Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  Genesis

  San Diego, CA 1986 - Vince Meehan

  I was 23 years old and going through a mid-life crisis. It was the summer of 1986 in San Diego, CA and I was in dire straits thinking that my life might just pass me by before it started. I wanted to move to LA; Hollywood to be more specific. My name is Vinnie and 10 years earlier I had a girlfriend who lived in LA and I would visit her on the weekends. San Diego was suburbia. It was splayed out in massive housing tracts with a shopping mall at it’s center. LA was different; it was made up of separate neighborhoods with different cultures and personalities. In LA, you could walk down the street to a liquor store or hamburger stand. I don’t know why, but I found that really compelling. Parents didn’t give a rat’s ass where their kids were. Each house seemed to have a dark secret going on inside that gave the city a sinister but sexy pulse. Whether it was swinger parties, drug dealing or something so evil it scars, you asked no questions, and you were left alone. Indeed, some of the kids seemed to prefer to stay out on the streets late at night rather than return to their own homes. This of course lead to an entire generation of children who learned the ins and outs of the streets and had no fear doing so. The nights in LA glow green which silhouettes the countless palm trees lining every street and creates a soothing stage where all sorts of first times occur. Here the adults act like children and the children act like adults, so you don’t grow up... you become LA. I fell in love with this lifestyle to the North , a quasi Lord of the Flies existence where the nights were warm, the girls were hot and you were always comforted by the constant hum, and occasional crack of high tension wires and transformers in the night.

  So here I am, still in San Diego, standing with Santa Ana winds blowing through my hair looking down at the city lights swirling in the restless wind. But this was not Mulholland, and the lights were not Hollywood. Instead I was on a hill near Balboa park, and the lights were a ghetto in the distance called Logan Heights. If I blurred my eyes it looked the same. But it wasn’t... and it was killing me.

  San Diego, CA 1985 - Chris Solberg

  The thought hit me in the head like a ton of bricks. The dream of moving to Hollywood was no longer going to be a fantasy. It was real, it was tangible it could be done. Here I was... 15 years old, without any life experience and already planning my life in Hollywood. Why would I want to leave my great life in San Diego and move to an unknown city immediately after graduating from high school? I wanted something more! Something San Diego could not provide to me. Excitement. Little did I know that what I would experience in the future would be more fantastic than anything I would ever envision. Most people would only dream of moving to Hollywood and being in a rock band that would tour The United States. It was 1985 and I had no clue, not a hint of the adventures I would someday have. The strange part of this story is the person that would be joining me on my big move to Hollywood in 1988. I did not even know him yet. He lived only one mile from my childhood home in San Diego, California. This person I would meet two years after my vision of Hollywood. This person is Vinnie Vegas. Here is a small sample of our stories...

  Hollywood - the promised land

  The Bad Beer - Vinnie Vegas

  The sun was shining and the music was crankin’, just like any other day at the El Cerrito Apartments in Hollywood, CA. The steady stream of traffic outside on Franklin Ave. created a constant white noise hum that was only interrupted by the occasional buzz of a cicada or roar of an LAPD chopper blazing past at tree top level. 1988 was a hot summer in Hollywood, but not the thick nasty, wet heat that San Bernardino can get in the monsoon season 90 miles to the east. Hollywood is notorious for it’s gorgeous weather, but people who have lived in Southern California know that once every ten years or so, we get a really hot summer that lasts all the way into October. That heat is scorching hot, but dry as a bone, and the air is so thin that sound doesn’t travel well and you have trouble hearing somebody ten feet away. This heat creates it’s own energy which gets you all hopped up, as well as real energy which shocks you when you touch the door handle.

  Cupkake and I had recently moved to Hollywood from San Diego in the middle of this Indian Summer, and were settling down to a routine that would become very popular for us. Hanging out by the pool and drinking lot’s of beer. I’d only known him less than a year, but the two of us trusted each other enough to make the hop up to LA. We’d only been in our new

  apartment for a couple of weeks, and I was still having a hard time believing that this was indeed real. I had dreamed of moving to LA for years, and now... here I was! I was getting very used to this lifestyle in the sun. So now after an afternoon of kicking back by the pool, we were chilling out in coolness of our Apt #111 in Hollywood, CA. Out of nowhere, Leon had just called and announced that he was on his way over. Red alert! This set us off into a plan of action that would become one of the most disturbing incidents I was ever a part of. Well, honestly, to say I was involved in it isn’t exactly truthful, but at the same time, I didn’t put the kibasch on it either.

  Leon was a rude, obnoxious, little, dirty guy that we knew from San Diego. He made it hard for anyone to like him because his vulgar mouth and pension for bullshit. We were pissed when he announced that he was moving to LA because this little troll was going to get there before us. He had no place being there, and no reason either. Leon was smug and gloating to everybody about embarking on his trek to stardom. You see in San Diego, if you moved to LA, that meant that somehow you were going to make it in show-biz. But you needed talent to do that and Leon had none. Of course, I don’t think that was the point, he was so dense that he figured people would envy him for moving up to Hollywood. Instead, everybody laughed.

  On this day, we had Porridge up from San Diego for the weekend. Porridge was our old singer from our band in San Diego called Point Blank. His real name was Cory Hubbard, but we liked to call him Porridge. Porridge was a unique looking individual, tall and skinny like a scarecrow with a mop of Kenny G hair. He had the same pouty mouth, long nose and doe eyes of a young Pete Townsend, with permanently rosy cheeks. I think he was around 24, but with his baby face he looked like he was 17. Porridge wore the tightest blue jeans you ever saw on a man tucked into his requisite cowboy boots. Like every singer, he had tons of silver bracelets on his wrists which jangled everywhere he went. Therefore, keeping tabs on him was as easy as cat with a bell-collar. Porridge actually failed his audition for Point Blank with a weak karaoke rendition of “Smokin in the Boys Room”, but we really liked his look and so we decided to work with him. Back then, often a singer’s talent was secondary to whether or not he had the “look”. Porridge was by far the coolest looking singer we saw in San Diego even though he had never actually played out. He was a bit shy as well as having a weak voice, but Cupkake told him he needed to “eat wood” if he wanted to sing for us, and soon after, he had developed the Brett Michaels growl. After that, he became cocky and a wise-ass, so the joke was... we had created a monster.

  Now Porridge knew Leon as well as we did from San Diego, and had already developed a deep disdain for the troll. It didn’t take any prompting from any of us for him to want to throw Leon under the bus. We had told everybody stories of Leon’s famous rudeness which everybody had no problem believing. Leon had moved up to Hollywood a few months before us, but had already established an ugly reputation with anybody from San Diego who knew him. Leon had already been banished from our apartment unless he had beer because of his rudeness. Today he had defiantly announced that he didn’t have any, but was coming over anyway. Somehow he found out that we were having guests up from San Diego and was going to crash the party. This was typical Leon, and this is why we avoided him. Porridge had h
eard the stories and was revved up to put his reputation to the test, at a cost... a terrible cost. I don’t know what Leon ever did to Porridge, but he sure had it out for him and he decided to initiate one of the most devious plans I’ve ever witnessed.

  For this weekend, we knew that Porridge was coming up, so we splurged by buying Lowenbrau in bottles, rather than Bud in cans. Now probably a lot of you have never heard of Lowenbrau, but back in the 80’s, it was considered a step up above the rest. “Tonight... let it be Lowenbrau.” Now Leon was on his way, and we were telling Porridge new stories about recent bad behavior from the man. I had already stoked the fire by announcing that if there was only one beer left in the fridge, Leon would surely drink it! After all, he did it all the time. Leon was notorious for helping himself to our beer without asking, even if it was the last one. I even did a little pantomime sketch of exactly what it would look like. I went outside and opened the door without knocking. I entered our apartment and scanned the room doing my best Leon scowl without saying hello to anybody. I then shuffled to the fridge, opened it and chugged the beer. This imitation alone got the room howling with laughter. However, there were some doubting Thomas’ in the room who insisted that I was full of shit and that he would never be that rude. To be fair, I think everybody knew better, but people were just being the devil’s advocate. Anyway, we started throwing the idea around to try and put money on it somehow, but nobody would take that bet. Instead, Porridge came up with the idea of drinking a beer, and then pee into the empty bottle and put the cap back on. And if Leon did indeed help himself to this last beer, then he would be treated to a mouthful of piss. This of course was met with howling laughter until we realized he was serious. At that point, I did not know if I wanted to be involved, but the idea gained momentum and suddenly the die was cast. Cupkake was really into it, and he and Porridge rushed into the kitchen before we could change our minds. Leon was on his way over and the plan was set, but we had to hurry.

  At that point, I decided that I couldn’t be a part of it, but I sure as hell was not going to miss it. Somebody slammed the beer and then we did a game of hot potato with the bottle trying to see who would pee into it. Ernie, Cupkake’s drummer from the band Ultra Pop, decided that he would do it, but nothing would come out. Minutes were ticking by and Leon only lived a block away, so time was of the essence. At that point, I didn’t think we could pull it off, but Porridge was dead set on making this happen so he successfully began to pee into the bottle. Now everybody knows that once you start peeing, you cant stop until you’re done, so I really expected to have pee flying all over the kitchen once the bottle was full. To his credit, Porridge filled half the bottle ignoring the complete riot of laughter going on, and Cupkake topped off the rest. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen people peeing into beer bottles in the kitchen before! The idea that Porridge had such an intrical part in this caper was weird because he was usually easily grossed out by the most mild things. There was a famous incident where we were filming ourselves before a gig in San Diego and I busted out a tray of sushi. Sushi was brand new in 1987, and I took a liking to it immediately. It became a soundcheck ritual for me to mack down some sushi during the invariable downtime because sushi is yummy, but doesn’t bloat you out like a Big Mac. On the video, I offer him a piece as he’s hamming it up, and he takes a bite. Later, we would slo-motion the tape over and over to catch the exact moment when the life drained from the face of our happy cherub and he adopted the “1000 yard stare” of trying not to hurl.

  Now we’ve got a bottle of pee which gave me the heebie-jeebies, and then the gate started buzzing. Leon was here and we had to put the cap back on the beer and stash it in the fridge. All the while I was spasming with laughter and trying not to puke at the same time. I watched them scurrying to plant the beer in the fridge like something out of a Three Stooges movie, all with a bright red faces. Somebody buzzed in Leon and I jumped like superman onto our Ikea bed/couch to act like I was just lounging the day away. At that point, we all had to stifle our laughter and act like nothing was going on. Now, I’m sure you all have been in a situation were the minute you’ve entered a room, you knew some sort of hijinks had just taken place. Anybody with a brain can sniff that one out and you immediately ask what the hell is going on. But of course, Leon was as dense as a rock and had no clue. As I predicted, he marched in and scanned the room with his scowl. He never broke pace and waddled immediately to the fridge. At that point, I swear it went into slow motion. The closer he got to the fridge, the more my brain screamed “Stop! you must not let this happen!” But at that point, I was paralyzed by seeing my prophecy unfold right before my very eyes. As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, all I could do was bury my head in the cushions and close my eyes.

  As for Porridge and Ernie, they had to see with their own eyes this macabre spectacle take place. Well, can you blame them? After all, have you ever watched anybody drink piss? I guess it was like watching a car crash, but if I ever had any doubts, I guess I’m one of the people who would close their eyes. At this point, all I can tell you is what the others saw because I couldn’t look, but they all saw the same thing. Leon walked over to the fridge, opened it up, grabbed the beer, popped the cap, hoisted the bottle 90 degrees, and chugged three or four whole gulps of piss. I didn’t see it, but I could hear it, and I started convulsing feverishly into the cushions. Half with laughter, half with disgust. I actually heard the gulping and for a few seconds, I really had to fight the urge to puke. Now try laughing and fighting off chunks, I dare you... but I did. At this point it was theater of the mind because my eyes were shut as tight as I could squeeze them, but this I heard, and I will never forget:

  Leon: Oh Man!

  Cupkake: What’s wrong Leon?

  Leon: Oh man... I think I got a bad beer!

  Porridge: What are you talking about?

  Leon: Man, I think I got a bad beer!

  Ernie: Why?

  Leon: Because the cap came off really easy and it tasted real funny!

  Cupkake: Go on...

  Leon: Oh man, it’s warm... and it’s got no fizz!

  At that point I lost it and thought for sure chunks would come up. For the life of me I don’t know how the whole room did not erupt in laughter. In hindsight, I think we were all in shock that this really happened right before our eyes. As a matter of fact, we may have even been remorseful. Well, all except for Porridge that is, who was beaming like the cat who caught the canary. After all, he hatched up an unlikely plan which actually worked, and the end result was watching Leon drink a bottle of piss.

  To this day I don’t remember what happened after that, because there is no way that you can hang out with a guy you just watched drink pee. We all did eventually start laughing, and so hard that even Leon joined in! Is it possible to drink urine and not know it? Even though he was laughing, Leon kept asking us “Oh man... what’s so funny?” Of course we were laughing so hard that simply breathing was hard enough to do, much less try and explain. We never did explain, and I don’t remember how we finally got him out of there. If I ever go to therapy, the doctor will surly tell me that I blocked it out, that’s because it couldn’t have been very pretty. Of course that story became legendary and everybody heard about it eventually. From then on, all you had to do was say, “Oh man, I think I got a bad beer!” and the laughter would last for hours. So who was Leon and why did we put him through that? Well, I’ll be happy to fill you in.

  The Beginning of a Dream - Cupkake

  It was the end of the 70’s and my family had just moved into our first house in a section of San Diego suburbia called Clairemont. My new next door neighbor was my age and his name was Pops. That was not some

  random nickname, because even his mom called him Pops. I remember his 5th birthday, and for some reason I was not invited to his party. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why I wasn’t invited, so I was resigned to climb a tree in the backyard and watch the party from next door. A few months la
ter, we hung out all the time and by our high school days we did everything together. This bond would end up playing out to my Hollywood days because Pops was a bit of a hooligan and was always in some sort of trouble, but I trusted Pops with my life. Once he considered you his friend, Pops had your back and would defend you to the end. And because of his loyalty, I brought him along on my very first rock tour.Can you imagine telling a 19 year old that he will be a tour across the United States, playing guitar in a rock band? Think of the trouble you could get into!

  It was the end of June, 1989, the skies were overcast and it was balmy. June gloom they call it in Southern California. I had sold most of my material possessions to the local pawn shops attempting to gather enough money to head out on my first United States tour. The start of my ‘89 tour with Ultra Pop began in Hollywood, CA. We were scheduled to play at a club called the Coconut Teazer. This was a fairly cool club that would often draw some of the larger rock acts touring the US. It was a Friday night, and I was eating at a Burger King located on the corner of Sunset & La Brea. I was in an somewhat paralyzed state. I could not believe this day had finally come. I had a dream of going on tour since I was 14 years old. We had two vans, one for the band, and another for our gear. We would be driving these two vans across the states promoting our album we recorded earlier in the year. It was the band and a couple of roadies, including Pops. It might have taken some convincing to talk somebody else into enduring a trip like that, but not Pops, he jumped at the chance just like I knew he would. Besides, it was the ‘80s and rock tours in those days were notorious for the fun and mayhem, so I might have done the same thing. I know we played a fairly packed show at the Teazer that night, but the funny thing is... I don’t remember anything about the very first show of my very first tour. I must have been so excited about the tour, that I was in another zone. This would prove to be an adventure that I will never forget.