COME DOWN FROM THE HILLS AND MAKE MY BABY

COME DOWN FROM THE HILLS
AND MAKE MY BABY

[184 pg. paperback] $14.95 + S&H

PART ONE: WE BELIEVED IT THEN & I BELIEVE IT NOW

"We believed it then And I believe it now... This music is a manifestation Of the rising tide of awareness on the planet. "This music contributes to a positive environment, It feels good and it casts a comforting spell Over everyone who hears it." "Come Down from the Hill and Make My Baby."-- Dogvillasan, Coyote God from Vietnam PAT BOONE'S DREAM DEBASED Reality and I pick up Yoshi in the alley behind Club Mugi -- the Japanese transvestite bar at the intersection of Hollywood and Harvard -- at 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. We are late for a live music television appearance and are totally geezed on cheap marijuana, a thermos of espresso and the fumes blubbering out of my 1961 Oldsmobile Cutlass. And we are a fashion statement, decked out in borrowed polyester "Nitro Inc." pit crew uniforms, leather jackets and cowboy hats. The uniforms are a temporary gift from a Top Fuel team whose p.r. man had seen us -- Reality, Ikky and I (aka the Braindead Soundmachine) -- around, first while interviewed on a public access show and then as guests in the Top Eliminator Club at the professional drag races. The flak thinks we are rich rock stars. We are neither. "Hey, aren't you guys Braindead?" "Why, yes. We are." "Hey! Great to make your acquaintance! I'm Benny Mayer and I do marketing and public relations for Nitro Inc. and seeing as how you guys are famous and drag racing fans and everything, we would love to do some photo opportunities with you guys. Maybe we can get you to endorse us in interviews ... and maybe buy a 55 gallon drum of nitromethane for us, as a little quid pro quo." "Umm, we can't help you with your fuel costs, but we can promote your race team. As a matter of fact, we're going to be on a music video show this Wednesday. Give us some spare uniforms and we'll wear them during the interview. Perhaps a proper sponsor will see your logo and want to give involved with Nitro, Inc. and start cutting you checks for your operating expenses." We didn't tell him about Yoshi. ***** Like a cross dressing Norma Desmond. Yoshi is also attired for performance -- "ready for (his) close-up" and television debut -- with enough pancake and rouge on his cheeks to start an IHOP franchise. The broadcast is happening in a little over an hour at a small Orange County studio owned by Pat Boone, located across the street from Disneyland. From Hollywood, we will have to cut some serious drive time in order to make the opening credits, and the freeways are fucked. The moment should be bottled. Here we are at the Dawn of the Infotainment Age and all of this makes perfect sense: we pick up a Japanese cross dresser at a back alley behind Club Mugi, a transvestite bar whose squalid coordinates are where any manner of debauched and debased degradation and sexual congress transpire every night, and haul the proprietor, enabler and instigator of such degeneration to a humble local cable television studio owned by pop star cum religious nut Pat Boone. All while pretending to sponsor Nitro Inc., a Top Fuel dragster team. Tutti Frutti, Aw-Rootie, indeed. I drive, Reality takes shotgun and Yoshi rides in the back seat: Two nitro cowboys and their aging geisha quarry of indiscriminate gender. We are late, amped and stuck in traffic, somewhere between the Pai Gow Poker clubs in the Asian parts of East Los Angeles and the Matterhorn at Disneyland and we are laughing. Brake lights glow and glow like a kaleidoscope of bug's eyes, but we are floating above the bottleneck, imitating angels and on some sort of collective out of body experience. Reality asks Yoshi if he knows who Little Richard is. "Oh yes. Very famous in Japan." "And Pat Boone?" "Oh yes. 'A-Wop-bop-a-roo-rop a-rop-bam-boo'." "Exactly. Pat Boone owns the studio we are going to." "Oh. I see." We continue floating and grinding south, with the demographic and quality of automobiles changing commensurately: There are now fewer Mexican low riders and blacks in hoopties but nearly as many Asians in Honda coupes. More and more upper middle class commuters in bucks up sedans are stuck within a quarter car length of the Cutlass, and are trying to come to terms with its peeling paint, billowing black exhaust and its strange cargo, a couple of grease monkeys and what appears to be an Asian meter maid, taking pulls from a thermos and then laughing maniacally in sync. "So Yoshi, the interviewers are going to ask you some questions that you may not be able to understand." "I see." "So if you don't understand the question, just answer them this way; say, 'The Salamanders are coming.'" "'The Saramanders?'" "'Are coming.'" "'All com-ing.'" "Perfect." Finally we get to Orange County. "Aww, the Mattelholn," Yoshi points to the Happiest Place on Earth. Walt Disney. Pat Boone. Yoshi. The Braindead Soundmachine is really beginning to hit its stride, I think to myself.