Six Degrees of Dr. Drew's Sober House

Recently my friends and I have developed a dirty little secret. We watch Dr. Drew's Sober House.

This is a very difficult for my friends and I because in many ways we find the whole concept of Sober House completely offensive. I mean, the idea of showing people on TV in the early days of recovery and making money from that is just plain wrong. In oh, so many ways.

Then there's the whole idea of Dr, Drew himself. He runs one of the better recovery hospitals in the country and he had a ton of respect. But now he seems like a media whore willing to degrade himself and others for a little fame and fortune.

Then there's the rest of the cast.

Let me start my letting you know I am friends with the main drug counselor, Bob Forrest. I've known him for years and I love the guy. I find it amazing that he walks through each episode and manages to always keep his dignity. But he manages to do it.

That's probably because he gets to come and go as he pleases.

He's not one of the poor saps staying at the Sober House. They're all messed up as the old man said in Night of the Living Dead. They're bat shit crazy. (Technically it should be bat guano crazy. Bats and seabirds have guano, mammals and regular birds have shit. )

Like Mike Starr. Mike's another guy I've known for years. A friend of mine used to go out with Mike's sister and he's from my hometown Seattle. I've seen Mike sober for little bits of time and I've seen the dude loaded to the gills. But he's a piece of work no matter what the condition.

The rest of the house is filled the detritus of pop culture. Former roundballer Dennis Rodman who gets farther out the older he gets. Actor Tom Sizemore who's been arrested countless times. Seth Binzer, the lead singer from Crazytown, the worst band ever to sell over a million records. And two porn actresses I'd never heard of before watching the show.

Finally, there's former Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss. I've never met Heidi but she her family used to spend their holidays with one of my exes family when she was growing up. I've heard a lot of stories.

Heidi and Tom were once involved with each other and the relationship ended so badly that Sizemore ended up in jail on domestic violence charges after Fleiss got a restraining order against him. So of course it makes sense to have them live in a house together as they are detoxing from alcohol and drugs.

I'm surprised they didn't try and get Bebe Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the show. Maybe they did and their asking price was too rich for the budget. Charlie Rose gets them so their fees can't be that high.

The oddest thing about the show is that the porn actresses seem like the sanest folks in the bunch. Which might be why one of them, Jennifer Ketcham AKA Penny Flame was just invited to speak at Harvard. As in Harvard University, the Washington University of the East.

That was after she appeared on Oprah and the View. She also writes a column for the crown jewel of progressive blogoshere, the Huffington Post. I'm not sure, but after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts Jennifer might have a congressional run in her down the road. Taking your clothes off in public and starring on reality television might be the best way to move up in the political world these days.

In a weird way I should be rooting for the people on Sober House. These are my people. The drug addicts and the alcoholics. The people who are just trying to get their shit together.

I do root for them. I just don't think they should be on television. And I wish I didn't watch it every week. But I do.

And I don't feel that good about it.

I'm afraid of Little People.

That's right. I said it. I am afraid of Little People. Midgets and Dwarves.

I'm not proud of this fact. I just know that it's true.

For those of you who don't know the difference, Midgets are small people whose limbs are generally proportionate while Dwarves are small people who have shortened limbs but their hands, feet and heads are about the same as those of larger people.

Peter Dinklage and Verne Troyer are Dwarves, while Harry Earle, the lead actor in Freaks was a Midget. At least that's the way I understand it. I could be wrong.

It really doesn't matter. I am terrified of all Little People.

Now, I know what you're thinking. What's the big deal? Seriously, how often do you come across a Little Person anyway. Once every 5 years or so. Once in a blue moon.

Tell you what. It's a lot more often than that.

I've encountered Little People all over the world. I had one wait on me recently at my local Starbucks. I had one speak at an AA meeting I attended. (She had some great drunk stories by the way.) I've run into them in Europe and I even had one staying at my hotel when I was teaching in Iraq back in 2007. Those Little People are everywhere.

Probably the strangest encounter I've ever had with a Little Person was back in 1988 when I lived behind the church at Highland and Franklin in the heart of Hollywood.

The church itself is probably best known for the Giant Aids ribbon that has long decorated the front of the church. If you've ever been to Hollywood you've probably seen it as you drive up Highland Boulevard on your way to Mann's Chinese or the Walk of Fame. The AIDS Ribbon went up early in the crisis and it has never come down. They are deservedly proud of it.

Back in 1988, I used to live behind the church with my girlfriend Dawn. This was a couple of years before the ribbon went up and a couple of years before I got sober.

We lived in a triplex bungalow with a former South African model named Merle upstairs and young singer songwriter named Tori Amos next door. Yeah, that Tori Amos. She was a friend of Dawn's.

It was quite a group living there and if I could remember a little more of what happened I might be able to tell you some really great stories. But since I drank a lot back then and loved to mix my booze with coke and extasy I missed a lot of what went on. It was a good time as I remember it, though.

Anyway, Dawn got a job in New York that summer and had to move across the country. That left me to take care of myself with the help of Merle, who Dawn had instructed to make dinner for me because in Merle's words, "Dawn said you won't eat if I don't feed you." I thought that was a bit much, but since I quite enjoyed Merle's company I was more than happy to eat dinner with her each night.

You see Merle had lost her modeling career because at the age of 18 she popped out with the most amazing breasts this man had ever seen. It seems the clothes didn't hang right after she blossomed and she went from in demand runway star to just an incredibly beautiful young woman. She also had the most amazing accent and fine record collection.

When Dawn left for New York I got a job teaching reading development in Orange Country. That meant I had to get up early every morning and take the I-5 down to such exotic locations as Fountain Valley, Irvine and Tustin. Sometimes it would take me two or three hours just to get to the location where I was teaching and another two or three hours to get home. Those long drives and my continued drug use meant I wasn't getting a lot of sleep.

Which brings us to the Little People in question. Or should I say Little Person.

One morning when I started to leave for work, I stepped out onto my porch and almost tripped over... you got it, a Midget. At first I thought I'd finally gone around the bend and the Midget on my stoop was a figment of my imagination. But then the young man spoke to me.

"You seen any little people around here?" He said.

I glanced around furtively. Wondering if there was somehow a small Army of Midgets and Dwarves had surrounded my house during the night. But alas he was the only Little Person around.

At this point I seriously thought about turning around and going back in the house. Starting the day with a Midget on my porch didn't seem like a good omen to me. I mean, I'm really afraid of them. Lie some people are with snakes.

But I decided to face my fears.

"No, man." I responded. "I ain't seen no little people around. Should there be."

"There should be a bunch of them." Was the little guy's response. He explained that he was there for an audition for the film Dick Tracy. The church had rented out the gym to the producers and today they were casting Little People for roles in the movie.

I was starting to get a little queasy as he spoke. I'm sure part of it was the X that was still coursing through my body, or maybe the last line of coke I did in the bathroom as I was getting ready. Either way, I didn't really want to be attacked by a group of Little People actors looking for their next gig.

The Midget surmised that he might be a tad early for his audition and asked if I could let him inside the gymnasium. He would have let himself in, but he was too short to reach the door handle. I told him I didn't mind letting him but expressed my concern that he wouldn't be able to get out if he had the wrong day and the Dick Tracy folks didn't show up.

"I'll be fine," he said. "I'm sure I've got the right day. "

I let him in the gym and then drove down to the OC. I had a tough time teaching that day. I kept thinking about the Little Man back at the church. I really hoped the Dick Tracy people treated him well during his audition. More importantly I hoped they let him out of the gym.

I certainly didn't want a dead midget on my hands.

I got home about ten hours later and went straight into my house. I was afraid to go into the gym for fear of what kind of madness might be going on inside. Who knows what kind of things they had those Little People do during the auditions.

I never found out if the Little Man got the part, but I'm pretty sure he got out of the gym.

The Strange Case of Alex Chilton, REM and the Cramps.

Last week many of us mourned the loss of the late, great Alex Chilton.

For those of you who weren't listening to NPR or some other neo-hipster radio station last week, Alex Chilton was the one time lead singer of two seminal groups from the 60's and 70's. As a teenager he was the snarling lead singer of the pop group the Box Tops who scored several hits including the seminal tune The Letter. (My personal Box Tops fave was Neon Rainbow, but that song barely cracked the Top 40 and is seldom heard today.)

Later he formed the "legendary" band Big Star. And that's where things start to get a little wonky in term of his obituaries.

You see, Big Star never really made it when they were a band. Their records tanked when they first came out and for many years you couldn't even buy a Big Star record because they were out of print. About the only way you could hear Big Star through much of the 70's and 80's was by listening to bootleg tape that one of your friends had.

But much has been made about all the bands who have cited Big Star as a seminal influence. But one of the band that most often cited for being huge fans isn't one of them.

To explain, here is a quote from Chilton's Wikipedia entry. "The group's recordings met little commercial success but established Chilton's reputation as a rock singer and songwriter; later alternative music bands like R.E.M. would praise the group as a major influence."

That's right kiddies. According to Wikipedia REM was strongly influenced by one Alex Chilton. And they're not the only ones. Almost every obituary brought up REM as one of the bands most influenced by Big Star.

The music editor for Slate Magazine even went so far as to mention Michael Stipe by name.

Which I found extremely amusing for one reason. Years ago, I made a film called Athens, GA/Inside-Out that featured a lot of bands from Athens, GA including REM. And for an ever so brief moment in time I actually palled around with Mr. Stipe a little bit while the band was recording Life's Rich Pageant here in LA.

It was during that time that Chilton's record label at the time, Big Time Records (the home of one of my favorite Athens, GA bands Love Tractor) talked to me about doing a music video for Alex Chilton.

To make a long story short I mentioned this small tidbit to Michael one night thinking he might be interested that I might be doing a video with one of his heroes and was surprised at his less than interested response. I mean young Michael reacted to my big news the same way he did when Bill Berry and I talked football after a weekend of NFL games.

i.e. Dude wasn't interested in the least.

So being very needy back then, and a bit of a drunk to boot, I decided to press Stipe about his response. "I thought you might be interested." I said.

"Why would I be interested?" He responded innocently.

"I thought you were a big fan."

"Why do people think that? I can't stand Alex Chilton." He said.

You see, in reality only half of the band liked Big Star. Mike Mills and Peter Buck. The other two, not so much.

So, while there might be a some Big Star in the REM, Alex Chilton was hardly a major influence. There's a lot more Pylon, Patti Smith, the Velvets and Method Actors in there than Big Star. Oh, and from what everyone in Athens told me they played a lot of Monkees covers when they first started.

The fact is Chilton was a bigger influence on his friends the Cramps. He helped produce their classic Songs The Lord Taught Us.

He was most very proud of his involvement with that seminal band and remained friends with them over the years. He was also proud of his work with another well known psychobilly band the Gories. We know this because his wife mentioned that in a letter that was read at South By Southwest last week.

Her letter read: "The one thing he was absolutely proud of was producing the Cramps records. He would play them at home and and just talk and talk about the experience. He was also quite proud of the Detroit garage band the Gories – both his work with them and the band itself. He was very excited for them now that they are playing shows again."

Yet, almost none of the obituaries I read last week even mentioned the Cramps. Nor his long friendship and numerous collaborations with Jim Dickinson. Another great but little known Memphis music figure.

I don't want to call out the people who were sincerely writing Chilton's obit last week and I am certainly glad he got wide mentions throughout the US and the world. I just thought it might be time to correct the urban legend of Alex Chilton and push back on the tide of misinformation spewed by many in the music press.

And that's the real story!

For more on the real Alex Chilton. Here's a link to the full text of Laura Chilton's letter regarding the death of her beloved husband.

http://www.offbeat.com/2010/03/24/laura-chilton-on-alexs-passing/