Rock and Roll High School: Growing Up in Hollywood During the Decade of Decadence

by Marisa Tellez

  Natalie was much bigger than me, so there wasn’t much I could do about her heckling. I just hoped that someday soon she would see the error of her mean ways or that she’d get hit by a car.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, a few days later I met up with my buddy Robert during recess and overheard him saying something about a “snatch” as I walked up to him.

  “What’s a snatch?” I asked.

  “You don’t KNOW what a snatch is?” Robert asked. “Nope. What is it? Some kind of animal?” I asked

  cluelessly. His buddy Rich started laughing and said, “Well some people do call it a beaver...”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Robert said. “Look, there’s Mr. Cook,” he said pointing in the near distance. “Why don’t you ask him what a snatch is? He could probably explain it better than we can.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and walked over to our homeroom teacher, Mr. Cook.

  “Hi, Mr. Cook,” I said.

  “Hey Marisa, did you need something?” he asked.

  Without hesitation, I asked, “Yeah, can you tell me what a snatch is?”

  The color momentarily drained out of Mr. Cook’s face, then he turned a bright shade of red. By the dramatic look on his face, Robert and the guys must’ve known I asked him the snatch question because they burst out laughing just moments later.

  “Did Robert tell you to ask me that?”

  “Uh huh. He said you could explain it better than he could,” I said innocently.

  Mr. Cook looked over to Robert and yelled, “Robert! To the principals office, now!”

  Robert walked off and the bell rang for everyone to go back to class. I made my way to class and took my seat, which happened to be next to Rich. As Mr. Cook started our history lesson, Rich leaned over and whispered in my ear what a snatch REALLY was. I was mortified.

  Although it only took a few days to get over the snatch humiliation, I never got the courage to go up to Brandon again for the remainder of the school year. Unfortunately, that was his last year at Janson since he’d be moving on to Muscatel Junior High in the fall. So I spent a majority of my summer pining and crying over what never was with Brandon.

  In the fall of 1984, I started my final year at Janson. It was definitely a year of firsts or should I say fists, because the name calling and teasing of yours truly had reached epic proportions at the hands of my most ruthless nemesis, Roger Santos.

  Roger and I were in the same grade. I had put up with his bullying for the last two years, but it got much worse once we started the 6th grade. Not only did we end up in the same homeroom class, but our teacher assigned us to sit next to each other, not knowing that he was making my life a living hell.

  His teasing usually consisted of general name-calling in reference to my overbite. On rare occasions he’d actually throw something at me, but one day in homeroom class, he decided to take it a step further. While our elderly teacher was rambling on with her boring math lesson, Roger decided he would punch me in the arm every time she turned around to write on the chalkboard.

  Now I’m not talking about a simple tap on the arm. He would full out, haul off and punch me like I was a guy. The kids around me saw what was going on and did nothing of course. Obviously the teacher didn’t know what he was doing. By the fourth punch, I could feel my face getting hot as tears welled up in my eyes.

  I knew no one was going to do a damn thing to help me because everyone was scared of Roger. He was the biggest kid in our class. No one had ever gone up against him before, much less a girl. But I refused to let that asshole see me cry. So for the first time ever, at the ripe old age of 11, I went completely ape shit.

  Moments after the fifth punch, I leapt on Roger like a frog, knocking him completely off his chair and onto the ground. He fell flat on his back, and I just started swinging. He was obviously bigger than me, so he was able to block most of my punches and even the ones I did land weren’t doing much damage. So I grabbed a fistful of his shaggy hair in each hand, held on tight and started slamming his head into the ground with every pound my tiny little frame could muster up.

  Kids were screaming, the teacher was screaming. I know he was throwing punches and landing them, but my hate for him numbed the pain of his blows. Every swing he took at me, only made me slam his head to the ground that much harder. Not just for me, for all the other kids he abused during his reign of terror. One of the boys in class tried to pull me off of Roger, but I wasn’t letting go. I held on tight like a spider monkey and wasn’t going to stop until one of us was dead. I don’t remember exactly how long we were fighting for, but it took a few boys to finally pry me off of Roger and separate us. Then our teacher, along with the boys that had pulled us apart, escorted us into Mr. Towers office, the school principal.

  Mr. Towers was a full out ginger. He had red fuzzy hair, freckles all over his face and big blue eyes. He asked both of us what happened. I didn’t want to come off as a tattle tail, so I failed to mention that Roger was the demon seed of Janson Elementary. The only thing I said was that Roger hit me, so I hit him back. Mr. Towers called our parents to tell them we would be suspended for the remainder of the week then sent us home.

  My folks were pretty cool about the whole thing, so I didn’t get into any trouble. It was obviously self-defense and not like I had a history of being a bruiser anyway. My mom was upset over the blows I endured, but she was happy I came out of it without any serious injuries. Since I was the closest thing my dad had to a son, he was proud I held my own against a guy twice my size. My dad was an amateur boxer back in his day and offered a few helpful pointers in knocking Roger’s ass out should he ever touch me again.

  When I went back to school the following Monday, I wasn’t worried about running into Roger. I was pretty fired up actually. Sure there was a good possibility he would beat me to a pulp. He obviously didn’t have any qualms about hitting a girl. But one thing I was determined of, I was never going to take shit from him again, even if that meant getting into another fight. To my complete surprise, Roger’s teasing eased up considerably after our fight. He would still throw out a “hey Buckie” every once in a while for good measure, but he never put his hands on me again.

  As if having daddy’s little girl turn brawler wasn’t bad enough, enter Mötley Crüe into my innocent little world.

  It was early 1985, when I’d heard about Mötley Crüe from some of the boys in my class. They would tell stories about the emerging music scene in Hollywood and how their older brothers were going to a place called The Sunset Strip, which sprouted out many heavy metal younglings like Mötley Crüe and Ratt to name a few.

  After coming home from school one day, I flipped on Video One. They were playing Mötley Crüe’s “Looks that Kill” video. It was the first time I ever laid eyes on Nikki Sixx. I slid off my couch in awe as I watched him move his body and bang his head with such ferocity. My current musical tastes at the time were bands like Duran Duran and The Go Go’s. I had never seen anything like Nikki Sixx with his makeup-laden face and borage of spiky black hair. The only other guy in my music realm that wore that much makeup was Boy George, and I knew he was a fruit thanks to Lucy’s outburst a few years earlier. But nothing about Nikki struck me as gay; despite the dark shade of red lipstick he wore in the video. I decided then and there that I wanted to marry Nikki Sixx, despite our 15-year age difference.

  I immediately went out and bought copies of Shout at the Devil and Too Fast For Love. Considering the first album cover was a crotch and the second a pentagram, I decided for the sake of my poor Catholic parents that I’d keep my newfound love for Mötley Crüe under wraps for the time being. I would hide my Circus and Metal Edge magazines with a blood, whisky, and groupie covered Nikki, the way a husband would hide his Playboy magazines from his nagging wife. I’m sure my parents enjoyed happier days when I was crushing on clean cut boys my age like Ricky Schroeder, but the times were changing with the sound of glam rock and heavy metal overtaking Southern California.

&n
bsp; In the fall of 1985, I started the 7th grade at Muscatel Junior High. It’s where I met Sadie, Carla, and Tasha who would become my core group of girlfriends. Sadie was the cool metal chick, Carla was the clumsy one, Tasha was the cheerleader, and then there was me. I don’t really know what the hell I was, probably just loud. I also became reunited with Brandon. I must say that karma really paid off this time around for the humiliating moments I suffered at Janson. Not only were we assigned to the same 7th period P.E. class, but we ended up on the same softball team as well!

  Unfortunately, my reputation at Janson followed me to Muscatel because Brandon remembered me as the “walrus girl”. It obviously wasn’t one of my finer moments, but at least he remembered me and wasn’t running away this time. I had also just gotten braces and was counting down the days when my resemblance to any animal with big teeth or tusks would be long behind me. Things were definitely looking up!

  Brandon talked constantly about skateboarding and Mötley Crüe. My knowledge of the Crüe was a given because I was in love with Nikki Sixx. I had also continued to keep up with the latest happenings in the skateboarding world during our yearlong separation. So this time around, we had plenty of things to chat about.

  Over the next few months, things rolled right along with Brandon. We’d hang out during every softball and P.E. class, he’d run up to me in the hallways at school. On a few occasions we even walked home from school together because his house was on my way home. It was more than I could’ve ever wished for, but I realized time was not on my side.

  Muscatel was grade 7 and 8 only. Since Brandon was an 8th grader, I only had that one semester to really make an impact on him before he left to high school, and I’d have to go an entire school year without him again.

  While I worked on ways to win Brandon’s heart, I was also becoming more obsessed with The Sunset Strip. My only connection to the music scene in Hollywood was through free local rock magazines like Rock City News and BAM Magazine. As the scene continued to grow in Hollywood, it wasn’t long before Video One was giving equal, if not more video airplay to a slew of bands like Ratt, who I also became a fan of.

  In the winter of 1985, Ratt was on their Invasion of Your Privacy tour with Bon Jovi as their opening act. I had just turned 12, and Lucy was 15. We begged and eventually talked our dad into taking us to their concert at The Forum in Inglewood. He had no desire to see either of them play. So the night of the show, he hung out in his truck with a cigarette and a book while Lucy and I rocked out in our nosebleed seats.

  When Lucy and I walked back to his truck after the show, we caught him talking to a handful of cute, glam boys in spandex pants. They had hair to the sky and were wearing more makeup than my mom had in her dresser drawer.

  One thing I have to say about my dad is that he was such a laid back, non-judgmental person. He found everybody interesting and could strike up a conversation with just about anyone, God bless him. He introduced us to the guys in the band and showed us a flyer they had given him.

  “They’re called Crimson Wave,” he said cluelessly. Lucy snickered. I didn’t get the joke either. I wouldn’t get it till two years later. LITERALLY.

  According to the flyer, they were playing a Hollywood club called the Troubadour that upcoming Saturday night at 9:00pm. Lucy and I bit at our dad’s ankles like two annoying puppies, in the hopes that he would take us to the show. One of the guys mentioned the Troubadour was an all ages club and handed my dad three tickets. Perfect, problem solved. It was a free, all ages show and they were playing fairly early. There was no justifiable reason that my dad shouldn’t allow his pre-teen and teenage daughters to go to a club in Hollywood right?

  He pondered for a minute, and I knew we had him. One thing about my dad, if he didn’t say no right away, I knew it was something he could be talked into. Actually, even if he did say no, I knew it was something he could STILL be talked into. But that’s what daughters are for right? We are daddy’s little girls sent from heaven to warm the cockles of his heart and pull those cockles fresh out of the oven when we need a favor.

  The night of the Crimson Wave show was finally upon us, and I could hardly contain myself! I wasn’t crazy about having my dad follow us around at the show, but he was on the higher end of the cool dad meter anyway, so I let it slide. I was just excited to be going to my first Hollywood show!

  My dad battled his way through Hollywood freeway traffic as I tapped my foot with anticipation. I just wanted to be there already. Why didn’t all these people in their dumb cars understand that and get the hell out of the way?

  We finally got off the freeway and made our way down Santa Monica Blvd. When I saw the Troubadour come into view, I leapt towards the dashboard with excitement.

  “There it is!” I yelled, pointing up at the club marquee.

  As we slowly approached the front of the Troubadour, I noticed a guy on a leash being led into the club by a woman in a leather corset and hot pants. Hoping my dad hadn’t already noticed, I quickly tried to divert his attention away from the proverbial bondage elephant in the room.

  “Hey Chuck, look over there! There’s a parking lot!” I said pointing in the opposite direction.

  Chuck wasn’t my dad’s name, but for some reason I always called him “Chuck” from The Peanuts cartoons ever since I was old enough to speak.

  My dad didn’t look to where I was pointing. He stopped looking at the bondage couple and looked right at me. He was giving me that look of disapproval. I smiled optimistically. Hell, I was just as shocked to see the bondage couple as he was, but I had to play it off like it was nothing. If I wasn’t bothered by it, certainly how could he be?

  “Isn’t this going to be fun?” I said innocently.

  Without saying a word, he turned the corner leading away from the parking lot.

  “What are you doing?” Lucy asked.

  “We're not going,” he said.

  “WHAT! What do you mean?” I squealed.

  “Forget it. I’m not letting you girls in there,” he said shaking his head and laughing to himself.

  As he drove further and further away from the Troubadour, I started whining. I wasn’t ready to give up. I was like a defense lawyer trying to plead my case. I told him he would be by our side the whole time, we had free tickets, we were already there, it was a waste of a drive and gas to not go in, blah blah. I kept bitching and trying to cop a deal with him, which lasted all the way through Hollywood and the freeway ride home.

  “You act like it’s the end of the world, it’s just a show,” he said calmly.

  “No it’s not, it’s my first show! You wouldn’t understand. You’re old and don’t like to go out and have fun anymore,” I said with my arms crossed.

  “Thanks a lot,” he said.

  My pleading continued as we turned the street to our house. By this time my dad was completely amused by my persistence.

  “Do you really think I’m going to drive all the way back to Hollywood?” he asked.

  “It’s worth a shot,” I said with a hopeful smile.

  “NO,” he said as we pulled up into the driveway.

  I made a sour face as I got out and slammed the car door. This made my dad laugh hysterically, which pissed me off even more. I stomped through the house, into my bedroom and climbed the ladder up to my bunk bed. I threw on my Walkman and listened to Mötley’s Shout at the Devil album, as I lay there totally bumming that my first venture into Hollywood was a complete failure.

  Although we hadn’t made it into the Troubadour, I was fascinated by the small spectacle I saw outside the club. I wanted to be where the action was. I knew I just had to make my way back into the Hollywood music scene, and my opportunity came a few months later, thanks to the L.A. Street Scene in the fall of 1986.

  The L.A. Street Scene was an annual two-day music festival in downtown L.A. where a few streets were shut down to host live bands and vendors galore.

  Retribution over the Troubadour debacle hadn’t been paid to Lucy
or I yet. I was determined to milk the guilt out of that cow, hoping it would take the form of tickets for both of us to the festival. To my complete surprise it worked. On our list of bands to see were Guns N’ Roses, Jane’s Addiction, Gene Loves Jezebel, Poison, The Ramones, and our newest obsession, Candy.

  I had developed a momentary crush on Candy’s guitar player, Ryan Roxie, after seeing their “Whatever Happened to Fun?” video on Video One. I kept this on the down low when my dad agreed to take us on the 1st day of the festival. Sure the glam rock scene fascinated me. But going to the festival was more about seeing live bands than me drooling over Ryan. Besides, my heart still belonged to Nikki Sixx, and I had no intention of straying.

  Whether or not my dad would take us on the 2nd day of the festival depended on how well me and Lucy got along on the 1st day. So at the risk of not ruining our music filled weekend, we agreed not to kill each other for the time being. To act as a buffer, Lucy decided to bring along her friend Christy, who I wasn’t a big fan of at the time. I had accidentally farted on her weeks earlier while we were playing in our backyard, so she had been calling me “cheese” ever since. Not that I was any stranger to nicknames but still.

  On day 1 of the festival, the first band on our list to see was Candy. Lucy and I really wanted to meet and take pictures with the guys, but we were way too shy to go up to them. That’s where my dad and his Grade A social skills came into play. We figured after the band finished their set, we’d pimp him out to go talk to the guys and wave us over once it was cool to meet them.

  Candy played and I snapped a million pictures, mostly of Ryan. Shortly after their set ended, Lucy and I enforced our plan, which worked like a charm. Within ten minutes after stepping off stage, my dad was waving us over to meet the guys.

  Ryan shook my hand hello, and I smiled like a lunatic. His black crimped hair was peeking out from underneath the white captains hat he was wearing. When we posed for a picture, Lucy and Christy immediately jumped on either side of Ryan, which left me having to squat out front. I was so annoyed. After getting pictures and autographs from all the guys in Candy, they hugged each of us goodbye. As Ryan hugged me, my face was engulfed with the comforting, familiar scent of Aqua Net Extra Super Hold.