The 80's were much dirtier than we think they were

If these men were actually "Turning Japanese,"
you may not really think so. A conversation this afternoon with my office-mate Mary revealed a fact that had a surprising effect on my security in the world order. Like a rug ripped out from under me, I lost my balance and looked with wide eyes at the new existence that was always around me but I had never seen. The horrifying truth: The Vapors’ “Turning Japanese” is not at all about what I thought it was.

We all know the song either from hearing it over and over on the radio, or hearing it over and over on commercials for one of Time Life’s many collections of songs from yesteryear. I have heard it over and over from the CD that mysteriously appeared in my mailbox one warm summer afternoon with no note or letter as to why I received it. It was kind of like how a Ouija board is supposed to miraculously show up on your door if you try to get rid of it, except that I had never seen or asked for this CD and certainly hadn’t tried to get rid of it. It is a collection of 80’s wave hits though, so it probably does share some of the occult properties.

I enjoyed listening to my mystery gift (which later turned out to be from Entertainment Weekly…how kind of them) and one of the songs is, of course, “Turning Japanese.” I had always thought the song had something to do with Japan’s influence on the American economy during the 80’s, but in further listening, there was more talk about taking and having his girlfriend’s picture. Ahh…so the song is not about compact cars and consumer electronics, but instead about tourists and their inclination for taking photographs. It was all sorted, and I felt good about myself. Until this morning.

In talking about 80’s hits with Mary, I decided to brag a little about how I had figured out the meaning of the song. She smiled and indulged me for a little bit, and I was so proud of myself until a few moments later when she revealed she knew I was wrong the whole time. The song is neither about the economy or excessive photograpy. It is, in fact, about masturbation.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but has anyone out there ever heard the phrase “turning Japanese” in reference to masturbation? Some internet research reveals that the song is most definitely about fluffing oneself, and the phrase refers to the face you make when you approach orgasm in that you have that squinty, crumpled face. I don’t think it looks Japanese at all, but if it came from the 80’s I guess we can just chalk it up to people being strange and delusional. I’ll let you decide:

I got your picture of me and you

You wrote "I love you" I wrote "me too"

I sit here staring and there's nothing else to do

Oh it's in color

Your hair is brown

Your eyes are hazel

And soft as clouds

I have to kiss you when there's no one else around

I got your picture, I got your picture

I'd like a million of you over myself

I want a doctor to take a picture

So I can look at you from inside as well

You've got me turning up and turning down

and turning in and turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Being right or wrong is all well and good, but the bigger issue here is that all along I had no clue whatsoever that this seemingly innocent, albeit slightly offensive, song was really so much more than I expected. I’m sure my pride in knowing what songs mean figured into my shock and humiliation a little, but a small fear arises in that I think we may have underestimated the apparent naïveté and wackiness of the 80's - all this time they were just as depraved as we are now. The only difference is that Britney Spears doesn't use any clever euphemisms when referring to her extracurricular activities.

To quote The Princess Bride, “I do not think you know what that word means, and I do not think that word means what you think it means.” You've been warned.

A glimmer of hope in the Middle East

Israeli settlers blocking the soldiers from serving
eviction notices. This is history in the making folks. Today is one of those days when my MSN homepage comes up and I realize I’m looking history right in the face. Perhaps I need to pay closer attention to the news, but it seems that Israel’s large-scale pullout from the Gaza Strip came with little fanfare but could truly be the beginning of a sea-change in international politics and the potential diminishing of terrorist activity around the globe.

Israel and the West Bank are the basis of most of the tension in the Middle East. While message after message coming to the U.S. from Al Qaeda reference their distaste with our “imperialistic” activities, the argument always seems to come down to the fact that we are supporting Israel, who in 1967 took the West Bank in a quick, yet bloody war. This left the entire Palestinian population without a nation to call home, giving rise to organizations of Arab decent who were acting out in order to secure a place to call their own once again.

This is the same reason that Iraq is such a hotbed of terrorist activity. It has always been home to those without a nation and the only reason there was any modicum of order in the past was because Saddam Hussein was keeping them all so repressed that they could not act out. Now that the United States is involved and trying to give people freedom and democracy, they are once again at liberty to fight and try to claim Iraq as their own. It’s a land of unwanted people who are forced from the neighboring countries of Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. I imagine that any of us would be very upset if we were forced to live Nomadic lives because Canada or Mexico invaded the U.S. and sent us from our homes. Not that that would happen. We love Canada and Mexico.

Every time we hear a message from the major terrorist groups, they always refer to the Zionists, and that always includes us. There is no reason why we should not support Israel and I am in complete agreement with our allegiance. What irritated me for so long was that neither Israel nor the Palestinians could ever sit down and agree on a solution. As a result, Israel held on to its “holy land” and the citizens could never ride public transit for fear of being blown up.

The whole argument of the “holy land” is one we could discuss for days, but for the most part it has the same effect of reverting to the Bible and the infallible word of God in any debate. Once you get to that point, you cannot continue the discussion because you are dealing with an argument that cannot be proven false, not because it’s airtight, but because there is no physical proof to debunk a mythical stance that anyone is prepared to rest on. Whether this area is actually the holy land or not can be debated, as there are no maps - only words that have been translated over and over. There are some remaining buildings, but every religion that lays claim to them came from the same roots and branched off in the ensuing centuries. We don’t live in the times we did when everything in the Bible supposedly happened word for word and because of the changing political climate of the world, concessions have to be made. Israel wasn’t even occupied by those who claimed it as their holy lands until Britain released the territory from their empire for the Jewish people after World War II so that another homeless people could have a place to live.

But after decades of fighting and terrorist attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has finally stepped up to the plate and taken on the tremendous political risk of vacating the West Bank. I am incredibly proud of him since now we can see the beginnings of work for peace. Of course his own people will be very upset, and already widespread protests and mob activity have put his career, and even his life, at risk. But you cannot please all the people all the time, and if things continue along these lines, then time will remember the peace we were afforded by this brave move and will wash over the pain inflicted by evacuating the Jewish settlers.

We’re all stuck here on this planet folks. Until we can colonize Mars, we have to live with each other. Just like a college dorm mate who draws a line down the center of the room, we have to work with each other and share the same pieces of dry land that we have been afforded. It’s not worth killing innocent people, and it’s not worth watching innocent people die. The holy lands and all religions are based on happenings from centuries ago, but we are living in the now and people cannot continue to die in the name of things that happened so long ago that we can’t even verify their accuracy. Let’s all hope and pray that the process that is now beginning in Israel can continue to a more peaceful future.

Life in the Moulin Rouge

The famed Whisky where it all seems to happen.I wrote a while ago about a strange run-in with a scraggly looking man in my stairwell that was looking for Motley Crue’s famous old apartment, thinking maybe it was in my building. Upon later research I discovered that my street was in fact the former home of these staples of American rock and since it is also where you will find the famed Whisky A-Go-Go, it is home to a great deal of history of Los Angeles’ seedy underbelly. Apparently, after an incident a couple weeks ago, it would appear this history is more current events, and that I have unknowingly been living in a secret Red Light District for the past six months.

I have made good friends with my neighbor who is an older woman. From what I can tell she spends most of her time around the house, and she has lived there so long that she is somewhat the de facto building manager so it helps to have a friend in a high place. She’s very sweet and well meaning, but at the same time I’m not entirely convinced that the stories she tells are not born from paranoia and a need to create drama. It’s almost a virtual Melrose Place in our small eleven-unit rent controlled abode.

The apartment next to me used to belong to a middle-aged gay man who we all heard getting “acquainted” with his boyfriend many, many times. We all had some good laughs about that and of course quietly thought back to ourselves about if everyone could hear us as well. He moved out with his boyfriend last month and then the drama of renting the place began. I got all kinds of warnings from my neighbor about the kinds of people we might see come through. I joked about going over there and mentioning my satanic rituals or tendency to kill drifters in my apartment in case we needed to scare someone off. She looked at me with a very serious face and worked out a specific code she would give me to let me know I needed to do that.

I enjoyed the silence of an empty apartment next door until one day there was a knock at my door. My neighbor had a grim look on her face as she told me the landlord had decided to rent the apartment to some “Asian girl with platinum blonde hair and her friend.” I figured it wasn’t really that bad and that she was just over sensitive to today’s whippersnappers around the building. Then she said the girl told her she “had to live here.” Apparently that was the same logic used by the other quiet Asian girl in the garage apartment who was placed in this building by her pimp.

If the stories I proceeded to hear are true, then it appears I’m in the middle of something very, very strange. About a quarter mile up the street into the Hollywood Hills lives a man named Fig who has white hair, a white moustache, and any number of outrageously gaudy, yet unkempt, roadsters. Fig is one of, if not the most, prominent of the Los Angeles pimps and is known for his lavish parties and extra long fingernail (pixie dust ain’t just for kids!). Apparently at one point an older French hooker lived in the garage apartment and had many in-calls who would block the driveway with their cars. She wouldn’t make them move until she was done so needless to say she ran a very high profile at the building. She was then replaced with the quiet Japanese girl who is there now who speaks little to no English and my neighbor, who knows how everyone’s car sounds and can tell when they are there or not, has seen her come home many a night cracked out of her gourd. At least she doesn’t do in-calls.

When that girl moved in, Fig apparently strong-armed our landlord to give her a parking space and keep her there, saying “She had to live there” which was the same line that seemed to catch my neighbor’s attention. Another knock a few days ago alerted me to the fact that the new tenant on the other side of my wall had laid out a doormat that says “VIP Lounge.” She then wished me good luck and retreated back behind her bolted door.

I won’t even start with the fact that the house just two doors up from my apartment is a full-fledged brothel, the new “San Vicente Inn” down the road which despite its weekly and daily rates is really just a bathhouse, and the mysterious red light coming from the attic in the house across the street.

I always thought that I would know if I moved into the bad part of town, but as is customary with Los Angeles, there is a lovely façade covering the secrets. Perhaps this is an excellent place and time to start my underground ferret trade…

Ugly furniture and short pants do not an attractive proposition make

I feel kind of like Norma Desmond – back from obscurity and in the limelight once again, even if it is just a concoction of my own complete insanity. Mr. Demille…I’m ready for my blog.

Primarily, the last few months have been dedicated to developing and producing a spec pilot for a travel show, so I have a good excuse. If anyone happens to own a network or have a wad of cash they want to donate, please let me know.

These are the FlipSide Tales, and while when I started this thing I felt starved for story ideas, I’ve come to realize that weird things happen so often around us that if you just stop and look, you’ll be able to write for days and days.

But one particular recent incident is what made me miss this blog so very, very much. It is another one of those “only in LA” moments of other-worldliness.

My friend Chris had been raving about the Dreamgirls. These lovely ladies put on a show once a week at the bars down the street on Santa Monica where they do impressions and sing our favorite classics with fascinating costumes and tightly choreographed dances. But of course, as is fitting with West Hollywood, the Dreamgirls are not actually women but very slender and surgeried men. But boy can they dance.

Somewhere between the exact look alike Cher medley (I think he looked more like Cher than Cher does) and the lovely Kiwi baring his/ her “breasts,” the girls took a break to introduce some independent movie writer-producer-director in the audience who had made some boy-meets-boy love story called Slutty Summer, destined to live and die with the other independent fare in the Sunset Laemmle 5. He started giving away T-Shirts and calling for particularly slutty volunteers from the audience to come to the stage, and who should show his face but the infamous Bobby Trendy of Anna Nicole Smith fame.


Mr. Bobby Trendy with the equally classy Paris Hilton.Bobby Trendy’s garish furniture shop is actually just down La Cienega Boulevard from my apartment and I can confirm with all confidence that he was not being exaggerated or pushed over the edge on the Anna Nicole Show - Bobby truly is as ridiculous as the camera makes him out to be. Standing on the stage with the spotlight on him in his tight tank top and corduroy Capri pants, Mr. Trendy proceeded to make an ass of himself once more in hopes we would love him. And hey, a few vodka tonics and a couple Coronas down the line, what’s not to love? But apparently Bobby was also a couple drinks in the hole and on his way off the stage he decided to love Chris for a little bit. And that was Chris’ brush with fame. For then.

But when the show ended and we were standing outside the club (we being myself, Chris’ boyfriend George and his friend Alex), the illustrious Bobby Trendy showed his face once more. He made a beeline for Chris and instantly had his hands all over the poor guy. Meanwhile, George looked on in his charmingly sarcastic idiom as the furniture-peddling clown continued his act.

You will never see Bobby before 3 PM on any given day as we learned that under no circumstances will he rise from bed before that ghastly hour. Apparently he needs his beauty rest – and I’ll spare the scathing joke for now. From what I could understand at the time and can recall now, it also had something to do with the fact that he never feels well unless he passes the day in bed, and George wasted no time in discussing Bobby’s gastrointestinal processes with the diva. I don’t think Mr. Trendy ever realized he was being mocked to his face, and George did it with such an unwavering expression that I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a scene from Fight Club in which something ludicrous happens and you just accept it for rote. But it just further goes to prove what a strange place Los Angeles is - when an attention hungry pseudo-celebrity starts hitting on your boyfriend right in front of you, the appropriate response is to make fun of him and encourage him to make an ass of himself to the point that it might as well be on the screen.

Bobby walked off into the distance shaking his hips as only a queen of velour and naugahyde furniture can do and we headed back to our cars. After an exciting Tuesday evening of amazing drag queen lip-synch on top of a shameless quest for sex from a fan, I remembered why I started writing all this down in the first place. You can’t make this up folks.