Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Dancing with Mr. D


Throughout my music career, I worked between tours at either my friend’s bead store or a Native American Gallery in Old Town San Diego. Both were locally owned by people who understood my career choices and gave me hours when they could.


One of my co-workers at the Gallery (Kathy) had recently moved from New Jersey. As we got to know each other, Kathy talked about her sister Susie and her sister’s boyfriend, who was apparently in a notorious punk band. His name was Glen and he was the lead singer of the Misfits. Yep, I had heard of him all right.


The first time I met Susie she was convalescing from a breast augmentation, a birthday gift from said boyfriend. I was aghast, yet I could see the irony. A gift for her...riiiight. She mentioned that Glen was coming in a week to look for a place to live in Los Angeles and to visit; she thought we should all have dinner together. I thought, “Sure. What have I got to lose?” I also thought this could go so very wrong.

The day of our meeting Kathy tried in vain to prepare me, "Glen has a temper, Synde. Oh and he's kind of um…short. Please don't make jokes." Honestly the more she warned me the more I looked forward to the EVENT.


We met up at my favorite vegetarian restaurant, a serene little place in North Park. When I arrived, Kathy and company were waiting for me. Now, I am NEVER LATE…EVER! I am compulsively early!! ALWAYS!!!


Before I could even sit down or greet the party, the mutton-chopped dude looked through his bangs covering one eye and announced, "You're late." His disapproval hung in the air.
I smiled my best "fuck you" smile and noted that I was actually 10 minutes early. Susie cringed and apologized and said that she might have "forgotten that the Misfits were playing the Spirit that night and we had to rush a bit."


Being the polite person that I am, I asked Glen about the Misfits, moving from New Jersey and his high-heeled boots. The Misfits are known for their blend of serial killer/horror themed music, and Mr. Danzig was doing his best to make me quiver with fear over his "intense evilness and knowledge of serial murderers"

Each time he gestured, moving the air with his meaty hands, his ginormous...(wait for it...) belt buckle would get caught on the table, starting a cataclysmic shockwave of tumbling glasses and sliding plates. It was awesome. It happened 3 or 4 times until he finally got frustrated and gave up. Slowly, his bad humor grew until he was absolutely furious with my ambivalence. He became completely quiet, glowering in silence like a sullen child. (To this day whenever I see Danzig's video Mother, I still fall into hysterical fits of laughter).


We finished our in meal in tension-filled silence and Glen paid. He shook my hand and said he would see me at the show...but what it sounded like was, "I will slit your throat in your sleep."

Kathy was not phased by the whole discourse, as if this was a common occurrence.
We went to the Spirit, drank a bit, (read-- A LOT) and waited for the show.

To be completely fair, they were awesome. All that sullen glowering had turned into complete rage and intensity on stage. I was pretty shocked. My favorite song is and will always be AngelFuck. I know it's silly and immature; perhaps that is why I love it so. That night a fallen angel sang it.


After the show, I let him know that the band was great; he accepted the compliment well. I left thinking that I had been unfair.


Two weeks later, he broke it off with Susie in favor of some Los Angeles Stripper. Apparently stripper poles are the new Boob Jobs.


So much for feeling like I was unfair.

In my time in and out of the music biz, I’ve run into Glen quite a few times. He has always been kind. He even lets me tease him about his age, height, and addiction to working out. I say it's because he has muttonchops, and as we all know... everything is cooler with muttonchops.

I have to say that maybe some guys get cooler with age. I think he has. Still...I leave you with this link...

It will ease the pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHv3qO_Y8kk&feature=related


8 comments:

  1. "Hips Don't Lie" *did* make it all better! LOL!

    Thanks for sharing another great story/memory!

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  2. I have my own Glen story (well, it's my husband's). Apparently they were playing here in town and a friend of his worked at the place they were playing. DH and his friends were gathered for their weekly D&D game and the friend and Glen walked in. DH said they were all stunned silent and to this day he regrets not asking Glen to sit and play with them, especially since he chatted with them about the game for a few minutes before leaving LOL.

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  3. What I've heard is that he turns on the "Glenn Danzig" persona unless you immediately disarm him by talking about comic books or one of his other obsessions. He's a HUGE geek and comics talk is one of the only surefire ways to immediately break through that veneer.

    He's a complete contradiction, though. On one hand, half the people I know who've ever run into him think he's the most egotistical, arrogant, stuck-up prick they've ever met. And on the other hand, the other half claim that he's the most approachable, down-to-earth guy they've ever run into. On one hand, there's the guy that left his newly-augmented girlfriend for a stripper after two weeks. On the other hand, there's the guy who's been a constant friend (in a completely platonic way) to a friend of mine for decades, to the point of giving her incredibly rare Misfits stuff (like an acetate pressing of an unreleased 7" single, only three of which were ever pressed). There's the guy who sits around in the first Danzig home video waxing diabolical about his collection of rare occult books, and the guy who would go to the twice-monthly Shrine Auditorium comic book thing and chat it up with geeky 15-year-old kids. WHO IS THIS DANZIG GUY??? He perplexes me. But I'll admit, I've got everything I can get my hands on by the Misfits and Samhain, and the first 4 Danzig albums on my iPod as I type.

    Interesting image at the following link, BTW...
    http://comicscomicsmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Danzig1.jpg

    --Aleck (Jenn_Benn's lesser half)

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  4. Oops! left a comment on the old site.

    As I was saying... at least with the stripper he shouldn't have to waste money on buying more breast implants - she probably already had them.

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  5. I may or may not have snorted coffee out my nose reading this.

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  6. Aleck- I totally agree..who is this guy..Except that first night, Glen has never been difficult. He is I find an intelligent over sensitive guy.
    enigma indeed

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  7. I think, after all the back-and-forth tuggin' at my heartstrings that GD does, I've settled on "begrudging affection." And that's okay, because I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel that way about me. :) He's one of those guys that I'm halfway certain I never really want to meet, but I halfway suspect that if we ever *did*, we'd get along like crazy. Unless I did something to piss him off, then he'd curse me. Probably to an eternity of having to read every issue that came out of his Verotik comics line. "Here, read these issues of Jaguar God again. Your eyes aren't bleeding nearly enough."

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  8. Fantastic story, I laughed. Still love the old bastard. He's a great contributor to digestible black metal/rock.

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