The Sunset Strip Diaries (12 page)

The guys featured in the magazines were gorgeous. Many of them had beautiful faces solely because of makeup, but that didn’t bother me. I saw tattoos, I saw long black hair, and I saw skinny legs in tight black pants. It was like a dream to see that many attractive guys in the same place. They all appeared to be wearing a brand of clothing called Lip Service. It was made up of crushed velvets in black and purple and sometimes a hint of burgundy. The main Lip Service logo was a cross and skull. They made pants with the logo print and jackets with a big skull in back. Some of the guys wore floppy velvet hats or T-shirts with the logo.

I stared mostly at pictures of a band named Tryx and another called Pretty Boy Floyd. They were local bands who encompassed what I found attractive and hip. I studied their interviews and learned their names, their likes, their influences. I cut out their pictures, put them on my walls, and dreamed of seeing them play live at a show.

I loved Tryx because they were creative and stood out (and maybe because I loved kids’ breakfast cereal). They each wore a certain color, head to toe. One guy (the singer, Jessie Star), was in red leather, with a red stripe in his dyed black hair; another was in turquoise (Roxy DeVeau), another in purple (Tracy Dahne), and another in pink (Cody Marks). They even had color-coordinated tattoos. I think the pink guy had a Pink Panther, the blue guy had a Smurf, and so on. I couldn’t figure out who was the cutest. I read all of their interviews and longed for the day I had a car so I could go to Hollywood to see them and all the rest.

I spent the remainder of the year looking at those magazines every week. I began to learn the names of the popular people. Screaming Boy Mandie from the Glamour Punks. Stevie Rachelle from Tuff. Theodore Love from Imagine World Peace. Paulie and Sunny from Swingin’ Thing. The ‘Miss Gazzarri’ dancers in bikinis with a sash over their breast implants, like Miss America. With each issue, I became more consumed.

I had to get there.

CHAPTER SIX

The Tattoo Shop

I studied
Rock City News
with a hunger. Soon I knew what I should look like, what crowd I should try to break into and the spots in which I should be seen, if I ever had the chance. I knew the names of the clubs, the bands who were in rotation and who was up-and-coming. I knew the labels of the clothing I should be wearing and the stores in which I should be shopping. I had a pretty clear picture of what I was going for. I also knew it was not going to be easy to make it into a scene so obscure and so based on a coolness factor. I knew good looks were always welcome, so I could be on the fringe at the very least. But it was clear you had to have more to hang with the Big Dogs- you had to be kind of a ‘name.’

I wished I could meet some Hollywood people so I could tag along with them when they went out, but it was very rare to run into someone from that crowd outside of Hollywood. And I knew I was very far from getting a car of my own and driving there myself. I was sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting. I would lie on my bed and look out the window while listening to Hanoi Rocks, Jetboy, and Roxx Gang records, daydreaming about the Sunset Strip. I always had on men’s boxers and my cut-up Faster Pussycat shirt. My room was jam-packed with pictures of all of the bands I liked. There were stacks of tapes and records, bins of makeup and perfume bottles, and random pins and stickers all over the place. I don’t think I had made my bed once since we moved into my grandma’s. I just crawled under a pile of clothes and went to sleep each night.

It was the beginning of 1990 when I saw a real live Hollywood guy in Canoga Park. I nearly shit my polka dot biker shorts. I was tripping over myself because I knew I had to act and act fast. I couldn’t pass up my ticket to Hollywood, my ticket out of misery in the Valley. I originally saw him in a fast food parking lot and I knew right away he was from Hollywood. He had long, dyed black hair; tattoos, combat boots and Lip Service clothing.
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
I watched him get into his car that had a cartoon skull
painted
on the doors. Then I saw something that made my heart skip a beat: his bumper sticker. I knew the bright pink script on a black background meant none other than
Riki Rachtman’s World Famous Cathouse
, located in Hollywood!  It was frequented by Guns N’ Roses, Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns, and many other rock stars and beautiful women. The guy had access to the Cathouse! I had been reading about it in magazines since I was fourteen. I never thought I would
meet
someone who
went
there. I started sweating and wanted desperately to talk to him, but he was getting in his car to leave and I couldn’t make my feet run over there and act like a fool. I was mad at myself. How would I ever get to Hollywood?

A few months later, I was coming home from school on that hateful bus. I looked out the window at a stop light and I saw something that intrigued me. It was a little tattoo shop! Tattoos were very Hollywood. I was not discouraged by my unfavorable dealings with Casey, who I met because I saw
his
tattoo shop bumper sticker. Tattoos were a symbol of rock and roll, of rebellion, of
guts
. I knew I had a higher chance of meeting a Hollywood guy in a tattoo shop than anywhere else in my town (it was either that, or I would be walking into a room full of Hell’s Angels or Marines).

I decided to check it out one day. I wanted to take action. I needed to do this! I got off the bus before my usual stop and crossed the street toward the tattoo shop. It felt thrilling and dangerous. It felt bad ass. It felt
adult.
When I walked in, the first thing I saw was a black-haired tattoo artist working on someone’s arm. He looked up and I recognized him as none other than the guy from the parking lot. I couldn’t believe my luck. I could hardly breathe and left the store after barely looking through a few racks of assless chaps. My heart was pounding as I got back on the bus to go home. I had to make sure I came back. I
had
to meet the hot tattoo guy and get my ticket to Hollywood, the town where I belonged. But what would be my reason for going back? I had no business at a tattoo shop…unless...unless I…
needed a tattoo
.

I know, I know, I was pretty lame. And don’t ask me how I got money for a tattoo, because I can’t even remember. I just know that in March of 1990, I went back to that tattoo shop with balls of steel. I thought,
Okay, I am not going to blow this
.
My ticket to freedom is
in this shop
. My new life could start because of this shop. There is a hot guy in there and I could flirt with him and get to go to Hollywood
. I had to make it happen.

I waited for a day that I felt pretty. I think it was a day that I liked my makeup application and/or hair styling and outfit. I was nervous all day at school thinking about getting a tattoo in front of the hot guy. What if he wasn’t even there? What if he WAS there, and I cried in front of him because the tattoo hurt? What if I were too nervous after getting my tattoo to talk to him about Hollywood? I would be stuck with a tattoo and nothing to show for it. What if he had a girlfriend?

After school, I took a deep breath and got off the sweaty, smelly, crowded bus in the crisp March air. I entered the shop, hearing L.A. Guns blaring. My favorite band! Playing there! Right
there
! It was a sign! I couldn’t believe somewhere else in my neighborhood was playing that music, as they were not as mainstream as other bands. My adrenaline was pumping very strong. I wanted to drop to the floor and do a few push-ups and jump back up.

I was greeted by the parking lot guy. He had bright, electric blue eyes. My heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. He locked eyes with me and I felt weakened, but made myself continue. I somehow got the words out of my mouth that I wanted a tattoo. He gave me a book of tattoo drawings to look through, to decide what I wanted. Oh…I hadn’t
thought
of what I wanted! I couldn’t let on that I didn’t even
care
what tattoo it was…I had to pretend I was really there for a tattoo, and if that were true, I would’ve at least had something in
mind
! Crap…

I pointed to the first feminine thing that I saw: a very plain sketch of a fairy. It was not elaborate and didn’t even look professional, but it was either that or skulls and flames, so I quickly pretended to be in love with the drawing. It looked like a drunken retard drew the thing.

“I drew that myself,” said the guy, who introduced himself as Jimmy.

I announced that I wanted it on my ankle, over the heart I had carved. He asked me if I was eighteen and I said I was, hoping he didn’t want I.D. He took my word for it.

So there I sat with my ankle in the Hollywood guy’s hands. He had rubber gloves on, and started to dig into my ankle with a tattoo gun filled with ink. I was never so happy. I know: I was crazy. But a L.A. Guns song was playing. A couple of cool Hollywood people were in the background. Lip Service clothes were on racks in front of me. And the tattoo didn’t even hurt. I don’t know if that is because I had developed a very high pain tolerance or the ankle just isn’t sensitive, but I remember thinking,
What’s all the stink about tattoos hurting? People sure are babies
. You would think that I ripped a beer bottle open with my teeth afterward, but I didn’t.

My euphoria of being tattooed did not end there. Jimmy said, “If I do a good job, can I take you out?”

And I am ashamed to admit my answer, but, I will tell you. I said, “You can take me out if you do a
bad
job.”

Classy.

Jimmy called me a day or two later and we went on a date (I don’t remember where), and we were inseparable from that day on. I spent all of my time with Jimmy, who, despite the long hair and tattoos, had been educated at an upper-crust Catholic private school. It was something he kept secret, along with his upper-middle-class upbringing in the suburbs and his former blond crew cut. He had created a new image for himself, just as I had. He lived in his own apartment (wow!) on Coldwater Canyon and was a graphic artist; he had created many of the ads I looked at in
Rock City News
and
Bam
. Tattooing was something he did on the side (he had a picture of Drew Barrymore in his shop, getting tattooed near her bikini line).

Jimmy was not just a frequenter of the Cathouse. He was in the inner circle; part of Riki Rachtman’s close group of friends. There were always articles and mentions of Riki and the Cathouse in magazines, but he was most recognizable from MTV, where he was a host for the rock show
Headbanger’s Ball
. I knew his crowd was the in-crowd. Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses was one of the Cathouse members (who reportedly got him the MTV job), as was Taime Downe of Faster Pussycat. There was also a guy named Shannon Hoon, who was in a band called Blind Melon. He was friends with Axl through his sister or something. There was a guy named Tip, a guy named King T and some other dudes I don’t remember. The members of Riki’s inner circle wore leather jackets with a skull and a Cathouse logo on the back, as opposed to the T-shirts that were available to the public. You couldn’t just buy one of those jackets- they weren’t for sale. You had to be in that inner circle to get one.

After dating Jimmy for a few glorious months, I threw a wrench into my life. Once again, it was due to my own impulsive behavior. I got into a venomous fight with my mother, who I still hated with the fire of a thousand suns. I was still deeply wounded and seething at her for telling me to just go ahead and kill myself and I somehow wanted to give her a chance to give me a different answer than the one she gave the time before. I took a knife, walked out of the house with it, and told her I was going to kill myself. I guess I wanted her to chase me and say, “No! Please don’t! I love you so much and I would die if you did such a thing!” But instead, she called the cops, remaining bitterly cold. I knew in my heart I would hate her for the rest of my goddamned life. And I did.

I remember going into my grandmother’s room, lying on the bed and calling my good friend from Middleton, Todd Lewis, to tell him I was about to be locked up again. He kind of helped me to cool down. Next thing I knew, there was a cop in the doorway. I was about to be dragged back to the psychiatric ward. I thought
Awwhh
shit.

I wasn’t
really
going to hurt myself. I knew the whole thing was going to be a big waste of time and a huge disruption to my life (most of all my new relationship), but
I
was the one who had cried wolf.  So I had to deal with what I had started. I asked the cops if I could go to the bathroom first, before I went through the long process of being hauled off, tested for drugs, and put into a holding tank. I really did have to go to the bathroom, and everyone was reluctant about letting me, in case I was going to kill myself in there somehow, or climb out a window. When I came out, they handcuffed me and put me into the back of their police car in front of all of the neighbors. I was taken back down to the same hospital to have my freedom taken away. Again. (
Sigh
.)

I was on suicide watch at the hospital and I was bored to tears. At first, I shared a big room with four girls who were younger than me.  I broke down one night in that room, laying on the floor and crying to a staffer named Lori, an anorexic looking, redheaded lady with a Brooklyn accent. She tried her ‘tough love’ bullshit, which made me cry harder. She was
so
cold and rude, thinking that it was the only way to deal with someone like me. I
longed
for somebody, anybody, to put their arms around me, hug me, and tell me they cared about me. I felt so trapped. My mother had used that same tough method with me and it only hurt and angered me further.

The people in the hospital ward came around with a little tray full of white paper cups that contained various pills for each of us, just like the last time. I never knew what the hell I was taking. We had to take what they gave us because they checked under our tongues to make sure we swallowed everything. It could have been cyanide for Pete’s sake, but you had to follow the rules or stay in there even
longer
. When my mother came to visit once with my sister, I pretended to be very spacey and very drugged. I wanted her to feel guilty, to feel bad for handing me over and letting them drug me. I detected a
hint
of concern, but nothing came of it.

I spent my days doing whatever was asked of me. If you disobeyed, you had to go into seclusion, and if you got physically out of hand, they would strap you down with restraints. I never had that happen to me; I was sure to be well behaved. I got the picture the first time and was not about to stay in there longer than I had to. I had things to do, a life to live, rock stars to meet. Debbie, a chubby, good-natured girl, was restrained one time for a totally ridiculous reason. She was not a threat to anyone- she was a kid. I was
so
frustrated for her, I knew she was just having personal feelings that she wanted to express and she couldn’t. She had to learn to play by the rules to get out, just as I did.