For What It's Worth

by Janet Tashjian

  Who’s Next—The Who

  English Rose—Fleetwood Mac

  We’re Only in It for the Money—Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

  Atom Heart Mother—Pink Floyd

  Led Zeppelin III—Led Zeppelin

  Strange Days—The Doors

  Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake—The Small Faces

  Blind Faith—Blind Faith

  Sticky Fingers—The Rolling Stones

  Trout Mask Replica—Captain Beefheart

  Whipped Cream and Other Delights—Herb Albert’s Tijuana Brass

  The Beatles (aka The White Album)—The Beatles

  Emerson, Lake & Palmer—Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  Cheap Thrills—Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company

  The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan—Bob Dylan

  In the Court of the Crimson King—King Crimson

  Sketches of Spain—Miles Davis

  Black Sabbath—Black Sabbath

  Revolver—The Beatles

  Tarkus—Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  Mott the Hoople—Mott the Hoople

  Magical Mystery Tour—The Beatles

  Hot Rats—Frank Zappa

  A Saucerful of Secrets—Pink Floyd

  Days of Future Passed—The Moody Blues

  American Beauty—The Grateful Dead

  Hot Buttered Soul—Isaac Hayes

  Disraeli Gears—Cream

  Abbey Road—The Beatles

  Abraxas—Santana

  Weasels Ripped My Flesh—Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

  Fragile—Yes

  Tommy—The Who

  The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys—Traffic

  Sergeant Pepper—The Beatles

  The Who Sell Out—The Who

  Aoxomoxa—The Grateful Dead

  Sailin’ Shoes—Little Feat

  Let It Bleed—The Rolling Stones

  If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears—The Mamas and the Papas

  Clouds—Joni Mitchell

  Odyssey and Oracle—The Zombies

  Axis: Bold as Love—The Jimi Hendrix Experience

  Forever Changes—Love

  The smog is so thick today, Mom and I can’t see the mountains from the 405.

  “Laurie went for a jog yesterday and had to stop after half a mile—the air quality was so bad, she couldn’t even breathe,” Mom says.

  “Why would somebody jog anyway? Was she being chased?”

  My mother laughs in agreement. “It’s the newest thing. But I do worry about all this air pollution, don’t you?”

  I don’t tell her how I’ve been obsessed by the Keep America Beautiful commercial with the Native American crying at all the water pollution. The other day, Mr. Woodrow—who can’t keep current events out of any lesson plan—told us about a river in Ohio that spontaneosly BURST INTO FLAMES a few years ago because of all the debris and oil on its surface. He said the incident helped create the new environmental movement, but all I kept wondering was HOW MUCH TRASH DOES THERE HAVE TO BE FOR A RIVER TO CATCH ON FIRE? No wonder that Native American guy is crying.

  “Are things all right with school and Caroline?” Mom asks. “Did people like the column?”

  I tell her the paper got the biggest response they’ve ever had and Patty asked us to do another list for the big issue at the end of the year. My mother puts her psychoanalysis experience to good use. “Let’s see—you’re happy about the positive feedback but wish people had made such a fuss about your regular column. Hmmm?”

  I hate it when she’s right about these things.

  She senses I don’t want to talk about it further and asks me how the band is doing instead. I tell her we find out today if we get to play at the school dance.

  “What are you calling yourself now?”

  “Last week it was Broken Flip-Flop, but now we’re Three-Legged Dog.”

  She presses the lighter into the console to heat it up again.

  “I thought one of the reasons you started psychoanalysis was to quit smoking?”

  As the traffic slows, she holds the burning coil to the Virginia Slim dangling from her lips. “Smoking is so far down the list of things I’m processing right now.”

  I turn away from the smoke and lean my head against the window. The last thing I want to listen to after getting two cavities filled is whatever is going on inside my mother’s head. When I hear the opening chords to Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son” on the radio, I crank up the volume. My mother likes this song too and sings along, nudging me to join in. Like analyzing lyrics in English class, singing in the car with your mother is pretty much something to be avoided at all costs.

  As we sit at the red light at Laurel Canyon and Lookout Mountain, I nonchalantly gaze out my window. I helped Brett settle into the cabin a few days ago and I’m hoping he’s doing okay. Translation—I pray my work with him is done.

  I’m half an hour late when Mom drops me at Willy’s for practice. I told Willy and Ryan that I couldn’t get out of my dentist appointment and would come as soon as I could, so I’m surprised to find Caroline already there.

  “I thought I was going to see you later.”

  She’s sitting cross-legged on the stone wall outside Willy’s garage. “I just figured I’d meet you here. Is that okay?”

  I nod, not wanting to drool on myself from the Novocain.

  “We’re trying to learn ‘Doctor My Eyes,’” Ryan says.

  Luckily it’s a Jackson Browne song I’ve played before so I won’t look like too much of a hack in front of Caroline. Willy counts us off, but we don’t make it past the first verse before Ryan stops singing.

  “I hope we don’t get the stupid gig at school,” he says. “’Cuz we couldn’t play for an hour if our lives depended on it.”

  “Starting a band was YOUR idea,” I say. “It was all you talked about for months, but as soon as the hard part comes, you want to bail.”

  “I don’t want to quit but we suck.” Ryan unplugs his guitar from the amp.

  “You can’t quit now,” Willy adds. “We just got started.”

  “Come on, let’s try it one more time.” I can’t figure out what’s eating Ryan—we don’t sound THAT bad.

  In all the times I fantasized about being in a band, I never thought about how long the learning curve would be. On a day when we’re not clicking, practice is about as much fun as HOMEWORK. I’d imagined Ryan and I would weave guitars back and forth, dueling leads, but in reality, our timing is off and sometimes it feels as if we’re playing different songs. Do we need more practice or are we never going to gel?

  Thankfully, Ryan plugs his guitar back in and we make it through the song three times before taking a break. Caroline approaches me with her hands behind her back, then places the bracelet in my hands.

  “Do you like it?” Her nose is scrunched up as if I might not.

  I examine the detail of the white woven string—she really did a great job. It looks like the “anti-shark” bracelets they sell at the shops in Malibu. I tell her I love it.

  “I’m so glad!” She reaches into her bag, takes out another three bracelets, and hands them to Willy, Ryan, and Marvin.

  “You made us ALL bracelets?”

  “They’re bard bracelets,” she says. “You guys can wear them for your gigs.”

  Willy has a well-worn similar bracelet on his left wrist and is excited to now have one for his right. Ryan and Marvin slip theirs on too, but I feel unsettled and selfish inside. Shouldn’t I be happy that my girlfriend thinks enough about me to go the extra mile and make presents for my bandmates too? She put a lot of time in—I should appreciate that, right? Instead of focusing on the fact that all her effort wasn’t being lavished on me? I’m not sure how it’s possible for such an altruistic moment to transform into one of self-flagellation, but in the wonderful world of QUINN’S FEEBLE MIND, that’s what happens. I tell myself to stop thinking like a cretin and keep focused on the song.

  Maybe it’s to pay her bac
k for making the band bracelets, but Willy invites Caroline to sing backup. Before I get a chance to tell her she doesn’t have to, Caroline joins Ryan and me at our only mic. My voice is passable, Ryan’s a bit better, but when Caroline comes in on the chorus, the look on Willy’s face is one of shock. I know what he’s thinking because I’ve thought it too—how can such a smart, cute girl sing so badly? I feel my cheeks redden and want to stop the song before anyone makes fun of her. But Caroline is LOVING this, singing her guts out. “I … am everyday people.” Is it fair to curtail someone’s enthusiasm just because she’s bad? (And when I say bad, I mean, god-awful, horrific, terrible.) Willy, Marvin, and Ryan fight back laughter and I have to admire Caroline for choosing joy over what other people think. By the end of the song, I admire her even more than I usually do.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Willy says when we’re done.

  “How about one more?” Caroline asks.

  I make up an excuse about having to stop by my mother’s store and pack up my guitar. Caroline needs no excuse to flip through Mom’s racks of clothes and comes along.

  “I know I can’t sing,” she says as we walk. “But I love to. Thanks for letting me join in even though I stink.”

  As her boyfriend, what do I do here? Am I supposed to say she DOESN’T stink when all the evidence points to the contrary? I tell her I love it when she comes to rehearsal, which is 100 percent true.

  When we get to the store, Tanya says Mom’s having lunch with my father and will be back in an hour. But this news doesn’t stop Caroline, who grabs four hangers full of blouses to try on. (I really can’t complain; I’ve dragged her to the record store almost every Tuesday—new release day—since we’ve been going out.)

  Caroline buys a gauzy pink shirt with the proceeds from our Club 27 project. Thanks to her efforts, our business has increased to almost a dozen kids a week, which has been a boon for Caroline’s wardrobe, as well as my record collection. (What to get this week—Ry Cooder’s Into the Purple Valley? Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind?) When Tanya finds out Caroline made my bracelet, she gushes over her macramé skills and says she’ll talk to my mother about carrying them in the store—yet another moneymaking opportunity, which causes Caroline to try on one more blouse.

  As we walk back up Sunset, Caroline ducks inside an alley and makes me barricade the sun as she loads film into her camera. She snaps photos of the telephone wires, the shampoo bottles lined up in the drugstore window, and graffiti scrawled on the side of a motel. We have a great afternoon, mostly because I ignore Club 27’s stupid predictions that she’s going to leave.

  I remember a book my mother keeps on the coffee table at home: Be Here Now. It’s got a deep blue cover and the pages look like the brown paper they make lunch bags out of. I’ve flipped through it—the message is basically about living in the present without a lot of baggage in your head. Lately I feel like I’ve got a full set of luggage up there; I had no idea having a girlfriend took up such a giant chunk of your brain. (Although to be fair, the band and the war Mr. Woodrow won’t stop talking about contribute to that too.) I snap myself out of this downward spiral—if I don’t get out of my head and start living in the real world soon, I AM going to lose my girlfriend.

  “You okay?” Caroline asks.

  I tell her I’m fine but have to bring Brett some dinner.

  “He can’t stay here forever,” she says. “Did he decide if he’s going to Canada?”

  “He was planning to hitchhike, but I think he’s worried about people who pick him up getting into trouble since he’s wanted by the authorities. He’s trying to save up enough for a bus.”

  “Yeah, but once he gets there, how’s he going to cross the border? Won’t his name come up at customs?”

  “Well, aren’t you all informed?” I snatch the camera and snap a quick picture of her trying to grab it out of my hand.

  When we get to the top of her street, I thank her again for the bracelet, then correct myself. “I mean bracelets—you didn’t have to make them for all of us.” And when I say “all of us,” I mostly mean Ryan, who’s had girls making him stuff since grade school.

  When I get back home, I’m surprised to see Dad.

  “I thought you were having lunch with Mom.”

  “We went to the Farmers’ Market. I always forget to go—I like it there.” He motions toward a bag on the counter. “Brought you back some leftovers.”

  Black beans and rice in the middle of the afternoon—a real treat. I finish it off while Dad gets out the lawn mower.

  “You want to play Frisbee?” he asks.

  I look over at my father—it’s hard to believe Soosie ever thought he’d turn Brett in to the authorities. His wire glasses are crooked, he’s got a red bandanna with grease spots hanging out of his pocket, and his workboots look like he dug them out of a Dumpster. He’s about the least threatening guy I know. Should I defy my older sister and tell him about Brett? Take him over to Zappa’s old place now and introduce them?

  When the phone rings, my father waves me inside as if he already knows getting to the phone is ten times more important to me than playing Frisbee.

  “We got the gig!” Willy says.

  YES! This is the first official gig for Drawn & Quartered—we came up with yet another name this afternoon—and we’ve got a lot of work to do before the dance. I tell Willy I’ll see him after dinner to work on some songs before tomorrow’s practice.

  “Dad!” I shout into the yard. “We got our first gig!”

  My father shuts off the lawn mower and tells me he didn’t hear a word I said. It doesn’t bother me to repeat the news—a few dozen more times.

  The set list is obviously of paramount importance. Do we open with “Lola” or “Brown Sugar”? “Proud Mary” or “If You Really Love Me?”

  It’s a dance, so you have to have a FEW slow songs, but which ones? “Mercy, Mercy Me” or “I Believe in You”?

  What do we do during our break—besides wait for people to come up and tell us how great we are?

  POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE RULE!

  (We changed our name again.)

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  4/72

  Neil Young wrote three of his biggest songs for Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere--“Cinnamon Girl,” “Down by the River,” and “Cowgirl in the Sand”--all on the same day while sick in bed with a 103-degree fever. He’s never really been healthy: he has diabetes and epilepsy and even had polio as a kid.

  A Canadian citizen, Young drove to L.A. in his hearse. He was on Sunset Boulevard when Stephen Stills saw him drive by with his friend Bruce Palmer. Stills and Richie Furay had been looking all over town for musicians to start a band with. When Stills saw the hearse with Ontario plates, he knew it was Neil, whom he’d met while performing in Canada. He and Furay did a U-turn on Sunset, pulled over Neil, and-—presto-—Buffalo Springfield was born. They took their name from a steamroller they saw parked on their producer’s street.

  Brett met a woman from Silver Lake who’s letting him crash at her place for a while, freeing up Zappa’s old cabin. I debate whether to tell the band about it as a possible place to practice, but visions of real estate agents and police officers squash the idea pretty quickly. I swear I have NO ULTERIOR MOTIVES when I take Caroline there after school.

  “Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?” Caroline asks.

  “Because we’re not supposed to be here, that’s why.” I give her a boost to climb over the fence, then scale it myself. (Is she paying attention to how coordinated and strong I am?)

  I know Soosie’s been here before, but I’m floored by what I see, an oasis right off one of the busiest streets in the Canyon. Large wooden tree houses, a pond, giant trees—the place is huge, probably several acres. I tamp down the thought that says YOU’RE TRESPASSING, grab Caroline’s hand, and wander around like we’re guest stars on Danger Island.

  We descend the old wooden stairs to an area that looks like a dungeon. A dungeon
!

  “There’s a bowling alley down here,” Caroline says. “And tunnels!”

  I tell her the tunnels supposedly lead to Houdini’s old house that burned down on the other side of the street. I tell her about the séances he used to have to contact the spirits. “Houdini spent years offering a reward to anyone who could make contact with the other side. He was always disappointed, though. Never got to talk to his mother.”

  Caroline’s face suddenly lights up the entire basement, which is good because it’s pretty scary down here.

  “You talk to the dead all the time,” she says.

  “It’s a Ouija board—it’s not like I take it seriously.”

  She catches me in my lie. “Of course you take it seriously! If not, then why do you consult it all the time? And if you don’t believe it’s really Club 27, you should give our friends their money back.” She gives my jacket a little tug.

  “Okay, I’m superstitious, I believe in all that crazy stuff, but that doesn’t mean I want to host a séance.”

  She continues to play with the hem of my jacket, and I suddenly get a jolt of excitement that our visit here might turn romantic.

  But Caroline has something else in mind. “We should invite our clients—”

  “They’re not clients, they’re our classmates.”

  She’s on a roll and my words are barely a speed bump. “We should invite them all here for a séance—with Jimi, Janis, and Jim.”

  I tell her absolutely not, for a million reasons—namely that this place belongs to someone else. (I don’t tell her one of my primary reasons is that it’s creepy, dark, and strange.)

  My comments fall on deaf ears. Like a director delegating to a gaggle of assistants, Caroline counts off all the things we’ll have to do to prepare for such an event.

  As darkness descends, I wonder about the coyote quotient in these gullies and hills and tell Caroline we have to go. Spirits, séances, the wind howling through broken branches? Not to sound like a wuss, but get me OUT of here.

  Caroline—smarter than me even on her stupidest day—has another idea. “You want to help your sister’s friend, right? We could charge for the séance, use the whole Houdini angle, and give all the proceeds to him. Then he can finally leave and you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”