All through the 1980’s
it was breakfast at the Rexall Fountain
on Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue,
or Snow White’s coffee shop,
where eating there
felt like some sort of
Disney ride on acid
with all the boulevard mutants,
much more effective
than any ride
I’d gone on at Disneyland.
There was the Las Palmas Bookstand
and Miceli’s Restaurant
and of course Red’s Baroque Books,
with the finest and complete
Bukowski collection around.
It didn’t get any better than Red’s.
There was Hollywood Book & Poster
for all your Horror and B-Movie needs,
for the real memorabilia jones.
There was Musso & Franks,
and Jojo down at Book City
with every paperback and hardback
classic known to man.
Grecco’s with all the
heavy-metal-white-trash runaways
and a slice of MTV
with your pizza.
And across the street
Frederick's Of Hollywood
looking like a giant Wurlitzer,
always pumping out
that slow bump ‘n’ grind,
right there in the middle of it all,
and to this day
the best shoes in all of Hollywood.
There was J.J. Newberry’s
and the magic shop.
Johnny’s Steak House
for that $3.95 steak dinner,
and it was good.
Hooray For Hollywood
for cheap rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts,
3 for-a-dollar.
And of course Playmates Of Hollywood,
which started out
as a children’s store
and grew up with its customers,
from toddler to stripper.
Then there were the bars;
The Zero One After Hours
right above Playmates
when David Lee Roth owned it.
The Frolic Room #2,
Boardner’s,
The Gaslight,
The Firefly,
the original Frolic Room,
The Cathay De Grande,
home of fine punk rock.
The Vine Bar & Grill
for Blues and Jazz,
and last but not least
Raji’s where you could see Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
the Vandals and TSOL
all in one night.
And then on the outskirts
of Hollywood Boulevard
were all the places I lived;
The Cliffwood Manor,
Disgraceland, The Havenhurst,
and The Fontenoy,
surrounded by churches, schools,
auto mechanic places
and cheap dirt-bag, dope fiend motels,
with the letters always
burned out in the signs,
the kind of places
that only look good
in the movies
and only sound interesting
in a Tom Waits song.
Like The Mark Twain,
The Saint James,
The Saint Moritz
and The Sunset 8.
Yes, Hollywood in the 80’s
was a great time.
it was before Crack and AIDS,
it was the coming and going
of Ronald Reagan
and before all the real damage
he did as President hit,
before homeless was normal.
Now I look at Hollywood Boulevard
and it’s just like a former lover
grown old and alcoholic,
an old lover that never took care of itself.
My two favorite times
to catch Hollywood Boulevard
used to be at dusk and at dawn.
At dusk when the sun was barely out
but all the neon was on,
and in the morning
before pedestrians.
Raymond Chandler put it best
when he said, “Hollywood Boulevard
at sun-up is like an aging hooker
without her make-up on.”
Now it’s like that
around the clock and worse.
And when the L.A. riots hit
and Hollywood was burning,
I thought, “Oh no, not my Hollywood Boulevard.”
But it’s not my Hollywood anymore,
now it belongs to the gangs,
the mutant homeless,
the corporate conglomerates
and the tourists.
The new Americana,
God bless them all.
No, it’s not my Hollywood anymore,
but Hollywood in the 80’s
was a great time,
it was my Paris in the 20’s,
and yes, a good time
was had by all.

TAGS: Hollywood Boulevard, Iris Berry, los angeles, poets

IRIS BERRY has been called a lot of things but one of the best is “a punk rock James Ellroy in fishnets.” One of the true progenitors of the LA punk scene, her writing has been widely anthologized. In The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry she appears alongside the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. No stranger to the microphone, Berry co-founded and toured extensively with the legendary rock-n-roll spoken word troupe, The Ringling Sisters (A&M Records), produced by Lou Adler. The Ringling Sisters were famous for their numerous benefit shows and through the years enlisted fundraising help from the likes of Henry Rollins, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, X, Possum Dixon, Ann Magnuson, The Gun Club (in their last-ever appearance), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, River Phoenix, Mike Watt, Concrete Blonde, and more. Iris also fronted, sang, and wrote songs for LA combos The Dickies, The Flesheaters, The Lame Flames, and Pink Sabbath. Her experience as a chronicler of and participant in LA’s extensive underground scene is wide-ranging. From bartending at after-hours speakeasies, to stints in rehab; working within the “legit” entertainment industry (Paramount, CBS) to strutting around a Mexican wrestling ring in showgirl feathers; authoring the sex column titled "Forbidden Fruit"; starring in a number of indie films, including the classic Border Radio, directed by Alison Anders, the recently-released Beth Dewey film Killhouse, and Chris Desjardin’s I Pass For Human. At present, she is completing a book called Tales From The Tropicana, about the notorious Tropicana Motel, and recently she co-produced a series of burlesque and comedy variety shows with comic and activist Margaret Cho called The Sensuous Woman, with all proceeds going to charity. In March of 2009, Iris received her second certificate of merit and achievement from the City of Los Angeles for her contribution as a Los Angeles writer and historian, and for the charity work she has done, producing large scale fund-raising events to benefit organizations such as The American Red Cross, Habitat For Humanity, Hollygrove Orphanage, AIDS Project Los Angeles, Amnesty International, and Rock the Vote, as well as many women’s shelters and organizations devoted to homeless youth and runaways. For the past seven years, she has served as a member on the Board of Directors for Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. With her prolific creative output, devoted work ethic, and passionate social awareness, Iris has been an inspiration to generations of writers and artists in Los Angeles.

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