I must admit, I've been pretty crushed by the celebrity deaths this past week. Maurice Sendak, of course, was one of The Greats -- every childhood should be filled with his Wild Things, Pierre, and even his cunning little vixens. He was the greatest author I ever saw speak -- a curmudgeonly demeanor, yet amidst his "bahs" his words were so honest and even gentle, and he always seemed to be on the side of the children and respected them wholly. (No namby pamby coddling from him, no sir!) I loved him. Then Vidal Sassoon... I met him when he did a book signing at my old bookstore, and he was the kindest, most gracious and gentlemanly author that we ever hosted. I was in awe ("ohmigod, Vidal SASSOON!") and he told me I had beautiful hair. I don't, but that's a testament to how nice he was. His passing was a punch in the chest. Yet both of these men, while I'm sorry they're gone, they led lives so full and shared so much with the rest of us that I can't help but just be grateful they lived.
But the one I really loved that we lost this week was Adam Yauch, of course. MCA. He was taken way too soon -- 47 was way too young to go, and I think that he had a lot of good left to do. And it's funny -- I was almost shocked at the outpouring of love for him on the old facebook feed. I mean, I knew on a certain level that a lot of people loved The Beastie Boys, but I didn't realize that so many of my friends would be so affected. But I guess it makes sense -- they were smarmy teenagers when we were, and we all kind of grew up together. (Though admittedly he grew up a lot better and kinder than most of the rest of us did.)
I was standing on 5th Avenue when I heard he died and I felt my knees grow a bit weak. It was almost surreal -- whenever I'm in New York, The Beasties are on a constant loop in my head. Almost annoyingly so, as they are earworm fragments: "My man MCA has a beard like a billy goat/whoo whoo! Is the disco call/So I'm out pickin' pockets at the Atlantic Antic/And nobody wants to hear you cause your rhymes are so frantic/Homeboy, throw in the towel/ Your girl got d***d by Ricky Powell/ HEEELLLOOOO BROOOOOOKLYN!!!!" Yeah, constant, but still, it's what always happens to me in NYC and I like it. But suddenly it wasn't amusing -- it was sad. the Beastie Boys had created an image of new York City for me, and I have never been there without thinking of their "narration," and the legend they created surrounding it. And now one of its favorite citizens was gone. I sat in my hotel room and listened to "Paul's Boutique" and felt sad and old.
A few years ago I did a reading with a "rock'n'roll" theme at Litquake, and after wracking my brain I wrote the one rock'n'roll story I have in my kind of uptight, nerdy life: the summer I wished desperately to be a groupie for The Beastie Boys. I haven't looked at it since I performed it (and it's much better performed, I think, because I've listened to "Paul's Boutique so many times I can get the B-Boy inflections down, boooyyyeeee), but I found it today and thought I'd post it here. I don't usually post things I write, but what the hell. It's far from deep or meaningful, but it was fun. Enjoy.
Like many bookish nerdy girls, I
worked in a bookstore while in high school, college, and beyond. I loved inhaling the smell of books as I
walked through the door, and I loved the fact that I worked in a bookstore – it
made me feel not just nerdy but smart.
And I loved that anything I ever wanted to know was all right there, for
a 30% discount or for free while eating lunch in the breakroom.
But the best part about it was
stripping. As in stripping the covers
off paperbacks to return them to the publishers, and we could have the books
for free. The world was my oyster! So much to learn, so much to choose from – I
could read Proust and Dickens and Austen and Plath, perfect for an English
major like me. But more often than not,
the naked books slipped into my purse were actually “Sweet Valley High” novels,
and one book that has stayed with me in memory and every move from apartment to
apartment: “I’m With the Band” by Pamela Des Barres.
For those unfamiliar with Ms. Des
Barres’ tome – it is the story of her life as a rock’n’roll kitten, and her
rollicking adventures cavorting with the likes of Jim Morrison, Jimmy Page, and
Keith Moon. And it wasn’t that she was
just hanging out with these people – she made an entire career out of being a
bona fide groupie. To me, her life seemed
to be filled with sunshine and flowers, sweet hazy smoke and musky patchouli,
feather boas and velvet capes (and the occasional whip and chain thanks to the
aforementioned Mr. Page). It all seemed
so glamorous, and being a groupie sounded way more fun than working in a
bookstore. I envied her position and
guileless hipness, and her uncanny ability to be in the Right Place at the
Right Time. And, of course, her liaises
with famous rockstars.
She was a total inspiration. I, too, wished for that VIP pass beyond the
velvet rope. How awesome would it be to
sail into the coolest clubs while wearing fabulous clothes, catching the eye of
the Rockstar Du Jour, and going back to a swanky Sunset Blvd hotel for some
crazy partying and mind blowing sex and then write a best selling memoir filled
with flattering photos of me and the hoi polloi? It would be TOTALLY AWESOME.
But let’s face it – there were some
obstacles for my groupie-dom. I was not
a nubile sex kitten in skimpy outfits, ready for a rock’n’rollin’ good
time. I was a bookstore nerd, more
likely to get hit by a bus than catch a rockstar’s eye. And the other obstacle:
It was the 80’s.
Sure, that one guy from Depeche
Mode was cute, and one of my friends?
Totally had sex with the other guy from Depeche Mode! And while I’m sure Robert Plant was all sex
with his flowing locks in the 70’s, but by the 80’s, the flowing locks adorned
the likes of Axl Rose and Whitesnake, and their contribution to the hole in the
ozone layer with their liberal use of Aqua Net did nothing for the sexy
factor. And, well, most of the bands I
liked – new wave – it was hard to determine which gender the members of these
bands preferred. (Though, admittedly, I
was a sucker for those boys. More on
that another time.)
But despite these obstacles, I had
my groupie crush, an object of desire.
Had I been a decade younger and he’d been the Teen Beat magazine type,
his poster would have been all over my walls.
And I was sure we were destined to be together.
Adam Horovitz, aka Ad Rock from The
Beastie Boys.
I had been an okay fan of License
To Ill. I believed one had to fight for
their right to party, and a brass monkey sounded like a delicious
cocktail. And Ad Rock, the whiny one,
was pretty cute. But hearing about all
the hoopla surrounding “Paul’s Boutique” made me go out and buy it – ON
CASSETTE – the day it came out. The
sheer genius of it made me flip the tape over and over, and shake my head at the thrill and craft –
the once obnoxious party boys had gone to another level and had become
artistes. Plus the sampling of the Jam and the soundtrack to Shaft made me
realize that “the whiny one” – who must have been the aficionado behind the
genius (because he was the cutest) – and I were meant to be. I was totally ready to get funky.
At the time, I lived in Southern California,
and the Beastie Boys did, too. It was
kismet that we would run into one another and our eyes would lock and he’d be
all, “YOU’RE DOPE.” And I’d be all, “Awwww yeeeah,” and we would shake our
rumps. It was only a matter of
time. And in that meantime, I convinced
my friends Raina and Monica that they were totally meant to be with MCA and Mike
D., the other Beastie Boys, much like we had chosen which Monkee was “ours”
years before. “Mike D’s not that cute,”
Monica complained. “He’s the dorky one.
Why do I have to have the dorky one?”
“But he’s cool,” I said. “And
funny! Come on, the line, ‘Is your name
Michael Diamond? No, my name’s Clarence’
is hilarious.” “Whatever,” she said, not
buying it, but it was summer and we had nothing to do anyway. Luckily, Raina was thrilled with her MCA
destiny, and our Beastie stalking had begun.
One night, we ran into one of
Monica’s friends, Steven, at Canter’s Deli.
We gave him a ride, and of course, “Paul’s Boutique” was playing in the
car – it was the only thing that was ever played in the car, and we’d committed
the whole thing to memory. “Righteous,”
Steven said. “This album is the
bomb.” We all agreed and then he said,
“You know, the other night I was at the AM PM on Fairfax and Ad Rock was there
and we totally smoked a fatty.”
“WHAT???” I shrieked. I had been at that very AM PM two nights
before, buying a flavorless sandwich and some gas, and Ad Rock had definitely
NOT been there. How come Steven had all
the luck?
“Yeah,” he said. “He was all, ‘Dude, you wanna smoke a j?’ and
I was like, “Fuck YEAH I wanna smoke a j with a fuckin’ B-Boy.” I couldn’t believe it.
“And then what?” I prodded.
“We went back to his place and got
stoned and played records. It was RAD.”
“Oh. My.
God,” I said. “SHUT UP. Do you
mean to tell me that you know where ADAM HOROVITZ lives?”
“Yeah,” he yawned, like it was
every day he hung out with major recording artists. He directed us to an old 1920’s apartment
complex on Manhattan Place near St.Andrews, and we parked in front. “Are you gonna go in? I mean you’re friends, right?”
He looked out the window. “Lights are off,” he said. “He’s not home.”
“Which one is it?” He pointed vaguely at the dark top left
apartment, and we vowed to come back.
So Raina and I (Monica lost
interest because she just “couldn’t get into” Mike D) started our Beastie
stakeouts, parking across the street and ducking any time a car drove by,
hoping to catch a glimpse of Ad-Rock and MCA going in or out. One night we even bought eggs, in homage to
“Egg Raid on Mojo” (from their punk rock EP Pollywog Stew) and “Egg Man” from
Paul’s Boutique, and smashed them onto the sidewalk, our own in-joke calling
card that we were SURE Ad Rock would get and it would intrigue him. But the apartment was always dark – maybe they were
out promoting the record? Going to
star-studded parties? Visiting family in
Brooklyn? But we kept hearing stories –
So and So saw AdRock and Mike D at the pool hall on 20th and
Wilshire (THREE BLOCKS FROM MONICA’S HOUSE), a sighting at Fred Segal on
Melrose, they were on Johnny Carson….they were totally in town. And we realized that Steven was full of shit
– why would a millionaire rock star live in a crappy four-plex off Wilshire,
when he could buy a mansion in the Hollywood Hills? DUH.
But one thing we got wind of that
wasn’t bullshit was that our future husbands were going to be filming the video
for their song “Shadrach” at The Country Club in Reseda, and they needed people
to come because it was going to be a concert video. Raina and I were all over that action. We planned for days what we were going to
wear, deciding that we were going to dress nicely, so we wouldn’t be mistaken
for the dumb sluts that let the Beastie Boys pour honey all over them
backstage, like in the Licensed to Ill video.
They had matured since then, too, so they wouldn’t be interested in the
same lame girls. We would show them that we were TRUE fans and had class, and
the new mustard colored middy shirt I got on Melrose and my black skirt would
be perfect.
So out of the 8 or so girls who
showed up, we were the only ones not wearing tube tops and mini skirts.
Still, because we were of the
female persuasion (as opposed to the hundreds of dudes there that were
shouting, “WHAT’S THE TIME? IT’S TIME TO
GET ILL!”), we got pushed near the front, and we were all instructed to scream as
loud as we could, to make it seem like a real Beastie Boys concert.
That wasn’t hard. As soon as AdRock ran out, wearing a Virgin
de Guadalupe tee shirt and a Job rolling papers baseball cap, and MCA shouted,
“RIDDLE ME THIS MY BROTHER, CAN YOU HANDLE IT?” Raina and I clutched each other
and collapsed in screams and tears.
There they were, just FEET in front of us! Each time a camera came by we jumped up and
did “the horns” (the universal sign of ROCK AND ROLL) and we were sure we were
captured, and sure that Ad Rock and MCA would see us in the footage and think,
“Who are those conservatively dressed vixens?
They will be ours!”
They did “Shadrach” a few times and
we screamed until we were hoarse, and avoided the crowd surfers and stage
divers, and then they did a few other songs.
And then they ran off, and it was over.
Though we debated trying to get backstage (as die-hard groupies should),
we instead basked in the magic and went to DuPar’s and went over every last
detail of every last second of the night. And then all there was left to do was
wait for our MTV debut.
When it came, with much fanfare and
a spinning globe graphic that said “WORLD PREMIERE VIDEO,” I was in a friend’s
dorm room with a bunch of people. I had boasted that I, Karen Noreen Finlay,
was going to be in a real live Beastie Boys video. I was going to be a star AND Mrs. Adam Horovitz. THIS was going to be the first of many
moments of glory, a moment to rival any of Pamela des Barres’ – this was going
to be IT. I was going to transcend from
a mere bookstore nerd into a rock and roll butterfly, or at least have the most
awesome claim to fame EVER.
Kurt Loder introduced the video,
and the familiar beats of “Shadrach” began.
And then I saw, to my crushing embarrassment and dismay: it had been
ANIMATED. All the footage had been
stylistically painted over, and our place in the crowd had turned into a
colorful mass blob. “I was standing
right THERE,” I pointed out to the skeptical kids in the room, who probably
thought I was full of shit though one girl said, “I can totally tell that’s
you!” just to be nice.
But yet – we had been there, which
was cool in itself. “Oh well,” Raina and
I told one another. “We’ll meet them one
day.”
Alas, it didn’t happen – we never
met our Beastie husbands. Life went
on. Raina went on to marry someone other
than MCA, and I went on to date an actual musician, and I discovered that my
groupie experience was a lot different than Pamela des Barres’, and I’m just
not really cut out for that life. Now I
date a former musician, now accountant, and that suits me much better. But every time I hear Paul’s Boutique –
still to this day one of my all time favorite albums -- I think about that
carefree summer, the last summer I was young enough to have a crush and old
enough to drive past what I thought was his house (and, um, be prosecuted as an
adult). And though I still think AdRock
is, like, still illin’, I think it was more about shedding that nerdy
bookishness and becoming a rock and roll butterfly, though that didn’t happen,
either. Obviously.
But one thing’s for sure, I can
still totally fight for my right to party.
