Everybody Curses, I Swear!

by Carrie Keagan

  On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was a guy who was related to music industry royalty. I guess he and Kourosh started out as friends, and he was brought into the company as a partner for his connections and to help with fund-raising. As Kourosh would say, “It’s not about who you know, it’s about who knows you.” But things don’t always work out the way they’re meant to, and you’ve got to roll with the hand you’re dealt. Start-ups are a major fucking 24/7 hustle. You’ve got to be willing to put yourself on the line and get your hands dirty to get shit done. It ain’t no nine-to-five yak-shaving exercise! Some people are built for that shit while others are in no way prepared for the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants environment we lived in. When it came to how he ran the company, Kourosh was an “all hands on dick” kind of guy, and his fundraising partner came across as more of a “get your hand off my dick” kind of guy, so, unfortunately, their relationship soured.

  He and I never got along, which was weird because I, generally, got along with everybody. That was my curse! But when I arrived at the company, it seemed like I landed smack dab in the middle of a dick-swinging contest he imagined himself in with Kourosh. I remember him being pretty condescending to me, but then again, I felt he was condescending to everyone. That was his gift. He reminded me of the Walter Kerr zinger “He had delusions of adequacy.” He was the living embodiment of James Spader’s character Steff in Pretty in Pink. He treated us all like peasants. But he had a relationship with the company’s angel investor, which he reminded us of on the daily, so I suppose he was a necessary evil. I don’t think he ever understood or appreciated what the company was doing and ultimately positioned himself as Kourosh’s archnemesis.

  On the flip side, I immediately bonded with another coworker named Ken Stroscher. He was a tall blue-eyed blond-haired guy who became Netgroupie’s first cameraman, writer, and master editor. He grew up with Kourosh in the same town, and they’d worked together at a mom-and-pop video store, just like Quentin Tarantino. In fact, Ken gave Kourosh his first job. Ken was obsessed with video equipment and was sort of the early, unofficial creator of TiVo. He had a dozen VCRs set up around town to record TV shows like The X-Files, and he’d walk around with a bag of VHS tapes and loan them out to everybody. Ken was creative and brilliant but a bit eccentric. I affectionately called him my idiot savant.

  I remember a story Kourosh would tell about their old days at the video store. Ken had decided he didn’t like to see dicks in his porn, so he MacGyver’d all of his video machines together and somehow figured out how to edit all the dicks out, film by film. He ended up with a massive VHS collection of porno. With no dicks! At the video store, Ken and Kourosh watched every movie under the sun together, which, unbeknownst to them at the time, would end up formulating the style of our future company. At the time, neither had any clue that they would start a multimillion-dollar business together. Kourosh was twenty and in a rock band, and Ken moonlighted as a stock boy for a beauty-supply wholesaler. Years later when Kourosh decided to start Netgroupie, he brought in Ken to be his editor and cameraman. He was the obvious choice.

  Ken and I had an immediate connection. Unlike Kourosh, he was socially awkward and a total nerd. He had really bad sinuses, making him a major mouth breather, putting him in a special category with the likes of Darth Vader. This one time, I was in the middle of interviewing Jon Voight when he stopped mid-sentence to ask “what that strange noise was coming from the back of the room.” Of course, I had to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about while I waited for Kourosh to gracefully make his way over to behind the camera and whisper, from behind clenched teeth, “Ken, close your fucking mouth!” On more than a few occasions, we actually had to stop rolling on an interview because the distraction was just too much. Despite his idiosyncrasies, Ken and I became the best of friends. Like Rob & Big, Scooby and Shaggy–style best friends. We were working our asses off, but we were also making each other laugh, constantly. We did everything together. Ken and I took it upon ourselves to learn how to edit and segment produce, and before long, the three of us kind of evolved into a streamlined production unit. We no longer needed to rely on anyone else, so anything was possible. Whatever we set our minds to, we did.

  But editing—and calling affiliates—wasn’t to be my destiny. Oh, no. So remember how I said Kourosh could never take no for an answer? Well, I learned that he’s also willing to wait as long as it takes for the right opportunity to get exactly what he wants. Inevitably, the company had accomplished all it could with its affiliate program and needed to take the leap into creating new, original content with the bands so it could begin to form its own identity. Of course, the conversation, once again, turned to me being on camera. UGH!!

  Don’t get me wrong, the whole pirate radio vibe he wanted to create with the company sounded exciting, and I was deeply flattered that he wanted me to do this. I just didn’t think I had anything to offer in the way of skills. I had met a few celebrities in my life, like football players my dad introduced me to, but I never knew what to say to them. I never wanted to meet them just to say that I did. If I was going to have an encounter with someone famous, I wanted it to be a hang, not some awkwardly forced fan moment. On the other hand, I didn’t want our new company falling on its ass because I wasn’t flexible. Luckily, Kourosh is an amazing hype-man and salesman. He got me where my heart is. One day he came to me with an offer I couldn’t refuse:

  “How’d you like to hang with Lemmy from Motörhead?”

  I couldn’t believe it. He knew how big a fan I was and had gone after this only to use it as bait. Like the voodoo priest in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he reached into my chest and grabbed my heart. All I could say was, “Fuck, who wouldn’t want to have a beer with Lemmy? Damn you, Kourosh!” He had found my kryptonite and broken me down. At that point, I knew I had opened the door to being on camera. My final words to Kourosh as I gave in to his “evil plan” were, “I’m agreeing to do this for you. Please don’t fuck with me.” Meaning—don’t lead me down this path to fail. In my soul, I knew he wouldn’t. He was true to his word. That was over a decade ago.

  “I hope it’s a total mindfuck, ‘cause I haven’t had any other kind in a while!”

  —Joel Schumacher

  Here’s the funny part … it never actually happened. We went down to the Cat Club on Sunset, a tiny little club owned by Stray Cats’ drummer Slim Jim Phantom, where legendary artists would randomly show up and perform unannounced. Sure enough, Lemmy hit the stage and brought the house down, then proceeded to bail out the back door during our scheduled interview time. Fucking perfect! But Pandora’s box had been opened, and Kourosh took full advantage of my weakened state of mind and scheduled twenty more interviews. That’s how I started on camera. It was not part of the plan. In fact, it was everything I never wanted. Here’s the thing Kourosh always said to me: “You only need one person to believe in you and you can accomplish anything.” It was that singular act of faith on his part that I could do this that inspired me to be fearless and move forward. He told me there was nothing to be afraid of, and I believed him. Why the fuck I believed him, I have no idea.

  [Cue Wayne’s World ripple transition for flash-forward.]

  Who’da thunk that the girl who said “Hell No!” to being in front of the camera would find herself, just a few years later, on the set of a big Hollywood movie, preparing to shoot her first scene? Warner Bros. Pictures would fly me to Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to team up with the film’s stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, and director Todd Phillips in a then-unknown movie called The Hangover. I couldn’t make this shit up if I wanted to! Having embraced our out-of-the-box approach to promoting movies early on, Warner Bros. came to us with an interesting idea to get me and NGTV behind what was going to be a very dirty movie, and it seemed like a wonderful opportunity and a perfect fit. Having become the go-to person in the uncensored universe, they went big with this one by offering m
e a role in the film along with carte blanche on set to do whatever I wanted behind the scenes for NGTV. And I did.

  Nobody had any idea that this film would become a phenomenon. To them it was a fun little film that was so filthy that they weren’t sure people would even go see it. Looking back, Bradley, Ed, Zach, and Heather seemed so sweet and unassuming when I arrived on set. They had been on night-shoots all week, so everyone was a bit groggy. But I was able to rile them up with a jolt of sarcasm and my excitement for being deep inside Sin City: the land of bad decisions.

  A toothless Ed Helms told me a story about how he, Bradley, and Zach were driving down the strip in a convertible Mercedes for one of the scenes, and while stopped at a traffic light, a couple of pedestrians walked by and started making fun of Zach’s beard. Saying “Your beard looks like pubes. Did you glue pubes to your face?” He got a real kick out of making fun of Zach’s bum fluff. I quickly realized that Ed was the devilish one in the cast. I got the distinct impression that he was THE go-to guy for all the Vegas “specialties,” and if I had a hankering for something I could only get in vegas, he knew exactly what to do. “Talk to the concierge,” he said. “I think they can get you some hookers and some blow.” Take note, it’s good to know in case of an emergency. Then he spent some time talking to me about my character arc in the film: “We have a whole C story, where you and I go on a bender in Reno. Which we’re shooting later.” I have to say that even though the C story ultimately didn’t get shot, for budgetary reasons, those two weeks of rehearsal with Ed in Reno were priceless. I kid!

  Heather Graham joked with me about the “rules” of shooting a film about a night of drunken debauchery: “Everyone has to be drunk, basically, to work on the film. When you show up at work, they make sure that you’re drunk in order to let you come to work.” Basically, the whole cast was studying with Stanislavski himself. “It’s a method-acting film,” she said. “I’m really wasted right now.”

  Bradley Cooper got in the act with me, exchanging a couple of “fucks” and sharing a “smoky treat” in between takes. We were sharing screen time in a very intense and pivotal moment of the film, which had us both feeling anxious:

  Bradley: They pump oxygen, apparently. I don’t know if that’s an old wives’ tale.

  Me: Is that why I’m high right now?

  Bradley: No, no … that’s from the crack you were smoking!

  Me: OHHHHH, riiiiight. (Sweet relief.)

  Zach and I had a bumpy start. He mistook me for a stripper and tipped me a dollar while he was playing the slots. Once I convinced him that I was actually in the scene with him, he laughed. “Oh, did you read for the part of Two Big-Boobs?” Once that was cleared up, he explained to me why he thought the film would be successful: “Everybody should go see The Hangover,” he said, “it’s rated G, it’s a Pixar film … and I know a lot of people think Hollywood does too many movies about the Holocaust but this one I think you’re gonna like!”

  What’s really cool is that that brief time we spent together has forever bonded me with those guys, and every time I see them, it’s always a mini reunion. And I wouldn’t have experienced any of that if I had stuck to my first decision of “Hell No!”

  [Cue Wayne’s World ripple transition for flashback.]

  Kourosh, Ken, and I believed in each other … and the fact that we could do anything. Think of us as a creative threesome. An artistic orgy. Where the only thing getting fucked was going to be your mind. We set aside all the naysayers at the company and realized we didn’t need them, or really anyone else for that matter, to reach our goals. We were The Three Musketeers. We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing; we were making it up as we went along. Come to think of it, I guess we were more like The Three Amigos!

  The approach for us in the beginning was that whoever said yes, we interviewed. Unfortunately for me, that meant a lot of underground hip-hop artists. The only thing I knew about underground hip-hop was that I knew absolutely fucking nothing about underground hip-hop. We also needed to get a lot of talent at one time, and that meant hitting up a bunch of random music festivals. So I was a little worried. Trust me, any reporter who has ever done this will tell you that covering a music festival is nothing short of a bareback verbal gangbang. At the end of the day you just feel sore, filthy, used up, and in need of a vaginal steam … and that’s just the guys. I was about to undergo a baptism by fire with the flames being fanned by Kourosh. I remember the first time we had to hit up one of these big festivals, Kourosh reassured me that this was just something to get my feet wet and that it would be a one-time deal. I’ve since learned that promising someone that it’s a “one-time deal” is the businessman’s version of “just the tip.”

  Our first big score was getting access to a hip-hop Halloween party at the El Rey Theatre in LA where the show’s promoter allowed us to take over the VIP suite on the balcony and do interviews with the talent. We had no idea what we were walking into. To put it mildly, it was wildly chaotic, and the entire venue was just one thick cloud of pot smoke. And it wasn’t something that you could wave out of your face, either. It was almost like the pot smoke had replaced the air. We were being pot-raped. In other words, a total blast!

  We set up our lights and equipment, the show started, and we waited. After each act, Kourosh would run down to the stage, an impossible undertaking since the place was oversold and packed like sardines. He’d grab an artist and pull them through the crowd all the way to the back of the venue and up the stairs. I have no idea what he said to get these guys to follow him. Probably the promise of a six-foot bong and a five-foot blonde. Well, one out of two ain’t bad!

  Keep in mind, I am not a pot smoker, so inhaling all of that pot smoke got me high pretty fucking quickly. Which, of course, makes for the perfect time for me to conduct my first interview, right? Now, I definitely was not at the point in my career where I was comfortable enough to cuss it up and command a moment with the people whom I was interviewing. Mary Hart never swore and she was, sorta, the person I went into this thinking I was going to be. Well, if I was Mary Hart, then tonight, I was Mary Hart, high as a motherfucker. There’s a good chance that the very first question out of my mouth, to the very first person I ever interviewed was, “Where are we right now?” And it all pretty much went downhill from there. Because I’m pretty sure the second question was, “Where do you guys keep the pizza?”

  Once the artist got up to us, we had another problem. We didn’t anticipate that the house would go dark again almost immediately, and the next band would start playing. It was earsplittingly loud, and when we turned our lights on, it was as if a giant homing beacon was illuminated inside the building. Imagine the Luxor Sky Beam indoors!! It created such a fucking disruption that the entire crowd turned away from the stage to look up to our corner of the balcony to see what the hell was going on. The artists onstage were getting completely distracted. What a fucking mess!! On top of that, my interviews were a joke because it was just me yelling:

  Musician: I can’t hear anything!

  Me: What?

  Cameraman: Pull the mic away from your mouth!

  Me: You wanna put what in my mouth?

  After about ten of these useless interviews, there was a half-hour lull before the main act took the stage. It was hot as balls in the balcony, and we were all as high as a kite because, as luck would have it, all the pot smoke had floated up to our corner. Kourosh then left to go grab the headliner before he went on, the only person that we’d ever heard of, and our biggest and best reason for being there. We were new to this and were trying our best to make a good impression and be professional. But when Kourosh finally got the headliner up to the balcony, we were so fucking stoned that we had all completely passed out. Imagine if you will the door opening, those infamous fuck-ton lights going on, and six passed-out, drooling bodies lying there, dead to the world, with a couple on top of each other. What a sight! #Unprofessional

  I think we tried to pull ourselves together as
fast as we could, which I’m sure was not as fast as we thought considering we were all fucking blitzed. Let’s just say we all learned a lot that night about what not to do in the future. Too bad none of us remembered!

  In the beginning stages of starting a business, you hustle—you do whatever it takes—to make it successful. For us, hustling meant bending the rules a bit.

  We had to be creative in order to get into some of the bigger festivals. Hustling our way into these events became Kourosh’s new unintentional specialty after sneaking into Cypress Hill’s Smokeout Festival and a few of Xzibit’s “Alkaholik” parties. You do what you’ve got to do sometimes to get to the people you need to get to. It was awesome meeting all the celebrities I’d watched and listened to growing up. Every once in a while, one of them would leave quite an impression.

  I recall how exciting it was to run into porn legend Ron Jeremy, “The Hedgehog” himself, at one of these parties we were covering at the Key Club. I was so excited that I asked Kourosh to find a way to wrangle him over to us. So off he went to make my strange wish come true. Kourosh was good like that. A little later, out of nowhere, Ron came up behind me, grabbed me in a full-body embrace, pulled my hair aside, and licked all the way up my neck, then walked away, leaving me in a disheveled stupor. Kourosh and Ken witnessed the whole thing and were dumbfounded waiting for my reaction. I stood there speechless for about twenty seconds and then cried out “GROSS!!! That was AWESOME!!!!” It was exactly what I didn’t know I wanted my Ron Jeremy experience to be. Some celebrities really know how to deliver a fan encounter. Gene Simmons, whom I’d meet later down the road and spend a great deal of time with, had that in common with Ron Jeremy. He really understood his brand and would give his fans what they expected. Love him or hate him, whenever you’d encounter Gene, he would always deliver exactly what you needed: some fucked-up pseudosexual encounter that left you breathless, a little insulted, and armed with a story to pass down to your grandchildren.