IN SEARCH OF ROBBIE CONAL: a day late and a dollar short at Canter's deli

[ted quinn]

Where did I get the idea that the meeting was set for Saturday night? Clearly, the email says Friday. But I didn't bother checking it again after the first, late-night read-through, sometime last week, and I had somehow convinced myself that the stealth appointment with guerilla artist Robbie Conal was for tonight. I was pretty excited to meet this legendary underground political artist and do a ride-along on a postering of his newest work, "Dubya Vs. Mother Nature." I thought, I'll help hang some posters, ask a few questions, write a story for the Freep, put some up on the way home to Joshua Tree tomorrow and maybe even get a souvenir piece of art to take home for the wall.

 

So I went to Canter's deli on Fairfax - what Robbie Conal correctly called the "epicenter of Lalaland," and his friend Richie Montoya of Culture Clash called, "The Great Matzoh Ball in the Middle of the Menudo of La Raza."  Canter's is across the street from the location of the original L.A. Free Press in the 60's. It's still the place where tattoo'd rock'n'rollers mingle with branded Holocaust survivors, where L.A. figures from Rodney Bingenheimer to Chuck E. Weiss can be found having an iced tea or a toasted bagel. It's a place where people go when they have made it through something terrible. Fairfax Avenue is the only place I know in L.A. that still feels the same as it did thirty years ago. Especially at night. Everyplace else in town got ruined in the 80s. with mini-malls and city-walks and plastic-surgery. Shops on Fairfax still have rats in the windows . It's back alley still smells like old fish. It's the only part of L.A. where I still feel at home.

 

A few years ago, I walked up Fairfax in some overalls and a straw hat, past one of those rich Russian teenage nightclubs. As I approached a very hip looking young couple, dressed entirely in elegant black, the boy whispered to his girlfriend loud enough for me to hear, "Hillbilly." I loved that this kid, fresh from Russia was calling me a hillbilly on my TURF,  where I was once dressed entirely in black, and nearly as cool as him, although never as wealthy. I really did like it. I thought, this is what happens when we get older. Someone who speaks another language takes over and rules the street where we once were the cock of the walk.

 

I arrived in L.A. tonight around 9pm. My first stop was the Eat-a -Pita at Rosewood and Fairfax, for one of those lentils-and-rice sandwiches. The guy next to me in line said he knew the owner when I told him I'd been eating there for almost thirty years. I remember when it was called Me and Me. I remember the Israeli girl I had a crush on there in the 80's.

 

I had plenty of time to kill before meeting my old mate Jeremy at Canter's, where I figured I would suss out Robbie from a self-portrait I had seen some years ago. I asked the waitresses if they knew him. They all said no.

 

Jeremy arrived at Canter's at 9:50 and we got a table. As anyone who remotely resembled what I thought Robbie looked like passed by, I would say the name out loud enough for them to hear. "Robbie." No response. I even walked up to several tables to ask if any of the people sitting there was named Robbie. No. I got a lot of funny looks for my yarn braids and feathered hat. I thought, even Canter's doesn't accept freaks anymore but I didn't care. Maybe being an oddball has regained it's early danger. Once at Canter's I pulled up in a borrowed cadillac, too broke to give a homeless person any change. I felt kind of bad. Chuck E told me nobody would believe the cadillac was mine. One look at my shoes proved i didn't have any money. "People with money might dress like a bum, but they always have good shoes." Chuck went on to tell me about someone he had bumped into there that was all excited, having just met Bruce Springsteen and finding him to be a cool guy, without an attitude. "Why should he have an attitude?," Chuck asked. "If anybody around here should have an attitude, it's the busboy in there who used to be a doctor in Guatemala."

 

"Robbie." "Robbie," I would say occasionally, hoping someone would hear me and say , "Yes?" I even asked the cashier to page him. "Robbie, please come to the front," she said to nobody, over the loudspeaker.

 

Jeremy and I sat there for an hour or so. He had a bowl of Matzoball soup and I had a cup of tea. I told Jeremy about a story I worked on until 3 the previous morning. Jeremy told me he had found a muralin a midwestern mayor's ofice tha his father had painted for WPA in 1939 and that he planned to create a website for his late father, Ted Gilien's work. Ted had moved from New York to Hollywood after winning the job of painting that mural. Working in the 'moving picture' industry, he had met Jeremy's mother and settled in the Fairfax area.

 

 Finally, after Jeremy's soup and a couple refills of hot water for my tea, we gave up the search for Robbie Conal.

 

Then, driving south on Fairfax and turning east on Pico, I spotted two figures slathering a  construction site wall with glue. I stopped and asked. Are you doing this for Robbie Conal?

 

"No, but we had to tear down some of his posters in Santa Monica earlier tonight. We hated to do it but we rent this space for advertising."

 

"You look familar," I said to the one with bushy red hair. "You don't look familiar to me," he said back to me. "Oh well. It's funny. I've just been up at canter's, trying to find Robbie Conal to go out postering with him and you guys are here postering for some movie."

 

I started back to the car when I thought I remembered where I'd seen the guy before, so I stopped and turned partway back. "You ever go the old Frolic Room, or the Gaslight?" "Yeah." "You know Johnny Vargas?" Johnny was bartender at the Frolic Room before becoming the booking agent for the old Gaslight in Hollywood. "Yeah, I know Johnny Vargas."

 

"I'm Ted Quinn," told the guy with red hair. "Oh, yeah, Ted Quinn. I'm Robbie. I was room-mates with John Brownson, the English guy." "Right. Brownson played bass...and you're a drummer." "Right." We shook hands. "And your name is Robbie. But you're not the Robbie I was looking for. " "Right." We both laughed. "You ever see Johnny?" "Sure. I'm going to see him in a couple of weeks. You ever see Brownson?" "Yeah. We're still room-mates, out in Burbank." "Well, say hi to him for me." "You, too."

 

I left Robbie, the red-haired drummer, not the legendary guerilla artist, plastering some posters at Pico and Fairfax and went back to Jeremy's studio, to practice  some tunes for a friends mothers funeral tomorrow. Lots of our friends parents are making the transition these days, it seems. Never got to meet up with Robbie Conal, but I did get to bump into  Robbie I knew in the early 90's, back in Hollywood.

 

Next time, I'll check the email again before I drive 100 miles to L.A. I'll write to Robbie Conal and tell him I can't wait to meet him, help him put up some posters and maybe get that story for the paper. But then again, if I had done so tonight, I would have missed running into an acquaintance from another lifetime, which is, apparently, still this one I'm living.

 

But Dubya Vs. Mother Nature, I can't wait to see it somewhere around town. It's good to have Robbie Conal fired up and making his guerilla art again.

 

 

 

SUPERBAD BUNNIES,
>
>  This one's for you: Wanna do some damage to the peeps doin nuthin
> about all the damage? After Katrina the crusty bunnies in the machine
> stopped everything to crunk up a new Dubya vs Mother Nature poster.
> It's still hot off da press and appropriately soakin wet, and IT'S
ON!
>  
> Friday night, October 14th, 10pm
>  at Canter's Deli (the epicenter of Lalaland--even the great Richie
> Montoya of Culture Clash told me it's the matzo ball in the middle of
> the menudo of La Raza; he went on to sing a chorus of MY YIDDISHA
> RAZA, but by then I had my hands over my ears and was stepping away
> from the pocho)---on Fairfax, between Beverly and Melrose. If you
know
> you'll be there and gettin up wid us, please gimmie a shout out:
> rob...@robbieconal.com. You're all welcome, of course! But I'd like
to
> have enough shtuff for everyone to participate!
>  The National Lawyers Guild'll be in da house (freedom of speech and
> images of truth, y'all). It's all good. I'm so nutz ta hit the
streets
> wid somethin hard, even the bunnies in the studio are scared of me
(my
> wife thinks I've finally lost it, but for real? I just found it
> again). They all think I'm talking to myself (shouting at the
> zeitgeist) or to aliens (yeah, like the Bush administration). It's my
> new mantra about gettin up and stayin up: PICTURE THIS...grab da WORD
> by it's forked tongue, turn it upside down an shake it for a
> CHANGE...SPITTIN' CONSCIOUSNESS! Let's do it to it--together. There's
> finally a crack in Darth Vader's armor...he fell on his face in the
> Mississippi Mud. Exposed as a greedy little rich insulated baby who
> wants to protect his stolen world empire at the cost of his poor
> people. What did Kanye West say? "George Bush doesn't care about
Black
> people!"? I'd be preachin: George Bush doesn't even SEE Black people.
> (I see DEAD people...thanks to hi
>  m.)
>  Also, we gots brand new stickers! Check'em out on the website.
> Condi's in da house (STATE HOOD). Cheney with Bunny ears. AHHHnold!
> Gandhi, Dalai Lama and MLKjr. Even Bob Marley (STIR IT UP). I'll
bring
> some to Canter's on Oct. 14th and throw'em out to all y'all who come
> hit the streets with us, aight?
>
>  Peace & Angst & Action, Robbie

 

tedq...@nomadhouse.com

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