A Stray Cat Struts (19 page)

“What is it now?” he half hissed.

“Well, Clint, I'm looking down, and I notice that the wardrobe people gave me brown shoes.” He pointed with his bow toward his shoes.

“Yes, so what?” Clint responded quietly.

“Well, I'm wearing blue trousers, and we all know that you can't wear brown shoes with blue trousers.” He said this like it was a punch line in a Woody Allen sketch.

I don't think I was the only person in this room who was expecting Clint to pull out a .44 Magnum and blow this fiddler's head all over the incorrect sheet music. I would've done it if I had had a gun.

“Don't worry about it; the camera isn't going to a full-length shot on you. When it goes over the string section, I'm in a half-length shot, so your shoes don't come into the picture.” Clint explained this all in a very professional, measured, calm sotto voce. No one could believe how cool he was. Then he leaned over, almost whispering in the guy's ear, “Don't do it again.” There it was: Dirty Harry came out. It was perfect. He became Harry Callahan when he needed to. The little fiddle player was scared out of his wits, and everyone in the room felt a little fear. Clint called for playback and action, and I nailed my lines with Forest a few times in a row without incident. No way was I going to mess up after that. Clint called a wrap.

The crew got busy very fast in breaking down and loading up the massive amount of equipment onto the trucks parked out front on Melrose. I'm sure Electro-Vox Studios was empty and back to its faded glory within an hour or so. The musicians packed their instruments in their cases and left. I didn't see where the annoying fiddle player went. He probably went home to annoy his wife at dinner. I talked a bit to some of the crew and headed out. I looked back in the room, and Clint noticed I was leaving.

“Take it easy, Slim Jim; you did good,” Clint said with a wry smile.

“Thanks, Mr.—um, er, Clint!”

There was another scene in a bar in downtown LA that we shot a few days later. That day was unmemorable. I was an old pro by then. That was that—my first, last, and only appearance in a major Hollywood motion picture. The film came out the next year to great critical acclaim. Forest Whitaker was amazing, and he would go on to win his Oscar a few years later. We stayed friendly for a while. He had a loft in Chinatown before it was trendy to move to that part of town. He's a cool guy, and I go to his movies whenever he does a new one. I've learned that Clint really loves all music and jazz in particular. It shows in
Bird
. I could tell he knew about and dug Charlie Parker's music. I'm thrilled that my one IMDb credit is acting in a scene with and being directed by these very talented Academy Award–winning cats. TJ was born courtesy of SAG insurance, and I've kept my dues current; I'm still a card-carrying member.
Bird
is shown on cable, and I get a check for forty-seven dollars once in a while. I think I was pretty good for a first timer. I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr. Eastwood.

 

14

A Quick Flight with John Lee Hooker

We were in San Francisco. Britt was doing the morning city show, and I had tagged along for the night and went to the taping. I left back for LA after the show, and she stayed for another afternoon show. I think she was promoting a book. We did these kinds of little trips a lot. Any time she had an appearance, we'd ask for two tickets and make a mini vacation out of it. Those promo people gave good hotel, and if I was off the road, why not? I'd always liked San Fran. We would walk around and go to the art galleries, eat somewhere nice with some drinks, maybe see a gig, sometimes just go to the hotel. San Fran and Vegas are fun overnight trips when you're in LA. Paris from London is a good one. We used to go all the time.

So I was on the morning flight back home carrying a painting we had bought, and there was a long holdup getting on the plane. I was a little hungover, not so bad after an airport beer. As I stepped onto the plane and walked toward the first row of seats, a cane blocked my way. The cane was attached to a hand with rings and a gold watch, attached to an arm in a ruffled-sleeve shirt, attached to an orange suit, and inside this fantastic outfit was sitting John Lee Hooker. I had originally been really into the blues, and I admired John Lee as one of the legends. You don't often get a chance to meet one of those cats, so any chance encounter is cool. He wore his signature big hat and sunglasses, patent leather shoes, and neon socks. He looked exactly how he was supposed to. The whole ensemble was complemented by a wildly patterned wide tie and gold chain around his neck. As I was taking in this scene and wondering why he was blocking my path with his cane, the whole planeload of people being held up behind me was starting to get impatient and grumble. While I was trying to figure it all out, I couldn't help but notice a huge gravy stain right smack in the middle of his tie. He finally spoke, like a Buddha:

“Yoo da boy marry-ed to da movie stah?”

“Excuse me?”

“
R yoo da boy marry-ed to dat moovie stah?”

There is always a little panic that happens to everyone with a conscience when you know that you're holding up an interior airplane line.
Think, man, think.
I was blanking out and didn't want to make an old cat repeat himself again, especially since on the last one, he was almost yelling. It hit me—he was asking if I was the boy who was married to the movie star. He must've seen the morning show while he was getting ready to leave his hotel and saw Britt's interview, and now he was recognizing me on the plane.

“Yes, sir, that's me,” I said, trying to be cool but sounding as if Wally Cleaver were from Long Island.

“You play, son?”

“Drummer.”

He smiled, flashing a gold tooth, and he jabbed his minder with his other hand. His man reached into a bag and handed me a yellow John Lee Hooker T-shirt. John Lee produced a Sharpie pen and wrote his name in a childlike scrawl across the front under his picture and handed it to me. He finally lifted his cane like it was a tollbooth, and I passed. I flew home, and that was that. Pretty cool story to tell the others: I met John Lee Hooker on the airplane, and he gave me a T-shirt.

That night, everyone was home, and it was a regular night. I was watching the ten o'clock news, and the local anchorman presented a piece about the first night of the Playboy Jazz Festival, opening that night at the Hollywood Bowl. There was my new pal John Lee Hooker onstage sitting in a chair playing the blues in his unique, real McCoy style. “This is so cool; I just saw this guy on the plane today!”

As the newsman talked over and John Lee was belting it out, the camera panned in on him for a close-up, and there it was—that big old gravy stain on his tie, coming in loud and clear. Now, that is a real bluesman.

 

15

Live from the Sunset Strip

We opened the Cat Club at 8911 Sunset Boulevard in June of 1999 and were open every night with few exceptions for the next fourteen years. There were five bands a night, seven nights a week, rain or shine. It can never be said that I have not done my part to keep live music alive in LA. As is true with most clubs, the path to how certain players all come together as partners on a team is unorthodox. The Cat Club was no exception; certain factors lined up, and it just shook out with these guys. Everyone involved came from the nightclub business, had experience, and came together on this deal. I had three partners: Steve Scarduzio, who knew the nightclub business—I had worked with him in the past when we had a club together on Hollywood Boulevard in the 1990s; Sean Tuttle, who had the original lease and is the grandson of Mario Maglieri; and David Klass, the South African jeweler who was a popular club promoter in the 1980s and 1990s. The address, liquor license, and start-up money are all factors in how these places happen. We all got along well enough and had varying percentages of ownership and different responsibilities. I was the face of the place. Steve did most of the clerical, day-to-day juggling of bills and running of the place. I'll always be thankful to him for keeping the boat afloat, especially while I was away on tours.

There were a lot of legendary nights and good times at the Cat Club, but like everything else in my life, it was slightly more difficult than it appeared, and it was definitely more famous than rich. In the bar business, the owner is the last one to be paid, and you're way down at the bottom of the list. The real winner is the landlord; he's guaranteed to be paid every month. The bar owner managed to attach a liquor license to his property, which is no easy deed, especially in West Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard, and it's usually a low-maintenance property. The vendors who sell the beer and booze need to be paid, or they stop delivery. A bar with no booze is about as useful as an unloaded gun. The bartenders and waitresses need to be paid, or the booze goes unserved. The list goes on. The electric company is an important one—air-conditioning bills and the juice to power the amps and PA are big in a rock club.

The maintaining of the gear is also an important cost, because if the general word around is that the club has crappy gear, it makes it more of an uphill battle with the bands. In this case, we were lucky in that I got most everything on endorsements. The drums, amps, microphones, and sound system were put in by the equipment companies who thought it was good advertising for their gear, and the sales reps liked that they could also come and be taken care of at the bar when they were in town. It's a fact: everybody likes being involved in a bar. I've never met a regular guy who didn't like being recognized and treated well at a bar. There's something that every guy likes about being able to walk into a bar and have his order be on the house. The truth is that a drink costs a bar fifty cents, but it can buy a lot more in goodwill.

These mundane parts of operating a rock club still need to be taken care of and maintained; it's another constant expense and headache, but someone has to stay on top of it. The hardest part of the whole thing was the California State Board of Equalization, which is a fancy name for the state sales tax storm troopers. A lot of the bar business is cash, but for those who are unknowledgeable and think that the bar owner can just pocket money all night long, the reality is that the tax is due quarterly and estimated, and when it's time to renew any license, if the sales tax is not paid up, you're in trouble, and the state is relentless. They will keep at you. It's probably similar in other businesses, but this is the one I know a little about.

Like rock and roll, operating a nightclub looks cool and easy to the untrained eye, but it's damned hard to make a buck out of it. There has to be a certain amount of love of the unconventional hours and an ultimate resistance to a normal life involved. It's not for everybody, but I always liked the life. I had already stopped drinking for almost ten years by the time I got involved at the club, so it wasn't about that. There's a certain comfort and outlaw cool to operate your life out of a bar instead of an office. We had the keys and a liquor license to a joint on Sunset, and it felt like a natural place to have as a base of operations.

When we first opened, I lived right on the corner of Sunset and Doheny Drive. TJ and I shared one of the coolest apartments in town, in a vintage 1940s Regency-style building tucked away right off the main street. True pal Jimmy Ashhurst, bass player from the excellent local band of the day Broken Homes, lived in the high-rise across the street. We had his spare key and used the pool and mod cons of his building, so we had the best of both worlds. Girls came and went, some stayed longer than others, but mainly we were two bachelor boys and led a pretty normal life for quite a few years. I coached Beverly Hills Little League, and we would sit on the floor for hours at a time, cracking the codes on the latest video games and eating Mama Celeste frozen pizzas and deliveries from Greenblatt's. We sat at the little table in the kitchen of the Rainbow or at the sushi bar at Tenmasa most nights. I walked to the club every day and walked home at night, dropping the money off in the night deposit at City National Bank. I never felt threatened walking along the Strip, although at 3:00
A.M.
, I'd walk right down the middle of the street for two blocks. When you walk down the middle of the street, it takes away the chance of anyone stepping out from behind one the buildings. There's not much traffic at that hour, so I found it less nerve-racking.

TJ did his homework in the office of the bar, adding to his alternative upbringing. He pretty much grew up on the Strip. At ten years old, he was already an experienced jaywalker and had gotten his candy at Gil Turner's liquor store for years. TJ learned to ride a bicycle and throw a baseball in the parking lot behind the old Scandia restaurant. His brother, Nicholai, owned and ran the Roxy; we'd known everyone at the Whisky and Rainbow for twenty years already, so we were around family. We had two rescued pit bulls that lived in the apartment with us; they were very protective and would guard TJ, in his bed, if I had to run down to the club for a few minutes on a night off.

Living in the middle of town presented certain challenges, too. Walking two pit bulls who didn't like other dogs was like mounting a major military operation three or four times a day. TJ would help put muzzles and thick chains on the beasts and do a quick reconnaissance on the street behind us to make sure no one else was walking a dog at the same time. We'd take them for a few walks every day. We played basketball at the West Hollywood elementary school. We would jump the fence, and the pit bulls would squeeze underneath, and on the weekends, we had the whole field and courts to ourselves. Our back gate opened up onto Harratt Street behind the 9000 Sunset Boulevard building, Lemmy was a neighbor, and we'd holler up to his window. If he was home, the skull and crossbones pirate flag that served as his curtains would move back, and he'd pop his head out and we'd catch up. This was our routine life, and it never felt particularly strange.