The Sunset Strip Diaries

by Amy Asbury

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  How it All Died

  Journal Entry 1/26/93

  Went to the No Bozo Jam at the Whisky with Birdie. Some guy bought our way in and bought us drinks. He said, “You gotta buy friends in Hollywood.” I didn’t argue with that. There was a long line for the women’s restrooms and no line at all for the men’s restrooms, of course. We barged into the men’s room and went into a stall. Birdie got out her compact and put a bunch of speed on the mirror. I noticed there were chunks of brown stuff in it. I was like, “Birdie…. there is heroin in there.” She didn’t care and went ahead and snorted all of it. The drugs made her sit in a corner with her eyes bugged out all night. A bunch of our friends “jammed” on stage. True to form, Lesli tried to do something cool and it backfired. The idiot tried to do a stage dive and everyone moved out of the way instead of catching him. He hit the ground so hard he shattered his hip. He had to be carried out and put into an ambulance.

  I went to visit Lesli in the hospital, where he was in traction- his legs were strapped into bars that were hanging from above him. He couldn’t move. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I started to fall for him. I thought maybe I could really be with him and actually started to open my heart up to him a little bit. I thought that maybe I had been wrong about him. Maybe he was the one, the one I had been ignoring. He started telling me he loved me and that we should be in a relationship. I finally agreed.

  I was walking into a party one night soon thereafter and looked up to see him walking across the street with a young, pretty girl. I had a bottle of Jim Beam with me and I went over to him and tried to break the bottle over his head, but he caught my arm in mid-swing and held it. I felt like such an idiot. I had been played- not a good feeling.

  Journal Entry 1/27/93

  Razz’s dream has finally come true after all of this time: he is now in a relationship with Missy and is living with her. The other night, she and I went out because he had to work for Prince’s club, Glam Slam, driving someone somewhere in a Rolls Royce. When we were leaving, she wanted to stop by a liquor store but it was closed. She knocked on the window and they got a look at her and opened up the store for her. We drank beers in the car on the way to Hollywood, then we stopped in a parking lot behind a restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard and made these gnarly drinks out of Seagram’s and Diet Pepsi. Once we were sufficiently drunk, we walked down the street to the Troubadour and finagled in for free. Then we went to the Rainbow with a bunch of drink tickets she stole from Razz’s pocket. My kinda girl. We got even more wasted and went to Del Taco afterward. There was a huge line of people, so we tried cutting in front of as many people who would agree to it. When we got to this sassy queen wearing no shirt, we were stopped. He wouldn’t let us cut, but we started disco dancing with him right there in Del Taco. He stuck his tongue in Missy’s ear and then licked his finger and removed some flakes of boogers out of my nostrils! He said, “No one else will do this for you, but I will.” It was out of control. When it was finally my turn to order, I couldn’t even speak English and they took full advantage of it because when I got my tray, there appeared to be one of everything on the menu, things I didn’t even order. Then I went and put my mouth under the ice machine while Missy pushed the button. This one guy tasted his soda and didn’t like it, so he chucked it all the way across the restaurant and it exploded like a bomb on his friend. I took my tray of food outside and gave a burrito to a bum, who said, “God bless you” and then I gave some tacos to some of my friends who were outside.

  Saturday night I went to a party that I barely remember; I just remember Jimmy’s hands around Michael’s neck and having Michael jump into my car. Jimmy threw a beer at him, and it splattered all over my car.

  That night was the beginning of my ritual of going to Del Taco after drinking all night. Eating fast food all the time started to ruin my figure very quickly. And that was really what I was riding on, in that town.

  I was officially a has-been, washed up at nineteen years old.

  I started hanging around bubbly Missy every weekend. I still idolized her and I always had the best time with her. I also felt safe with her, which was a quality that made me cling to certain girls. I started to hang out with her so much that she told me she was going to kick Razz out of her place so I could move in. At first I thought, Cool! I would love to move in! Then I thought, Oh…Razz would be crushed! He has been chasing her for years! He finally got to move in with her and she is going to throw him out for me? He will be so pissed! And that is when it hit me:

  Screw him!

  In March of 1993, I told Missy I would move in. She booted Razz out on his ass. He was so mad at me; he couldn’t believe I moved in. He asked me how could I do such a thing.

  I said, “Easy. The same way you became friends with MY ex-boyfriend and betrayed ME.”

  He asked, “Is that what this is about?! Jimmy?”

  I said, “Why the hell should I be loyal to you?”

  He couldn’t believe I was as cold as ice about it.

  Missy was really comforting to me. I felt at home in her house because it was messy and lived-in. And not only that but she was truly generous with me. Clothes, shoes, food, anything. She really did take care of me. She was like a mother and a big sister. I really looked up to her.

  Missy’s little duplex was well shaded and cool, because it was blocked on one side by a huge bank building and the other side was full of trees. There was a little courtyard between the cottages, with tons of potted plants and lots of house cats lounging around. It was fun living with her. I loved it. I didn’t bring much with me, so I only had one shelf in the linen closet for my things. She had posters of Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction in her bedroom and a Missing Persons album cover tacked up next to the toilet in the bathroom. The bathroom walls were a huge collage of models from Vogue in different fashions, mostly Calvin Klein and Versace. She also had a lot of Georges Marciano Guess? advertisements on the walls. There were tons of hair extensions lying around the place and bras hanging on the doorknobs. The floors were wooden and the place echoed.

  We had barbecues with all of her dancer friends, where we filled the bathtub with ice and then bottles of booze. We played disco songs and danced on the couches and tables. Her co-worker and friend, Lisel, ended up moving in next door at some point. She started to go out with us a lot. She was always really fun and wild when she drank, but was a mother figure in the day, telling us to wear sun block and be safe. We all went to Raging Waters that year, hopping on inner tubes in the big wave pool and crashing into people all day. We had such a great time in our unlined Ziganne’s stage bikinis that weren’t made to get wet, eating “Dippin' Dots” and taking pictures in the photo booth.

  One night, Missy and I were leaving Canter’s Deli on Fairfax with some of our friends. It was about two in the morning. Some guys said something rude to Missy, and the guys we were with started fighting with them. We all finally jumped into our friend Dave’s car and left, but the other guys jumped in their car and started following us down Fairfax. They were driving really fast on our tail and we couldn’t shake them. Dave said, “Everybody hold on!” and slammed on his brakes. The guys behind us smashed straight into us, totaling their clunker car. We were in a Nissan Pathfinder, so all that happened to us is that we got whiplash. Their hood was up like a tent and steam was coming out of it. Dave yelled, “Everybody out!” and the guys in our car each grabbed something to fight with and jumped out into the street. I had been in that sort of situation before, so I stayed put. But not Missy. She grabbed a skateboard, jumped out of the car, and started smashing the rude guy’s windshield. It was so late that barely any cars were coming by. The ones that did drive by just went around us. The guys jumped out of their totaled car and everyone proceeded to brawl in the middle of the street. Missy was fighting with a guy and he ripped some of her hair extensions out. I got out of the car and was collecting her hair off the ground! Once the guys were laying there with
X’s over their eyes and little chirping birds flying in a circle around their heads, we all took off to get Slurpees from 7-11. I will never forget looking at Missy with blood on her shirt and a Slurpee straw in her mouth.

  I wrote:

  We have this philosophy- don’t stress about anything. We wait until the last possible minute to cough up money for bills. That way we have two months of relaxing and then two weeks of stressing over the stuff being shut off. It is not a very good philosophy, I will admit. Everything is cool, except for the phone company is shutting off our phone on Monday if we don’t pay the bill and we don’t have the money. The electricity is going to be shut off on Tuesday, same situation.

  I am in the living room at Missy’s. The aquarium is making a relaxing sort of bubbling sound. We have one fish, Dre, and he is floating around by himself. It is 12:30 a.m. and I am watching a talk show about embarrassing spouses. The coffee table has my three-pound weights, a couple of bowls with soup still in them and a Michelob beer bottle. There are a bunch of nail polishes, old bills, and full ashtrays. The VCR is sitting in the middle of the floor because it is broken and Missy threw it across the room. I am eating a sour pomegranate. Missy and I are very much alike. I think the reason we don’t fight is because we never get too deep. We don’t talk about anything serious. We keep everything on a cool level that I like and that doesn’t stress me out.

  It was the first time I had actually contributed to a roommate situation. I didn’t have a lot to give, and I was always late with the money, but I actually started pitching in for bills and rent. I didn’t want to use her or screw her over. We handled all of the bills in a totally irresponsible manner, but she taught me about living on your own; about the process of bills, how often they came, what the minimum payments were, how much you could get away with, what wasn’t acceptable. I went with Missy to the grocery store and saw how much food cost. I went with her to pay the rent to the landlord. I was learning a little bit more about how to be a grown-up.

  Every weekend I drove to Hollywood to pick Missy up from work. We drove straight to the 7-11 across from the Whisky and got two partially filled Big Gulps of Coke. We would then bring the huge cups back to my car in the Tower Video parking lot and fill the rest with Jim Beam from the liquor store. We sat in the dark, listening to Dr. Dre’s new album, The Chronic, which featured a new rapper called Snoop Doggy Dogg. We drank, laughed, and re-applied our makeup. After about a half an hour, we got out of the car and trotted down to the Rainbow and got even more trashed. There were many rock star memories that I only slightly remember because of the drunken haze in which we lived. I couldn’t do as much writing that year because I didn’t have anywhere to hide my journals. I do remember that Missy traded shirts with Slash from Guns N’ Roses one night, but the rest is a blur. Sometimes we got there so late that the Rainbow was closing and people were leaving. We would just go mingle in the crowd in the parking lot next to The Roxy. We looked for our friends and found other places to party.

  But the Sunset crowds weren’t what they used to be. The new scene was called "Grunge" and I am sure VH1 could do a better job explaining that shit than I could. Even the name sounded dirty and grimy. There was no glitter and most definitely no cool colors. Even their style of partying was different. There was no silly string, confetti, or champagne being poured on your head. There were no balloons or beach balls. The Grunge guy’s idea of a party was stomping into a dirty brown room, wearing a dirty flannel shirt from a thrift store with some dirty-ass combat boots. He would have a beanie over his brown curly hair and a goatee on his face. After growling a throaty yell into the sky, he would then shoot some heroin. He would scream another powerful yell in the desert and then go and kill himself afterward. It was depressing, to say the very least.

  Although Missy and I were leaning toward rap over Grunge, we started wearing little tied-up flannels, combat boots, and men’s Calvin Klein underwear peeking out from baggy jeans. We plucked our eyebrows within an inch of their lives, to try to emulate the model of the moment, Kate Moss.

  The leaders of the Grunge movement were the Seattle bands: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and many more obscure ones that someone cooler than me could surely tell you about. All of the bands had albums out the year or so prior, but they started getting more popular in 1993. I started seeing Pearl Jam at more parties, and guys from Soundgarden at the Rainbow. My sister had the Nirvana CD, because they had filmed their video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” using many of the kids from her high school. Her friends were moshing in the depressing video. I listened to the CD to see what it was all about. It did strike me music-wise but I didn’t tell anyone. It made me realize all of the sadness I held in my body and it made me want to scream along with it. That was one of two or three CDs in our house, because we still had mostly cassette tapes at the time.

  So what happened to The Strip? Half of the people we normally partied with left Hollywood. They realized that their glam bands were being overlooked by the record companies for the new sound of Grunge. They returned to the states from which they came, with no record contract in hand. Others stayed in town and tried to adapt, landing jobs in the film or television industries. They took off the tight pants, cut their hair a little and took off their makeup. It was weird to see the guys that had been in makeup and pink suddenly wearing lumberjack flannels and Doc Martens. There were a few people that stuck to their guns and wouldn’t change their look or their musical aspirations, but they only looked outdated. With the exception of a few bands who made it in Japan, there was no place for them.

  No matter what look they chose, the people who stayed seemed to be hitting the drugs. Many of them chose heroin. I blamed the Seattle clique for that. Some of the party crowd committed suicide. Some went to rehab. Some of the girls in our crowd started working for a Hollywood Madam named Heidi Fleiss and others disappeared. And surely many of them just went elsewhere and got new crowds.

  The Glam Rock, “hair band” scene was over. And just like the rest of them, I was left standing at a crossroad. Would I continue on with these people? Follow them wherever they ended up? What would become of me? I didn’t think I could ever live a normal life after all that I had been through. I was afraid of regular people; I only felt comfortable around people who were wild. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn't sure who would have me. I closed my eyes and prayed to God to do whatever he wanted with my life. I figured he would know much better than I would.

  The first thing that happened was that some guy at my telemarketing job told me he knew someone at a nice restaurant in Encino, and that I should apply there. He said he would hook me up with a job. I went into the restaurant the next day. I took an escalator past potted palm fronds up onto a beautiful brick patio. Gorgeous people of both sexes were walking around with handled shopping bags. Everyone looked so…manicured. I saw hair that was highlighted, skin that was dewy and taken care of. I saw tasteful nails in hues of barely-there pink. I saw soft leather handbags. I saw white teeth and delicate tank watches. Men wore starched shirts and had shiny leather shoes. I walked through two huge, glass doors and was immediately blinded by the sunlight pouring through the place. Half of the walls were also glass, so they let in natural light. The other walls were mirrored. It was tidy and crisp-looking, with glass tabletops over bleached white tablecloths. The servers were wearing burgundy aprons over white polo shirts and white pants. They all looked freshly showered and scrubbed. The place was the exact opposite of where I had spent the last three years of my life.

  The next thing I knew, everything turned slow motion. This beautiful creature behind the counter looked up at me and we locked eyes. I saw thick, dark eyebrows, smoldering honey- colored eyes, and short, dark hair. He looked rather preppy, like a fraternity guy who played lacrosse or something. I asked him for an application, and he looked right into my pupils while talking to me. I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn’t been nervous over a guy in years. But this guy was so striking and so differen
t from the guys I was accustomed to, that it took me aback. I was very surprised at myself for the reaction I had.

  My life changed in that moment. I had been waiting for something to make me lose interest in the people I was keeping company with, but nothing was as interesting, so I kept going back. But now…now there was this new possibility. I actually found a normal looking guy attractive! I would simply start dating him, then-

  *tire screeching sound*

  It suddenly dawned on me. My shoulders dropped a little as I stood with the application in my hand and he went back to packing a ‘to go’ order into paper bags. He wanted nothing to do with me. I looked at myself in the mirror next to us. My makeup suddenly appeared very heavy. My hair looked dull and brittle. I had gained weight from all of the late nights at Del Taco. I looked dirty and bloated. I did not know how to groom myself properly. I was no longer “fresh” or beautiful. I had become a sloppy drunk during my nights out with Missy. On any given night, I was slurring, foul-mouthed, and ill-mannered, with a complete lack of morality. I did whatever I wanted, indulged in any behavior I felt like. I gave in to any impulse I had. There were times when that was awesome. If someone was an asshole, I said, “You’re an asshole” to their face, or slapped them. If someone did me wrong, I punched them in the nose. And hell, it was always great going to the store in my bright blue mud mask and pajamas. But I had no pride in myself. I was violent and abrasive, cursing and yelling at people, throwing food or bottles when I became angry. I fell over tables, out of car doors, danced on bars and then came crashing down. I was an embarrassment. A total mess.