I’m standing behind Billy Zoom on line at the Starbucks. Yeah, I admit it: I go to the Starbucks. I’m not too cool for the Starbucks. Does that make me a sellout? Billy Zoom goes here! And he’s a rock star! For a while there, I was sure I’d be a rock star just like him. For a while there, I tried to be a rock star. For a while there, on electric blue nights at the Paradise Lounge in SF, at Billy Goat Hill in St. Louis, at Checkpoint Charlie’s in New Orleans, at the Hollywood Palladium and Stardust Ballroom right here in Los Angeles, sniffing powders and vapors and gases from small brown vials handed to me by the most perfect of strangers, I’d stare up at smiling golden haired Billy Zoom from my sweaty mosh pit, knowing there’d come a time when we’d share that stage. Wouldn’t my friends and family be impressed? They never thought I’d amount to much, but I’d show them. Look at me now, I’d tell them, sniffing drugs in a mosh pit at the Palladium, planning to share the stage with Billy Zoom! Some day.
Now, in the living room of my ranch style house in the coyote-and-raccoon section of Sherman Oaks, California about eleven miles northwest of the Palladium, my guitars sit like relics. My little boys with their plump tiny fingers fondle the strings, smear spit and boogers along the necks, ask me to play for them. I put down my sports page and creak up from my recliner, shirtless, barefoot and fat in sagging torn pajama bottoms. I crank up a menacing Billy Zoom smile and try to impress them with my tired licks and dried out picks that are no longer relevant or impressive. I never got very good.
I cut down on the guitars after the jobs got harder, after the shifts got longer, after the bills came faster, after I fell in love and got married and started the happily-ever, after things got more fixed and less dreamy.
I boxed up the turntable because there was no room and the house. I replaced my X records with CDs so I could rock out in the car on my morning commute. But my mind was too cluttered to rock: car seats, deadlines, itchy collars, refinancing.
I burned the CD’s onto my iPod so I could conjure Billy’s cold-hearted smile and youthful angst whenever I wanted. But I forgot to want.
I got busy. I got distracted. I got sidetracked. I got railroaded. I got lost and, being a guy, I refused to ask for directions.
Eventually, I stopped thinking about Billy altogether. I stopped planning for the day I’d share a stage with him. The best I could do was daydream in the car on my commute about belting out punk rock oldies at a west side Karaoke bar full of drunk lawyers and investment bankers. I’d rock “World’s a Mess It’s In My Kiss” in front of co-workers and friends. They never thought I’d amount to much, but I’d show them. Look at me now, I’d tell them, singing oldies at a west side karaoke bar full of professionals adults with dead dreams. I’d have to be drunk to do it, even in the daydream version.
But it seems I’ve finally arrived. Look at me: on line at the Starbucks with Billy Zoom. He orders a venti-nonfat-soy-chai-latte, with an extra pump. He’s gotten old and smells like talcum powder. He’s wearing a baseball cap with an unfamiliar non-baseball symbol on it, the kind corporations give away when they’re about to screw you. He’s wearing a beige cardigan, loafers and what looks like golf pants. Maybe from living clean and sober. Maybe still his style of ironic 50’s suburbia. Or maybe he’s turned Normal. He’s with a woman who appears to be his age. Maybe his sponsor or publicist. They’re discussing college applications and stock portfolios. I can’t figure it out. Has Billy Zoom grown up? Just like me?
Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about my life, my dashed hopes, where I have landed. Suddenly, despite the dashed hopes, the abandoned attempts, the paralysis, the miscalculations and the compromises brought on by the fears and the doubts, here I am at the Starbucks with the great Billy Zoom, standing on equal ground. Maybe I’ll chat him up. And not on a lame fan-to-rock-star basis either, but suburbanite-to-suburbanite, dad-to-dad. We’d talk about schools and mortgages and bathroom sinks that don’t drain. We’d become friends. I’d take him to family dinner. I’d show him off to friends and co-workers so they’d see how cool I’ve always been, best friends with an aging recovering addict former rock star. I’d show them!
I get my coffee. Take a seat at a small round table across from the X-legend. He takes off his baseball cap. His hair is darker than I remember. Must’ve stopped bleaching it. He sips his latte and smiles and it is less menacing than I remember. Must’ve mellowed out. Maybe he found God! We’d have to discuss that one day, over coffee after dropping our kids off at Little League practice. I continue to stare. He stops his conversation with his friend and looks back, squinting, curious, a “do I know you?” look. We keep staring like that until my eyes sharpen and my frozen smile slowly melts away.
It’s not him. It’s not Billy Zoom. It’s just an old guy, wearing lame golf pants and an idiotic sweater, drinking a stupid latte. The butt of the joke. The real version of the White American Suburbanite Billy personified on stage decades ago. In irony. In irony. In irony.
I get up, get in my car, head over to the Ralph’s down on Ventura. I need to get wipes, another set of floaties, a half-gallon of lowfat cookies ‘n cream the wife had asked me to get on the way back. I hum an old tune about how I must not think bad thoughts.
#xthebandofficial
#billyzoom
#stardustballroom
#hollywoodpalladium
#starbucks
#burningdad
#thievingmagpie
#literarymischief