully tender vocal of "Love Is All Around". Brilliant, just brilliant. They will all be missed.

Bearing in mind that my English heroes are slowly departing I flew into a senior boomer tallywacker panic and downloaded a ton of British Invasion music, hoary old classics like The Merseybeat's "Sorrow", vintage Animals, Herman's Hermits and Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You". While downloading these records I listened to a lot of Manfred Mann tracks and marveled how incredibly sophisticated the early stuff was, effortlessly mixing jazz with R&B and garage rock on tracks like "I'm Your Kingpin" or "Hubble Bubble".

Also in the underrated category was Sounds Incorporated, a totally killer instrumental unit that insanely combined James Bond spy music with Northern soul funk workouts at break neck speed. No wonder The Beatles tapped them to be their opening act at Shea Stadium. They can also be seen in the movie "Top Gear" rocking out a totally looney take on "The William Tell Overture". Check them out!

I also really liked a track by The Nashville Teens called "Devil In Law", more laid back than "Tobacco Road" but just as cool and the lyrics are pretty funny, too. I also liked "Even The Bad Times Are Good" by The Tremeloes, a really great song that stands tall next to their massive signature hit "Here Comes My Baby". The current state of music as such is so piss poor that even The Rubettes' hits "Sugar Baby Love" and "I Can Do It" sound pretty awesome, and that's skull-fuckingly bad.

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There's a new generation of film directors who seriously haven't got a clue what they're doing or even why they need to do it. It's pretty sad how it's become the rule rather than the exception when Rebecca and I to meet with these guys who present us with their projects and they have nothing planned or designed for us to work on.

One idiot came by and told us he wanted us to make outfits for his movie which was "kind of like The Craft, Sucker Punch, and some anime". He had a few bad sketches of chicks in skimpy outfits. One looked like a shit Baby Spice knock-off and the other one was some garbage goth witch outfit. This fortysomething director wanted to make some teen chick superhero movie. GROAN. Not again. I said okay, anime like The Dirty Pair, right? He didn't know who The Dirty Pair was, all he supposedly knew about anime was that it was supposed to be a bunch of semi-naked chicks running around kicking guys.

Rebecca: "Okay, so do you have any specific outfits in mind?"
Old man director: "No, I still haven't finished the script yet, so the outfits could change".
Rebecca: "What are the sizes of the girls?"
Old man director: "We haven't cast the film yet so I don't know anybody's sizes yet, but I'm anticipating really skinny tall girls. But they have to know how to fight!"

What the fuck does that mean? You don't have a script, don't have any actresses willing to do stunts, what do you have and why are you wasting my time? Go jerk off in a fireplace, you clown.

The scary deal is that there have been a lot of "filmmakers/screenwriters" barking up the same empty fantasy fanboy vacuum with no money and no ideas assuming Rebecca and I are supposed to flesh out their horny, myopic vision - which is already ten years behind what our friends, the Japanese, yes them again, are doing. Read Takekyo Hitman Reborn, No. 6, Karneval, D. Gray Man or Black Butler and get enlightened. America needs to step up their game, the times they are a-changin'.

I leave you with Rick Huxley and Mike Smith, both gone but not forgotten from the Dave Clark Five:

All Yesterday's Parties

Bad parties can be more legendary in one’s mind than the good ones. In fact, if you asked me what the three best parties I’ve been to were like I couldn’t even tell you, but the terrible ones are relegated to immortality. I don’t know if my terrible parties beat yours, but these ones are unforgettable…in every bad way possible.

There was the “Pimp and Ho Party” in the Hollywood Hills, the real swanky part of the Hills, too, valet parking, luxurious digs and all. It looked promising until Rebecca and I realized we came from another generation. My pimp look emulated some Cab Calloway fifties greaser pimp – every “Pimp” however went for the Fifty Cent rap star look. I was totally out of place. Rebecca went for the “Sweet Charity” slut look – every “Ho” at the party looked like some two-bit Pussycat Dolls wannabe with clear heels and clear French nails. Yuck! To add insult to injury it turned out that these weren’t just ordinary film crew folks, they all belonged to some EST cum Scientology cult. Help! People were telling Rebecca about “The Revision” and how it changed their lives. “The Revision” put them on the right path on the condition they tithed 25% of their earnings to this cult. What a pity, the house was so beautiful and the drinks were good, but the company was Hollywood scary.

I also remember Emma’s Penthouse Magazine “Pet of the Month” bash in the Hollywood Hills again – does that guarantee schmaltz? Don’t worry, we’ll get to Silver Lake pretty soon, it was in February and raining cats and dogs. As soon as you ascended the stairs from the road the first thing you walked by was an unlit infinity pool. I almost fell in, but Rebecca grabbed me and pulled me away from a certain drenching. Unfortunately others didn’t fare so well, in fact when things got boring we would watch new party goers walk right in to the infinity pool, like some bad college prank. The house was packed with swingers, including some fried old British glam rockers with their old man faces arguing about New Wave cinema = not Thomas Dolby new wave, but Francois Truffaut new wave. There was dancing on the second floor, and in the bedroom by the dance floor there was some gross swinger orgy smelling like a tuna cannery. It was so bad our friend Renard had to stand guard by the bathroom so Rebecca could use the crapper. Renard had a great time though, his glasses kept fogging up from all the steamy shenanigans!

Sofia Coppola’s birthday party was a real fizzle, too, no blast, sorry Chief, and took place in her swanky digs in the You-Know-Where Hills. We took our friend Stefan – we always bring friends with us, we need our own entertainment – and after the Princess of Honor greeted Rebecca and snubbed Stef and I in her raging homeliness, we both looked at each other and in unison whined, “THAT’S IT?” The tantalizing princess of cinema? The other party goers were easily the prissiest load of snobs I’ve ever met, and that’s just the guys. The girls thought their shit didn’t stink; one of them even said aloud to her date, “I don’t like him – he’s creeping me out”, pointing at me. After a few drinks I started throwing the gross-out sushi toxic treats in the kitchen against the wall, and needless to say they stuck like Play Doh at Mother Goose Nursery School.

Okay, here’s a shit Silver Lake party for you: Chuck Mosley (ex-Faith No More singer) threw a birthday party for his daughter, a phoney baloney little brat who cracked the most rehearsed pissy smile I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t stand her, but not half as much as Chuck and his woman who proceeded to ignore me because I’m white but loved Rebecca’s negroid coolness. Every black guy in the place with their trendy bullshit dreadlocks improduced hisselfs to hers, and Gentleman Chuck gave her his newest CD, which sounded like every terrible Red Hot Chili Peppers ballad ever recorded. Two hours after we got home he called us and axed Rebecca what she thought of the record, and she said it sounded bland. Chuck mournfully announced to the Dreadlock Brigade over the phone, “Rebecca doesn’t like our record”. Ho, Ho, Ho!

If people catch wind of this blog griping about their crummy parties I’ll probably never get invited to them again, but that’s okay. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the best parties are with a tiny bunch of pals that don’t judge you and know how to simply chill and not work so hard at trying to be hard and superlative. It’s all about fun, not networking. I’ve already got a motherfucking job.

When The Devil Rides

Great news, Angelenos. On Christmas Day and New Year’s Day all MTA bus rides are absolutely free, free, free! There’s only one catch:

The bus drivers are drunk as fuck and they don’t care.

Before I raised enough scratch to buy a car I had to take the bus on Christmas Day. After waiting an eternity for the bus to show up, I ascended the steps to be stared down by the driver, who silently mouthed “fuck you” at me. I may not have heard it, but I sure as Sam smelled it: the fumes rushed at me like a Johnny Walker fart cloud punching me in the face. The driver did this to just about everyone who boarded.

And how about the driving? Narrowly side-swiping parked cars, running two red lights and braking on a dime to avoid the third raced light sending us flying out of our seats! The ABM (Angry Black Man) in the back yelled, “Yo! Quit bullshittin’ aroun’ man!”
The bus driver glared in his rear view mirror at this remark. In defiance the ABM lit a Kool cigarette.
The driver turned around and shouted, “There will be no smoking in the coach!” (English translation: “If I can’t smoke, you can’t.”)

All this would be screamingly funny if it was out of a Bukowski novel, America’s most lovably zany alcoholic, but no, when the devil rides and you’re in the “coach”: Run, Motherfucker, Run.

New Year’s Day was almost as bad: our driver was pissed he had to work on New Year’s and dealt with it by snubbing the riders.

“Sir, how many stops until Sherbourne?”
Silence from the driver.
“Uh, sir?”
Dead silence.
“Sir, could you tell me-“
“SHERBOURNE, NEXT STOP, COMING UP!” he finally yelled.

After tiring of the silent treatment he relied on sarcasm.
“Yo, driver. Sunset Boulevard cross Fairfax?”
“Well, Sunset Boulevard crosses a lot of streets. I suppose it crosses Fairfax?”
“SHEE-IT!”

I think you know where I’m going with this. I don’t know of any other service industry that shows more contempt to their customers on the holidays as the Bus Co. To which I offer this: the next time these guys go on strike, pull up to the picket line, put your car in PARK, and rev your engine up, over and over, and then step on it. Let the smoke choke them and the revving noise blast out their protests. They won’t mind, they’ll be dead drunk.