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

by Marisa Tellez

  “See? This is why I don’t hang out with stupid heshers. Now we're all going to get grounded,” I said as I rattled my handcuffs.

  My house was the first drop off, and the patrol car pulled right in front of my house. I immediately looked to the two windows in the front of my house, wondering if either of my parents happened to be peeking outside. Despite the pseudo boxing match I had with the cop, he had a momentary lapse of judgment in my favor because as we both got out of the car, he took off my cuffs and didn’t seem to be leading me up my driveway. He just stood by the patrol car, holding my cuffs.

  “You're going to tell your parents what happened tonight, right?” The cop asked.

  HELL NO, I thought.

  “Of course I will,” I said obediently.

  “I don't want to see your face at anymore of these parties? Got it?”

  I saluted him with my hand and said, “Loud and clear sir.”

  The cop stood there, staring at me and I panicked. Shit, I didn’t mean to be a smartass. Oh please I thought, don’t change your mind. Just get the fuck out of here before my parents get up and look outside.

  “Take care kid,” the cop said. Then he walked away and hopped into the patrol car.

  Phew.

  I walked up the driveway and slowly opened the front door, just waiting to get yelled at by my folks. Luckily, my dad was asleep in my parent’s bedroom at the other end of the house, and my mom was in the kitchen washing dishes. Hallelujah!

  Unfortunately, Sadie and Carla didn’t fare so well. The cops ended up talking to both of their parents. Sadie just got a lecture, which wasn’t too bad, but Carla got it the worst. Not only did her mom ground her for two weeks but permanently banned her from hanging out with Sadie and I ever again. The latter didn’t mean anything though, this kind of thing happened all the time. Every few months, one or more of us would always get banned from each other for doing stupid shit. After whatever debacle went down, we’d give the parents a few days to calm down, then go over to their house to make nice. We’d do the ritual shaking hands and kissing babies, throw in a mea culpa or two and all would be well again.

  About halfway through my freshman year, two fellow freshman named Jude and Dagmar, transferred to my school. Dagmar was petite, but she always complained that her body was like a pear because she felt her butt was big and not in proportion with her tiny upper frame. She had wavy black hair and big brown eyes, but that didn’t last very long. Shortly after I met her, she started wearing green contacts and lightened her hair to a strawberry blonde. Jude, on the other hand, had a models body. She was tall and skinny with long blonde hair and eyes like a cat. Both Jude and Dagmar were rocker chicks that shared my same musical tastes, so I instantly found them cool and befriended them.

  Dagmar lived with her mom and four little brothers and sisters in El Monte, about fifteen minutes east of Rosemead. All of her siblings were between the ages of 3 and 8, so the house was absolute chaos with kids and toys flying in every direction. Jude lived in an apartment with her mom and older brother Paul in Alhambra, about five minutes down the street from me. Her bedroom was wallpapered with Metallica posters because she was in love with their guitar player, Kirk Hammett. She also had several pets that she named after her favorite musicians, like her two rats named Flotsam & Jetsam and her beloved hamster that she named Kirk Hamster, respectively.

  Jude and Dagmar introduced me to a girl from their old high school named Sasha, who was also a freshman. She had long burgundy hair and oversized breasts. I had never met a girl my age with boobs anywhere near that size. Sasha was easily sporting a natural double D cup. Being around her showed a definitive missing link between hot mama and an ape, me obviously being the latter.

  Jude’s brother Paul had a set of friends that were all in their early 20’s, two of which were Ron and Alex. Alex was about six foot, with shoulder length, dark brown hair, big brown puppy dog eyes and a smile that could melt lead. He was super sweet, very outgoing, and had a goofy sense of humor that went well with mine. He immediately became my new crush.

  Only Jude knew of my feelings for Alex, but she insisted I tell Dagmar and Sasha to get some perspective on winning him over. Only after having her swear on the life of her beloved Kirk Hamster that the girls were trustworthy did I tell them about my feelings for Alex.

  Their first order of business was clothes. The only thing more time consuming for a girl than getting ready is deciding on an outfit. They suggested I put together two or three ensembles to have on standby. Granted, I didn’t have a killer body to fill out most of my outfits, so I was dependent on winning him over with my uh, great personality.

  The next step was planning an event where I could see Alex. Jude quickly took care of that when she suggested to Paul that they have a party. Once he agreed, I pressed Jude for details on whether Alex was going, and she in turn pressed on Paul. After a few days of non-stop nagging, he finally confirmed that Alex would be going! So the night of the party, I pulled out one of my standby outfits, got ready, and had Lucy drop me off at Jude’s.

  When I walked into Jude’s, she was sitting at her kitchen table playing quarters with Dagmar and Sasha. I said hello to the girls and walked straight to the refrigerator to get a drink. I made myself a screwdriver and joined the girls at the table as I watched people trickle into the apartment.

  Over the next hour, I scanned the faces coming in the front door. Once I saw Alex, I grabbed my purse and dashed into the bathroom to touch up. When I came out, he was sitting on the living room couch talking to Ron. The girls nudged me to talk to Alex, so I walked over and he greeted me with a big hug. I hadn’t spoken more than a few words when Elanna the vulture swooped in and took Alex away like a piece of helpless prey.

  Elanna was Alex’s age, and she wasn’t even that pretty. She had a mediocre face with long, straight brown hair, but she did have a killer body. She started talking to him in Spanish, and my fluency in Spanglish wasn’t enough to keep up with their conversation. So I put my tail between my legs and walked back to the kitchen where the girls were still playing quarters. I hoped at some point Alex would break away from Elanna to come over to talk to me, but he never did. I didn’t approach him for the rest of the night.

  Dealing with rejection was something I had quite a bit of practice with unfortunately, so I took Alex’s snub in stride as I did all the others.

  With my back-to-back failures of Brian and Alex, it was back to fantasizing about Nikki Sixx for the time being until my next crush surfaced it’s pretty little head.

  4

  IS THAT A BOYFRIEND I SMELL?

  Toward the end of my freshman year, I had quite a few big changes coming my way. I had a designated curfew, which meant I could finally stay out till a somewhat decent hour. The sweet scent of Drivers Education class, aka getting my drivers license, was just around the corner. Oh and miracle of all miracles, I got my first boyfriend, Ronan Morales.

  Ronan was 17, with long black hair, and brown eyes. His parents were divorced, and he was the youngest of 3 siblings, all of which were scattered around Los Angeles. We met during my P.E. class when I was on the field playing baseball. I noticed him just outside the school fence, standing near a bus stop with his friend Kyle. When my team came off the field and up to bat, Ronan waved me over.

  Since it was during school hours, I wondered why he was lingering about and not in school. He said he was catching a bus that afternoon for no particular reason other than to just “hang out” somewhere in Arcadia. We only spoke for a few minutes, but during our brief conversation, he seemed less than enthused to talk to me, which I found strange. If he didn’t want to talk to me, why the hell did he wave me over in the first place? Regardless, he asked me for my number, and I got his too.

  During the first few weeks of phone calls with Ronan, he seemed to do most of the talking. He was in full rebound mode and had recently broken up with his girlfriend Candice, who he had been dating for about six months. According to him, he ended up g
etting wasted at a party they went to and acted like a drunk idiot, so she immediately dumped him. She wouldn’t return any of his calls, and he was absolutely devastated. He would go on for hours about his broken heart and how much he missed her. I don’t know why the hell I became his shoulder to cry on, but nonetheless, I tried to be supportive.

  Ronan led a discipline free life that I wasn’t accustomed to. He came and went as he pleased with no curfew and no steady home. He bounced between his aunt’s place in Alhambra and a house in Montebello that his mom shared with his older sister. He earned money by unloading rolls of fabric at his uncles distribution company in downtown L.A. So on top of having complete freedom, he also had spending money as well, which didn’t compare to my pittance of an allowance.

  Suddenly having a boy in my life worried my parents. Ronan and I would talk everyday after I got home from school and sometimes late at night too, which they immediately tried to put a stop to. My folks gave me a phone curfew of 10:00pm, and Ronan scoffed at the idea that I would adhere to it. In an attempt to be cool, I devised a way to talk to him after curfew without my folks finding out.

  Fortunately for me, I had a cordless phone in my bedroom. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my own private line. There was another phone in the kitchen at the other end of the house, right near my parent’s bedroom.

  The first thing I thought to do was unplug the phone in the kitchen before going to bed. But I noticed my mom would occasionally glance at the phone jack on the ground to make sure it was still plugged in, so I devised another plan.

  I figured out a way to balance the plug in the jack to make it LOOK like it was still plugged in when it wasn’t. Then I’d set my cordless phone to its lowest volume setting and put it under my pillow to muffle the sound of the ring when Ronan would call. Once he and I were done talking, I would conveniently walk to the kitchen to get a late night glass of water and plug the cord back into the wall jack.

  As time passed, Ronan confessed that on the day we met, it was his friend Kyle who originally spotted me and wanted my number, not him. That explained Ronan’s less than enthusiastic attitude when we first exchanged numbers. Regardless, things were finally starting to progress between Ronan and I, and the subject of Candice wasn’t part of our daily conversations anymore. He said he was really starting to have feelings for me and wanted to take me out on a date! I started thinking about what to wear when I remembered that I had never been on a date before. More importantly, I’ve never asked my parents if I could go out on a date with a boy, so I didn’t know how they were going to react. After grilling me for a little bit, they actually allowed me to go out with Ronan and gave me an 11:30pm curfew, which Ronan bitched about of course.

  We planned on going out to dinner, and I was slightly mortified because I still hadn’t experienced my first kiss yet. The closest I had gotten was my botched attempt at Brandon’s house almost a year earlier.

  The night of our date, we ended up walking to Jim’s Burgers just down the street from my house, which Ronan was pissed about. The original plan was to have him pick me up in his mom’s car, but she had to work that night. So she ended up dropping him off near my house and told him to call his sister for a ride when he was done with our date. It didn’t matter to me though, I was just excited to be on an actual date, and of course I was happy to be with Ronan, who I was crushing on big time.

  Ronan wanted to take me to a movie after dinner. But by the time we got done eating, I only had about an hour left till curfew. He told me to blow off my curfew, but I knew I had less than a handful of ‘get out of jail free’ cards with my parents ahead of me and getting grounded over a movie that I could see anytime wasn’t worth wasting one on.

  As we started the final walk down my street, he pulled out a pack of gum and asked if I wanted a piece. I knew exactly what that meant. That was the, “I’m going to kiss you, but we just ate so take this to freshen your breath” stick of gum. Me accepting that gum was making a pretty bold statement. Was I ready to accept the gum?

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said as I took a piece. And just like that, a stick of Wrigley’s Winterfresh brought me one step closer to womanhood.

  We stopped at the gate in front my house. Our conversation came to a halt, so I thanked him for the food to break the awkward silence. Instead of saying, “you’re welcome”, he slowly leaned in towards me. I froze and closed my eyes as if I were anticipating getting punched in the face. My muscles relaxed as his lips touched mine. But the moment I felt his tongue start to part my lips, I gasped and pulled back.

  I gave him a playful punch in the arm and said, “Thanks again for the burger, I gotta go!”

  He started to say something, but I was so mortified that I ran off in mid sentence and proceeded to bolt up my driveway.

  By the time I got to my front door, I turned around and Ronan was already gone. I peeked into my living room window to see my mom sitting on the couch, watching TV. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if she would be able to see the scarlet letter burned into my forehead when I walked in the door.

  I said hi to my mom as I quickly walked in and bolted towards my bedroom. I didn't want to be bothered or talk to anyone. I wanted to replay that first kiss over and over again in my head, sans the part where I freaked out and ran away like a squealing piglet.

  Luckily, I didn't scare Ronan away. Over the next few weeks, as I started my sophomore year in high school, I also became his official girlfriend. I got to know his family whenever they sporadically came around, and we also hung out quite a bit with his friend Kyle. While talking with Kyle one day, he casually mentioned he was friends’ with a band called Taz.

  I knew all about Taz through my free rock magazines because they were headliners on The Strip! I played it cool with him and Ronan though. I said I had heard of Taz and that I’d been “considering” on whether to check them out. Ronan told me they had a show coming up at The Waters Club in San Pedro and that I could come with him if I wanted to. I very calmly accepted.

  September 15th, 1988. That was the night of my first Taz show. When I walked into The Waters Club with Ronan and Kyle, the club was fairly packed and a band named Hysteria was on stage. I wanted to take pictures of Taz, so I immediately found myself a good spot near the stage while the guys went to the bar to grab drinks.

  I wasn’t paying much attention to Hysteria. I began loading my cheap 35MM camera with a roll of film when a guy from the back of the crowd started heckling the band. He kept yelling that they sucked and to bring on Taz. The bassist gave the guy the finger, so the guy started throwing ice at the band until a bouncer came and escorted him out.

  Hysteria finally finished their set, and Taz took the stage. KK, the singer, strolled up in a pair of tight purple pants, black boots, a long sleeve lavender shirt, and a purple scarf wrapped around his head. Ronan had given me a demo tape of Taz a few weeks earlier, so I knew a few of their songs like, “Tattoo You”, “Bad Religion”, and “Cold Shoulder”.

  Song after song, a heavyset blonde standing next to me kept howling to KK how hot he was and kept grabbing at his crotch. She was a sloppy, drunk mess and could barely keep her balance while pawing at KK. During one song, when he leaned over to sing to the crowd, she immediately grabbed him, flipped him over like a pancake, and shoved her tongue down his throat. He was able to get away from her, but when he stood back up to continue singing, his chin was glistening from all her slobber.

  The blonde had a fellow heavyset friend, a brunette with long wavy hair who seemed pretty agitated with her friends’ behavior. She kept yelling at her to stop being an idiot, and I overheard her call the blonde girl Rachel.

  During the next song, another girl standing at the opposite end of the stage gave KK a red rose and wiggled her tongue at him when he took it. I couldn’t believe how brazen these girls were about putting their sexuality out there. Meanwhile, Rachel, the porkly blonde who inhaled KK’s face just moments earlier, was still standing next to me stumbling around. Even though she w
as annoying as hell, I didn’t want to move because I was in a prime location for getting good shots of the band. I was about to snap a picture of KK, when Rachel jumped onto the stage and tried to charge him like a wild hog. She only took about two or three steps before she slipped and fell down. KK had already run to the other side of the stage and continued singing while she slowly tried to get up. Rachel’s friend, who was still standing in the front row, kept telling her to get offstage. Rachel told her friend to fuck off. Completely agitated, her friend leaned over onstage, grabbed Rachel’s arm, and gave it a hard yank, which sent Rachel flying into the crowd, narrowly missing me.

  “Those are the Taz fatties,” Ronan said.

  “That’s kind of mean,” I said.

  “Hey, I didn’t name them the guys did. No matter where Taz plays, they go to EVERY show.”

  KK was obviously annoyed. When he finished the song, he told everyone (more specifically Rachel) to calm down and just kick back. She finally took the hint and didn’t make her way near the stage for the rest of the night.

  After the show, I walked outside with Ronan to get some air. He led me over to Taz’s van and introduced me to the guys in the band as they loaded up their gear. While I chatted with Kenny, the drummer, and Joel, one of the guitar players, Ronan quietly slipped away without saying a word. About an hour later, Ronan was still nowhere to be found. I was mildly annoyed that he snuck off. But when Joel and Kenny offered me a ride to the after party if Ronan didn’t show up, I didn’t seem to care as much. I mean technically if Ronan disappeared, I would need to get a ride back home, and being stranded in Hollywood was much closer to my house than San Pedro.

  While I pondered the thought of how cool it would be to stroll into the after party with the Taz guys, Ronan reappeared. I asked him where he went, and he said he was just off talking with a few friends. We said goodbye to the guys, they thanked me for coming to the show, and Ronan took me home.