“DON’T FALL DOWN!” Not a message from above, but from behind. Even over the din of the crowd, I hear it shouted, more than once, and I instinctively know that it’s meant for me. Almost as if I sent out a silent alarm the second I gave up, somehow, the cavalry is on the way. I hear the voice shouting again, this time closer, right behind me.
“DON’T FALL,” the voice commands. I feel a tug on my back belt loop and realize someone’s hooked his fingers through it. I do my best to stay standing with each wave, and every time the crowd moves, the voice shouts again, “STAY UP STAY UP STAY UP!” as we go careening together, forward and back. There’s a pause in the music, a break between songs, and the crowd stops surging and waits for the next command. A thick arm wraps around my waist and suddenly, wordlessly, I am dragged backward through the crowd. The drums start up again just as we reach the back edge of the crowd, and my anonymous savior tosses me out of harm’s way with one forceful swing, disappearing back into the crowd before I even get a look at his face.
Q: So did you ever get to thank him?
A: No, I never saw him again. Whoever you are, guy, I owe you big time. Being a rock ‘n’ roll martyr would have been cool on paper, but the reality of being trampled into martyrdom by a mob probably would have hurt a lot, not to mention that martyrdom is inherently fatal. So thanks, dude. You are my rock ‘n’ roll superhero.
I don’t remember anything after I was pulled out of the crowd. I couldn’t even tell you a single song that Iggy did. But you know what? I’d have to say that was probably one of the most punk-rock moments of my entire life. Good on ya, Iggy. You almost killed me, but you missed again, so you’re gonna have to keep trying next week.
After the Iggy show, I lay low for a couple of weeks. A brush with death has a tendency to make you want to avoid crowds, reflect, watch Lucy, and eat Pop Tarts. You know, enjoy the little things. Until one night, close to eleven, I’m in Von’s Supermarket, shopping in the produce section. I’ve stopped by for a single girl’s supper of Kraft macaroni and cheese and strawberries. It’s a balanced diet, don’cha know, equal parts boxed and fresh. I’m shuffling through the cartons of strawberries, looking for the plumpest ones, when I see a familiar, if entirely incongruous figure, all in black, fondling the cantaloupes on the other side of the bin. My mind is so blown by the juxtaposition that I can’t believe I’m really seeing who I think I’m seeing. I wait to get a glimpse of an identifiable tattoo so that I can make a positive ID before I say anything. He reaches out for a ’lope, and yep, there it is in all its boo-spooky glory, the horned skull poking out from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Glenn Danzig?”
“Oh, hey!” Danzig’s voice is a little hoarse, tired maybe—it is late—and confused, like he thinks he should know me somehow.
“Anne Soffee. I met you a couple of months ago in Tucson.” Probably a common occurrence for him, what with him being a rock star and all, girls coming up and reminding you that they met you here or there. To his credit, he gallantly pretends to remember me.
“Oh yeah, Tucson. Good to see you,” he says, then indicates the basket hanging from his massive forearm. “Just doin’ a little shopping.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say, picking up the closest carton of strawberries and holding them up—see, I’m shopping—and grinning like an idiot. There is an awkward beat, or maybe five, and I feel my face turning as red as the strawberries in my hand. “Well, take it easy,” I cry jauntily and turn and run smack into an oncoming cart. Maybe he didn’t see me.
“Yeah, you too, and watch where you’re going,” he advises. Shit.
Q: Wow, you’re a real klutz, huh?
A: I don’t know how I manage, but somehow I only ever trot out my most embarrassing, klutzy maneuvers in front of rock stars. Case in point: I have gotten toilet paper stuck to my heel exactly once in my life. It was backstage at a Robert Plant concert. See what I mean?
Adding insult to idiocy, when I get home, I notice that the strawberries I grabbed in my haste to appear nonchalant are moldy on the bottom. But it’s all good. I may be a clumsy nerd with moldy strawberries for dessert, but I am still living a life where I run into Glenn Danzig in the produce section on a Tuesday night. And that’s really all I ever asked for.
Another night, another piano bar. I realize I am getting too complacent with my scant assignments from the free weeklies, spending too much time with my work friends and not enough time trolling seedy bars for hair gods about whom I can weave wry articles in glossy magazines. I resolve to find more work, and arm myself with a stack of music papers and a highlighter pen, searching for the job that will Make Me Famous.
Unfortunately for my champagne dreams, the majority of the want ads in the music papers seem to be for unpaid internships. Record labels, production companies, recording studios, and talent agencies all seem eager to exploit the dreams of the young and resume-less. I respond to an ad, one of the few that mention editing skills, and get a call from Cyndi Walton, a writer looking for someone to transcribe her interview tapes for publication. To make sure we are all straight on how this works: she meets the rock star, shoots the breeze with said rock star for a while, probably collects swag from said rock star, perhaps a backstage pass to see said rock star perform, then the unpaid intern—who could be me, if I play my cards right—spends hours typing up the conversation that they had, for which Cyndi will get the byline, the paycheck, and the chance to hang out with more rock stars.
Where do I sign up? She gives me an address to which I am supposed to report on Saturday morning. I consult my Thomas Guide and find out that she lives two blocks from me, behind the Adobe Liquor store. Come Saturday, I fortify myself with black coffee and walk the two blocks to Cyndi’s building. She buzzes me in and meets me in the stairwell in jeans, glasses, and a ponytail. I feel like I am seeing behind the wizard’s curtain—this is a real rock journalist? She looks just like me. I follow her up to her apartment, wondering if I am being duped, wondering what really constitutes being duped in a situation like this. I mean, I’ve never heard of her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t write for something, somewhere. Either way, I’m working for nothing, so what’s the difference? Either she’s a legitimate journalist or she’s some chick getting free typing. I’m doing the same thing no matter what her credentials are or are not.
Her apartment is an efficiency, like mine only without the Murphy bed. She shows me to a desk with a com-puter—which points to her possibly being legit, because, hey, I’m a nerd and even I don’t have my own computer at home—and a tape recorder and hands me a stack of tapes. The first one is an interview with Lemmy of Motörhead. I am momentarily heartened; at least she has however much cred it would take to get an interview with Lemmy. It’s not until later that I find out that all it takes to get an audience with Lemmy are two X chromosomes and a willingness to display a couple of the attributes to which they contribute. I get comfortable at the desk and start typing.
The interview is OK, kind of dry. You could probably take this conversation, I figure, and jazz it up with a lot of off-the-wall side notes and bizarre unrelated outside stuff like the writers at CREEM used to do and then it might be fun to read. That or cut it down by about 70 percent and only leave the gossip and double entendres, of which there are several, Lemmy being Lemmy and all. As it is, though, it reads like a technical manual. It’s about as much fun as those interviews where they spend three pages talking about what kinds of guitar strings they use, only not as informative. Cyndi offers me a cup of coffee, and I accept graciously.
“So, what do you do with this after I type it?”
She looks at me blankly. “What do you mean, what do I do with it?”
“I mean, are you going to use this as the basis for an article? Are you planning to, like, take out the best quotes and use them? Or maybe add some history?”
She frowns. “No, I really hadn’t considered that. I usually just submit them as Q-and-A interviews, just typed up like they are.
” She looks at me hopefully and adds, “Of course, if you’re interested in writing it up as an article, that would be great.”
“Would I get a byline?”
The frown returns. “No, I can’t really give an intern a byline. But it would look good for you when it comes to future projects.”
Future projects. Does she mean future projects with money and a byline, or future projects like the one I am working on now? I’m reminded of my friend Sam’s dilemma when he started saving up for a car in high school. His father told him that maybe if he praised the Lord a little bit more—“in, addition, of course, to all the praising that I already do,” Sam had reported dryly—he might get that car that he wanted sooner. Sam couldn’t figure out if his dad meant he’d pay for the car or the Lord would, and subsequently had no idea whether any additional Lord-praising would be worth his while.
After a few more questions and answers with Cyndi that are about as dry as the ones she shared with Lemmy, I realize that I have about as much chance of getting a byline out of this gig as Sam did getting a Ford Mustang from Jesus. I thank her for the opportunity to do her typing and let her know that she won’t be seeing me again, no hard feelings. I’m willing to do the intern thing, it’s not that I’m too proud to pay my dues ...I’d just prefer to pay them to someone who ranks a little higher than me on the rock ‘n’ roll food chain. Because otherwise, I can stay at home and do my own typing and get just as far.
And besides, I make better coffee.
Saturday afternoon, my third month in Los Angeles. I’ve been out shopping on Melrose Avenue and I’m on my way home, empty-handed and depressed. It seems like everyone in Hollywood is tall, tan, and lean, with even, perfect features and straight white teeth. On the same wavelength as the heavy metal bands who come to Hollywood to hit it big, in Hollywood one also finds the pretty girls who do the same. You guessed it, the prettiest girl from every city in America, right here in my new hometown. It is all kinds of unfair, too, because the ones who don’t have big breasts can buy them on the open market once they get here, which means that my one ace-in-the-hole physical attribute isn’t even anything special in Hollywood. Everyone here has at least a D cup. On the bright side, it is a lot easier for me to find a bra that fits here than it is in Richmond, where the pert-breasted shopgirls always just shake their heads sympathetically at me when I tell them my size, then lead me to something flesh-toned and monstrous with fifteen hooks in the back.
Under the best circumstances, I’m not a good shopper. I am too picky and set in my ways. I go shopping in desperation because I have no pants, or shoes, and I come back with another stretchy black top to cram in my built-in dresser drawer that is already overfull of stretchy black tops. Or I optimistically buy something totally out of character, like a brightly patterned jacket or a pair of fitted pants made of nubby silk, and then my new purchase migrates to the back of my closet while I continue to rotate the same assortment of blue jeans and stretchy black tops. At least in heavy metal Hollywood, I have a greater assortment of stretchy black tops from which to choose—velvet, lace, long-sleeved, off the shoulder, even stretchy black tops with tiny skeletons or daggers, even one with the word fuck woven into the fabric. Richmond isn’t big on stretchy black tops, and certainly not ones with skeletons and daggers on them. As my Methodist Nana would say, “It just doesn’t suit,” not like a pastel twin set would, anyway. I can only imagine how much the fuck top wouldn’t suit. Talbot’s isn’t keen on the stretchy black tops, but Retail Slut on Melrose has a plenty of ’em. I would have bought some, too, but I got all down and discouraged when I realized I was probably the only one in the shop who had not been in a Mötley Crüe video and I left empty-handed.
I’m heading back up Hollywood Boulevard, close to my apartment, when I realize—or think I realize—that there is no one driving the car in front of me. It’s a gorgeous red fastback Mustang, completely restored and growling like a tiger, but as far as I can tell it seems to be careening down Hollywood Boulevard of its own free will. It occurs to me that maybe I’ve stumbled on a movie being filmed, as I’ve already done several times since my arrival, or that maybe a small child has stolen the car and is on a joyride. A conscientious citizen to the core, I whip my Hyundai into the left lane and pull up next to the Mustang at the next light. I peer into the driver’s side window and see, not a child, not Hollywood movie magic, but Glenn Danzig in black wraparound sunglasses, his head not quite reaching the top of the leather headrest. I toot the horn at him. I am a shameless nerd, I admit it. He waves warily, probably thinking Jesus Christ, it’s the freaky chick from the Von’s; she must be stalking me. I wave back, pleased as punch, realizing that odds are Glenn Danzig probably lives in my neighborhood. For joy! The lack of a new stretchy black top seems entirely inconsequential to me now. I go home, put on “Twist of Cain” and bask in the new cachet that my dingy one-room apartment has been granted by the proximity of a true-to-life—albeit diminutive—rock star.
Q: Now that you seem to be running into Glenn Danzig everywhere but in the bathtub, does it ever occur to you to ask him for an interview that you can maybe then sell to an actual paying magazine?
A: The official answer: There is an unspoken understanding when you live in Los Angeles that you don’t accost celebrities in their daily lives and ask them to read your script, listen to your demo, or grant you an interview, no matter how much it might help your budding career. They’re people too, and they’ve got enough hassles without being solicited by the strawberries. The real answer: No, I was always too nervous.
The next month, because I just don’t learn, I respond to another classified ad in Hollywood Rocks, this one for a publicity intern. I figure publicity and journalism aren’t too far apart and I’m sure I can write a better press release than the competition, so I give it a shot. I send them my resume and a puffed-up cover letter referring to some punk rock shows I may or may not have helped promote back in Richmond and sit back and wait. Sure enough, I get a call asking me to come in for an interview the next week.
This time, I play it safe and wear business attire—not that I had much choice, as the interview is on my lunch break. Already I have a better feeling about this internship, just on the basis of their having an actual office and keeping business hours. Signs point to this being somebody’s real job. Not mine, but somebody’s, which is at least a step up from the Motörhead tape experience. I have the address written on a Post-it note, and I check numbers along Hollywood Boulevard until I find it. Checking the cross street, I see that the office is on the corner of Hollywood and Vine—holy cliché, Batman! I can’t wait to tell my parents. There are so few things about my new life that they understand. Last week I had frantically called home to tell my mother that we had just seconds ago had an earthquake— my first earthquake!
“Where are you?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’m at the 7-Eleven.” I had been buying a newspaper and a package of Twizzlers when the quake happened, shaking the pork rinds off their racks.
“Is that where they tell you to go in case of an earthquake?” She tries to understand. She really does. I’m sure she knows Hollywood and Vine, though, so I make a mental note to call her.
The building itself is musty and regal, Deco-era architecture complete with grated elevators. I ride the snail-paced cage up to the tenth floor, simultaneously praying that I actually make it alive and wondering how on God’s green earth a heavy metal publicity firm ended up in this film noir building. When I reach ten, prayers answered, I drag the gate open with all my might—at least one thing in the building is heavy metal—and start checking doors. Most of the offices have cryptic plaques—“Simms and Hutton LLC,” “Vista Enterprises Inc.,” and the intriguing “Shangri La.” The last door on the left has an equally vague name—Around the World Incorporated—but the picture painted on the frosted-glass window tells me this must be the place. A globe floats in the center of the door with vague representations of the continents, sort of, on i
ts face. Curving around each side of the globe is an arm. The arm on the right side wears a business suit and cuff links, the arm on the left a zippered leather jacket, chain bracelet, and skull ring. The two hands meet in a hearty handshake in front of the globe, just below a star-shaped blob that may or may not be Australia.
“Hi, you must be Anne,” a voice calls from behind the partially opened door. “Come on in and we’ll be right with you.”
I step into the office and immediately approve. This is what I had expected Metal’s office to be like when I first arrived. The walls are covered with framed pictures of shirtless, pouting musicians and the desks are piled with swag—stickers, CDs, T-shirts, and glossy photos. Three young women in various permutations of video-babe attire are hustling around, stuffing manila envelopes with papers pulled from a row of piles, and, in the corner, a Keith Richards clone is propped up on a tatty waiting room chair in full-on junkie nod.
“I’m Morgan,” says the babe who called me in, a tiny elf with a huge mane of dark hair and tight leather pants. “Nice to meet you. This is Heather . . .” she points to a redhead in a spandex dress. “She’s my business partner, and that’s Renee, our other intern.” Other intern . . . sounds good, like maybe they’ve already hired me—insomuch as I can be hired to work for free, I mean. I wave at the other intern, a sullen, bony blonde in acid-washed jeans and an off-the-shoulder lace top who looks to be about eighteen. “And that’s Danny,” she says, pointing to the nodder. “He’s our graphic artist. He painted the door.” Aha. I glance at the photos on the walls, seeing a few names I recognize—Little Caesar, Vinnie Vincent Invasion, well, OK, two names I recognize (as long as no one asks me to name any of their songs). I see a lot of other bands I don’t recognize, all cut from the same cloth, no doubt the hottest bands in whatever towns they were in before they came here.
Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A. Page 8