[Non-Fiction] When I’m Not Checking the Clock, I Know My Time is Worth Something

When I'm Not Checking the Clock, I Know My Time Is Worth Something

by Max Barrie

 

I can’t believe I waited ’til I was 10 years old to start smoking cigarettes.  I think I set out in search of a pack when I was seven and it took me three years to find one.

I grew up in Beverly Hills in the 80’s— so naturally I assumed everybody was Jewish and worked in show-business.  I lived in a safe little bubble on San Ysidro, across the street from Fred Astaire.  But when my younger sister was born we moved to a larger home in the flats.  That’s when school began and my childhood slipped away.  I was five.

I wasn’t beaten, molested, neglected or abused in any way.  So why is this brat complaining?  I’ve been told that childhood ends the moment you become aware of your own mortality… but I think my childhood started to dissipate on the playground.  SCHOOL— talk about the absolute worst and probably most accurate introduction to life. 

Grownups used to always tell me to enjoy my time as a kid because being an adult meant the fun was over.  When I heard this repeatedly during the single digit days, I didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about.  If this “kid thing” was supposed to be fun, then when I’m older I’d probably need to inject Dilaudid into my neck vein.  Never went there, but in 2010 I tried smoking Oxycontin to cure the common cold.  It actually helped.

I’m not saying I have the answers to a happy healthy childhood for future generations.  If I knew shit, I wouldn’t be sitting in it at this moment.  But I know that there’s something very wrong with a little kid being dropped into a daily situation where he can’t win.

K-5TH 

Eventually morning birds chirping meant war.  I was usually cold, tired, hungry… then soon forced to retain both useless and useful information for hours.  None of which stuck anyway.  I would be ignored by adults, teased by my peers, scolded for day-dreaming, and regularly forced to hold in my urine.  Then around noon I’d scarf down a soggy sandwich and wash it away with a warm Capri-Sun… until the loud bell rang— declaring it was time for three more hours of Chinese water torture.  In the film Risky Business— Tom Cruise is watching the clock in his high school class, and time is going by so slowly that he actually sees the clock tick backwards. Most of my childhood was spent watching clocks. When can I pee?  When can I eat?  When can I go home?  Time to wake up, time to go to bed, time to do this, go here, come back, sit down, stand up… by second grade I was so spun out that I suffered from hypochondria and constipation.  My Mrs. Gooch’s obsessed mother had the nanny feed me a steady diet of mineral oil… which unfortunately started leaking out of my ass during social studies.  I’d have to run to the bathroom (without asking), barricade myself in a stall, toss my shit-stained Underoos, wash myself with powdered hand soap, and then freeball it back to class in my sweats.  If more oil leaked out of my ass that day everyone would know.  So I clenched my cheeks together until the final bell because one wet fart and life would be even more unbearable.

"Do you think I’m a snooty gay puss? I am. I basically grew up with a silver spoon full of mineral oil in my mouth. I certainly got everything I wanted, but I’m not sure I had everything I needed."

During school I was picked on, picked last, and never picked for anything good.  Then after seven or eight hours of this horse shit, they’d give you more work to take home.  Are adults really this clueless?  I don’t think they’re malicious, but I do recall Ally Sheedy's line in The Breakfast Club— “When you grow up, your heart dies.”  She wasn’t wrong… and for me it started with The Pledge of Allegiance.  The little computer between my ears was being programmed five days a week to fear and lose faith.  Also— when you’re a kid, the days don’t fly by like they do now.  Remember?  You don’t just wake up, do a few things and suddenly it’s sundown.  This is all new stuff that we’re absorbing and eight hours seems like a week.

Do you think I’m a snooty gay puss? I am. I basically grew up with a silver spoon full of mineral oil in my mouth. I certainly got everything I wanted, but I’m not sure I had everything I needed.  How do you concentrate when you’re tired and twisted up like a pretzel by 8:00am?  How can a four foot tall kid shoot hoops at 9:00am with the sun blaring in his tiny Jewish eyes?  Suck my cock, Coach… thanks, get the balls too… atta boy.

In 1990 my brilliant father - who IS TRULY BRILLIANT - but also unaware, sends me to summer camp.  He thinks it’ll be FUN for me because it was fun for him back during doo-wop.  Yeah.  So school finally lets out… I can exhale… and days later I’m woken up at 7:00am, the birds are chirping— it’s freezing and a big noisy bus picks me up and shuttles me off to the woods with people I’ve never fuckin’ met.  I’m like eight years old.  This sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.  So I refused to go back to camp after a day or two and my Dad was heartbroken.  He was out seven-hundred bucks, and couldn’t understand what was wrong with his unusual son that didn’t like waking up early and doing arts and crafts in the bushes.  Twenty-five years later nothing has changed.

$$$

These days my Brentwood shrink tells me I’m trying to win back my childhood, instead of mourning the loss in a healthy way.  She says I’m stuck— and thats why I refuse to get a job and continue to bum around tinseltown like Peter Pan in those delightful green tights.  She says my being sober isn’t enough and that my parents are enablers.  I don’t think she’s wrong, but I’m not sure I give a shit.

Grownups were in fact right about the fun being over.  Except with me, there was never any fun to begin with.  After high school - where I was basically a pill popping undesirable puppet for four years - I barely graduated and soon left for college.  When I got there, I discovered that the chirping birds had been tipped off… and now I had two roommates and lived in a broom closet.

After quitting college and winning my father’s heart yet again, I worked for about ten years on and off in LA.  Different gigs… mostly entry level jobs in television.  Anyway, I soon realize that I’m still in hell, just on a different floor.  Every day at work I had deja vu.  I had been there or somewhere like it, I knew these people— this reminded me of that.  Like in Groundhog’s Day, I could practically hear “I Got You Babe” when my alarm went off in the morning.

Now at nearly thirty-three years old, after cracking up a multitude of times - hospitals, rubber rooms, rehabs - I’m attempting to live a more “peaceful” existence in my estimation.  I reside in a halfway house… ok, it already sounds awful… and it is, but it’s not completely fucked.  I paint and I write and I sleep in.  Every morning I snort coffee and Prozac for breakfast, then I wander the aisles at Ralph’s, and twice a week I complain to my therapist about being a snooty gay puss.  I even bought a white noise machine at Brookstone to drown out those chirping birds.

My family and “friends” believe I’ve given up on life, but I don’t exactly see it that way.  I feel like I did twenty tours of duty and now it’s time to come home… wherever that is.  I don’t live like the Prince of Persia on the blue bayou, but I avoid going back into battle and being on the clock.  These days I’m well rested… which I didn’t know was an option.  I can eat when I want to, I can shit when I need to… I take my fuckin’ time in the shower.  I even quit driving, which in Cost Angeles probably added ten years to my lifespan.  I like the volume low.  But most people write me off as this mentally unstable sugar baby— another tragic tale of of wasted youth.

For me there might not be a way to beat the video game of life.  Maybe I missed the warp zone or didn’t catch the golden twat when it flew past my head?  It seems like whether I’m at school or work or jobless or drunk or sober or single or dating or driving or walking, it doesn’t really matter.  I’m always somehow not doing “it” right, and everybody else knows better.  We readily accept the reality we’re presented with, but does that make it absolute?  Aside from day and night, don’t we basically make everything up.  I value my version of peace in life… and I suppose if I’m viewed as bum, I can live with that.  It’s better than watching the clock day in and day out.

When Billy Joel was masterfully interviewed by Howard Stern a few years back, he talked about collaborating with Paul McCartney at his home in New York.  Howard asked Billy if he ever critiqued McCartney or told him something wasn’t good?  Billy Joel said no because if he himself doesn’t agree with something musically, it’s just not his taste.

Max Barrie is a writer and artist currently based in Los Angeles. The son of screenwriters, Michael Barrie and Sally Robinson, Max was born and raised in Beverly Hills, California. With acerbic wit and self deprecating humor, Max documents his life growing up in the shallow, superficial depths of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood machine. In his multiple part autobiographical series, entitled A Trendy Tragedy, Max will explore his bouts with addiction, prostitution and his search for identity in a landscape that is rife with temptation and false ideals. 

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[NON FICTION] A Stab at Suicide—I’ve Always Got a Joker in my Deck

A Stab At Suicide—I've Always Got a Joker In My Deck

by Max Barrie

 

I’m not a danger to myself… but what if living is unnecessary? 

         Frankly, unless death resembles LAX, I’m a supporter.  I DO worry about unnecessary suffering.  But we live in such a toxic environment, how can poison possibly be avoided?  On a planet where no one is safe, where no day is free, and enemies are at arms length.  The food is processed, the air is polluted, the water contaminated.

         I was born in August of ’82.  It was at Cedars-Sinai and I came out SCREAMING!  My theory is— as soon as the cold air hit me, I realized I had been evicted and hadn’t had time to get dressed.  My unsolicited birth would soon become a metaphor for my FANCY FUCKED life— with which I was rarely impressed.  And while breathing came highly recommended and everybody was doing it, I eventually concluded that a lot like college— life wasn’t for everybody.

         A bipolar comedian that I worked for in 2006 said to me— “Max, I’ve always got a joker in my deck.”  He attributed the quote to Hunter S. Thompson.  What the expression meant was— I can exit the game at any time by offing myself.  The saying made sense to me, so I had it tattooed on my left arm… which is now covered up by a scorpion.  In 2009 I awoke to an early morning phone call from the comedian’s Uncle.  He was sobbing and told me that my funny former employer, who’s career had stalled, was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area.  I didn’t really know what to say or how to feel… I hung up uncomfortably numb and thought of a joker— a devilish little clown with a shit-eating grin.  This was not my first experience with premature death, but it was the first time I knew someone who had intentionally cut things short.  It would not be the last.

         I never had access to a rocket, but my plan to leave earth had always been brewing.  I obsessed over death as a child and ultimately in my late 20’s I would make half a dozen BOOZE-FUELED trips to The Cold Spring Bridge out in Santa Ynez.  This was before the suicide barriers were installed.  I had read that out of all the jumps off Cold Spring no one had survived.  I would drive nearly two hours… from LA, down the 101 into Santa Barbara… then up into the mountains along Route 154.  Honestly it’s a miracle that I didn’t crash, kill anyone, or get arrested during any of these grisly expeditions.  I drove into the elevated darkness with one purpose each time… but once I arrived at the bridge I could never get out of my car.  Truth is I was petrified.

         By 2014 I BELIEVED my torture had at last outweighed my terror.  I was again fresh out of sober living, now WORKING in drug treatment, and soon back on anything 80 proof with coke… and I don’t mean Classic.  It didn’t take long for me to crumble… it never does once you add venom.  After a couple weeks the word was out.  My roommate wanted me gone, my family wouldn’t have me around, and I was back to lying and stealing.  How many times could I keep dancing this jig?  My feet were tired.  What now, another treatment facility?  Additional counseling?  More mindless prayer with nudniks… fuck that shit.  I thought— why not just quit while I’m behind?

         So I “tried” to kill myself.  And maybe I actually succeeded… maybe I’m dead right now and not really writing this?  Wouldn’t surprise me if Beetlejuice walked in and asked to borrow some Scotch Tape.  Anyway, when I awoke on April 9th of last year I snatched a bottle of vodka, stole a bottle of muscle relaxers, and gassed up my hybrid with a roll and a half of quarters.  Then I drove to a place where lots of people go when they’ve given up all hope— The Valley.

         I maneuvered my way down into Chatsworth, shut off my iPhone and parked my car in a low-key area.  My windows were tinted.  I climbed into the back seat and began drinking and popping pills…

Lights dim… 100…99…98…and frog thoughts… 

         Next thing I know I hear my roommate’s voice far off in the darkness: “Hey, where are ya buddy?”  Then we’re abruptly both in his car driving fast on the freeway— a lit cigarette falls out of my mouth and burns a hole in my jeans… suddenly I’m in some emergency waiting room… my Dad enters and I have trouble walking… a nurse helps me, then comes the charcoal.

         I don’t know how much vodka I drank and I’m not sure how many pills I took… but clearly it wasn’t enough to carry out my exit strategy.  I’m convinced today that had I really wanted to die I would have swallowed every pill in that bottle and never turned my iPhone back on.  Yup.  At some point I don’t remember, I turned on my iPhone, answered it and explained to my roommate where I was.

         My roommate was an 80’s James Spader asshole type, but I loved him in some bizarre non-homosexual us against the world way.  After all this happened he stopped talking to me… and now it’s like he was never really there to begin with.

***

         Many say life is bittersweet, and I can’t really argue with them.  But from my perspective if someone barfs on my Bay Cities sandwich, I don’t ponder the unsullied tomato on the end.  My lunch has been FUCKED and now I have to get back in line or walk over to Swingers— the most annoying restaurant in the history of food.  That’s my take on life.  If you talk to me about balance, I’ll tell you to shampoo my lunchbox.  The bad stuff contaminates everything else and I’d like to speak to God’s supervisor, Mr. Davidson.  On many occasions I see people trudging through everlasting slime… and I get why they want out and I believe it’s their right.  Whether the problem’s terminal cancer or stale popcorn, who says you have to stick around?  Life’s a gift, this bodysuit is mine, and that is fucking that.

"Mummies and dummies continue to fuck like there’s a pussy shortage and then reproduce like rats.  There’s too many of us, there’s not enough resources, and global warming’s gonna melt all the ice by 2040.  Death may actually be a much needed vacation."

         Mummies and dummies continue to fuck like there’s a pussy shortage and then reproduce like rats.  There’s too many of us, there’s not enough resources, and global warming’s gonna melt all the ice by 2040.  Death may actually be a much needed vacation.  I think most of us just have contempt prior to investigation.  I’ll tell you what’s worse than death… yesterday I was in an Uber carpool with two Asian girls who couldn’t stop saying “LIKE…” gangsta rap was on the radio, and the driver only took streets where the magnified sun seared my skin off.

         That said, and even though I happen to be pro-choice long after birth, I do have soul.  It may be a warped black pretzel, but it’s still edible.

         Here’s the BIG PROBLEM with killing yourself, unless you’re Kris Jenner.  Kidding.  But honestly, a stewardess who gobbled cocks in Calabasas and then sold her children for shekels?!  We’re so gullible.  The PROBLEM is when you take your own life, you’re also destroying other lives.  And that will never be ok in my estimation.  When I was drunk and high I used to wanna believe it was nobody’s problem but mine.  But I often got behind the wheel… and I said regrettable things… and I didn’t show up for work… and I once pissed in someone’s dryer until it wasn’t a dryer anymore.  When I was under the influence it quickly became everybody’s problem.

         We often feel that we’re separate or different just in general, but it’s amplified when we’re depressed or ready to check out.  Fortunately or unfortunately we’re not independent.  Everyone’s a part of something more than their own ass.  People are connected, lives are tied in with other lives.  You’re a link… and it’s not polite to break the chain for selfish reasons. 

         That comedian who hung himself had a wife and three small boys at home.  He had a sobbing Uncle who called me… he had other family and friends and people he worked with… he permanently and negatively affected other lives.  We could even go a step further and discuss the ripple effect of that.  It’s kind of like barfing on that Bay Cities sandwich.

I’ll end with this…  

         I never thought I gave a shit until I met Adam in treatment last year.  We shared a room for thirty days and I fuckin’ hated him immediately.  He walked loud, he talked loud, he left his shit everywhere.  He was a spoiled cunt muscle who regularly begged me to write a screenplay with him, only he had no story.  Adam had migrated from bumblefuck to Beverly Hills after college and basically struck gold… but then he lost everything… even his trophy wife.  All day long this putz would talk about every cent he made and squandered, and in group he would explore his new life with, and I quote— “mediocre women.”  He actually said this.

         I complained to him and about him, I shit—talked him, I ignored him.  In my eyes he was a spoiled child who’d run out of DoubleStuf Oreos— Mr. Veruca Salt.  But sometimes he sat with me in front of the TV and talked about killing himself… and I still didn’t buy it.  He just wanted sympathy, so once I said— “Ya know Adam, some people have to leave the party early.”

         He checked out on a Friday after his thirty days were up, while I stayed on for an additional month.  I remember he hugged me by the front door in the morning and grabbed his bags.  He got in the backseat of a small Honda, but he had that Lincoln Town Car look in his eyes.  I never saw him again.

         Adam texted me the next day saying he was out with friends, but still complained about his horrible life.  I think I told him to “hang in there” or some bullshit… then deleted the text.  Then on Sunday Adam went to a shooting range, coincidently in The Valley… and he blew his head off.

         When word got back, everyone in the treatment facility was visibly shaken.  The patients, the doctors, the staff.  I even saw some tears.  I didn’t feel anything at first, but I did think about Adam’s parents back in the small town where he came from… as he was an only child.  And while I wish I had been more compassionate and less judgmental during his life, I don’t take any responsibility for his death.  Shit… maybe a little.

            That first night after he died— when I got into bed and the lights went out, I was instantly flooded and overwhelmed with memories of Adam… one of him eating chocolate cake in the living room with his hands… he said to me: “This is the stuff that makes life worth living.”  Then I thought of that joker— a devilish little clown with a shit-eating grin… and then a voice in my head told me I needed to live.  These days I’m not so sure anymore.

Max Barrie is a writer and artist currently based in Los Angeles. The son of screenwriters, Michael Barrie and Sally Robinson, Max was born and raised in Beverly Hills, California. With acerbic wit and self deprecating humor, Max documents his life growing up in the shallow, superficial depths of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood machine. In his multiple part autobiographical series, entitled A Trendy Tragedy, Max will explore his bouts with addiction, prostitution and his search for identity in a landscape that is rife with temptation and false ideals. 

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[NON-FICTION] Coals To Newcastle: Remembering Chris Burden

Coals To Newcastle: Remembering Chris Burden

by Bruce Licher

1978 was the year everything changed.  The energy of punk rock had blown open the doors of creative expression for a new generation the year before, and now that was rapidly morphing into post-punk as more young people with other creative ideas wanted to join in and create some new noise. It was during that time that I found myself as an undergraduate in the Art Department at UCLA, discovering new sights and sounds and possibilities. I had spent my first 2 years at UCLA getting all my general ed requirements out of the way while I tried to figure out what it was I actually wanted to do with my life.  After a year in the Design department I realized that it was more satisfying to be creative without having the end result distorted by other people’s ideas of what was best, so switched my major to Fine Art and found a new creative energy.

When it was announced that Chris Burden would be joining the UCLA Arts faculty to teach a class called “New Forms & Concepts,” it was as if someone had dropped a new color into the palette that we undergrads could now work with.  Chris’ reputation preceded him such that some students couldn’t wait to take his class while others weren’t sure it was something they really wanted to be exposed to.  Either way, none of us had any idea of what would actually happen in the class, and I was one of those who jumped in to find out that first term. 

What I learned, and what I experienced with the other 20 or so students, completely turned my mind around to what was possible to do in the name of ART.  In addition, the experience also pointed me in the direction I would take with my life. Not only did I realize through Chris Burden that anything was possible, that anything could be ART, but in that class I also met Brent Wilcox and Tim Quinn, two of the members of a fledgling avant garde musical group called NEEF.  It wasn’t long before I joined NEEF on weekends to make noise in the art studios of Dickson Hall, where we recorded our debut 7” EP, pressing 163 copies because that was how many we got back from the pressing plant for the $40 that each of the 5 of us in the band contributed to press them up. 

Making our own record was a kick, and I caught the record-making bug and decided to make my own record, signing up for an Independent Project course and asked Chris Burden if he would be my faculty adviser on the project.  He of course said yes, and I was off to record a batch of noisy art rock pieces with Brent and a few other

friends. I pressed up 300 copies, silk-screening label art directly on the records, and included a photo postcard from an experimental industrial film I’d made in the UCLA Animation Department (the only film-making class a non-film major could take).  When I’d completed the project I gave Chris a few copies of the record and he seemed pleased.  Don’t know if he ever kept them, but “Project 197” (the course number) became the first release on my Independent Project Records label, and I was more than happy with the results.

Towards the end of that first class with Chris, I mentioned to him that if he ever needed an assistant on one of his performances I’d be interested in helping him with whatever he needed.  Several weeks later he got back to me and said that he was planning a trip to Calexico to do a piece where he would fly a model airplane across the border into Mexico, with several “bombs” of marijuana attached under the wings.  Would I be interested in going with him, to share the driving as well as help document the piece by photographing the action?  Of course I jumped at the opportunity and said yes. 

The plan was to drive to Calexico in the afternoon, check into a motel for the night, and the next morning we would drive to an inconspicuous place along the border where he would fly his rubber-band powered toy plane over the fence into Mexico.  As with most of Chris’ early performances, there was an aura of danger involved, as not only was marijuana much more illegal than it is now, but to be caught doing something suspicious at the border would also have had consequences (though I can’t imagine being able to do what he did now in these days of border hysteria).

"As with most of Chris’ early performances, there was an aura of danger involved, as not only was marijuana much more illegal than it is now, but to be caught doing something suspicious at the border would also have had consequences."

I gave Chris my address, and on the designated day he and his girlfriend picked me up in his car.  I tossed my overnight bag in the trunk and climbed into the back seat for the drive to Calexico.  We arrived in the late afternoon, checking into a non-descript motel, and then Chris and I drove out of town on the road that paralleled the border on the US side, scoping out where he might do the piece the following morning.  Calexico and Mexicali are kind of like one big city/town, divided by a fence down the middle. The only difference was that Mexicali (on the Mexican side) seemed to be about 5 times bigger than Calexico, as the barrios stretched for miles on the other side of the fence, where it was dusty open desert on the US side.  This gave the location a somewhat surreal feeling, that there was a bustling city where people lived and carried on with their lives just past the fence, while on the US side it was a desolate and uninspiring desert.

After dinner Chris and I decided to cross the border and walk around Mexicali for the evening.  Chris’ girlfriend stayed back at the motel to rest as it seemed that she was coming down with something.  Mexicali seemed more colorful by far than Calexico, filled with life and small shops. I don’t remember us buying anything, but at one point when we were about to head back I stepped off a high curb into a pothole in the dark and twisted my ankle really bad.  I was in serious pain as I hobbled back to the motel, Chris helping me to walk, as I could barely put any pressure on my foot.  It didn’t seem that I had broken anything, so we got an ice pack at the motel and I did my best to get some sleep with my ankle throbbing in pain. 

Morning arrived after a fitful sleep, and Chris knocked at my door at around 7 AM as we’d planned.  It was raining pretty solidly, and had been for some time during the night.  We had breakfast and discussed how this would affect the plan, finally deciding to wait awhile and see if it would stop. By this time Chris’ girlfriend had come down with some pretty serious flu symptoms, and I could barely walk.  My ankle was swollen and I was still in a lot of pain, but I told him I was up for whatever he needed me to do, as long as I could physically do it. 

As the rain began to lighten up we decided to check out of the motel and head out the road along the border in hopes that we could find a clear place for him to do the piece. We drove several miles to the area we had scoped out the night before, and pulled off the side of the road so Chris could see if this felt like the right place for him to do the piece.  He wasn’t quite sure, so got back in to head down the road a bit further, only to find that we were now stuck in the mud by the side of the road.  Two of us would have to push the car while the other steered it back onto the pavement, and as much as I would have been fine with standing in the mud and rain pushing the car back onto the highway, there was no way with my twisted ankle that I could physically do it. 

So I ended up behind the wheel of the car while Chris and his very sick girlfriend got out and pushed.  Fortunately it didn’t take much to get the car back on the road, and by this time the rain had tapered off to a light drizzle.  At this point Chris decided to just do it here and now, so we parked the car part way on the road so we wouldn’t get stuck again and he opened the trunk to get out his planes. Chris had made several of the planes he planned to use, to make sure that if he had any problems with one plane that he’d have a backup to use. Chris handed me his camera and asked me to start taking pictures. I hobbled back a few feet and began shooting images of him preparing the first plane for flight.  In the one photo that is often used to document the piece you can see the tracks in the mud from where we had to push the car to get it free.  As I recall, Chris had to make several attempts, and to get close enough to the wall so that the rubber-band powered plane would make it over and into Mexico.  He was finally successful, and I remember snapping one image of the plane flying over the wall, with houses in the background on the other side.  As soon as the plane made it over the fence, Chris smiled and seemed very pleased, and we walked back to the car.  On the drive back to town we wondered who would find the plane and it’s cargo, and what they would do with it. 

I never saw all of the photos I shot of Chris that day, though there weren’t that many, as it was all done and over with rather quickly.  I remember seeing a few of them that ended up being published in High Performance magazine, and then there’s the one image of Chris and his plane that is most often used as documentation for the piece. I wish I’d been able to shoot more images, but under the circumstances it’s rather amazing that we got as many as we did.

So thank you Chris, for offering a young undergrad the chance of a lifetime, to be there and to be a part of one of your unique creations. It was an experience that has stayed with me all these years in more ways than one, as I still occasionally need a chiropractor to help pull out the kinks in my right ankle. But I also thank you for coming to work at UCLA when you did, and for opening my eyes to possibilities I never would have otherwise encountered.  You were by far the best teacher I ever had.

Bruce Licher is the founding member of the LA post-punk band Savage Republic and instrumental post-rock band Scenic. He is also the owner and founder of Independent Project Records and the associated graphic design firms Independent Project Press and Licher Art & Design.

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[NON-FICTION] Superficial Stockholm Syndrome… I was kidnapped, raised in Lost Angeles and bought into it

Superficial Stockholm Syndrome…I was kidnapped, raised in Lost Angeles and bought into it

by Max Barrie

 One of my favorite Kanye West songs is “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”  And my favorite line is the first one—  “I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven, when I awoke, I spent that on a necklace…”  What I hear is— I’m sacrificing a bright future for material crap. 

In LA especially, real money is regularly pissed away.

         As far back as Henry Hill could remember, he always wanted to be a gangster.  Well as far back as I can remember, I always wanted your approval.  In grade school I longed for three things— a girlfriend, a growth spurt, and athletic prowess.  Basically I just wanted to be loved… I saw those three things as ways in.  Any love that did come my way was never enough or it wasn’t the right kind.  Years later, a bottomless pit of need for booze, at that age it was rainbows I wanted to mainline.

         The one person who loved me unconditionally was my doting obsessive compulsive grandmother, Miriam.  I was the firstborn grandson and in her eyes I could do no wrong.  In her company, I had the Midas touch and did whatever the hell I wanted— as long as I didn’t choke on it or drown in it.  Conveniently, she also schooled me on the harmful nature of germs and dirt and instructed me on how to keep everything, including myself, spotless.  To this day I have a bottle of rubbing alcohol by my nightstand.  Hey, ya just never know.

         My therapist often refers to the self-esteem movement of the 1980’s as being a colossal mistake.  She says it was a time when many professionals instructed parents to give their children constant positive reinforcement no matter what— but this according to her, would unfortunately set up an unrealistic environment for kids that the real world would inevitably swallow.

         I do not believe my parents, nor my Grandmother were briefed on this movement. 

         My Mom and Dad loved me, but were often busy and Miriam rarely left my side.  I think she just happened to be a human version of a Care Bear and actually believed that I was going to somehow save the Jewish people in the 21st century.  Up until her death in 2011 no one ever loved me as much as she did.  Since the beginning I wanted my Grandmother’s love on tap, but that wasn’t possible.  Like my therapist explains now, she was no match for the “real world” that eventually swallowed me whole.  In the 80’s and 90’s, not only did I NOT receive this first class treatment in her absence, I often got the exact opposite. 

         $$$

         Ok, lets fast-forward to high school… it was 1997 and I was even more lost in the sauce.  Now remember where this story takes place… yep, Hollycould.  And by the time I was fourteen years old I was convinced I had a few things figured out.  Mastery never came to me socially, academically or athletically, but now I saw people around town and at school just like me… small people… goofy people… maybe unattractive or even mean people, and they were WINNING— like Charlie Sheen would so eloquently describe years later after a crack run.

         High school for me is where things really shifted.  Instead of just day-dreaming, I saw that attainable greatness was readily for sale.  Shangri-La was all around me or so I thought.  Good looks, brains or throwing a football didn’t necessarily get you access… we didn’t even have a football team in this private society.  If you wanted to be known, fully equipped with acceptance in our viper’s nest— you needed a last name followed by a minimum of seven zeros.  A BMW, drugs, and a large home were also quite helpful.

         Now this isn’t new… this is textbook Scarface Machiavelli shit.  Money equals power equals women equals “winner winner, Sheen dinner!”  This formula has gone on everywhere, all over the place, since the beginning.  So what makes tinseltown unlike an oil dynasty or the people who invented the vagina?  LA is the epicenter of magic store horse shit… and everyone wants to know or wants to BELIEVE they know what’s happening on these insincere streets.  If life’s looking sweet, people can dream… and if the forecast is doom and gloom— who doesn’t love dirty laundry?

"I almost drowned in SoCal’s sea of superficial diarrhea… and I’m not out of the deep doo yet. The fact that I haven’t blown my brains out— is well… not really that miraculous. I’m a big pink muffin and I’m afraid that if I make my exit too soon, I’ll just be shit out someplace worse… like Sylmar."

         In my experience money in Hollywon’t is generally new, often flashy, and turns everyone into warped bloodthirsty vampires— just dying for a taste.  What’s also different about LA is it brings the word “COLD” to a new level… and I don’t mean the weather.  It’s like if COLD smoked crack with Charlie, hopped in a Tesla and shot down a crowded sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon.  Los Angeles is THAT cold… and this lack of compassion and authenticity mostly stems from a desire to win a race that doesn’t really exist.

         Am I even making sense at this point?  Probably not.  Starting out I was a nice kid who eventually became a product of his environment.  The guys who drove Ferraris were dating supermodels with names like Elsaleena.  And the poor bastard in the Camry was jerking-off a lot or hit the jackpot with some fatty ginger he met at Coffee Bean.  I saw this bubblegum bullshit day after day after FUCKING day… and soon I started to resent my father for not owning more homes. 

         I’m not even sure I liked Ferraris at first, but I sure as hell started to.  When I was fourteen, if I wasn’t watching “The Way We Were” with my Grandmother, I often felt lonely and out of place— especially in a crowd of my contemporaries.  And all the dicks and cunts in the vicinity claimed that my salvation was at Nobu.  “Maxie, honey baby— heaven awaits at that back table right next to David Duchovny."  And these weren’t just my peers, these were their parents… pretty much everyone I knew.

         I escaped or snapped out of “Superficial Stockholm syndrome” at around 30 years old… after sixteen long years in.  As I’m typing this I feel like one of those former Scientology members from that HBO documentary.  “Yes, LRH was my homie and I worshipped Xenu and 75 million years ago I battled aliens with John Travolta. Yes.”  Sounds crazy, right?  Rodeo Drive ain’t that different… it’s just tangible bullshit instead of fairytales.  “No, Max you’re wrong!  It’s Bvlgari, look at how it sparkles, this is the answer I’ve been waiting for.”  We cling to exquisite nonsense because thats where we see a crowd and a fuss forming.  And I am absolutely being judgmental, but I’m also empathetic because I ran with the affected herd for 16 fiscal years!

         Five years ago I was walking around the Malibu Colony thinking God had officially made my dick look bigger.  I was actually so stoned, I probably whipped it out and showed the natives.  It was an afternoon on the 4th of July and I was drinking and smoking joints that I had meticulously laced with Xanax… next thing ya know it’s pitch dark and I’m being forcibly removed from this snooty settlement.  And not one of my “friends” was anywhere in sight.  I’m not blaming anyone, I made my bed… but when I phoned a buddy in a holidaze near PCH, I find out everyone’s partying at a nightclub fifteen miles away.  With friends like these, who needs enemas?! 

         The next seventy-two hours were a nightmare.  I had been humiliated, I was now isolated and melting into a Tempur-Pedic mattress at Mommy’s house.  I could literally see toxic odors seeping out of my pores.  This was not a unique tale in my travels, nor am I pointing the finger at this bizarre beach village.  What I’m saying is this— wherever I went, there I was.  The only place my cock ever grew was in my fucked delusional mind.

         I don’t claim to be a teacher or a professor, and I fear that I come off like a self-proclaimed know-it-all in my prattling.  I don’t believe I KNOW anything, I just pitch my version.  I’m all for everybody doing whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.  But my unsolicited advice would be make sure it’s YOU that really wants something and not just the general consensus.

         I almost drowned in SoCal’s sea of superficial diarrhea… and I’m not out of the deep doo yet.  The fact that I haven’t blown my brains out— is well… not really that miraculous.  I’m a big pink muffin and I’m afraid that if I make my exit too soon, I’ll just be shit out someplace worse… like Sylmar.  So it’s a combo of FEAR and some GOOD FORTUNE that’s kept me alive.  The good fortune being a series of random events and chance encounters that we’ll discuss some other time.  I don’t take credit for ninety percent of my pulse… but that doesn’t mean I’m thanking Xenu either.  The truth is that I don’t know.  All I can do is maintain my ten percent through continued self-examination, while remaining cautious, yet open.

            What I’ve come to understand after being a Stepford Jew for 16 years is… we’re all struggling on this cruise ship together and we’re all headed to the same marina.  Lets have a nice ride, shall we?  If you’re on a WINNING streak after a crack binge with Charlie, MAYBE USE YOUR MONEY WISELY?  Perhaps symbiotically improve your life while improving the lives of others?  Don’t worry, if you do end up buying your way into heaven, I’m sure there’s a Westfield mall up there where you can purchase chinchilla bell bottoms.

Max Barrie is a writer and artist currently based in Los Angeles. The son of screenwriters, Michael Barrie and Sally Robinson, Max was born and raised in Beverly Hills, California. With acerbic wit and self deprecating humor, Max documents his life growing up in the shallow, superficial depths of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood machine. In his multiple part autobiographical series, entitled A Trendy Tragedy, Max will explore his bouts with addiction, prostitution and his search for identity in a landscape that is rife with temptation and false ideals. 

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[REVIEW] Smokey, The Lost Great American Gay Pre-Punk Icons, Reissued

Get ready for Smokey: a band perhaps “so amazing that the only reason you haven’t heard of them is because they were faggots and they didn't give a fuck.” The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of bands that should have been, but never were, for whatever reason.  Big Star was in that stratosphere – so were Rodriguez and, more fittingly, the all black proto-punk band Death. But what these bands did have going for them was the fact that they were straight – in a world where being gay was not only a sin, it was billboard poison. Smokey hardly stood a chance.

In 1973, John ‘Smokey’ Condon, a “bewitchingly beautiful Baltimore transplant” who used to party with John Waters, met budding record producer EJ Emmons. They both moved to Los Angeles around the same time – along with a lot of other creative outcasts who didn’t “fit in.” Strangely enough, they were introduced to each other by a rather “touchy-feely” road manager for the Doors. Together, they went on to produce five of the most criminally neglected singles of the decade, as well as a treasure trove of unreleased recordings.

Condon had marched in New York the night after the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and so by the time he and EJ created Smokey, they weren’t about to hold back. Released in 1974, the first single Leather b/w Miss Ray wasn’t just openly gay, it was exultantly, unapologetically gay, examining front-on the newly-liberated leather and drag scenes thriving in America’s urban areas. The single was shopped around to labels using Emmons’ industry contacts, but doors were regularly slammed on the duo. “We can’t put this out, it’s a fucking gay record, what’s the matter with you,” said one record exec, while adding “it’s really good though

Instead of retreating, Smokey rebelled and formed S&M Records, with a logo featuring a muscular arm encased in studded cuffs, and “S&M” tattooed on the bulging bicep. They went on to self- release five singles that span pre-punk, stoner jams, disco, synth-punk and more, all stamped with Smokey’s fearless candor. The 1976 single How Far Will You Go…? features guitar from EJ’s studio buddy James Williamson, fresh from his adventures recording Raw Power with Iggy & the Stooges in London with David Bowie.

There are numerous amazing tracks just as amazing. There is the 9-minute disco workout entitled Piss Slave, and two versions of Million Dollar Babies, an ode to New York’s notorious trucks where men would go late at night to trick. Other tracks include cameos by Randy Rhoads of Quiet Riot/Ozzy Osbourne and members of the Motels, King Crimson, David Bowie’s Tin Machine, Suburban Lawns and many others. Essentially, Smokey laid the groundwork for an entire generation of leather-clad rockers who would bend the context of popular music and their own sexuality.

Fortunately, Emmons has collaborated with Australian record outfit Chapter Music to present the first ever reissue of Smokey’s music. The compilation, entitled How Far Will You Go?, has been lovingly restored by Emmons from original master tapes, and even mastered for vinyl by Emmons on his own cutting lathe. There are also extensive liner notes with stories and lyrics – along with photos. The compilation is available for preorder now and you will receive a complimentary MP3 download of the title track. The full album will be available on June 23rd.