...1341
Written in 2012
Submitted 8.2013

"Ramblings in no particular order"

Living on the streets of Hollywood in the early 80's. [illegible/redacted]! Punk rockers were hard core back then. We fought the gangs AND the pigs. The Hollywood Blvd. "beat" cops were Romo & Ortega. They kicked our ass every time they saw us. They'd even leave the Blvd. to find us up at HRP wall (near Las Palmas & Yucca) or behind Seven Seas. We would run from them, throwing our 40ozers at them as we cussed them out. Fuck the pigs! They could get away with beating us up because most of us were runaways w/ no family to stick up for us. They had no problem smashing 13 & 14 yr olds. Boys or girls!

There were so many runaway punk rock girls there. Usually escaping a bad scene at home. Sexual abuse. Physical abuse, etc. All the guys would take care of the girls, not letting the HLLYWD predators get their hands on them. They were such easy targets. Unless WE were around. Then they'd get some ultra violence! (Now, years later, the girls still thank us for (in some cases), saving them from rape or even being killed.) We'd sleep in squats; empty buildings or houses, like Don the Beachcombers by HLLYWD & Highland. You'd have to climb up a tree to reach a 2nd story window. I found one room in the center of that building that still had electricity. I don't know why or how. I stole a lock and hasp the next day and made that my spot for months. There were no windows so I didn't have to worry about cops. I had 2 one gallon milk jugs & kept them full of water. I only had one black duffel that I lived out of; a couple of t-shirts, black jeans, sox, etc. I remember that my mom gave me a small clothes steamer & it came in SO handy, knocking the wrinkles out of my clothes every morning. I also had my hair dryer and some Aqua Net Extra Super Hold for my Mohawk & my 6 liberty spikes. I kept my hair up for 4 or 5 days at a time by using a small stuffed animal as a pillow. Everyone laughed, but it worked. On the streets you learn to improvise and adapt. And survive. If you've ever walked down HLLYWD Bl. you only saw the "tourist" HLLYWD. Walk ONE BLOCK off the Blvd and it's completely different. Especially at night. So many street people use speed because they have no place to sleep. The streets were FULL of punkers, metalers, gangbangers of all kinds; 18th St, SOS Crips, Grape St Crips, Hollywood Stoners - US - Hollywood Rat Patrol, who finally became an official "gang" out of necessity. We used to be - jokingly - HASP - Hollywood Alcoholic Street Punx. Jimi Gore of Rat Patrol in DC came & named us when a couple of LADS - L.A. Death Squad - jacked us: "who are you guys?" "We're Hollywood Rat Patrol, motherfucker!" We then proceeded to beat those LADS down & run them off. Our biggest enemy was the X-Men, though. Some taggers from NY started them up & we fought them almost daily because we were both on the streets in the same neighborhood. We didn't fight the Mexican gangs or the black gangs, very often altho' we had a scrap w/ SOS Crips once. Jimi Gore used to fight a nigger (that word is used in the correct context!) named Cornell from the X-Men almost DAILY. We best them so much they left town, then some of them came back several months later calling themselves the Hollywood Dogs.

They were a punk rock gang that accepted ANYONE. They were interracial while HRP was white only! It's not like everyone was hardcore racist. A lot of us were just down with our own kind, which mostly meant "punx", but!... Some of us, Bobby Valentine (Kaos); Shooter (Philip McVein) RIP; Midget (Wayne Elliot); me - Reck Havoc (or Reckless von Havoc) ([redacted]); Doper (Vince Nevkom), were PLENTY white. If there wasn't so many blacks in HLLYWD trying to get us we probably wouldn't be so focused on that. I can't forget Bomber Dave (RIP) who left HLLYWOOD & got beat to death w/baseball bats by SHARPS in Portland while he was asleep in a sleeping bag in a park. Fucking cowards! He was not only my HRP homeboy, he was my Bakersfield homeboy. Right before he left we hung out for a few days, getting drunk and going to the beach. We'd spend the day acting like one of us just got stung by a jellyfish and we'd try to get girls to pee on our feet to "stop the pain". We laughed our ass off all day. We never got any girls to pee on us, [redacted]. We couldn't stop laughing tho', drunk off our ass! I'd never spent too much time w/ Bomber Dave and we really hit it off. One day I woke up after passing out on the nasty ass couch at HRP Wall and seen that Dave's black Chevy S10 truck was gone. He'd been sleeping in the cab. That was the last time I saw Dave. I didn't hear about those punk ass SHARPS until months later.

[hand-drawn map of the relevant area]

Another time at HRP Park (actually a Senior Center w/ a lawn & trees out front. They let us hang out because we didn't bother the "citizens" and we always threw our beer bottles away.) Anyway, it was me, Midget, Sandman, a couple of girls and two military guys who were "on leave". One guy went to the store w/ Midget to buy a gang of 40ozers. While they were gone the other guy threw an empty bottle at a trashcan & missed! Sandman told him to go clean it up, out of respect for the seniors. The guy said "Fuck you!" and got Sandman's fist in his face! Midget & the other guy just got back and Midget saw Sandman fucking the 1st guy up so he slapped the beer bag out of #2's hands and started whooping HIS ass! You don't come to OUR park and disrespect the spot. It doesn't matter if you are buying the beer or not. Anyway, we kept their beer & ran them off. After cleaning up the glass we strolled over to our wall. I was looking for someone, I forget who, so I walked down to the Bully (Blvd) w/ Misfit (my girl at the time) and Batgirl (April from Ventura). Fly from LADS had shown up w/ Midget. I and Shooter (RIP) was already at the wall, drunk as hell. Apparently those 2 guys ran into the SOS Crips who kick it around the corner on Yucca. SOS is "Sons of Samoa". I just happened to look behind me up Las Palmas as 15 or 20 of them crossed Las Palmas heading towards our wall! Me & the girls took off, running up Las Palmas jumping fences as we came in the back way. The last fence had at least 100 40ozers stacked (empty) and Misfit grabbed one in each hand, breaking the bottoms off on the ground. The Crips were on the other side of the far fence 3 1/2' high, except for 2 of them, one w/ a 2x4. I had my knife out and we were all ready! This was OUR spot! Anyway... Shooter, being drunk as hell and a crazy fool, walked up to both of those Crips and said "I'm a fuckin' Slob!" which is Crip slang for a Blood, their enemies! Of course one of them hit Shooter and even tho' Shooter was drunk he beat HIS ass! THEN, Midget pulled a Roman Candle out of SOMEWHERE and started shooting fireballs at them! Me, Sandman, Midget, Misfit and Batgirl were all lined up in front of the rest of them, but none of them would come over the fence! They knew us and knew we were all crazy ass punk rock fools! The 2 monkeys who came over the fence first figured it would be better to talk it out and we found out those 2 military dicks told the SOS guys we robbed them & beat them up for no reason (something we were apparently thought to do) and they paid them to come beat us down. Easier said than done! We don't get beat down very often and when we do, retaliation is swift and overboard! We ended up calling a truce and went back to drinking. Shooter came and put me in a headlock (his version of a hug, I guess), and said "Where the hell did you come from?" I know everyone was happy to see us! Things may have went completely different if we hadn't showed up. I'm sure those SOS dudes were wondering if any more fools were going to show up. And so what if we were outnumbered? We're HRP! We were ALWAYS outnumbered!

That's the difference between HRP and other punk rock gangs. The others; Suicidals, the League, Circle One Family, B.Y.O. (Burbank Youth Org.), LADS, etc, only act tough when they outnumber you. Us? We're ALWAYS outnumbered and we're ALWAYS ready for the ultra violence. But we never went out looking to hurt someone. The way we looked, there was ALWAYS someone ready to fuck with you and beat up the blue haired punk rocker! But that VERY seldom worked out. We fought almost DAILY! Wake up, leave the squat, fix your Mohawk, skate to the Chinese Theater, let the tourists take your picture for a dollar, head to Rexall Drugs on HLLYWD & Highland (long gone), buy a quart of Old English 800, get drunk, skate down the Blvd until someone fucks w/ you, beat his ass, then go to Stephano's for a one dollar slice of pizza. We LIVED on that forever! This was way back. 1982-83. They didn't even have 40ozers back then. The 1st punker I met when I came from BKRSFLD was Bobby Valentine. He was English style punk rock.

He was called Bobby Two-Tone back then because when he 1st hit HLLYWD he was selling acid and had a two-tone Mohawk, black on one side/white on the other. When someone was looking for acid they were told, "Look for the guy w/ the two-tone Mohawk." He later began to hate it because he made the SMALL transition from punk rock Nazi to skinhead. Two-Tone is an insult to a Nazi skin! So... anyway, he's now Kaos. (Oi oi!)

My Mohawk was always in a fin,and I had 3 liberty spikes on each side. I kept that until (and after) I met Ellen Mackay of Ape Leather.

Me & Bobby ran together for a good year or so, drinking, skating, talking girls into taking us home w/ them (then we'd usually steal their mom's jewelry & drugs.) Almost everyone we know had beat up Bobby at one time or another. I think I'm the only one that didn't! Bobby used to drink 'til he passed out, then, when he woke up, usually after pissing hisself, he'd choke the nearest girl to him!

We used to get all our money together, mostly from the girls panhandling, and get a cheap motel room. A fat black lady named Dottie ran the Hollywood Hills Motel (don't be fooled by that name!) It was a rat hole! I loved it. We'd get a room for $21 or so and sneak everyone in. Sometimes it was 12 or 15 street kids. Some of those punk rock girls were a lot of fun! And of course Bobby would ruin everything by pissing on the ONLY bed and trying to strangle a random girl! Everyone hated him and I LOVED him! He was punk rock, that's for sure! Anyway, we lived on those streets, usually sleeping in squats, the 4th floor of the Montecito, the Bronson squat, a duplex around the corner, Don the Beachcomber's, over Rexall Drugs, so many spots. Dirty, roaches, crackheads in and out. Motel Hell was a cool ass spot, but it was getting torn down in '83. It was all fenced in w/ security, but that never stopped us! I remember being in Motel Hell w/ Bobby, Big-ass Kat and her tiny girlfriend from SF, Roxanne - a metal girl that hung w/ us; Brock - a La Brea boy; and others, I can't remember. There was a big graffiti face that Sandman sprayed, (he was called Spex then) and the words "We don't care about you! Fuck you! (Fear lyrics). My biggest memory about Motel Hell was the story about Roxanne diving out of the 4th story window breaking her back because Breck ran in saying the cops were coming. She thought she was on the 1st floor. Oops! Also, Kat told some lame that was w/ us to go back downstairs and get her beer she left on the 1st floor. He started for the stairs but she said take the elevator. Well, the elevator was busted and was in the basement! For some reason you could push the elevator button and it would open. But it was so dark you couldn't see so the guy walked right into an open shaft. He ended up breaking his ankle and being the evil punk rockers we were, we left him there. We thought it was funny as hell! He wasn't one of us anyway. Speaking of Roxanne, I remember being in the Montecito Hotel. The metalers had the 10th floor, we had the 9th. It was so dangerous on the 1st floor w/ junk everywhere that no cops would come in there. We thought the place was haunted because we'd have random phones ringing on other floors. We'd creep all over trying to find it and once I ran into Roxie on about the 6th floor w/out her boyfriend and talked her into a quickie. It was frantic having her pants around her ankles as I did her from behind. We had to quit before the "Big Finale" because her boyfriend was calling her name and was right on us. She BARELY got her pants up before he found us. I'm sure he suspected something but what could he do? He couldn't whoop me and he wasn't sure about anything anyway. I never got another chance w/ Roxanne. Too bad. I hooked up with A LOT of girls in squats. Not the most romantic spot. But probably the most punk Kit Kat in the Cathay De Grande, Macy in HLLYWD Hills motel shower.

My homegirl Cheryl who would come from BKRSFLD to slum it w/ me. We'd fuck each other silly in the duplex squat. Once while the owner & his friend yelled in the window for us to get out. I don't know if they seen is go in or they were just guessing someone was in there. I just kept on, her long legs wrapped around my hips. She sure was fun! Every day was crazy for us. Fighting bikers, throwing bottles at cops, skateboarding up & down the Bully, living on beer and pizza. Mostly beer, fighting marines or squids on leave, frying our brains out, fighting glam fag metalheads, and that's only ONE day! Me and Skinhead Patty, one of my best friends in '83-'84, trying to be "friends w/ benefits" w/o ruining our friendship. We pretty much did that, I guess.

Her new boyfriend didn't really like how close we were tho'. And I was probably a little jealous. But when she dumped him I was right back in the saddle! I remember someone walked up on us RIGHT IN THE ACT across from Perkins Palace in Pasadena. I think Beastie Boys were playing, back when they were punk rock. Patty was a fun girl. Too bad we drifted apart. We used to go to San Diego w/ Chata (Kathy), and Jimi and I forget who else. We'd go visit some of the San Diego Boot Boys and I'd always manage to hook up with some skin birds.

The Cathay was our spot. Tuesdays: 6 bands for a buck! Dunker night, we called it. I met Texicala Jones from Tex and the Horseheads there. She wore her eye makeup all the way across her eyes, over her nose, etc. [drawing of a woman's eyes] She was cocktail waitressing there and talked her into taking me home w/her and she decided to hang on to me for a while. She lived w/ Pinkytessa Braithwaite and another HLLYWOOD girl, maybe Iris Berry. Pinky was going out w/ Human from Detox. Lance Crance (Helmet), the frontman in Detox, was a good friend of mine, and we hung out a lot there.

I don't think Tex's friends liked me too much though 'cause I was a hoodlemass street punk who fought all the time. We only lasted a few months.

One day we heard the Hollywood Dogs were at Peace Park, a cement lot off HLLYWD. (This is not chronological timewise, 1990-91?) I had my briefcase w/ my tattoo stuff in it. Also a big Rambo knife w/ a broken tip. We got there and met Jimi Gore, Midget and Crow who used to be Misfit's boyfriend. She came there w/ me since she was my girl at the time, also a guy named Mark from BKRSFLD. We were going to beat the X-Men down & run them off, but Crow started talking shit to Misfit. Misfit is a hardcore Hollywood punk rock gangster and can hold her on in any verbal fight (or any other kind of fight). Anyway, I ignored it until Crow grabbed her by her neck. I then grabbed HIM and told him that I don't care if he runs his mouth, just don't lay his hands on her. He said okay and walked off a bit. Crow had recently been hanging out with HRP, even tho' we know he used to be called Buttons from FFF. So, next thing I know Misfit has my Rambo knife, getting ready to whack Crow! I take it from her & put it back in my case, telling Mark, who had my case, DO NOT give her that! A few minutes later she had it AGAIN! I again put it away and tell Mark if he gives it to her again I'll kick his ass. Then, as I'm standing next to Jimi behind a parked car, Crow comes and sits on the curb and starts talking shit to Misfit AGAIN! I just turn my back thinking this guy's pathetic. Then I hear: "You like steel, motherfucker?" and a thud. I spin around and all I see is Misfit leaning over Crow and Crow bombs on Misfit, hitting her in the face. Well, I told him to keep his hands off my girl so I threw the boot, kicking him in the temple w/ my steel-toe Docs. I kicked him so hard the knife, which I didn't see until right then, came out in Misfit's hand, blood squirting at least 3 feet while all the girls screamed. Everyone was watching! Fucking crazy ass Misfit had got that knife again and buried it in Crow's ribs! Crow then grabbed the blade as she tried to stab him again. They were wrestling for it so I grabbed the middle & growled "I have it now! Both of you let go!" They did & I cleaned it off with a stray newspaper & told Mark to make it disappear. He ran down the street & I never saw him again. So, everyone bailed and as I looked back I saw a girl named Apple talking to the pigs. DAMN, that was fast! Supposedly she told them me & Misfit jumped Crow! Anyway, I hit the road, gone to St. Paul, MN to hide out w/ Vince (HRP). Misfit stayed, got busted and because Crow was not a rat, he wouldn't identify her in court. He lost MANY pints of blood & was in a coma. I've only seen him once, at Seven Seas, and I told him my side. He seemed to not be holding a grudge, but I wouldn't turn my back on him! I couldn't have let that go.

When me & Bobby & Heather (former HRP homegirl) lived on Gramercy & HLLYWD, I had just broke up w/ Ellen. (One of the worst decisions I've ever made, and I am a legendary bad decision maker!) Me & Midget took off in my truck, hit the Blvd, early, maybe 7 or 8am. No traffic. We saw some slob on a bus bench, pants on inside out and some dirty panties on his head. I flipped a bitch for another look. "Duce?" He looked up & gave the 2 hand Nixon peace signs! It was fucking El Duce! I told him to get in the back of my truck and I took him to the pad. Straight to the shower (after a little argument). As he hit the bathroom, me & Midget took off again. But the bathroom window opens right by the stairs and I almost caught Eldon's satanically stinking sock right in my face! He ended up living there for a few and sometimes he'd bring over Ed (his guitar player) and Skinhead Allen. (We called him Skidmark Allen because of his big scar on his hairline). But one day, Shooter went off because they were all passed out and he couldn't get the door open. He started saying "Fuck a skinhead!" and him & Allen started fighting. They are both big as hell and fucked the whole house up. I remember Shooter kicking his shoe off and hitting Allen right in the mouth! That was some funny ass shit!

Then Allen was digging for a knife in the kitchen so Shooter smashed a wooden chair over his head when he came thru the doorway. Then, Shooter had Allen wedged in a corner and beat the fuck out of him. Somehow Allen got up and they went at it again! Shooter claimed to be the baddest motherfucker in Hollywood and fought anyone who thought different. I don't know how Allen took that beating and could still fight back! Finally they stopped. Tired, I guess, the whole time El Duce sat in a chair half nodding! The rest of the night is pretty fuzzy, but I remember another night Shooter taking Duce's leather. We all chased him down, me, Jimi Gore, Midget, but what could we do? We tried to talk him into giving it back but that wasn't happening. Shooter was bad enough to do whatever the fuck he wants. We found out later that Duce had a $100 bill sewed into the lining! We rubbed that into Shooter's face. He sold the leather for almost nothing! I loved Shooter but he was 1/2 crazy. We both told each other we won't live past 25. We were almost exactly the same age. A couple of months' difference. Well, he OD'd on his 25th birthday up in Santa Cruz. He was buried in Forest Lawn. I was in the pen at the time but my homeboys (from what I heard) took over the funeral home, locked everyone out and sent him out in style. HIS style. He had on a Pendleton buttoned all the way up, a rolled up Hustler magazine, a 40oz beer, a joint in his shirt pocket and all the homeboys hit up their names on the inside coffin lid. I think he also had a hat on, the bill flipped up like he always wore it. I've been to his grave several times, all my homeboys have, and I always bring him a Guinness, the official HRP beer.