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

by Marisa Tellez

  After doing the same thing to Sadie, we took our freshly branded hands and walked into The Whisky. I was in the holy land where Nikki Sixx once played just a few years earlier. I breathed in the stench of cigarette smoke and tried to picture him on stage in those red leather pants, lighting himself on fire.

  A guy who resembled a vampire interrupted my moment of euphoria. He bombarded us by shoving a flyer in each of our hands. His hair was platinum blond but short and completely fried. He dressed head to toe in black with a dark trench coat to match. His face was plastered with pasty white makeup and he had black eyeliner smudged around his eyes. I was mesmerized by the plastic fangs that wobbled in his mouth as he told us how cool his band was and that we should come to his show the following weekend. As quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared and went to hound some other girls that had just walked in the door.

  I suggested to Sadie that we take a stroll around The Whisky. As we walked upstairs, we were nearly sideswiped by a bony, wannabe rock star that was fumbling down the steps. He had one arm around an unfortunate girl, and the other was holding onto the rail. His patent leather pants seemed to be too big for his slender frame, which is probably why his girlfriend was holding them up with her other hand. Sadie and I shrugged our shoulders and continued making our way upstairs.

  When we got to the top of the stairs, there were tables and chairs lining a railing that overlooked the club. I spotted a huge bouncer standing beside a door, where a group of scantily clad girls burst out the door laughing and spilling their drinks on each other. I grabbed Sadie’s arm and tore off in that direction.

  “That must be backstage, let’s go!” I said.

  “We can't get back there. It's probably 21 and over,” she said.

  “So what? Your brother is playing tonight, which gives you clout.”

  “What about you?”

  “I have clout by association.”

  As Sadie and I approached the bouncer, he stared me down the way my grandmother used to when I bum rushed her cookie jar before giving her a hug and kiss hello.

  I quickly put my hands under my armpits to hide those obnoxious black “X’s”. Then I smiled at the bouncer and said, “I'm going backstage.”

  “You can’t go backstage,” he said.

  “Oh it's okay her brother is playing tonight,” I said matter of factly.

  “You kids are too young to go backstage, clear the way,” he said, pushing us to the side as he opened the door to let Tony's singer walk up with two girls.

  “Dude, we're eighteen. So I don't know what YOU'RE talking about,” I said.

  “You're not even old enough to be jailbait, now get out of here!” he barked.

  Sadie and I walked away with our tails between our legs.

  “I told you we wouldn't get back there,” she said.

  “Oh shut up. Lets find a spot near the stage,” I said.

  I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over my shoulder to find the bouncer still staring at us with that disapproving look. So I stuck my tongue out at him and ran down the staircase.

  3

  HIGH SCHOOL, BAKED SQUASH, AND HANDCUFFS

  After making my debut on The Sunset Strip with a resounding thud, I decided to take some time away from Hollywood to regroup and plan my next strategy. Okay, it was more like a forced hiatus because I couldn’t find anyone to take me out there again, but I was working on that.

  On the scholastic side of things, I had recently graduated from Muscatel and started summer school at Rosemead High. I was looking forward to continuing the friendship (yes we were still only friends unfortunately) I had built with Brandon, but he was preoccupied with his new anteater nosed girlfriend Erica.

  Erica dressed like a mod with little cardigan sweaters, tight cotton skirts, colored tights, and pointed flats. She always had a scowl on her face and constantly tucked her black bobbed hair behind her ears. Brandon and I would have a brief chat here and there when we passed each other in the halls at school, but that was about it. Not wanting to be a home wrecker, I put my plans to pursue him on hold for the time being.

  The summer semester went by in a flash. A few weeks later, in the fall of 1987, I officially started my freshman year at Rosemead High. I was the youngest in my class at only 13. This was due to my parents throwing me into kindergarten at the age of 4, instead of the mandatory 5. I guess they had the foresight to know I would become a big pain in the ass and decided to get me out of the house sooner rather than later.

  Going to Rosemead High was the first time Lucy and I had gone to the same school together since Janson. But this time around, she was a hotshot senior and didn’t want much to do with the likes of a measly freshman like myself. That was fine with me though, I had bigger fish to fry.

  I was still keeping tabs on the music scene in Hollywood and wanted so badly to be a part of what was happening on The Strip. But after the Troubadour debacle, not to mention the violence at the L.A. Street Scene, I figured my dad would never take me to Hollywood again. Even Sapphire had broken up over the summer, so there went my semi legitimate excuse to get out to Hollywood.

  I was on my way to class one day when I happened to notice flyers posted throughout the hallways at school. It was promoting a free show the following afternoon, on campus for a band called The Key. They were set to play in Panther Square, which was a large outdoor area on campus with a small faux stage.

  The black and white photo on the flyer was pretty gritty, but I could see that all the guys in the band had long hair and were wearing makeup. After all my bellyaching of wanting to go to Hollywood to see bands play, the last thing I expected was to have one of them come to my dumb high school. I couldn’t wait!

  The following day, I was the first to bolt out the door from my English class on the other side of campus. By the time I wheezed my way into Panther Square, a crowd of kids had already gathered for the show. About two or three songs into their set, I realized there wasn’t anything particularly original or amazing about their music. Regardless, I was still excited to have a real living, breathing rock band play at my school.

  After they finished, a majority of the kids crowded around as the band members stepped offstage to sign autographs and take pictures, me included. The autograph session didn’t go more than five minutes when the damn bell rang, which ended our lunch period and signaled for everyone to go to his or her next class. Some of the teachers who had been standing around acting as bouncers, started breaking up the crowd and telling kids to go to class, but I wasn’t budging.

  As the old saying goes, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? And if I don’t hear a teacher telling me to get to class, (or at least pretend I don’t hear them) that means I’m free to stay where I am, right?

  Quite a few kids were sticking around, so the teachers started yelling and I just kept right on ignoring. I was next in line to get an autograph from the singer, when a teacher stepped in and said if I didn’t leave right then and there she would send me to the attendance office. I looked over the teachers shoulder at the singer and looked back at the teacher. The singer was no Nikki Sixx and certainly not worth getting in trouble over, so I relented and skipped off to my next class.

  With the possibility of me going to Hollywood still out of reach for the time being, I did what every other valley girl was doing at the time. Hanging out at the local mall with my girlfriends.

  It was another typical Saturday afternoon of strolling around the Montebello mall with Sadie, Carla, and Tasha when we happened to come upon a music store called Mr. Entertainment. That’s when I developed a crush on their youngest salesman, Brian Duncan.

  Brian had long blond hair that just touched his shoulders and bright blue eyes. I wanted to spark up a music related conversation with him, but I didn’t really know how to play an instrument. I had recently started dabbling in guitar, but it was hardly anything to sneeze at. I was about to walk away with the girls when I noticed my neighbor
Carlos walk out of a back room and go behind the register. I had no idea he worked there, so I seized the opportunity to meet Brian.

  I’d been chatting with Carlos for a few minutes when Brian walked up and joined in the conversation. He said he was a junior at Montebello High and guitarist for a band called Razzle Dazzle. Against my better judgment, I tried to work the guitar angle. I told him I was learning to play, so he gave me his phone number and told me to call him if I had any questions about anything.

  I didn’t call Brian right away because I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. I felt dumb asking about guitar related matters because I was such a novice. Hell, I barely knew what a power chord was.

  The following weekend, I went to the mall with the girls again and planned on stopping in to say hi to Brian. But the moment we walked into Mr. Entertainment and he looked at me with those baby blues, I clammed up and ran away like a squealing piglet.

  A few days later, I was talking to Sadie about my dilemma with Brian. I couldn’t understand why he scared the shit out of me. I certainly didn’t have a problem going up and talking to Brandon when I first started crushing on him. Regardless, she said she’d help me, so an hour later my dad dropped me off at Sadie’s and we put “Operation Brian Phone Call” into action.

  Sadie and I drafted a series of questions in case I got nervous and stumbled during my phone call with Brian. We decided that ten questions would be more than adequate. But if I burned through all ten, that meant the conversation was going VERY badly.

  Another factor we took into consideration when writing the list of questions was demand. Like any normal girl talking to a guy she likes, she wants him to know that she’s a hot commodity and wanted by other guys. We decided the alternate, 11th question would have me queuing Sadie to “accidentally” interrupt my phone conversation to ask me about Brandon, in the hopes it would spark some interest for Brian to ask who he was. Sure Brandon was still with Erica and of course nothing was going on between us. Sadie knew that too, but Brian didn’t need to know that.

  With my list of questions in place, it took Sadie a good half hour to calm my nerves and build up my courage to call Brian. And once I did, the phone call went as flawless as a car crash.

  He breezed through all ten questions within a few minutes by giving me short answers. To make matters worse, when I queued Sadie to bring up Brandon, Brian said it sounded like I wanted to have a conversation with her and that he’d let me go, which he did rather quickly. Damn it.

  A week or so later, I was walking home from school when I ran into Carlos. I mentioned that I liked Brian and he told me not to waste my time. He said Brian had a girlfriend that he was head over heels in love with, who also went to Montebello High. I couldn’t believe I wasted a whole month of my life on that guy.

  With Brian being out of the picture for good, I went back to my standard daydreaming of Nikki Sixx until the next crush passed along my way.

  Speaking of Nikki, it was shortly after my 14th birthday when I was listening to a local rock station in my bedroom and a DJ reported that Nikki Sixx might be dead due to a heroin overdose.

  “Oh my god! Nikki might be dead!” I yelled to my mom after flinging open my bedroom door.

  “Who’s Nikki? A classmate from school?” she asked.

  “No, he was supposed to be your future son in law,” I said sadly as I walked back into my bedroom.

  “Home Sweet Home” came on the radio and my heart sank. I figured it was a Mötley music marathon being played in memory of Nikki. I closed the door to my bedroom and laid my head down on my pillow, staring at a poster of Nikki on my wall. His hands and bass were covered with blood and he was holding a shank knife in one of his hands. What a waste I thought, that I never got a chance to meet him. The song ended and the DJ reported that Nikki had OD’d, but he was still alive and had been taken to a hospital. I got out of bed and flung open my bedroom door again.

  “Mom! Nikki’s not dead!” I said with excitement.

  “Oh, that’s good,” she said unenthusiastically.

  With Nikki’s life being spared, I put my focus back on The Sunset Strip music scene and more importantly, finding a way to get back out to Hollywood.

  Over the next few months, I began hearing about a new club in Hollywood called The Cathouse. It was THE place to be on Tuesday nights. Taime Downe, the singer of Faster Pussycat, and his roommate Ricki Rachtman, a VJ on MTV, ran the club. What Studio 54 was to disco in the 70’s, The Cathouse was to the hard rock scene in the late 80’s, and I was clawing at the chance to go. Especially since Faster Pussycat played there quite often, and I was crushing big time on Brent Muscat, one of the guitar players. Unfortunately, I had a few things working against me.

  For one, I had just turned 14, and The Cathouse was an 18 and over club. I couldn’t even go the semi-legitimate route by using Lucy’s ID because even she wasn’t 18 yet. Now if I was a hot mama with big boobs and an ass you could rest a six-pack on, my age probably wouldn’t have mattered. But um yeah, I didn’t have any of that going for me. I was a scrawny tomboy with a flat chest and bore no resemblance to the vixens parading around in the rock videos of that time. It was like comparing a side of baked squash to a filet mignon.

  But alas, it was around the same time that I finally got my period! Now that I was officially a full-fledged woman, I hoped the hormones would kick in quickly and I would wake one morning to find the curves and face of Cindy Crawford had taken over my body. Come on hormones kick in already!

  I was too old for slumber parties and too young to have a driver’s license. So until I could weasel my way back to Hollywood, I went the traditional high school route of going to neighborhood keg parties.

  Keg parties were essentially kids from my high school having a party in someone’s backyard. They were usually free, which was in my price range, except for the occasional $2 or $3 booze donation they’d ask you to pitch in when the first keg was sucked dry. I tried weed for the first time and discovered the savory sweetness of Strawberry Hill.

  The parties generally lasted a few hours until a pissed off neighbor would call the police and bitch about the loud music or numerous amount of drunk, underage kids loitering on their street. Most were fairly uneventful, with the exception being one of the last parties I went to at my friend Dave’s house.

  I’d only been at the party for about an hour or so when the cops came to break it up. I sucked down my beer while getting in the cattle line with the rest of the kids, as we slowly made our way out of the backyard and onto the street. I stopped in front of Dave’s house to wait for Sadie, Carla, and their dates, Pete and Carl, who were these gross heshers they had befriended just weeks earlier.

  What is a hesher? Generally speaking, it was a guy with long, fuzzy brown or dishwater blond hair that had bad skin and didn’t wear makeup. If you had big hair because you teased & styled it with hairspray that was one thing, but if you had fuzzy, unstyled hair and walked around looking like a big cotton ball, then most likely you were a hesher.

  Pete and Carl were seniors at Temple City High and had given us a ride to Dave’s party that night. As far as personality goes, I didn’t really vibe with them. They were way too quiet for me. Their idea of fun was smoking pot 24-7 at Carl’s house, which I found boring. I needed to be around livelier people. I was actually surprised that Carla and Sadie were able to pry them out of Carl’s place to go to the party.

  When the four of them finally emerged from the backyard, they were talking about going back to Carl’s house to “smoke a little ganja” and have a few beers. SNORE. Naturally, I asked them to take me home.

  While walking to Carl’s car, we happened to pass one of the patrol cars.

  “Fuck you pig,” Pete mumbled loudly.

  I rolled my eyes and thought what a lame attempt it was at trying to be cool. That’s exactly why I didn’t want to hang out with those heshers.

  “What did you say?” the cop asked.

  I ignored the cop and kept w
alking because obviously he was talking to Pete, not me. Pete ignored him as well and kept walking when suddenly the sound of footsteps rushed up behind me.

  “Did you hear me? What did you just say!” the cop said as he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him.

  Sadie and Carla stopped beside me, while Pete and Carl kept right on walking.

  “Me? I didn't say anything,” I said completely confused.

  “That's funny, I just thought I heard you say ‘fuck you pig’ a moment ago,” the cop said.

  “I didn't say that, he did!” I said pointing at Pete.

  Pete and Carl finally stopped and turned around.

  “Oh really?” the cop said smirking at me.

  “Do I SOUND like an 18 year old guy?” I said with attitude.

  I looked over to Pete and he said nothing. I couldn’t believe he was going to let me take the fall.

  “You fucking pussy! You know you’re the one who said it!” I yelled.

  He and Carl just stood there quiet as church mice.

  “Watch your mouth!” the cop yelled.

  “I didn't do anything wrong!” I yelled.

  I flung the cops hand off my arm to break free. I had taken two or three steps when he grabbed the collar of my denim jacket. I started flailing and swinging at the cop when he grabbed me by the neck and threw me against the back of the cop car.

  “Put your hands behind your back!” he yelled.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelped.

  “NOW!” he yelled again.

  I quickly put my hands behind my back and the cop threw a pair of cuffs on me.

  “Do you know that assaulting an officer is a criminal offense?” he said.

  “You touched me first!” I barked.

  Without saying another word, the cop threw me in the backseat of the patrol car. Sadie and Carla started arguing with the cop so he threw them in the backseat with me, sans cuffs and shut the door. The cop and his partner climbed into the car, and the next thing I know we’re being whisked away, leaving Pete and Carl behind. As we drove away, the cops told us they were going to take us home, talk to all our parents, and explain what happened.