Emulsional Problems

Where were these shots taken? Christ, it was at least 30 years ago, none of these people were famous yet, and I was bombed out of my mind, every night a new club, a screening, an art opening, something new to snort, smoke, or consume, another body part to commingle with someone else's body part. It started when I went to the Troubadour, on Santa Monica Blvd. at the entrance to Beverly Hills, to see Melissa Manchester. Please don't ask me when it was. What did I say? 30 years ago? Let's leave it at that.   While waiting in line, I saw a big black '50s hearse pull up to the front of the Troubadour. Out popped this scrawny beatnik with a goatee and a shabby suit who went straight into the theater. I got out of line and looked in the car. It seemed that whoever that beatnik was, he was living in a hearse. There was no casket in back, just piles of junk and empty alcohol containers, while the front seat was covered with books of poetry by...

New Wave Theatre was a show on the USA Network in the early eighties, the very start of cable TV. For a brief while, it was the most vital, cutting edge show coming out of Los Angeles, showcasing dozens of local bands like the Blasters and the Dead Kennedys who didn't have a chance of exposure anywhere else. The show was hosted by Peter Ivers, a singer/songwriter performance artist whose biggest claim to fame was having composed " In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song)" from David Lynch's Eraserhead . He wore outlandish clothing and spouted intellectual Zen Buddhist philosophy in between the punk bands, asking them questions like "What is the meaning of life?" instead of "Tell us about your latest recording." He came off a bit smug, so the bands tended to hate him, but his peaceful rantings lent an interesting yin to the extreme violent yang of the music on the show, which was written, produced, shot, directed, and edited by a madman named...

The Life and Death of Captain Preemo or Bob Woodward vs. John Belushi and Me This article is an update on the original publication as the cover story in Issue 1, number 1, of the California Book Review. There was a knock at my door in 1978, I opened it, and there stood John Belushi. One moment earlier, I had been playing guitar on the sofa, writing a funny song, and if you had asked me who was the one person in Hollywood I wanted to meet, it would have been John Belushi, the man at my doorstep, smiling broadly. "Are you Michael Dare?" he asked. "Yeah?" I replied. "Can I come in?" "You bet." Turned out that day was his first on the set of 1941 . It was his first big Hollywood picture after the success of the low-budget Animal House, which had just come out. He was in a great mood, having spent the day on the set with Steven Spielberg trying on costumes and developing the character....