ORGIES AND ORGASMS
It was a time in Hollywood where the overriding attitude about sex and drugs was to be free and out in the open. There was no panic over herpes or AIDS, no worries. Saul and I would hang out at Osco’s Disco on La Cienega just across the street from the Beverly Center.
Of course, it wasn’t normal for fourteen-year-old kids to hang out at a disco, but we had an older look to us. And even if we got carded, Saul, who was an expert artist, had taken our IDs and changed the date to make us of legal age. We never had a hard time getting alcohol or getting into the place. We went there just about every weekend of 1977 and 1978. There were like ten different theme rooms in the place. They were mostly sexual in nature, with settings like the baths of ancient Rome, open deserts with rolling dunes, a fully equipped dominatrix chamber, the wildest shit.
Upstairs and downstairs, everybody was doing coke and something called “rush,” the popular drug fad at the time. It came in a bottle, and you were supposed to remove the cap and inhale the vapors from the liquid while you were having sex. By raising your heartbeat to insane levels, rush was supposed to intensify the orgasm experience. Throughout the night, we would go through all the rooms. It was an eye-popping experience. We never got bored, and if things started to lag, we’d just pop to another theme room. It didn’t matter; they were all saturated with booze, drugs, and blaring disco.
It seemed like the more crazy the spectacles we witnessed, the more we hungered for wilder, more perverse thrills. Nothing could shock us anymore. Our nerves were deadened to the point that we stood there watching a three-on-one with the girl servicing every sick whim, only to be manhandled to the point that it was a borderline rape, and we’d be like, “Whatever. Next.”
GAY SCENE
All the gay bars were along Santa Monica Boulevard, and most of the area’s neighborhoods were predominantly gay too. I remember hearing Queen’s song “Another One Bites the Dust” a dozen times every day. The Boulevard was definitely the primo gay hangout.
And the Starwood was the number one gathering spot for everyone. We goddamn lived there. We saw a lot of things that I wouldn’t have seen back in Cleveland—guys getting sodomized in alleys or getting blow jobs from other guys in public bathrooms. Everything was out in the open and people were so into it. Saul and I were witnessing the raw, unbridled climax of a very narcissistic, very adventurous, experimental time.
Eventually, I had enough. It wasn’t any one event, just the culmination of too many sick, beyond-the-limit nights. I needed to slow it down. I had weathered too many mornings waking up in someone’s backyard with no recollection of how I got there or what led up to getting there. I did what any fucked-up Jewish boy would do once he’s realized how empty and pointless the whole world has gotten. I moved back to my mom’s to give home life another chance.
I called my mom and told her I was feeling homesick, that I wanted to come home. Things got very emotional. At first she hardly even recognized my voice, but when I heard hers it was like this wonderful oasis had come back into my life. She said very little, because I don’t think she wanted me to hear her break down. She told me to come right home, and that was all she had to say.
MOM ADLER
I want to say this right now about my mother. I have never hated or loved a person as much as I’ve hated and loved my mom. I have never put another human being through the torture and abuse that I’ve heaped on my mom. I have never hurt or disappointed anyone on this earth as much as I’ve devastated Deanna Adler.
And yet I have never experienced anyone with a bigger heart or a more immense capacity to forgive than my mother. To this day we have our conflicts, and I continue to harbor a hatred for her that is all out of proportion with reason. And yet I’ve never depended on anyone or loved anyone so deeply. Deanna Adler has come through for me again and again and again.
My mom has said, “I love Steven, but I don’t like him.” And I believe I’ve given her no choice in that matter. I’m not a good son, and I’m not always a good brother, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give it another shot.
That day I called, my mom took a bigger chance on me than she ever had before. She sure didn’t have to. She had peace in her home. She had a loving husband in Mel and a sweet joyful son in Jamie. She had a happy home and a stable, decent life. And yet she risked it all for me. Although she knew it would upset him and probably lead to a bitter argument, she talked to Mel about me. It had been several years since I had been kicked out, and I was hoping time had softened some of the harsher memories. Using what I can only imagine was a lot of pleading and love, she convinced my dad I deserved one more chance to be back in their home.
THE BIG DAY
Saul had found a pair of leather pants in a Dumpster by his grandmother’s building. We cleaned them up, and he let me borrow them. I was the only kid wearing leathers at that time. I thought it looked very cool, especially with my long blond hair.
It was a look, however, that could not have been less popular with my parents. I tried to be optimistic about my return home, and so did they. Jamie was so happy I was back and for that first day, for that first meal together, I knew how much a family’s love could mean.
Their demands were minimal and, in hindsight, pretty reasonable. They just wanted me to be a normal son. They asked that I be in by six o’clock for dinner and stay home evenings during the week. They asked me to keep my room in decent shape and clean up after myself in the kitchen and bathroom.
Almost immediately there were a few ominous signs. I was forty-five minutes late for the second dinner we had together. I blamed it on Saul. I told them I didn’t have a watch and had asked Saul to let me know when it was five thirty, but he spaced and by the time I remembered what they said, it was already six thirty.
But hell, I was used to not coming home at all. When I walked in, it was very uncomfortable at the table. Mom had insisted they wait until I came home to eat and had tried to keep dinner warm in the oven, but the chicken ended up being all dried out. It tasted like sawdust and only served to increase the tension in the air.
Mom kept saying, “Why can’t you come home on time? That’s all we ask. Why can’t you come home on time?” And Mel was all, “Stop hurting us. Stop hurting your mother. Look what you’re doing to her. This has got to stop.”
5 BUSTED DRUMS, BUSTED FACE, BUSTED
MY FIRST SET OF SKINS
I was fifteen now, and despite pissing off my parents by being late for dinner, I sincerely wanted things to work out at home. So when Mom told me she had enrolled me at Chatsworth High School after I settled in, I did my best to be a model student. It all came down to my ability to get along with people, whether they were in the dining room or the classroom.
During my hitch at Chatsworth, I met Dan Scheib. He was the grandson of Earl Scheib, the famous auto paint guy. Dan was a decent guy who played guitar but because he came from money, he had every other instrument in creation lying around his house. So I talked him into selling me his drum set. I even tried to jam with him when I went to check the set out. It was my very first time behind a real drum set and it didn’t go too well.
Dan told me I could have the set for a hundred bucks. But when I showed up to pay, his father walked into the room and told me he wouldn’t allow me to take the cymbals unless I gave him another $25. I looked at Dan, but he had his eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. His old man was fucking loaded but it didn’t matter. What a prick! The rich eat their young before parting with a dime, and old man Scheib just looked