Adios, Motherfucker Page 8

  We played out of town when we could, across the Connecticut River, the anthropological divide between Northampton’s elemental truancy and trucker speed and Amherst’s granola academia, way out in the boonies beyond UMass. You drove and drove and when you were absolutely sure you’d gone too far you were halfway there. The hippie frontier. Out there you could get away with sixty-five keg riots, mushroom-chomping collegiate bedlamites howling and ramming their heads together as total strangers fucked on the hoods of cars and dogs stumbled around drunk. The chaos could go on for days. We became something of a house band at a four-bedroom party shack, playing three-, five-, eight-hour sets at these tremendous, throbbing, bacchanals, and we were well-compensated for it, by far more cash than we’d ever made at any club, goods and services, random perks, above and beyond the training, which was invaluable. Nothing builds a band’s stamina, its repertoire, and hones its ability to think on its feet like a five-hour set at a raging house party. We’d recently played a pig-roast out there, deep in the woods, tripping our faces off on who-knows-what, peaking epically, when a shirtless guy war-painted with blood (swine, hopefully) leapt in front of us holding aloft the severed pig head, and let out a five-minute, bloodcurdling, scream, then fell over like a tree. It was good while it lasted.

  Other than playing bowling alleys and VFWs as a ballcap and mustache-sporting classic rock cover band from Medford, Mass., called Brownstar, after the human anus, for a long time the closest we came to performing anywhere in town was an appearance on “Eddie Holly’s Rock and Roll Cooking Show,” on the local cable channel. Eddie, blooming from local hammered line cook to local dipso-folk hero, had conceived the show and commenced preproduction the same way anyone would, while knocking over stools and spilling people’s drinks at the Bay State. Unusual however, was that after doing so Eddie left the bar, woke someone up to obtain their video camera, and had shot multiple episodes and wedged them into the local cable broadcast schedule by the time he sobered up. Which, granted, was a week or two later, but still—follow-through was rare. For our episode we prepared hot dogs or something “a la Unband.” I can’t remember whose kitchen we decimated, or which one of us threw up Wild Irish Rose in it. Might have been Eddie.

  The Northampton Loud Music Festival rolled around. The festival had grown in scope and notoriety, since its founding a year or two earlier, when the widely publicized music industry consensus was that Northampton was “the next Seattle,” which to us was even less appealing than if meteorologists forecasted it. We managed to get ourselves a slot at the festival, a daylight slot on a bill that made no sense. We found matching white velvet wedding band suits at the Salvation Army and bought them for the occasion.

  After our set a guy with a goatee wearing a laminate introduced himself. Tim, from California. He said he was “totally stoked” on what we were doing, and told us he worked at a small gangsta rap label out in Los Angeles called Interscope. He said if we were ever in Los Angeles to give him a call. We said we would. Matt said we would. I was being removed from the club by my belt-loops at the time.

  10

  WEST COAST IDEA

  “I’m so hungry and I got no food.

  Ninety-nine cents, tell me what do I do?

  Should I get out the car, should I go inside?

  I just stare at the sign with my mouth open wide.”

  —The Unband, “Drive Thru”

  MARCH 17

  Landed LAX, no Tim. Autodialed a fortune into the pay phone. When we finally reached him he sounded like he’d either forgotten we were arriving today or hadn’t believed that we were actually coming. Can’t blame him; we didn’t believe we were actually coming, either.

  Hour or so later Tim appeared. His surfboard sticking up through the sunroof of his car, as he’d been planning a day of surfing. We crammed in around it, and he drove us to Santa Monica, made a pit stop near the beach to see about some food. We parked and crossed the street; instantly a cop appeared and tore a citation out of his book, and handed it to Eugene—$55, for jaywalking. Tim walked us over to a pedestrian mall—pedestrian is a good word for it—called the Promenade and into a Californian bistro. Cathedral ceilings, brass, showy climate control. Looked like some place we’d have to get thrown out of to enjoy, but the bartender, Jaren, was a friend of Tim’s, a natural comedian who had us doubled over laughing straight off, and let us know that our money was no good there. On our way out there was a ragged junkie camped by a fountain, holding a piece of cardboard that read: “I need money for heroin.” I gave him a dollar and said I liked the cut of his jib. He seemed to think “jib” meant his destroyed sport jacket, which he whipped off and tried to sell to me.

  In front of Tim’s house in Santa Monica, Tim said he’d better go inside first, talk to the wife, “Make sure everything’s copacetic.” We sat in the car for a long time, then Tim came out and said not too confidently that we were all good, his wife was okay with us staying for a while. The house is one of these Spanish cottages you find here. A living room separated from the bedroom by an Indian blanket, tiny bathroom (off the bedroom, not ideal for the present arrangement), galley kitchen—maybe four hundred square foot, total. This morning around dawn I heard staccato whispers off in the other room, Tim again laying out a timetable for Mrs. Tim, regarding our stay. Then I fell back asleep until noon.

  We do have a number of qualities that recommend us as houseguests. We’re all from good, unbroken homes, where we were raised with basic manners. We’re agile conversationalists, none of us has any allergies, we’re pet-friendly (Eug and I are dog-people, but not to exclusivity, Matt has nothing against animals, that I know of). It’s not saying much but compared to a lot of bands we’re on the upper end of the personal hygiene scale. Eugene does have an uncommon personal fragrance. On the other hand, of the three of us he’s the least of your worries, he curls up in a corner and sleeps for twelve, thirteen hours at a stretch. Matt and I both know our way around a mop (I clean house like a Portuguese domestic), and we cook. Eugene makes a ramen in which he floats a fried egg, Matt does this chicken dish, with green apples for some reason, but it works. My thing is surprises with overlooked or expired items from your refrigerator, pulling a rabbit—Frankenrabbit—out of your hat. It’s true: we drink. But if you don’t know that an unexpected and well-timed Dean Martin (flipping heels-over-head without changing the orientation of the beverage—it’s gyroscopic) over a hassock or a Boston terrier—in this case one named Darla—can do for a lackluster evening, just you watch. Overall, you could do worse than us, easily. Mrs. Tim is not yet convinced.

  It’s a short walk to a restaurant called One-Dollar Chinese Food. Apt. Everything on the menu is Chinese and costs a dollar. Hell to pay later, of course. Six ramens for a dollar at Ralph’s, where you also get five-dollar cases of generic-brand beer, the kind drunk in Repo Man, in the plain white and blue cans labeled “beer” we’d assumed until now to be a prop. In fact there is an entire line of generic-brand alcohols, bottles with the same ultra-minimal blue and white labels reading “whiskey,” “vodka,” “rum,” “gin,” lining both sides of a special aisle at Ralph’s, like an art installation. Andy Warhol, stockboy.

  Drumming up some business in Los Angeles is the question. Where to begin.

  We arrived with a few phone numbers. One for a girl Matt met at the music festival in Noho, who works in the A&R dept. over at Warner Bros. Called her from a payphone across the street a few times. Very nice, chatty, though she hasn’t expressed any interest in our music specifically. The number for someone named Damien, who books a supposedly hot-shit rock club, was answered by a woman who requested that, if I happened to find “that lying, slut-fucking, creep” would I please tell him to “fucking fuck himself and die,” from her. And the number of a guy at a reputable label in Orange County who doesn’t seem keen on returning phone calls. We’re on our own, essentially. Except for Tim.

  Tim is driven. No doubt about it. As I learned from our phone conversations that led to our trip
here, he does have a tendency to drift during phone calls. You know he’s there, you can hear the line’s connected, usually you could hear him breathing. “Tim? . . . Tim? Hello? Tim! Hello? [tapping the hook switch] You still there? . . . Tim . . . Tim!” and just when you’ve decided to hang up he goes, “Totally, dude. What?” Other than that he seems pretty capable. And his job in the mailroom at Interscope gives him access to packing and mailing materials, computers, copiers, card stock, paper—all of which we’d be hard pressed to come by otherwise, and all top-of-the-line.

  Made more copies of the new tape. Before we left we brought the tracks to the local go-to recording studio, called Slaughterhouse because it actually was one, we know now. A cement bunker out in the tobacco fields, the floors slope gently toward a central grate for draining bovine gore, speakers and cables on the giant meat-hooks. Thom Monahan and Mark Miller the engineers there, both pro, highly creative. We spent a day and a half layering synthesizers and fake strings on a few of the songs, and all three of us beatboxing on the one about drive-thru windows. I sent some copies out—into the void, it seemed. Took a stack with press kits to New York and walked them around to labels, magazines, everybody, during a two-day downpour. Zilch.

  Anyway. Tape sounds good.

  We remain seriously short in the musical instrument department, however. Moving equipment around the country is prohibitively expensive so we flew out with Matt’s guitar, Eugene’s snare, and, since my bass never turned up after that thing at wherever, all I’ve got is a harmonica, a “D.” Meaning it’s good for songs in A, which about half of ours are. So we’ve got that going for us.

  MARCH 19

  There is a situation in the corner of the eave over the front door. No idea what type, what species, but it’s the size of a fucking baseball. It has a face. An expressionless mask of pure corruption, what looks like fucking tusks coming out of it. Even Eugene won’t touch it. (We have an arrangement: he dispenses with arachnids for me, I handle bees for him.) Oh, leave it alone, it’s not hurting anybody. Yeah. Save it for when it attacks you, like a basketball hucked at the back of your head. Because of this I minimize trips in and out of the house.

  I cold-call clubs and music industry people—pretty much anybody in Los Angeles who has a phone, all day long, burning out the battery pack on the cordless while pacing the front yard, the little rectangle of desert dirt with grass tufts. Break for one-dollar Chinese food (timed to include the intestinal event that follows), then more calls, couple Repo Man beers, then call it a day.

  MARCH 22

  Went to a cookout a few days ago where toward the end of the vodka a waitress from Jaren’s bar sold us her ’72 Plymouth Valiant, white, blue interior. She needed money to make a film of some kind so she can quit waitressing. We said if the car makes it to the liquor store and back she had a deal. Basic jalopy, but there’s no rust (no salt damage, nothing; this is California, where there is only breeze and dust). This has all but wiped us out financially, but we’re mobile, and it’s ours.

  MARCH 25

  To bring in some cash Eugene does nude modeling for art classes at UCLA—a man who doesn’t think twice about strolling around naked in public is never truly out of work. Saw an ad in the paper, “Seeking Film and Television Extra$$$,” so Matt and I went to the address listed, a casting office upstairs on the Sunset Strip, near the Whisky A Go-Go. Glass furniture and floor-to-ceiling mirrors everywhere. We’d had a few Repo Man beers already, which initially put off the two girls who ran the place, who kept talking about how pale we were, asking if we were “sick or something,” etc. After a while they warmed. On the way out a couple hours later I walked directly into a mirror then corrected myself by turning around walking into another one. They laughed and said they’d call us if any vampire movies came up. They called the next day, saying Quentin Tarantino needs vampires for something. Didn’t work out.

  APRIL 7

  Matt and I were hired for a TV show at a minimalist community college in Compton surrounded by chain-link and barbed-wire. We were told to pretend to be college students. If college taught me anything it’s that I cannot do a believable impersonation of a college student, no matter what. But then there wasn’t much else going on that looked believable. Matt and I were issued backpacks filled with foam blocks, ushered into a lecture hall, and instructed to pretend we were ducking erratic laser-gun fire, while somebody approximated laser-sounds into a megaphone. Someone else kept shouting, “Fire in the hole!” then “Cut!” when nothing happened. Christopher Lloyd was hanging around in a zoot suit, none of it made any sense. An assistant director attempted to throw us off the set for drinking, even though we weren’t drinking but only having some vodka, and we were on our lunch break. We said if we’d been drinking, he’d sure as hell know. Another one of these East-West communication breakdowns. Catastrophic, as usual.

  Mrs. Tim came and picked us up when she finished work. She’s come around quite a bit, but it’s high time we make a move.

  APRIL 14

  Needed to get out of Tim’s place, give Tim and Mrs. Tim their life back. Even Darla the dog was starting to look at us funny. So we’re parked down by the beach in Venice.

  A Valiant can sleep three in an emergency but only two comfortably so we take turns, one of us sleeping on the beach. Despite exposure to the elements (sand, wind, tide, cops), on the whole sleeping on the beach is preferable. Here in “SoCal” at night the temperature nosedives. Car or beach it’s cold enough so you layer, to where you’re wearing almost all of your clothes at once. But once the sun is up the heat comes on fast. By 7 A.M. you could cook a pizza on the roof of the car. If you’re inside and all bundled up, straitjacketed in laundry, you’re in optimal, laboratory conditions for growing a hangover into a true Leviathan—the Hangover That Ate Venice Beach. Sleeping down on the sand you’re more likely to be pissed on (dog and human are equally likely), woken by a beach ball careening off your face, arrested, or robbed, of nothing.

  APRIL 21

  Tim took us up to a favorite surf spot, a private section of beach in the upper reaches of Malibu. The only way to and from the beach is three hundred steps up or down a ramshackle staircase against the cliffside; a Steimy, Buckwheat & Buckwheat pièce de résistance, and a smoker’s nightmare, to put it mildly. Zander, the surfer who rents the guesthouse shack at the top of the cliff, built a drinking hut at the base of the cliff, from palms and washed-up logs, and outfitted it with two hammocks, a boom box, and an Igloo cooler that holds a case of Repos with enough room for ice. Smooth sand, blue water, huge bluffs, and empty beach far as you could see in both directions, dolphins and seals in the surf. You might work all your life to get somewhere like it.

  We came around to the subject of us maybe staying for a while in the hut, and Zander said that was acceptable (“gnarly”), so we stayed. I don’t know for how long. Three, four days maybe. I smoke so much less on beaches it’s impossible to mark time properly. Beach bonfires, feasting and partying with surfers till dawn.

  Tim got us a slot on an afternoon bill at a local roadhouse called the Malibu Inn, up the cliff and a little ways down the Pacific Coast Highway. The stage was out on a patio with picnic tables. We played to a mixed crowd of surfers, beach bums, bikers, plus a few of Tim’s label cronies and some industry types he’d convinced to come, and some regular people—you don’t have to ask: they love Sugar Ray. Matt fell off the stage into a plastic garbage can and when it toppled over a couple of guys started kicking it around the patio, Matt rolling around in there soloing. I was leaping table-to-table, drinks going everywhere, Eugene was alone onstage, bopping the snare drum with his solicitor-general. Maybe someone pulled the plug; maybe we just stopped.

  Another day, or the next day, or the previous day, we met Tim’s friend, an ex-pat from New York, named Busty Balloons, for two very good reasons, who came down to the hut with a porta-bar, beach chairs, and someone to carry them. She looked at us said, “Let me guess. Your ship wrecked on the way to CBGBs.” (Our bea
ch attire is no different than what we’d wear scrounging drinks out on the town. Though, for Eug, that might mean Robinson Crusoe cutoffs and a pair of Vans or less.) When you’ve been in California this long, meeting someone from New York or anywhere in the Northeast is a relief—hang on every sarcastic, hyper-cynical word. And Busty manages an apartment building. A 1920s deco in Westwood Village slated to be torn down for a shopping center any day now; until then, we have a room. Furnished, period stuff. Couple semi-easy chairs, a bed with a trundle, moved in today. Access to ice and somewhere to defecate privately; the graduation from surviving to living.

  MAY 9

  Driving. All the time. (Not me, usually. Better for everyone that way.) We rehearse in a bunker in East LA. Anytime we buy beer at the local packie some gansta suggests we’re in the wrong neighborhood. As if there’s a right one for us in this city. There’s a permanent toxic cloud over the city that sometimes keeps people from going outside, where you can get shot more or less at random; every other car has someone in it who looks like they’ve had someone else’s lips and eyelids, stuck onto their face, and there’s a service now that will page you when a televised car chase is underway, so you won’t miss it. These people, the Angelenos, are attempting to build a subway system despite their city being on an active fault line. Naturally, the tunnels keep collapsing. But for my money (three dollars eighty-five, currently), leaf blowers are the major problem—or rather, whatever causes the people here to accept the idea of paying a guy to hang around their yard and do absolutely nothing as loudly as possible. This morning I watched a guy blow three leaves up and down a driveway for ten minutes. He was still doing it when I walked by an hour later. Why anybody around here is allowed any more than safety scissors is beyond me.