Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  Half the people on the strip didn’t go to any of the shows. Or if they did, they would go in to see the 10:00 and 11:00 shows. (another reason not to play the 8:00 slot) Most of the people would be sitting on the wall in front of Gazarri’s, the Mercedes Showroom, or walking back and forth in a sort of glam parade. The strip was full of band members passing out flyers for their upcoming shows. The girls usually stuffed the flyers in their purse, while the guys would toss them on the ground. So the strip always looked like it was hit by a colossal sized confetti storm with flyers of all different colors covering the sidewalk. One day we were hanging out in front of Gazarri’s with a couple of the guys from Asphalt Ballet when we came up with a new game to play. Not five minutes would go by without some drunkard hanging out a car window on Sunset whoo-hooing or yelling something stupid. We would gather up flyers, wad them up in balls, and wait for the next buffoon. Then as soon as he would show his face, we’d let him have it. I don’t know why, but it was really funny at the time. More people saw the hijinks and joined in the fun. Before long we had about 25 people involved, each with three or for wads in hand. You should have seen the look on the victims faces when in “mid-hoot”, 75 balls o’ flyers in a rainbow of colors, came out of nowhere and pelted their asses. It was all good fun because balled up paper doesn’t do any damage.

  Every now and then a couple of sheriffs walked past, and for the most part, they left you alone. So it was easy to get away with stuff like chugging a beer out in public. Some of the bands felt they needed to up the ante in the flyer wars, so they came up with all sorts gimmicks to stand out above the rest. I remember a band called Fatal Attraction. (yes, like the movie) There was one year period where for a lack of originality, a bunch of bands simply named their bands after movies that were playing at the time. There was Lost Boys, The Abyss, Young Gunns, various others, and Fatal Attraction. Fatal Attraction’s gimmick was they dressed like vampires, and all the guys had to have their teeth shaved into real fangs. The lead singer also had a groupie on a leash like a dog, handing out flyers for the band. There was another band who rode around on roller skates dressed in hospital gowns and nothing else. Every now and then, by some mysterious que, they’d all flip up and do handstands revealing the fact that they were wearing g-strings. There were two other bands called Tryx and Zoom, and both bands had the same gimmick of assigning a different color to each bandmate. Little did they know they were way ahead of their time because the Wiggles ended up making millions years later with the same gig!

  Well if you didn’t have a gig that night, you spent most of the night passing out flyers and chatting with girls. After your flyers were gone, you’d head across the street to Ten Masa sushi bar. Yes they had sushi and I usually ordered some, but mostly it was a bunch of rockers standing around drinking big Sapporos and talking music. The place was always packed to the gills so sitting down was next to impossible. Instead, you found a place to lean and hung on to it. They didn’t even leave the lights on for you, by that time of night it was completely dark except for the bar. This was my favorite part of the night because you got to get off your feet and relax. Plus, it’s sushi & beer! Vinnie’s favorite! There was a somewhat local feel to the place because it was usually just the regulars on the strip who would be in there. Kinda of like being in High School all over again. I developed a ritual over time, where I had the same routine every time I entered Ten Masa. There was a girl named Kat who would always hung out by the front door. She had dark hair and a boyish face, but her body could knock your socks off. Every time I entered, she would come over and give me a bite on my neck. Next I’d see Cheryl who would come over and greet me with a hug. She looked like she had no business being on the strip and instead reminded me of a cousin you saw on Thanksgiving. And Cheryl never wore a bra, so I’d reach under her shirt and play with her boobs a little before I made my way to the bar. She never batted an eye at my forward behavior. Once in, I could enjoy a beer in peace, have a smoke and chat with the other bands. There we would stay until 2 am to see who spilled out of the Rainbow at last call. Cool times.

  The Pickle Caper - Vinnie Vegas

  Every Friday night, we had the same routine. We would head up to the strip from down the hill because the parking there was free. Otherwise, we had to pay $5 to park in a lot which was a lot of money back than. Whether we were going into a club, or just hanging outside, you’d want to cop a buzz first, so we would cruise into Larrabe liquor store and buy a 40 ounce beer and a pack of smokes. We called the 40 ouncers “scuds” after the Iraqi missile that the national news media was trying to promote as the new doomsday weapon au joir. Larrabe also carried a huge pickle sealed in a plastic pouch in the refrigerated food section that we would buy as well. Why you ask? Well... I’ll get to that! We’d then hang out in the dark parking lot behind the building and chug the beer while Liz-bone told stories about the glory days in London and hanging out with Larry Flint’s wife. On the other side of a tall cinder-block wall was the valet entrance to the Bel Age Hotel which had two huge motion-sensor double doors that would slide open like Star Trek. The doors led to the lobby and the check-in counter, where a concierge was stationed in a full tuxedo. The Bel Age Hotel was the Creme de la creme of 5-star Hollywood Hotels and everybody who was anybody stayed there when they were in town. After we finished our beers, we had one last ritual to do before we hit the strip. From our vantage point, you could only see the very top of the doors over the wall, but that meant you knew when they opened. From the hotel you could not see what was on the other side of the wall, which we took advantage of. So like clockwork, every Friday night, two pickles with a single bite out of them would come flying over the wall, through the open doors and go skidding across the marble floor of the lobby. We’d run like hell, howling with laughter for ten solid minutes after chucking those pickles. Since we couldn’t see over the wall, so we could only imagine the look on the concierge’s face as those rude dills tumbled across his floor. That in itself would lead to more side-splitting laughter. Absolutely the most fun you could ever have for 59 cents!

  Hollywood Kids - Vinnie Vegas

  Larrabe Street was a steep hill that flowed down to Santa Monica Blvd., two blocks south of Sunset. There were a lot of homeless people in Hollywood, with their shopping carts full of glass bottles for recycling. If we were drunk enough, Cupkake and I would find a passed out bum and roll his cart down the hill where it careened down the street and eventually exploded in a blast of broken glass. We’d run down Sunset like escaped prisoners howling with laughter. In hindsight, that was wrong on many levels and I certainly do not condone that kind of behavior. I do still wonder what some hapless motorist must’ve thought as a cart full of glass bottles beared down on him in the glare of his headlights.

  In Hollywood, our apartment was #111 and was on the ground floor right up by the front gate. From here, you could see everybody who came or left the building. One strange thing about #111 was the fact that it had a peep-hole in the door. What’s so strange about this you ask? Every apartment has a peep-hole in the door! Yes, well not like this one! The peep-hole was mounted on a swivel like something out of a Tim Burton movie. It was bronze and reminded me of something that Leonardo Da Vinci would have came up with. With this, not only could you look outside, but you could look from side to side, or up and down. And to make it worse, it was the size of a silver dollar. Of course, if someone was outside and saw this oddity looking them over, then of course they would know that you were home, which defeated the purpose. This intrigued us, so we took turns going outside while somebody ogled you through the peep-hole to see what it looked like. The effect was as creepy as it was hilarious. It looked like something out of The Munsters to see this big metallic unblinking iguana eye looking you over. I don’t know why, but our apartment was the only one in the building equipped with a roving-eye peep-hole. We took it as a sign from God.Well, this was just too much fun to pass up so every time somebody came over, they’d see the iguana eye swivel around l
ike a prosthetic iris for a few seconds, then just stop. And then we wouldn’t answer the door! This never got old and everybody who came over knew they’d have to put up with this annoying routine. It got to the point where you would look out the peep-hole and see whoever it was casually waiting while we did our routine. Only at our El Cerrito apartments could you get used to a sight like that.

  When we were first looking for apartments, we saw a lot of rat-holes that scared us bad, so finding this place was like a dream. Modern with wall-to-wall grey plush carpeting, we lived better than basically all the people we ran into. Indeed, a lot of bands resorted to living in their rehearsal studios where they lived like homeless bums. Most people had apartments, but nobody lived like us. It was a one-bedroom which was bigger than most two-bedrooms. The kitchen and bathrooms were clean and modern, and we had cool slats in the windows rather than curtains. A lot of people in the building insisted that Guns N Roses lived in the apartment before us. We never knew if that was true or not, but we heard it from a lot of people. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a wall, but it had a portal cut into it like a drive-thru window which was always good for fun. I had an Ikea-style bed in the living room which doubled as our couch. Other than that. we really didn’t have much furniture, which was just as well. The place had an open uncluttered look that was a stark contrast to most peoples ratty apartments. We did have one of those tall shelf-unit things where we put our TV. Underneath the TV on another shelf was a clay statue of a cross-legged sitting half-horse, half-man which Cupkake called “The Kiln God”. He made it in High-School and it looked like a Buddha with pointed ears. The god sat in a wicker cage adorned with all sorts of feathers and earrings as offerings. I guess it seems weird now, but I never batted an eye when somebody apprehensively asked what it was and we would answer “The Kiln God” without losing a beat. Then just as casual, Cupkake would add, “don’t touch it!” Nobody ever did!

  As a kid, I had a fascination with all things blinky and flashy. The 70’s was a perfect time to grow up because you could buy all sorts of multi-colored spinning disco lights or prismed light boxes that pulsed to the rhythm of music. Everybody knew I loved these things so I got a lot of them for gifts. Somebody bought me this phone that was flat and black, and lit up red when it rang like the bat-phone. If the phone rang in the middle of the night (which it did a lot!) the entire room would pulse red with the ring. Of course in the 80’s, the now archaic answering machine was a high-tech gizmo that put us on the cutting edge. You actually had to buy little mini-cassette tapes to make it work! Cupkake and I made a game out of recording new messages just about every other day, mostly when we were drunk. We would act out all sorts of bizarre or tasteless skits like a couple of morning radio shock-jocks. Actually, I always had a secret fetish for being a radio DJ, so this was probably a way of acting out my fantasies. This created an entire scene at night of a flashing bat-phone, followed by some lewd audio skit, and then the voice of a drunken Vince Votel screaming Cupkake! in the dark. Add the buildings front gate being tied into that whole mess and you had quite the scenario! And this went on all the time! I mean all the time!

  THE YELLOW BANANA - Vinnie Vegas

  I don’t know why, but I’ve found that Thursdays seem to be the big party night among locals and regulars at bars. To this day in Hollywood, the stars love to hit the town on Thursday nights. Not just Hollywood, I’ve noticed this phenomenon in countless cities across the US. Back in the 80’s it was no different. Sure, the Strip went off the hook every weekend, but if you lived in Hollywood, there were numerous clubs with names like Bordello and The Cathouse that chose weekdays as their time to party. Because these clubs were held on the weekdays, the crowd was made up of mostly

  Hollywood locals which included “A” list rock stars as well as “B” and “C” listers. Because of the exclusive atmosphere, it soon got out to all sorts of people that these clubs were the place to see and be seen. Soon they were filled with young naive chicks craving the Hollywood experience, and this caught our attention.

  The problem was that the drinks were notoriously expensive at these places and we didn’t have a wad of cash to throw around. So the usual tactic was to get drunk at home off cheap booze and not show up to the club until 11:30. And by then, all the chicks were plenty drunk. The clubs were usually pretty loud inside, so the time to make a move on a girl was outside at closing time. In Hollywood, after the club was cleared at 2:00 am, there was always a crowd of rockers buzzing around in front of the club. Girls were engaged in a last ditch drunken effort to locate the rock star they were talking to, and the guys were trying to convince the girls that someday they would be a lot more famous than that old dude. In this 15 minute envelope, it would be decided wether you would get a girl that night. After a few months of this, we soon adjusted our tactics and invented the maneuver we liked to call “drive-by scamming”. This consisted of drinking until 1:45 am and then driving through the parking lot at 2:00 am without ever entering the club. And it worked!

  The first thing that should alarm you, is that I just said we were drinking until 1:45 am on a work night! Can you even imagine that concept? I’d say that this happened three out of five work nights each week! Well, I guess we were young, because I simply cannot imagine doing anything like that nowadays. But in a way, I think we knew that one day it would be impossible. The next alarming detail is that we got behind the wheel after drinking until 1:45 am on a work night. The thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the fact that Cupkake’s car was a bright yellow Ford Pinto station wagon! Back then it didn’t even occur to us that we were driving around looking ridiculous. We’d be cruising around decked out in our rock star outfits in a bright yellow banana. I mean picture that in your head, two long-haired rocker dudes from San Diego circling the club like a shark in a banana yellow Pinto station wagon! In what crazy insane world does this work? No BMW, or Mercedes... a Pinto station wagon! And we wouldn’t even get out of the car! We would drive by a couple of hot chicks, stop the car, and simply yell “Get in!”... and they would! Mind you, these a girls who you have never met before in your life! And this happened every week!

  Most of the girls were dressed to the nines and therefore had really sexy underwear on underneath their mini-skirts. We created a game where we would steal their panties and stuff them between our mattresses. Then, we would pretend that we had no idea where they could’ve gone. The next day, we’d hang them on our chandelier like trophies. Animal prints were popular at that time so it looked like a safari of tiger, leopard and zebra skin. And of course, the ever favorite lacy baby blue silks. Thongs had not really made it to the mainstream yet, so the one pair we had were a real crowd-pleaser. And the funny part is that we made no effort to hide them. Girls actually got a kick out of it and thought it was kind of funny. They would come in, and the first thing they would notice was a mass of different colored panties hanging from the chandelier above the kitchen table. They would laugh and marvel at the odd assortment hanging above our table. And an hour later, they’d be scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened to their panties. “Hmmmm... it’s the darndest thing!” To this day, that chandelier is the thing that most people bring up when they recall those crazy days in Hollywood. Month by month, the number of panties grew.

  out of town, out of mind - Vinnie Vegas

  We didn’t limit the party to Hollywood, oh no, whenever we could, we’d hit the road for some rip roarin’ partying in a different town. There’s something about being in a strange town that I love even to this day. I really liked to travel to different cities which eventually helped me earn my nickname. Back in those days, for $29 you could hop on board a Southwest Airlines 737 and be in Vegas or Phoenix in 40 minutes. Cupkake and I both loved the idea of staying in hotels, especially out in the desert. For some reason the hum of air conditioners and buzz of neon lights really got us going. With that in mind, we spent many a night at a cheap Motel 6 somewhere along the 10 or 15 freeway between LA and
Arizona. And of course, our home of San Diego was only two hours down the 5 freeway, so we would bring along some of our own brand of mayhem to our friends down south.

  Every Summer, my new band Hooligan Stew would play the Del Mar Fair in San Diego which I loved because going to the Del Mar Fair was a right of passage for any kid growing up in San Diego. The Del Mar Fair epitomizes the beginning of Summer for San Diegans with it’s live music, cool rides and ton’s of food. When I was a kid I used to stock up on black light posters and Kiss belt buckles at the fair. They treat you like kings down there by shuttling you and your equipment directly to the stage in oversized golf carts. The stage was concert sized with full lighting rigs and state-of-the-art sound systems. As a kid, I always fantasized about playing the Fair and here my dream came true; I was in Heaven! Not only that, but it was another opportunity to shack up in a roadside motel for the night! Somebody please tell me why I love those motels so much! We’d bring full-sized color posters and toss them out during the show. Afterwards people would swarm the stage area to have us sign the posters. Matt was being filmed signing a poster for a kid in a wheelchair when he looked at the camera and asked, “Should I sign it keep on rolling?” “Not unless you want to go to hell!” I answered. My mom brought my grandmother to one of the shows and I never saw her look so proud in my life. She really thought it was a big deal. Imagine playing outdoors in the California Summer at sunset while the aroma of corn dogs and cotton candy wafted all around you... it doesn’t get any better. Playing that fair was the highlight of my time with Hooligan Stew.