I AM SO RELIEVED

On Friday afternoon, I had a long, leisurely lunch with Pleasant and Randy Detroit, a sort of Lobotomy, the brainless magazine reunion of sorts, at our favorite Hollywood eaterie for such meetings, Victor's. We monopolized the table, but it was a late lunch, and the staff there love Pleasant.

Over much reminiscing, laughter and yes, stares from the nice normal people who wouldn't know from rip roaring laughter over punk rock, my phone rang and it was Gun Clubber, Terry Graham. Terry and I arranged to meet later in the day, and the phone was passed around to Randy and Pleasant. I think we agreed to do some kind of LA Class of 77 Reunion THING later this year.

As what normally happens, you start to talk about what's different about things, especially your home town, 30 years later (oh, yeah and the scary revelation of how old we really are). I truly believed that the Famous Lobotomy Apartment was a goner. I'd driven past the corner of Franklin and La Brea scores of times over the last three months that I've been in LA. On the corner, where the empty lot used to be is now a gigantic apartment complex, over-landscaped with trees so that it looks like a Caribbean resort. Check it out: 1801 N. La Brea. a monstrosity. But, as Randy gave me a ride to the post office, I asked him to drive past the site of the pad.

To my relief and Randy's "I told you so" bemusement, 7231 Franklin Ave., the Beresford Apartments ARE STILL STANDING. Yes... a tiny piece of LA punk history LIVES. That's where we pasted together some issues of Lobotomy...where Spazz Attack frequently crashed and cleaned the apartment before we all got up. Kid Congo also did the same because he thought he puked all over the rug... only it was a mixture of baby food and dog food that Pleasant cooked up as a practical joke to make Kid think he puked. You see, we weren't yet 21 when I lived at the Famous Lobotomy Apartment. We'd go into Rock n Roll Ralph's and buy vodka, baby food, Alpo and disposable diapers. We'd want the cashier to believe we were housewives - anyone with a dog and a baby could use some vodka, right? That was our logic and it worked. So, with a treasure trove of baby food and Alpo, what else could you do with it BUT play practical jokes.

There was a time however, that no practical joking was necessary. I believe that someone somewhere has got to have snapshots of what led to this - once Pleasant, Kid and I all passed out on the floor, only I didn't know I had some kind of cold or flu. I was taking aspirin and going back to sleep. I woke up probably every two hours and took two more aspirins. Needless to say, when I woke up for real, my stomach hurt. BAD. Just like the humorously well-known Tommy Burgers pickled jalapeno and Twinkie incident, I turned to cheap, fast dessert food to cure my ailing and burning stomach. Kid and I went to the Rock n Roll Ralph's and bought one of those cake mixes that comes complete with its own weird pan. We made the cake and tried to flavor it with baby food (apple or something like that) and it was pretty awful. I do not recommend this. Lobotomy experimented so you don't have to! In retrospect, I should have stuck with the Twinkie defense.

Anyway, I am relieved to have been mistaken about the fate of my first apartment...sometime, you should ask Pleasant about the presence of a Siegfried and/or Roy type fellow there and his pet tiger...