Time ticked by. I was still hungry and tripped up with strange unidentifiable emtions, so I went inside and scavenged what was left of the pizza backstage. By the time I came back out from the little dressing room area, Santo’s was pretty much filled to capacity. I ran over to the merch booth to at least try and help Wes, Caralee and Tony manage the ensuing clusterfuck, while Max wrangled all the other readers. Jonathan, of course, was still outside, fucking around on his Blackberry and talking to Aaron the director who had just arrived on the scene.
The music stopped and Howie walked out onto the stage and introduced Chris Leo, who got a few laughs from the hard-faced crowd of NON followers. Kid read a story about shoplifting a leg of lamb and Eric Paul read about getting peed on before Wes’s latest band, Cold Cave started playing.
Cold Cave totally killed, ripping the airwaves to shreads with Max reading feircly in the middle of the set over pounding music to a heavy reverb that he ended by wailing, “DOOR NUMBER 23″ before abruptly storming off the stage, through the crowd and out of the club.
I snuck outside to make sure he didn’t walk into traffic. Jonathan was standing out there too, talking with Kembra Pfahler (The Voluptious Horror of Karen Black), Billy LeRoy (Billy’s Antiques and Props), Joe Coleman, Whitney Ward and a few other friends and family, while Aaron the director hovered around them all filming the proceedings.
I interrupted and told Jonathan to come inside now because it was almost time for him to go on. Jonathan complimented Max on his earthshaking performence, wistfully expressing envy for the awesome musical accompanyment. Then me, Jonathan and Max made our way in and over to the side of the stage to watch Jamie Stewart read while Jonathan chain-smoked with pre performance anxiety.
After a warm and familiar introduction from MC Howie Pyro, Jonathan barelled his way up to the front of the stage and stepped on his cigarette with a big boot. He grabbed the microphone, thanked me and everyone else for being there, then got the crowd a little more riled up with some random comments. Then the lights went low and he began reading from his magic Blackberry.
The 500 deep rowdy crowd suddenly and immediately fell oddly silent now, watching intently as Jonathan wove an intricately psychedelic picture of his wierd adolescent adventures with the Manson family.
An incredible fifteen minutes of total radio silence went by while Jonathan read vivid accounts of the Spahn Movie Ranch and the Vietnam War era from his memoir-in-progress, Scabvender.
You could’ve heard a swastika lapel-pin drop in the huge venue during his reading. The crowd seemed to be holding its collective breath as cameras flashed and film crews rolled, and the whole vibe of the place subtly morphed into something even darker and more sinister than it had been before.
Then abruptly, he stopped. The enthusiastic black-clad crowd freaked out completely, howling shouts of approval.. Everyone had been surprisingly dazzled by the rude historical stories they’d just heard. The air seemed to get even more electric as Jonathan walked off the stage, shoving his way quickly through the crowd toward the exit.
Jonathan’s surprisingly well-recieved choice of reading matter was not entirely unintentional either, apparently, given the fact that the Saturday event fell on the 40th anniversary of the Tate- La Bianca murders…
An even more signifigant event, however, my birthday was only a few hours away.
Happy birfday, back then and there.
JS kills it, again!