PUNKS Ch. 29: Rolling Stone

April 1996

Miss Carrera informed Joe she wasn't available until the afternoon for their interview. He chose The Surfside as the venue because he was working that shift. The usual day drinking crew occupied half the bar stools. When the music journalist and acclaimed author took a stool at the end of the bar, she waved and smiled at Joe. He didn't introduce himself. She knows who she is. The old-timers had no clue who she was.

"What'll it be, toots?" Joe said as she hooked her purse under the bar.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry," Joe smirked, "If you hang around these fossils long enough you start talking like it's 1955."

Mila smiled, "I'll have whatever your personal favorite drink is... but only if you'll have one with me."

Joe nodded, "Good way to sneak some information from me. Two Bombay Sapphire martinis, shaken with malice, and a twist... coming up. Are you going to write that down?"

"No," Mila smiled, "I will remember the drink." She placed a hand-size recorder on the bar alongside her small pad and a pen.

Joe got working on martinis while eight old men gawked at the stylish thirty-six-year-old New Yorker from a fancy Ivy League school. Mila had jet black hair, straight with tips falling to the middle of her shoulder blades. Her dark eyes were accented by long, full eyelashes. Joe glanced over and smiled as she watched him shake. He moved his hips, dancing while shaking gin and ice. He made no attempt to introduce the guys or explain to her why he was behind the bar.

When he slowly slid her very full martini glass in front of her, Joe nodded. "Welcome to my neighborhood hangout."

"Is it legal for you to drink behind the bar?" she asked.

"Are you going to rat me out in Rolling Stone?"

"No," she smiled. "Just wondering. Is it?"

"I don't believe it's legal," Joe shrugged. "But since this is volunteer work, I don't care. The owner is having health issues. I work a few days a week to keep his doors open. Without this joint, these sad old men would die lonely deaths."

"Fuck you, Joe," Charlie said from a few stools away.

Mila wrote something.

"So that's what you write down, some guy flipping me off?"

Mila smiled. "My notes are my business. So, what is this place?"

"This is my day crew, the old bums. When I moved to Venice... the fall of '86, they were the first locals I got to know. We watched Bogart movies and sports all day. I bartended here for a few years, and I still do on occasion.` Joe pointed at the stage, "Then I brought live music back to this joint."

As he spoke, Joe admired Mila's features, her shining sable hair, and those big brown eyes. He loved her accent, hints of her Spanish roots. Her full lips were painted in bold red lipstick. They looked very kissable.

"This place was on life support before Joe got here," Bert said, "The kid brought the babes with him."

Mila looked at Joe. "And how did you do that?"

"Every shift he worked there were girls in these seats," Charlie added.

"They'd pop in every day," Bert kept on, "If the old man was behind the bar, they'd turn and leave. They were looking for Joe."

"So you were popular with the locals?" She smirked.

"Yes, even these miserable fucks liked me."

"Pffft, we just tolerated him," Charlie scoffed. "but the girls we liked."

Joe poured two drafts and popped open bottles of Bud for the old guys, then he leaned against the bar before Mila. "Because I hate doing interviews, I invited you to my world, where I'm most comfortable."

"This is... good," Mila smiled. "It's a day in your retired life."

"And a day with better drinking company than these bozos." Joe raised his glass and sipped his gin.

"It's warm in here." Mila slipped her bum off her bar stool and stood. She was dressed professionally, but casually: snug designer jeans, low boots with high heels, a loose white blouse, and a blue blazer. She removed the blazer and placed it over the back of her stool, and sat back down. As if flipping a switch, Mila turned earnest. "What's the meaning of the last record's title?"

"Ohhhh, no." Joe winced, "No questions, not yet. Let's just have a conversation. You can glean what you must and get your most important questions in, but let's be chill."

"Can you answer that one question? It's the first because I wanted to make sure I asked."

"Epilogue," Joe smiled, "I thought the name spoke for itself. Seriously, that can't be your most pressing question."

"As I said over the phone, it's hard to believe this is the end of City of Angels. Some have suggested it was a ploy to pump CD and ticket sales."

"Nope. It's the end of the story. That is the final record and tour." Joe waved his hand like a conductor. "But the music lives on."

"Why? Your last three studio records sold well. You've toured the world, sold out everywhere. The Budokan recording is still doing great. There's no reason to believe you couldn't continue on this trajectory. Are you trying to go out on top?"

"Hey," Charlie yelled down the bar at other men. "Did you guys know Joe was a rockstar?"

Bert laughed "I thought he was just a shifty bartender. Are you saying he plays shitty music too?"

Joe leaned in toward Mila, "Feel free to ignore them. We're we on top? Nobody told me." Joe sipped gin. "I feel I've done what I wanted to do with that band. I'd like to play other kinds of music, and not drag City of Angels on that journey. COA is its own thing. Chico and I have other interests. We do a rockabilly project." Joe pointed, "On that stage."

"So that's it, you're just ending City of Angels?"

"Yup."

"Does your band agree?"

"They know how I feel and they understand. Touring was hard on their families. That's why we had an eighteen-month hiatus. I assumed we were done then. We're all so sick of airports, airplanes, and hotels."

Mila nodded in agreement, "Yes, air travel is not enjoyable."

"Yes, and I appreciate you flying out here," Joe said, "I was kinda surprised you'd do that, for this, especially given the fact I'm no longer relevant."

"Oh," she waved. "Don't let it go to your head. I scheduled other meetings in town. Yesterday I was busy getting lost and sitting in traffic between meetings."

"Okay, way to knock me down a peg. I thought you flew out for me."

"Of course I did," Mila smiled, "but I'm efficient and made good use of the trip." She sipped her drink. While Mila spoke of her travels and periodic business in LA, Joe watched her mouth move, her long fingers with manicured red nails holding the stem of her martini glass, and those eyes. Mila was tall and slender. Joe was guessing C cup, but her blouse concealed her, except for a little cleavage from her push-up brassiere.

"Okay, you say you're done but I heard offers have been made where you can take all the time off you desire. They also offered you total control of the next record and tour schedule... and your band wanted it."

"I already had full control and I can take as much time off as I want. Those offers were from corporate suits trying to lure me with money. They put plenty of cash on the table. The rest was bullshit."

"Hey," Charlie shouted again. "Did you guys know Joe turned down a boatload of cash so he could tend bar here?"

"I told you he's a fucking idiot," George smiled at Joe.

"Hey!" Joe shouted back. "Why don't you drunks mind your own damn business?"

"Pfft," Bert scoffed, "Says the guy drinking gin in the middle of the afternoon."

Mila smiled at Joe. "Your bandmates wanted to do another tour?"

"Yes. And they're free to accept any offer that doesn't include me."

Joe could not take his eyes off Mila's dark eyes. She had an intense gaze, holding that connection, only looking down to scribble. She was gorgeous, and intelligent, and..."

"What's next," she asked, waking Joe from his daydream of admiration. "playing rockabilly in beach bars?"

Joe smiled wide, "Yeah, and I love it. I vowed that as soon as City of Angels was done, The Eldorados would be back... I just haven't found a new drummer. "

"The greaser is gone?" Charlie asked, "We liked that little runt."

"Yeah, when we restarted COA Bobby decided to move on. I suspect our paths will cross again."

Mila wrote on her pad. "I'd like to go back to your days in New York."

"You're writing a piece on ancient history?"

She asked about Joe starting a record label at age 19 with his older Jewish partners in Chelsea. Joe gave her the short version while serving two new patrons who walked in on the interview. When he worked the opposite end of the bar, George leaned and whispered. "She's an angel."

"I hope not," Joe smiled.

When he returned, she was on to the next phase of his life. "I attended your show at The Beacon Theater in '91 where you told your story of leaving New York. Tell me about your travels after The Young Punks. Again, Joe tried to give her a condensed account of his wandering.

"You drove to Tierra del Fuego?" Mila's eyes went wide. "The tip of South America? Can you even do that?"

"I thought you heard this at The Beacon show?"

"Maybe I didn't get it all."

"The Pan American highway doesn't go through. You need to take a freighter around the Darien Gap, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia... but yes, you can do it. It was a wild trip for many reasons."

"And he fucking did it in style!" George shouted, "In a Cadillac convertible."

"The blue Eldorado out front?" Mila smiled, "Oh, of course. Your project band." She scribbled a note. "So, you traveled alone for how long?"

"I was out of the country for like... it was more than twenty-two months, and most of that was spent in Buenos Aires. I needed to be alone, to figure out what was next in my life, but I met some very cool people in my travels."

"And what kept you in Buenos Aires? What were you doing there?"

"Bartending, playing music in a bar, and living with a lovely lady."

"Would you like to talk about that?"

"I'll only say this, if any of my friends from the American Cafe in Buenos Aires read this piece, please know I miss you and have never forgotten your kindness to a weary traveler... especially Isabelle."

"And then you came to California."

"Yes. Isabelle was to meet me here. I drove back as fast as I could, sleeping in my car in the Amazon, no kidding. I hired a ferry to get my car across the river. I was scared for my life thinking the rust bucket was going to capsize. Then I got sick on the freighter and had to find a bed in Panama to ride out a fever. I was stopped by the El Salvadoran military. Honduran and Mexican border guards ransacked my car. US Customs were no better."

"That was during the civil war in El Salvador."

"Yeah, those stops were the worst. They were hostile and I didn't speak the language. Guns were pointed at me for what felt like hours. It was stressful."

Mila's drink was empty. Joe took her glass and got to work on another as she jotted on her pad. When Joe looked over from his cocktail duty, she asked, "And your Argentine sweetheart flew into LA to meet you?"

"Except Isbelle never got on the flight. That's how she left me."

Mila had the facial expression of a girl seeing a stray puppy limping down the road. Joe looked away, shaking ice and gin, but could feel her stare. He poured the gin into new cocktail glasses and added the twist.

"So, you lost your girl in New York, wandered for two years, fell in love again, and lost that..."

"Are you rubbing it in?" Joe turned with two fresh cocktails in hand. "Yes, I had two strikes against me before I turned 26." He placed her drink down slowly. "And I've been fouling off pitches for eight years, trying to stay alive at the plate."

Joe knew from her writing that Mila had taken a liking to baseball. She smiled, appreciating his metaphor and levity on a hurtful subject. She penned a note and then looked up. "I only knew of the West Village story, because you told it on stage."

"I tell that story in New York and LA, nowhere else. That show at the Beacon Theater was the night I saw Tina for the first time in seven years."

"Oh, okay. So, the kiss at Madison Square Garden was not your reunion?"

"Nope."

"Well," she smiled, "the gossip gang got that one wrong."

"Yes they did."

"Are you friends? How is that relationship?"

"She's married. That's how that is."

"Are you friends?"

"She did kiss me. We've had lunches over the years. I've been to her gallery. We're on good terms... most of the time. We talk on the phone."

"Tina was married when she kissed you in front of everyone?"

"Yes. We just got swept up in the moment. It happens."

Mila smiled as she scribbled another note. "So, what do you think about being on the list of most eligible bachelors in the music scene?"

"They put me on a list of single musicians and call that news. It's fucking stupid. That's what I think about it. I'm single, but I'm not any more eligible than the next guy."

"So there's no one special?"

"Oh, there's definitely been someone special, but I keep that part of my life out of print."

"We love Jasmine." Bert said, "She wears the pants."

"I don't know," Charlie said, "She comes to see him every week. I think Joe has the pants."

"Hey," Bert looked at Joe, "Where's she been lately? I haven't seen Jas in a while."

"She's around." Joe leaned closer to Mila, "Let's steer clear of that, okay?"

Mila smiled, "What about the future, besides tending bar and playing rockabilly and running your studio... what do you want from life?"

"A family, for sure. I'd like that, someday."

"You and... Jasmine?"

"We're not there."

"So, not serious?"

Joe shrugged. "Nope."

Joe had no interest in discussing his break with Jasmine in front of the guys. It had been months, but none of the oldtimers knew Jas had walked away.

Mila took a drink, looking at her notes, and then at Joe. "It took us four attempts to get this interview. You said no every time. What changed your mind?"

"I'm also a fan of yours... your work. I subscribe and I think you've done some good writing. I like your style, the personal touch. The Jagger interview was great, but I felt he was holding back."

Mila blushed, "Thank you. Mick didn't hold back. I got him to open up about his marriages and relationships, but then he got cold feet and said he shouldn't be talking about the loves of his life. Out of respect, I held back some of the details."

"You do tend to focus on marriages and affairs of the heart," Joe noted. "It's almost like their careers are background music."

"I do, and that makes you a difficult subject; no marriages, no divorces, and no turmoil in your personal life."

Joe smiled knowing what Mila doesn't know and what he doesn't want printed. She asked a few more questions about his career, nothing too revealing, and they talked about his daily life around town. It all seemed so ordinary to Joe. This will be the most boring interview in the history of Rolling Stone.

"I guess we're good here, unless you have other plans for the future," she smiled. "like dinner tonight?"

Joe leaned back, "Are you asking me to dinner?"

Mila shrugged, "I'm stuck on the west side for the next few hours. I'm not driving the 405 through the evening rush. Fuck that. And you did offer me lunch, and that won't do." She nodded toward the hot dog steamer with wrinkly meat of unknown age. "I at least need a dinner recommendation."

"Okay," Joe nodded, "I'll take you to my favorite place... if you like Italian."

"Of course, it's in my blood."

"I thought you were a Spaniard."

"My father is half Italian and my mother is full Catalonian. I was raised in Spain and came to America for grad school."

"Fancy pants Columbia."

"Yes. And I have been in New York for fourteen years."

"So," Joe made a face, "my time in New York overlapped with yours, in the mid-eighties."

"Yes, but I never saw your old band."

"That's a shame. We had fun shows."

"I have heard that."

Joe did some bartending, popping bottle caps, pouring pints, and shots. The old-timers whispered at the other end of the bar, "She asked you to dinner? You dog." George asked, "What's for dessert?... Joey." When he returned to his guest, he leaned on the bar.

"So that's it, the end of the Spanish Inquisition?"

Mila laughed, "Inquisition? I think I went easy on you. Do you have anything to add?"

"Okay... one final thing." Joe took the last sip of his cocktail. "I think we have a big challenge coming in the music business. A little while back, my sound guy in New York sent me a file through email. It was one of our songs converted to something called MPEG. I didn't know what to do with it. Kenny talked me through it. When I realized what it was, and how easy, I had a mini-panic attack."

"I'm familiar,." Mila nodded. "They're developing it in Germany. Computerized music and techno are very big there, so they're a step ahead on the technology."

"Yes, and Kenny says this is the future, music in file format. It's kind of like they are on compact disks, digital, but there is no physical media... no disk, no tape. They can be played on computers, stereos and he says they'll someday have Walkman's that hold hundreds of songs "

"And that made you panic?"

"Not that as much as the idea that anyone can simply share a file. If I buy the file of a song, what's stopping me from sending it to fifty friends?"

"I see. You're worried about the implications for your business."

"Not just Guerilla Records, but the entire music industry. Life as we know it will end. I'm thinking about a future where artists and their labels no longer have control over the distribution of music we create, and what that world might look like."

"That will be a big issue, for sure."

"Yes, and I think we must get ahead of it before this technology torpedoes our current business model. I don't think we can stop it. Innovation always wins. We need to plan now, so we can adapt."

"How do you plan on tackling this innovation?"

"At the moment, no one is listening. Sony and BMG and all the big labels have teams of lawyers who will fight this battle in court, but I think that's a losing strategy. There are millions of computers connected by the internet. Even if they win in court they can't police a hundred million computers. I don't know where to start if the corporate studios aren't listening. Guerilla Records is not a significant label. No one will listen to us."

That was the last of the record business talk, band talk, and music. Joe did some bartending at the other end of the bar as more patrons arrived. Mila chatted with the old men. Charlie, Bert, and Don sat nearest and did the most talking. Joe excused himself to use the men's room. When he returned, Mila's notebook and recorder were put away.

"So, you won't be recording dinner?"

"No," she smiled, "I'm off duty now. This was very nice. I usually do interviews in quiet places like offices, backstage dressing rooms, maybe in a hotel or a restaurant. This was a glimpse into your life and your friends. I enjoyed it."

"It's not over yet." Joe smiled. "You get to meet Carlo, my old friend. He's actually old, and we have nine years as neighbors. His place is across the street from mine."

"I thought you might choose your office as the setting. That's why I offered to come your way, to see your operation and second career. But this was good."

"My studio is not that impressive. We're very small."

"And you live above it?"

"Yes." Joe looked up at the clock. "My relief will be here shortly. You can follow me back to my place. I'll need to change for dinner."

"Is this a fancy restaurant?"

"Vino Italia? No, but I'd like to dress appropriately." He gestured to her blouse. "since you are."

When Mila excused herself to use the ladies' room, Charlie called Joe over. "She asked if you're a player."