Happy Halloween, or shall I say, happy holiday of the closet sluts and men who secretly relish the idea of going in drag once a year. I usually dread ‘Adult Halloween’ and avoid it like the plague. It seems to conjure up childhood images of cheesey people cavorting at the Red Onion in pirate costumes (alas, I was a child of the 70’s). But this year, the weekend started just right. I was invited to see a live taping of one of my favorite shows, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” And there’s nothing scarier than a smart curmudgeonly atheist (at least as far as the rest of the country is concerned).

The show was every bit as exhilarating as at home. Uh, wait, that didn’t come out quite right. Well, it was a thrill to be able to have my cheers, claps and guffaws recorded and aired on national TV. I spent most of the hour trying to anticipate oblique off-color jokes that no one else would get so I could belt out a hee-hawing, out-of-the-ordinary laugh–which would undoubtedly stand out and be heard on television sets accross the nation. No such luck, but the day after the taping when I was watching a re-run I did catch myself in the studio audience at the beginning of the show. It was thrilling, in a Where’s Waldo sort of way.

Saturday night, I went to the Grand Olympic Auditorium in a sketchy part of Downtown, to see The Germs, who were playing with Flipper, Marky Ramone, Fear–and opening for Suicidal Tendencies. Perhaps clogs were not quite the appropriate shoes to have worn to the event. Come to think of it, my whole 60’s go-go dancer mini-dress was in stark contrast to the atmosphere inside the venue. My dress: “Love and Peace,” inside: “I’ve got a piece.” Basically this seemingly benign homage to old school punk was a combination of Attica and Altamont, with punk overtones.

The air was dense, and you sensed that the inmates were getting restless–a prison break was imminent. Passing one of the beer stands, a girl asked if any of us had a mirror. When my friend handed her one she stared at her reflection, gently patting her puffed out cheek. “It doesn’t look that bad, does it?” My friend asked her, “Did you get that when Fear was playing?” She answered ‘yes.’ “Everytime Fear plays someone always gets hurt.”

On the way to the bleachers we passed another guy with blood dripping down his eye and later a lumbering giant with a black eye. But wait, it’s Halloween. We’ve all seen the guy at the costume party, whose costume is, “blood dripping down from the corner of his lip” (a.k.a. a bad case of mouth Herpes). But no, au contraire, these “costumes” were very real. Speaking of real–I kid you about the prisoner vibe (although pretty much every guy had prison style tattoos). But there was one punk fan who came dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Under normal circumstances I would have gone up to him and complimented him on his Devo costume. But this was–I was reminded all night–a show that Suicidal Tendencies was headlining.

I kept expecting to see more Hollywood punks, the kind that The Germs seem to attract with their androgenous styles, colorful attire, arty veneer. But this was not THEIR show. I looked down onto the ‘floor’ where a crowd of mostly men was swelling drunkenly. Right at the front I spotted a little contingent of “American History X’ers.” And then there was the biker gang from Alhambra–apparently looking for a new God to worship since Phil Spector’s fall from grace. But the Lion’s Share (Germs song reference intended) of folks were Sui’s, vato gangsters from Venice supporting THEIR band.

I can only imagine that the type of shock I experienced at this Testosterone Festival must have seemed mild compared to what the new Germs singer faced. The cute and cleancut Shane West, not only played the legendary lead singer Darby Crash in the film (to be released next year) “What We Do is Secret,” but he also played as doctor on E.R. This has led me to somewhat re envision The Germs’ monolithic moniker as:
“The G E.R. ms.” As the saying goes, West is not a doctor but he plays one on TV, and he’s not a punker but he played one on stage. Unfortunately for him, the crowd was not amused. Screams of “Fuck you, you suck,” abounded. Then again, that’s just straight-up punk rock. If you don’t have someone yelling, “Fuck you, you suck,” it’s probably not a punk show.

But surely, West could never have anticipated the nightmarish, slamming, drunk, fighting gangster and skinhead crowd that showed up en-masse to see the Suicidals (NOT The Germs) for this event. I thought back to “Gimme Shelter,” and that special concert at Altamont Speedway. The Rolling Stones had hired the Hell’s Angels to do security in lieu of a real security service. Then I wondered, was this to be a repeat performance? The Germs had in fact hired an actor to play a punker instead of a real, crazy, manic, brilliantly out-of-it junkie with attitude.

Thankfully, they made it through the set. But when the lights were raised again, yet another brawl infected the audience on ‘the floor.’ It appeared as if an otherwise stormy sea had suddenly been overcome by a tempest beyond tempests. This one was really out of hand–guys beating the crap out of each other and people yelling. Then, a voice emerged from the speakers asking the old standby rock concert brawl question: “Who’s here to hear music? Who’s here for the Suicidal Tendencies?” The announcer begged the Cromagnons to cease their fighting. Everywhere I looked there was a butch, drunk angry man. It was the kind of visual stroking that made up my sexual fantasies but faced with it in the flesh, in reality, no holes barred, well, it was kind of…scary.

If you were a guy, you were afraid to drop a bar of soap in the venue, lest you get a demonstration of what a real man was. If you were a girl, you were either–like me–aroused AND fearful–or a gang member chick at the hardcore equivalent of Thanksgiving–hanging with your ‘family,’ and watching them fight all night.

I only stayed for two songs when Suicidal Tendencies got on stage with 50 of their homeys from the ‘hood standing behind them (now that’s pretty Altamont). The crowds raged even more and the pit became like the eye of a hurricane as it sucked in bodies like debris. I kept thinking back to a clever comment someone had made about our current era. People are so digitized via Internet culture that there is a deep overwhelming desire in some of us to get down and dirty, sweat, fight–be primitive and tactile. As I stepped outside, a fire truck was pulling up to join an ambulance. And it ain’t a party until the paramedics show up.

Image: Wes Wilson, February 3-5, 1967, Jeffferson Airplane

Alas another lengthy period has passed between entries. Apologies, been busy living. I managed to pop out of town to Santa Ynez–otherwise known in plebian terms as, “That place where they shot ‘Sideways.’” I was reluctant to see the film because it looked, frankly, aweful. But seeing as I was headed to the mini-wine country, I thought it a must. My conclusion: they should have called it “Ass Backwards.” Oh well, at least The Hitching Post restaurant has great food–especially if you’re an avid carnivore.

A drive-by through the tiny “Danish” town of Solvang revealed that it is in fact possible to base the architecture of an entire town on a miniature golf course. I’m guessing that the only Danish making Solvang their home were those of the sweet Continental Breakfast variety. The adjacent Buellton–featured in the film–is apparently home to the flagship Andersen’s Pea Soup restaurant–a true landmark. You could tell it was the flagship because there was not only a restaurant (with the heartiest, tastiest pea soup in California) but also an adjacent “fun” zone which–once again–had the appearance of a miniature golf course. What can I say, that Tiger Woods–what a little trend starter.

Wine tasting was secondary to one of my favorite activities–stopping at various roadside market/farms and chatting with way cool dentally challenged people who win hands down for character and the ‘keeping it real’ factor. Lavender as far as the eye could see beckoned me at the organic lavender farm. A crochety plump unhip version of Georgia O’Keefe was my guide to the ins and outs of lavender farming. I bought several plants. And of course there was the old pumpkin farmer who had not only the traditional orange pumpkins but also these total hipster off-white+pomegranate colored ones. He complimented me on my ability to choose so quickly. As is always the case, one of them called to me and I ran over to it. Someone pointed out that it had a big indentation in the side of it. And I made my usual urban hippie proclamation: ‘That’s nature. Nature’s imperfect and it’s beautiful.” You can say that around those parts but be sure not to talk that way back in L.A. or the sherriff’ll come after ya.

On the way back from Santa Ynez, I stopped in Santa Barbara to meet Dick Hebdige, author of one of my favorite academic books on punk culture: “Subculture: The Meaning of Style.” He teaches film and art at UCSB and was helping promote a spectacular show of 60’s psychedelic rock concert posters from the collection of Paul Prince. The work blew my mind (as undoubtedly intended, man). What I found most intriguing was that Dick told me the lettering was intentially impossible to read so that they could separate the squares from the heads. I’m sure if a tab of acid would have clarified some things.

Thankfully most of the posters were from SF shows. I could only imagine the post-car accident carnage if they had been placed on the Sunset Strip as drivers attempted to decypher perhaps–God forbid–the address of a venue. Would have made good fodder for a documentary entitled something clever like “Road Trip” or “Crashing Through the Window Pane.”

Photo: David Bowie in Moscow, 1976, by Andrew Kent

There he was leering at me from the corner of the room–part artistocrat, part icey Slavic street thug, sporting a goofy looking Eastern European suit, a stout cigar in hand, as if to say, “I knew this moment would arrive.” I didn’t. It’s like they always tell you, “It happens when you least expect it.”

I never knew that I needed a portrait of David Bowie (circa Thin White Duke era) until Friday night at the Christie’s auction house in BH, as Sir Bowie stared down at me with his one blue eye and his other hazel one. “Take me home,” he whispered, beckoning me to slap my credit card down, get my paddle, and do as I must. I sauntered around the room taking in all the fabulous rock moments captured in the photography of multiple artists including the evening’s host Jim Marshall, as well as Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, and the like. The latter’s infamous Bowie-giving-head-to-Mick-Ronson’s guitar shot was on display with a blow-your-load starting bid price. Other well-known shots included: John Lennon in the New York jersey and what I would dub female porn of the Iggy Pop variety–sumptuous black and white and a beautiful naked male torso.

One of the pieces on the invitation–the original photo from the critically acclaimed Doors album, “Morrison Hotel,” looked considerably less spectacular in person. I had imagined myself standing whistfully by the classic image, perfect single “Keep America Beautiful” Indian tear on my cheek. In this fantasy sequence, a wealthy rugged older man–not able to bear seeing yet another woman cry in the presence of Jim Morrison–buys the piece for me and we ride off down Camden Drive in his pick up truck (a-la Madonna in the “Material Girl” video). Unfortunately, Keith Carradine wasn’t available that night. As it happens, Billionaire heartbreaker Steve Bing (a.k.a. “Bing Laden”) was a co-host but, as my Jewish grandmother might have said, “ehh” with a dismissive wave of a hand.

The scruffy-looking, “Jesus Christ Superstar“-meets Kris Kristofferson in the Manson era-DJ was kind of cute. And he was getting quite animated bidding against Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis for a romantic portrait of Johnny and June Cash. Alas, he was, as they say in my native California, “baked.” Thankfully, he was bidding against the Rich Hot Chili Pepper or he might have woken up at three in the morning looking for the Domino’s Pizza menu only to find, gulp, a two-grand sweetheart shot of the man in black and his lady–hanging above the john in his tiny North Hollywood apartment. After much deep thought and a snarky comment to the car-dealer style auctioneer (”I’m going to wait five minutes for you to convince me to bid up…”), the gavel fell and Johnny and June went home with “Anthony” (known that night by Warholian moniker).

Apart from that little moment of LIVE man on man action, there really wasn’t too much bidding going on in the live auction. Shockingly, a couple of shots of Paul McCartney and John Lennon in their ashram attire received not a single bid between them. Material possessions, after all, do not matter. Wasn’t it the Maharishi who said something like that or was it Bono (whose portrait DID sell in the silent auction)?

Anyway, now half-drunk on gratis wine and amped up from the DJ’s last spin: a Blue Oyster Cult tune, I decided I was burning, I was burning, I was burning… for Bowie that is. So I put the lowest, rock bottom possible bid on it–that would be my final offer. If I got the photo, it was DESTINY. If not, this China Girl was going home empty handed (but “sixpence”…the richer).

It’s funny how things happen when you don’t plan them. Before I knew it the silent auction was over and I was waiting in line next to one of the Whiskey Bar owners, who informed me, “We’re in sequence.” So, the holder of paddle number 220 asked the holder of paddle number 221 what he was going home with. He said it was the shot of old Keef (Keith Richards) affront anti-drug propaganda writing. I smiled to myself, thinking, hmmm, everyone goes home with Keef–my Bowie–in his aerian occultist, Kurt Weill loving, 20’s Berlin dandy, Kenneth Anger film watching period–well, that was a bit of an acquired taste.

And now that bit of acquired taste hangs over my fireplace like it’s always been there, lording over my rustic domain with an air of an air. I never knew I needed it–but it’s found its home in my 1924 pad.

Moral of the story is–well, what is it really? Don’t get drunk at auctions? Don’t bring your credit card to auctions? Next time, shamelessly flirt with Anthony Kiedis? No, no, no, none of the above. It goes something like this: don’t shop for art (or people for that matter), the PERFECT specimen comes along when you least expect it.

[Note: The new BLOG is up and running perfectly, archives and all…]

What’s the best way to overcome anxiety attacks? Take control and cause one. Basically, I have crowd anxiety. I’ve never been a crowd person. Don’t like being part of them or stuck in them. Group activities are not for me. I’m not even a fan of group sex. Long live the individual and other curmudgeonly individuals who care to occasionally orbit around him or her. I’m sure I’m not alone in having a knipchen fit (as people of one of my tribes like to call it) when in the presence of many unpredictable bodies congregating in one place. The humanity!

So, I have been throwing myself into that which I despise–the group thang on a fairly regular basis lately. That being said, do not try this at home–literally, do not try this at home because you’ll need to be out amongst restless natives to experience this fear-facing rejuvination. I was lucky when I took my first baby step(and they are baby steps when you’re in a crowd, which doesn’t seem to move much but just sort of sways a little, tempting…shudder…fleshy contact). I was invited to hear B.K.S. Iyengar speak accompanied by Hollywood hippies Ali “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” MacGraw and Annette “I got Warren Beatty to settle down” Bening at UCLA’s Royce Hall…a packed house and in sweltering, ersatz Richikesh heat.

“These older yogis are pushy,” remarked my friend Marques Wyatt, my date for the evening. A mini-stampede of mumu and harem pant sporting sextegenarians pushed us out of the way (but with peaceful smiles on their faces). You may have heard of what yogis call Cow Pose…well, you catch my drift.

Once we were in the hall it was air-conditioned and the tempo decreased. When we were led through a mass “ohm” by a large projection screen there was for a moment a sense of unity. The ominous nature of a group of voices was–refreshingly–absent. Instead, there was one peaceful low-keyed yoga burp–the relaxing and totally relieving ohm.

So far so good, I thought. I had weathered over an hour’s worth of a documentary and some short speeches. When Iyengar and Annette Bening finally came on the stage for their Q&A, I thought, I’m home free, no anxiety. Then, all of the sudden, amidst a discussion of “good pain” versus “bad pain” (these group people are kinky) disco lights and a siren went off. In my Amelie-like fantasies it could have been that surreal moment when the Indian go-go boys come out as a thumping disco beat fills their jerking pelvises and disco balls drop from the ceiling–the harem pant ladies do the hustle and their Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG) buddies do the white man’s overbite. Instead it was a fire alarm. But the startling thing was that nobody appeared alarmed at all. So, I too remained calm as we gently filed back outside onto the lawn. Everyone had smiles on their faces. Everyone was chatting away with no intention of leaving.

The moral of the story, well, it’s not really alarming to be at a huge crowded event when a fire alarm goes off if everyone in the audience has been sedated by yoga. A yoga-like behavior continues to permeate the air even in a panicked state.

After this, I was thankfully able to move on to the MOCA opening (even more crowds in the thousands) of “Ecstasy: In and About Altered States.” Hmmm, I see a theme here. This one was like an art peep show, complete with rooms for which people were lining up to enter. Some people were glassy eyed and stoned, others just badly dressed and oblivious. The outside had been transformed into a makeshift rave. And the most altered state of consciousness I saw that night was an octegenarian couple dancing to trance, unfettered by the young hipsters that surrounded them, aware, it would seem, of nothing else but the dance. And in L.A. if you can forget for even just one moment about growing old, that’s a shift in consciousness worthy of Timothy Leary.

To those who frequent the STL BLOG, it is obvious that it’s gone through a makeover. Unfortunately, in my zealousness to get the product out there to you (as sleazy businessmen say) I acted too hastily. There is still a problem accessing the archives. So, please bear with me. Check back every couple of days. I should have this thing nipped in the bud before long.

Having a BLOG is like having a Jewish mother breathing down your neck with the faint odor of Matzo ball soup wafting through the air. That’s right, I feel guilty as Hell for having abandoned my precious BLOG for a mere four days. But that’s life. Chances are if I’m not BLOGging every day it’s because I have one (or I like to pretend I do).

I’ve really been quite busy, harried even with very important people to see and very important things to do. Namely, I finally took a trip into those mysterious “Grip Hills,” in North Hollywood and Burbank, where the rugged strong-arms of the film community allegedly congregate for Miller Time and rock n’ roll. Completely lost in my own city, I ended up at a haunt called, Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill. Sadly, the grip mythology was quickly disspelled as I entered a room full of beer bellied, over-aged (and I like older men so you know that’s really over-aged) people. It was a great spot to take a redneck vacation from the constant hounding of metro-sexuals with SAG cards. But really not a pretty face in the whole place.

Never mind, it’s a vacation, be open to the ways of the natives. And I was. I sat at the bar and ordered, shudder, a lite beer. Then a blues band appeared on stage. This consisted of a jovial, round looking Latin woman with carrot bleached hair and dark roots in faux pressed velvet…and an extremely portly bearded man on guitar…a bass player who clearly had stage fright (he was obsessed with his frets and some very distant point in the room)…a straggly harmonica player…and a very forgettable drummer (aren’t they always). The music was good for bar stool dancing–i.e. a light sway of the hips, but nothing worth getting erect for.

But they were so happy and it was THEIR scene. How nice for them that they could avoid being in a band and having the ominous publicist/photographer following them around all night. How nice that they didn’t have to deal with the “guest list snafu,” and other LA rock n’ roll nightmares. Yes sirree, they were happy. That’s more than I can say for most pouty Beck-like faced musicians in Silver Lake who look like they’re fighting off a bad case of VD underneath those perfectly mangled $200 jeans.