July 3, 1995 - Los Angeles - Journal Entry

The last day in LA. Bags are packed and I'm ready to go, even if that means going to LAX at 2:3O AM. The terminal doesn't open until 5 AM. What a square no-sidewalk town.

But I knew that being her before.

It's not a city to me.

More a collection of suburbs. Its citizens buy the City of Angels' illusions of self-importance from 5e dntertainment industry's propaganda. None attacks the lie. The glamor of the cinema is all smoke and silver screen with the press flaks protecting the lie that you can make it here, but people do at the expense of their souls. The thousands of hopeful candidates for fame and fortune Hirding from parts unknown for roles unknown having abandoned who they were for who they might be with a little luck, but this world is tough to break into, because most of your days are spend in cars to avoid any corruption of their pasts

I don't go to the movies anymore. I hate the multiplexes. The smell of fake popcorn and Holden aufield's line from CATCHER IN THE RYE. "If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me."

Truthfully I loved the movies.

SUNSET BOULEVARD, CHINATOWN, SINGING IN THE RAIN, BARFLY, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.

I still dream of being a screenwriter, although they are the low man on the ladder, as movie star friend once said, "At Six O'Clock the female star will go with the producer, by 6:30 she's worked her way down to the dir3ctor, then the male lead, ut they'd rather go home with the valet than a writer. They are always a problem."

Later at LAX

Goodbye Los Angeles.

Adios to the freeways, the Milk Bar, Beverly Hills, North Hollywood, the bums, the club-goers, the LAPD, the Beverly Hills FD, Santa Monica Boulevard, the 420 bus over the hills, the 4 bus to South Canon Drive, the Hollywood Hills resembling Babylon's Hanging Gardens in the morning mist of the June gloom, Scottie driving back to the Valley in his Pinto, huevos rancheros, the wave churned Pacific, eucalyptus trees, The PCH, car, cars, cars, freeways, Dennis, our loving landlord, his street dog Rascal, Sara, bible chanting strippers by the pool house, always Genesis, Perry and her mutt Hairy the Dog, the White Watusi of Malibu Lake, Tujunga Canyon, drugs, Fantasy Island, the home of Dennis' strippers, cars, cares, cars,the freeways.

Everyone blisslessly going nowhere.

Me too.

Not this morning.

I'm flying East.

To Boston. To my baby brother. To see him off.

I wish it were me.

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Much more to come.

May 29, 1995 - LA - the Milk Bar - Journal

1995

Los Angeles

Beverly Hills to be exact.

May 29.

My birthday. No cake. No candles.

My life was not BEVERLY HILLS 90210, but the stars from the popular TV show came every night along with many others. The Milk Bar was something no one had seen in Los Angleles for a long time.

Yesterday Grace Jones performed in LA. Post-concert she stopped by the club in Beverly Hills. Dean Martin had once frequented the prior establishment. I worked as the doorman. Our mutual friend, Scottie, was co-owner.

She greeted each of us with a kiss. We knew her from New York. 1980. The Jefferson and Continental, two notorious after-hours clubs famed for flaunting wickedness till dawn. A fellow denizen of the night. We shared mutual friends. Arthur Weinstein, the Prince of the Night. Scottie told her it was my birthday. He didn't say which one. She didn't ask and gave me a hug, saying, "You put on a little weight. California suits you."

We had drinks at the bar. More than three. JZ, another New Yorker, a friend despite his coming from Wall Street. He came with two wealth management clients. He was in trouble, but only for banking irregularities. I introduced him to Grace. His clients were enthralled by the charcoal black disco queen. She was famous for the wilderness. At night's end JZ suggested that we accompany them to the Beverly Hills Hotel to party. I had nothing else to do and joined the bankers, two blonde starlets, and Grace for a short ride to the famed hotel.

We were seven in a limo. A gassed banker had a bag of blow for twenty. Inside the hotel suite Grace grabbed the stash and we locked ourselves in the bathroom rather than listened to three zooted investors brag about their millions to the coke-glazed starlets in a bad remake of Tony Montana from the last scene of SCARFACE.

Grace and I spoke about our friends from New York in the toilet.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll

In Hollywood was only the drugs.

The two bankers banged on the door. JZ knew better. I opened it and told them to fuck off.

"Unless you want to deal with Grace."

They had all seen Grace in CONAN THE DESTROYER. She had been scary and not movie scary. The two bankers backed off. I slammed the door and then jammed my heel to prevent any entrance.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Grace and I spent a few more minutes in the bathroom, then rejoined the party. Everyone was happy to be reunited with the cocaine. Not so much us, although the starlets conspiratorial winked at Grace. We were all on the same team. At dawn we shared a taxi home. Her to the Marmont Hotel.

A Happy Birthday wish and a kiss on the cheek.

Next me to a small bungalow I shared with Scottie over the Hills in North Hollywood. The driver had driven me there before. The sun rose a harsh desert morning. Both of us had sunglasses. Back in North Hollywood in bed I shivered to sleep until noon.

That was May 30, 1995.

Grace seemed to be my age.

44. It was my birthday. May 29.

Maybe my math is bad. About Grace's age.

Everyone lies about their age and weight after thirty.

Stars save the queen of Disco.

Fierce indeed.

The 420 Bus to Hollywood

In the late spring of 1995 I was living with Scottie Taylor in a North Hollywood pool house. The homeowner, Dennis, ran a strip club off West Pico Boulevard. Dennis' dancers sunbathed nude by the pool in the mornings. They were Jesus freaks and read the Bible like a choir of fallen angels. Scottie and I were sinners in their eyes.  We ran a nightclub in Beverly Hills. The Milk Bar. Decor very CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Clientele; young, semi-famous, and druggy. We closed late.

Every morning the naked sunbathers' prayer session interrupted my sleep and I stuffed my ears with cotton to reduce the words of the Bible to mutterings. Jesus was not saving my soul. My wake-up hour was noon, after which I ate breakfast at a diner, then played basketball at North Hollywood Park. A bicycle was my transportation. I had bought it from a junkie on Vineland. He wanted $50. I gave him $20, which was probably $10 too much. My cousin Sherri lived on Hartsook. I spent my afternoons writing in her house, while she filmed XXX films with lesbians over in Van Nuys. Some of those girls were Jesus freaks too. None of them broke ranks with men, especially for a nightclub doorman without a car.

Only losers walk in LA, because walking got you nowhere. Scottie was my ride to the Milk Bar most nights. We opened at 8. He drove a mud-colored Pinto with questionable steering and shuttering brakes. Riding in the passenger seat was a test of courage, however Scottie and I had another problem. The trip from North Hollywood to Beverly Hills took twenty minute by car. The Simpson aired Sundays at 7:30. The show lasted 30 minutes. No one told jokes in LA. No one told stories either. Laughs were hard to find at the Milk Bar. Homer Simpson filled the gap.

"I can't believe you are going to be late for a cartoon show." Scottie only watched the History Channel. He liked to be serious.

"It's not a cartoon. It's the Simpsons. You could always watch it with me." My baby brother eas dying of AIDS in Boston. I couldn't be with hi to hold his hand into the darkness. THE SIMPSON. He loved the Simpsons and I know he watched them evey night from his hospice bed. We talked about them the next day.

"I own the club. I have 20 people who work for me. They get there at 8. I get there before them. Otherwise they'll come in late. Like you."

"I'll take alternative transportation."

"Such as what?"

Hitchhiking was illegal and the train system was a work in progress.

"I don't mind taking the bus." The 420 ran over the Hollywood Hills to Sunset Boulevard. I caught another bus on the corner. It went to Beverly Hills.  The other passengers were mostly Latinos or the demented homeless. I belonged to neither, but fit right in. The trip lasted 45 minutes. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. On the bus I read a book and never made eye contact with the other passengers. 

"Besides no one comes until 10." 10pm to 2am. Those were our hours of business.

"You ever think about giving a good impression." It was an odd question, since Scottie didn't shave, his clothing dated back five years, and he drove a battered Ford Pinto.

"Not out here." 

I wasn't trying to be in the movies. My novel was about the last man on earth. Pornography too. Dirty cops. Lesbians. Murder. High-tech sex. I was on chapter 23. 200 pages plus. THE END was off in the distance.

"I'm on time the nights the Simpsons aren't on."

"What about the nights with Star Trek?" Scottie knew my schedule.

"That's VOYAGER." Jeri Ryan, the Seven of Nine Borg, was sexier than any of the Bible strippers. "Monday night."

"I can't believe it." Scottie left me in the pool house.

I sat before the TV with a glass of water in my hand. The clock on the wall ticking its way to 7:30. It was time for the Simpsons. No matter what, because a good laugh was a treasure in a city without any laughs. And Homer Simpson was always good for "Ha ha ha.", which were hard to find for a man riding the 420 bus.

Bible Reading Stripper Pool Party

Scottie Taylor Joel Bernard and me in LA BBQ for the MILK BAR Beverly Hills 1995

Easterners - New York City, Haiti, New England imported for color. The months I was in LA, I never heard a joke or a good story, but we had a good time.

Scottie and I shared a pool house in North Hollywood. One bedroom. The owner ran a strip club in Santa Monica. Every few mornings the strippers came up very to read the Bible. Right outside our windows. Naked they never tried to proselyte us. We were beyond salvation.

ps I still have the hat.

June 29, 1995 - Los Angeles - Journal Entry

Only four more days until I leave Los Angeles. I made no friends. No one told a joke or a story. I'm more than ready to leave. I came with nothing. I leave with nothing. Scottie and I remain friends and I do withJoel Bernard.. Time to go. The tempeeature is rising and the cloudless skies permit a merciless sun to bake people alive. Oh, New England.

Burn Clampetts Burn

x

Jethro Clampett's Beverly Hills estate was bought by Lachlan Murdoch, another rich son of a rich man, for $150 million. Where the fuck did he get that money?

Only three way for someone to be rich.

Birth.

Marriage.

Theft of the working classes.

Lachlan doesn't look like a rich cunt, but his eyes are a little close together.

Whence comes the next revolution, burn this estate to the ground.

It is worth nothing, except to the rich.

EVES IN THE FLESH

In the winter of 1995 I was sitting at my desk in the diamond exchange, when Scottie Taylor phoned from LA.

"How you doing?"

"Great, I'm opening a Milk Bar in Beverly Hills. How'd you like to be the doorman?" The ex-lightweight mentioned the numbers. The salary was on par with what I earned selling diamonds for Manny on West 47th Street.

"What's the weather like?" Gray snow covered the sidewalks of the Diamond District and icy slush filled the gutters. The temperature hovered well below freezing. Business was dead this time of year and I calculated that I could double my salary on tips at an LA nightclub.

"Sunny."

"Any rain?" This time of year Pacific monsoons splashed the Santa Monica Mountains and transformed the yellow slopes to gold.

"Sometimes, but not enough to cause any floods."

"We got a place to live?" I had never lived in California.

"A pool house in North Hollywood. My friend Dennis owns it and a go-go club too."

"Go-Go bar?" I had been a big supporter of the exotic arts ever since frequenting Boston's Naked I in 1970 and honestly preferred stripping to ballet.

"Best in LA. Every morning the girls come over to touch up their tan."

"Naked?"