Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A.

by Anne Thomas Soffee

  Lester Maddox would have been proud.

  5

  Idle Worship

  Getting Punk’d Ten Years Before Ashton Kutcher

  hey, give me another Valium.” I nudge Raelynn’s elbow, causing the eyeliner she’s applying to streak up her temple, making her look like a pissed-off Cleopatra in leather.

  “Why? We just had one.” We’ve been at Boardner’s since eight o’clock, drinking beer and popping the Valium that Raelynn’s well-meaning doctor prescribed to carry her through her divorce. I grew up hearing my elderly aunts advising one another to “take a Valium and go lie down” whenever things got stressful—and in a house full of elderly Lebanese women, that’s often—but I never knew firsthand what a magical equation that was until I met Raelynn and availed myself of her generosity and open-ended prescription. A Valium makes me feel stress-free and laid back no matter what’s going on around me. A Valium and a beer makes me feel stress-free and charming. A Valium, a beer, and a shot of Jack Daniels makes me feel like Cherie Currie. I’m wondering how I made it this far without trying it.

  Q: So has Raelynn corrupted you into mixing Valium with your beer?

  A: Given my family mantra, Valium and I have been on a collision course since day one. If it hadn’t been Raelynn, it would have been a little old Lebanese woman in a housecoat. Besides, I’m a big girl, and the bad decisions I make are wholly my own.

  “Well, I’m feeling like the crowd is particularly stupid tonight.” The collective IQ at Boardner’s isn’t usually Mensa level, but tonight it feels like we’re dealing with, well, some very special people. So far the only guy who’s even asked for my number was wearing pancake foundation over his acne and a silver lamé shirt over his paunch. No-thank-you city. We’re hiding in the bathroom now, nursing our beers and hiding from Pancake and his friend, who haven’t gotten the not-so-veiled brush-offs we’ve been giving them all night. “I just want to level the playing field a little more, that’s all.” Raelynn gives in and hands me a blue pill, which I swallow gratefully.

  “Let’s go get one more beer and then leave,” she suggests, and I agree. No sense hanging around if it’s going to be like this all night. We make our way to the bar for two more longnecks and observe the crowd with a mixture of disappointment and amusement. Pancake and his friend have left, but no one compelling has come in since we went to hide in the bathroom and the pickings are slim. There’s the redheaded bouncer, as usual, but I’ve given up trying to get him to talk to me. I never see him talk to anybody, so I don’t feel too insulted, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. I recognize a few faces from local bands, some from the pictures on the wall at Around the World and some from my brief career at the weeklies. The singer from Junkyard is nursing a whiskey at the bar; even though they had a couple of MTV hits, he’s nothing exciting since he’s here most every night. Definitely not one of the better nights for hair-god shopping.

  “Hey, look—it’s Mike Gasper!” Raelynn points across the bar to a blond guy with an eyebrow ring and tight leather pants that lace up the side. “Remember him? He sang with that band that you took me to see in North Hollywood. What were they?”

  “The Red Kennedys.” New in town from Boston, the Red Kennedys play heavy metal covers of Dead Kennedys songs, rewritten to make fun of Jello Biafra’s left-wing politics, and are fun once. Kind of like GWAR or Dread Zeppelin. The gimmick gets old before the second side.

  “I heard he went to Harvard.” If this is true, he was probably more miserable than I was at William and Mary. I feel a sudden kinship with Mike Gasper and I want to go over and tell him that it’s all OK now and no one will ever call him a weirdo again, but I know it’s just the Valium talking so I stay put. Besides, the bevy of silicone beauties surrounding him would have been difficult, not to mention ego-crushing, to wade through.

  “OK, let’s go.” I drain the last sip of my beer and slide off my bar stool. All dressed up and no one to do. We had really gone for broke tonight, too. Raelynn looked lovely in a black spandex dress, leather jacket, and bolero hat, and I had trotted out my stiletto spikes for a rare weeknight appearance as the finishing touch on a fishnets-and-lace ensemble that I was sure would snare me a drummer at the very least. Nothing. We tip the bartender, say good-bye to our bouncer, who responds with a silent nod, as usual, and walk out the door.

  Correction. Raelynn walks out the door. I get one foot out the door and catch my second stiletto on the threshold, sending me ass over teacups onto the sidewalk in front of my bouncer, the entire club, and the line of people out front.

  Oh well. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to get a standing ovation, and now I know. It stings, especially around the hands and knees.

  Raelynn wants to go to Denny’s, but I want to go home and nurse my bruised ego and skinned palms, and besides, my stockings are ripped, so I take a raincheck. It hasn’t been a good night and I just don’t feel like making it longer. Truthfully, it hasn’t been a good week, or a good month, and it’s turning into a not very good year. Nine months in L.A. and all I have to show for it is torn stockings and skinned knees. Limping up to my second-floor apartment, I’m baffled to see the answering machine blinking, since nobody usually calls me at night but Raelynn, and we’ve been together all evening. The Valium continues to work its magic and prevents me from going into a patented Soffee oh-my-God-somebody-died frenzy (the usual catalyst for the “take a Valium and go lie down” order), and as soon as I navigate the buttons and dials on my archaic answering machine I’m treated to an unfamiliar voice identifying itself as an editor for Spin magazine . . . and not just any editor for Spin magazine but the one who was a contemporary of Lester Bangs himself, and the Ramones, and Patti Smith, and all of my other heroes. The one whose name is synonymous with punk itself to anyone who knows anything about the origins of punk rock. On my phone. Saying my name. Me. Little old nerdy not very punk rock me.

  “Helloooooooo, Anne, this is ____ ___ calling from Spin. I read your article, your story, whatever, and, ah, I like it. It’s good. So I was calling to talk to you about it, and you can call me back at 212-555-6789. So, yeah, that’s it. Bye.”

  Q: So for all of this pedestal-putting and buildup, you’re not going to tell us his name?

  A: If you’re someone who’d be impressed by the name, you’ve probably figured out who it is already. If you’re not, it’s really not worth me risking a lawsuit over it now, is it?

  Holy fucking shit. A crude response, yes, but the only one my brain can manage right now. Even the Valium can’t keep me calm through this. That is one of my only living journalistic idols, on my answering machine, telling me my story is good. Take that, Screamer! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Hollywood Rocks! Stuff that in your envelope, Around the World! I hop around the apartment gleefully, in between pushing the “play” button over and over again, pausing just long enough to scrawl his number on the back of a nearby copy of Rock City News. I probably have another fifteen minutes before Raelynn gets home so I can call her and tell her, and even then I am going to have to explain who he is and why this is such a big damn deal. With the time difference, it’s two A.M. in Virginia, and a weeknight to boot, so I kindly refrain from calling my parents or my friends at home—well, except for Stacey, and the only reason I make an exception in her case is because I know she’ll be almost as excited as I am.

  “Dude! I know it’s late.”

  “It’s fucking two in the morning!”

  “Yeah, but this can’t wait.”

  “You’d better be calling to tell me you’re pregnant with Rikki Rocket’s secret love child.” Ever since she mistook them for women, Stacey has had a totally ironic fascination with Poison. She doesn’t listen to their music but she has a patch sewn on her Let’s Active jacket and a “Talk Dirty to Me” sticker on her car. She asks me weekly if I’ve met them yet.

  “No, dude . . . guess who I have a message from on my answering machine?” I can’t wait for her to guess, and besides, I already
know she will guess C. C. DeVille. I tell her.

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” Now she’s wide awake and has forgotten all about Poison. I tell her the whole story and sit back and bask in her jealousy and awe.

  Q: Why are you making such a big deal about this guy?

  A: For those who were not raised worshipping at the altar of punk rock journalism, imagine I were a horror writer who’d gotten a call from Stephen King. No, Edgar Allan Poe. Kinda like that.

  “So did you call him back?”

  “Dude, it’s like, two.”

  “No shit. We’ve discussed that. And stop calling me dude there, bro.” Stacey doesn’t hesitate to pick on me about my conversion from punk rock to mainstream metal. I don’t take offense; it’s not for nothing that we have watched This Is Spial Tap together on three separate occasions. Both of our irony meters go to eleven.

  “I think I’m gonna call him tomorrow afternoon.” I make a mental note to get some more Valium from Raelynn. “You think he’ll print my story?”

  “That would be totally rad.”

  “Dude. Rad is, like, last year. What it would be is way cool.”

  “Yeah, it would. And cut me some slack—this is Richmond. It takes a while for the slang to trickle back here.” She’s not kidding. Everything cool here will be cool in Richmond next year or the year after, which is why hair metal was practically over by the time I got here—I hadn’t accounted for lag time.

  “I’ll call you after and tell you what he says.”

  “Can’t you just put me on the three-way? I promise I’ll be quiet.”

  “Yeah, right.” Stacey doesn’t do quiet very well. I found that out my junior year, when she announced during her overnight show on WCWM that I’d just called in a request for the Velvet Underground from the off-campus apartment of the president of the College Democrats. After two years of turning away all comers, I’d finally given in and slept with one due to his sheer persistence. Stacey made enough not-so-sly references to the nature of my visit that his real girlfriend, who happened to be listening, stormed over in her pajamas and turned a merely mediocre evening into a humiliating one.

  “OK. But don’t forget to call me. And say hi to Nikki Sixx!” Stacey knows I don’t run with the big dogs, but Los Angeles is still so glam compared to Richmond that I might as well. Even the singer for Junkyard impresses Richmond. Not me. I’ve been in Hollywood almost a year now, and I’m harder to impress than I used to be.

  Harder, but not impossible. I listen to the message five more times before I finally go to bed.

  When I finally screw up my courage to call back The Idol the next afternoon, I get his answering machine. Deep down, I’m relieved, and I start to leave my name and number when I hear a click and then a paroxysm of coughing.

  “Hold on.” More coughing. I wait, for about a minute. Finally, the coughing subsides into a low, phlegmy growl.

  “Hhhhhhhhello, Anne.” He says my name like it’s something dirty. Awfully punk rock. Good thing he can’t see me grinning like a teenybopper at the phone.

  “So this thing you wrote. I like it.”

  “Thanks,” I say dumbly. Fortunately, my end of the conversation is not that important to him, and he keeps talking.

  “It won’t really work for Spin, you know, too regional for our demographic . . .” I want to take a moment here to ponder the fact that one of the original punks just used the word demographic without irony, but he keeps talking. “But I think you have something good here, and I definitely would like to see more of what you’ve got.”

  “I have some clips, I could mail them today.” I am fairly levitating with delight.

  “No, fuck that. I’m actually going to be in Los Angeles for a few weeks, and I was thinking that if you wanted to work out a deal where I could critique some writing for you in exchange for some typing and, you know, things of that nature, we might be able to come to an agreement that would be mutually beneficial.” Again, he manages to make it sound filthy. I agree immediately to be his assistant when he comes to L.A. He’ll be arriving a week from Saturday and will call me when he gets into town.

  “And Anne?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you wearing right now?”

  Between Andrew at work and Stacey calling constantly from Richmond, I am whipped into a frenzy by the eve of The Idol’s arrival date. I’m thrilled that I have two friends who are as excited as I am, if not more, but it’s not doing my nerves any good. Next to Lester Bangs rising from the dead and asking me to be his intern, this is about as serious an in as I could get. I’ve only been reading The Idol’s stuff since middle school, and now he’s an editor at the biggest magazine besides Rolling Stone and he’s calling me and asking me to be his assistant. Thank God for Raelynn, her Valium, and the fact that she has no idea who he is and couldn’t care less. She looks at the one picture of him I found on the editors page of Spin, deems him “skeevy,” and proceeds to make the skeevy face every time I mention his name.

  “So what time is the Skeevster pulling into town?” she asks over cocktails—OK, tallboys—at my apartment Friday night. We’re dressing and making up for Boardner’s, where everybody knows our name and they’re always glad we came, except for the redheaded bouncer, the other girls, and some of the snootier hair gods. Some people are glad we came, anyway.

  “I dunno. He’s gonna call me. I need to get home early so I don’t look all ruined,” I say in my best Ed Grimley voice. It’s hard to pull off Ed Grimley in a black stretch velvet halter and leopard-skin skirt, but I do my best.

  “Aw, man, does that mean no after parties?” Raelynn is getting very addicted to the after parties, the random, spontaneously occurring house parties that happen when the bars close down. It’s getting so that Boardner’s is more the appetizer than the main event. At the after parties, the crowd is smaller, drunker, and less choosy than the crowd at the bar, and the beer is free for as long as it lasts. I dig the after parties; they remind me of my high school days in Richmond, when Andy and all of his friends worked at restaurants and we would all meet up at floating speakeasies after everyone got off work at two. This is all new and exotic to Raelynn. There weren’t even any bars to close down in Bixby, much less after parties. But I am adamant.

  “No after parties. I want to be in at one at the latest. Seriously.”

  Raelynn pouts and pokes at her hair with a rat-tail comb. “You know, tonight is probably going to be the one night Red comes to the after party, too.”

  “No, it’s not. He never comes to any of them.” Our favorite bouncer has become something of a legend. He is the Holy Grail of hair gods, gorgeous, perfect, and unattainable. We can’t even get his name.

  “Well, Mike Gasper at least,” Raelynn concedes. She is hardly selling the idea.

  “Raelynn, Mike Gasper is at every party, every night,” I remind her. After all, now that everyone has seen the Red Kennedys at least once, the market is saturated and he’s got a lot more time for drinking beer and picking up girls. I figure he has two months to get a new gimmick before the girls stop biting—but then that would leave more time for just beer. Not a thoroughly unpleasant situation, in my humble opinion.

  “Those guys from MIT?”

  “Which ones? Practically every guy in town is from MIT.”

  “Point taken.” Raelynn resigns herself to the fact that, for once, we are not going to the after party. “Fine, but that means tomorrow night we start drinking early.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Q: Now I’m confused. You guys are partying with MIT nerds? As in Massachusetts Institute of Technology? How did they get to Los Angeles, and how much fun, really, are those guys?

  A: Although I must immediately point out that MIT nerds sound like all kinds of fun at parties—the stories I’ve heard, oy vey— our MIT boys come from the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Originally known as the Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT) but now more expansive, MI, as it’s supposed to be known but
isn’t, is a veritable Mecca for would-be hair gods and, by association, Raelynn and me. No slide rules but a lot of flying Vs and screeching solos. Heaven.

  Despite my best efforts and Raelynn’s full cooperation, we don’t get home until almost three. Blame MIT, boys with gorgeous dark curls, and Denny’s Grand Slam. In any case, when the phone rings at ten A.M. I am woefully unprepared.

  “Aaaaaaanne,” growls The Idol when he hears the sleep in my voice. “Chop chop. Time is money. I need a go-getter in this position. Are you going to let me down?”

  “No, of course not,” I grumble, thinking that a punk rock icon of all people should understand the urge to stay out late drinking, carousing, and availing oneself of other people’s pharmaceuticals. “Just give me a minute to get ready and I’ll be right over.”

  “Good. Make it fast. And go get me some cigarettes, Marlboro Reds, in the box, on your way. And orange juice. Fresh squeezed. None of that concentrate shit. And Anne?”

  “Huh?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  Q: So are you guys flirting, or is your idol just a creepy old letch?

  A: Um, both. Neither should come as a surprise.

  I arrive at The Idol’s hotel loaded for bear with Marlboro Reds and fresh-squeezed orange juice. He’s staying at the Highland Gardens, not exactly luxury but appropriate enough, seeing as it is the site of Janis Joplin’s 1970 death by overdose. Sort of the California Chelsea if you will, at least now that the Tropicana is gone. I report to poolside per orders. It is not hard to spot my new boss. He is wearing skinny black jeans, blue brothel creepers, and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt covered with busty hula girls. His eyes are hidden behind black wraparound shades and his greased-down hair is thin and graying, as is the hair on his chest. The fact that I can tell this about his chest hair speaks volumes. He doesn’t get up.