Author Archives: Brick Wahl

Nachos

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(2011)

I was sick all the night  before…was still shaky when I got to the hotel for the protest. Dropped by Trader Vic’s in the hotel lobby for a whiskey. I felt like such a cliché….a reporter dropping by a bar on the way to an assignment and it ain’t even noon yet. Whiskey helped, though, and the second helped even more, and things settled down enough for me to interview a bunch of angry musicians. Drove to the day gig right afterward, still feeling sick as a dog, and when I walked into the elevator on the way to my office there was this overwhelming odor of cheap Mexican food…they were giving away nachos for some reason. Servers glopping them on people’s plates. People ladleing on sour cream and green salsa and red salsa and oily grated cheese. Trapped in the back of the elevator by a dozen people trying not to drop their nachos. Oh god. The twenty floors was an eternity. On every floor people on and off. I hated them. People can talk endlessly about nachos. Finally my floor. Got to my desk, opened my email and I’m getting  yelled at by a couple people for not telling people how incredibly important some gigs were. Work was fucked. Got home at eight I think. Tried to eat. Tried to write. Tried to sleep. Damn. Why do I keep doing this? I hate being a jazz columnist. I was gonna quit a couple weeks ago and had guilt trips laid on me like you can’t believe.  And now I still have that thing to write and my regular copy to write and I am tired of this writer crap real bad. Either that or I need a vacation. Anyway, I got the piece written. Now all I have to do is not think about nachos and I’ll be fine.

Soft Rock

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Wow. I think I would rather die, personally. Note that it is one block away from the old Al’s Bar. We’d park on Hewitt and head to Al’s to have our ears blasted by the crazy punk rock, three or four bands a night. I remember seeing a dead guy on the 400 block of Hewitt once. Must have been two in the morning. Our ears were ringing. Is he drunk? A cop nudged him with his boot. He didn’t wake up. The night air reeked of urine and Thunderbird and bats darted in and out of abandoned factories. Lamp posts and telephone poles threw moonlit shadows. I wonder who he was someone asked. No one answered. We were drunk and laughing and he was dead and that is just how things were before the soft rock revival.

Soft rock

Crisco

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(2012)

Back when Silver Lake was leather heaven all the corner markets had lots and lots of Crisco on the shelves. I never thought about that until I saw a totally leathered out guy my size at the liquor store getting  ready for a party.  Snacks, beer, booze, cigars, breakfast cereal (coco puffs, I remember that 30 years later), milk, juice, donuts and every can of Crisco on the shelf. Like eight cans worth. The poor kid working the counter looked absolutely horrified. The leather dude was loving it.

There are none of those guys left in the neighborhood. I bet 90% of them died. They sang I Will Survive and then died. Their bars are straight, their houses full of hipsters and irony. Chaps aren’t just for gay boys anymore. The plague came through and destroyed that whole civilization. It laid waste the land, leaving Silver Lake barren with breeders. It’s raining babies now. But those were the days, the survivors sing. Those were the days. What a party. A man was a man and Crisco wasn’t just for frying chicken.

All out of vanilla Haagen-Dazs

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(2010)

Was out  late last nite. Saw some great bands in a little Mexican dive in Lincoln Heights. I love the East Side. Silver Lake used to be East Side. Maybe not the tops of the Swish Alps, but in the lowlands, along the boulevards, and almost everything south of Sunset. It was Latino and gay and leather and punk rock and bohemian with traces of hippies and hints of jazz even, left over from the Soap Plant daze. Alas, Silver Lake is so Westside now. I remember years ago watching a blonde–one of those ultra blondes–walking down a nearby street with tits like grapefruit. Perfect orbs. You could teach geometry with those things. I stared a minute and thought Good Lord, what has become of my neighborhood? It wasn’t much later at the Mayfair (now Gelson’s) that a gorgeous power blonde–she had to be an attorney, just had to be–stormed up to the manager on perfect legs and screamed You’re all out of vanilla Haagen-Dazs! She was livid. Gave him hell, the poor bastard. He apologized. She said something wealthy and angry. My wife, watching, burst out loud laughing.

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Cinco de Mayo

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Back in the eighties Cinco de Mayo wasn’t a big thing in Silverlake. September 16 was. People partied in the street, cerveza, tequila, mescal as it grew late. The sweet smell of leafy mota. All kinds of tamales. Vincente Fernandez blaring from huge boom boxes you could buy down on Broadway at wholesale. By 3 a.m. it was Viva Mexico and dancing on the sidewalk. ¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron la patria y libertad!, slurred. Loud cackling. This was right in the middle of Silver Lake too. Then spelled Silverlake. Pricey apartments were often tenements then, paint peeling from the walls, noisy plumbing. It was a different universe, the old Silverlake. Those buildings are all painted now, the plumbing new. There used to be rats. Now there are screenwriters. The Mexicanos are gone. The Filipinos are gone. Varrio Aztlan is gone. The Armenians are off in Glendale now. The gays are gone to WeHo, where it still rains men on weekends. The punks are gone. Gone the way of the hippies and beats and Russian emigres before them. Gone like the nissei who once owned all the nurseries, also gone. Everything’s gone but us. We’re still here, three decades later, watching the drunk huero hipsters and deciding that vegan fusion tacos aren’t our idea of Cinco de Mayo.

Thirty years ago I remember talking to some geezer who was complaining about all the taquerias. They used to all be hot dog stands, he said. He didn’t even like tacos. He liked hot dogs. But even the hot dogs were new once, he said. The old timers, the farmers and small town people, they didn’t like hot dogs. Too European. Too hunky. Too kraut. You used to be able to get good fried chicken anywhere they said. But then the movie people moved in and everyone wanted hot dogs. The movies ruined Silver Lake, they said. Ruined the place. Tom Mix and the Keystone cops and D.W. Griffith and Mickey Mouse. Now look at it. I did. It looked fine. I liked tacos and cheap rent and weirdos. The geezer shook his head. You would.

Now I look around and miss the tacos and cheap rent and weirdos. The Cinco de Mayo no one cared about and the Dia de Independencia, which refuses to roll off an English speaking tongue without stumbling. Maybe not Vincinte Fernandez at ear splitting volume at three in the morning, but I miss the swigs off a bottle of mescal handed to me just because I was walking down the street on September 16, la dia de independencia. That’s a lot of syllables for a holiday, especially drunk and stoned. Maybe that’s why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo. It’s easier to say.

Whether you’re a vato ‘stache toting patriot or an alcoholic looking for any excuse to drink before noon, everyone loves Cinco de Mayo, (unless you are French, in which case, celebrate a day of sacrifice and lament). Getting drunk on Cinco de Mayo is as Angelenian as circumventing federal legal policy to purchase drugs from”licensed doctors”. Sure, you will likely go way over your party budget and end up hooking up with any number of muffin-topped minges, but it’s all in the honor of our hermanos who gave their lives for a country where the drugs come easy and the whores are cheap. Oh, we should also be celebrating Mexico, shouldn’t we? As if LA needs a reason to celebrate tacos and tequila more than we do on a daily basis, here are your top 5 fiestas around town. - See more at: http://www.ultravulgarsuperfiend.com/cinco-de-mayo-event-guide/#sthash.wwe2k6mg.dpuf

“Whether you’re a vato ‘stache toting patriot or an alcoholic looking for any excuse to drink before noon, everyone loves Cinco de Mayo. Getting drunk on Cinco de Mayo is as Angelenian as circumventing federal legal policy to purchase drugs from licensed doctors’. Sure, you will likely go way over your party budget and end up hooking up with any number of muffin-topped minges, but it’s all in the honor of our hermanos who gave their lives for a country where the drugs come easy and the whores are cheap. Oh, we should also be celebrating Mexico, shouldn’t we? As if LA needs a reason to celebrate tacos and tequila more than we do on a daily basis…”

There are bigots, and then there are hipster bigots.

Nightstalker

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Once, at a nice little cocktail party in town, I met one of the women who’d proposed to Richard Ramirez. The Night Stalker? Yes. Why? He was nice, she said. She’d written him lots of letters. He’d written some back. He was into pentagrams, she said. She was pretty, quite sweet, a little off, but not so off that you’d imagine her wanting to marry Richard Ramirez. I didn’t say anything. You’d be surprised how tongue tied you get when someone tells you they want to marry Richard Ramirez. Of course, he’s long gone now, and the woman who did marry him–breaking this lady’s heart, apparently–is a widow who for the rest of her life will have to explain why she married Richard Ramirez. I doubt anyone will understand.

Well, Charlie Manson’s wife would. He’s going on 80, she’s young enough to be his great grand daughter. She loves him. Manages all his social media sites, and even cut an x into her forehead to prove it, though it’s just a little scar now. She doesn’t believe a word about Helter Skelter. He had nothing to do with killing all those people, she said. He doesn’t manipulate anybody. The only thing that he’s trying to manipulate people into doing, she said, is planting trees and cleaning up the Earth. Charlie is nice to everyone.

Richard Ramirez’s wife said the same about her betrothed. We don’t know the real Richard, she said. He’s kind, he’s funny, he’s charming.

I didn’t ask the lady at the party anything about Richard. I got a bad vibe and snuck off to the other side of the room. Everyone was eyeing her. She was pretty, after all, with very nice legs. She was striking in her black dress and lace and raven hair. She was crazy. And she’d wanted to marry the Night Stalker.

Love is a beautiful thing.

Rock dove

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We no longer have pigeons in Silver Lake. We have rock doves. Indeed, there was one on the sun deck. Just one. Very selective, our rock doves. The elite. Not like the mobs of pigeons you’d see in the Ralphs parking lot, waiting for the crazy bird lady. But Ralphs is gone, the bird lady is gone, and the pigeons are gone, who knows where. There are other parking lots, other bird ladies. So there was just the one rock dove, gleaming after a winter’s rain. He landed on our sun deck with its million dollar view, and the mere mourning doves and finches and sparrows scurried out of its way. The rock dove carefully selected only the choicest seeds, looked about, and then, tired of slumming it, flew off to the rich people in the hills, where he can find a finer selection of avian cuisine and bird baths sculpted in Carrara marble. Meanwhile, back on our sundeck the mourning doves and finches and sparrows rushed back in, bickering, pecking, a disorder of tiny dinosaurs with no class at all. Gentrification has a long way to go among these birds.

A hoi polloi of pigeons, unwilling to discover their inner rock dove.

A hoi polloi of pigeons, unwilling to realize their inner rock dove.

Beautiful young things

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Beautiful young things still come to our door by mistake almost daily. Well, two or three times a week. Our street is a beautiful young thing magnet. They come up the steps looking at their iPhones, confused, peer in through the front window and see me. Now there’s a sight. Bravely they knock on the door. Sometimes they ask for so and so in a hip New Yawkese. Sometimes they have tiny little English accents. This one the latter, cute but très hip. As always I was very polite, if unshaven. I smile. Upstairs, I suggest. She thanked me and took delicate, teetering high heeled steps back down, and I watch and wonder how one gets so old. Twenty five years in one pad. How many cats back was that? How many jobs? Bands? We moved in scarcely older than she. I would jump the two flights of stairs two and three at a time. I moved the furniture in myself. The boxes of books and records. Now I hobble up and down, arthritic, from jumping all those stairs, perhaps, or maybe falling down them, and I watch too much TV. Grown men, Canadians mostly, are brawling, and young things come up the steps like poetry.

Food truck

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Driving by the Satellite (ex-Spaceland for all you old timers, ex-Dreams of LA for all you even older timers) this past weekend I saw the food truck out front. Gotta have a food truck out front nowadays. It’s no burrito wagon I said out loud. Not in Silver Lake. The truck bore a digital sign. The name came across. Wait a minute, “Pinche Flavor”?  Love it! I said let’s stop. My wife said why. I said I wanted to get a burrito at Pinche Flavor. She pointed out the sign said Pinch of Flavor. Oh. You should wear your glasses she said. Then I realized I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say pinche anything in this neighborhood. We kept driving. The pinche hipsters were lining up for their Korean fusion vegan whatevers, and I hate lines anyway.

Old school.

Old school

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Brian Wilson

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There’s the time that Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop were invited over to Brian Wilson’s house to work on some music. True story…this was in the 80’s. They felt like they’d been summoned by royalty. They get there and Brian is in his bathrobe at the piano in the middle of the sandbox, catshit everywhere. Brian is playing Shortnin’ Bread, singing how Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread. He waves to Alice and Iggy to join in.  Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’, they all sang, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread. Then again. And again. After a while they asked if he wanted to work on any other tunes but all he wanted to do was sing Shortnin’ Bread. Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread. He showed them how it was played on the piano, and why it was the greatest song ever and how it was the only song he wanted to play ever.  An endless hour went by, Brian singing Shortnin’ Bread over and over and Alice and Iggy feeling more and more uncomfortable. Finally Alice excused himself and made his escape taking Iggy with him. Neither talked about it for a long time. I don’t know if Iggy ever has. Think of it…Brian completely weirded out Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop. Scared them, even.  Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.