Pinky Tourette
Sets the Record Straight 

The place smelled like an unholy mix of every bodily secretion known to man – piss, pus, blood, semen, spit, sweat, diarrhea, vomit. Plus the acrid scent of ammonia and a faint tinge of cheap incense. It was hard to believe anyone would willingly subject themselves to this kind of abuse, much less pay for the privilege. Just goes to prove that while love is blind, lust is completely senseless.

 

The skinhead bouncer at the door looked like he’d been stitched together from anvils and truck tires. He wore a studded leather collar and wristbands. Went by the name “Dog.” Bass player for the band Shitstorm. Dog Shit.

 

I don’t know if Dog recognized me, Pinky Tourette, but I recognized him. I’d been keeping tabs on Shitstorm, as I did with all bands on the rise. It’s part of my job as manager and nanny and guiding light of Thee Tourettes.

 

When I told Dog we had an appointment with King he gave Sneezy and Grumpy a good hard look that stripped away all their clothes and practically inserted a speculum. In response, Grumpy pointed her ass at him while Sneezy touched her lips with two fingers and blew him a kiss of pure venom.

 

He said Upstairs and let us in. He was sitting directly beneath a printed sign saying all bags would be searched so I started to slide the overstuffed messenger off my shoulder when he waved me away. So much for security.

 

The inside of the place was a murky crimson, the color of two-dollar wine. It took a moment to get our bearings. Straight ahead was the bar in the center of the room, with a raised island in the middle for the dancers. Two poles, one girl at the moment. Latina. Agitated, with flaccid breasts all aflutter beneath a barely-there top as she shouted in rapid Spanish across the room.

 

The audience howled in amusement. A couple of lumpy white guys in denim uniforms – laborers of some kind – sat at a small round table. Three others leaned back in their chairs smoking cigars. Yeah, you could smoke in bars back then. One of the smokers was tossing balled-up dollar bills at the dancer. Another Latina in black fishnet leaned on one of the laborers, elbows on his shoulders as she joined in shouting as well.

 

The target of their ire was the main stage, on the right side of the room. Two black girls were doing their thing, one in a thong, the other in the remnants of a babydoll nightie. If they were past their teens, it was by minutes. Clubs like this in places like this were magnets for adolescent girls, dropouts, users, products of broken families. Sucked them in and chewed them up and spat them back out, dead or alive or somewhere in between.

 

The girls on the main stage were doing something akin to dancing while firing vitriol back at the two Latinas. Over here was a larger audience, a rough and tumble blue-collar mob spread out at more round tables, relishing the melee, laughing and high-fiving each other, stepping up to insert the occasional bill between strap and skin and warm their greedy fingers on female flesh.

 

Dog, the bouncer, couldn’t give a shit. Let ‘em squabble. Gentleman’s clubs, they called these places. Sure. Booze served; no nudity allowed by law. This particular dive, Woodies, had a reputation for violence, for drugs and prostitution. They were a mainstay in the local papers. Citations for this and that. Never lasted. Back in operation the next week. Seemed the notoriety brought in additional business. Bored dudes looking for excitement. Tough Jersey bruisers. Thrillseeking teenagers. As for the locals, well, like Dog, they simply couldn’t give a shit.

 

Some bad hair metal anthem was playing. As if there were such a thing as a good hair metal anthem. It was loud, with the girls shouting louder and the guys cheering them on. It was early the afternoon and the place had a sizable crowd. Overnight shift workers. Unemployed lugs. Hard drinkers. Horny stiffs.

 

Jersey City was going through hard times back then, the mid-1980s. The waterfront renaissance was in its nascent stages and the rest of the city was a hotbed of crime and corruption and decay. For better or worse, JC was New Jersey’s most ethnically diverse municipality. Sadly, that diversity was skewered into neighborhood ghettos, riven by racial disparity and poverty, beset by bloody rivalries.

 

Out here in the industrial wasteland beneath the Pulaski Skyway, amidst the abandoned buildings and rubble-strewn tracts, in the literal shadow of filthy factories with soaring smokestacks and flare towers belching skin-staining pollution and stink, within puking distance of Port Newark and its petrochemical plants and oil refineries topped by giant plumes of gas and dust and filth that could blanket a car’s windshield in greasy brown ash overnight, it was no-man’s-land, the urban frontier, the wild west. Mad Max would have been right at home.

 

I took a quick scan around the club as my eyes adjusted. To our left, several doors. Booths, with locks. For lap dances, BJs, hand jobs. To the right, next to the stage, stairs led up. At the top, turn left for the small DJ booth, overhanging the stage. Just past that, the door to King’s office.

 

The DJ was pumping his fist and shouting along, encouraging the action below. I recognized him as well. He was hard to miss. I don’t know if he was technically a midget or if I’m even allowed to call him that. Tiny bald guy with a face that could scare a pitbull. He was the drummer for Shitstorm. Little Shit. And if you think a puny dude can’t pound a mean 4/4, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. The guy was a powerhouse on the skins.

 

Grumpy was watching the action with a cockeyed smirk. Well, this is… different, she said. The second-youngest of the sisters, she was about the same age as the girls onstage. Barely old enough to legally set foot in the place. Not that anyone would care.

 

No, this… is a shithole, Sneezy corrected.

 

I adjusted the strap of my bag and nodded to the girls and we headed for the stairs. In the corner we spied a couple of guys nursing drinks sullenly, keeping out of the fray while watching intently as the dancers continued to lob curses at each other. I recognized their type immediately. Boyfriends or stalkers. Same difference sometimes. The strip-club equivalent of groupies. As we passed the stage, the girl in the thong lowered her haunches toward one of the tables and slid the thong aside. So much for no nudity. One of the guys leaned in and caressed a bill along the inside of her leg while the Latinas shouted even more fervently and thong girl showed them her middle digits.

 

The door at the top of the stairs was locked. A note in magic marker invited visitors to Fuck Off + Die. Alongside the small landing, the door to the DJ booth was open. Little Shit lowered a pair of tinted shades from atop his head and kept his eye on us as I pushed the buzzer and waited. Moments later a peephole opened and someone said Yeah?

 

I announced myself and a couple of bolts slid back and the door opened outward, forcing us to take a step down the stairs. Meaning the frame was reinforced on the inside, making it harder to bash in during a raid.

 

Bull stood in the doorway, sizing us up. Stood in the doorway, hell, he filled the doorway. Six-and-a-half, seven feet tall, I don’t know, maybe eight or nine the way he towered, and wide as a Volkswagen. Big, bald, all lard and gristle. Guitarist for Shitstorm. Bull Shit. He gave the girls the same lewd eye as Dog had, before announcing us and lumbering aside to let us in.

 

The room was surprisingly spacious. Black plywood walls covered in graffiti and posters. Harsh fluorescent lighting. A syphilitic couch along one wall across from a card table and some empty straight-back chairs. An old Frigidaire hummed in the far corner next to an exercise bench and some barbells and kettlebells.

 

King sat behind the cluttered desk in a massive wood and leather chair, wearing a tight Shitstorm t-shirt with the arms hacked off, exposing his enormous biceps, twirling his goddam mustache. I kid you not, the guy was literally toying with the ends of those long Fu Manchu strands like a silent movie villain. Talk about subtle. The East Village Eye once described him as the bastard child of “Macho Man” Randy Savage, George “The Animal” Steele, and Ming the Merciless, and that kind of nailed it. I guess we were supposed to be intimidated. Instead Sneezy snorted and said You gotta be fucking kidding me.

 

Sneezy didn’t intimidate easily. Sneezy didn’t intimidate at all.

 

Me, I opted for deferential. At least to start. I thanked him for seeing us and asked how their show went at My Father’s Place, a sizable venue out on Long Island that booked “New Wave” acts. He snickered and said they were banned for life. Big fight broke out. Two kids were stabbed, half a dozen more were sent to the hospital with broken bones, and one girl lost an eye. He sounded proud of the body count.

 

Seemed about right. If Shitstorm were known for anything it wasn’t their music; it was the carnage left in the wake of their gigs. They got banned from CBGBs on their first appearance at a hardcore matinee for encouraging – make that inciting – stage diving in direct opposition to club policy. I’d seen them twice, the second time under duress. Everything about them rubbed me the wrong way. They were artless, talentless, unfunny, unclever, just bludgeoning lummoxes spewing hatred and vitriol. Their rabid supporters – Stormtroopers, they called themselves – would say that this made them the perfect punk band. Yeah, okay, whatever. But it didn’t make them worth wasting time on.

 

On the other hand, I couldn’t deny they wielded power. Both onstage and off. King Shit was a lousy vocalist but a damn compelling frontman. With the physique of a bodybuilder, seething like a psycho, he was the embodiment of physical threat. Bull couldn’t find a chord if it was delivered gift-wrapped by UPS and yet he generated a suffocating atonal din that made you want to grit your teeth and pound the shit out of something. Or someone. They made the Nihilistics sound like the Partridge Family and stole all the thunder from local up-and-comers like the Stimulators, Agnostic Front, The Mob, Cro-Mags. Only problem was they never played a venue twice. Once was more than enough to get them banned.

 

Rumors abounded that their monstrous intensity tapped into the suppressed anger and aggression inside all of us, triggering uncontrollable rage. Psychic alchemy. Not a new concept; I remember hearing tales ages ago about some brutally violent movie so hypnotically powerful it caused the ratings board to slaughter one another after the first screening and was subsequently cashiered into history. Nice story, not exactly believable. Yet Shitstorm, that was a different kettle of grue.

 

I’d seen them. I’d heard them. I’d suffered through them. I’d gotten a blinding headache both times and would have strangled a basket of puppies to get it to stop. In fact, I’d have strangled a basket of puppies just for the hell of it. That was the frame of mind their music generated.

 

Just to be clear, I’ve got nothing against incendiary noise or blinding hatred in music. In the right hands it’s fuel for energy and creativity and rebellion and ambition and all that good stuff. As long as it’s directed. As long as it’s channeled. But hatred is like taking a dump. It can be a glorious, blissful release… or it can be a big repellent pile of stink. And Shitstorm, well, they lacked any whisper of glory.

 

So it came as no surprise that My Father’s Place wasn’t about to welcome them back. Not exactly a winning strategy for expanding your audience – getting banned from every venue around. Unless you’re the Pistols. And Shitstorm, they were no Sex Pistols.

 

Out of deference I asked if they had any other gigs lined up. I figured I’d log it as a show to avoid. Instead of answering directly, King pulled an LP from one of the piles on his desk and tossed it to me.

 

Keep it, he said. Let it inspire you losers and your shit music.

 

I bit back the impulse to respond, instead focusing on the disc. It was a white-label test pressing. Glued to the sleeve was a black and white Xerox of the projected cover. Well, weren’t we lucky. It was the debut Shitstorm album, titled Thanatos Rules.

 

When’s this coming out, I asked. Soon, he told me. They were negotiating with various indie labels: Homestead, SST, Touch & Go. A bidding war was going on. Jesus, I thought. Can’t wait. I slipped the disc into my bag and got down to business.

 

You know why I’m here, I said, and reiterated our plans for a concert in Tompkins Square Park. It was Grumpy’s idea. She was the one who was always thirsty for new experiences, new ideas, new music. She was the one who revered the Lower East Side scene, its punk bands and anti-everything esthetic. She’d been the one to drag me to shows at A7 and TR3 and Pyramid. I didn’t relish it, I must admit. This was a time when the downtown music scene had gotten decidedly ugly. Pogo dancing had been kicked aside in favor of slam-dancing, long before it was renamed moshing. That brought out a more violent crowd that continued to devolve into skinheads prowling the clubs provoking fights and beating the shit out of people for the pure bloodsport of it. Shows became dangerous; even the bouncers gleefully joined the violence. When PIL played their infamous “riot” show at The Ritz and the crowd erupted in anger as the band refused to step out from behind the curtain, with angry audience members clawing at the white cloth across the stage, club employees dove into the pit swinging mic stands and bloodying faces. There’s a reason Chain Gang wrote the song “Kill the Bouncers at the Ritz.”

 

That said, Grumpy had discovered some phenomenal bands toiling away at the bottom of the bill in no-name clubs and at CB’s Sunday matinees, amidst the dross and flotsam like Shitstorm.

 

One of the gems was The Eleventh Hour. Young punks, still unheralded, wet behind the ears, with a ragged sound that reminded me of early Replacements mixed with The Heartbreakers. An unbeatable combo.

 

Trouble was, they had signed a management deal with King. Although Shitstorm had yet to tour or release an album, they were talk of the town, as their bidding war proved. They were NYC’s downtown flavor-of-the-week and subsequently the most respected – or at least the most feared – band on the scene, and King had parlayed that into a role as dealmaker for younger, up-and-coming bands. He already successfully managed Woodies; it was a small step to scoop up unwashed young bands, shunt them under his wing, and grab a percentage of their take.

 

It'll be a free concert, Grumpy said. To raise awareness and funds for the homeless. We’ll sell merch and donate all proceeds. She’d been quiet up till now, and King leaned forward to look her up and down.

 

And you are? he said, twirling his cartoon mustache.

 

Uh oh. Didn’t take a psychic to see where this was going.

 

Bassist for the band, she said. Nodding, he leaned back and said Chicks can’t play bass for shit. Can’t play anything. You’re just a novelty act. Shit-ass losers.

 

Says the guy who’s been kicked out of the crummiest dives on the East Coast, Sneezy replied.

 

In response he fished on his desk and tossed publications at her in rapid succession. Maximum Rocknroll, Flipside, The Aquarian, Village Voice, all featuring Shitstorm despite their lack of any vinyl. He smirked and said, What you call that, bitch?

 

Will Rogers said it best, Sneezy shot back. You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

 

That was P.T. Barnum, Grumpy corrected.

 

Actually it was H.L. Mencken, but I let it go and pointed us back to business, telling him that we had signed on a number of heavy hitters for the show including Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, Live Skull.

 

Suck, suck, and suck, he said. His voice grated on me, like fingernails digging directly into your brain. Even without the band behind him it put me on edge and raised my temperature.

 

I wasn’t about to argue with him, though. Doesn’t matter if they suck, I said through gritted teeth, they’ll bring in crowds who’ll see The Eleventh Hour and raise their profile.

 

What’s in it for me, he asked.

 

I thought that was obvious. The band gets exposure, I explained. Audiences come. Press comes. They get write-ups. They get popular. They get more bookings.

 

What’s in it for me, he repeated.

 

It was like talking to a child. I spoke slower. The band get more bookings, they make more money, the manager profits, I said.

 

No, he said, like I was the stupid one. What’s in it for me right now?

 

That one threw me for a moment. I looked at the girls. Sneezy rolled her eyes.

 

I tried again, pulling the contract from my bag, starting to explain that there was no monetary compensation for performing, it was a charity gig, but it would lead to—

 

King stood up, shoving back his huge, thronelike chair on its heavy casters. Fuck that, he said. I want to know what’s in it for me personally, right here, right now, this moment.

 

That’s when it struck me. I looked back to see Bull blocking the door. His arms were folded across his Volkswagen chest and he was grinning.

 

Let’s talk about this later, I suggested, slipping the contract back into my bag and keeping my hand inside.

 

No, he said. Let’s talk about it now. You came here to ask for a favor. I want something in return. That’s the way it works.

 

You genuinely are as dumb as you look, Sneezy said. I looked over and could tell she knew exactly what was at stake here. But she didn’t intimidate. She didn’t buckle. Wasn’t in her nature. She’d face down a hissing cobra till it backed away and apologized.

 

King, though, was no cobra. He met her gaze. You got a smart mouth, he said. What other tricks you know with that smart mouth of yours?

 

We’re done, I said. We’re going now.

 

Correction, he said. You’re going. They’re staying.

 

I was a moment too slow. My hand was on the pepper spray and my arm was on its way out of the bag when a giant vise gripped me from behind. Bull. He literally lifted me off the ground and hauled me back toward the door. My arms were pinned like dandelions in a fist as I shouted something, I don’t know what and heard Sneezy say don’t worry, they’ll be fine. Then I was outside, tossed on the landing at the top of the stairs, and the big steel door slammed shut behind me.

 

Regaining my balance I pounded on the door, pushing it, pulling it, shouting overtop of some punishing disco song on the PA. After a few moments I noticed an echo and looked over to see Little Shit in the DJ booth mimicking me, repeating everything I said with a vicious grin on his horrid, shriveled face. When I stopped, he stopped and giggled, shades hiding his eyes.

 

Well, he asked for it. In two steps I was in his face, snatching the glasses off his head and tossing them over the edge into the club below.

 

He howled like a hyena and lunged for me, squinting. Easy enough to sidestep; the guy was lost without his specs. With my foot I propelled him out of the booth onto the landing and slammed shut the door to the booth and locked it. Through the window I saw him banging on the door, then the door to King’s office, eliciting no response. With a barrage of curses aimed in my direction he gripped the railing and hurried downstairs to retrieve his glasses.

 

By then I had already prepped the second turntable. It was a basic DJ setup. A child could handle it. I got the second table going and hit the fader and the disco dissolved, replaced by a gut-wrenching shriek of sheet metal being tortured. I felt my muscles tense. Down below I heard the sound of an argument firing up, voices raised in anger.

 

Then the vocals kicked in. King’s nerve-shredding voice atop the unbridled cacophony of Bull’s guitar. Shitstorm’s album was every bit the aural equivalent of their live shows. A headache exploded in my skull. Down below the altercation escalated and I heard glass break as someone hurled a bottle.

 

I jacked up the volume. It hurt to listen to. It hurt physically, it hurt mentally, it hurt psychologically, it hurt spiritually.

 

Leaning over the edge I could see people menacing one another as the dancers shouted from the stage. Within moments someone took a swing, and it was on. Bodies flew at one another. Tables crashed and splintered. I saw Dog, the bouncer, finally haul himself up from his seat at the door and stalk over to take charge. Only to be sent sprawling as someone clobbered him from behind with a chair.

 

Stepping back, I noticed a box of tissues and shoved wads the size of Rhode Island in my ears.

 

Just then the door to the office flew open and King stood at the top of the stairs, seething. He glared at me through the window and started to reach for the door handle when a body went flying across the bar below and dozens of bottles shattered in a volcano of glass and alcohol.

 

King turned and shouted at Bull to turn that shit off, pointing at me, and charged downstairs into the melee.

 

I yanked open the booth door and was ready when Bull appeared in the doorway. Before he had a chance to take a single step, he got a face full of pepper spray. It took him a millisecond to realize what had happened, then his hand shot up and he shrieked like a startled girl scout and rubbed furiously at his eyes.

 

And then he launched into space as abruptly as if he’d been fired by a cannon, followed by King’s big chair. As he landed and tumbled down the stairs, I saw Grumpy and Sneezy appear in the doorway. They had charged out of the room, pushing the chair in front of them, loaded down with barbells and kettlebells, slamming into Bull from behind.

 

By now the riot was in full swing down below. I handed tissue wads to the girls and they loaded up their ears and we headed into the fray.

 

At the bottom we had to climb over the twisted mass of Bull. His feet were up on the fifth or sixth step, his body tilted downward, his head twisted in the wrong direction. Only once we reached the floor did we realize that Little was flattened underneath him like the Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house.

 

Then came an odd moment. The song ended. With the momentary silence, the fighting paused. Bloodied people looked at one another, at themselves, and it almost seemed like a flicker of sanity descended.

 

Then the second song kicked in.

 

Fists flew, and bottles and furniture. I saw one of the Latin dancers, now topless, launch herself onto a guy from behind and lock her legs around his chest and claw at his eyes. I saw one of the guys in denim kneeling on Dog’s chest, pounding repeated into a face that looked like roadkill. I saw King, big bad King, musclebound King, knocking people aside and suddenly notice us crossing the floor and I saw the intention of murder fill his eyes.

 

Run, I shouted to the girls, and we made a wild break for the door. Behind us King charged forward, knocking aside anyone in his way. Glancing back, I happened to see him slam into one of the Black dancers and send her crashing to the ground.

 

Big mistake.

 

In an instant the two groupie guys were on him. They didn’t come to play. The knives were like extensions of their limbs, manifestations of their vengeance, flashing, slashing, stabbing with intent. King didn’t know what hit him. I stopped running long enough to see a bewildered look cross his face. By the time he realized what had happened, he was already dead.

 

There’s not much more to tell. Woodies is long gone now. With all the principals dead, it sat abandoned, gathering a legend as a place of evil and corruption until some wise soul burned it to the ground. The Eleventh Hour, without management, floundered and broke up. The Tompkins Square Park concert never happened. Too many egos, too little cooperation. Too bad. A couple years later the place erupted in police riots. Squatters were beaten and arrested. Still later, a local psycho, Daniel Rakowitz, killed his girlfriend, dismembered her, and served her in soup to the homeless in the park. I’ve heard talk that Rakowitz owned a test pressing of the Shitstorm album, but that’s never been officially confirmed. The album, Thanatos Rules, faded into history and was forgotten. With the band gone, its legal ownership fell into limbo, the bidding war dried up, and it was never released.

 

For which we should all be eternally grateful.