Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A. by Anne Thomas Soffee

Author:Anne Thomas Soffee [Soffee, Anne Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2006-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

5

Idle Worship

Getting Punk’d Ten Years Before Ashton Kutcher

hey, give me another Valium.” I nudge Raelynn’s elbow, causing the eyeliner she’s applying to streak up her temple, making her look like a pissed-off Cleopatra in leather.

“Why? We just had one.” We’ve been at Boardner’s since eight o’clock, drinking beer and popping the Valium that Raelynn’s well-meaning doctor prescribed to carry her through her divorce. I grew up hearing my elderly aunts advising one another to “take a Valium and go lie down” whenever things got stressful—and in a house full of elderly Lebanese women, that’s often—but I never knew firsthand what a magical equation that was until I met Raelynn and availed myself of her generosity and open-ended prescription. A Valium makes me feel stress-free and laid back no matter what’s going on around me. A Valium and a beer makes me feel stress-free and charming. A Valium, a beer, and a shot of Jack Daniels makes me feel like Cherie Currie. I’m wondering how I made it this far without trying it.

Q: So has Raelynn corrupted you into mixing Valium with your beer?

A: Given my family mantra, Valium and I have been on a collision course since day one. If it hadn’t been Raelynn, it would have been a little old Lebanese woman in a housecoat. Besides, I’m a big girl, and the bad decisions I make are wholly my own.

“Well, I’m feeling like the crowd is particularly stupid tonight.” The collective IQ at Boardner’s isn’t usually Mensa level, but tonight it feels like we’re dealing with, well, some very special people. So far the only guy who’s even asked for my number was wearing pancake foundation over his acne and a silver lamé shirt over his paunch. No-thank-you city. We’re hiding in the bathroom now, nursing our beers and hiding from Pancake and his friend, who haven’t gotten the not-so-veiled brush-offs we’ve been giving them all night. “I just want to level the playing field a little more, that’s all.” Raelynn gives in and hands me a blue pill, which I swallow gratefully.

“Let’s go get one more beer and then leave,” she suggests, and I agree. No sense hanging around if it’s going to be like this all night. We make our way to the bar for two more longnecks and observe the crowd with a mixture of disappointment and amusement. Pancake and his friend have left, but no one compelling has come in since we went to hide in the bathroom and the pickings are slim. There’s the redheaded bouncer, as usual, but I’ve given up trying to get him to talk to me. I never see him talk to anybody, so I don’t feel too insulted, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. I recognize a few faces from local bands, some from the pictures on the wall at Around the World and some from my brief career at the weeklies. The singer from Junkyard is nursing a whiskey at the bar; even though they had a couple of MTV hits, he’s nothing exciting since he’s here most every night.

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