Naturally, she got along with the guys from Rock Asylum really well and they would wax nostalgic about the good ol’ days of hanging out on the piers. She was the first girl I had been with after three years of Barbara, so I guess that’s where our bond was formed. Sure, we both had hardened facades where it was all about lust and on to the next etc., but there are things that you can’t fake. Yes, she was a tiger, but we would also go see movies and I had a feeling with her that I hadn’t felt in a while, and quite frankly, almost forgot about. Back in high school, dating was so much more innocent that you’d bounce with excitement before a date. When you thought about your girl, you just couldn’t wait to be able to touch her and smell her hair on your shoulder. Then you would drive home in a dream with a smile on your face that would last for days. I started to feel this way about seeing Leslie and I missed her when she was away. This didn’t exactly fit along with my new Hollywood attitude, but I couldn’t lie to myself and didn’t want to either. But it did go against everything I now stood for. I had embraced Hollywood, the land of Rock N Roll and one night stands. Nobody had a girlfriend in Hollywood! Nobody was in love, what was wrong with me? This was the wrong time to fall in love.
Leslie had a playful way about her, and I really started to fall for her. One night, she snuck me into a condo complex by her house so we could enjoy the jacuzzi. We had the perfect Californian night of relaxing in a hot tub while looking up at the stars. The green lights of the pool were dancing in her eyes and this had a luring effect on me. I was thinking that this night could not be more perfect and realized how lucky I was to live in Southern California. She stood up in the jacuzzi and I could see her body clearly in the green glow of the lights underwater, framed by her animal-print bikini. With the light sparkling in her eyes and her wet hair forming ringlets around her face, I felt myself start to melt inside. She must have sensed the moment, because she stopped talking, smiled, and leaned in to kiss me. I closed my eyes and felt her arms wrap around my neck, and her body press against mine. Time came to a stop and I was completely absorbed in being so close to her. It seemed hours had passed before I opened my eyes. And when I did, there was a security guard standing above us and he put a stop to the shenanigans.
After berating the guard with a string of profanity, Leslie pulled me by the hand back across the street to her house laughing and giggling the whole way. I dried off and we curled up on the couch and watched bad horror movies for the rest of the night. We stayed up late and she didn’t want me to leave, so she buried me in a heap of clothes beside her bed. This was so her mom wouldn’t see me in the morning. Through all my dating, I can honestly count the times I actually made love to a girl on one hand. That morning was one of those times, and I remember every detail to this day. This fostered an affection for her that lasted all summer, though she liked to play tough and never really let on to any feelings other than lust. But somehow, we always made time for each other, especially after she moved to LA.
Halloween IN HOLLYWOOD - Vinnie Vegas
Halloween has been my favorite holiday since the beginning of time. I love the idea of dressing up in a costume, and being someone else for a night. The devils and demons theme gets me going as well. My favorite aroma in the world is the smell of a warm glowing Jack-O’-Lantern, so much so, that I make them from September to December. Hollywood, of course has it’s own special take on Halloween that is different from anyplace else. There are two big parties that happen in Hollywood on Halloween night. When I say Halloween, I don’t mean the Saturday before Halloween, I mean Halloween Day! It doesn’t matter what night of the week it is, two outdoor street fests happen on Halloween. These parties rival anything you’ve ever seen.
One of these parties is held on Santa Monica Blvd, in West Hollywood, or “boys town” as it became to be known. Santa Monica is a major avenue which crosses LA and the city will shut down 6 or 7 blocks of it for the night. By dark, the street is chock full of people in every sort of costume, some more risque than the others! The other is on Hollywood Blvd. itself, and the while Santa Monica party is a planned out event, the Hollywood Blvd. scene is a spontaneous gathering of people that has been going on for years. While the Santa Monica party is organized with stages and contests set up, Hollywood Blvd. is simply a mass of people walking up and down the street all night. Every year the city wrings it’s hands and tries to figure out how to stop it, but since it’s not an officially sanctioned function, how can you?
The Santa Monica party is well behaved and never gets out of control. However, this party oozes with sexuality, and all sorts of illicit behavior transpires in the dark corners and shadows. Everybody at this party seems to have one goal in mind, and that is sex. Throw in the costumes and you have the makings of a night Caligula would enjoy. I saw an episode of Star Trek where one day a year, this peaceful planet of people let loose on a rampage of drunken debauchery called “festival.” This party reminded me of that because even mild mannered monogamous gay men parade around in nothing while on the prowl for anonymous sex. The party has becomeheavily gay, but plenty of straight boys and girls get into the free-for-all spirit of finding some costumed cutie to grab. The more heavily costumed you are, the more you can get away with because nobody knows who you are. Now throw in all the booze from the bars lining the street, and you have a recipe for lust.
One Halloween, Flamin’ Jimmy had a party out by the pool. Of course being Jimmy, he had it all set up with tea lights, tablecloths and fancy centerpieces. There was also a King’s ransom of high-end liquor, beer and wine coolers. Wine coolers were a hot new thing in the eighties, and women ate them up. The gay men took a liking to them as well. Ooooh girl! Jimmy had invited all his gay friends, as well as any of the neighbors who wanted to join in. The party filled up rather quickly and I soon realized that a man in drag was the most popular costume of choice. Well it was mostly Jimmy’s friends so that didn’t surprise me. I saw Frankenstein, a man dressed as a woman, a man dressed as a woman, a man dressed as a woman, Dracula, a man dressed as a woman, a man dressed as a woman, Mummy, man dressed as a woman...well I think you get the picture. One large black man was dressed as Zena: the warrior princess which was truly alarming because this guy was huge!
I dressed in a Nazi hat and SS trenchcoat with my face painted white like I was dead. I don’t know what I was supposed to be, but I looked creepy that’s for sure! Nazi-zombie? The guys from Rock Asylum were there, so we yukked it up while polishing off Jimmy’s top shelf liquor. There were a couple of lesbians who lived in the apartment across the hall, and we referred to them simply as “The Lesbians with the dogs.” The lesbians had two huge husky style dogs who lived with them in their crackerbox apartment. It was always a big to-do when they went for a walk every evening because the lesbians could not control their dogs. Later at night, we would hear a bunch of yelping and yiping and could only imagine what was going on in that apartment.
Both of the girls where fairly dykey, but one a lot more that the other. It was easy for me to imagine that the “girl” of the two wasn’t really truly a lesbian. Indeed, I’ve seen many lesbian couples where I suspect the girl is actually showcasing her liberal stance as opposed to a true desire to eat pussy. A lot like white people who insist on living in a barrio or black neighborhood. Alcohol gets to the truth of a lot of things, and I noticed that the girl was getting buzzed and a little flirty. She was dressed as an Indian (how politically incorrect!) and had war paint and feathers in her hair. Now the queen dyke already despised Cupkake and I because of all the chicks parading in and out of our apartment, and for some reason, she hated me more. So I decided to flirt with her girlfriend and to my surprise, she started flirting back. I knew it! I began to play with the feathers in her hair while her girlfriend seethed. She finally got up to kick my ass so I got the hell out of there. After that, Cupkake and I gathered up all the Jack-O’-lanterns around the apartments one by one, then guests were treated to the sight of flaming, grinning pumpkins flying off the 4th floor and
landing in the pool. Nobody could prove it was us, but everybody knew it was.
After the party died down, I was talking to Dominic when some strange girl walked up to me and started hitting on me aggressively by rubbing her boobs on me and grabbing my dick. Dominic threw up his hands and said in his thick Brooklyn accent, “Hey, I’ll just leave you’s two alone!” I was caught off guard until I realized that it was Leslie. She had punked me by showing up in disguise with an electric blue china doll wig and a matching blue sequined short 1920’s skirt with stiletto heels. She looked like something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She got a huge laugh out of the look on my face and teased me incessantly about it. That was Leslie, she loved to get one over on you.
I can still hear her distinct laughter and see her smug smile as she reveled in the moment. When she laughed, she’d tilt her face up and squint her eyes with complete satisfaction. Leslie had what I call a “Jewish smile.” Some people with that same smile are Goldie Hawn, David Lee Roth and Katie Holmes. If you want to visualize it, it’s where your teeth stay together, but your cheeks puff out like a chipmunk. Jimmy and his friends were in no mood to call it quits, so he continued to play old disco tunes and broke out some more booze. And this time, it was not just top shelf, but premiere! We stayed up late dancing to ABBA and Donna Summer and kibitzing with Jimmy and his queens. Leslie was the type of girl who was comfortable in her own skin and had no problem with nudity. In fact, later that night, I went out out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to grab a couple of beers and she followed me out, naked except for the blue wig. She liked to do things like that for the shock value, and to see somebody get all flustered. But Cupkake was a pro and simply nodded hey and went back to whatever he was doing.
I met Ernie Machado for the first time that morning. Ernie was one of those annoying early risers who would show up at 8 am all dressed up and chipper like he had been awake for hours. Since Cupkake had slept out in the living room, there was no place for him to hide when Ernie showed up and had to engage in conversation with the man. When Leslie and I finally came out of the bedroom, I was wearing no shirt, had my long hair tucked up into my Nazi hat and was wearing 70’s Blue Oyster Cult mirrored aviation shades like some gay leather boy. That was my favorite outfit for getting a rise out of people, and since I heard an unfamiliar voice, I figured I would dust it off and take it for a ride. Leslie was still wearing her wig and she grabbed a couple of beers and sat down on my lap. I wish I had a picture of that because Ernie later told me that the first time he met me scared him. Drinking a beer half naked at 10 am was something that happened every weekend at El Cerrito, bar none.
The Kissing Fest - Vinnie Vegas
As usual, some legendary nights started out as typical as the rest, only to go down in history as one of our bookmark nights. The Kissing Fest started out as a normal night at the apartment with Vince Votel and the usual cast of characters tossed in. This was right after Ultra Pop formed, so we all decided to go down to the strip to celebrate. After a little bit of scud slamin’ and pickle chuckin’, we hit the strip with a good buzz. Actually, we had a lot more than a good buzz going because it was Cupkake’s birthday, and we had boozed it up pretty well at the apartment before hand. By the time we got there, all 120lbs. of Cupkake was pretty hammered. When Cupkake got hammered, he’d always get these droopy eyes and a huge perma-grin on his face, but he never blew chunks. Ernie and Votel both had their arms around him, carrying him like a wounded soldier in Vietnam. His feet were dragging more than they were walking, but he had a big “hello” for everybody he met. He would try and give the hip Vegas finger point and say “heyyyyy” in the move that only really drunk people think is cool. Vince Votel had a knack for approaching any girl no matter how hot she was, and he let out a loud “Hey! Come here!” to any girl he saw. And to his credit, they always came over! There was something about Vince Votel that girls instantly gravitated to, so to be anywhere around him was a good thing if you were a guy. He’d approach another girl and shout out “Hey! This is Cupkake! Its his birthday! Give him a kiss!” And they all did! Immediately! By the end of the night, Cupkake’s face was literally covered in lipstick kiss prints of every color imaginable. Red, black, pink... even blue and green! It almost looked like a wall where everybody stuck their chewed gum.
Later that night, as was often the case, I had somehow made it back to the apartment on my own. It was weird to be in that apartment alone, because it was so quiet, and that was quite unusual, as well as unnerving. But that didn’t last for long. I suddenly heard a big commotion of yelling and giggling, and then Cupkake burst through the door soaking wet. Somehow Ernie had tricked Cupkake into standing right by the pool. Then he turned him around, and simply pushed him in, shoes, wallet and all. Cupkake was laughing his ass off, saying that he couldn’t believe how stupid he was as he pulled soaked shit out of his pockets and tossed them on the floor. Well, more hammered than stupid, I’d say. After that, all the kisses were washed off and we never got a pic of it. Too bad, that would have been priceless!
I chronicles
EL CERRITO - Vinnie Vegas
Cupkake and I had landed our dream apartment smack in the middle of Hollywood, CA. The El Cerrito Apartments were located at the corner of El Cerrito Place and Franklin Ave. one block east of La Brea. We spent all of one day checking out prospects and The El Cerrito was the second place we looked at. It seemed perfect, so we talked to the manager Henry, who gave us a tour of the building, specifically #111 which had just been vacated. We decided to check out a few more just to be safe, but Henry told us “Boys, you’re going to be back, trust me!” Sure enough, we were. The choice wasn’t that hard because we saw a lot of dumps in Hollywood, as well as places that were just way too much to afford. We had gathered up enough money to put down a deposit, so after a night’s stay at Leon’s pig-stye, we woke up Sunday morning and gave Henry our money.
For me, life was suddenly brand new that summer. There’s a feeling you get when you buy a new car and it’s fun just to drive to work in the morning, and that’s how I felt. This also goes for a new apartment, or even a new girlfriend. It’s a sudden new change in your life that gets you all fired up and boredom or routine is the furthest thing from your mind. Except this feeling went way beyond anything I had ever felt before. I can’t explain it, but I hope you can somehow understand that this was multiplied tenfold. I had been standing on that hill in San Diego staring at the city lights only 2 years before. At that time, I had serious doubts that my dream would ever come true. To know that I was finally in LA meant all the world to me. It was torture not to be able to live in our new apartment immediately, but we needed to go back down to San Diego and get our belongings before we moved in. Not to mention, we needed to quit our jobs! But it was all too much, and after a quick discussion, we decided to call in sick, and spend our first night in our very own Hollywood apartment. Of course we had no electricity, but we had the time of our lives drinking beer in the dark and crashing out on the floor. That had to be one of the most fun and reverent nights of my life.
We moved up to LA in one trip with the help of a couple of girls we knew in San Diego. It was the bare basics, but we knew that we could always go back down to get more stuff if we needed to. Cupkake and I had a similar goal of not cluttering up our new apartment with a bunch of crap, so there wasn’t much more that we brought up. We both had a bed of our own and a few pots and pans, but other than that, it was just a few posters to put up on the walls. Our apartment stayed like that till the end and that suited us fine. We kept our apartment looking neat and modern, and that was in stark contrast to the rat holes that most people were used to. Because of this we looked like rock stars, and that would help us immensely when it came to chicks. But now, we needed to become actual rock stars, and we needed to find actual chicks. If we could accomplish the first goal. the second would be a piece of cake!
The El Cerrito Apartments were without a doubt the perfect place for a couple of rockers who dream
ed of living in Hollywood. The place was spotless and had that new carpet smell which was a complete aphrodisiac to me. Our move to LA was well thought out and planned meticulously, but some of it was shear luck and us finding our apartment building was just that. These apartments were one of the most happening apartments to live in at the time. Smack dab in the middle of the sun and fun of Hollywood, these apartments were occupied by either rock bands, MI students or strippers. MI was the Musicians Institute which is probably still there today. It is expensive and sells itself as a college of sorts. The theory is that after a few years at MI, you knew it all and could get a job in music anywhere. Except that’s not what happens. Everybody knew that MI was a joke, so we called the students “Mites”. Imagine short-haired geeks dressed up in rock clothes and you’ve got Mites. Every morning you’d see the Mites in droves carrying their guitar bags and scurrying down Hollywood Blvd. to get to class before the bell rang.The building was pure Hollywood; a four-story stucco building with seven-story palm trees reaching into the night. For two young rockers from San Diego, this was a Shangra La. Henry was the laid back manager who liked to party as much as the tenants. He reminded me of Robert Romanus’ character Mike Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He liked to dip into the petty cash for booze runs at Pappy Smear’s liquor down the street. Henry would hand us $40 out of the till for a booze run and we’d do the leg work. Back in those days, $40 was a lot of money, so we’d truck back up La Brea loaded down with a few 12-packs and a couple of big bottles of booze. Pappy Smear was an old coot who ran the liquor store down on Hollywood and La Brea which was smaller than our living room. It looked like something out of a New York movie. It had booze, smokes and nothing else and Pappy was always as grumpy as a mule. His mark-up was obscene, but it was the closest place to our apartments, so you’d bite the bullet if you had to. He always acted annoyed if you came in and would chastise you to hurry up and get out. This led to a game called “annoy the jackass.” The store had a light sensitive sensor on the door that would chime out if you broke the beam. This was to alert the cashier that somebody had just entered the store. In Pappy’s case, this usually woke him up from a dead sleep. That’s probably why he was always so annoyed to see us. We cut into his nap time! The trick was to stand still in the middle of the doorway and pretend you didn’t hear the alarm chiming. This would annoy the old coot to no end!
Hollywood: Rock Of Ages Page 6