TEEN HOOKERS, JEALOUS VIKINGS, AND FREE SEX SHOWS
(Denmark, Norway, and Finland)
A slight lift in anticipation level surrounds our little search party as we drive toward the ferryboat that will take us to Copenhagen, Denmark’s legendary city of sin and, once upon a time, the international capital of pornography. A good town to pop in to for a quick sex change as well, I’m told. Simon’s opted to take a longer drive, shorter ferry ride, but by the time we get to port we learn we missed the boat by five minutes. We sit in the van, watching the huge ferry depart for foreign shores. Simon gets out to see when the next boat leaves. As is the norm now, no one speaks during his absence. Dahl stares out the window, Tim is still struggling through my Burroughs novel, I’m reading Kerouac’s tales of fun road travels, Z’s getting aroused by Henry Miller, Ratboy grooves with Lightning Hopkins on his headphones. Please, no talking in the library, or should I say bookmobile.
“The next boat leaves in two and a half hours,” Simon states flatly.
“Why don’t we go back down the road to a restaurant, or someplace to get some breakfast?” asks Rat.
“Get some coffee, sounds good,” says Z, trying to make the best of it.
“No,” is all Simon says.
“Why not?” I want to know, my voice tensing slightly. “What are we supposed to do in this parking lot for two and a half hours?”
“You can do whatever you want. My job is to get you to the ferry, which I’ve done. Beyond that, I can’t be bothered.”
“You can’t be bothered to get us here on time, either,” says Dahl, seemingly siding with us for a change.
“I’m not driving anywhere, the van’s not moving, and that’s that. Why don’t you lot walk back to that store and restaurant at the other end of the marina? The walk will do you good and kill time.”
What is this, a hiking variation on Z’s Rip Van Winkle theory? Everybody gets upset all at the same time.
“Simon! You jerk. Drive us where we want to go. You work for us, goddammit!! Let’s go, let’s go,” everyone hollers all at once at the man previously referred to as God.
“No.”
“You’re an asshole, Simon. I can’t even believe it,” moans Rat.
We all call Simon various derogatory names as we exit the van, even Dahl, who has been riding in back to avoid the rest of us. For a moment, all musicians and even Tim are united against the common enemy, our road manager.
We hit a duty-free shop for the usual supply of Walkman batteries, cigarettes, toothpaste, and what not, and then Dahl has had enough socializing and heads back to the van. This fifteen-minute walk together was probably the most any of us have seen him in a relaxed setting outside of a hotel since Switzerland, where he actually strolled through the streets of Bern with Simon and myself. The rest of us head to some sort of truck stop-style restaurant for artery-clogging pork, coleslaw, and spuds. Conversation is peppered with the familiar anti-tour complaining, which has markedly switched from “fuck Dahl” to “fuck Simon.” We sit and talk quietly, but all eyes are upon us. Guess they don’t get many longhaired weirdoes in funny hats and leather jackets ‘round here.
Two hours later, we finally get onboard the ferry, and I take a seat up on the middle deck by myself to watch the ocean roll by and have a smoke. Simon joins me and wants to talk about why he did what he did and why he’s being the way he’s being, but I wave him off and tell him I don’t want to argue in public and I just want to be alone. Actually, alone is nice. The calming sea, the blissful nicotine, the reclining seats. I’m sure I’ll see my five traveling companions in close quarters again before I know it, but for now I’m at peace.
I hear an outburst of hollering behind me, and turn to see it’s Ratboy and Simon. Simon’s tried to give Rat the same song and dance, and instead of declining as I did Rat dove in headfirst. I walk up to the top deck so I don’t have to hear it.
I take heed of Z’s Rip Van Winkle approach, and after a few brews on the ferry, I sleep for the remainder of the van ride to Copenhagen, wake up for soundcheck, and then off to the hotel, nary a word to anyone.
I’ve got a solo room in a nice hotel, the only disturbance being some sort of high school function with loads of seventeen-year-old kids drunk out of their minds running up and down the halls. After a shower, I settle in for some CNN on the telly, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Hey, what’s up?” It’s Tim, trying to be cheerful, attempting to get the most out of his last few Euro-Blur days before he off-loads to the Vatican.
“Nothing. I’m just watching the news.”
“You wanna go do something? I figured if anyone would want to explore Copenhagen, it’d be you. Everyone else seems content just to sit around and be mad about everything.”
“An astute observation. Well, let’s synchronize. I figure we’ve got about an hour-fifteen before we have to head off for tonight’s rock-a-thon. Yeah, let’s see what the natives around here do for kicks.”
Who’d have thought, the last two folks able to get along and not devote all their energies to griping about the tour would be me and Tim. Off we go, nonetheless, into the mysterious Copenhagen night. As a bonus, we have dinner buy-out money. Oh, the thrills of budget traveling.
After grabbing something quick and cheap to eat, we check our watches and see we’ve got just under an hour to get into trouble. Since we have no idea of where to go or what to do, we start off by going into the stripper bar directly across from the hotel. Before even negotiating for our admission, we’re told to beat it because Tim’s wearing Levi’s and that don’t meet the dress requirements for this fine establishment. While were dickering with the door guy, a red curtain opens and I get a quick peak at the revelry inside.
We exit, and I say to Tim: “Don’t worry about it. I saw in there and it looked pretty dismal, just a bunch of old businessmen sitting around talking to overpriced hookers. Didn’t seem like anything for us.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” calls a voice from behind us. It’s some shifty looking guy in a cheap suit about five paces to our rear. “I couldn’t help but hear what happened. I know a place I could take you where they have what you want.”
“Oh yeah?” Tim inquires a little too eagerly.
“How do you know what we want?” I ask, assuming the role of voice of reason and caution.
“You want to see some girls put on a show, a good show, right? Not some place where they’re just sitting around talking?”
“Well, yeah, and time is precious. What do you have in mind,” I ask, seeing if his cards will come to the table.
“I’ll take you there. It’s just up here a few blocks.”
“Great,” enthuses Tim, again a little too eagerly.
“We’re not exactly rolling in cash,” I warn, giving him the signal early on that we’re poor robbery targets.
“C’mon along then,” he says, and we follow this guy, who mentions as we walk that he recently relocated here from Pakistan.
“You’re low on money, then,” he tries to confirm.
Again, the eager one steps up to bat with his foot in his mouth. “Oh, I’ve got enough money. No problem.”
I grab Tim by the arm and pull him a few steps behind our tour guide. “Don’t tell this joker shit like that,” I whisper. “We don’t know what his scam is. He may have some crony waiting around a corner to bonk us on the heads and make off with our wallets. This guy emerged from a strip club to lead us into the night. It’s a tenuous situation at best. Keep your mouth shut and stay on your toes.”
As it turns out, the guy is actually on the level. He takes us across a major boulevard and down a side street to an unmarked black door. We follow him in, and what do you know, a strip show is in progress, and there’s no cover charge.
The scam unfolds quickly enough. This guy combs the neighborhood for confused, lonely, horny foreign guys (like us) to bring to this establishment, wherein they are to become separated from their cash upon arrival. The deal is, the show—what there is of it—is, in fact, free. The girls dance, and then come and sit down by you. They make a minimum of small talk before instigating negotiations for a more private form of entertainment. In front of us, an English businessman argues with what appears to be the madam on duty about his accrued credit card charges. A good hand job just ain’t as cheap as it used to be.
The girls are young and pretty, but tainted with the look of desperation that comes with this form of low-level prostitution. An Asian princess sits down by me, and a few “Hey Sailors” later gets the picture that my buyout money doesn’t quite get into her level of finance. A tall blonde, presumably the product of strict Danish breeding, is wiggling about onstage in her négligée—sheesh, they don’t even reveal as much as German quiz shows—and following her sensual two-step, sits down next to me to try her luck with the traveling rocker. For all she knows, I could be in Pearl Jam and rolling with a huge expense account and per diems. Meanwhile, Tim tries to shake the Queen of Asia.
We order a couple of beers at fifty Krowns each, approximately ten bucks, and Blondie relaxes and sorta turns into a more or less normal girl. She realizes she hasn’t hit pay dirt with me, and at the same time she’s confident that I’m not gonna try and come on to her.
She’s a student, paying her way through college shaking ass and appeasing traveling old guys. It’s a job. “I won’t be doing it forever, you know. I’m going to get a job in the advertising field.”
We finish our beers, watch a few other ladies do their non-strips, and it’s off for the show. Our Pakistani friend has obviously gone off in search of more recruits.
“Try to come back later,” Blondie asks me, but I somehow can’t imagine it, even as I look at her five-foot-nine chiseled, fading beauty. Shit, there’s nothing wrong with her that a few hundred Krowns wouldn’t correct.
That evening, our show is boring. The crowd is polite, though polite is really not high on the list of qualities that makes for an outstanding rock ‘n’ roll audience. As if to compensate, one extremely drunk moron keeps running up to the front of the stage and heckling us. He finally starts jumping on the stage and grabbing the mic, yelling incoherent bullshit over our semi-coherent music. He’s bumping into us and being a real asshole, so I grab him and toss him off the stage. He turns and grabs at my face, yelling, “Get a haircut,” at me. Now, I’m mad. I toss down my bass and get ready to meet my adversary head-on, when some bouncers grab him and throw him out. Good, better them than me!
From the nation’s capital to the country’s most obscure little village, that’s the way we do it, honey. Friday, March 12th, finds the traveling freak show in a pleasant little gingerbread village called Ålborg, complete with cobblestone streets and a windmill. We arrive at the club just after lunchtime. It’s upstairs in a little bar you’d see in an old Frankenstein movie, where the villagers gather to decide what to do about the monster. It’s run by volunteer music fans, community funded, but booked by private promoters. The only person on payroll is an accountant. It all seems to run along fine, but they are off the beaten path, not many bands make it up this way. Antiseen had just played here, a band who will later join us in Finland.
Given that it’s volunteer run, I try to get the girl at the bar to donate some coffee, tea, beer, bread, or anything to us since we’ve had nothing today—which, in fact, isn’t exactly true, but sometimes you don’t get ahead by strictly telling the truth. She feels a little sorry for us, and offers us whatever we’d like. Okay, make mine whiskey and coke.
I sit and have a drink while the rest of the entourage is buzzing around doing something. God knows what. Watching the girls who work here, I get a strong lesbian vibe from them. When I watch two walk into the back room and start making out, it seems like my hunch was accurate. In fact, all the volunteers are young women. There seem to be no men at all involved in this operation. We also work with our first and only soundwoman of the tour at this venue.
The mild, mellowing buzz the whiskey affords me softens the blow of tonight’s living quarters. Across the courtyard, and out the back of the upstairs of the club, is a barren room with a well-worn mattress strewn on the floor. Sleeping bags and blankets lay in piles. Ominously, in the middle of the floor, is a third-world pinball machine that runs endlessly for free. None of us can make out the point of the game, but it is a free, loud, clanging, time waster, and we all spend hours on it.
“If we’re going to make the ferry on time—and I know you guys want to—we have to be up and on our way by six in the morning tomorrow,” Simon announces. This makes our flophouse somewhat more bearable. We’ll only be on these moth-eaten mattresses a few hours.
The club lets us use the phone. I have to presume they know we don’t know a lot of people in Ålborg and that we’re going to be calling the States. I call Gina at work, so I can hear her sober for a change, and she tells me how she’s lost some weight and is looking hot. Girls really know how to work ya up when they want to. “I can’t wait to see your body in all its glory,” I tell her.
Christ, I’m thinking about her and it makes me step away from the desk where the phone is, stumbling dizzily. Gina is an odd one in oh so many ways, and thinking about her in any level of detail starts to make me feel conflicted. I miss her. I resent her. I idolize her. I disrespect her. I negate her. What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with me?
On the cramped stage, the show goes well, and its more fun to play than it’s been in quite a few days. The audience is reserved on the whole, but offset by a few decidedly carefree individuals who make it their business to get the party started, dancing and yanking on each other’s privates, pulling rude and funny faces, and basically acting the collective fool. A short blonde, with that Marianne Faithfull haircut that drives me wild and a fluffy fur coat, comes and stands up front and grooves to our increasingly accelerating, pulsating and lascivious juvenile delinquent rock ‘n’ roll beat. Dahl and Z both shoot glances at me. They’re thinking the same thing I am. This Ms. Faithfull could double for my ex-girlfriend who went on the road with us to San Francisco. Dahl snickers and goes back to paying attention to his vocals. Next to this appealing vision are two equally lovely girls making out with each other. Ålborg may be off the beaten track, but it is a liberal, do-what-thou-wilt kind of a place.
After the show is wrapped, I begin to map out my possibilities. This town is dinky, but just around the corner from the bar, and our digs, is a strip loaded with discos, bars, clubs, and nightlife. I’m not going to sit around our upstairs hideaway while everything is within walking distance. I walk up to the girl in the fur and get to the point.
“I want you to go with me dancing and drinking, right now! Well, yes or no!?”
She laughs, takes a look at her friend occupied in conversation elsewhere, and turns back toward me. “Sure, why not? I want to say hallo to ah few people here that ah know first.”
“Great, I’ve got to hide my bass, and I’ll be ready.”
Her name is Helene, and she’s French. Upon making quick introductions, I learn she’s a few months older than me and even has a fifteen-year-old daughter. That doesn’t make me feel any younger, but it’s too late in the game to worry about my ego. Besides, she looks good and the years have obviously been kind to her. She takes Tim, Rat, and me to a rock club just down the street to kick out the dance floor jams. We all hit the floor in this manic party joint, even Tim. Rat has someone to talk French with, so he’s happy. I walk up to the bar, and a teenage vamp is staring me down. She walks past me, and shoots her hand up between my thighs and gives my prick a quick yank. She turns to wink and walks on. Choices! Do I want the mature French Venus in Furs with the Nico-do, or the teenage slut I can just carry on my shoulders up to the filthy mattresses of wanton sin? I’ll decide later. Right now I want to hip-shake my blues away.
Rat leans over as we move on the floor and points out the teen troublemaker, saying she asked him if I was up for grabs. This was before she grabbed me, I guess. They take things so literally around here. Helene walks up behind me, pulls me to the center of the dance floor, and we dance like swingin’ Nashville teens to the oh-so-long-ago sounds of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There.” For a moment, we are lost in past glories, sounds of our individual, obviously very different youths, still maintaining a common ground of mutual love of the Fab Four.
Rat and Tim announce they’re going to go back to the barracks. After all, it’s early to rise tomorrow. With Jeff, Z, and Simon already bedded down back at Camp Ålborg, I had been awarded the responsibility of key-keeper, he who will have entrance to our hideaway and lord over the lock on the door. I must go let them in and lock it all up. It’s just the way we do it.
I tell Helene I’ll be back momentarily, and walk the block and a half to put my brethren to beddy-bye. As I lock them safely away, and walk down the worn staircase that leads back to the party-mad streets below, I’m overcome by a strange feeling. At first I don’t recognize it, but it comes to me eventually. I’m alone. I have the key. I can come and go as I please without anyone else’s company or consent. I’m free from my constricting compatriots to run wild with the raging wind. I don’t need cab fare, the van keys, or permission to do anything. It feels kind of like what I imagine adulthood to be like. I am overwhelmed with simple, pure joy, skipping without caution down the steps, and bouncing out into the street. It’s such an elementary, basic thing giving me such unparalleled pleasure. Always a lone wolf, an only child, and used to traveling alone on magazine and record company assignments, this prolonged boy scout adventure we called a tour had begun to feel like a prison sentence, and the promise of a few hours of sheer, unmonitored freedom gave me a rush of adrenaline.
Helene is as I left her, but rather than dance we nab a table and bond. She tells me she’s married, which for some illogical reason makes me want to kiss her all the more, which I do.
“Where is this lucky guy you’re married to?”
“Well, he eez around. He won’t be in here, that’s one of zee reasons I brought you here, heez been banned from this club. Too much fighting.”
I try to envision some crazed street-fighting man stumbling in on us, hopped up on the local liquor, and itching to kick some Yankee butt. “Banned, eh? C’mere, I want to kiss ya some mo’.”
“I shouldn’t do this,” she says softly but not convincingly.
“None of us should do anything we do. You’ll learn that when you’re my age.”
“But I’m older than you.”
“Oh yeah, well, tell you what, you get a couple of drinks, and I’ll go get the DJ to play more songs we like.”
As I make my way through the club, another teenage vixette grabs my ass. Is it the same girl? Jeez, I can’t tell them apart. They’re all blonde, pert, alive, and ready to step into the roll of Lolita. I know one thing for sure: I love this town. They like to kiss in this town, they like to grab and fondle, and no one seems to get too upset about who’s doing what with whom. I wondered if this liberal attitude would be present in Helene’s husband.
I return to the table, and, speak of the Devil, find that Helene’s husband wears furs, too. He also looks like a Viking and is about eight feet tall. Many years younger than his wife, Helene’s husband looks fit, strong, drunk, and angry. After some clumsy introductions, I figure it’s about time for me to evaporate, so I start to fade into the woodwork, resurfacing to look for youthful dick-yankers. Meanwhile, two crazy looking geek guys in ties and glasses start doing some form of Lambadi with each other, rubbing their crotches together and dancing about in wild abandon. They leap on tables and all manner of beverage flies through the air. Helene’s Viking prince approaches the melee with an eye on returning the situation to order, maybe just to keep in practice, and I use the diversion to sweep her out of there and walk me home.
We walk arm and arm through the cold, clear Danish night, and stop to smooch at the doorway at the bottom of the stairs to the Dahl/Factsheet hideaway. “I feel a connection with you, something special,” she tells me. Is this true, or just something she concocts to ease the guilt she feels for ignoring matrimonial oaths? We promise to write, and off she goes. I check my watch. It’s 4:30 a.m.
An hour and a half later it’s rise and shine. I barely rise. I’m quite sure I ain’t shinin’. Out in the courtyard, there are some breakfast rolls and juice. I nibble at something and try to open my eyes. Helene walks in, surprising me to say the least, and sits down next to Ratboy, continuing some conversation from the previous night in French. I feel uncomfortable—it’s one thing to carry on with a girl in the door stoop, but not in front of the guys. She senses my discomfort, gives me a quick nod, and is off. I ask Rat nothing and he offers me no information. Dahl watches her leave and then turns to me.
“Man, I can’t get over how much she looks like...”
“Yes, yes, be quiet now,” I cut him off.
“Well, this is it,” says Tim. “I’m out of here.” He’s catching a cab, to a bus, to a jet, to the Pope—a meeting of the minds from which we may never learn the outcome, never truly understand the ongoing international impact. Goodbyes are a bizarre blend of sincerity and superficiality, as Tim steps through the door and fades into the sunrise, spaghetti western style. Off-loaded once and for all and no longer a piece in our private little puzzle.
Off to another ferry, a terrible ride on a glorified fishing boat. I’m woozy and booze sick, sloshing about the deck in semi-hallucination. Finally, back on land, we hit top speed for the Swedish border.
The border guards take a serious look at us inside the van and order us to pull over next to their garage. They open the garage, and instruct us to pull in, closing the huge door behind us. “Out of the van.”
“What’s all this?” they ask, looking at our cased equipment and bags of luggage. We tell them, and they instruct us to unload everything for the drug dogs. Shit, how many drugs have been in and out of those bags in the last week alone, what with Z’s heroin, our hashish, and who even knows what else? Does Dahl’s French cough syrup count? I get real nervous, but try to conceal my unease. Given my general queasiness, though, I feel like I’m an open book.
While the garage is prepared for the drug hounds, the prisoners are led into interrogation rooms. Rat and Z take seats while the rest of us stand and wait, and a guard stands attentively observing us. Another guard walks in with—oh no—it’s the PLASTIC GLOVES. Shit! There is no way I’m going to survive a stiff-fingered butt probe at this hour of the morning following the preceding night’s binge and the subsequent ferry ride without coloring the walls with the contents of my digestive system.
The tension in the room is electrifying. We collectively clench like a fist. The box of plastic gloves ominously sits on a desk while guards and suspects nervously exchange glances. Ratboy sulks forward in his seat and moans, “Oh no.”
He sits there shaking his head with worry. “What’s the matter?” I ask him quietly.
“I can’t remember.” He seemed to be sure everyone was listening. “I can’t remember when I showered last.”
The room was absurdly hushed. Rat continued as if unaware of the growing concern around him. “Was it a week ago, ten days?”
The tough-looking guard with the Rutger Hauer chin swallows hard and picks up the gloves. He takes them out of the room while we display the pitiful contents of our pockets and are told we could go. We quickly pack up the van, and off we go. Rat’s experience with crossing Euro borders has once again paid off. There’s nothing like having a homeboy in the band. When I look in my overnight bag later, I find my things have been neatly repacked, and that they disassembled my stick deodorant, checked out my film containers, and dumped out my vitamins. All in a day’s thorough work for the border patrol. “This one’s safe to let through, comrade.”
The drive to Oslo is long, slow, and dreary. It seems to pass as if just a foggy recollection, as something vaguely slept through—but from which no rest was obtained. The venue is a huge ballroom, capacity probably around 800. About thirty people turn out to see Jeff Dahl and the two local bands. It is unbelievably dismal. In a particularly fragile moment, I dedicate a song to my ex-wife, a tall, dark goddess of strong Norwegian stock. Meanwhile, five guys decide to start slam dancing, and their makeshift mosh pit drive the other twenty-five audience members away. We come offstage and, incredibly, Dahl asks us with a straight face, “Regular three?”
Stockholm is where we’ll take the ferry to Finland. It is an awesome looking city, and given that Simon gets lost looking for port, we see a lot of it. I nibble on a bag of potato chips that will be my complete diet for the day, riding shotgun, making sure Simon stays awake on yet another drive that begins at 6:30 a.m. Finland looks to be the Promised Land, a place where Dahl can actually sell records and where Hanoi Rocks-style raunch ‘n’ roll is godhead. Truth is, Denmark and Norway were just stepping stones to get to Finland. There was virtually no awareness of Dahlrock in these places, hence the dislocated, weird, under-attended shows.
At about 5:00 p.m., after ten straight hours on the road, we finally are driving up into the ferry. This one’s huge, a seven decker complete with private rooms, casinos, restaurants, shops, a disco, an old-fashioned band of married men, and people of all nationalities passing in the corridors and on deck. Nonetheless, with all this to do and see, all five of us are sound asleep in our cabins by 6:00 p.m., letting the ocean rock us to sleep for the next twelve hours. After the long drives and the nearly sleepless nights, it’s time for some catch-up.
I wake up at about 7:00 a.m. Finland time to hear a loud grinding, crunching, cracking sound on the other side of the cabin wall. Our cabin, down on deck two, is actually below sea level. I jolt awake but notice my cabin mates are either dead or nearly dead. Not wanting to wake anyone but not able to roll back asleep, I decide to go up on deck and investigate. Imagine, I’m on this gigantic ship, and here I am on deck completely alone, not another soul in sight. The blackest of nights, and as far as I can see down the length of the ship, there is no other sign of life. Hope someone’s got a grip on the wheel. I look over the side, down to the icy waters below, and discover what the noise was. The ship is crashing through the ice, the frozen ocean. We are indeed in a cold part of the world, something Southern California boys like me don’t see a great deal of. In the mist and fog, I snap pictures of the cracking ice while the rest of my comrades sleep warmly in their bunks. Crunnnch. It is even colder than one might imagine given the wind, the mist, and the frozen waters, but I’m mesmerized by the glorious solitude of it. Standing right on the furthermost front tip of this vessel, it almost seems I could leap off the edge and take flight.
Our local promoter, Lenny, meets us at the dock, and we follow his BMW to the luxury hotel we’re to stay in. Right on the icy bay, with snow everywhere, it’s a cold but beautiful sight from our stately rooms. We have to fill out semi-lengthy questionnaires at the check-in desk, inquiring as to our professions and purpose of visit. Rat fills in Occupation: “Rocker.” Purpose of Stay: “I have to rock.” A few hours to stumble around Helsinki are supervened by a 3:00 p.m. sound check.
The venue is gymnasium-sized, with a large private dressing area backstage and a cafeteria serving up hot chili and tea. We settle in there, play a little pool, and indulge in some chili. Checking out the locals convinces me that this must be where white people were invented. These are white people! Pure white skin—almost translucent—sky-blue eyes, and natural blonde, bright yellow hair. We have a ninety-minute sound check that leaves us sounding loud and proud.
Returning from the hotel for showtime, the place is really starting to fill up. It seems like an old seventies rock concert with four bands and a young crowd of boys and girls anxious to party. There is no beer for sale here. The only beer is in the musician’s dressing room, which is beginning to fill with hangers-on for that very reason.
Rat walks in with two exquisite women: one a tall, flaxen blonde beauty calling herself Jennifer who seems particularly taken with our guitar slinger. They sit on a couch, talking quietly and sipping beer. An actual dressing room filled with cute girls—isn’t this how it’s supposed to be every night? Otherwise, why not just play in the symphony?
Dahl and Z walk in and Dahl announces: “We’re reviving the Parisian glam rock act. Get that makeup on and spray that hair, boys.” I guess he figured since we were in the land of Hanoi Rocks, we’d pay our own form of tribute.
I begin struggling with some eyeliner when Jennifer volunteers to assist. Leaning over me, exposing her firm breasts slightly as her silky hair tumbles in my face, I can see the appeal of being fussed over as a real star might. Enjoy it for the moment. It won’t last long, to be sure.
“What did you say your name was?” I ask this beauty.
“Mina.”
“I thought you said it was Jennifer.”
“Oh, yaass.” She giggles for a minute or so.
“Well, which is it?”
“They both are my name, depending on who yoooouuuu are.”
“Whatever. Listen, don’t be delicate with this stuff,” I request, indicating the eye makeup. “Pile it on. I want to look scary, not pretty.”
“You mean like Aleez Cooopah? I can do that, sit back, prettee boyee.” More giggles. “There, what you tink of zat?” she asks as she points me toward a mirror.
“It’s grotesque! Perfect, thanks.”
I step onto the side of the stage to check out Antiseen, some country boys from the South, mixing Black Oak Arkansas good-time washboard rock with hyper-drive punk. After some super high-energy workouts, the group’s heavyset singer, a gentleman named Jeff Clayton, takes his washboard and rubs it across his face like a cheese grater. Various scars (obtained by doing this routine in the past) open up and bleed easily, causing red curtains to pour from his forehead and cheeks.
“Hey, good set,” I say to the bloody mess as he mops his face with a towel.
“Ah, hell, thanks. Thanks a lot. I can’t wait to see y’all’s set.”
“So, how much more of your tour have you got left?”
“This is our third gig. We got forty more left.”
“Do you open up your face at every show like that?”
“Well, not every show, pardner, but quite a few of them.”
“Take care of yourself then. Do be careful, won’t you?”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be okay.”
Wow, I can’t believe how parental I just acted. He seemed to appreciate it in some strange way. Maybe he doesn’t ever hear anyone express concern, just: “When are you gonna bleed all over the place again?” I like the guy, though, and don’t mind letting him know it.
Our show goes well, and it ends this swing of our tour on a high note. Maybe it was the best show of the whole run. The crowd is a good three or four hundred strong, and way into what we are doing, causing the band to play at the pinnacle of our abilities. Too bad every night can’t be this gratifying, but that wouldn’t be real. The floor’s filled with blindingly white people all shaking their hair in choreographed perfection. It will make for a lasting and strong memory, something I can take to my grave with minimum embarrassment.
The dressing room is packed with fans, taking photos and having us sign this and that. Rat continues to carry on with Jennifer/Mina, who leaves with him for the van. Yo, Rat, making his move in the eleventh hour, twelve o’clock high.
Back at our hotel, in the room we’re sharing, Simon pours drinks and pops beers. Rat, Z, and the girl stop in to party with us before going down to their room. The television is on, we’re all drinking and talking, then Rat and Z suddenly rise and excuse themselves. “We’re going to go to sleep, I guess,” says Rat. They leave and the girl stays behind.
“My name is really Christa,” she says softly, sitting with her back arched on Simon’s bed and her legs crossed seductively. Simon, where was Simon? I hear the toilet flush in the next room and that answers that.
“Don’t be so shy, come a little closer.”
“I thought you came here with Ratboy? I can’t just step in on his find, that goes against the laws of the open road!”
“Laws?” She laughs, stands to face me, and puts her arms around my neck.
“Don’t touch me. We musicians have honor amongst ourselves, like thieves.”
I had no idea what I was talking about, and as good as this cream puff looked to me, it didn’t feel right to be with her, not even close. I had to assess the situation. I’ve been slogging it out on this blind run of a tour for two straight months now, and much of the time it had been a competition with myself to land the perfect daydream, to interact with foreigners in a directly physical yet obliquely spiritual and overtly erotic manner. Could it be done? Did it make sense? Was it a goal worth pursuing in the first place, or was it just something I gravitated toward because of a heightened sense of boredom and a diminishing appraisal of self-worth?
It was all a lot to cross-register as I considered my options at the present moment. I’ve been avoiding sex by playing around on dance floors, and at the same time repeatedly trying to get an another-side-of-the-globe fix on the real love of my life, Gina, who was back at home, doing who knows what? But when it came right down to it, despite her good times, her hiccupping, her partying, and her occasional departures from this dimension, she seemed to be as faithful to me as could be hoped for.
In the meantime, these women that have been presented to me in a variety of forms and images, real and imagined—a veritable parade of earthly delights. Would my simple coupling with them have been rewarding in a slightly altered set of circumstances? Many even more cynical than myself might have looked back over their shoulders and sneered, “What are you waiting for? Your best days have already left you behind…”
There she sits, Jennifer/Mina/Christa, an animal waiting to pounce, no hunger except for blood in its purist extraction, eyeing me as if I was nothing more than a passing form of disposable satisfaction. Had I looked at any of my conquests—potential or theoretically realized—any differently? Is there any real reason I don’t just throw her down on my bed and fuck her in half? She’s as sexy as any girl I’ve ever seen, why not just go for it and worry about the right/wrong and otherwise of it later. Philosophy, who needs it?
“Wait here a minute. I’ll be right back,” I announce, and head down the hall to Casa de la Rat y Z.
“What’s up, Rat? I thought you wanted to party and hang out with this girl?”
“No, that’s okay,” Rat monotones. “I can see Simon making moves on her, that little smile thing he does. It sickens me. I don’t care. I’m gonna watch some television, drink some rum, and go to bed.”
“You brought this girl back here. I don’t want her in my room!”
“She’s yours and Simon’s now. Hurry back, or Simon will have already cornered her.”
Damn, survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, cavemen—troglodytes, I think to myself as I stroll back to our room. Guess Rat called it right ‘cause Simon’s lying on top of this three-named Finnish tart kissing her frantically.
“Oh, McGruff, don’t mind us.” The girl pushes him aside and sits up on the bed. Now she wants to talk, but I just wanna watch television and remain uninvolved, while Simon clearly is not interested in either of those activities. She babbles on about music and whatever, I try to answer her as politely but as briefly as possible. Watching Simon’s frustration is laughable for a moment. I decide to turn in, climb in to my bed, and pull the covers up tight. The lights go out, and the slurping sounds of sloppy kisses fill the room. A few minutes later, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I roll over on my side to see if I can at least get a free show.
Simon’s mounted her by now, and begins pumping, slowly at first, but soon enough energetically. I wonder if he can see my eyes peepin’ through my covers? This goes on for some time. Damn, Simon’s got some pretty good staying power. Hey, why doesn’t she get on top, Little Miss Don’t Be Shy? Finally, after some significant moans and groans, Simon goes down on her (“She was a real blonde,” I would hear later. “You were watchin’, weren’t ya, ya twat!”), and while he may be a good lay, he knows fuck all about cunnilingus. Kids.
Z and Rat hook up with some old friend of Rat’s and cruise the bars and shops of Helsinki on their day off. I opt to stay in and go for a swim in the hotel pool. Turns out the pool is private, you get a key at the front desk and go into this subterranean recreation area all by yourself, play pool, watch television, take a sauna, and swim naked. They probably monitor it for closed circuit entertainment in the beer bar. Nah, not everyone’s as perverted as we are. The pool is really a giant metal tank, like you’d keep some barracudas in or something. It is not heated, which I am unaware of until I dive in headfirst. It is probably about forty-five degrees, unbearably cold. I swim a few laps to prove I can do it, and then run for a hot shower as my body begins to shrivel and prune. Back up in my room, Chaplin’s The Great Dictator is on the tube. Somehow this seems appropriate. I later learn Z and Rat had hit the town in the afternoon while I pruned myself, saying they enjoyed this area of Helsinki more than any of our other stops. Oh well, I’ll just have to pop back some day. Too bad I don’t know any Finnish musicians I can collaborate with.
By 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, we are back on the ferry, our final destination being Holland. Simon and I grab some rather crappy buffet food. He turns in while I check out the budget Tony Orlando holding court in the deck five lounge. Down the hall some geezer is struggling with the finer points of “Georgia On My Mind” at the piano bar. This cruise casino ocean liner is everything you could imagine, and worse.
The next day is Tuesday, a completely unremarkable travel day, only notable in that it begins in Finnish waters, and two ferry rides later we begin our drive to Holland, passing through Denmark, Sweden, and Germany along the way. Five countries in one day, parting the seas and burnin’ up the road, babe. Two months of Euro-Blur down, three shows to go.