December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

When you’re 19 or 20, you just want to ball pretty girls.  I came upon them at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco on Sunset Bouvelard.  Most, if not all, the pretty girls I knew in High School, went to Rodney’s every Saturday night - and sometimes week nights as well.  The amazing thing was that these girls I took classes with became totally eroticize when they went to the club.  Spending time with them during regular school hours, they seemed to be edgy, like they were confined in a cage.  During the daylight hours they were restricted, but as soon as nighttime became a fact, they turned their lifestyle around - to something that was very important to them.  What was essential for me, was to be there at the right time and place, so I can get laid.

For a heterosexual male, and being slightly (and sometimes much) older than the girls who frequent the English Disco Club, was like utopia in the making.  I remember the teenage girls, because each one was beautiful, but oddly enough I have no memory of teenage boys being there.  If they were there, they appeared to be gay.   More likely if you were a straight male, you were older, and horny.  The only other club that teenage girls went to was the Sugar Shack in North Hollywood.  In theory it was only opened for teenagers, and they served soft drinks.  Not saying one can smuggle liquor inside the club and when no one was looking, putting it in the paper cups, and mixing it with Diet Coke.   Once they’re slightly buzzed, it is onward to Rodneys.

 It appeared that all the chicks got their make-up from Judy’s, which was to be found in all the malls in Southern California.   I was just so hungry for ass, that I would drive my class-mates to Judy’s and just stood by their side as they chose their favorite nail color and eyeliner.  Some of these girls, I grew up with them, and it’s interesting when they turn from friends into a monument for lust.  Once that bridge has been crossed, I never looked back.   The one (and a very big) problem was that I was very shy and insecure about my looks.  At the time, the girls I knew were not going out or balling guys like me, they were focused on the visiting musicians from the U.K., or at first, the local musicians.  Most of the musicians I knew, had much younger girlfriends.  And at the time, it wasn’t the scene to move in together, but more likely the girls were still living at home.   In my case, that home was the Valley.  That specific region of Southern California seemed to process the most beautiful girls, and all the pretty one’s ended up at the Sugar Shack and Rodney’s club.

I have always loved glam rock.  I think it has to do with the beat.  On one level it makes me think of Bo Diddley, but I feel the main influence for the glam sound is the Dave Clark Five.  Those recordings from the 60s could easily fit in with the glam sound of the 70s.  What I remember is hearing the ‘beat’ as the girls danced in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors.  Most, if not all, were looking at themselves as they danced to T-Rex, Bowie, Sweet, Cockney Rebel and so forth.  For me, I felt like such a voyeur watching them shake their young asses to the mirror.  I can picture myself as a painter, perhaps even Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, when he painted the can-can girls in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse.  But here, on Sunset Bouvelard, I can have all my five senses attached to what I see in front of me.   I just want to ball all night, and let my self go.

Sadly it didn’t happen.  As I mentioned the girls usually went out with musicians, or more commonly, older guys who were connected to the “musicians.” Photographers, agents, or anyone close to the rock n’ roll world, got ass, and as being noted: Rodney got laid more than Robert Plant.  So, that left me sitting here in the club, and watching myself in the mirrors, watching the girls, who were watching themselves.