Inner-City Anecdotes
(excerpt)
Both of these musicians are astoundingly creative artists that hold a certain cult status with their previous original bands, Christian Death and Kommunity FK, respectively. Hell, Rozz is an incontrovertible legend with the true hardcore death rock purists like myself, up there on the same dismal marquee as Ian Curtis. And just like the pale and tortured front man for Joy Division, Rozz would in the end also perish by his own hand--a few years before the end of the century. It's extremely unfortunate for all the people he hurt and injured emotionally by committing suicide, but when all was said and done and the wax sealed the envelope that held his fate, it really wasn't anything that was not to be expected, however morbid that may sound. After all, he was the King of Death Rock.
I have interviews with both bands in the new issue of my underground zine, HIP Magazine, which I have just revived after a period of being on hiatus. They are playing the same bill in San Diego, at one of its most popular gothic nightclubs. The same person, David Lear of Knightrider Management, is managing both bands. David is a slightly larger guy with long brown hair, a beard and mustache of the same color, and a large wallet. He's become a good friend of the zine as of late and has come to know us pretty well, giving us exclusive interviews with many of the bands on his roster. The latest one being Johnny Indovina of the band Human Drama, but for now he's pretty jazzed about the two artists at hand and so I am invited to San Diego for their very first show. Since HIP is going through an exciting resurrection and the release of the comeback issue coincides with this show, I decide to accompany them and take it upon myself to treat it like an official magazine publication party. I'm sure nobody will mind.
I spend the entire day copying large volumes of legal documents at the print and copy shop where I work. It's located at the unfortunate crossroads of Alvarado and Olympic streets, prostitution central in the black heart of MacArthur Park's Pico Union area, a few blocks from where I was born and where my mother's sister was killed crossing the street. When the boss is not looking, I make several hundred copies of the new issue to give away at the show. This is in fact primarily the way the zine is funded. Not only my own zine but also the American underground as a whole! Zines all over America created by DIY revolutionaries with access to the office Xerox machine, guided by the driving force of sheer insurrection, expressed through the medium of 20lb stock paper and funded by the very corporate America that has caused them their disillusion!
I get off work a bit early on Friday so we can get to San Diego by sundown. The previous night I ask my friend Diana if she wants to go but of course she has to work--doing her usual eight hours of phone sex. Rich and Ken are the only ones going with me so far, and rightly so because these are the two guys I often send to do a lot of the little things I sometimes can't do like take photos, pick up and drop off at the printers, distribution, and so on. They pick me up at work and after scoring a few bags of heroin for the trip, we are off to San Diego, heading south on the congested 405 freeway during Friday rush hour traffic, the truly worst possible time for any excursion out of Los Angeles.
We get to the club in time to see Shadow Project do their sound check. Inside, David is already holding a beer and it immediately becomes evident to me where he gets his plump form, chubby man that he is. He informs us that he's made reservations for us at the Saint James Hotel in the Gaslamp District, an historical site that's allegedly haunted by ghosts. He tells us that he's reserved practically every room on the third floor and all I can think is that this could prove to be an interesting night.
Later that night we get to the club with a big stack of magazines to give away. The quality is notoriously mediocre in the history of the fanzine and the first page of the Shadow Project interview is almost to the point of being illegible because of a malfunction in the cheap Xerox machine at work, but at least everyone inside the club will get a copy. Sativa Luvbox takes the stage first and Patrick immediately announces to the audience that they should check out the interviews in the copies that the "guys from HIP" brought down from Hollywood. Shadow Project goes on next and they put on an astounding show, reminiscent of the original Christian Death sound with their aggressive punk rock overtones. It seems that almost everyone inside the club is excited to be hearing this again instead of the usual noise that Rozz has been producing for the last few years.
The club is packed with the gothic underbelly of San Diego, which at its best is almost pitiful. I always feel contempt for these pretentious types even though I myself relate best to that genre of music and style. After all, I don't think the nuns back in catholic school didn't officially put it in writing that I was despondent and apathetic for no good reason other than to torture my unfortunate parents, did they?
"Listen man, I have some good black tar heroin back at the hotel and you're welcome to some if you're in the mood." I tell Rozz while drinking a beer with him at the bar. Partly for putting on a good show and partly just to kiss his ass for being a brilliant artist. "Of course I'm in the mood-thanks!" he acts like he's ready to go then and there but it's still early and there's drinking to be done before the impending doom of the 2am "last call" that will inevitably be announced at every alcoholic establishment in California. When the show is finally over and everybody is almost ready to leave, we move out to the front of the club. Everyone is just sort of hanging out and I find myself talking to Jill Emery, the bassist for Shadow Project, about the other band she's concurrently involved with, Hole. I'm in the middle of asking her if Courtney Love is really a bitch when I realize that I don't have a beer. Usually an alarm goes off when I begin to get low on alcohol and I am in a social situation. This happens because well, I just don't know how to talk to people if I'm not sedated, intoxicated, or downright fucked up out of my mind! So the fact that there is no substance being constantly delivered to my brain sends me into a total panic! I quickly remember that there are some railroad tracks around the corner from the club and that some girls had earlier invited me to drink with them there.
"I'll be right back," I tell Jill and head over to the tracks to get a beer. I must have lost track of time because when I leave the tracks and go back to the front of the club there is nobody there. I think, "No problem, I'll just get a ride to the hotel with the chicks from the tracks!" but when I go back to the tracks, they too have left! I am who the fuck knows where in the middle of the night. It is the industrial part of town and I don't have enough money for a cab, but even if I did, there isn't a phone in sight for miles to call one in the first place! At least I don't run into any during the long walk back to the hotel.
When I finally do reach the Saint James Hotel, there is a sullen crowd of fans gathered outside. It's a mildly glamorous bunch. My vision is kind of fuzzy from the alcohol but from a half block away I see a lot of tall black spiked hairdo's and torn fishnet stockings. Coming up a bit closer I can see that a lot of them are smoking, some have black capes, others are holding lunchboxes, and almost all of them are showing some flesh; a bare shoulder, a pierced navel, some leg, or maybe a bit of cleavage. I talk to them for a while and when they find out that I am part of the death rock royalty that is already upstairs loose and causing havoc on the entire third floor, they start to make interesting offers. One couple who just cannot keep their hands off each other insist that all they want is a place they can have sex at, or rather "Fuck each others brains out," as they so fervently put it, "even if it's in the middle of a roomful of people!". I truly cannot pass something up like that, so I invite them upstairs, along with a transvestite and a girl dressed in black leather. I think they'd make the party interesting.
Upstairs I quickly hit my stash and absentmindedly snort the entire amount of remaining heroin, forgetting I had earlier promised some to Rozz. Well, I didn't really forget that I had promised him some, I just wanted to regain the composure that the long anxious walk back to the hotel had robbed me of, not to mention being abandoned at the nightclub. Heroin makes you do a lot of things without any care for the consequences it brings and this is one of those completely perfect examples of that.
Rozz walks in the room just as I've finished snorting the last balloon of heroin. I turn around, sniffing and snorting, with a small plastic straw in one hand and an empty spoon in the other. Rozz on the other hand, is only holding a beer in his, standing there visibly pissed off at me. Suffice to say he will not spend too much time in my room. The party is just getting started though, according to my watch, with or without the King of Death Rock. Rich quickly hooks up with the transvestite and they both lock themselves in one of the bedrooms as the exhibitionist couple begin to get it on in front of everyone. A few of the people hastily leave the room and then I am the only one left watching the live sex show except of course for David, the manager. I guess we are the only perverts there. Ken and the black leather chick I brought up come in and out of the room every now and then, laughing and giggling like children.
The couple is about to orgasm. It's obvious because their extended moans and groans have now become short and repetitive. They've even stopped acknowledging our presence in the room and begin to moreover concentrate on their own personal pleasure. All of a sudden, Rich comes storming out of the bedroom and heads straight into the bathroom, slamming the door hard. I instantly smell a foul odor emanating from the room that he just came out of, so I take a look inside and the transvestite is sitting on the sink in the corner, pretending to urinate like a woman. I look around the room a bit more and on the bed are these brown skid marks etched into the sheets. That's where the smell is coming from! I guess she should've gone to the bathroom before letting her colon be explored so thoroughly. I'm suddenly filled with wonder and I question if this kind of thing is common among homosexuals, because it seems like it would be. Then I realize that the tranny's not taking a leak but rather using the sink like a bidet! Gross, especially since I actually let her briefly perform oral on me a bit earlier while I was playfully waving my dick in the air--you know, one of those crazy drunken things you do at a completely decadent, excessive, and hedonistic social gathering. I inadvertently waved it a bit too close to her face, and being the big faggot that she is, she quickly grabbed it and stuck it in her mouth for a few seconds!
Rich comes storming out of the bathroom with a one-track mind. His eyes targeted on something somewhere else, but at the same time transfixed straight ahead as he walks right through the roomful of party people without acknowledging anyone. Out the door he goes, straight down the hall to room 309, where Patrick has situated himself in along with a handful of his hangers-on. Rich wants to get inside to get stoned on pot and he knows that Patrick has always got good quality cannabis sativa with him. After all, the name of his band is Sativa Luvbox.
Meanwhile, the chick in black leather that I invited up is now clearly coming on to me. A few seconds later, we both find ourselves completely nude and in the same exact spot that the exhibitionist couple were having their fun on. Ken, who is always ready for this sort of thing, immediately whips out his camera and begins to take photos of us in downright lewd action from every angle imaginable. When I say every angle, I mean this guy almost has his head up my ass! On heroin I tend to take forever to cum so the chick gets bored after several orgasms and starts talking to Ken. Then I get bored and start talking to Ken. Then Patrick comes in and tells us that Rich has locked himself in the bathroom and has passed out!
By morning, Rich has gotten over the ordeal with the tranny, though not a word has been spoken about it by anyone, being the extremely delicate situation that it turned out to be. He will of course never speak about it, but his peers will see the lighter side, facetiously referring to it as the fudgy ass-fucking disaster.
In the morning we all end up downstairs in the hotel lobby after everyone has checked out. It's evident from the bloodshot eyes on everybody that no one has gotten a wink of sleep. Rozz's wife is going through somebody's bag, seemingly looking for something that belongs to her. I find her annoying at best, I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because I think she has no guts to keep her Hispanic surname of Ortiz, shamefully only going by the name of Eva O. At least Patrick Mata has the balls to keep his. My assessment of her character will be prophetic for she will later choose the path of the born-again Christian and renounce not only her own life's work but also the work of her own husband after his death, proclaiming that she thought he was trapped in a bed of despair without the strength to pull himself out.
She suddenly has the audacity to announce that she intends to go through everyone's bags before she lets anyone leave. It turns out that some time during the night she got her thigh-high, patent leather boots stolen.
"It was that fucking transvestite!" She screams, which makes me feel a bit guilty since I was the one who invited the freak up in the first place. Oh well.
Vladik Cervantes to see the rest of the manuscript.
Email: Vladik C.