LAnd of a Thousand Rock Stars

More from that memorable trip, this time in LA.

My buddy Q and I spent some time there last month, where everyone seems to think they're either a rock star, a very personal friend of a rock star (by virtue of some work they did for the rock star's label back in '02), or god - meaning several levels below a rock star.

In this strange, strange place, truth is secondary to attention-grabbing headline-speak. Every time we were introduced to people the story would shift. A friend of ours had "just met these guys from Israel on the street", we were "punk guys who have their own teeny underground radio station that plays the Casualties all the time", and several other random permutations. My memory for lies isn't what it used to be. But we certainly hadn't just met, and it wasn't "on the street" etc..

We were shown a good night out on the town by this person. It was her friend's birthday, which we celebrated by bar-hopping, consuming copious amounts of alcohol and the so-called alcohol known as "American beer", and finally ended up at birthday boy's apartment. Inside was the usual party scene, with a clear center of attention: strewn on the couch to one side was a guy with telltale emo hair (front swept to one side in the least natural look possible, streaked), surrounded by three girls. "Another rockstar wannabe", I thought. Everyone seemed to be talking with him or discussing him.

Q and I sat down on the couch next to him, and between Jaeger shots (all that was left at that point) we struck up a conversation. This guy's name is DJ. really. As I was talking with him, it was hard not to miss the black bandaid stuck on his right cheek, with white skull-and-crossbones imprint. Two of the three girls around him had the very same bandaid, thus removing any suspicion that he, heaven forfend, actually needed one. No, this was part of that whole rediculous fashion thing "punk"'s become.

So I started by asking him very basic questions about his band ("band, eh? what do you do in the band? your name's 'DJ'? are you one?").. He seemed quite surprised to be meeting anyone who doesn't immediately fall down in worship. Q took it a step further, though.. [warning: you have to know something about rock and punk, past and present, to get this.]

"So what music do you guys play?" he asks. We both know full well this has got to be some cookie-cutter, connect-the-dots mall-punk emo crap. We were curious what he'd answer. "We play rock, basically, yeah.." "REALLY?", Q leans over with his best fake 'sure I care about you' expression, "rock? like AC/DC?" "No, not really".. "so, rock.. like Motorhead, right?". I'm dying at this point. This brilliant man had taken everything I've been telling him for years about what rock's really about, where its heart and soul is, and was shoving it in this guy's face.

"no, not really, more like Green Day stuff". Guilty, I'm thinking, of rock-star wannabeism of the first degree! I'm in seventh heaven. A DVD case of this band's tour was lying on the table in front of us. Q asks him about it, and he starts telling stories of how they toured every corner of the planet five zillion times in LA-speak.

Ah, LA speak: in this language, whilst grinning and sounding spaced out, the word "fuckin'" is liberally sprinkled everywhere, it replaces virtually all commas and periods ("it was fuckin like fuckin yeah man fuckin..") and attached itself to all and's and but's (and fuckin wow man.. it was like, you know how there's this friend of yours whose like fuckin the great party animal you know? but fuckin these guys were way crazier!"). His friend across the room, with bandaid placed horizontally across the base of his nose giving him that intellectual, boxer look, grunts in agreement. It was a rather amusing sight.

When our "friend" DJ returns to the issue of the DVD, Q eggs him on. He starts getting all faux-excited, and finally says "oh my god, I've GOT to have that DVD!". I know this guy. he'd never talk like this to anyone. It was hysterical.

Anyway, I'm not really going anywhere with this. I guess you had to be there!