by Tamra Lucid.
When my band Lucid Nation first started out, almost every event we attended, music or zine, was in East L.A.. West Hollywood was full of progressive gay people, but the riot grrrl revolution had not yet infiltrated, except as parody costumes during the annual Halloween promenade.
We decided we wanted to do a show in West Hollywood that could introduce the two communities. My first drummer co-founded Lucid Nation. She looked like Marilyn Monroe though her nickname was Einstein because she was brilliant, and knew a lot about a lot. Einstein wanted to organize a benefit for F.A.R.M. (Farm Animal Reform Movement). We would play unplugged. Our new friends from our first gig, the riot grrrl band Crown for Athena, would do a set. There would be zine tables and spoken word. According to the flier there was to be a “savage fashion show,” though I don’t recall one. I may have been fighting nausea backstage.
I felt so vulnerable without my Acoustic 360 bass amp, which was about the size of a refrigerator. I felt like a grown man with that amp cranked up. To me unplugged meant no power. I had never played publicly like that before. Didn’t want to, even though I agreed to. While I tried not to throw up, Einstein was amused that I carried a dainty Japanese paper fan in my purse in case I needed to cool off.
The main attraction, and hopefully the uniter of communities, was Holly Woodlawn, who offered to read an excerpt from her memoir A Lowlife in High Heels. Even better, she asked us to be her back up band so she could sing. We would improvise ambient sounds, quip melodies, “tarting it up a bit” as she put it.
We thought this a nice combination of entertainments, nothing too radical, nothing too loud, no offensive screaming—unlike all our other shows. As for the venue, after rehearsals we always enjoyed a break at the Swing Cafe. It reminded us of the West Hollywood landmark French Quarter Restaurant, but Swing Cafe was small and more of a garden. They were very tolerant as we sat with our scissors and glue sticks making show posters and zines. They served pastry delicacies and hearty Yogi tea, so we felt indulged for very little money. They happened to have a small stage, too. To our delight they agreed to let us do our benefit show there.
Walking in through the ornamental gate, even though the heavy traffic of Boy’s Town continued right outside on Santa Monica Boulevard, you felt like you had entered a quiet courtyard in old California, or at least a Disneyland facsimile of New Orleans. The closed French bakery across the patio from the cafe, with unobtainable baguettes in the dark window, gave a faint impression of Paris.
Rising from the diagonal basket weave pattern brick floor, over a dozen thin white columns held up the second story. Four lion heads trickling water from their mouths adorned a three or four foot tall white fountain in the center of the patio. The small stage behind the fountain had a white lattice screen for a backdrop. Two mature trees in big white planters obscured the rectangular dormer windows of the third floor. Sound-muting ficus, Orange King bougainvillea, and several graceful palms, gave the place an overgrown feeling, made romantic by strands of small white string lights. The place looked like it had somehow got lost here on its way to Topanga Canyon.
Our social experiment, however, was a complete failure. No community was found whatsoever. The very few people who attended brought canned goods for the homeless so they got in for free. Our dependable following, and the even more dependable following of Crown for Athena, all those radical feminists, were too timid to come to West Hollywood for a show. They thought that Holly would attract an audience of judgmental gay muscle men. Meanwhile, the gay muscle men were afraid of even the mere hint of a riot grrrl show, with all those “angry lesbians.” We performed a short set then backed up Holly while she read from her book, but we wrapped it up quick since we had no audience.
At one point mainstream singer songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins pulled up out front. We asked her to play, but after a look around she could see the benefit was a dog and pony show, so she wisely ducked out with her polite smile belying the oh-hell-no look in her eyes. We got a lesson in how far apart communities are in L.A. We didn’t raise enough money to pay for the coffee we drank.
Me and my band, several zine writers from the collective we belonged to, Holly, and Holly’s manager Teresa, sat in silence. Most of us were feeling dejected as we moped at separate tables.
Holly looked fabulous. She had worn an understated yet elegant skirt suit with a matching hat that sported a pheasant feather. Seeing our morose sulking, Holly stood up and told us to listen to her. She went up on the stage, so we gathered around. With a big smile she began to shimmy as she got the rhythm of the song. Then she began singing a song sung by Fred Astaire called “PickYourself Up.”
“Don’t lose your confidence if you slip, Be grateful for a pleasant trip, And pick yourself up, Dust yourself off, Start all over again.”
The glamour that Holly could evoke at will mesmerized us. She remembered all the lyrics, and she sang to us with such intimacy and so directly we knew the song had lifted her spirits when she was down. Everybody falls down, Holly was saying, you’ve got to learn how to get back up. Just because you fail doesn’t make you a failure.
As I listened I thought of lost friends and family who would have shit twice and died if I had told them that Warhol Superstar Holly Who Came From Miami FLA Woodlawn was singing a Fred Astaire song to cheer up nobodies like us. That was something Holly and I discovered we had in common. We knew that out there thousands of ghosts wandered restlessly in a world where the president of the United States wouldn’t speak the name of the disease that killed them. More ghosts were being born every day. Holly and I once talked about how many friends were gone. We compared numbers like old soldiers. “Dozens,” I whispered. “Hundreds,” she responded stoically. She left New York City because everywhere she turned she found death. And we were upset over a coffeehouse gig?
Holly’s performance could be described as a healing. We all felt joy again instead of disappointment as we basked in Holly’s affection. Though we had cameras, and I have video of my band’s performance that night, no one thought to record Holly. Like an apparition, only we could see her.
Poster of Holly Woodlawn as Marlene Dietrich by Lucid Nation.