July 4, Pride, and Only Lovers Left Alive

Wanderers' faux pas and inadvertent Pride march, SF 1981

It was after dark on Friday, July 4, 1980, and my sister and I were in her car, eastbound on Sunset Blvd., stopped at the intersection of Sunset and San Vicente/Clark St. in the left turn lane for Clark St., where we lived, at 1140 North, apartment 306. The traffic light has a left turn arrow, which is much appreciated by drivers of Sunset Blvd., especially at this part of the Strip. The Whisky a GoGo is on the northwest corner of this intersection.

NW corner of Sunset/Clark. On July 4, 1980, we were on the side of this photo facing you, waiting to turn left (to the right side of this photo)

While we were waiting for the left turn arrow to turn green, a small pickup truck to our left, southbound from Clark St., veered slowly into my sister’s car and her car stopped its roll, and her front end sustained both cosmetic and functional damage.

Because it was the 4th of July, there was a considerable law enforcement presence on the street, and a Los Angeles County Sheriff witnessed the entire incident. The driver was stinking drunk, and a field sobriety test would have been overkill, although I watched the Sheriff administer it. The driver stumbled out of the truck, and couldn’t keep his balance to stand, let alone walk a straight line or touch his fingers to his nose.

My sister’s car was a 1970 Porsche 914. Not cheap to get repaired. But the police report was iron-clad, so the next business day (Monday), we called our insurance company and were given some exact instructions. We declined the rental car, since I had a car and we could travel around town together. We were told to go immediately to a doctor and get x-rays and exams to determine if there was an injury that we didn’t immediately feel. We let the insurance companies talk to each other, and it cost us nothing out of pocket (this is known as subrogation - the insurers will reimburse each other). Then we went about our regular lives.

About 10 months later, I received a call from the drunk driver’s insurance company asking me, since it was getting close to the end of the statute of limitations to sue him, if I was planning on waiting until the last minute to do so. Without letting me get a word in edgewise, the man on the other end of the phone offered me $25,000 as a settlement. I knew all I had to say was, “Thank you.”

The timing couldn’t be better. I had just finished my first year of grad school and was not looking forward to a summer of temp jobs. And then Stiv Bators called and said he had a new project and was going to spend the next few months working it. I suddenly had enough money to cover my rent and join the circus.

Earlier in 1981, Stiv Bators and Sham 69, minus an AWOL Jimmy Pursey, released an album as The Wanderers, and this would be the tour of the USA in support of its unheralded release.

Dave Thompson has the facts more right than most other writers in his AllMusic biography entry for The Wanderers’ album, Only Lovers Left Alive.

The concept album was Stiv’s conspiracy theory fascination in recorded music form. He was so steeped in conspiracy theories that a large group of his friends were also conspiracy enthusiasts (or maybe they weren’t; Stiv had a way of spinning a yarn and making the most benign things sound interesting). One such gentleman was the attorney, Kirk Wood. Kirk had a big place in the hills in Malibu right off Pacific Coast Highway and his property included a small mesa that he claimed was a flying saucer landing strip. He was a generous host and threw a big party for the Wanderers while they were in Los Angeles rehearsing for the short tour. Stiv (and all of us) met music producer Paul Rothschild (he produced The Doors) at this party, and somewhere (probably in the suitcase Stiv left in my garage in Santa Barbara in 1985 that I still haven’t opened) there is photographic evidence of this auspicious occasion.

On the deck at Kirk Wood’s Malibu home: Stiv, his then-partner Stacey Maisoneuve (RIP), Dave Parsons, Dave Tregunna, Rick Goldstein, Dean Klevatt, and in the center, Che Zuro of The Orchids

(these photos are lo-rez/small for two reasons: one is that some of them, like the one immediately above, were taken with disposable cameras; the other reason is that I am using lo-rez images screenshot from a contact sheet)

Dean Klevatt (keyboards), Stiv, Dave Tregunna, Dave Parsons rehearsing

Rehearsals were in a typical low-ceiling’d industrial space where bands can make a lot of noise. I can’t remember the name of this place, but it’s in the San Fernando Valley.

The Palladium on NYC’s 14th Street is another place The Wanderers played, their second-to-last gig on the tour. They opened for The Ramones.

The tour started in San Francisco on June 28, and we all stayed in a hotel on Market Street. It was conveniently located near everything we were doing to do during our short stay. We were going to go out for a meal and a stroll before the show that night and Dave Tregunna wanted to get a pack of cigarettes from the machine in the lobby, but he had no coins.

We were all at the front desk when Dave asked the clerk, “Can I have some change for the fags?”

As you may know, the word “fags” is English slang for “cigarettes.” (Here is an etymology website where the entry speculates on the origin of the slang term.). However, as we all know, the word “fag” is a slur for gay men. And the desk clerk, a gay man, was not having Dave’s native tongue slang. Dave became agitated that he wasn’t getting his change, and after letting both the clerk and Dave go at their disagreement for a few minutes, Stiv stepped in to tell the clerk that Dave had never been to the USA before and that in England, “fag” meant “cigarette.” It was uncomfortable, and that was something Stiv liked to cause: discomfort.

We left the hotel after the cigarette-name debacle and walked straight into the Pride Parade. And when I say “walked straight into the Pride Parade,” I mean there was no way to get around unless you marched in the parade corps. Stiv enjoyed it. It do think Dave was uncomfortable. I think Stiv enjoyed that too.

After San Francisco, we flew to Denver, and I think there was a gig, but I cannot be certain and there is nothing on the World Wide Web to attest to that. The Wanderers had two shows in the NY area - at the Palladium, and then in Trenton, NJ, and I think The Fast were also on the bill.

I’m saving the adventures we had with Johnny Thunders on his birthday on the Lower East Side, at a party his mom even attended, and the gigs at the Peppermint Lounge, and running into Jan Berry (Jan and Dean) in our hotel, and into Mick and Keith on St Mark’s Place before we went our separate ways.

BUT crossing paths with the Stones inspired this photo Dave Parsons and I made at JFK while we were waiting to fly back standby the LAX.

Every adventure with Stiv is deep and detailed. There will be more later, but for now, that’s all folks.