Soffee - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: a True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Soffee, Anne Thomas.

Nerd girl rocks paradise city : a true story of faking it in hair metal L.A./

Anne Thomas Soffee.1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-55652-586-9

1. Soffee, Anne Thomas.

2. Groupies-California-Los Angeles-Biography.

3. Narcotic addictsCaliforniaLos AngelesBiography.

4. Los Angeles (Calif.)Biography.

5. Richmond (Va.)Biography. I. Title.

CT275.S5888A3 2005

979.494053092dc22 2005008628

Names, Real and Otherwise

Being a celebrity gets you a lot of perks, but it also means when you act up in public, people get to talk about it. Names of the famous and infamous have not been changed. As for my friends, associates, and partners in crime, I have generally changed names, physical characteristics, and identifying details unless they requested otherwise, and I thank those who requested otherwise for being good eggs. In making these changes I have tried to remain true to the spirit of What Actually Happened as much as I could.

Additionally, I am sure that hard-line Big Book thumpers are waiting to take me to task (again) for breaking the Eleventh Tradition and mentioning Alcoholics Anonymous by name instead of using the approved euphemism a twelve-step program. This was an artistic choice that I did not make lightly. In short, everyone knows what a twelve-step program means, and in the end I chose to sacrifice anonymity in order to tell my story clearly and succinctly. If your recovery panties are all in a bunch about it, maybe you should talk to your sponsor about why youre so concerned about my anonymity.

Cover and interior design: Mel Kupfer
Cover image: Erika Dufour/LuckyPix

2005 Anne Thomas Soffee

All rights reserved

First edition

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 1-55652-586-9

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

With love to my husband, Tad Hill,
who doesnt tease me (much) about my past

PROLOGUE
That Girl Has a Ring in Her Nose
Hipster Backlash and Metal Without Irony

1
Im Left, Youre Right, Shes Gone
King-Sized Beds and the King Himself on the Road to L.A.

2
Confessions of a Reluctant Danzig Bimbo
Sorry, Kid, We Dont Speak Irony

3
Strippers, Clown Rooms, and Danzig Among the Mangoes
Day Jobs and Night Moves on Hollywood and Vine

4
Payola Means Never Having to Say You Suck
Where Everybody Knows Your Name Except for the Girl in the Leather Bra

5
Idle Worship
Getting Punkd Ten Years Before Ashton Kutcher

6
I, Industry Weasel
Gabba Gabba, We Accept You, We Accept You, One of Us

7
There Goes the Neighborhood
The Smell of Hairspray Gives Way to Teen Spirit

8
Last Call
L.A. Throws Me the Least Festive Farewell Party Imaginable

EPILOGUE
Tattoo Me
What the World Needs Now Is Olallaberry Pie

f irst and foremost, I offer humble thanks, apologies, and miss yous to all of my L.A. people: Marcia DePriest, David and Margaret Perry, Wayne Pemberton and Tye Smith, Andrew Lucchesi, Brian Frehner, Alex Almanza and the whole mediting crew, Triza Hogsett, Bud Thomas and everyone at the Blacklite, John Sykes, and Patrice Sena, to whom I owe more than I can say.

Between here and there, I tip my hat to Brigit Owers, Dave Schools, and Jim Morris, for putting me up and putting up with me.

Years later and miles away, I owe huge thanks to the people who have been super cool to me when I needed it most (and, in some cases, deserved it the least): Janiece Bernardini, Fran Tribble, Lucy Smith, Auntie Rocky, Karen Riddle, Melissa Burgess, Sabrina Starke, Vickie Holpe, Jeff Gordon, Lynn Barco, Betty and Raymond Millsaps, Randy Hallman, Tom DeHaven, Cynthia McMullen, John Chapin, Claudia Brookman, Sylvia Sichel, Tom Robbins, Mary Dyer Patillo, and Heather Short. Big thanks also to Bishop Walker, Doug Blanchard, Laura LaTour, Woodrow Hill, Kevin Musselman, Marilyn Flanagan, Stacey Ricks, and all the other cool people I met (and re-met) on book touryou guys rock!

I couldnt get this done without such a bang-up crew. Seriously. I couldnt. I am completely beholden to Jane Dystel and everyone at Dystel and Goderich, and, at Chicago Review Press, Cynthia Sherry, the indefatigable Catherine Bosin, Elizbeth Malzahn, and Sara Hoerdeman, and the coolest editor ever, Lisa Rosenthal, who actually takes the time to look up Stiv Bators because thats the kind of thorough gal she is.

And, finally, to my family, who continue to tolerate my public disclosures with grace and patience. George Soffee, Kevin and Christy Stone, Chuck and Mooty Jones, Mark Gershman, Herbert Gershman, Jason and Xine Soffee, Gary and Holly Bohannon, and, of course and always, extra big and grateful love to Ronnie and Dot Soffee. Apologies to my parents for writing another memoir. Dont forget, graduate school was your idea! Sincere and sheepish thanks to Rita and Jathan Stone, who I hope will overlook the scandalous content of this volume and instead focus on my excellent grammar and occasional literary references. In fact, you two should probably just stop reading here.

Hunter S. Thompson, Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Ramone, Joe Strummer, Stiv Bators, Johnny Thunders, Elvis Presley, and, of course, Lester Bangs

Could we please not listen to the Fuck You Music right now? Maura, my long-suffering freshman roommate, begs for a reprieve from Metallic KO as she looks up from her desk full of calculus notes. Her assessment of my choice of music is right on; I got heckled by a bunch of frat boys again on my way back from the dining hall, and I am working out my aggression and disenfranchisement to Iggy and the Stooges, out of place as they may be here among the august halls of the College of William and Mary in colonial Williamsburg. I shrug my shoulders. Im not deliberately trying to make life hard for Maura, but some things just call for Raw Power, and frat boys screaming weirdo chick is one of those things. If Im stuck here at Chino Central, damn it, Iggys coming with me, and theres nothing anybody can say to change that. Maura slams her book shut and storms down the hall to an Iggy-free zone, and I flop down on my single bed and stare up at my autographed Johnny Thunders poster and wonder how Im going to last three and a half more years in this ivied pit.

Before I went to college, I never felt the need to wear my personality on my sleeve. Well, maybe never is too strong a word, but I left the fishnets and hair dye behind in middle school, along with most of the other outer trappings of my musical tastes. A Ramones T-shirt or a well-worn pair of combat boots said all I needed to say at Open High, my alternative public school; with mohawks and chains de rigueur in the student lounge, I stood out more by not standing out. Nobody yelled weirdo from the windows at my high school, like the boys in the dorm across the courtyard do when I walk out my door here at William and Mary. We may have been weird at Open High, but we were weird together, with our Friday night philosophy symposiums and existential literature classes that met in Monroe Park (street people welcome to join in any discussion). The closest we came to thinking