Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  The first one I noticed was Angie because she had the biggest set of boobs you had ever seen on a girl her size. And this was before implants! I liked her because she stood out. Not because of her boobs, but because she had an original sense of style completely different than the other two. Considering the year, Angie was way ahead of her time. She had a semi-goth look to her, with straight dyed-black shoulder length hair and piercing blue eyes. She also had a cute round Kansas face, freckles on her cheeks and a little button nose. Kind of like a farm-girl Elvira without the big hair. She wore heavy metal spiked wristlets, painted her fingernails black and wore cut-off denim jeans with spider-web stockings and converse sneakers. She was short, had a bit of baby fat, and wore the lowest-cut black tops which of course extenuated her boobs. If that didn’t catch your attention, she also wore a collection of several necklaces featuring a motley assortment of skulls, spiders and knives. Men are hypnotized by boobs. We cant look away and you girls all know that! So with her, my immediate response was, “I gotta get into that shirt!” But that would have to wait.

  The other two girls had the more traditional Hollywood glam look of mini skirts and high heels, but one of them was clearly in a funk. She was sitting in the middle of the couch staring at her feet with a resigned look on her face. She was semi-cute with dishwater blond hair all fluffed up in the Aquanet flip that was so popular at the time. The other two were having a good time, but if somebody didn’t cheer up Grumpy Gus quickly, they’d probably all end up leaving early. That’s the code, if one girl leaves... then they all leave. This was clearly a job for Vinnie Vegas because nobody else had the empathy to detect sadness in the room and I always made it a point to reign in any sorrow like an Australian Shepherd. Because of the sour puss, guys were no longer talking to her which I’m sure didn’t help. So I sat down next to her and started talking to her. No “What’s wrong?” or “Why the long face? “Oh... there, there.” Instead, I just started talking to her as if I’d known her for years. I started telling her who was doing who, who was a jackass and who was cool. I guess it did the trick because she soon perked up and actually began smiling. Who knew it could be that simple? But there it was. She had a bit of an accent which gave away some mid-western roots and mentioned that she hadn’t been in California all that long. As I was trying to figure out if the trio came out together on the same bus, I was interrupted by Perris leaning over me, drunkenly trying to tell me something funny six inches from my face. Halfway through his story, he lost his train of thought, and as he looked off, his beer began to spill on my lap. I jumped up and the girl was now laughing uncontrollably. I headed into the kitchen cursing under my breath and she followed me in with her hand over her mouth. This broke the ice and she helped me clean up and pull myself together between fits of laughter. At that point I was laughing too, so it was all good.

  Angie and her friend took me aside and told me I was doing a good job with her, and to keep it up. Yes Ma’am! At around 1:30 am, she seemed like she was getting tired. I knew by experience that nobody was going to bed anytime soon, so I told her to go lay down in my bed and I would come in later. That was one of my favorite moves. Yeah I wanted to be with her, but that would mean missing out on the party, and who knows what I would miss? Sending a girl into your bed was like a squirrel stashing a nut. And at 5 in the morning when things were winding down, there she was waiting, all rested up and ready to go! Nowadays it’s just a fact that all girls shave down there, but in the 80’s this wasn’t the case. In fact, most girls didn’t, so when you found one who did, it was a special treat. Yes, there were many good things about the 80’s but that part wasn’t one of them. There were many a safari trip hacking your way through the Amazon to get to pay dirt. By the time I got to her, the sun was halfway up so I could clearly see that this girl was a lovely surprise, a prize trophy. She was an animal, she pinched her nipples and played with herself like a porn star. Later I found out why... because she was a porn star! Not movies, but she was in the magazines. Perris showed me this a week later. Perris was the king of porn and he knew everything and everybody in smut. I’m really glad I didn’t know that at the time because I might not have known what to do to her! After all, if a girl is in porn, what could you possibly do that hasn’t been done before? Me being with a porn-star might be rock-star moment #5, but I don’t know...

  After that night, my job was over and I turned my attention towards Angie. Angie was cute as hell and beyond that, she was a really sweet down to earth girl. Oh did I forget to mention the boobs? I was obsessed and I needed to play with those bundles of joy. I would see her around Hollywood (who could miss her? ) and she’d bound over to give me a hug and chat it up. Eventually I brought her back to the Hooligan pad. Same story; we partied all night and then I sent her to my bed. I really fell in love with her; she was everything you could want in a girl if you liked sexy passionate women. I used to invite her over on Sunday nights which was unheard of. Monday mornings, we’d wake up and she would walk to work with me. I would hold her hand like she was my girlfriend and everybody on Hollywood Blvd. would see us. I got all the questions: “How’s Angie? Are you guys getting serious?” I was coy, I never said no. Actually I would have loved that because she was perfect to me. However, somehow with me being Vinnie Vegas and her not really knowing where she was heading, we both new it couldn’t work. But we had our time together.

  Being the smart girl that she was, she eventually got a job and a small studio apartment of her own. This really impressed me and I’d go visit her all the time. But she didn’t abandon her roots and always took in other kids who were on the streets. She remembered not having money and tried to help out people who were in a situation that she used to be in. That impressed me because she knew the value of human dignity and tried to help anyone she could. I did my part and would stop over with a twelve pack of beer and a bottle of Jack on my off nights so her friends could enjoy themselves for a night. Maybe I only had 40 bucks to kick in, but that was a lot more than her or her friends had and we’d have a cool night. A lot of my friends looked down on the runaways but Angie never did. Instead, she recognized them as human beings and I did as well, which made me love her even more. She had class, my little gothic cutie. I was over there one night and kicked back with her until 4 in the morning because I really wanted to be alone with her. But by that time of the night it was clear that her friends weren’t leaving and that would be impossible. So I said good night and headed home.

  We hadn’t played that night, but when I got home there was a full blown party going on at the pad that I had been missing out on. Liz-Bone was sitting on the couch next to the most stunning blue-eyed blond you ever saw. She was wearing what looked like a black cocktail dress but cut really short. She had already kicked off her heels and wasn’t wearing any hose. But she didn’t need to, she had perfectly smooth legs and pretty painted toe nails. I’ve always found this sexy, how a woman can wear nothing and still look so good. She was 32 I believe, so she was a bit older than most girls that came around but if you saw her, you’d agree that there was absolutely nothing wrong with that! Later, people told me that Lizzy had been working on her since midnight, trying to get her into bed. As drunk as I was I simply plopped down next to her and said, “My god, you have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.” Liz-Bone was exasperated and got many a chuckle at his expense. He soon left empty handed, tail tucked between his legs. I found out the next day that she was a school teacher and taught first grade! Can you believe that? When I woke up the next morning, people were looking at me like I was Jesus Christ himself for snatching that blonde bombshell from Liz-Bone. And the legend of Vinnie Vegas grew. Thank You Matt!

  The third girl of the trio that made their way to our apartment that night was named Tammy. She was a brunette with dark eyes and perpetually pale skin. She was obviously from the midwest as well, and while not completely lean, had the shapely body of a girl that can drive men nuts. She had the ability to look hot in nothing but je
ans and a t-shirt which amazed me. As a matter of fact, she actually looked a little out of place when she wore skirts and heels. She had a simple beauty to her that was quite alluring. She seemed to be looking for someone, and disappointed that she could not find them. She was probably a little too vulnerable to be in the Hollywood circus.

  One day I was leaving work and saw Tammy pass by the front door. I stopped her and asked what she was doing, and she said “Nothing in particular”. I felt like doing something fun apart from the Hooligan Pad for a change, so we decided to go grab a bite down the street someplace nice. Later, we stopped by Rock N Roll Raplh’s some margarita fixin’s and had a cocktail party back at the apartment. Tara was over and the two girls chatted it up over drinks till late in the night. It was one of those rare nights where the two girls where having fun just being girls, so I kept a low profile and let them enjoy themselves. After a while, Tammy seemed to tire, so I had her go lay down in my bed. Tara gave me a look that I pretended not to see.

  The next day, Tammy walked me to work, but seemed a bit distracted and distant. I wondered if there was something wrong because she avoided eye contact with me and didn’t seem to be paying attention to my conversation. Soon after, Tammy disappeared and I never saw her again. Nobody seemed to know what happened to her, she just vanished and life went on. This was typical for Hollywood and it happened all the time. But life went on. Later, Matt seemed disturbed and asked me point blank, “So what? Did you just do the whole tribe?” I didn’t answer him.

  There was something in Hollywood that we called “runaway feet.” A lot of girls from the mid-west apparently walk around all the time with no shoes on. A lot of the true runways were from the trailer parks and shacks in the woods of the mid-west, and they preferred to stroll around barefoot, carrying their heels over their shoulders. So the bottoms of their feet were always dirty and nasty. This was a dead giveaway to a runaway who probably copped the clap somewhere in the last two weeks. I stayed away from those chicks and I think most people did as well. One night, Matt brought home a couple of scraggly chicks with runaway feet. While hot girls had pretty little chick feet, runaways usually had gnarly cartoon feet. I guess this was from walking through the swamps of Mississippi stepping on crawdads and shit. These kind of girls you could dress up, but there was no foolin’ anyone. They always seemed to have the same look. Curly blond hair that seemed wider that it was long, with a wide mouth and pig nose. Eyes further apart than usual with a raspy voice that they used to shout out a lot for no reason. Hollerin’ seemed like a normal thing for them to do which could catch you off guard and give you a start. Their faces were wider than long, and they had fishy lips that hid their teeth when they were hollerin’. Kinda like a blond Sandra Bernhard.

  These two were prime examples of this strange Ozark breed which made my dick-o-meter fall to zero immediately. One started complaining immediately about how she was pregnant and I heard Perris mutter, “Oh jeez” as he headed back to bed. She was going on and on about how it sucked being knocked up, as if being pregnant was like getting a cold sore. A lot of runaways ended up getting pregnant quickly, then returning to where ever they came from. These type of girls grew up surrounded by pregnant moms, pregnant sisters and pregnant farm animals, so I don’t think they ever grasped the responsibility that comes with a child. She said she had no money and didn’t know what she was going to do, etc. She was moaning to me about being in this mess and how could it have happened, yadda, yadda, yadda. This was enough for me, so I went to bed and left Matt to deal with the two.

  Right when I was about to drift off, Matt brought the pregnant girl into the room and bent her over doggy-style. I looked over to see Matt humping away like a mad-dog and it was over in two minutes. Then he left her in there where she actually said, “Thanks, I needed that!” If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would have never believed it.

  Flirting with girls was something that a lot of guys devoted an inordinate amount of time to. In Hollywood, you needed to do this all the time in order to get girls to your show. Because if you got the girls to your show, then the guys would follow. This was crucial in assuring you a good turn out and a follow-up gig. But some guys just like to flirt and who can blame them? For anybody in their 20’s, flirting is fun and a great social activity. So why not? And of course, if you wanted a girl to date, then you needed to start out by flirting. And of course while successful flirting could put you on cloud nine, getting blown off could be draining to your ego. This led to something I called “flirting overload” where you just hit a wall with trying to be “on”. Anybody who has every tried speed dating can tell you that by the time you hit person #5, you can quickly burn out your charm. Some nights I felt this way. In fact, sometimes I thought to myself, “You know, I just don’t even feel like flirting tonight. I think I’ll cruise out to hang with the guys.”

  Without the pursuit of girls to cloud your mind, you were free to to relax and enjoy the company of your friends. It was strange how guys could tell if you were in that mood, and would welcome you back as if you went clean and quit booze. I always seemed to run into my friend Frankie Chavez on those nights. Frankie hung out at FM Station and looked like he belonged in the band Firehouse. He had a thick East Coast accent and talked like one of the Sopranos. He was actually a friend of Perris, but I really liked something about the guy and we became good friends. He’d always greet you with a grin and a hug, and offer you a beer out of nowhere. Seeing Frankie was therapy, because he was a no bullshit man’s man, and he made you feel like family every time you saw him. He was a good honest person and always seemed to see the bright side of any situation. For me, he seemed like a brother and I don’t know where that came from. But he was a great guy to hang out with for sure. He had a sister who was really cute, but not slutty. I happened to mention that to him one night and got a stern lecture about dating his sister. “That’s my fuckin’ sister y’see? I don’t care no’s how no way, you leave my sister the fuck alone! Ya hear me?” A true New York Italian kid, no?

  Most nights were spent in the company of girls, and sometimes the situation was unorthodox to say the least. One night Hooligan Stew went to the Troubadour and Liz went with us. Tara was there as well, and as girls do sometimes, they decided they were going to be best pals that night to try and annoy us. That means they get real drunk and obnoxious, and start slinging zingers our way trying to get a rise out of us. Now I’ve been around the block plenty so I knew how to deal with it. Just let ‘em go and ignore the whole thing. This of course makes them try harder which can lead to dire consequences. I guess they were doing shots, but Tara was a trooper and could drink most men under the table. Liz was not so lucky. She was 5’0’’ at all of 110 lbs. and had no business doing shots in the first place. At one point I looked over at her and she was sitting on a stool at the bar blowing chunks down the front of her dress. She was so drunk that she just sat there puking more and more until she was surrounded in a puddle o’ barf. She didn’t flinch the whole time, instead she just sat there with her eyes closed. I don’t know where the bartender was, but she was sitting there alone for about 5 minutes covered in puke. Now normally, I wouldn’t revel in that unfortunate situation, but she had been laying it on pretty thick all night so my empathy was at a low level. After a good laugh, I decided that enough was enough, so I gathered the guys and we all went back home. Once we got there, I took off her clothes, cleaned her up and dressed her in one of my white oversized t-shirts. Once she settled down, she caught her second wind and began pursuing me around the room in the t-shirt like an frisky hospital patient. Matt seemed very annoyed that we’d be flirting with each other at all after all that puking. Well Matt always seemed to be annoyed at something, I’m sure he got it from his dad. Tara of course thought the whole thing was hilarious and was laughing at Matt as well as us. These were fun times.

  Another night, Cupcake, Lizbone and I went out to the Whisky to check out a band. While there, we ran into a girl I called “Boomer”. She
was a semi-runaway girl who decided to latch on to me that night. She started doing the “get down” dance in front of me no matter where I stood. She wasn’t the best looking girl, so I tried a few times to ditch her. But wherever I went, she came back to me like a boomerang, hence the name. At the end of the night, we hadn’t found anything better, so we took her and a few of her friends back home. While Liz-Bone stayed in the living room trying to control the circus of drunk girls, Cupcake and I took Boomer and one of her friends into the bedroom. Cupkake had his girl up on the bed and I was with Boomer on the floor with a blanket over my shoulders like a Superman cape. The whole time these two girls wouldn’t shut up and were talking back and forth to each other about how cool the night was. To make it worse, they were talking in “dude” talk. “Dude, oh my god, that band was awesome, did you see Cheri? Dude she was soooo drunk. We’re so gonna go back next weekend. Dude that’s so cool”! I remember thinking, “This is NOT working!” so I got up and went out to have a beer with Liz-Bone.