WAR ZONE
Late in the fall of 1982, I finally got my own apartment. All of this time, I had been living at home on New Utrecht Avenue and that was becoming more than complicated. I had been gone—emotionally—from Brooklyn, my mother, and my sister for a long time. However, I hadn’t physically moved out yet. Maybe that was a comfort to my mom, or even me, I don’t know. But I was going to be twenty-three years old soon and I had to go. I needed to move into the city.
I moved in with my friend Roseanne to an apartment at 380 East 10th Street. It was between Avenues B and C, and the center of Lower East Side decay. It was before the Koch heroin busts throughout the city,1 so bodegas and delis sold coke and pot and whatever drug you wanted. One time a car flipped over on East 9th Street and it stayed there for two weeks—completely upside down. No one in the city government, or the sanitation department, gave a shit—they couldn’t be bothered to flip it back over and haul it away. Those streets were filled with nasty garbage and rot everywhere.
The apartment we moved into was a large studio with a small shower stall in the kitchen and a bamboo screen set up in the middle, so we could each have our own space. Privacy, though, was a joke but neither of us seemed to mind, and I even brought home a different guy almost every other night. Luckily, Roseanne didn’t care.
Often when I left work at The Ritz at 4 a.m. and had a couple of hits of coke in me, I sauntered over to The New St. Marks Baths, located at 6 St. Marks Place in the East Village. Without a care in the world and with some real bravado, I usually cut to the front of a very long line stretching from the door of the bath house, down the street to 3rd Avenue. I would then give my money to the attendant at the front desk and get a key to a private room, where I usually met up with a hot stud from Staten Island named Guy. He was built like a brick shithouse, was wildly handsome, and had what looked like a Brillo pad for a toupee. From our first encounter, we were intensely attracted to each other and that manifested itself in heavy make-out sessions, hand jobs, and a quick release. I would then leave his room, hit the showers, and head home as the sun was coming up—completely satisfied.
About a month after Roseanne and I moved in, we were robbed. The strange thing was that the thieves only took my stuff—my stereo, my television, and most of my newly bought clothes from King’s Road on my London trip. In fact, they left Roseanne’s television on the floor—like they had taken it off her shelf, looked at it, then decided it wasn’t good enough, and dumped it on the floor. After another couple months, we were robbed again and I decided I couldn’t take it anymore—particularly since it was always my stuff the thieves wanted. So, until I could find another place, I moved in with Danny Fields in his large West Village apartment.
Danny joined the staff at The Ritz not long after I started working there, and we became close very quickly. He was funny and brilliant and the budding friendship with this historic guy in rock ’n’ roll thrilled me.
He broke into the industry working for Elektra Records, first doing publicity for the Doors, then signing both Iggy Pop’s band the Stooges and the MC5 (on the same day), which would ultimately lead to his managing the Ramones. You could make a convincing case that without Danny Fields, punk rock wouldn’t have happened.2
Certainly, life in The Ritz office could be a little intimidating. Both Jerry and Danny had been instrumental in rock ’n’ roll since the sixties, and I found myself having to forge my own way. I was grateful that I got to learn so much from these two great men.
One time, Black Flag was playing the Ritz and both Danny and I had a crush on their lead singer, Henry Rollins. On the afternoon before the first show, the band came in to do a soundcheck and wound up performing a full-on concert level work-out. When the soundcheck was over, we noticed the gym shorts and T-shirt Henry was wearing were soaked with sweat. He came up to our office and plopped down in a chair. Danny and I looked at each other. We were about to go mental. Henry started chatting us up and the moment he stood up to leave, Danny and I both dove into the chair to smell it. It was very Spinal Tap—“Smell the glove!”
When I moved into Danny’s, I set up a corner in the living room with a small mattress and a sleeping bag. It wasn’t home, but it was cozy.
One night while I was living there, I went out to Danceteria to see Alan Vega, then I went to CBGB’s to see The Lordz—they had a really cute drummer named Vic. He had a super-tight body and I went nuts for him. I got him drunk but there were too many people around him all the time, so I didn’t get a chance to seduce him and drag him home.
I was really fuckin’ high when I got back to Danny’s house, and a whole gang of guys—Danny, Steve, Joel, and Mitchell—were there. They were starting to have an orgy, piling on top of each other, when suddenly Danny disappeared into his room. I ended up having sex with Joel, then with Mitchell. I found Mitchell very hot and exciting. He had a hard, muscular body and we had a wonderful time together.
The next day, Mitchell came back over and we hung out and talked.
“You know, I’ve never really been into that orgy scene,” he said.
I laughed.
“Yeah, me neither.”
We talked about music and went out to get something to eat, then we went back to his apartment. We listened to the new Rickie Lee Jones album, Pirates, and had sex. Initially, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling about Mitchell, but I sensed that I wanted to be around him more and that I didn’t want to stop. Eventually, our connection became very deep, and we started dating exclusively. That ended up causing enormous change in my life because I learned, after I had been with him for a while, that his father was a record executive and was in the process of restarting Elektra Records.
A couple months later, Lori Reese and I moved into a building at 242 Mulberry Street, in Little Italy. It was a one-bedroom, and when we first got there, boy, did it need some major cleaning! But I was really excited about the place. It was also directly across the street from the Ravenite Social Club, the headquarters for the Gambino Crime family, where John Gotti reigned.
Not long after we moved in, I got a call from Geffen Records. They were looking for an A&R rep for their New York office. I guess I had become a bit of a hot shot, booking all these exciting new and established bands at The Ritz and, as Jerry always said, I had my ear to the ground. So, it wasn’t surprising that someone at Geffen called me in for an interview, nonetheless I was floored. After I got off the phone, I started fantasizing about going out to California and meeting everyone at the Geffen offices, which was a series of bungalows on Sunset Boulevard.
I had been feeling worn out at The Ritz—work was 24/7. I ached to just get away—a vacation, anything—so getting that call from Geffen seemed like it happened at the right time. A few days later, I met with John Kalodner from the label. It went really well, and I was set to go to L.A. to meet with the man himself, David Geffen.
In the end, they didn’t hire me. Inexperience was the red flag, though I think they liked the idea of me, since I was so close and active with every major band that came through New York. More than anything, the fact that I didn’t get the Geffen job wasn’t the point. What I knew was it was the beginning of the end for me at The Ritz.