by Dave Navarro
“What?!” she asks, alarmed.
“I mean, the picture looks like it was taken a long time ago. You look like a classic Hollywood star from the forties.”
“Oh, it looks ancient,” she agrees. Her quirks—the oohs, aahs, and purrs—seem to be fading as she relaxes. “They say that the better-looking you are, the greater your chances are of having a bad picture taken,” she continues. “And it’s true. I’ve had the worst pictures taken of me.”
Angelyne steps back into the photo booth with Navarro, and they take a few strips together, making for a strange set of photos because they look as if they are the same size. Angelyne—a sum of hair, breasts, makeup, boutique clothing, and personality that is greater than the whole of those parts—is supposed to be so much bigger than Dave. But at the house she has been humanized, shrunk to the normal stature of a sweet, slightly neurotic, good-hearted, and spiritually inclined lady.
After the photo session ends, Angelyne makes no motion to leave. She seems to be enjoying herself. She pulls a cassette out of her pocket and asks Dave to play it. The tape is filled with songs she has been working on. Dave mentions that he used to play in the Red Hot Chili Peppers—she shows no sign of recognition—and Jane’s Addiction, whose name rings a bell. She doesn’t remember meeting Dave before and he doesn’t remind her.
The first song on Angelyne’s tape is accidentally amazing, with the pink lady singing in a bubblegum voice—“Can you feel me … in your dreams”—over a spaced-out groove. It is like trip-hop, and with a good producer it could have the potential to stand alongside Portishead or Björk.
“I can sing in two octaves at the same time,” Angelyne lets everyone know. “But it burns my voice out.”
“This is so cool,” Dave tells her, humming the harmonies that he would add to the song. “I would put this out if I could.”
“We have a psychedelic song too,” she says, turning to her manager. “Did you bring it?”
Scott apologizes for leaving it behind. “Do you have my other documentary?” she asks. “I’ll have to bring it next time. It’s in color. Do you have a T-shirt for Dave?”
“It’s in the office. I’ll bring one up later,” Scott promises.
“Do you have anything you want to play for me?” she suddenly, magnanimously, asks Dave.
Within ten minutes, after playing her a Janet Jackson song he remixed, Dave has Angelyne excited about the idea of him remixing her music. Then he plays her “Jane Says.”
“I know this,” she says. “It’s a classic. Do you have an extra copy I can borrow and bring back?”
“It’s my last one.”
“Never give away your last thing!”
Angelyne is comfortable, so comfortable in fact that she begins to worry. “I have an acute case of claustrophobia,” she blurts as soon as “Jane Says” ends. “So I need to leave soon. I don’t want to go down the hill in the dark. But I can come back another time.”
“I understand. I’m scared of some things too,” Dave says, reassuring.
“I can tell,” she says, reassured.
“I’m a little agoraphobic,” Dave tells her.
“Does that mean people?”
“I don’t like being out.”
“Well, I’m going to come up here again if you invite me.” She smiles and gets up to leave before dusk falls. “Once I get used to driving up here, I’ll be cool with it. I know where you live now. I can come over in the daytime.”
And so a friendship is formed or, more accurately, bought. Dave has managed to win over the most inaccessible, enigmatic icon in Los Angeles. He won’t have to pay Angelyne to come up to his house again.
But she never does come again. Although Angelyne and her manager call Dave repeatedly from that day on—he even receives a call from Angelyne’s record producer—he blows them off. Is winning enough for him? Is he intimidated? Is he over his obsession? I could never figure it out.
I ask Dave much later. He says none of these reasons is correct. In fact, he says that it is my fault: “I’m still obsessed,” he says. “The reason she hasn’t been back is because the guy who promised he’d be there with me never brought it up again. Would you have her up there alone?”
part II LOVE IN L.A.: CHRISTMAS FOR GROWN-UPS?
BY DAVE NAVARRO
LOCATION: Animal Farm, a pet store in West Hollywood, C.A. Conrad, a Hollywood Dreamchaser, and I have been drawn inside the shop to see the puppies behind glass …
“There was this girl who lived in the apartment next to mine. I almost thought that she was ‘the one,’” explained Conrad, a thirty-four-year-old Variety magazine contributor. [Insert the image of Timothy Hutton’s character in Ordinary People.] “We were in love … At least I was, but I knew in my heart that I wasn’t ready for what she wanted. Marriage. I mean, it’d only been like three months since we’d met! Plus, I had just moved here [L.A.] like two weeks before and I didn‘t even know the name of the street I lived on!”
The One. Will you ever meet The One, Dave? The answer is, probably not. As long as I live in L.A., I will never meet The One. Why even contemplate such a fantastic notion? Los Angeles is a town that literally feeds on itself as it does its inhabitants. This is the city wherein the weak and fearful become the strong and attractive, and unknowingly prey on the hunted.
A chain of irreversible events begins to take place. A broken heart manufactures steel plates to protect itself from an unavoidable and impending danger. Unbeknownst to the manufacturer, this plate carries with it an internal magnet. The magnet identifies itself as “ambivalence.” When drawn into the magnetic field, an opposing, neutral force is itself magnetized. (In other words, once a person becomes callous and uncaring—a heart-breaker—it seems to me that they become more attractive, especially to pure hearts that self-destructively seek to be broken.) These events are so horrible that a trail of scattered carcasses are periodically left to decay on the city street corners. Some step over the bodies, as if they were globs of chewing gum melting in the hot So Cal sun. These very select few are known as “the enlightened.” I view myself as one of them.
There are two things of which I am certain about life in L.A.:
1. THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE OF L.A., FAIRFAX BETWEEN BEVERLY AND SANTA MONICA, IS ACTUALLY A SMALL TOWN IN ISRAEL AND CAN’T TECHNICALLY BE CONSIDERED PART OF L.A.
2. LOVE DOES EXIST; HOWEVER, ONLY MOMENT TO MOMENT AND NEVER FOR A LIFETIME … LOVE FADES.
Contrary to expectation, I have met several fascinating subjects who still view love in L.A., or the idea of love, with an almost endearing yet ignorant optimism. These sorry and somewhat pitiful creatures are, in most cases, transplants from another city or state and have a fairly healthy idea of what love is and/or could be. They seem to be unaware of the Love/Christmas Theory and appear to believe that love is eternal, everlasting, and harmonious. However, when I ask, “Have you witnessed a love between two people work out?” a sudden silence falls.
I have lived in L.A. all my life and I learned about love at a very early age. I suppose that I will always value the lessons my mother and father inadvertently taught me. Throughout my upbringing, I met a number of strangers and watched in confusion as they waltzed in and out of our homes and lives. “Meet Mom’s new boyfriend” … “Here’s Dad’s new girlfriend” … “No, honey, this is Mommy’s new boyfriend” … “Hey, Dave, meet Daddy’s new girlfriend. You two know each other, don’t you take math together?” My head used to spin trying to keep track of all the names and faces, let alone the sporting events. “What is this,” I’d think to myself, “The Story of O-lympics?” (I used to love it when my mother read that to me before I went to bed.)
LOCATION: Exterior, Animal Farm. Conrad and I decide to enjoy a stroll down the street while discussing love, life, and coffee …
Conrad continues, “We fuckin’ broke up ’cause of the marriage thing … I dunno … I still loved her deeply. Seeing her go out for the paper and stuff
like that was tough … It was the hardest part of the day for a while. Work took me to Japan for a week and I couldn‘t stop thinking about her. When I got back I decided to see her and try to work it out. I went next door to her apartment.”
L.A. resident and ex-girlfriend Sarah asked, “Why won’t men stay the night?”
I replied: Well for me, if I go home with a chick that I just met, I pretty much assume that caution has been long thrown to the wind and we are following a mere short-term impulse, nothing more. A night like that can be a fantasy come true, given the right set of circumstances. It can fully backfire, though: imagine waking up or “coming to” the next day with some cat-thing crawling over your face, mascara clogged in the corners of eyes, breath and body emitting an unpleasant stench, putting on the “night before” clothes, realizing the fact that there is a picture on the dresser of one of my friends (or even of me for that matter, although the most horrific and terrifying possibility would be if the picture were of Anthony Kiedis), finding a scowling roommate in the hall, having nothing to say to each other, seeing the “cute” little things we played with still out on the living room floor (anything from photo albums to Ouija boards—this can be made worse if the two of you make eye contact right after noticing them), and listening to her laugh extra hard on the phone with her agent to show me how much of a real life she has, while grasping for some kind of lousy excuse like, “Oh my God!!! Is that clock right?”
All this plus that halfhearted attempt at avoiding the “Let-Me-Out-of-Here-Future-Plans” thing. This can, to say the least, destroy any fantasy we may have had. (By the way, if you’re some girl whom I might think is pretty, the above does not apply to you; we would, of course, spend an evening filled with tenderness, sensitivity, romance, nurturing, leather, spit, and a little laughter at a picturesque five-star hotel built for two. I would treat you like a flower, and open you up petal by petal until the morning sun shone on our bodies, blissfully entwined in the pool of our love. Make sure to bring extra towels, ladies.)
I think that this feeling is shared among more guys than girls, although, trust me, guys, they feel like this too—only for them, multiply this feeling by a hundred. Let’s face it, how would you like to wake up for the first time at your place?
What are the “Let-Me-Out-of-Here-Future-Plans,” you ask? You see, when we men are in a bind such as the one I have just described, for some reason we think that a promise of a future meeting will get us off the hook. It is kind of like this: [thinking to ourselves] “She’ll feel used and taken advantage of if I split now, I mean … she’s not drunk anymore … What an asshole I am … Yeah … I know … I’ll tell her I gotta go, but that I would love to see her later. Surely I can get out of that. No problem. Plus, she’ll think I like her and respect her and all that. If she only knew that I don’t even respect myself.” Then we usually make the mistake of saying, “What are you doing later?”
I know that there might be a few women out there who are reading this right now thinking, “What a fuckin’ asshole this Navarro guy is!” Before you judge, please hear me out. This phenomenon is just as common among men as the “One Hand” story is among women. Does this sound familiar?
“I can count all the men that I have slept with on one hand.” (More on that next column … if I am forgiven for this one.)
Conrad sits at a bus stop with his face in his hands. His pain is visible and although I am patiently waiting with him for the bus to come and take him home, he appears very alone. (Perhaps this is because we both know damn well that I have a very nice, plush, and expensive car and I could very easily give Con a ride home if I wished. After all, he does live next door to me … In fact, that’s how I met the guy. Ahhh, fuck it … I’m too codependent and I need my space!)
“I knock on the door and who answers? My supposed best friend! Sherm! I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it! I tell ya, Dave, it’s no mistake that the word friend ends in e-n-d! He claims that he was only tryin’ to be supportive ’cause she was all sad and shit when I left and one thing led to a … blah, blah, blah … So I’m like standin’ there like freakin’, right? She comes to the door and she’s got on this black lacy ‘fuck-me’ thing … She never wore that stuff before. I was so crushed. I thought I was gonna die right there. Turns out that now she wants to ‘claim her body’ or some fuckin’ bullshit like that … and now she don’t want no marriage!!!!!
“So, Dave …”
I was horrified. Conrad was about to puncture my heart and release all of my deepest fears … Women, especially in LA, are exactly like men!!!!
To myself: (Y’know, Dave, you haven’t really lived anywhere else. You have always been a Los Angeles resident. What’s the real common denominator here, eh, Slick?)
Oh no! Then the Love/Christmas Theory must be true! The decorations and the anticipation of exciting events such as Christmas or even a marriage are what everyone raves about. The actual thing itself, the event, simply sucks … Nobody, really … knows it for … sure? I turn into Roger Daltrey’s Tommy at the most fucked-up times! (This self-realizing and potentially spiritually healing human growth moment was, for me, one of those times.)
“Davey, my boy, for the next year or so I’d go to bed, alone, as the woman I loved and my best friend screwed the living daylights out of each other right next door to me. I could fuckin’ hear them! It tore my heart out every damn night until I became so numb I ended up jerkin’ off to it … The funny thing is that ever since then, women always seem to throw themselves at me … and you know what? I couldn’t care less!”
No surprise.
“Anyway, there’s my bus, dude … I gotta jam … Can I stop by when I get home in a few hours?”
[To be continued...]
part III SHE’S SUCH A GREAT …
Jason, a music-industry friend of Dave’s, has an ex-girlfriend who has been spending the week with him. She is actually more than an ex-girlfriend. She is the person he felt he was supposed to marry. After years of going out (he’d successfully managed to block out the exact number because it scared him), they decided they either had to break up or get married. They broke up.
Since then, they’ve both had a lot of relationships. And while she’s been staying with him, Jason has been trying to convince himself to resent her presence because it supposedly interferes with his work.
So tonight, Jason rushes over, excited to explain that he just had some kind of breakthrough. For the first time in years (he blocked out the exact number here too), he actually felt something for another human being. He felt the rusty hinges of his heart open and experienced a rush so long-repressed that it felt new. Then his head took over, and he got scared and slammed the doors to his heart shut.
As he says this, it becomes clear why Dave has started writing a column on love called “Love in L.A.” for Bikini magazine this month. It is his head denying his heart, trying to impose some kind of order and rationality on love in order to contain it. That doesn’t mean that anyone who writes a column like that on love has forgotten what love feels like; it’s that they’re scared of feeling it again.
“I’ve been so fucked up over love and the heart,” Dave says that night. “Meeting women, I sometimes try to believe flat-out that they’re all whores. I just walk in and think, ‘Oh, hey, God, she’s beautiful. She’s so nice and smart. She’s such a great whore.’ That’s it—and it’s fucked because I don’t know if I have the ability at this time, especially in this city, to have a loving relationship. Truthfully, at this stage in my life it’s better, because I am so unequipped to give what is required in an equal and loving relationship. I mean me, myself, I don’t have it. I’m just like the number one guy without it”
That is Dave’s head talking. In his heart, he knows even as he speaks these words that all women aren’t whores, that they all won’t fuck your friends or abandon you. But some will, and have.
The topic returns to love moments later when Dave’s ex-girlfriend Victoria (“Tori”) Andahaz
y calls. Dave met her in 1995 while buying his couch in the furniture store where she worked; they dated for die next year and a half.
As she speaks, Dave puts her on speakerphone. It’s his way of opening his life—or at least certain parts of it—to people around him, to let them know that he has nothing to hide.
For the sake of completeness, and because the conversation helps illuminate some of the topics in the months that follow, the entire conversation has been transcribed here. But it is beginning with the word “relationships” that the discussion begins to reflect Dave’s use of his head to deny (or is it protect?) his heart:
TORI: Are you still mad at me?
DAVE: No. Who is this?
TORI: Tori.
DAVE: [silence]
TORI: You’ll never guess what I just did.
DAVE: What?
TORI: I got a tattoo.
DAVE: Not another D. [She has a D tattooed on her ass.]
TORI: It was a Chinese symbol.
DAVE: Where is it?
TORI: On my wrist.
DAVE: Why didn’t you put it in your ass?
TORI: ’Cause I didn’t want to.
DAVE: I’d do it for you.
TORI: Why are you being like this?
DAVE: I’ve been real upset.
TORI: I would never hurt you. I just felt like you were picking on me all day. Sometimes you just want to argue with me and pick on me.
DAVE: I get the same feeling with you.
TORI: What do you mean?
DAVE: We’re arguable. We argue a lot.
TORI: No we don’t.