The Sunset Strip Diaries (33 page)

When he called, he was trying way too hard to be the bad boy that he thought I would like. I wasn’t having it. We yelled at each other over the phone and I very often slammed it down in his face. He continuously called back to try to tell me off, but we just went in circles. Here are the words from an actual conversation I recorded in my journal:

He said, “Listen to me; do you want to be with me? Why don’t you get your guard down? Do you think I just want to
bang
you? I could just keep you around and bang you all the time! I am not a liar. If I say I care about you and I think you’re different, then I
mean
it! I am so tempted just to get you whipped on me and DROP you. You are SUCH a HEADACHE.”

I said, “Uh,
excuse
me, but you will never get me whipped on you. THAT will never happen. I will not be whipped on anyone.”

He started screaming, “DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BET?! Do you want to BET that I can’t get you whipped?”

I said, “Fucking TRY it. You know what? You think you’re so fucking great. But guys like you are a DIME a DOZEN. I can find an asshole like you ANYWHERE. You’ll get ME whipped? Good luck.”

He couldn’t talk after that. He got all quiet and said, “Why don’t you just let one of those dime a dozen guys talk to you then. This isn’t an act, this is my personality, and I’m stuck with it.”

I said, “Why do we have to sit here and see who is cooler than who? Why can’t you just relax? I can do it, can YOU?”

I realized that day that I had become comfortable taking guys down a peg when it was deserved. I didn’t flinch, it rolled off my tongue. It was so hard for me to stand up for myself as a young teenager, so many terrible things happened to me because I couldn’t find that strength. But suddenly, in the midst of all of my misery, it was there. It had actually been there for a few years by then. Would I have been able to do it had I not met the girls I met in Hollywood? Probably not. Who knows where I would have been had I not seen women who could stand up for themselves. Sometimes you learn lessons in unlikely places. Another thing I learned from the girls in Hollywood is that I didn’t have it as bad as I thought I did. There was always someone who had it worse.

A few nights later, I went to Teddy St. John’s. We watched videos in his dad’s plush house and got drunk. We fell asleep (nothing happened) and he was tossing, turning, jerking and twitching. I could tell he was having nightmares.  I tried waking him up and couldn’t, so I slapped him across the face. He woke up and started talking in a completely normal voice, asking me why I slapped him. I told him why and he started remembering his dreams. He said there was cocaine on the ground and he was trying not to touch it, and he wasn’t supposed to be hanging out with me, because he was betraying Jimmy. I ditched him in the morning while he slept in his black and white checkered sheets.

Birdie was starting to see more of that junkie, Stevie. They were constantly arguing in parking lots and at parties and I had to sit and wait for her. Two chicks from the Seattle crowd called Birdie around that time and asked her a million personal questions. They recorded her answers and played them all over Hollywood. Birdie was devastated for about one day- until a car promptly hit the girl who was the main culprit. Karma had been an even bigger bitch than she was.

One weekend, while I was at Birdie’s, my dad called her house and told me we had moved. I was like
….Wait…we….
moved
?  Doesn’t that require some sort of
planning
? Some sort of packing?
He gave me the new address of where we lived. I thought,
What about my stuff? Who packed it?! Where is it!?
My dad said he would come get me, and drive me to the new place.

He pulled up to Birdie’s in that big boat of a car, driving very slowly. I don’t know whose car it was, but it wasn’t his because he didn’t have one. He drove me about two miles per hour over to a neighborhood in Woodland Hills, a few blocks from the community college I was attending. I was quite happy to be so close to my school, because I could walk there when the next semester started instead of taking a bus. The new place appeared to be in a relatively nice area, until we pulled up to the house where we were to stay. It was the crappy house on the block. Dead lawn. Old cars outside. Two Rottweilers barking. I thought,
Dude…we are
that
house? The one white trash house that ruins the rest of the neighborhood? Great.
We entered the place and a bunch of random people were sitting around. My dad started introducing me to them.

“This is Richard, he does construction; and that is Teri,” he lowered his voice, “She is a prostitute, but she is a really nice person.”

I stiffened.

“Those two guys live in the back; this guy lives in the other room… she lives down the hall-”

It was as if we lived in a halfway house. I knew the two young guys in back were dealing drugs, -I forgot how I knew it was so obvious, but I remember being concerned that there would be a raid and I would be stuck in the middle of it. My dad and Debra shared one room, and then there was the clincher: I had to sleep in a makeshift closet! It was big for a closet, but I was pissed.

My dad told me that I could make some extra money if I ran some errands for Teri the hooker. I was hurt that he felt comfortable letting me be around her. I prayed he wasn’t trying to get me to be a protégé or something- he treated me like a whore who could be offered up to anyone, as it was. He tried to make it sound like she was a good person; she just did that as a job. She actually did give me twenty bucks to go to the phone company and get her phone line turned on. I probably spent it on Jim Beam. And I recall Richard the construction worker giving me a shot of tequila from the freezer. I felt more and more uncomfortable as my dad partied with all of the people. It didn’t feel safe there.

Somehow, my dad and Debra got my car fixed again. I didn’t know how they paid for it, because neither of them had jobs, but I was relieved. My dad needed to use it straight away and I let him. When he brought it back, I saw that he left his pot pipe in the ashtray again. I was pissed and said he couldn’t use it anymore.  I couldn’t believe how irresponsible he was as an adult, let alone a father. The deadline for the next semester’s enrollment came and I asked him if he had paid it. He said, “Nope. Sorry. Couldn’t do it. If you would’ve let me use your car that one day and just walked to school, I would’ve had the money to pay for it.”

In my journal, I wrote:

Did I tell you how he was ruining my car? He would insist on using it. Where was HE when I had to raise the money to buy it? He wasn’t even around! I figured if he’d at least pay for me to go to school then maybe it would be worth it. I should have known he couldn’t pay for it- how would he get the money anyway? I thought that maybe he would somehow. But when he told me he wasn’t, I got up and started to leave. I felt like I was going to break down. School was like, the last thing- the only thing- that was normal in my life. I was depending on that little shred of light.

He wanted to know when I was coming back, because he needed to use my car (!). Can you believe that? I went to my grandma’s to cool off, and then I went back. When I first pulled up, he said he was “real worried” and all this sugary crap. I ignored him. He said, “What, are you just never going to talk to me again?” I said I didn’t feel like arguing and proceeded to make trips back and forth, filling my car with my belongings. Debra tried talking to me throughout the whole thing. I was polite to her. I said to her that it was all right, I shouldn’t be living off anyone anyways; I shouldn't be waiting for anyone to pay for my school. I should get up and go do it myself.  She gave me a ten dollar bill that she kept for emergencies. It was evening time, the sun was setting, and we were out on our white trash driveway in sort of a golden light.

Debra tried to explain in her patient, soft voice how bad my dad’s financial situation had been but I stopped her and said, “Fine. But he shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to tell me he couldn’t pay for my schooling. Now it is past the deadline to enroll. If he would’ve given me notice, I could’ve hustled it somehow. Now it is too late for that.” Then I turned and mentioned to my dad that it had been light-years since he fed me. He said, “Oh, why didn’t you go ‘hustle’ money then, since you were so
star
ving,” mimicking me. I felt embarrassed. My blood was boiling, but I pushed the anger back.

I told him in an even tone that I was trying to live with it, because it wasn’t as important as school. He said, “Well, I expect you to come back.”

“No,” I said, looking in his eyes, “You expect my
car
to come back.”

I drove away and never returned.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Will I Ever Be Normal?

I begged my mother to take me back, emphasizing my living with a prostitute and drug dealers. She felt sorry for me, and let me move back in for a few weeks to get myself together.

Journal Entry 11/29/92

I am back at my mom’s and soon to be homeless. My dad is back on drugs. But that is no longer my problem. If he wants to remain a druggie, he can go for it. After living with him, I know what it is like to starve and be cold and dirty. It really sucks. I don’t want to elaborate on all that.

I am sick and tired of Hollywood. It is such a waste of time being there when you realize that the last real heyday of the place was in 1987 when Guns N’ Roses came out. After they made it, no one compared. No one has beaten them yet. All of the other rock bands that came off the Sunset Strip have broken up or been dropped off their record labels. I guess I am trying to say that that big time is over and has been over. There is no one to impress anymore. There is no real ‘in crowd’ that I am trying to break into. There aren’t even any more real great bands to go hear. Why do I even care who hugs and kisses me or who talks behind my back? I don’t even matter. Saying that I was part of Hollywood in the early nineties is as good as nothing. The scene is dead. It is dead and gone and I am trying to hang onto it. Right now on the news they are talking about kids graffitti-ing the Hollywood sign. Very telling.

The reason I stay there is because I keep thinking that I won’t ever be normal and I should just stick to other troubled people. I think that I will never fit in anywhere because of my troubled past, family problems and the amount of partying I do. How can I go hang around other nineteen-year-old girls, when my friends can drink an entire fifth of Jim Beam to themselves? I don’t even know how to have real fun. How do you even make real friends or have a real relationship with a guy? I will never find out if I don’t remove myself from Hollywood.

Journal Entry 12/29/92

My dad called here looking for me. I pretended to be my sister, and he believed it. You are going to think I really lost it but I think a ghost is following me around or else God is playing tricks on me because I keep seeing things and things keep happening that I didn’t do. Then I get a crazy feeling and think I am going insane. I am trying to smack myself in the head- I must be imagining things. It was God or an angel in the street, in the dark, trying to stop me from driving drunk last night. Anyway, let me tell you what happened.

I went to the Rainbow again (I haven’t paid yet) and got completely ripped. Sabrina and Bradley were there in a booth, both blond and beautiful, chatting with Ron Jeremy. I sat with them and had a grand old time. When the night ended, they invited me back to their place, which was up the street from the Whisky. When I was pulling up to their apartment building, I thought that maybe I should just drive home, I was tired and didn’t know if I wanted to keep partying- but as I tried pulling away, I saw that white figure in the street, stopping my car, telling me not to drive. It was glowing, tall, kind of iridescent. I parked my car, got out, stumbled to their door, and pressed the intercom.

When I got up to their place, they pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels, put on some music and the party continued, as it always does in Hollywood. True to form, Sabrina attacked me in the kitchen, tried to pull off my shirt and make out with me. I was just laughing and trying to get away. Her friend from the Tropicana was just standing there and watching. Never a dull moment with Sabrina; she is the same as she was when I was sixteen. Anyway, I drank way too much and the last thing I remember was running to the bathroom to barf.

When I woke up, I was in their bed! I slowly looked down to see if I was naked and I wasn’t- I had my clothes on, although my bra was unhooked. At least my pants and underwear were on! There was a bowl next to me filled with barf. I thought they were sleeping so I was going to try to escape, but then they woke up and started doing it, right next to me! I pretended I was asleep. Dude- how do I even get
into
these situations? Can’t I just be some chick who goes to movies and the mall? I swear. Anyway, I “woke up” a little later and Bradley said I not only barfed in their bed, but I barfed all over
him
! I am half embarrassed for throwing up all over another human being, but I am equally mortified about what could have happened if I hadn’t! They were obviously trying to get me to do it with them, but I was too wasted- thank goodness. I got out of there as soon as possible, and peeled out back to my mom’s. I was trying to hold back my barf the whole way there. When I was a block from her house, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I trying to make a left turn and I barfed all over myself in the car. It sprayed the dashboard. It was so disgusting. I pulled into my mother’s driveway just as she was coming back from grocery shopping. She didn’t even notice I was full of puke and handed me a bag of groceries and kept on walking. She would have to actually
look
at me to notice something on me, and she doesn’t. I barfed at my new telemarketing job later on after trying to hold down a bagel.

Six months later, Bradley and Sabrina had a fight. Bradley got himself real doped up on heroin because he was depressed, and ended up shooting himself in the head in the bathtub at Teddy’s house. Teddy was out at the store or something when it happened, so when he came back home and called for Bradley and didn’t hear him answer, he figured that Bradley took off. So Teddy left the house, unknowingly leaving Bradley’s body there. Days later, Teddy’s father came home to a horrid smell. He found the body in the bathtub, and thought it was his own son. I don’t know how long it took for him to figure out it wasn’t Teddy, or any more of the story, but it was a very dark time. We were all completely devastated. Sabrina was a widow at twenty-five. She started dating Bret Michaels of Poison a few years later.

That December, my social nightmare continued. Jimmy joined one of the bands I had been friends with, and was instantly part of my crowd for better or for worse. The fights he had with some of the main players in Hollywood had been forgiven, and they all ended up accepting him. His perseverance paid off. I was painted as the shit-starting tramp, and to a certain extent, it was true.

I remember walking up to a club with my friends behind me and looking up to see Jimmy in a full face of make-up and glammy clothes, with a crowd of converts behind him. It was as if we were going to have a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We didn’t look at each other until we were about to pass one another. We locked eyes and kept walking our separate ways. I felt he was a total hypocrite for wearing makeup- he had always talked shit on the glam guys on The Strip. Now he was one of them.

It was sad to ignore someone who I once loved and who had given me so much love. We were strangers now. We had hurt each other so much, the damage could never be undone. But as sad as I was, I was also irritated that he had the nerve to break into my circle. Who did he think he was? I thought,
I didn’t pound five million liters of Jim Beam in the dirt at Errol Flynn’s for
this
shit.
I had worked hard! But I was the one who bowed out in the end. Hollywood wasn’t what it once was for me. It meant more to him- he was determined to be in a band, and I wasn’t as determined to stay and fight him.

Journal Entry 12/30/92

I don’t have time to write because I am going to work at my telemarketing job. I might go out with my co-worker Tammy to see male strippers afterward. I am sure I will be embarrassed rather than like it. I am only stopping to write because I have to tell you about Dusty. He was the one with the condo who was nice, had a good job, was respectful and housed Razz and Michael for a summer or so. I thought he had morals and though he was not my particular type (tall, black hair, dickish), any girl he ended up with would surely be lucky.

But then I got a peek into his life. His seventeen-year-old girlfriend Michelle, who could pass for twelve at best, was giggling to me on the phone last night that she was going to look into stripping. Okay, they all do, at some point. But then she said that Dusty suggested the Seventh Veil to her. I nearly dropped the phone. Not only was someone who supposedly loves her telling her to bend over in guys’ faces for cash but he had the nerve to suggest the absolute scummiest, lowest hellhole in Hollywood for her to work. It is about one iota better than the Star Strip on La Cienega, but only by a peroxided hair. I was pissed that Dusty would pimp her out like that and I am convinced she doesn’t know better. She is very young and not even from here! She is from Utah! He was the only nice guy left. Now he is going to have his seventeen-year-old girlfriend bring home the bacon? Maybe he was like that all along and I just didn’t know. Anyway, she said Shandy Becker was going to show her some moves. I nearly spit out my cranberry juice. Shandy Becker, the drug dealer? She looked like an old oak tree, all knobby and gnarly. When was
she
a dancer? In the Roaring Twenties? She is like,
old
. She has to be in her thirties already, unless those drugs have aged her that bad. And where did she dance? An old folks’ home? Michelle was naively giggling about how much money she could make and that she didn’t mind nudity and she just wanted money. She wanted me to go with her and I told her it wasn’t my thing- I wanted money too, but not that bad. I wished her my sincere luck.

Little naïve Michelle went on to become a stripper at the Seventh Veil. Not only that, but she dumped Dusty and moved in with the guy who owned the club. Over the years, she completely transformed from the fresh-faced, coltish brunette wearing a Venice Beach T-shirt with beaded fringe. I saw her about six or seven years later. Her dark long hair was bleached platinum blond, she had breast implants and she was done up with a lot of thick stage makeup. She was very beautiful but no longer smiling. I could hardly recognize her. She was with a much older man and two young children. We looked each other right in the eyes and knew who each other were, but neither of us said anything.

I continued to work at my telemarketing job. The job started at 4 p.m. and ended at 8 p.m.  We all sat in a room staring at a wall. It was so dull. I remember driving over there in the rain, listening to The Cure and daydreaming. I had to call people and ask them if they would take a survey, which was really a disguise to make them listen to my pitch. I asked them what they hated most about going to the supermarket.
The lines? The prices? The one cart with the messed up wheel?
(That was my favorite one to say). After they answered, I said,
What if you didn’t have to go to the supermarket anymore?
I explained to them that if they ordered their meat from our company, it would be delivered to them, fresh and vacuum packed. I had a sheet to tell me what to say to any of their objections, including if they said they were vegetarian. I think we had some fresh vegetables that we would also deliver. If they had no room, that was no problem: We sold a freezer. We would deliver that bitch and put it straight into their dirty garage. They could fill it with beer if they didn’t want to keep buying meat.

I got a few leads at first. When you got a lead, you had to pass it to the boss, Kenneth, in the other room. He was watching us through a glass partition. He was a young guy, real salesman-ish. He had a huge shnozz and dark, feathered hair- pretty unfortunate looking, but he had personality. One day Kenneth gave us each a garbage bag of frozen meat, and I was shocked to find after cooking it that it was really very good. My sister used to beg me to make a sandwich with one of the chicken breasts.

I don’t remember many of the people from the job except for Tammy. She was a petite 27- or 28-year-old whose father owned a bunch of adult bookstores and porn shops on Van Nuys Boulevard. She confided in me that she found Kenneth hot, and started dating him shortly thereafter. She often came to pick me up in her aqua blue Corvette. I went to her huge house in Studio City where she still lived with her father, and we laid out by her pool. Tammy talked about wanting to be a stripper as we laid there on the Hawaiian print beach towels. Shit, who was I to stop her? I went with her to a bikini bar in Tarzana and watched her do amateur night. I was there for support but I soon felt embarrassed for her because she was
so
not sexy. She had long, brown, permed hair, which was really out of fashion by then. She also had big caterpillar eyebrows and didn’t know how to apply makeup properly. But none of that mattered in the dark under a neon light when Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” was blasting. She ended up winning the contest and was hired. I was not surprised after I watched the next featured dancer. She was wearing glasses and rolling around the floor to Def Leppard.

***

Birdie and I were out one night feeling all pretty and popular and having a good time. Things immediately skidded to a halt when we saw Ashley Allesandro. Everything turned slow motion:  She was in a fluffy, white fur coat, with her long blond hair and round angel face, getting out of Kit Ashley’s white Jaguar in front of the crowds of people at the Rainbow. Both of our jaws dropped, because we had both dated him. The slow motion continued as Birdie scoffed and my eyes narrowed. Birdie tried stepping forward and I put my hand on her arm to warn her not to act like she cared. Her curls bounced as she teetered on her Frederick's of Hollywood heels.  We were on our way out.