Four For Friday - Elegant Degradation – A Himmmm Blind Item Story – Part 1

(NOTE: This is a very long blind item story.  Feel free to bookmark/save it, or skip it if you're not into TL/DR – you were warned.  This is Himmmm-4's story, but really an origin story for us.  The memory of this event comes from all four of us; blended into one narrative by "our scribe" Himmmm-1 for you.  This is the final installment of our series chronicling the lives of the friends who constitute Himmmm.  When reading this story: Himmmm-1 aka BOSS aka the scribe/main-Twit; while H2 aka the movie writer-director/co-Twit.  New to THIS series (but not to longtime friends/followers) is H3 aka record producer; and H4 an actor. Thank you for all of the love, laughs, warmth, and friendship you've shown to us. Thank you, Enty, for your endless hours of hard work and lifetimes of friendship. You're all welcome to feel free to be friends with us on Twitter.  Except for you there in the back with that unidentified lip fungus. That's just nasty.  Get that checked first, THEN we'll be friends.  Although today's story does have celebs in it, this is not a big mystery to unravel.  It's  about sharing a human story that is very special and crazy.  Real life usually is.  So, for you our friends here at Crazy Days and Nights – we share THE last collective memory of OUR crazy night/day/night).


They said to close my eyes, and not to open them no matter how bad it got.  I agreed.  And it got very bad. One voice in particular though was instantly recognizable – a gruff, hoarse voice.  It was usually heard at bowel-shaking levels, blowing the roof off of coliseums and clubs:

"…Happy Birthday you gigantic spoiled baby…HAP-PY BIRTH-DAY TO YOU!!!".  The applause and cheers and whistles erupted.  With that voice.  It was the unmistakable voice of the one and only Lemmy.  As I was granted permission to open my eyes – I was stunned.  There was the man himself, hovering right over our dinner booth.  Hat and all, the unflinching Mr. Kilmeister.

"LEMMY!" I yelled.

He just beamed with pride.  "Of course 'ya had to open your eyes or else you'd have fuc%in' guessed Sinatra right?", and the entire room roared.  I looked seated next to me in the semi-circular booth at my good friend Doc and just knew it was the happiest birthday celebration I'd known in many years.  What I didn't know was that it was nearly the last for both of us.

8PM on Mon., 15 of July 1996: RAINBOW BAR & GRILL – HOLLYWOOD, CA

There are few better places on Sunset Blvd. to celebrate a birthday than the legendary Rainbow Bar & Grill.  The place has been ground zero for Rock and Roll, and rockers, for decades.  Best of all, it was "home office" for Lemmy – the legendary front man for Motorhead.  On any given night when not on tour, Lemmy was a fixture at the end of the bar, playing video poker machines or holding court with new and old friends.  The booths in the Rainbow had brass plaques above each, to advise newbies of standing reservations for legendary rockers or music industry titans.  On this night – the night of my 27th birthday party, we were seated in a booth affixed with the name of someone I knew well: Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records.

I am Himmmm 1, aka H1, aka "scribe", and I had spent most of my life/career behind the scenes in the entertainment industry.  I'd been happily dragged there this night by Himmmm 4, aka H4, also known as Doc.  Although older than myself, he and I had been friends for most of our grown up lives (and grown up is a very flexible term).  Doc is an A+list actor, had grown up in the movie business; and found success as easily as making friends, partying, or shuffling through girls all of his life.  Both of our families had been in the entertainment industry in Hollywood and New York.

Even by that point, both Doc and I had seen most sides of the industry: the good, the bad, the nasty…and the incomprehensibly tragic. We'd also cultivated certain "vices" that were common in the industry over those years too. Specifically, alcohol and drugs. Non-specific were the types.  It all usually depended on what was around – marijuana, X, cocaine, heroin, or whatever.   I was more of a pot-smoking, alcohol-drinking, blow of coke type who could take it or leave it at that point.  But too many nights running with Doc and I began to find myself "taking it" far more often than "leaving it".  When it began to be a salve to soothe my emotional scars is when I began to cut myself back.

Poor Doc though – he honestly had a steady diet of "everything" anywhere in sight.  His sense of moderation was based on his money resources.  He was inching very close into Hunter S. Thompson levels of abuse.  Somehow between his talents and charisma he always kept it cool out front.  At that time and era we were all too concerned with our own individual chemicals than to care for friends, or anyone else.  Because…Hollywood.