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| Christmas at Disgraceland: L to R: Limey dave of Tupelo Chainsex, Iris Berry, Booby "From Memphis" McClellan photo courtesy of Iris Berry |
Some of my favorite Christmas
memories aren’t traditional… by any stretch of the imagination.
From the 1978 to 1988, I
lived at Disgraceland, my punk rock crash pad located just behind Frederick’s Of
Hollywood. Disgraceland was one quarter of a 1920's era stucco four-plex at 1553 Cassil Place, a quiet side street which, until we moved in, was
occupied mostly by large multi- generational Mexican families and the senior
citizens who lived in nearby studio apartments ever since not making it as film stars during the last days of Hollywood’s
Golden Age.
Disgraceland was home to an
ever-revolving cast of room mates including The Go-Go’s Belinda Carlisle, Kid
Congo of the Gun Club and The Cramps, Tex And The Horseheads’ guitarist Mike
Martt, writer and Lame Flame Iris Berry and her underground artist boyfriend “Mad” Marc Rude, Ward Dotson of The Gun Club,
my Screaming Sirens band-mate Laura Bennett, my husband Levi, of Levi And The
Rockats, and Joey Altruda and Limey Dave from the band Tupelo Chainsex.
The list of Disgraceland “regulars”- people
who crashed there constantly and often stayed for days or weeks at a time
included rock ‘n’roll legend Screamin’ Jay Hawkins,
Angelo and Norwood of Fishbone, Duff McKagan of Guns ‘N’Roses, Charlie Sexton, Texacala Jones,
members of Poison 13, The Hickoids, The Hangmen, Junkyard, DRI, The Joneses,
TSOL and many more. Disgraceland was also a pit stop for the
skateboarding elite, entertaining and
often housing champs Tony Alva, Steve Olson,
“Alabamy” Jay, an under-age Christian Hosoi and his father Ivan, Chuck
Treece, Thrasher editor MoFo and Skatemaster Tate.
Because of the nightly-and always uproariously
loud –parties plus the subsequent debauchery that routinely spilled into the
yard and onto the sidewalk, Disgraceland had a very well deserved bad
reputation with our neighbors, and even within the Hollywood rock scene. For every stranded, drunken musician that
stumbled onto our porch in the middle of the night looking for a party, there were at least three scenesters who avoided the place entirely, mainly cause they were scared of us!
Nevertheless, we Disgracelanders still
had the Christmas spirit…it’s just that
we couldn’t really afford any holiday gifts or decorations, because any cash we
had was going straight to bottles of Jack Daniels, packs of cigarettes and cases
of beer. We remedied the Christmas decoration thing
easily; during the Holiday Season, Iris and I would have burley guys hoist us
up on their shoulders so we could rip the tinsel and decorations off the
ceiling of the bars and nightclubs we were visiting. On one of the many times I
got 86’d from Raji’s, the infamous punk club I booked, manager Dobbs threw me out
because I’d torn down all the tinsel from the showroom’s ceiling.
In an unforeseen change of events, two days
later, Dobbs called me into the office to thank me, explaining that the Fire
Marshall had just visited Raji’s, and because there was no Mylar garland on the
ceiling, he’d dodged a $500.00 fire violation!
Because of my drunken, sparkly Holiday vandalism, I enjoyed free drinks well into the New
Year.
One year, we decorated by salvaging a massive,
discarded Christmas tree from the alley behind Club Lingerie in the wee hours of Christmas Eve. It took three of
us, grunting and pulling and dragging the tree on foot around the corner to
Disgraceland, but by golly, we got it up and proudly stood it in a corner of
our living room, between two Marshall amps. Unfortunately, the entire
stolen cache of Christmas garland was already in use ( most of it hung from the pull-tabs on my cowboy boots) and we had nothing to trim the tree with.
Suddenly, inspiration struck, and we decided on a traditional red and white theme…piling on everything we had in those colors. Our tree was hung with red patent leather 1950's spike heeled pumps, Marlboro flip-top boxes, Budweiser cartons, red and white brassieres, panties and fishnets, and Elementary School style paper snowflakes we cut from band flyers and attached with guitar strings. We topped the tree with a Santa Hat someone had found on Sunset Boulevard during The Hollywood Christmas Parade. That tree looked so good, we left it up until the next April!
Suddenly, inspiration struck, and we decided on a traditional red and white theme…piling on everything we had in those colors. Our tree was hung with red patent leather 1950's spike heeled pumps, Marlboro flip-top boxes, Budweiser cartons, red and white brassieres, panties and fishnets, and Elementary School style paper snowflakes we cut from band flyers and attached with guitar strings. We topped the tree with a Santa Hat someone had found on Sunset Boulevard during The Hollywood Christmas Parade. That tree looked so good, we left it up until the next April!
On another fabled Christmas
Eve, there were about thirty people at Disgraceland celebrating by taking the
magic mushrooms that The Hickoids’ guitarist Juke Box had so thoughtfully
provided; everyone in the house was tripping their brains out. Our latest obsession was the underground
psychedelic sensation The Legendary
Stardust Cowboy, an “outsider” artist who routinely ranked extremely high up on “ The Worst Records
Ever Recorded” lists, who’d once
appeared on Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In as a novelty act.
Members of the seminal Psychobilly
group The Meteors had turned Levi onto The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, whose
name, it was rumored, stood for LSD: Legendary
Star Dust…get it? We had his 1969 cult hit “Paralyzed” on the record player
set with the arm across, so it would play over and over. The screaming, ranting, unintelligible vocals,
pounding drums, hellish feedback and random bugle calls of “Paralyzed” served
as the perfect backdrop for the chaos
that ensued.
Someone had brought over a
package of those kid’s coloring books, the kind where the pictures turned
colors when they were painted with water. As soon as the drugs took hold, Iris
and I decided that it would be a fun idea
to see if liquids other than water worked on the coloring books as well,
so at our decree, everyone started
finger painting painting the pages with beer and vodka. Naturally, it piqued our curiosity to see
what other substances would do- so Iris and I sent some of the boys off to the bedrooms and bathroom
with the coloring books, plus issues of Playboy
and Hustler to inspire their "creative out-put". The masterpieces they created privately bore an uncanny resemblance to
Jackson Pollack’s greatest work!
I was in the hallway standing outside the
bathroom, coaching a guest along in his auto erotic
“artistic endeavor” by talking dirty through the door, when Jukebox came
up to me with a dazed look on his face, telling me that The Legendary Stardust
Cowboy was at the door. At first, I
didn’t believe him- what the hell would
this aging, beyond-the-fringe ten gallon hat wearing lunatic from Lubbock,
Texas be doing at my house on Christmas Eve...especially while his 45 had
been playing continuously for over two
hours? It was simply too ridiculous to believe, but Jukebox was so earnest that
finally, I took him seriously.
I walked into the living room, and sure enough, there was The
Cowboy standing at the threshold to our front door, ten-gallon hat in hand. He addressed me by name, politely asking if
he could come in, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his record was blasting
on my battered $99.00 Sears Roebuck stereo.
He looked like he really could be The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, but even though I could barely construct a simple sentence, I grilled him nonetheless… I didn’t want some random crazy old man ruining our mushroom-fueled painting party! It turned out that he’d read about Disgraceland in a rock’n’roll magazine, and finding himself alone in Hollywood on a quiet Christmas Eve, he’d made it his business to find our house, figuring we’d be, as he termed it, “rockin’ all night”. Apparently, he was staying at a motel, and had walked all the way to Hollywood in search of us. He gave us all promotional post cards, and seemed very excited that we knew who he was. Soon, Jukebox had a couple of guitars plugged in and was jamming along with The Cowboy and everyone else, screaming out “Paralyzed”, The Seed’s “Pushing Too Hard” and various Christmas carols. This went on for quite a long time, until it started getting light outside.
He looked like he really could be The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, but even though I could barely construct a simple sentence, I grilled him nonetheless… I didn’t want some random crazy old man ruining our mushroom-fueled painting party! It turned out that he’d read about Disgraceland in a rock’n’roll magazine, and finding himself alone in Hollywood on a quiet Christmas Eve, he’d made it his business to find our house, figuring we’d be, as he termed it, “rockin’ all night”. Apparently, he was staying at a motel, and had walked all the way to Hollywood in search of us. He gave us all promotional post cards, and seemed very excited that we knew who he was. Soon, Jukebox had a couple of guitars plugged in and was jamming along with The Cowboy and everyone else, screaming out “Paralyzed”, The Seed’s “Pushing Too Hard” and various Christmas carols. This went on for quite a long time, until it started getting light outside.
Sadly, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy never
made us a painting that evening, but he did autograph my copy of “Paralyzed”.
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| Totally naughty! Me in the 1980's with a smoking Christmas elf photo: Joey Altruda |
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The story you've just read is an excerpt from my forthcoming book "Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere" out in 2015 on Punk Hostage Press
Listen to “Paralyzed”
by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy here:
Purchase a
signed copy of my memoir “Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage,
Backstage And On The Road” here:
I read this and I enjoyed it.
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