The Sunset Strip Diaries

by Amy Asbury

  Her bathroom was my favorite, because it had two sinks in which we sat to do our makeup. There were thick pink towels, movie star lighting around the mirrors, and lotions in every floral and fruit scent lined up on shelves. She had expensive makeup that she didn’t bat an eyelash at letting me use. I most liked her huge stash of Borghese that she crammed under her sink as if it was garbage. It would’ve taken me a year of lunch money to save up and buy my own. My favorite products in that bathroom were the glorious conditioners and hair products by Joico. They smelled delicious and were in pale lavender bottles. She had so many bottles of conditioner in her shower! Nexxus, Paul Mitchell, Sorbie, KMS, Mastey- I wanted to try all of them. I felt like a queen getting made up in that bathroom; it was so lovely. I was used to using Infusium 23 in my hair and makeup that I stole from the local Sav-On drug store; none of this salon quality hair stuff or department store cosmetics. Those things were not even available in my world. I had never set foot in a store that sold things like that.

  She had a walk-in closet full of clothes and shoes. She sometimes let me borrow this lime green Betsey Johnson top, with tons of pink and red cartoonish flowers on it. I adored that top and had a good night whenever I wore it. Wearing Betsey Johnson, a real designer who had a shop on Melrose that I could never afford, made me feel pretty and confident.

  Cristabelle was just as interested in going Hollywood as I was. She wasn’t into the more obscure bands; she was more interested in mainstream bands like Slaughter. I could tell it was going to be a passing fancy with her, because her dedication to the project (as I saw it in my head) just wasn’t strong enough. But I didn’t give a shit, I needed a partner in crime. Neither of us had cars or could drive, so she decided to beg the only logical person: Jimmy.

  I acted nonchalant during the begging- it was crucial that I didn’t appear too eager. I let her do the dirty work and sat back, not wanting to ruin my validity with him. I was crossing my fingers she would somehow flatter him into taking us. He finally caved and said he would take us to the Rainbow. I nodded calmly while she screamed and jumped up and down. In my head I thought, The Rainbow! The famous Rainbow Bar and Grill! I wanted to fall back onto my bed and kick my feet really fast in the air. I knew from my magazines that there was no other spot that contained so many rock stars per square foot. All of the bands I loved always referred to it in their magazine interviews. It was on the Sunset Strip, next door to The Roxy, which was another place I dreamed of going.

  My plan was in motion, baby!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Sunset Strip

  Sunset Boulevard. What was the big deal, you ask? Well, technically, it was only a street that ran from downtown Los Angeles to Malibu (it dead-ends at the Pacific Ocean). The famous spot known as “The Strip” was/is the mile and a half portion of it from Doheny Drive to N. Crescent Heights (incidentally, the intersection of Sunset and Crescent Heights was a special spot for my family: my great grandparents owned a beauty salon there back in the 1940’s). The first buildings went up around Sunset Plaza in the mid 1920’s. The area wasn’t part of the city of Los Angeles back in the day, so it wasn’t as heavily watched by the police. Alcohol was served there during Prohibition and casinos popped up around the area because it didn’t count as part of the city (you could gamble in the ‘country’ but not the city). It was the seedy, crazy part of town, which attracted many people working in the film industry. The area became more glamorous in the 1930’s and 40’s when more restaurants and nightclubs popped up. In the 30’s, there was the black-tie, French-themed Café Trocadero, where everyone went to Jitterbug under hand-painted murals of the Paris skyline. Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Jean Harlow frequented the spot among hundreds of other big names. In the 40’s, there was the green silk-draped Ciro’s (which later became The Comedy Store), where many stars dined, danced, and got themselves into the gossip columns. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner, even President Kennedy dined at the Baroque-decorated club. There was the Latin-American themed Mocambo, with its light blue interior and bright red columns, which had glass cages of live parrots lining the walls. Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald performed their acts there and patrons included Howard Hughes, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bob Hope. Although that old Hollywood heyday was over, the Sunset Strip was the still the most glamorous spot for a girl into old film stars (and current rock stars) to set foot.

  I was nervous, sitting in the car with Jimmy and Cristabelle. The traffic was completely stopped in a big jam the whole way up The Strip. It was very dark out but there were so many lights twinkling from cars’ taillights and nightclub signs that everything was lit up in reds, blues, and pinks. I looked out of the car window and saw crowds of cool people, all talking and laughing while passing one another on the sidewalks. It was like a huge street party. Some people were yelling to their friends across the street, and others were jaywalking through the traffic jam and shouting at their friends in cars. I saw tons of cute guys, pretty girls, and lots of backlit marquees advertising bands that were playing at this place or that place. Eight by ten pieces of neon paper were stapled to every phone pole and littered the ground like huge chunks of confetti in hot pink, acid green, lemon yellow, and bright turquoise blue. They were band ‘flyers.’ Band members passed them out to everyone walking by to try to get them to go to their performances. The flyers had the show date and time on them, along with a promo picture of the band.

  I really wanted to get out and walk around in the crowds, but I didn’t want Jimmy to come with me because he always seemed to be getting into altercations when he went out to Hollywood. He very often came home with a black eye or a smashed jaw, due to some disrespectful utterances muttered by drunken club-goers. He told me stories of what he could remember: Some guy said he looked like a fag, or someone messed with one of his friends and he had to stand up for them. Many of the instances sounded completely foolish and few warranted actual fights from what I could decipher. I hoped the fact that we would be inside the Rainbow would tame some of the violence that might be provoked out on the streets.

  I wore a very risqué outfit that night, something along the lines of what I had seen in the local magazines featuring Cathouse girls. I borrowed a black bejeweled bustier from Cristabelle and paired it with a tiny black skirt, high black shoes, and huge hoop earrings. Cristabelle wore a tight purple velvet dress with a spiked belt and huge cross earrings that sank into her long blond hair- she looked very cool and at least had her stomach covered; I had a completely bare midriff. I assumed everyone would be half-naked and I wanted my debut to be perfect.

  Jimmy valeted his car and we got out and went up to the crowded line at the Rainbow. It looked like a small English Tudor house with a big vertical sign that was striped in rainbow colors with black lettering over it. I could hear rock music brazenly blasting from the open front door, “Rocket Queen” from Guns N’ Roses. I was shaking. I thought of the things I had heard about the Rainbow, such as the fact that John Belushi ate his last meal there. I knew Led Zepplin used to hang there, as well as John Lennon, Ringo Starr- even Elvis went there. But even before that, the place was once a restaurant with some other name - Judy Garland’s director husband Vincente Minnelli owned it. He proposed to her there. Judy Garland! She was in this establishment! And Marilyn Monroe met Joe DiMaggio there on a blind date. Marilyn Monroe! Charlie Chaplin and John Wayne even ate there. But more important to me was the fact that in the 1980’s, the Rainbow was the hangout of Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Guns N’ Roses. It was a combination of old Hollywood history and new Hollywood - and I was standing there in front of it! I was beaming (secretly, of course).

  I can’t remember if Cristabelle and I had fake ID’s at that point or they let us in without ID or what. I think that, technically, you could eat in the restaurant if you were under twenty-one; you just weren’t supposed to drink. Anyway, I was sixteen and she was fifteen, but no one gave a shit. (And may I please note for the record that I am sure this fine establishment is much
different today and plays by the rules- we are talking a long time ago here. Ahem.) Okay, so, we finally walked inside, past a man in a suit with a carnation in his lapel. It was very crowded, very dark, and the music was even louder. I hung onto Jimmy and held Cristabelle with my other hand, as I passed mutton-chopped Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead in a denim jacket. I was afraid I would get lost and never see the light of day again. There was a main room with a big, blazing fireplace and about twenty big, red leather booths filled with people. Rock and roll memorabilia was crammed onto the walls: gold records, guitars, autographed pictures. It was kind of like the Hard Rock Café in a way, except that the rock stars actually hung out at the Rainbow. The place looked like an Italian restaurant underneath all of the paraphernalia; there were red glowing candle jars and big pizzas at each table. People could barely get out of the booths, because every inch of walking space was taken up by crowds of rockers. It was wall-to-wall packed, to the point that your body was up against other people, not unlike the RTD bus that I took home from school. There was a downstairs bar behind the fireplace and then there were stairs heading upwards to another story. Upstairs, there were bathrooms, and then another stairway to go even further upstairs to a dance floor and another bar. It was as if there were a million dark tunnels in there. I remembered hearing that the little secret loft upstairs (that they called the ‘Lair of the Hollywood Vampires’), was the spot where Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, and their buddies partied when they came to town back in the day.

  As I looked around, I realized that I was actually a little too sleazy looking. The girls were not that naked. They were in dresses and what not, but they were not showing as much as I was. I got it wrong and I was embarrassed, for the millionth time in my life. I got drunk because I was really nervous. How many doors would I walk through completely overdone, until I got the hint? Geez. I felt a little better after a few Long Island iced teas- that was when I asked Jimmy for his Lip Service jacket and I decided to cover myself.

  I couldn’t believe I was there. The one and only Rainbow Bar and Grill, meeting place of every rock star on the planet! It was in all the music videos. And there I was, me, amongst crowds of cool people! I looked at a collage on the wall of different stars partying. I wanted to savor the moment. It was pretty sketchy how we kids were having cocktails, but hey, that’s Hollywood. If you look good, you’re in. So anyway, as the night went on, the parking lot between the Rainbow and The Roxy started to fill with people. I didn’t know until later that it was the spot where many people scored drugs at 2 a.m. We walked through the parking lot at closing time (the Rainbow played “Sweet Child o’ Mine” as their “last call” song around 1:30). I was feeling bold and brazen after several cocktails and decided I wanted to show off, so I took off the jacket. Immediately, a bunch of guys whistled at me and started to make comments about my boobs. Jimmy started yelling at them and challenging them to a fight, which I talked him out of. I was like, What, are you going to take on ten guys by yourself!? Am I supposed to be your back up here in my high heels? Ignore it! He started fights with any man who whistled at me, which was basically everyone. Even blind motherfuckers were whistling at me. Old men, young men, gay men, monks; the whole world was whistling at me and this poor guy tried to defend me. The thing that really sucked for him is that he couldn’t fight! He was always getting beat up. That never stopped him though.

  Jimmy didn’t want to take me anywhere in Hollywood for a while after that. Cristabelle was asking and asking when we could go next, and I didn’t have an answer. We decided we had to take matters into our own hands. We were determined to get down to Sunset by ourselves and party on the glittered sidewalks. It was too delicious to pass up, too exciting not to return.

  Cristabelle got us a ride down there one summer night. We got to The Strip, parked somewhere, got out, and started walking up the street. I was finally trotting up the world famous Sunset Strip. I no longer had to read about it in my bedroom. I didn’t have to look at it from a car window. I was there, breathing in the cigarette smoke, perfume, and the scent of leather. I was exhilarated and scared at the same time. I watched musicians passing out their colorful flyers in the warm summer air, smiling and being friendly. Probably because they kind of had to if they wanted people to come to their shows, but still. It dawned on me that the Sunset Strip crowd was different from what I saw of the Cathouse crowd. I thought they were one in the same, but no. The Cathouse guys were a little older, darker and biker-esque. They were not into the glam look. They were more into the L.A. Guns look: black leather pants, dyed black hair, maybe a little eyeliner (but no other makeup) and a lot more tattoos. Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee were more Cathouse. The Strip was younger; a colorful candy store full of cartoon characters in more costumed attire. They wore lots of makeup, had lots of hair spray in their hair and most of all, lots of color in their clothes and accessories. They were a lot more happy and light. They were less threatening. They were more about the party.

  The night was magical. It was a freak show combined with a rock video combined with a beauty pageant. I had never laid eyes on so many creative, extraordinary people. Because I was wearing black that night, no one even looked at me, boobs or not. There were beautiful, tan, blond girls in pink and sexy brunettes in white. There were so many better bodies than mine, so many girls with longer hair, longer legs and bigger smiles. This wasn’t gonna be easy. I realized at that moment that I had never seen pictures of the people on the actual Strip. The local magazines showed pictures of people inside clubs watching shows- and it was all in black and white film. It was a lot crazier in real life. I started to take many mental notes.

  As we walked down near the Rainbow, an old guy pulled up in a sparkly, bright purple Excalibur; it was one of those long cars that had a spare tire on the side, real old fashioned looking. He got out of the car in a purple hat and a sparkling purple jacket with a lit-up beating heart glowing through it. He had long, frizzy white hair. He looked like a wizard or something. And if that wasn’t weird enough, a cat jumped onto his shoulder from inside the car. He was walking around The Strip doing card tricks and that cat just sat quietly on him the whole time. It was truly bizarre. The guy’s name was Fig and the cat’s nametag said “Figgy.”

  Most of the guys on The Strip were stunning. Some had bronze tans and long, super pale champagne blond hair wrapped with a pink scarf. They had exaggerated beauty spots penciled in above a lip, eyes lined in blue or black and bubble gum lip gloss on their lips. Some wore scrunchies in their hair (it was 1990 y’all) or rainbow plastic charm bracelets on their wrists. Other guys had their hair half up and half down, like a girl. Some wore clips in their hair, or bandanas tied into a bow on top. Some were wearing blazers in dark pinks or purples and wore polka-dotted or striped headbands. I saw a guy with long, straight, flamingo-pink hair who wore checkered tights under his shorts that were cut off at the knee. Another had turquoise blue hair and a leather jacket with bright candy airbrushed on the back. They were amazing. It was as if I were back in my ten-year-old bedroom, looking at a bunch of pink and glitter and neon. It was a potpourri of 1980’s New Wave, circus clowns and Vogue spreads.

  There were other types too. There were black-haired guys with a punk vibe who wore bondage pants and torn T-shirts. Many of them had tattooed arms like the Cathouse guys, but the difference was that their tats were not skulls, flames, and devils. They were cartoons like Bugs Bunny or Betty Boop. They were about as hard core as a unicorn.

  I heard some of their names through the crowd. There was a definite theme going on with the names. Lots of Jamies, Billys, Bobbys, Rikkis and Johnnys. I thought, Damn, I haven’t heard these names since “Cool it Now” by New Edition…I also heard some other girly names like Candy, Holly, and Ginger. I could have sworn they were names of guys, but I wasn’t sure. There was sort of a scale of gayness, for me at least. Some of the guys looked way too much like women. They were too close to being transsexuals. I would have felt gay if I had hooked up with them. Many
of them were walking a fine line, but still man enough to want to screw as many girls as possible.

  Guns N’ Roses and Poison had recently made it big by first playing The Strip, along with Ratt, Van Halen and several others. Bands from all around the country came to L.A. to play the same club circuit in hopes of drawing attention from record labels. There were bands from Detroit, New York, Boston- everywhere. Many musicians moved to L.A. alone and created their own bands once they got there. They went through the want ads in Rock City News and Bam, and auditioned potential bandmates. Some bands were looking for serious musicians, but many were looking for guys who had the right look. Once they got something together and named their band, they got to work on practicing for shows and promoting.

  It felt like Halloween on The Strip when the bands passed out their flyers, because they each had their own little theme. I felt like we were all trick-or-treating. There were bands with a beachy theme, some with a gypsy theme, and others with a kids’ cartoon theme. I saw variations of punk and glam, vampire and glam, and plain old beauty school dropout glam. They each had their own vision, their own brand, and their own marketing and publicity ideas. I was a big fan of candy and toy packaging, so I really appreciated the work the bands put into their themes. I loved the bubble letters, stars, glitter, candy, kiss marks, lightning bolts, and leopard skin. I felt like it was what my teenaged life had been missing, this creativity, this imaginativeness. This scene was not just music to me, and it wasn’t just about cute guys- it was about people who were into their art, into their creations, into making something out of nothing. People who not only loved music, but who recreated themselves, who deconstructed clothes to make a new look, who made their own rules and their own scene. It was wild, it was shocking, and it was adventurous. The creativity level was at such a high that it was electric. I had a deep respect for these interesting people (not to mention fire in my underwear for a few of them), because they had left their hometowns, come to Hollywood, and were convinced they would survive. There was only a small percent of the population who actually thought they could get away with something that risky- it was a certain personality type, the type that left their comfort zones and marched straight into the unknown, completely exposed. And it was that spark that rose from the crowds of people on Sunset.