Gunning for Groupie Gold

By Brenda K Stone

The Girls of Glam Rock are back, and this time they’re on a mission to help Dandelion do the last thing requested of her by her guitar god daddy before he died: give up her groupie lifestyle for good and settle down for a life of headbanging and bliss with a worthy rocker. Dandelion sets her sights on hair metal front man Sammy Gunn, and with her target acquired, the girls prepare to rock ’n roll.

But winning Sammy’s heart will take more than just Dandelion’s determination and her friends’ good intentions. First, she must contend with sexy singer Em’rald, the current object of Sammy’s hard-to-earn affection, and then with her own mother—grand dame groupie Tulip—a Mrs. Robinson in the flesh who drags Dandelion into a confusing competition for Sammy’s attention.

Between competing with Em’rald and Tulip, and struggling to win Sammy’s heart, Dandelion finds herself caught in a snare of secrets and lies which, when revealed, promise to ruin her chances with Sammy forever. Not even Dandelion’s success as an MTV video vixen is enough to get her man, and she looks for advice from an unlikely source.
Dandelion knows she is gunning for groupie gold with Sammy. But is she singing the wrong song? Or, in spite of all the obstacles, is Sammy the rock ’n roller destined to fill Dandelion's heart and make her daddy proud? If she can just convince Sammy they're meant to rock on together forever, it will be a love ballad for the ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda K Stone
• Release date: Aug 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532343193

Brenda K Stone

Brenda K. Stone is the pen name for Barb Lee, a native of Western Massachusetts who loves to write, travel the world, hike the world, and go to rock concerts. When not engaging in these particular adventures or the several other activities she enjoys that leave her no time for rest, you can find her “doing research” with her nose in a rock and roll biography and her black bunny Gert not far away, probably sleeping.

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Gunning for Groupie Gold

Copyright © 2017 by JenAl RockLit Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

Print: ISBN-13: 978-1546840831 | ISBN-10: 1546840834

EBook ISBN: 978-1-5323-4319-3

CONTENTS

DANDELION

HIGHWAY CHILD

CAROLINA

TULIP

MR. FANTASY

HEAVY METAL NIGHTMARE

NIGHTMARE: THE EPILOGUE

THE BATTLE LINE IS DRAWN…IN FEATHERS

CONFESSIONS

CAROLINA TAKES CONTROL

THE PLOT THICKENS

SAFFIRE’S STORY

SPECIAL DELIVERY

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

TUNNEL OF LOVE

THE GUESTHOUSE

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW WON’T HURT YOU

SLUT CENTRAL

CAROLINA LOSES CONTROL

LURCH BELLS RING

THE NAME GAME

BLOOD SISTERS

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN…FOR AN L.A. MINUTE

AN EM’RALD, A SAFFIRE, A RUBY, TWO DIAMONDS, AND SEVERAL BAGS OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS

ANATOMY OF A LOVE PENTAGON

LEAVE IT TO THE COOKIE FATES!

VIDEO GIRLS

GUNNSHOT TO THE HEART

BABES IN BIZ

NOT ALL GEMS SPARKLE ALIKE

SUMMER’S LAST GASPS

THAT’S THE WAY WE BECAME THE SHADY BUNCH

DANDELION

HIGHWAY CHILD

CAROLINA

TULIP

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTACT INFORMATION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COMING SOON!

DANDELION

Bangkok, Thailand, 1986:

Derek Dagger Found Dead in Cheap Hotel Room

Just when you think you’ve written the headline that will change your life, it turns out to be another one a lot less attractive.

Dandelion, find yourself a real man and fall in love. Never mind all this carousing.

Daddy’s final words echoed through my skull for two years, but it wasn’t just the words that bothered me, it was the way he said them. He was serious. Dead serious. Almost like he knew. I still wonder if he thought of me while he nursed that last bottle of Jack Daniels found clutched in his right hand so hard that it couldn’t be removed without breaking one of his fingers.

Daddy died the way all good rock stars do; he drank too much and choked on his own vomit, taking to his grave the wish that I wouldn’t continue to follow in Mama’s footsteps. Before Daddy married her and made her a half-honest woman, Mama was the most famous and notorious rock and roll groupie alive. That was long before me and my two best friends stole the title. After we buried him Mama hit the hard rock warpath again, with the goal to wrest the L.A. groupie crown away from us. That was how two years went by without me even trying to grant Daddy’s last wish. It was so hard to let her win. But the conflict tore me up inside.

It’s not often that I reach under my bed and start pulling out old memories, especially the same mementos that set Mama on her trail of vengeance in the first place. But guilt gets the best of me on occasion. When it does, I have to look for ways that I could’ve done things differently while I was still walking the tightrope between wanting to be Daddy’s little spring flower and aspiring to be the second coming of Tulip Dagger. The truth is, I did everything wrong and didn’t think of Daddy once while I was doing it. Just me. Me was all that mattered.

My old groupie notebook with the worn red cover is on top of everything in the box that’s covered in dust bunnies. I’ve been avoiding it for a long time, but not today. Flipping to the inside, I hold my breath as my eyes wander over the words I don’t want to see, scrawled in my sixteen year old hand when the world looked a lot cozier than it does now:

How I Became a Hair Metal Groupie:

The Step-by-Step Guide to Backstage Action

by Dandelion Dagger, Age 16

Copyright 1983

Hollywood, California, nine double oh rock and roll

That was the headline I was banking on, back in the days when hair metal was fresh and I was even fresher. We’re both starting to lose our new car smell.

I toss the notebook back in the box and kick it under my bed.

Dandelion, come quick! Carolina’s voice, which I usually love hearing, but today grates on my nerves, calls from the living room of Mama’s house, where she and Highway Child are watching MTV while I have my daily identity crisis.

I hear H.C. trying to coax me out of my bedroom too. Truth is, I’ll do anything to get out of my current state of mind, so I rush out.

What’s the emergency? I ask, blinking as the light hits me after being in my dreary room.

Look! My sidekicks are pointing to the television, where a smooth-faced blond rock god in hair metal garb is being interviewed.

It’s him! It’s the guy you cut out of the magazine! H.C. gushes.

I don’t often see H.C this excited, but we are talking about a rock star, so it’s justified.

I stare at the screen, my mind reeling back to the notebook I just rejected. Somewhere, buried in that teenage tome of wonderment and discovery, is a grainy black and white picture of the splendid face on the television. Grainy or not, that beautiful face appeared before me and spoke to me not long after Daddy died, and I believed that Sammy Gunn, whomever he was, would someday play a significant role in my life.

I’m silent until the interview ends. Then, I abruptly turn on my heel and lock myself in my room again.

Dandelion, you okay? H.C. calls after me.

Out comes the notebook again and I rifle through it, desperate to see the old picture.

There it is, about halfway through the book, a blood red arrow I drew pointing to the angelic face of the golden-haired singer. Someday, I’ll meet Sammy, I gushed in a silly heart around his head, when I’m ready to fall in love.

I’m stunned that such a clear message has been sent to me on a day when Daddy seems too far away, almost as far as the answer to his last request of me.

The solution to my problem just took a giant leap forward.

I can do things differently starting now.

I can do something right.

I can think of someone besides myself.

I can make Daddy smile down on me.

Dandelion…? Carolina and H.C. are both outside of the door now.

With determination, I find the nearest pen and start crossing things out until my life has a new and better headline:

How I Met and Fell in Love with the Rock Star of My Dreams

The Step-by-Step Guide to Loving Sammy Gunn

by Dandelion Dagger, Age 20

Copyright 1987

Hollywood, California, nine double oh rock and roll

Dedicated to: my Daddy, Derek Dagger.

What a story I’ll have to tell.

Move over, ladies. This one is all mine.

HIGHWAY CHILD

Well, knock me over with a feather. How the hell do you like that?

I see that good old Dandelion Dagger wants to hog the pages here. Like she’s the only one with a big story to tell just because her Daddy up and died in Bangkok, Thailand. Well, being who I am and where I came from, getting things taken away from me is kind of par for the course, and so is fighting for my right to keep them. So, I think I’ll say no. Even though I love her, I think I’ll say no!

As usual, it’s me that fronts everything. If it wasn’t for me, who knows how long it would have taken Dandelion to see that Sammy Gunn was on his way to the top? I mean, it’s not like you can find the guy of your dreams in a dark bedroom surrounded by memories of the last five years of your crazy life. Or even if you did, that you could even have him with a mama that wants to sleep with the same guys you do because that’s her only talent. She sure has put a damper on our groupie pursuits. Maybe it is time to change course.

Maybe it’s time for me to finally have Nikk Saffire, my answer to Sammy Gunn, and a talent who is rising just as quickly as Dandelion’s dream guy. And damn Carolina Clampett is always gushing about love. Hopefully, she can find someone to hang her sign on. Guess I kind of screwed that up for her when she caught me with Mikey Morris. No, that wasn’t my proudest moment, but hey, all’s fair in backstage love and groupie war.

Maybe all of us need to look at life a little differently.

Listen, I’m going to be nice here. I’m going to trust that Dandelion can tell my story even as she rewrites hers. What the hell. I’ll get my chance again soon enough if she doesn’t do me justice.

Jeez, I must be growing up or something.

Scary shit.

CAROLINA

It’s not often that you’ll hear me agreeing with Highway Child, but she is right: this is a story about all of us. Nevertheless, I see Dandelion’s point. She’s the one that lost her Daddy and has something to prove. And anyway, I trust her to tell my part without making stuff up. Now if you wanted me to put my faith in Highway Child to tell the truth, I’d have something more to say about that. My love life would sound like it came out of the National Enquirer for sure. But Dandelion is a different person since her Daddy has been gone and her mama Tulip is on the loose, and I’m happy for the change. Because I was ready for the change a long time ago.

Poor little dum-dum me had such high hopes for Mikey Morris, that heartbreaking rock singer boy that I met at Hollywood High who promised me that I would be his forever and that there would never be anyone else. Well, someone got in the way and it wasn’t even H.C. stooped over in front of him in some filthy Sunset Strip bathroom. Mikey and me tried to patch things up after that and it worked for a while, until she came along. Fame. That’s when Mikey’s head really got too heavy for his shoulders and he couldn’t stand up straight anymore. Lady Fame tripped him up so well he ended up across the pond in Europe in some band that burned itself out before anyone in America had heard of them.

And still I hoped he’d show up at the door of Tulip’s house, where we all moved in after Dandelion’s daddy’s remains were buried at Forest Lawn. But not anymore.

One day, Dandelion left a copy of L.A. Rock Weekly, our beloved hometown metal magazine, on her lounge chair while she and H.C. were in the pool skinny dipping and I was making a necklace for my heavy metal sister, Em’rald. I knew the magazine would be folded back on a page featuring her favorite heavy metal guy Sammy Gunn in a full color photo. What I didn’t expect was to lock eyes with the guitarist with the silky black hair and the Stetson next to him in the picture.

Well hello, I whispered to him, my muscles tensing. Who are you?

Dean Gunn, Sammy’s brother, he whispered back.

Oh, very nice to meet you. I’m-

Carolina, are you talking to a magazine? H.C. suddenly interrupted from the pool.

Oh, no! How quickly my denial came out had to be a tipoff that I was lying.

I certainly hope not! H.C. giggled.

I dropped the magazine back on the lounge chair.

As always, Dandelion came to my rescue.

She can look at my magazine if she wants and can talk to it too! she howled.

No, I’m done! I sat back down hard in my own chair and started working on my necklace again.

But I really wasn’t done with Dean Gunn. In fact, I was just beginning!

TULIP

I regret to correct my daughter, but I hardly hit the hard rock warpath after my beloved husband was buried. Tulip Dagger was a woman in mourning, still is quite honestly, and I turned to what I knew best. I had to pass the time somehow, had to feel beautiful again, even if those hair metal boys had already rejected me many times over. Tulip Dagger doesn’t have anything if she doesn’t have staying power.

Mine was no trail of vengeance either. I blazed my own trail. Again. The younger boys started to love me, crave me, request me. I infiltrated the glam scene and became its brightest light. Groupie crown? That belonged to me long ago, and if I lost it, I did it because I wanted to. Because I had the rocker of my dreams, not because my daughter and her friends stole it. Already, so many untruths have been told. And my daughter wants to run away with this story?

Truth: Derek left me with a house, a tour bus, a motorcycle, and a mountain of debt. I sold the tour bus and the motorcycle to pay the debt, and to keep from being alone I let Dandelion and her friends move in. Derek would have wanted it that way. If I didn’t have a heart I would’ve let them stay at that awful woman’s house in West Hollywood, that person they called Mother Sandy, who was supplying every rocker on Sunset with cocaine and becoming an addict herself. No matter how bad of a mother I’ve supposedly been, I couldn’t turn my back on that and let these three shiftless girls become coke whores. How little they appreciate me, how little they think of my feelings.

Truth: admittedly, I like to keep my eye on them, to know what they’re up to. They are on the cutting edge and by keeping them around I have to work a lot less to keep my own edge. The walls are thin around here. And I have excellent hearing.

Sammy Gunn and his band seem to be the latest concerns of the groupie trio to beat, as that dastardly Hippy Chick refers to them, in the next bedroom. I have to say, he is a looker. Thanks for the tip, girls.

Now that’s something to be thankful for: Dandelion has finally developed excellent taste in men after a rough start of carousing with the likes of those zit-ridden Hall Pass high school boys and the puffy, ugly Scarlett Rouge. Finally, she takes after me, just like Derek feared. This time it’s in a good way. Derek could never see the positive aspects of the like mother, like daughter part of our relationship.

If Dandelion wants to tell this story, so be it. I’ll make this tale more fun and interesting than she could have ever thought possible.

Ready whenever you are, Baby Dagger.

Let’s get this show on the road.

MR. FANTASY

Six hours to Gunn Runners time! Carolina Clampett squeals from her lawn chair, jogging me out of my Daddy daydream.

When I reluctantly lower the April 15, 1988 issue of L.A. Rock Weekly, I see that my southern blond partner in groupie hi-jinks has tears coming out of the corners of her eyes. A mound of straw-colored hair falls like an out-of-control waterfall over her shoulders and her ample breasts quiver.

Sweet Sammy Gunn is gracing the full-color pages of the magazine that I’m hiding my face behind. At long last, Sammy is making his debut at Holly Woods tonight with his band the Gunn Runners. Not only is he rock and roll’s new favorite bad boy, I remain convinced he’s the answer to fulfilling my promise to Daddy.

I peer suspiciously around the pool area and toward the sliding glass door that leads into the living room of the house we share with Mama, the same Hollywood pad I grew up in when I wasn’t on the road with my parents.

Six hours to outlast Mama, I groan, hoping beyond all hope that Mama doesn’t appear back in L.A. for the big event at Holly Woods. I don’t need another barricade blocking my way to Sweet Sammy. Especially my own mother. The competition is already deadly. The competition doesn’t care about Daddy’s last request of me.

But I care.

Mama’s been gone for a week now, on tour with a rock dude from the 60s that hasn’t aged well. I really don’t want him as my stepfather. But life has been beyond pleasant and worry-free without her.

Well, almost.

I wish Elly May was here to go to the concert with us, Carolina sobs, because she thinks that Elly May Clampett is her long lost sister and we don’t have the heart to tell her any differently.

H.C., my closest collaborator in groupie crime, is swimming laps in Mama’s pool like a mermaid’s dark shadow with her incredible, blue-black hair trailing behind her in a pointed formation, the only time it isn’t busting with wild, tight curls. I admire her grace in the water. H.C. says it’s from all those lakes she had to bathe in when she was a young one before her parents up and disappeared. More often than not H.C. is coiled as tightly as her hair, but she has a periodic soft spot for our girl Carolina.

Of course, honey-bun. Elly May would be a perfect addition to our happy trio, if only she could find you. Surfacing, H.C indulges Carolina’s little fantasy and the other Miss Clampett follows through by stretching out with a sigh and daintily dabbing at her watery ocean-blue eyes with a pink lace-edged hanky.

Our happy trio. H.C.’s words resonate in my mind, filling me to the brim with worry. Surely H.C. will be devastated when I tell her I’m ready to throw in the groupie towel for Sammy Gunn. Carolina might not take it so hard, because she’s always had different goals than us. But they both know how Daddy’s words have ricocheted through my head at least a million times since he spoke them: Dandelion, find yourself a real man and fall in love. Never mind all this carousing. In fact, they know them as well as I do.

Those last words he spoke to me before he grabbed the neck of his Fender Strat and ran out onstage for his last concert in L.A., his last concert anywhere, won’t leave me alone.

Please Daddy, let Sammy Gunn be that guy for me.

I’m tossed back into reality when H.C. emerges from the pool topless, but in a red thong bikini bottom. Carolina leans forward to catch the show and I just stare. Gosh, H.C. is a thing of beauty. She has to have Playboy in her future. I’ve never seen such a skinny body hold up such a lush bosom. And, she has a mouthful of perfect teeth that offset her deep skin tone. Not bad for someone who grew up in cars crisscrossing America and was christened Highway Child in a mud puddle in Oklahoma.

Carolina dear, what time is it? H.C. asks, donning a pair of flying saucer-sized sunglasses to cover her shocking green orbs but leaving all else revealed.

Two oh five Gunn Runners time! Carolina sings, because that’s the way they’ve been reporting it on the radio.

The Gunn Runners touching down in L.A. on their first-ever concert here is akin to the Beatles landing at JFK in 1964. Every word that comes out of the mouths of the DJs contains some reference to the band. The Gunners are being lauded as the Led Zeppelin of the 80s. Just what every groupie wants to hear.

I think it’s going to be an extremely pleasant evening, H.C. predicts. Then, she turns sharply to me and finishes, Without Tulip around.

Tulip is Mama. And I’m Dandelion. Notice the flower connection.

I think we should be at the airport, Carolina dares to say, her eyes downcast as if she knows she’s going to be scolded.

H.C. does not disappoint after I sigh loudly.

"You know we don’t wait at airports with fans," H.C. barks.

Of course, Carolina whimpers, blinking her eyes at H.C.’s harsh tone.

But after dreaming out loud about Joe Elliot’s shredded jeans as Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me plays in the background, and swooning over the naughty boys of Mötley Crüe as Girls, Girls, Girls screams out of the speakers, even H.C. shivers at the news that follows:

Sweet Sammy Gunn has just stepped off the DC-10 at LAX. It’s two-thirty Gunn Runners time, and I’m DJ Vinyl Vic here at K-Metal, K-M-T-L, FM.

A block of Gunn Runners tunes ensues. With my mind in a whirl of fantastical visions of Sweet Sammy, I dizzily ask, What time are we getting ready?

I already know a zillion times over, but I have to say something to take my mind off the unsinkable feeling that this night is going to be a major turning point in my twenty-one-year-old life.

Four o’clock Gunn Runners time! Carolina shrieks breathlessly, in such a panic of raw desire that she leaves even H.C. with her mouth open, beat to the task of answering me.

Carolina curls up in a tight little ball on her lounge chair when Vinyl Vic announces that Dean Gunn, Sammy’s older brother and the lead guitarist for the Gunners, has hit the airport carpet. Carolina craves Dean.

Like characters out of a silly comedy, we simultaneously glance toward the clock we can see on Mama’s living room wall from our place on the patio.

Another hour and twenty-five minutes to live through before we jump into action.

I can’t stand the waiting, H.C. says with a loud swallow.

Maybe we could clean the house! Carolina suggests helplessly.

"Maybe you could clean the house." H.C. issues her the evil eye.

I think I’ll take a nap, I say, looking again to see if the clock has moved at all.

I don’t know how many more laps I can swim, H.C. says testily. And I still don’t know whether I’m going after the drummer or the bassist.

Johnny Sefton is married! Carolina is quick to remind H.C. of the romantic status of the Gunners’ bassist.

And your point is? H.C. growls.

The ensuing minutes drag by like geological periods, emphasized by Vinyl Vic’s reminders between every other song that only seven more minutes have passed since the last check of the Gunn Runners clock. I can’t sleep, H.C. can’t swim, and Carolina can’t even cry. This is serious business.

We avoid staring at the clock and burn holes into the wooden cabinet of our radio instead, until we hear the words that seem to come out of a fairy-tale:

It’s four o’clock Gunn Runners time!

We perform an impromptu Ring-a-Round-the-Rosie with the radio being the Rosie.

Now, we’ll take two hours to prepare, an hour to get to Holly Woods in L.A. big-event traffic, and an hour to land right where we want front and center in the crowd of Gunn Runners fanatics. The opening act goes on at eight and we never miss them, because any smart groupie knows that today’s opening act may be tomorrow’s headliner.

Our celebration is abruptly interrupted by the sickening thud of a human body on concrete accompanied by an impromptu, Aw, shit man!

Lying dazed on our patio at the far edge of the pool is our youthful Italian stud neighbor, Tony Borrelli, whom we’ve been watching from the second floor windows for the past two weeks while he stupidly plays hard-to-get. Tony sits up and rubs the back of his head. Looking around, he sees us all frozen in place like ice princesses, staring, waiting for him to unfreeze us with his blazing gaze.

Uh, I forgot where I was for a minute but I just remembered, he slurs.

If only the brains matched the looks, the stud neighbor would be lethal.

Tony stands up and stumbles over to the fence that he apparently fell over. Issuing it a swift kick, he hisses, Take that, ass wipe! Then, he hikes up his sagging, faded jeans and starts waving two rectangles of paper around in his hand.

Hey Tulip, baby love, I got two tickets to the Woods tonight and my auntie is best friends with the drummer’s god momma so I got backstage passes. Wanna go with me?

Is he hallucinating? Or is he half-blind and thinks that Carolina is Mama with her golden locks?

Suddenly, an apparition in a shimmering gold bikini the size of a bingo chip and matching platform shoes that would make a member of Kiss jealous emerges from the sliding glass doors of the living room. The woman looks nothing like me. She’s busty and has ample hips and a waist that looks tiny because everything else is so well rounded, while I’m lean and mean with soft, subtle curves. Her lacquered platinum mane channels Jane Mansfield. Mine is down to my tailbone and the color of Lipton tea when you leave it in the water for fifteen minutes or more. I may have picked up her penchant for boys with microphones, guitars, and drumsticks, but other than that we have nothing in common.

Didn’t we almost have it all, I moan the chorus of Whitney Houston’s recent hit, because my worst nightmare is about to replay: competing with my forty-year-old mother for a fresh piece of the rock and roll pie.

We’re all stuck in limbo as Mama sweeps a look over me, then H.C., and lastly, Carolina. Her torpedoes jut out and she lights a Marlboro 100 as she clomps across the patio in slow motion. Then, in her most tinkling, girly voice she says, Tony, I’d love to go to the show with you tonight. Let me slip into something a little sexier. Care to join me?

Like a yearning lap-dog, stud neighbor trails three steps behind the aging queen of the backstage, who stops before she steps back into the house, turns to us, and greets us with, Did you miss me?

I’m speechless, but I silently pray to Daddy to forgive me, for it seems as though I’ll have to defend my groupie title this one last time in order to fulfill his wish.

Always sweet and deferential, Carolina weeps, It’s never the same without you, Tulip!

H.C. makes like she’s going to charge Mama, and I have to hold her back.

Once she’s composed, H.C. shrugs my hands off and ties on her abandoned bikini top, which, by the way, doesn’t contain even half her harvest. Why she bothers is a mystery.

Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to remind her who the queens are, she chirps gaily, like she wasn’t just ready to wrestle Mama to the concrete.

Quizzically, I draw my dark brows together and think, ‘No, you have it a bit wrong, my friend. I’ll just have to remind her who the queen is’.

Meow.

HEAVY METAL NIGHTMARE

Every concert starts with prep. Flitting around the room I slept in as a child when I wasn’t living on Daddy’s tour bus, we painstakingly choose our fashions from the menagerie in the closet we share. The closet is good-sized for one rock and roll offspring, but when shared by three renowned L.A. groupies in their early twenties it’s at capacity, like Holly Woods will doubtlessly be that night. Scarves and boas are draped over blouses, bustiers and camisoles, plus shorts and miniskirts, and even a pair of leather chaps H.C. or I appear in every once in a while. We’re making quite a ruckus as we grab stuff and pretend to fight over shoes and sparkly jackets. Fuzz balls from the boas are flying through the air and H.C. half-pretends to strangle Carolina with a kerchief that she somehow ties to another one and wears as her top. We continue to have KMTL on the radio to drown out the sound of Mama and Tony Borelli crashing the head of the bed into the wall of her room.

A DJ is now broadcasting from the Woods, L.A.’s most popular outdoor concert venue, and we’re listening to the pre-show play-by-play. We consider dipping into our vast collection of hard rock and heavy metal records and CDs, but we don’t want to miss any of the news about Sweet Sammy and his band coming from the airport and arriving at the Woods.

This is a special report coming live from Holly Woods, DJ Rodney Leather says with importance, like he’s going to tell everyone the nuclear bomb is about to be dropped. With the news that he delivers, it kind of feels like it is: The rumor from earlier today is confirmed. The Gunn Runners have fired their opening act due to increased violence involving fans. There’s no word as to who will be replacing Why, but we’re told there will be another band on the marquee. Some in the inner circle are calling it a double bill rather than another opening act…

The inner circle, I repeat, because this is precisely where we’re all aiming to be with the Gunn Runners.

Ooh, a double bill. It must be someone famous! Carolina actually says something smart, which happens periodically and is always a surprise. H.C. and I both look at her, then at each other, impressed.

No Why. Yee-haw! H.C. celebrates, because we hate most of Why both on and off the stage. Three out of four of them are dirty and crass but we put up with them because the fourth one is a still-waters-run-deep cutie. We make up funny sentences starting with their chosen name, like, Why are most of you ugly but you think you’re God’s gift to groupies, and Why do you think you can have me when you can’t?

We banter about Why until we see our sweaty cabbie friend Marty pull up