While I was still in the music business, I attempted to purchase a music rehearsal studio. I couldn’t secure financing, but remained confident the bank got it wrong. Then, during my open-mic career, while still believing I was to be the next Raz Cue, Pops suggested I find something to fall back on; just in case the comedy career didn’t pan out. I joked that there was always my ass to fall on. But the seed done been planted. So when I got my fat thirty-grand structured-settlement check on New Year’s Day 1991, I didn’t buy the 1973 Corvette Stingray just itching for my lead left foot to increase its already stellar occupants’ death rate. Instead, I invested in opening a rehearsal studio. I reasoned that, with all the bands I knew, my place would be packed within seconds of grand opening and I could then score a far more badass 60s Corvette.

Pro Tip: Click the Pictures

Being of superior intelligence, and chock full of early-twenties exuberance, I wisely projected income by computing the maximum possible room occupancy, multiplied by a great hourly rate. According to those sound calculations, I’d soon be swimming in cash, and thus have plenty of time to hit the national comedy club circuit, as well as the hefty bankroll needed to make indie films at my studio. When I first contemplated the project, my unemployed electrician pot-smoking buddy, an ornery Guy from Houston, encouraged and challenged me to follow through. And once I made up my mind to go for it, that same ornery Guy dared me to brand my business Faux Cue Studios: “It’s French.”

The only thing I needed to do was everything. I began with a quest for the perfect location by driving the east side – odelay – of North Hollywood. In no time flat, I located several two-thousand-square-foot concrete block buildings perfect for the three-roomed studio already existing in my brain. Heading home, I turned west onto Magnolia and noticed a for-lease sign atop a large concrete block building, which I believed to be way bigger than I could afford. It turned out that even though the place was almost four thousand square feet and fronted a main street, the monthly rent was an incredible fifty cents per square foot. I could not sign the lease fast enough, and received the keys just in time to celebrate turning twenty-six.

That’s how Faux Cue Studios ended up near the corner of Magnolia and Cahuenga, a half block from the newly opened restaurante delicioso, Poquito Mas, in an area freshly dubbed the “Noho Arts District.” Directly across the street from my joint sat Solbrook, a business that painted six-foot-tall album covers for display above records stores. Most days, at least ten of those paintings leaned against the wall out front and, unless you were up close, the artwork looked pretty good. But the landmark most folks recognized was an office furniture store two buildings over. To me, their merchandise seemed a tad overpriced for a place billing itself as a “liquidator.” But what did I know? Jerry, the guy who ran the business, expanded his operation lightning-quick, and within ten years owned three of the four buildings on the property.

Undeterred by that pointy-headed bureaucrat, I merely went to another window.

Before I could draw up plans to pull permits, I first needed to learn how to draw plans. I bought a drafting table and a giant T-square, then got busy doing preliminary, rough drawings. After a few days of drawing, I headed to Van Nuys to wait an hour in line at the building department, only to have the clerk barely glance at my work before smugly telling me to hire an architect. I told him, “No money for that. I just have a few questions.” When Jack-Ass repeated himself, I told him, “Look, I waited in line for an hour. Just answer two questions, please.” But he turned me away, and we were both lucky I couldn’t smack that bitch. Undeterred by that pointy-headed bureaucrat, I merely went to another window. There, a very sweet and helpful lady answered tons of questions, and even offered a few brilliant suggestions. By my third trip, a half-gallon of white out, and seven hundred trips to Kinko’s Copy Center, my plans for six 300-square-foot rooms – plus the leftover thousand-square-foot blank canvas in the back of the building – were approved.

I ordered several thousands of dollars’ worth of construction shit, foolishly believing it was most of the required materials. As it turned out, on its rise from nothingness, my project burned through at least an additional hundred bucks daily, plus a few other unexpected major expenditures. A building twice as big as my original plan required double the materials, which added up far too quickly. I had also projected costs wrong by half. So if you’re counting on your fingers, you might realize it cost four times more than my original assumptions; if I would have had that much capital.

Faux Cue’s construction crew was comprised of my brother Joe, who kept the project running smoothly by pausing several times a day to strongly, and wrongly, disagree with a direct order. Another major contributor was that ornery Guy from Texas, who designed and completed 90 percent of my electrical needs. I paid him almost well, let him live at the studio during construction, and threw in free rehearsal for life. Even though he did a good job, the life of our agreement ended about a year post opening after I buried him in a shallow grave by the light of a half moon over the Mojave Desert. But without a doubt, the hardest worker who never stole, argued, threatened, or falsely accused me of a damn thing was our “forty-dollar specialist,” Louie. I had found him wandering Home Depot’s parking lot in search of a better life and white women, and hired him on the spot. We affectionately called him Gilligan, because he was our little buddy.

Besides those three, the project’s success was due in large part to countless free consultations provided by contractor buddy and Patrick Swayze doppelganger, Dave. He’d drop by the jobsite a few times a week to answer a slew of questions and offer ultra-valuable advice for the price of a beer and doobie.

The build began about four weeks after I signed the lease, when a lumber truck backed into my loading dock and tilted its bed up until my large stack of wood products slid off as far as it could go. With one edge on the ground, and the remainder slanting up toward the truck, the driver inched forward until that shit dropped to earth to rock the concrete and shake my building like a mini earthquake.

About five minutes later, my crew, the truck driver, and I were in the office smoking some dirt weed while listening to “Tighten Up” – “But don’t you get too tight” – when a chick from the neighboring office dropped by to do some recon. While making some third-degree small talk, she noticed the clothes hanging in the office and asked, “Is someone living here?”

I told her, “Nope, chicks come by and we fuck ’em.”

Joe added, “Then we give ’em a shirt.”

I shrugged and offered a flirty smile, “You want a shirt?”

She scanned the room, quite possibly pondering whether she needed a shirt from one of us, but declined before hurrying from the hairies. We put on “God is a Bullet,” finished smoking, and then started building walls.

I firmly believe, in all aspects of life, someone needs to be in charge. So I eagerly switched into full boss-man mode. After all, I was paying the fucking bills. Not being able to put my own “Manuel labor” into a project has always frustrated the fuck out of me. Plus, there was the dreaded sitting there seeing how to best do a job, getting totally ignored while offering sage advice, and then footing the bill to repair shit after it’s all fucked up. I’m a “do it right or don’t do it at all” type guy. So unless I fully trust a worker will do the task correctly, I lay out every little step, then hover, eagle-eyed-know-it-all ready to yell, “Stop!”

Time and again, that’d piss off dummies, even if they were fucking shit up when I applied the verbal brakes. I regularly heard stuff like, “You’re too anal,” or, “Quit micro-managing every fucking thing I do.” At times, those correct observations persuaded me to leave a worker on their own to complete a relatively straightforward task, containing huge margins for error, only to return and discover morons fucked everything up. Instead of an apology for wasting my time and money, I usually got, “You didn’t say that’s how you wanted it.” Make up your mind, people!

By mid-April, the studios were near operable, but I was even nearer broke. But at twenty-six, I could still easily fit my fears and doubts into a matchbox, so I thought nothing of spending every last penny I owned, even after failure smiled seductively and offered an easy out. There is not a soul on this planet who likes a quitter less than I do, so I cut the spending spigot way back to a trickle and begged my crew, “All I want to do is get the doors on the rooms,” knowing full well that, once I owned a functioning studio, I’d have a valuable commodity for barter. Not to mention the huge stacks of cash brought in by all those bands clamoring to practice at my place. And all my dreams would come true.

The weekend before my final inspection, I threw a humongous grand-opening Bar-B-Faux Cue, with kegs, buds, burgers, dogs, and mega munchies. I printed up stacks of flyers with the first of many cheesy slogans: “If they ask you where you rehearse, say Faux Cue.” The flyer also pointed out that the studio sat “5 minutes from Hollywood (at 3am doin’ 90 MPH),” which I had clocked in my Isuzu. Because the place was not complete, the timing of my grand opening celebration was a huge tactical error. I had reasoned it would be better to paint, install carpet, and hang the doors after a hundred drunken motherfuckers partied hard there. But during the wing-ding, I constantly corrected folks who thought the place was still months from completion. By my count, only three or four future customers attended my promo event.

Like I repeatedly promised party guests, I opened the very next weekend. With the doors hung, the last order of business was final inspection. To my horror, the city inspector told me the ceiling’s drywall was running in the wrong direction. I didn’t have two grand to redo the ceilings, so I excused myself and sent Joe to the ATM to get five hundred bucks. But good fortune smiled, and as it turned out, my misreading of the building code had provided far more ceiling joist capacity than code required. So no bribe was necessary.

In another weird code misadventure, one of the bathrooms was built accessible for the needs of the gimp who would use it 99 percent of the time – me. But it wasn’t up to ADA code, and to pass inspection, I was required to meet an arbitrary standard etched in stone. Thanks to the city of Los Angeles, I spent an extra three hundred bucks redoing, then undoing the redo. So I did not feel any guilt about never getting a business license. I also passed on acquiring fire insurance. Because, as I told several insurance salesmen, “If my place burns down, it’s just God’s way of telling me I need to get into another line of work.”

So there I sat, the penniless owner of six 300-square-foot rehearsal rooms; just rooms with no carpet, equipment, or air conditioning. It took a year and a half to get the place air conditioned, which forced me to slash my imagined hourly rate just to get customers through the door more than once. In the meantime, I went to Carpeteria and, for three rooms’ worth of carpet, signed on the dotted line allowing them merciless financial butt-rape. As an attempt to make singers happy, I financed one crappy PA from Carvin, and for the second PA, I went to Nadine’s Music to Amex around two grand worth of gear. My buddy Sam hooked me up with several milk crates full of cords, a power amp, and a half dozen microphones. Just because he was a pretty, sweet bitch. Cords constantly failed, but it was a great start. Plus, I learned that milk crates make stylish racks for mounting gear. Last but not least, I furnished the rooms with crusty, found-on-the-side-of-the-road couches that grew far crustier over time.

Right around the same time my doors opened for business, The Wild broke up after keyboardist Dizzy Reed joined another semi-popular rock ‘n’ roll band.

To get some cash flow going, I raided bands away from nearby studio L.P. Sound by letting a few old friends rehearse for free. One reason – I’m the coolest unreasonable cunt ever. But more believably, I realized rather quickly it was good optics if my place appeared popular. Plus, those bands enjoyed varying degrees of success, and accompanying respect from fellow musicians, thus providing my newly established joint’s credibility. Right around the same time my doors opened for business, The Wild broke up after keyboardist Dizzy Reed joined another semi-popular rock ‘n’ roll band. But each one his former bandmates brought their new projects over to my place from L.P. Sound. Then, when Dizzy finished touring the globe, his side projects jammed at Faux Cue.

I had never met the owner of L.P. Sound. But when the band Mondo Kane migrated to Faux Cue, Gary had enough and dropped by to scout out my place. To the benefit of his customers, he began seeing me as some kind of major competition. Thus, the service at his place improved greatly. But in reality, he had no need to even have bands at L.P. Sound. We were two wholly different business models. I made my money running a legitimate-ish business that opened promptly according to a set schedule, while Gary sold two pounds of killer weed per day, an eighth at a time. But I was glad he did what he do, because for almost two years, I was a regular green customer at L.P., until Kenny the Gardener wandered into Faux Cue to save the hip a half-mile hemp trip.

Right from the get-go, I began receiving payback for the dirty deeds I’d been dealing out since I first learned to work every angle. On the recommendation of a friend, I rented my entire studio out for a small private birthday party. Unfortunately, the renter passed out flyers around Hollywood. More than three hundred animals, with little or no respect for my property, descended on my studio to party until dawn. Even though it was something I had done more than once to others’ property, I hated it happening to poor little ol’ me. Then, during my regular business hours, it only took a few assholes spitting on the walls, pissing all over the bathroom, or any other variety of theft and vandalism to totally get me down. I wondered why someone would do that kind of shit, when I tried my damndest to treat people with respect and provide a nice place at a decent price.

I once believed in honor amongst thieves, but a thief has no honor. If it wasn’t under lock and key, carefully watched, or accounted for, tons of expensive shit got gone. The most often recurring thefts for dollar amount – about a hundred bucks a pop – were several microphones missing every month. Plus, bad employees stole more of my CDs than I ever shoplifted, which was quite a feat. As soon as I got a heavy dose of how shitty the loser’s end tasted, it got me to stop stealing altogether. But for another few years, I still bought stolen shit if a wandering salesman happened by. Music gear, food stamps, batteries, or whatever else the local street scum pedaled. I eventually became “holier than thou” against facilitating theft by purchasing stolen items after deciding to live life as if God was watching, even before I was convinced of His existence. Nowadays, I have faith. But remain leery of religion.

I thought he was totally full of shit, but the next afternoon, I received over a thousand square feet of barely-used-during-TV-show-filming, free carpet.

The very first week after I opened Faux Cue Studios, a singer friend sent his latest band over for some preproduction. They would have been an excellent group, had they existed for longer than their three weeks at my place. The bass player, Ron Cordi, formerly of an almost-made-it-big band, Bitch, became a Faux Cue alumnus. But his other jam-mates, recently departed from Megadeath, Jay Reynolds and Chuck Behler, only stopped in once or twice after that first month. I bring them up not just for the name drop, but because their buddy Epi dropped by one night and was soon offering me a bunch of “like new” carpet. All I need do was drive a mile to his place so he could toss it in my truck. I thought he was totally full of shit, but the next afternoon, I received over a thousand square feet of barely-used-during-TV-show-filming, free carpet. Epi’s black-on-black, dark black , double-flat black drums moved in soon after. And because he was a super funny, helpful, multi-talented, wheeling, dealing, bartering, all-around good dude to have as a friend, there they stayed for almost a decade.

As promotion went, letting friends jam for free, or at steeply discounted rates, couldn’t possibly have paid my weed bills. Flyers worked well, but were labor intensive. My go-to strategy became bimonthly local trade rag Music Connection Magazine. It didn’t take long for me to feel like all my work went to simply buying ads from them, because twice a month, I’d write ’em a decent-sized check so I could draw in the occasional cool group. And handfuls of shitty little bands. I learned some important things about print advertising. One was, don’t wait until grand opening to start ads. In case you care, start at least a month early and get that motherfucking phone ringing! And another pearl – don’t stop buying ads when business starts swinging. Bands regularly broke up or got their own lockout studio, and it was a constant struggle keeping my rooms full. And when business dropped off, if ads weren’t running, I’d wait even longer for shit to pick up again. So, except for a three-month period, I bought them fucking ads religiously till the day I died. Give an example of hyperbole.

For a while, I dug answering the phone with an exuberant “Faux Cue,” but eventually went to the quick ease of “Studio.” I realized one thing pretty quickly: I had never kissed as much ass in my entire life until opening a business called Faux Cue. It was simple math. If I told a band to “Fuck off,” and they did, I just sent maybe ninety bucks a week packing. And because of my fondness for eating, I routinely ignored the sound of pride fucking with me. Being financially forced to remain nice, while holding my tongue to people that were clueless and annoying, was the most aggravating thing about running a business. I simply could never blow my stack to the anal, uptight worry-monger who called twenty different times to book, then rebook over and over, for a spot two months down the road. Even after repeatedly assuring them daytime was never full, and they without doubt could get a room by calling to schedule ten days before. And all that for twenty bucks. So not only was I a whore, I was a cheap whore.

You must’ve heard the saying, “Find something you love and make it your work… blah, blah, blah.” It’s bullshit. I love music – shows and produced recordings – but I quickly realized my burning hate for rehearsals. I’d bet that over my years at Faux Cue Studios, I didn’t venture into them rooms more than twenty times whilst music was practiced. When people asked, “Any good bands come in here?” I’d tell ’em, “You could get the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Hendrix in here, and if they all played at once, it’d sound like crap.”

There were tons of cool, talented bands that jammed at Faux Cue. But I still chuckle-cringe remembering the personification of those lesser bands who paid my bills, all the while making life miserable for people with ears. That would be Bang Betty, who practiced regularly four times a week, every week, for my first few years.

That shit was more painful than chewing on an aluminum foil ball while someone hammered your nuts with a mallet.

Before they decided on their cheesiest of cheesy names, I suggested Bang Betty brand themselves “The Worst Band in the World” or “Rehearsal Doesn’t Help.” I liked Johnny, the bass player, as well as Razzie on guitar. But their “drummer,” looking and talking like a rock star, was the personification of a poseur and an annoying fuck. That poor sap never learned to count to four and back. Not a small issue for a “drummer.” Being of the counter-gifted genre meant that, over the years, the band went through a slew of shitty singers to round out their din, and I was trapped having to hear it all. That shit was more painful than chewing on an aluminum foil ball while someone hammered your nuts with a mallet. But despite the major shade I’m throwing on Bang Betty, we actually got along great and often partied together.

One night, I noticed, high above Sunset Strip atop the recently shuttered Gazzari’s, “Bang Betty” in big red block letters on the club’s marquee. Reportedly, those letters were left piled up on the roof, and for a few free rehearsals, Faux Cue Studios and its phone number were added to the marquee just below the club’s “C-Ya, Pal” farewell salute to Bill Gazzari. Then, for a few more free rehearsals, Bang Betty glued up five hundred Faux Cue flyers on the side of Guitar Center. When the store’s manager called to bitch, I told him, “Guitar Center sucks. I wouldn’t disgrace my studio by associating it with you.”

The ultra-crap acts presented themselves about as often as the supremely talented, and both were extremely limited in number. Most bands fell into rock’s great wide mediocrity, but likely would have knocked your daughters’ socks off if they performed at her high school dance or the local bar. After my ornery electrician and I parted ways, I got his Dark Sky band mates and a cute puppy, Angelo, in the separation agreement. Soni, an Indian (red dot) who, against stereotypes, worked at his father’s 7-11, was a solid drummer and fellow herb lover. His jam buddy, Bruce, played bass pretty good; not great, but not terrible either. When I found out his father owned a GMC/Oldsmobile dealership, I often told him, “C’mon, Bruce, all you got to do is work your ass off for your Pops, and one day that dealership will be yours.” I wish I could have traded my studio for his dad, and then worked my way to the top while driving a different Vette or bad-ass truck every few months. But they were good, solid, long-term regular customers. And Angelo was already house trained.

I had more than a few great bands jam at my place, but without a doubt, the best of best was Wool. Within a month of opening Faux Cue Studios, brothers Pete and Franz Stahl dropped by to check out the facilities. When I saw Franz’s Nirvana shirt, I asked, “Is that for the Cult song?”

Franz said, “No, it’s a band. Our old drummer plays with them.”

That former band he spoke of was O.G. DC punk rock’s Scream. And the drummer was future rock royalty. Besides the Stahl boys, Wool featured onetime Concrete Blond bassist Al Bloch, and ex-Government-Issue drummer Peter Moffett. It was quite a talented lineup, and the sonically gifted group was quite adept at blowing up PA speakers; costing me in repairs I couldn’t afford. I got to brainstorming and designed a “Wool-proof” PA, thus cutting way back on blown voice coils. If they couldn’t blow that shit up, no one could. And I ended up saving lots of long-run time and money.

When Pete told me he considered Wool a hardcore punk band, I said, “Nah, you guys are too good.”

Up front, Pete Stahl was, without a doubt, the best frontman I had seen since Axl Rose in his hungry days. Pete frighteningly surrendered consciousness to music’s soul, writhing, grooving, and owning every inch of the stage while delivering passionate, powerful, high-energy, in-your-face vocals. I really dug Franz’s voice, too, but he preferred the aggressive crunching away of high-quality, power-punk chords while bobbing and stomping. Then there were Al Block and Pete Moffet, making up the incredible, dynamic thundering rhythm section that at times digressed into progressive metal. When Pete told me he considered Wool a hardcore punk band, I said, “Nah, you guys are too good.” A few years after we met, they scored a well-deserved major-label record deal. I really dug their album Box Set, and still can’t fathom why it didn’t sell well.

While Nirvana put the finishing touches on a little album they called Nevermind, Dave Grohl would occasionally drop by Faux Cue to hang with old friends. I was so busy running my place that, despite being on the list, I couldn’t go see Wool open for Nirvana at The Roxy a few weeks before Nevermind nuked glam. Then, the next weekend, when they shot the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video, I of course ended up working instead of costarring in the iconic video. Even when his band hit the big time, Dave kept a spare drum kit at my place. And whenever in L.A., he would drop in to pound on them. For a minute, Dave had a little side-project jam band he called Foo Fighters. They practiced at Faux Cue, and even opened a club show for Wool. It was a completely different line-up from those Foo Fighters the world came to know, love, and respect. All I recall is Dave up front, and on drums, a cat named Brian Brown from a very cool group, Tri State Kill Spree. Upon hearing the name of Dave’s side project, I asked him, “Who are these Foos? And why is everybody fighting them?”

Around the time Kurt got ka-banged, Wool coincidently was in need of a drummer. One night, while sharing a bottle of cheap whiskey, I asked Franz if they would hit up Dave Grohl to join Wool. Franz told me probably not, and added, “Dave’s a great songwriter, so he’ll probably start his own band.” Guess so. If Wool had never wandered into my place, I would have missed out on seeing great acts, such as Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, early and often during their rise. No matter how successful he got, Dave always seemed to be the same down-to-earth, good-natured bloke that first dropped by Faux Cue to visit his mates. The kind of bandmate anyone who ever hit the road wished their main man was more like.

I must give an honorable mention to the owner of the most impressive recording résumé to grace my place, the one and only Louis Johnson of The Brothers Johnson. For several years, he ran the “Louis Johnson Bass Academy” from within Faux Cue Studios. Before Louis set up his academy, he had dropped by several times to quiz me about my place. I had him pegged as some old wannabe musician, wasting my time with endless questions and tales of his imagined accountant. Once a quite real accountant started cutting me checks, and one of my workers flipped out upon seeing Louis on the schedule, and then that same employee busted out with “Get the Funk Out Ma Face,” I began giving Louis his well-deserved respect. One afternoon, he tossed his bio on my desk, requesting me to proof it for typos. As I looked over page after page of outstanding performances, on legendary works, I was amazed I had never known of “Thunder Thumbs” Louis Johnson, even though the man played on Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson albums as well as scores of scores of other highly acclaimed shit.

I am well aware my tales of opening a studio sound more than a tad whiney poor-me-ish, but business actually started out decent. Most of my early consternation could be traced to – after a year – the place not producing anywhere near the forecasted income. And the studios still needed at least fifty grand worth of equipment, soundproofing, furnishing, and various structural improvements. All the while, more needs constantly jumped to the top of the ol’ to-do list. The self-imposed financial downgrade meant that, by the first summer post-grand-opening, instead of tearing up the highways in a 60s Corvette, I moved into the studio due to unpaid apartment rent.

For three years prior to opening my studio, I had made steady progress in the walking department, getting stronger while achieving even greater stamina and distance. But I never got past the slow, plodding, Frankenstein-foot-dragging stage. That pace was totally unacceptable to customers unwilling to wait ten minutes for something that could get done in a twenty-second wheelchair trip. Because most of my time was spent in the “right now” mode of satisfying customers, I cut way back on walking and eventually turned into a massive bowl of jiggly Jell-O.

Being a happy drunk was costing me up to twenty bucks a night, so I quit drinking at work.

It didn’t help my physical abilities that beer flowed in rivers, while frequently smoked mass quantities of weed’s delicious fragrance permeated the building’s air. If someone had good bud, I’d more often than not accept a tasty toke. But I soon gave up on the free beer opportunities. Just like fishing, band rehearsal is a beer-drinking activity, so several twelve packs per hour wandered through my lobby, usually accompanied by a “You want a beer, Raz?” For the first few months, I hardly ever declined the tasty beverage. But it soon became quite clear that, with a few beers in me, I’d let a bunch of people slide; two bucks here and four bucks there. Being a happy drunk was costing me up to twenty bucks a night, so I quit drinking at work. But I’d steal a beer from an unattended twelve pack whenever I got the chance, and then redistribute it to the beer poor.

The biggest surprise of all was how many hours a day were required of me. Between answering the phone, starting at eleven in the morning, until the last band split after one the next morning, it was a long slog of daily ass-kissing with no reciprocation. For the first few months, I had two employees, each working about ten hours a week. It was a money thing, combined with a Raz-doesn’t-trust-anyone issue, that kept them from getting more hours. The very likeable karate kid, Robin, had only worked a few months before I fired him. Because whenever he worked, shit went missing. But it wasn’t him taking stuff. It’s just that he was such a nice, honest kid, the rock vultures would swoop in and pick all the benefit-of-the-doubt meat from his gullible carcass. Once I let Robin go, I got a taste for firing folks. I then canned my other employee within the hour, mostly because he was a dick. Don’t call them “piss boys,” but over the years, my non-dick employees were Trick, Riff, Mark, Mark, and Andy.

Right before Thanksgiving of my first year, the place really got running smooth after my buddy Vinni moved back from New York. I put him up, and he’d work the studio at least half the time. What a relief. I had worked without a day off for months, because I was a dick who fired his employees. Vinni was rock ‘n’ roll to the core, friendly, louder than the stereo, opinionated, and loved by all. As an added benefit, he would hit the Hollywood clubs several nights a week to support customers’ bands while spreading the Gospel of Faux Cue. With no money to go out, I’d let him do all the work while I hung around the studio to collect cash, smoke out, and crush all takers at Madden football. I soon realized that having a job where I got paid to smoke pot and play video games wasn’t all I had imagined.

“All you need do for music at a party is to set War’s Greatest Hits on repeat.”

On Wednesday nights, the rooms were usually all booked up, plus my lobby was crammed full of dudes escaping girlfriends watching Beverly Hills 90210. I had a cool set-up in the lobby: TV, 2 VCRs, a Sega with stacks of games, and controllers to smash when things did not go my way. My buddy and talented drummer, Scotty Slam, was the 90s version of YouTube. Dude owned hundreds of video tapes, of almost every cool band from the previous thirty years, and he’d bring requested videos over for viewing/dubbing parties in the lobby. Despite being a San Francisco Giants fan, Slam was a cool dude who once posited a theory which proved correct time and again: “All you need do for music at a party is to set War’s Greatest Hits on repeat.”

Biz usually fell off by up to 25 percent during the dog days of summer. But even at the height of income, during the busiest part of the year, money never reached even half of the pipe dream figures projected prior to tackling the studio project. After subtracting my lowering of the hourly rate from the constant flakes, over the course of my busiest month, I was lucky to average seven or eight full-paying bands per day. Except for Monday through Thursday, it was a bitch to keep my rooms fully booked. On just one of those weekdays, I’d usually get more bands than all of Friday through Sunday combined. But of course, even if there were only two bands over a nine-hour stretch on a Saturday night, I needed to be there. But mostly, weekend work amounted to waiting around for bands with shows to pick up or drop off their stored gear.

By the end of my first year, four rooms with varying levels of PAs were up and running. My last two rooms were to be geared up as soon as I paid off the previous months’ Amex. During Thanksgiving week, as expected, business slowed to a drunken crawl. But I was completely blindsided by an ultra-slowness of two bands per day, lasting well into January. Unfortunately, I had already spent money that never arrived, so I borrowed even more money to pay back other creditors. One thing that always bugged the fuck out of me was the certain customers who gave endless grief and argued prices whenever I tried collecting the more-than-fair monies owed. Some would allude to or straight out accuse me of chiseling them. They were of the opinion I was raking in fat stacks, but never saw the money actually flowed outward like the mighty Mississippi. I’d often argue back, “You think I’d be living in this fucking studio if I was making good money?”

It wasn’t all misery, and there were plenty of good times. One of the coolest things about my studio’s location was that it sat directly across the street from the lesbian bar “Rumors.” Now, they didn’t get an abundance of the highly coveted lipstick variety of lesbian, but for most of us, it was better than having a male gay bar across the street. Every few months, they’d have strippers, and if you ever get a chance to see strippers at a lesbo bar, do whatever it takes to get there! The ladies that ran Rumors, Trish and Toni, were super nice to me. We had so much in common – including our love of the vagina – but they never answered an all-important question: “If women can have multiple orgasms, how do lesbians know when to stop?”

Until my time spent Rumors-adjacent, I had absolutely no idea that watching ladies brawl turned me on. Which was quite a surprise discovered innocently enough after one of my customers yelled from out front, “Girl fight!”

After watching intently for a few minutes, as the chicks across the street engaged in fisticuffs, I realized I was getting a chubby. So I told my fellow fight fans, “Damn, I’m getting a chubby.” To my great delight, there were girl fights on that sidewalk across the street every so often, because when lesbians start arguing, the de-escalation strategy of a sincere “Yes, dear” is clearly off the table.

Almost a year to the day of opening Faux Cue Studios, L.A. threw a riot to celebrate. A few of us sat in the lobby, partying throughout the night, locked and loaded, ready to defend property in a patriotic muzzle flash. The looting hordes never made it to my street, and we didn’t get firebombed or nothing. But the curfew shut me down for a few nights, and business slowed up for several weeks.

For several reasons, 93 was the highest-income year of my Faux Cue adventure. But when 1994 got going, I expected big things would be built upon the prior year’s success. In January, I cleared out the huge back room and rented it as a lockout. I had been living on one side of the room, and junk was pile-stored on the other side. After a long day of moving my stuff around, the guys wanted to call it a night. But I insisted a huge stack of heavy boxes, piled six feet high on the nightstand right next to my bed, get moved first. When one of the guys promised to move it the next day, I said, “Nothing around here ever gets done ‘tomorrow.’ If there’s an earthquake, that shit’ll fall on my head.” There was some bitching and moaning, but ultimately the shit got relocated. A few days later, the Northridge earthquake hit. Upon seeing the swinging fluorescent fixture jump straight up and bash the ceiling, just before the ground got real shaky, I once again knew my bitchy-bitching had been vindicated.

the Northridge Earthquake drove the final stake through the Sunset Strip’s hairy heart.

Even though I was only twelve miles from the epicenter, my studio received only the slightest of damage. Because, as a California native, everything was overkill secured, allowing me to enjoy some gnarly bed surfing without too much stress. After the Christmas slowdown, I had looked forward to business getting back to full steam come mid-January. Then there was the earthquake, causing it to remain ultra-slow until March when business returned to near normal. So with a stellar year behind, five rooms going, and that lockout paying half my lease, I moved into an apartment two days before Nirvana broke up with a bang. It took less than three months till the double rents were killing me. So I moved back into the studio. Sadly, after March’s brief gasp of rekindled business income, Faux Cue never regained the band volume it enjoyed before the ground shook. Business remained terrible for the next few years. The biggest factor contributing to my studio’s massive and extended slowdown was that the Sunset Strip rock scene finally imploded under the weight of a thousand shitty poseurs. Part of it was due to the Northridge quake leaving at least one guy or his beloved girlfriend, from almost every band, scared and traumatized. So by the summer, several rock ‘n’ quitters had given up, packed up, and moved back home to play in cover bands and wait for Facebook to come along to relieve a glorious, hedonistic youth. Looking back, it’s clear to me the Northridge Earthquake drove the final stake through the Sunset Strip’s hairy heart.

Part II

The best part of living at Faux Cue Studios was that no neighbors meant freedom to make excessive noise well into the night and on through the next several days. But having no shower there sucked, forcing a drive to the gym to bathe alongside seasoned citizens and fags. I could give a shit about the homos, who mostly kept the BJs and butt-fucking out of sight, but the old guys depressed me. In my youth, I felt as though I had gotten old, and one introspective day, I looked down to my massive cluster of keys and sighed, “Man, I’ve become the janitor from elementary school.” I had bought myself a job with way too many work hours. I felt like nothing more than a money redistribution center. Because every damn time I got a decent-sized pile of cash, some immediate expense reared its ugly head to snatch it from my grasp. On the upside, as sole proprietor, any scraps left behind in the cash drawer were most definitely party funds.

Owning a studio didn’t start me hard-drug partying. But living there changed everything for the better of my closest fiends, and a few lucky drug dealers. Up until that time in my life, whenever my mental state was even slightly off, I routinely avoided hard liquor and harder drugs. Booze and pills and powders were for good-time fun. Plus, if no hard drugs were around, I rarely set out on a jonesing mission. But when the heavy shit was offered, my impulse control was considerably lacking. After the Guns’ house was history, I seldom invited drug-involved male friends over to my place. I’d head out to party all night, then roll crookedly home to rest, recuperate, and hide away until it was time to go-go-go again. But there were tons of drug opportunities at Faux Cue studios, and nowhere to hide.

So much so, a few times, the speed managed to convince me I had always wanted to bang a three-hundred-pound chick.

I always preferred cocaine over speed. After a night of blow partying, I could slam five shots of whiskey and then it was good night, Charlie. By the early 90s, much of the available coke had gotten ultra shitty. But the speed was real good, abundant, and comparatively cheap. Even a tiny amount of speed kept me wide awake for a couple days, and far hornier than a one-armed gimp could stand. So much so, a few times, the speed managed to convince me I had always wanted to bang a three-hundred-pound chick. If that really was a chick!

My buddy Pear loved the gak, and would provide me the occasional bump while his band was setting up. Then, after closing, we’d keep the party going. While he and a couple inner-circle folks stayed awake for days, into weeks, I’d only tweak for a night or two and then rest a few days before dabbling again. But before long, I began doing more speed than ever before in my life, solely for the chicks. Because when one has speed-loving rocker dudes as your closest fiends, with a safe place to party, you get loads of tweaked-out strippers, whores, and groupies coming around in desperate need of hours’ worth of lovin.

It seemed like during the times when all the lower-tier groupies were doing too much coke, it would take them months, or years, to slither on down to Hell’s rock bottom. Meth was an entirely different animal, and the crank-ho frequently morphed from sweet, fresh-faced beauty into an emaciated, scar-faced, raving lunatic inside four weeks. But they were far hornier, for longer periods of time, than the coke whores from daze of yore. So of course they were welcome to Faux Cue for those four good tweaks. I’ll hip you all to a little secret: In my experience, the innocent victim of a sex trafficker excuse many offer when prostitution’s salad days are well past is total bullshit. The people I knew, who started out with normal sexual appetites and morals, did not gravitate toward renting out their genitals as a fun way to make extra cash. But once a certain personality profile got her first taste of pole work, many a stripper were just a shot, pimp, and a bump away from being a hooker.

I’m a beyond-suspicious person and, until proven otherwise, always assume everyone has a moral defect, fiendish agenda, or both. At first, my party buddies were folks I had known for several years and, more importantly, where they lived. Unfortunately, speed enthusiasts often hung out with tweakers, meaning more and more scumbags were thrust into my life. There’s a huge difference between those who enjoy speed and a tweaker whose brain has rotted from pounds of nasal caffeine and months of sleeping only five hours a week. Even if the tweaker had not been disrespected or slighted in any way, they would work scenarios in their sizzled gray matter until they justified robbing, stealing, or worse. Other junkies steal shit because they need drugs. But that don’t mean they no longer like you. It took a few years of semi-frequent meth use to accept the fact that sleep and food were my friends. The summer after the Northridge earthquake, I cut way back on the gak and purged most of the speed-partying from my place.

I started “righting” a book about my life. If I would have followed though to the finish, this would have been the last sentence. But I can only do two things at a time, and both of them were drugs. It’s funny what I thought were the highlights some twenty years back. The mantra of my youth, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” left me fretting about turning thirty. I actually began dreading that particular milestone birthday the night before my twenty-eighth. So by the time it arrived, thirty was more of a bummer than need be. My whole existence had revolved around youthful rebellion and questioning authority. “Hey, Raz, don’t jump balls first into that fire.” “Fuck you! Don’t tell me what to do.”

Through a series of unexpected events, by the end of that year, my life resembled a hypodermic in a haystack. Unfortunately, my studio was the haystack. My buddy Jimbo, a recent paraplegic and a very likeable, energetic hardcore motherfucker with a tattoo across his back – “Still Alive but Not Kicking” – often dropped by to use my accessible bathroom. He’d then disappear for a while, only to return in full nod. To save him the trouble, I began letting him smoke his dope in my office. Every once in a black moon, I’d hit him up for a few hits of tar heroin off the foil. For a few years, that was it – two or three hits max, about once a month.

One of my very first paying bands, Rozy Coyote, were a great group, with a huge draw that packed Gazzari’s every other week. Shout out to Tim, Johnny, and Jay. At some point, they hired a new drummer, Rick. He was a major pothead, so we got along great and he hung out all the time. The fall after banishing speed from my place, Rick, to whom I had mistakenly mentioned my occasional tar heroin forays, began relentlessly bugging, “Have your buddy get us a couple of dimes of dope.”

Solely to shut up his pestering ass, I put in an order. We then chased the dragon in my office, and after it flew away, I spent five hours sprawled on the lobby couch, scratching my nose and nodding. Of all the junkies I had been around, until that afternoon, I never took more than three hits. Those several more than plenty of hits confirmed to me ten-fold my hate for heroin. I actually told anyone who cared to listen how much heroin sucked. So imagine my surprise when, by the end of the year, I had morphed into a stinky, junkie, scumbag gimp.

I accept full responsibility, and am not trying to assign blame when I say, fucking Rick. As a big-time music mogul, junkies were part of my landscape. And because I had no desire for and a strong dislike of heroin, I had felt safe letting a few select friends score their dope and get high at my facility. Those drugs, stored inside tiny balloons tied in a knot, got delivered by non-English-speaking dudes with pagers, packed that way so they could be swallowed if law enforcement closed in. But it was a bitch getting at those urgently needed drugs. First rip the knot from the balloon, remove it, and then unwrap some aluminum foil to access the tar’s last barrier, a cut-up piece of grocery bag plastic the shit was ultimately wrapped in. To release it from the plastic, the sticky-tar-dope was pressed hard onto the foil and then the plastic quickly ripped away. Position one end of a straw over the lump, light ’er up from underneath, and chase that sizzling, smoking tar ball running down an aluminum valley while suppressing a gag. I am absolutely not jonesing right now.

Next thing I knew, I had done a dime of heroin thirteen days straight, but couldn’t hide away for the three or four days needed to clean up.

During cold weather, it seemed like I was always chilled to the bone and could never get warm. But a few hits of tar heroin warmed me to my core. Sometimes I’d even get a little sweat going, even if it was forty degrees out. For all you non-Southern-California folks, forty is like arctic to us. So with an extra-chilly December, and a few dopers coming and going most days, I’d take a few hits to warm up. Soon, I began accepting a dime of tar as repayment for money loaned. The chill was gone. Next thing I knew, I had done a dime of heroin thirteen days straight, but couldn’t hide away for the three or four days needed to clean up. There was a business to run into the ground. So I began smoking Marlboros again and upped my dose to twenty bucks a day.

Tolerance built up quickly, and sense of time got so distorted that several months felt like a few weeks. By then, forty bucks’ worth of dope would barely get me “well.” I faced a choice. Start shooting up or quit. My fear of needles, and a lifelong desire to never become a junkie, made my decision easy. I begged a friend to watch my studio for a week and ran off to cold turkey at the Safari Inn. I never understood the concept of drug rehabilitation. Why pay someone for something that you must ultimately accomplish on your own? It’s like those diet programs, where you pay someone twice as much for half the fucking food. Just put down the pipe, or fork, asshole. I have always felt drugs are the choice between fuck it or fuck that. Meaning, when you surrender to an urge with a “fuck it,” your next action is calling the dope man. And then there’s no turning back. Or you can choose to say, “Fuck that,” and not be a weak bitch.

Because I didn’t like dope, even a little, and I’m a social guy, I took the offered hits.

I returned to work confident the accidental heroin addiction was behind me. There was also a big change I believed was going to help my mental state. I found a way to skip showering at the gym. Jimbo had introduced me to couple of gimps living nearby, Ray and Bob, and for a few bucks, I could shower at their place. When I exited the bathroom, after my very first pay shower, I found Ray and Bob chasing the dragon in the dining room. Because I didn’t like dope, even a little, and I’m a social guy, I took the offered hits.

A few minutes later, Bob loaded a hit of crack into a little glass pipe. Even though I had snorted a few metric tons’ worth of coke, I hadn’t smoked any in over a decade. So when the crack pipe got passed my way, I knew I could take it or leave it. Wrong! That sweet-smelling sizzle-smoke of rock cocaine mixed wonderfully with my heroin buzz. That shit was Mmm, Mmm good and evilly bad at the same time. While cocaine seduced, heroin bullied, and twenty thousand dollars later, I realized the shit wasn’t actually that good. But I smoked another 20k worth just to be sure. I am absolutely not jonesing right now.

After my first hit in a decade, whenever party time arrived, I always sang to my cocaine, “We will, we will rock you.” Once the prep was done, as my co-smokers sat around waiting for big daddy Raz to take the first hit, I’d sometimes fuck with them by flicking little pieces of crack-rock off of my knee while saying, “Ping, ping, ping,” figuring it’d be fun watching them carpet crawl after we ran out of shit. Unable to fathom that anyone would actually waste crack, those folks rarely carpet crawled. But one night, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a decent-sized sliver of rock cocaine on my office floor. I hastily retrieved it to load into my pipe, only to realize it was a piece of fried rice. But I got two hits off that shit.

I came up with a brilliant strategy to avoid getting strung out again: party for three days, then skip two days. If being dead is like sleeping, I’m going to love being dead. My love of slumber drove my junkie buddies crazy. While I slept off my come-down in fourteen-hour clips, they were cramped-up insomniacs for three or more days. I’d only get out of bed long enough to empty my pee jug, take a couple Advil, down a quart of water, and then back to bed for another clip. Helping me out around the studio were a few junkie/party buddies who worked for drugs. Those shady characters, combined with my newfound lack of interest in personal hygiene, caused business to suffer for some reason.

Almost five Faux-King years had passed, so it was about time for another fat settlement check. Them hard drugs had got me broke. In desperate need of getting my head straight, I got one of those settlement advances and received some capital a few months early. The three-month financial time shift ended up costing about 60 percent interest, but money allowed me to send the junkies packing. Then I shut down the studio to hide away from all the drugs that daily walked through my door.

With the keys to vending machines, as well as a cup full of quarters, I turned to sugar as my drug of choice and super-sized myself.

My heaviest drug use was over by the fall of 95. But no one likes a quitter. So I chipped away chasing the dragon two or three times a month, mostly to take the edge of the crack, for another year or so. Then, beginning the day of the North Hollywood shootout, I stayed hard-drug clean for three years. I have only fucked around again a few times since, but those excursions were more than fifteen years ago. With the keys to vending machines, as well as a cup full of quarters, I turned to sugar as my drug of choice and super-sized myself.

Besides driving druggies from my wasted world, the second phase of my plan was to convert the entire facility into monthly lockouts. Not a huge moneymaker, but it meant a positive cash flow for a fraction of the work hours. And the best part was not having to daily deal with a thousand asses desiring a kiss. But when the studio was empty, I fell in love with the place all over again. As 96 began, I was sober-ish and possessed tons of cash. But instead of cutting and running, I remodeled and spruced the joint up real nice. Faux Cue Studios received new carpets, couches, a multi-colorful paint job, plus all the PAs, mics, and stands were upgraded or returned to tip-top condition. I also began preliminary steps toward converting the seldom-used backroom into a recording studio. And the biggest new moneymaker: three rooms’ worth of guitar amps, drums, and such to rent out fully equipped studios, which became instantly popular.

During the remodel, I went “full retard” and accepted that I should just live there. So in one of the rooms, I built a bachelor apartment with kitchen, shower, and washer/dryer. All the comforts of home on a railroad track. Altogether with my hide-a-rehab and remodeling work, the studio remained closed at least four months. The time off and return to my core group of supportive friends put me in the proper state of mind. But my extended period of hard-drug use, with its accompanying studio-full of junkie worker bees and the closing down for several months, killed lots of business. My refreshed attitude and lack of odor, all combined with environmental, equipment, and service upgrades, meant that, by summer, I returned to positive cash flow. I then set out in earnest to finish the recording studio.

When they sought my opinion, I’d often say, “I really liked that one song. But why’d you guys play it seven times in a row?”

Then life got even better. My brother Omar turned eighteen, and days later moved down from Carmel to beautiful Noho by the fleas. All of a sudden, I had someone I completely trusted to watch the place and willing to work for beer. Omar did great work; the customers loved him and I enjoyed having him around. I began getting out more often and seeing bands. When they sought my opinion, I’d often say, “I really liked that one song. But why’d you guys play it seven times in a row?”

At the clubs, to my dismay, all I knew were the dudes. When I did the artist management thing, I knew scores of fuckable honeys at every club or bar. But not fond of sucking dick, knowing almost every long-haired, drug-addict, rocker dude in a club did nothing for me. I quickly tired of the club scene, and on my off nights, I mostly hid out in my bachelor pad, smoking pot and watching movies while my little brother ran the place.

There was a neighborhood crackhead, Weasel, who would occasionally wander into the studio trying to sell stuff he “found,” all the while looking to find stuff sitting around my place. I’d keep a watchful eye, playing it cool, and after a little small talk would diplomatically send him away. One night, after seeing him for the third time in a day, too busy for diplomacy and tired of dealing with bullshit, I bellowed, “Dude, how many times I got to tell you to stay the fuck out of here?”

The look in his eye let me know I had just made my newest enemy. Sure enough, that piece of shit came back the very next night and robbed me at knifepoint, making off with more than seven hundred dollars. A half hour later, two cops showed up to take a report. But no detective ever called to follow up. Over the next few months, there was an occasional Weasel sighting around the neighborhood. But I had no one at the LAPD to contact. Then, Weasel seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, and I figured he was locked up for some other crack-headed-crime.

During summer of 97, my buddy Rob hooked me up with a lightning-quick 333 MHz, Pentium II PC, running Windows 95. I was skeptical at first, having lost all interest in personal computers during the late 80s. But that new rig was lightyears better than the floppy disc, DOS, Tandy 1000SX with its monochrome monitor that left me doubting the home computer’s future. Though the web browsers of 1997 were quite rudimentary – I believe I started with Netscape – still, the internet was super fun and informative. So with millions of gigabytes’ worth of free smut available over my 28.8k modem, and the ability to create graphics as well as powerful word-processing functions, I was hooked and dove right in to spend hours learning all the little tricks and tools of my new PC.

I was quite fortunate to have several computer geeks around the studio, who regularly steered me out of digital jams. The biggest obstacle was changing the way my brain thought about fixing stuff. Before the digital portion of my existence, if something wouldn’t work, it was always a mechanical issue requiring tearing shit open to fix the works. But with computers, most malfunctions are software-related and rarely a hardware issue. I fucked up a few printers and a scanner before I finally got that through my extra-thick skull.

Fairfax High buddy and solid bass player Marcel Sirkus informed me, “Faux Cue Studios needs a web presence.” She then offered me a good deal for a “web page” on her “Worldwide Shopping and Information Network.” But I took an entirely different promotional route than that there world-wide webnet and threw down with an old-school fanzine, Faux Cue Hollywood. The plan was to write a bunch of funny stuff, throw in several studio ads, print it up, and then distribute that fucker to places where new customers were known to congregate. To that end, I got me a laser printer. And when I wasn’t printing booklets full of naked chicks, I wrote daily.

I set up the Faux Cue Hollywood production office in the last room on the left. As a bonus, reducing capacity to four rooms made my studio far easier to keep full. So my hourly rates would be raised once the holiday lull subsided. The creative process and positive encouragement had put me in the best state of mind since opening the joint. I was having tons of fun. When the first issue of Faux Cue Hollywood hit the streets a few weeks before Christmas to generally positive feedback, all I cared about was getting to work on the next edition. And when the New Year began, I hit the ground writing, with the intent of getting the next issue out by early March.

Shortly after Groundhog Day 98, I saw the guy who robbed me the year before walking down my street. It was mid-afternoon, and Weasel was holding a forty of Mickey’s camouflaged by a paper bag. He crossed to my side of the street and told me, “Sorry about that stuff that night, I’m sober now.”

I told him, “I think it’s best if you don’t come around here anymore. I got a couple of friends that want to kill you.”

He apologized again and went away. There’s a common behavior after a drug-loving dude gets out of jail. Many feel in complete control and confident, due to their extended drug-free period. So they have a freedom celebration. The forty-ouncer represented a kick start, ultimately leading to Weasel smoking crack. I knew he’d then seek additional funding to extend his celebration.

To remain alert and ready, I went the whole day without smoking pot. My loaded gun remained close at hand. Around ten, when my buddy Ken called, I told him, “I saw the guy who robbed me, and he’s going to rob me again tonight.”

Ken said, “If I see him, I’ll kick his ass.”

Only one band was still jamming when Ken showed up shortly after midnight. We headed to the back to work on Faux Cue Hollywood’s second issue. I felt safe because he had my back and, figuring all was cool, smoked pot for first time all day. At five to one, the intercom rang, signaling someone was at the front door. On the phone, a voice said, “I’m here to pick up the band.”

As he advanced swiftly toward me, I’m thinking, “Sucks that I’m going to have to shoot this dude.”

I rolled backward to look down the hall, and on the other side of the front door was a mid-thirties dude with a beard. Timing made sense, so I went to the keypad and buzzed the guy in. By the time I rolled back to the doorway, I was shocked to see Weasel more than halfway down the hall. As he advanced swiftly toward me, I’m thinking, “Sucks that I’m going to have to shoot this dude.”

By the time I retrieved my snub nose .38 from under my leg, Weasel stood right behind me and was just beginning to headlock me. I wasn’t into taking a shot so close to my head/ear, so I tossed the gun across the room to Ken and yelled, “That’s the dude!”

And if he hadn’t folded his arms and turned away, that fucking pistol would have hit Ken right in his hand. And Weasel would have run for the hills.

While I struggled and fought to block the doorway, Weasel was yelling, “I got a gun! I’ll blow his head off.”

While fending Weasel off, I kept pulling his hand away from my head to show it was bullshit, all the while repeatedly yelling to Ken, “It’s his finger! Get the gun!”

Ken did the brave thing by lifting his shirt, twirling around, and whimpering, “I ain’t got nothing.”

Then, on command, Ken backed away from the gun.

Weasel scrambled over the top of me, dove for the gun, then sprang to his feet, waved the muzzle back and forth, and yelled, “I got the gun now, motherfuckers!”

I had well over six hundred bucks in my pocket, but always kept sixty bucks in ones and fives in my desk just for that kind of situation. When I told Weasel the cash was in the office, we got gunpoint-ordered to head in that direction.

While making our way toward the front, Ken’s bravery continued when he ducked into a studio and locked the door. Weasel then proceeded to beat and kick the door while yelling threats and waving the pistol my way.

I remained calm while pointing to a phone on the wall near the lobby door. “There’s no phone in there (where Ken was). Look, the phone’s not lighting up.”

I kept rolling toward my office, the entire time repeating, “See. It’s not lighting up.”

In my office, I forked over the fat stack of ones and fives, while reminding Weasel the gun also held significant value. I threw in a “I didn’t call the cops the first time.”

And he split without killing me.

When you say the magic word “gun” to a 911 operator, cops swarm. It seemed like less than a minute passed before a helicopter’s searchlight lit up my street. Soon afterward, the first of a dozen squad cars began screeching to a halt out front.

With the pungent smell of pot permeating the studio, and having reported my robber got sixty bucks, the cop interviewing me didn’t seem to be buying my story.

Now I hate white people and love cops!

Then they switched up, with the officer who interviewed me questioning Ken and vice-versa. A few minutes later, the first officer I spoke with walked over and shook his head. “I thought you were lying. But your buddy told me the same story. What a pussy.”

Whenever I told people about the robbery, many asked if the perp was a Mexican or black guy. I would say, “No, it was a white dude. Now I hate white people and love cops.”

I went from feeling safe and comfortable at my studio to knowing I was a sitting duck. I never did reopen, and by spring, I had sold the business. Over the course of seven years, several world-class acts, recording legends, or celebrity attempts at something closely resembling music congregated at my establishment. I wrote a few funny stories or anecdotes about the following, but decided to drastically de-bulk this once-rambling section. So without further ado: Hey, Slam, hold the door so the names I drop can get out. Dave Grohl, Steven Adler, Duff McKagan, Chris Holmes, Leif Cole, Wool, Nigel Moog, John 5, Randy Castillo, Gilby Clarke, Phil Lewis, Frank Starr, Mick Fleetwood (I thought he’d be impressed with my ten-foot ceilings, but he thought I was busting his chops). Did you know that Joey Buttafuoco plays drums? Corey Feldman, Theo from The Cosby Show, Rik Fox, Solomon Burke, Jimmy Bain, Dizzy Reed, Robin Crosby, Jane Wiedlin, Louis Johnson, Patrick Muzingo, Soul, Brian Damage, John Christ, NOFX, Screaming Jets, BB Chung King & the Buddaheads, The Obsessed, and Bang Tango.

I’d like to take this opportunity to offer a sloppy-wet Faux Cue salute to those who made my trip smooth. Of course some worthy of mention were left out, but it’s not my fault your band wasn’t memorable. In no particular order, these were some cool bitches, a great group, or both: Francine Parker, Wheel, Bad Acid Trip, Butt Full of Corn, School Boys, Killing Culture, Mustard, Das Klown, My Favorite Martian, Junk Drawer, Texas Teri, Immortal Gonzo Roasties, Petersen Press Jay, Piss Ant, Memphis Black, Kicking Harold, Custom Made Scare, Vagabonds, Ovalteen, Knuckle Rub, Maniga, Chop Shop, Sumthin Nuthin, Lisafer, Slack Babbath, One Inch Punch, Johnny X, J.J. Bolt, Lectrozone, Cunt Say Can’t, The Hookers, Dakota Wildflowers, Big Johnson, Gravelbath, Even More Than Feared, Crow King, Friar Fuck, Gang of Noise, Ragamuffin, Root Doctors, Joker’s Wild, Chrystal Sphere, Dr. Strange, Bad Love, Dr. Jack, Dark Sky, Max Welton, Little Generals, Big Privates, Fat Elvis, Bluebird, Catfish, Mad Reign, Keef Flat, Officer Ron’s Missing Strat, Chewey Pawned It, Drive By, Texercist, Juke Joint, Zen’s Revenge, DFR Experience, Hollywood Joneses, Rhythm Slaves, Makin a Salad, Sam Mann and Thee Apes, Fetch Daddy’s Vaseline, B.O.O.F., and The Chuy Castro Band.

At times, folks will ask if I miss owning a studio. “No!” That motherfucker drove me to the point of hating music, and it took years to once again fully surrender to the unconditional joy it delivers. Overall, my place had a good vibe. And I meandered to the conclusion that by naming it Faux Cue, most uptight pricks self-excluded. More than 90 percent of those who regularly staggered through my door were a pleasure to be around. But that math leaves at least seven total assholes, dicks, or bitches invading my space on any given night. By any measure, Faux Cue Studios was a successful financial endeavor that I hated with every fiber of my being. At times, I wish I never opened a studio, but something really great came from it. My brother met a super cool, smart, hard-bodied, and rowdy chick that became the love of his life.

Nowadays, Erika and Omar are husband and wife, a great, fun couple. I dig her and my brilliant-as-she-is-beautiful niece Eva far beyond words. Crazy loves me. And because I love my kids so much, I didn’t have them. After my music business career ended, severe normalcy set in, and life got real boring real fast. Upon turning forty, I realized failure was actually an option. Because I never thought I’d make forty, so didn’t actually have a “what’s next” plan. Ten more years flew past. I then realized there was something worse than being disabled: being old and disabled. I’m here to testify, many old men wish for younger days, no brick house needed. Them fine-ass bitches only make the yearning stronger. So even though a song warned me not to let it happen, at times the sound of my own wheels drives me crazy. But whatcha gonna do? Shit is as it is!

PS, I’ve said what I had to say.

Faux Cue Studios Bulletin Board Stuff

Buds Love Bus by Raz CueViva Faux CueA #1 Asshole Faux Cue StudiosRaz Cue Rockin Ma’s Biker JacketFaux Cue StudiosFaux Cue Studios SignSam Mann Faux Cue Lobby 1996 Sam Mann and Thee ApesSam Mann n Naughty NunsFaux Cue StudiosJosie Piss Ant 1996Kicking Harold Coconut TeaszerL.A.M.F AuditoriumR.I.P. Jimmy BainImmortal Gonzo Roasties The Rock Hardly Dangerous X Poseur 54 Gary Benson Dakota Wildflowers Drive By Lamps NoHoFeast of Joy Club LingerieFoo Fighters Palladium 1997Freud’s Mom RoxyFuck Fest IIIDas Clown 7″ Single Blow Yer’SelfDark Sky Coconut Teaszer Dakota WildflowersCustom Made Scare Blue Saloon Crow King FM StationAre You a Potriot?Back Alley Sally Party Flyer Stoner Ideas for Band NamesJonseses Blue SaloonJook JointMy Favorite Martian Bad Acid Trip Hong Kong Cafe Bang BettyCathouseChuy Castro BandCreamers Club DumpMaissa’s Friend Alison Drew ThisDizzy Fuckin ReedWorld’s 3rd Tallest Drummer Greg GinsburgThe Evicted by Tony WestFaux Cue Hollywood CoverLabraconstrictor CameltoeRaz Cue Faux Cue Hollywood DartboardZakk WyldeLove Hate PromoL-R: Bobbie Levie, Mark Tremalgia, Jeff Cuebas, Tim BrogdonWool, the Obsessed, Tri State Kill Spree The Shamrock Whiskey DixTri State Kill Spree StickerTrapeze Lessons Three Mile Smile Saigon Saloon Showcase at LeedsNo Chick League Fantasy FootballFaux Cue Sega BowlSlack Babbath Country Club Soul at The TroubadourRudy White by JessicaStoney Phizz Boardners Safari InnSafari Inn StorySmiling Raz Cue Rockin Ma’s Biker JacketS.O.A.D Bad Acid Trip the Teaszer Rozy Coyote FM StationThe Rythm SlavesFaux Cue Raz Cue Artist UnknownHoward Teman Birthday Faux Cue StudiosTony West by Howard TemanTony West and PabloOfficial Seal of the Dead RoachOfficer RonOvalteenPhil n Vick Wright Texas Terri ‘N’ PissantPothole Club LingerieMuffs ‘N’ My Favorite MartianMind Heavy Mustard Faux CueMemphis BlackMax Welton Club Lingerie 1989 Isuzu BEFOREThe Isuzu a Few Years Later & a Blurry, Mandy Flame Out Front of Faux Cue StudiosFaux Cue StudiosLittle GeneralsLouis Johnson Bass AcademyThunder Thumbs Louis Johnson Bass AcademyLunatics on Patrol Coconut TeaszerMaissaRaz 95 Faux Cue SelfieStoneman ‘N’ JoniNorthridge Earthquake 1994 Apartment CollapsePillow fightingNOFX Bob LushKeefTrick from Saigon SaloonR. I. P. James “Jimbo” Grassinger 1992Epi, Emjay, & Cute Girl with MonkeyErika, Omar, Eva ‘N’ SpazRaz Cue Early 1992Faux Cue Studios Free RehearsalMusic Connection Studio GuideScotty SlamSlam Video Guide 1992 Vinni Stiletto Faux Cue StudiosRest Stop HumorFaux Cue Studios AerialHighway to Heaven