It's After The End Of The World

The second half of 2010 was more eventful than the first and I made some important decisions, most importantly to retire from soul-crushing work at Los Angeles County in late 2011. After I retire I will probably dedicate myself to designing and making clothes for Viva Rebecca, a great and promising future. Here is the Top 10 events that happened for me in late 2010:

10. I took some great artisan bread baking classes at Sur La Table. I also got a bread maker and made all kinds of great bread.

9. Los Angeles was cold and wet for most of the year, even during most of the summer so I had a two-month long virus that could only be cured by getting in the sun in Palm Springs and staying out there until I burned it all out.

8. Rebecca designed a great red leather cooking apron with Splatterpunk stitches sewn in. I love it!

7. Since a year has passed since my tattoo I donated blood again. Everyone should do this; it's painless, doesn't take very long to do and benefits everyone, even all you misanthropes. I even got some great Cold Stone Creamery coupons for my trouble.

6. For Rosh Hashanah I bought a shabbos menorah (candelabra) that looks like it belongs in some Barbara Steele movie, like "Castle of Blood" or "The Long Hair of Death".

5. Designed a pair of striped dress pants with a cool leather waistband and belt loops sewn in (pics to come in a future blog).

4. Saw Mark Sultan (aka BBQ from King Khan and The BBQ Show) at Spaceland. He played a great set doing his ultra-mega powerful one man band act. I stood by the exit and saw more people angrily storm out of the club than I'd seen in a long time. I don't know what they expected, but they looked so fuckin' mad it was weird.

3. A segment of "Hell's Kitchen", the food truck challenge, was taped at the LA County Hall of Administration (my workplace) it finally screened in November, and footage of me walking ten feet in the background while Gordon Ramsey's talking to his nimrod contestants can be seen within the first 15 minutes of the show. Yeaaahhhh!

2. Captain Beefheart died at the end of the year, and although he hadn't played music in almost 30 years he lives on as the patron saint to all uncompromising musicians everywhere. With the passing of icons like Beefheart and Sun Ra an era of trailblazing avant garde music is gone.

1. My very first serial, "Crash Walker", modeled after Quinn Martin Productions-type "Man On The Run" television shows from the Sixties (The Fugitive, Run For Your Life, Coronet Blue, The Invaders) successfully published on my blog, and will soon see trade paperback publication. Watch this space. An even newer serial begins later this month.

Well, that's it. 2011 shows lots of promise and I'm absolutely, positively sure it's gonna rock harder than 2010. Anything would! Batten down the hatches - full speed ahead.

It Was A Pleasure Then

Life is fraught with decisions, and the decisions I had to face was whether to go to the Suzi Quatro party at The Tropicana, which was invitation only, or the Zolar X party at Rodney's English Disco, which wasn't. As long as you had five dollars you could get in, but I didn't have five dollars to swing around on a weeknight. There was the third option, of course. Rumor had it that Roxy Music were staying at The Continental Hyatt House to do promotional stuff and we could always just hang out there. It didn't cost anything and maybe I can meet Bryan Ferry in the lobby. Wouldn't that be great? Well, it wasn't. Fifty other kids had the exact same idea as me. Advancing closer and closer to the enormous lobby of the Continental Hyatt House on the Sunset Strip with its gigantic windows I could see tons of glitter kids hoping to run into my hero.

My ankles were aching from supporting my tall teenage body on three inch brass platform heels and sparkly copper vinyl shoes. They made my back ache too, but as they said, style before comfort. I walked through the automatic doors to the entrance and saw my friend Randy from the English Disco. "Hey!"

"Hay is for whores", I quipped.
"Hey, whore, are you here to see Alex Harvey?" Randy asked in his striped satin thunderbolt suit. He thought it made him look like Marc Bolan.
"The Sensational Alex Harvey Band are here, too?"
"Yeah, who are you here to see?"
"Roxy Music. I wanna see Bryan Ferry. Maybe I can get his autograph".
"Well, good luck. He hasn't left his hotel suite all day. He's probably giving a million interviews. Hey, nice threads. When did you get these?" he rubbed my jacket between his fingers. I was wearing a brand new green velvet jacket with extra-wide lapels with matching elephant flares.
"Last week. I bought it from a boutique on Third that just closed down".
"I got mine from Granny's".
"Granny's is nice if you can afford it. Hey, is that?"

A very thin girl with huge black pigtails led a very stoned, emaciated platinum blonde boy wearing a black leather jacket with a leopard on the back, just like the one on the back cover of Iggy & The Stooges' "Raw Power". Under his jacket was a t-shirt of Iggy Pop's face. "Jimmy, gimme a smoke. Is Steve Marriott staying here? Ah, fuck it", whined the girl.
"Yeah, it's him", Randy whispered. "And he's got his favorite shirt on in case he forgets who he is".
"Jesus", I gurgled. At the sound of that the platinum blonde boy stopped, stared at me, and then craned his head around the lobby making sure everybody recognized him.

"Well, I guess this beats the Suzi Quatro party, anyway", I turned away from Iggy.
"Suzi Quatro? That dyke?"
"She's not a dyke. I think she's doing her guitar player".
"That fat guy? Bullshit, she's a dyke. She wears leather pants and sneakers. Dyke!"
I wasn't going to let anybody tell me my favorite girl singer was a dyke, so I changed the subject. "So what's so great about The Sensation Alex Harvey Band?"
"Dude, didn't you hear? They opened for Styx at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. They did they whole 'Vambo Rools OK' number on stage with the brick wall and it was far-out. And then Styx goes on and half the audience walked out of the place. Styx couldn't follow Alex Harvey".
"Well, I don't know, I can't follow a band with a mime who plays guitar. I'd rather rock out to a dyke".

A tall skinny kid walked by with a David Bowie haircut and a traumatically chewed up, pocked mark face with a feathered boa around his neck. It was Chuckie Starr, who Randy knew well.
"Hey, Chuckie, what are you doing here? I figured you'd be at the Suzi Quatro party at The Tropicana", Randy asked.
"Security's too tight to get in. Bryan Ferry's here tonight. I'm going to see Lori later at the Zolar X party. Are you going?" Chuckie said as he craned his head around the room looking for someone more fabulous than us.
"Oh, sure, Darling", Randy lied. Chuckie didn't even hear him; he recognized someone and ran towards them, shrieking.

"Are you going to get Sweet tickets at the Civic on Saturday?"
"Yeah, what time does the box office open?"
"Twelve thirty", Randy's face brightened as he saw a distant figure walk quickly towards the hotel coffee shop. "Alex Harvey! I gotta get his autograph!" Randy ran towards the coffee shop with Chuckie Star following and even Iggy and his date following from the rear. Ah, this is a waste of my time, I thought.
I trudged out to the sidewalk into the Sunset Blvd night, looking up at the lit-up palm trees reaching for the sky. A man who resembled a tall palm tree looked at me. It was Kim Fowley.

"What's happening?" he asked with his clear blue eyes burning into me.
"Iggy Pop's chasing after Alex Harvey in the coffee shop".
"Oh, is that all? Well, Arthur Lee's walking around Filthy McNasty's with a gun in his jacket. Can you beat that?"
"No, I guess I can't. Good night", I said. I didn't have wheels and the 91-S bus took forever to show up, so I walked from Sunset & La Cienega to my house on Pico & Robertson. Goodnight Hollywood, until next time.

The 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Awards

If rock ‘n roll wants to enter the mainstream and be taken seriously as an art form, then fine, but you have to bear in mind that once that happens things like awards, tuxedos and banquets arise from that serious mess. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a fine example of what happens to trashy entertainment that decides it’s heavy business.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (televised on VH1) is a train wreck, a plane wreck, and a car wreck complete with flying roadkill. Every culture hero you looked up to in the past will eventually show up at these ceremonies and show how drained they are of any significance whatsoever.

While it was heartening to watch John Fogerty aka Grampa Feedback introduce the Ventures, things later ground to a dead halt when bitter Lou Reed showed up to introduce awardee Leonard Cohen. For a man who insists on being taken seriously as a songwriter, Reed shows little respect for anyone else’s work. He read Cohen’s lyrics with very little expression or verve. Cohen’s speech wasn’t terribly funny, but considering how grim his songs are that came as no surprise. Rather than perform his own songs, some Starbucks minstrel covered a Cohen tune instead.

John Mellencamp, the awardee with the most unmemorable name that night, looked like Tweedledee the carnival midget sporting an Elvis pompadour toupee. His speech was interminable and was followed by an equally interminable medley of his Eighties trailer park anthems. I think I would rather serve a year in prison under solitary confinement than take orders from him in a band. He looked very angry and full of his tiny self.

Sucking up more schedule time was Madonna, who accepted her award quoting Kabbalah and other cosmic crap, and her speech lasted so long it felt like a college lecture. Instead of doing her customary Broadway hooker schtick Iggy & the Stooges covered “Burning Up”, Iggy coming off like Kevin Bacon playing the Flying Dutchman. When the bass guitarist proudly kicked his leg up in the air I could feel the air whistling out of this shit soufflé. Soon drummer Scott Asheton fell apart in the middle of the song, so Ron Asheton busted into a noise-jazz guitar solo that ruined an already awful song.

The worst was saved for last: Tom Hanks came aboard (Madonna, Mellencamp, Tom Hanks, it was so fucking Eighties I had the puke chills) and gave a long, unfunny Baby Boomer account of discovering the British Invasion to introduce the mediocre racket that was the Dave Clark Five. Super-creep Dave Clark accepted his award looking every bit as sinister as his reputation. He had the most satanically arched eyebrows I’ve ever seen, arched so high Anton Szandor LaVey would spin in his grave in Hell out of jealousy. Actually, Clark looked like a marionette that’s been melted and then thrown in the spin-dry cycle for three days. Singer-songwriter Mike Smith died a week before the awards ceremony, and if it wasn’t for Smith old DC would be picking up litter in Hyde Park.

The topper of course was the final jam session on Dave Clark Five tunes, led by 80s has-been Joan Jett, mugging like Liza Minelli on a date with Bela Lugosi. Other 80s casualties chimed in, like Late Night chimp Paul Shaffer, Billy Joel, Mellencamp and his fiddler (uh, yeah, lots of fiddle on Dave Clark Five songs!), Hanks sang backup, and Baby Boomer deadbeat Chevy Chase was seen boppin’ in the audience.

If this nightmarish puppet show is the bottom line when it comes to giving rock music the respect it thinks it deserves, then some art forms should remain misunderstood. Sometimes "understanding" creates soul-crushing compromise, so keep the mystery alive.