Rock And Hard Places Part 15

19.

(GET YOUR KICKS ON) BEIRUT 66.

The Road to Damascus AUGUST 2007.

ANOTHER ADVENTURE PROMPTED by a phone call from Andrew Tuck at Monocle Monocle. "The road to Damascus," he declared. "Everybody knows what it means, but n.o.body knows what it's like. Go and find out."

I was happy to do this, because I'm always happy for a reason to visit Beirut in particular, and the Middle East in general-not necessarily for any rugged, righteous, bullet-chewing, seeker-of-truth-in-valley-of-death foreign correspondent reasons, but because the weather is lovely, the food fantastic, the scenery magnificent, the wine delectable, the women beautiful and the people in general supremely courteous and hospitable. If the Arabs could collectively grasp the wisdom of putting their lunatics and criminals in asylums and prisons, instead of installing them in their parliaments and palaces, they'd be the envy of all humanity.

As it happened, my peregrination along the Road to Damascus did prompt an epiphany of sorts, and it went like this. There are few things that the professionally opinionated enjoy more than a few hundred words' fulminating at the ignorance of the general public. My, how we love a good fulminate. We spend hours anxiously scanning news wires, searching for the latest poll which reveals that x percent of the population can't name their own president, that y percent think Afghanistan is where Gandalf lived, or that $ percent don't know the letters of the alphabet. From this raw material, we sculpt the prose equivalent of an accusingly pointing finger.

The a.s.sumption underlying these self-righteous tirades (and I should know; I've written a few) is that it's A Bad Thing that so many people know and care so little about politics. Mostly, this is an a.s.sumption to which I subscribe. However, the great thing about travelling is that one's a.s.sumptions are continually being prodded in the sternum and asked who they think they are, and in this excursion to Lebanon and Syria I found myself wondering whether the bovine complacency often demonstrated by large swathes of first-world electorates is really a problem-and whether, instead, popular indifference to politics should rank alongside literacy and child health as measures of national prosperity.

In Lebanon and Syria, as in all police states, war zones and sundry basket-cases, everybody knows their politics, because everybody has too. Not knowing your politics-not knowing who holds power, and where the limits of that power lie-can leave you dead, or ruined, or receiving a brisk education in prevailing realities as you hang by your ankles. Next time I read a lament that I live among people who, despite unparalleled opportunity for learning and partic.i.p.ation, substantially choose not to give a c.r.a.p, I plan to hum a happy tune.

"AND as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined about him a light from Heaven. And he fell to the Earth, and heard a voice saying unto him 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest me thou?'"-ACTS 9:3-4 WELL, THE SUN is certainly bright out here, but nothing my Ray-Bans can't overcome. The only voices saying anything unto me are my translator keeping up a steady commentary on the view and, on the car's radio, the wearisomely inescapable purveyors of the global mall's muzak: Nelly Furtado, James Blunt, Christine Aguilera. As for persecutions, we hope to ward them off with a bagful of bureaucratic talismans: accreditation from Lebanon's Ministry of Information, a number for a contact at the Syrian equivalent. The Road to Damascus isn't what it used to be.

We are, it should be conceded, fudging slightly. It is simply impossible, today, to retrace exactly the journey that made the Road to Damascus a universally understood allegory for conversion. When the first-century Jewish vigilante Saul of Tarsus set off for Damascus around AD 36, intending to deal some uppity Christians an exemplary smiting, he did so from Jerusalem. Somewhere en route, Saul perceived a dazzling beam from the sky and heard the voice of Christ asking him what, in his father's name, he thought he was doing, or words to that effect. Saul swiftly got with the programme, and is remembered as St. Paul the Apostle. Thanks in no small part to the reluctance of Paul and other earnest types with beards to keep their revelations to themselves, his route between what are now the capitals of Israel and Syria is now blocked by barbed wire, fences, sandbags, minefields, history, blind fury and bad faith; the single border crossing between the two countries, at Quneitra, is only grudgingly open to Druze from the Golan Heights. So we're leaving from Beirut.

Not that this is a straightforward undertaking. In recent years, this version of the road to Damascus has hosted its share of upheaval. In 2005, Syrian troops withdrew along it, having been forced by ma.s.sive popular protests to end their twenty-nine-year occupation of Lebanon following the immense bomb blast in Beirut that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. His a.s.sa.s.sination was widely blamed on Syria. In 2006, a year or so ago, this road teemed with Lebanese refugees from Israel's onslaught of that summer in response to the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese-based Hezbollah. Israeli aircraft struck several targets along the route.

What with one thing and another, we've been told, the Road to Damascus isn't as busy as it once was. At our hotel in Beirut, staff who help us wrangle a car and driver tell us that the road once thronged with Lebanese pilgrims visiting holy sites in Syria, and less devout voyagers seeking designer bargains (Benetton and other prized brands are apparently much cheaper in Syria). Now, with relations between the two countries at a sulky nadir-despite Syria's withdrawal, a steady tick of Lebanese politicians and journalists espousing anti-Syrian stances continue to meet spectacular ends-fewer Lebanese are visiting the neighbours.

Myself and photographer Cristobal Palma have persuaded two locals to join us: a driver, whom I'll call Peter, and a translator, whom I'll call Sheila. When we start out on the Damascus Road-that's what it's called-in Beirut, it's immediately noticeable that most of the traffic is coming the other way. It's quite early, and these are commuters descending from the hills for a day's work. The first significant landmark en route, past a district called Hazmi, is outside the Lebanese Ministry of Defence, the entrance of which is graced by one of the weirdest works of public art anywhere in the world: a ten-storey pillar of concrete, embedded with decommissioned trucks, tanks and artillery pieces. The work of the French sculptor Arman, it was unveiled in 1996 as a monument to the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-90.

The soldiers standing guard are used to bemused tourists photographing the thing-I've done it myself before-but they're a bit edgy. Not all that far away-in tiny Lebanon, nothing is all that far away-their comrades are at war, fighting the militants of the Fatah al-Islam sect, who are mounting a prolonged last stand in the wreckage of a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. More than a hundred Lebanese soldiers have died in three months of fighting. The soldiers outside the MoD allow Cris to photograph the monument, but only from a few prescribed angles, to avoid capturing any images of nearby buildings. Though I suspect that the chances of us learning anything the Israeli Air Force don't already know are remote, we cooperate.

From there, we detour through a verdant hill suburb called Yarze-the sort of place which boasts its own country club and a villa belonging to the billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (which, Sheila laughingly notes, was commandeered by the Syrians for use as a headquarters, and is now in the possession of the Lebanese army). We rejoin the road in a queue of belching trucks, groaning up the hill towards a suburb called Araya. The climb is now steep enough to make a difference in the speeds of the opposing lanes. Coming downhill, Lebanese traffic looks like a demented cavalry charge, the sleek stallions branded with the logos of Audi and Mercedes-Benz whipping through the ponderous high-sided carthorses trucking freight into Beirut. Going uphill, wheezing, groaning and grinding gears, the same array of vehicles resembles a depressed, weary retreat after a regrettable result at the point of contact. By the roadside, billboards maladriotly translated into the snappy gibberish of advertising mark our path: Shhhh Silent Parquet; s.e.xy Hot Summer Shower Gel; Loke International Hair Transplant Centre; Burger King-Welcome To Aley.

Aley, like its succeeding suburb, the resort of Bhamdoun, boasts glorious views across the barren uplands (the cool hills around Beirut, at least when not hosting invading armies or wars, are popular holiday destinations-in summer, Arabs vacation away from the heat). By this point, Peter has begun concentrating ostentatiously, hunched over the steering wheel, scanning the way ahead with the nervous intensity of a sniper. His concerns, however, are not to do with anything so glamorous as militia activity or enemy aircraft, but with his fellow Lebanese motorists.

"Very dangerous road from here," he mutters.

Proof is not long in coming. We pa.s.s a three-car tangle of metal, sprinkled with shattered gla.s.s, surrounded by soldiers and drivers sorting out who hit whom and how. Further along, an olive Range Rover, shortened the length of its engine block by what must have been an emphatic shunt, is being loaded onto a recovery truck. Beyond that, a crowd of laughing bystanders help rescue a four-wheel-drive whose careless owner has planted a front wheel in an open gutter.

Aside from the cool haven of St. George's church, still beautiful despite the Civil War-era shrapnel damage, and a children's funfair, whose depressed owner offers to sell me the business for US$200,000, the buildings along the road are functional, modern and ugly. The industrial squalor is only interrupted by the surreally serene appearance of a Bedouin encampment, the nomads' goats gathered beneath a canvas canopy. It may be that in this region there's little point in dallying too long on attractively crenellated columns-you never know how long your building is going to stay up. A few years ago, a mighty bridge was built linking the suburbs of Sawfar and Daher el Baydar, shaving a decent lump off the journey time. Last year, an Israeli bomb punched the middle out of the bridge, returning the traffic to the winding slog through the valley it traversed. The span is being repaired now. By the valley road, a billboard erected by Hezbollah calls last summer's war "A Victory From G.o.d." I've barely been in Lebanon forty-eight hours on this trip, and this must be at least the hundredth giant Hezbollah poster I've seen: the road in from Beirut's airport is lined with grinning portraits of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Ha.s.san Nasrallah, and the whole city is upholstered with gloating images of wrecked Israeli military hardware (in the southern suburbs, Hezbollah have even established a temporary museum chronicling the war, which we'd visited the previous day: the highlight was an audio-visual display featuring a captured Merkava tank, surrounded by mangled dummies dressed in IDF uniform and splashed with red paint).

The political billboards increase in number as the road unfurls, Lebanon's uncountable rival factions seeking to outdo each other for volume and position. A few honour one of the country's survivors-Nabih Berri, former Amal warlord, now speaker of Lebanon's parliament. Many more are shrines to Berri's less fortunate rivals and colleagues, graphic reminders that Lebanese politics is, as a pastime, at least as hazardous as driving on Lebanese roads: Rafik Hariri, blasted all over Beirut's seafront; George Hawi, the communist party leader killed by a car bomb in June 2005; Gebran Tueni, the journalist and MP killed by a car bomb in December 2005; Pierre Gemayel, Minister for Industry-and nephew of an a.s.sa.s.sinated Lebanese president-gunned down in November 2006; Walid Eido, the member of parliament blown up in June 2007. "Martyrs for Justice," says the slogan beneath the portrait of Eido, and his son, who died in the same blast.

We get our first glimpse of the Bekaa Valley from the top of a vertiginous winding road. The flat green sward of the Bekaa is infamous for secreting the camps of organisations unbeloved by the United States, and better liked for its fabulous wines and dairy produce. When we reach Chtaura, it's time for lunch, and Sheila, unlike bemusing numbers of Lebanese, disdains the options of Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's, instead directing us to the Jarjoura laiterie-a purveyor of the Bekaa's local specialties of yoghurt and cheese. The proprietor, Antoine, a forty-seven-year veteran of the store, labours beneath a black and white portrait of his utterly identical father, who founded the shop in 1922. As he tots up the bill for our lunch of (fantastic) haloumi cheese wrapped in rolls of salty flat bread, I ask him how business has been.

"Not great," he says. "But, thank G.o.d, better than last year."

Apparently, people fleeing bombardment tend not to stop for sandwiches.

In downtown Chtaura, we ask Peter to pull his air-conditioned Volvo into the taxi station, so we can see how the locals travel. The cars that ply the route between here and Damascus, for around US$5 per person each way, are yellow-painted, battered, rusty, backfiring American sedans, mostly Dodges and Pontiacs dating from the 1970s. Given that they are, by definition, being driven by Arabs who don't speak much English, Chtaura is at least this evocative of New York. Stalls around the garages sell cheap watches, dodgy electronica, dubious cosmetics, including "breast-firming cream" and "s.e.x appeal gel," and Saddam Hussein lighters. Sheila picks up some jasmine oil for her hair.

Chtaura offers little but the practicalities of travel-food, transport, repairs. For this reason, I'm attracted to a shop whose window is stacked with rainbows of multi-coloured gla.s.s hookah pipes. The young proprietor is reluctant to give his name but happy enough to chat. He says he sells to Lebanese, but not to locals-rather, to the diaspora when they return for brief visits to the old country. Since last summer, though, they're staying put, and if business doesn't pick up soon, he's going to join them, in Canada or Paraguay.

"The Israelis bombed a bridge 300 metres away," he says, gesturing back up the street. "I was scared they'd hit that one," he continues, pointing directly out his window at the ca.n.a.l covering we've just driven across. "I don't want to live like this."

I ask if he fears another war.

"Who knows?" he shrugs. "It's nothing to do with Lebanon. It's all between Israel and Hezbollah."

On one wall of the shop hangs a portrait of Saddam Hussein, superimposed on a view of Jerusalem.

THE LEBANESE BORDER crossing is an astonishing, infuriating shambles, the failure of which to escalate into riotous violence is unbeatable testament to the extraordinary patience and courtesy that define day-to-day interactions in the Middle East. Unless, of course, the chaos is a consequence of the same philosophical good humour-after a few hours' wait in the crowd and heat and noise and exhaust fumes, I can't help feeling that the surly, slothful soldiers running the place would buck their ideas up considerably under the threat of spontaneous lynchings. Cris asks someone in uniform if he can photograph the mess, and Peter brandishes our Lebanese press credentials. This elicits mirthless laughter, and the promise that, if we're contemplating trying our luck anyway, plainclothes spotters are lurking. I pa.s.s the time by calling the Syrian Ministry of Information in Damascus, seeking a.s.surance that we'll be allowed to take pictures once across the border, if we ever get across the border. A typically circular Middle Eastern conversation ensues.

"You will need accreditation from us."

It's the kind of thing the Syrian emba.s.sy in London might have mentioned when we applied for press visas. How do we get that?

"From here in Damascus."

A bit late now, but out of academic interest, is there any other way?

"No."

But we want to take pictures on the way. It's kind of the point.

"Yes, you will need accreditation from us."

In Damascus.

"Yes."

Sensing that this discussion could occupy us both until the sun collapses on itself, extinguishing all human life and reducing our planet to a dead ball of frozen carbon, I ask how the functionary how he rates our chances of making it to Damascus unarrested so long as we don't photograph anything that looks military.

"You will need accreditation from us here in Damascus."

I'm gnawing gaily on my phone when Peter tugs on my sleeve, having somehow negotiated the impenetrable queue on our behalf.

"I have found some friends here," he grins, "we can go."

For two countries so close together, and with so intertwined a history, Lebanon and Syria do their best to keep their distance. Between the two frontiers is seven kilometres of black asphalt ribbon winding through rocky red jebels, lined with trucks awaiting permission to cross. There's one immense-and startling-landmark in this no-man's land: a huge, gleaming duty free mall, like an extension to Singapore's Changi airport that got delivered to the wrong address, complete with a Dunkin' Donuts franchise. The Syrian border itself is marked by faded stone arches bearing the portraits of Hafez al-a.s.sad, who ruled Syria for thirty years from 1970, and Bashar al-a.s.sad, the young British-educated ophthalmologist who inherited the family business upon his father's death in 2000. Bashar was never supposed to become president-the heir was always his elder brother Basel, who forfeited his place in the succession when he crashed his Mercedes-Benz in Damascus in 1994, with fatal consequences. As if to banish any doubts about who is in charge now, the road beyond the border is punctuated at approximately ten-metre intervals with images of Bashar overlaid with a fingerprint in the colours of the Syrian flag, above the dedication, "We love you." With only a few gaps, these continue all the way into Damascus.

Peter pulls into a petrol station, the forecourt of which is plastered with posters of a.s.sad Jr. and Nasrallah (since last summer's war, perceived throughout the Arab world as a victory for Hezbollah and a humiliation for Israel, Hezbollah's clenched-fist-and-Kalashnikov logo has also begun to appear in Syria with a frequency that can only be officially encouraged). The petrol is cheaper here, Peter explains-twenty litres costs US$15 in Lebanon, $11 in Syria. Once on the road, he slams his foot down, the identical a.s.sads lining the central reservation whipping by in a blur like an extremely low budget animation. I ask him if he's just taking advantage of the better road.

"Partly that," translates Sheila. "But also because here you can fix anything with money."

(A couple of days later, we'll see the truth of this when Peter, having collected us from Damascus, eases our surprisingly unhara.s.sed progress back into Lebanon by palming a quant.i.ty of notes to Syrian border guards).

It gradually becomes clear that there's another, more fundamental reason for Peter's haste: he doesn't really want to be in Syria, especially not with a journalist and a photographer who still don't have the proper credentials from Damascus. Most of Cris's requests to stop the car so he can take pictures meet a flat, "No. Not here," and when Peter does pull up by some roadside fruit stalls, near the town of Dimas, the extravagant greetings of the fourteen-year-old proprietor, Bilal-"Welcome in Syria!"-do little to calm him. Peter's agitation is initially a little difficult to take seriously. I've travelled in many police states, and it's no exaggeration to say that the fear can seem part of the weather, as tangible as sunshine or rain. Syria doesn't feel like that to me-the only soldier we see in the short rush from the border to Damascus waves to us-but it certainly does to Peter.

"You have to understand," Peter says, "they won't just take the cameras. They will take you to the police station."

He's also asking me to understand that while the probable worst that could befall myself and Cris would be a recital of the Riot Act and deportation, matters might be much less amusing for a Lebanese citizen accused of ferrying foreign spies. Back in the car, even though Cris resigns himself to photographing on the move, his every click of the shutter provokes winces from Peter and exclamations of, "Oh my G.o.d. Forget about it," from Sheila, especially as we pa.s.s through the area that harbours the now closed but still fearful Mezze prison.

The geography has become less hospitable, as well. Lebanon is green, fertile and hilly, much more reminiscent of Italy or Greece than of any preconceptions of Arabia. Syria is desert, a beige sea of sand, and while the view as we hurtle to Damascus has a certain rugged grandeur, it's hard to enjoy it properly for the inescapable gaze of the president, staring peevishly from hundreds of posters. Peter and Sheila only cheer up once, upon noticing that one silver Mercedes, which briefly pulls up alongside us before disappearing at hilarious speed, contains Nancy Ajram, the Lebanese pop starlet, whom we've already seen, back on the other side of the border, pouting from dozens of Coca-Cola billboards.

SAUL OF TARSUS'S journey to Damascus ended at an address on the Street which is called Straight (Acts 9:11), and so does ours-at least after a diversion via Syria's Ministry of Information where, with the aid of a wall-sized panoramic photograph of Damascus, the press officer who issues our accreditation outlines which parts of the city we are permitted to take pictures of.

In Damascus, the world's oldest continually inhabited city, the New Testament is almost a street directory, and the Street which is called Straight is now the main artery of the Old City's bustling souk. Somewhere along here, at the home of a man named Judas, Saul received baptism and salvation from a disciple called Ananias. All I got was a scoop of the fabulous local ice cream from the famous Bakdash cafe, and a camel-hair rug for the hall (still, as Saul/Paul would later write to Timothy: "And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content"-1 Timothy 6:8). The deal for the carpet is sealed after the traditional hour's worth of tea, amiable bickering over the price, and survey of Middle Eastern politics.

"We're actually pretty busy," says the young shopkeeper, in impeccable English. "It's still a surprise to me. After 9/11, we started getting more Americans coming here-they seem to want to find out more about the Middle East."

Angling for a neat validation of the Road to Damascus metaphor, I ask if he thinks any of them have left his shop, or his country, with their minds changed about anything.

"I don't think so," he grins. "They still don't understand us, and we still don't understand them. But it's nice that they try."

20.

CALIFORNIA SCREAMING.

Courtney Love in Los Angeles OCTOBER 1991.

THIS IS THE THE oldest story in this book, and very arguably the proverbial oldest story in the book: of a determined young woman with a dream descending upon Hollywood. Courtney Love-for it is she-is a name that will now be known to most readers, which is, I suppose, in the way of these things, what she would have desired when she first determined to fling herself upon the mercy of Tinseltown. While revisiting this piece, I spent some time perusing Courtney's audaciously punctuated postings on various websites, attempting to determine whether she sounded like someone who'd got what she wanted or-and this is always the more difficult trick-wanted what she'd got. Given that Courtney now chooses to communicate in a dialect similar to that of a relative newcomer to the English language on mushrooms undertaking an elementary typing module on a trawler adrift in a typhoon while a stoned kitten staggers back and forth across her keyboard, gleaning definitive insights proved difficult. oldest story in this book, and very arguably the proverbial oldest story in the book: of a determined young woman with a dream descending upon Hollywood. Courtney Love-for it is she-is a name that will now be known to most readers, which is, I suppose, in the way of these things, what she would have desired when she first determined to fling herself upon the mercy of Tinseltown. While revisiting this piece, I spent some time perusing Courtney's audaciously punctuated postings on various websites, attempting to determine whether she sounded like someone who'd got what she wanted or-and this is always the more difficult trick-wanted what she'd got. Given that Courtney now chooses to communicate in a dialect similar to that of a relative newcomer to the English language on mushrooms undertaking an elementary typing module on a trawler adrift in a typhoon while a stoned kitten staggers back and forth across her keyboard, gleaning definitive insights proved difficult.

That said, I'd still advise skimming through this story until you get to the bits in quotation marks. My first-timer's observations of Los Angeles are trying rather too hard-though I've not warmed to the place overmuch on subsequent visits-but Courtney's thoughts, when laid out correctly spelled and punctuated, are interesting and perceptive. I think she already understood that the notoriety she craved was likely to prove more a poisoned chalice than a holy grail-and this, remember, was at a time when her "fame" barely extended further than two clubs in Hollywood and one pub in Camden Town, and pretty much the only publication taking much interest in Courtney was the one that had sent me to interview her.

That publication was Melody Maker Melody Maker, which had been first aboard the Courtney Love bandwagon thanks to my predecessor as the paper's reviews editor, Everett True. I'm dedicating this chapter to ET, now virtually resident at everetttrue.wordpress.com, and actually resident in Brisbane, Australia, for two reasons. First and foremost, by way of grat.i.tude for printing in Melody Maker Melody Maker an unsolicited review of Straitjacket Fits at Sydney's Lansdowne Hotel in 1989, which I posted to him on spec from the old country when the idea of writing for an unsolicited review of Straitjacket Fits at Sydney's Lansdowne Hotel in 1989, which I posted to him on spec from the old country when the idea of writing for Melody Maker Melody Maker was, for me, what the idea of being a globally famous rock star was for Courtney at around the time I met her. Had Everett not approved my scribblings for print, the last twenty years of my life would, I suspect, have been altogether less entertaining (it's also possible that, somewhere back home, there's some girl I never met who'll never know what a debt she owes him). Second, and more pertinently to this story, I'd like to thank Everett for offering what is still the wisest advice I've ever been given before embarking on an a.s.signment. "For the love of all that is wonderful," counseled the great man, the day before I left, "do not give that woman your home phone number." was, for me, what the idea of being a globally famous rock star was for Courtney at around the time I met her. Had Everett not approved my scribblings for print, the last twenty years of my life would, I suspect, have been altogether less entertaining (it's also possible that, somewhere back home, there's some girl I never met who'll never know what a debt she owes him). Second, and more pertinently to this story, I'd like to thank Everett for offering what is still the wisest advice I've ever been given before embarking on an a.s.signment. "For the love of all that is wonderful," counseled the great man, the day before I left, "do not give that woman your home phone number."

"PEOPLE WANT ME to be evil," shrugs Courtney Love. She yawns, again. Her blonde hair is so intricately and exuberantly tangled that it almost looks like the rest of her is but a life support system for the extravagant thatch on top. "People want me to be evil because of how I come across on stage and on record. People really, really do want me to be evil. And I'm really kind of not."

She doesn't seem especially evil so far. She's been making sure my gla.s.s is full, worrying that the noise of Nirvana soundchecking upstairs is going to sod up the interview tape, hara.s.sing someone from Nirvana's crew about getting a friend of mine on the guest list for tonight's show and telling me that we can do all this later if I'd rather go back to my hotel and have a nap, because I really do look very tired. I've come to Los Angeles to meet rock'n'roll's new screaming witch vixen harpy she-devil, and I feel like I'm having tea with someone's aunt.

We're in a dressing room backstage at the Palace Theatre in Hollywood. Tonight, Courtney Love's band, Hole, will open here for Nirvana. Somewhere above and behind us, Nirvana's soundcheck continues, the usual formless racket of clonking drums, squawking guitars and amplified mumbling about monitors. The other three members of Hole are also in the room, sitting on plastic chairs or the floor. Jill Emery, who never says anything at all, plays ba.s.s. Eric Erlandson, who is the least a.s.suming lead guitarist-and possibly the least a.s.suming human being-I've ever met, doesn't say anything either. Carolyn Rue, who has a stud in her chin and plays drums, says things only when Courtney's mouth is otherwise occupied drinking or eating, and then mostly says things about Courtney.

"She's not evil, no," says Carolyn. "She's . . . not impossible, but she's difficult. Difficult because she's got something in her mind that's going this fast, and for someone else to pick it up, they've got to be thinking just as fast, because then she's onto the next thing, and if you're not keeping up, you get lost really quickly."

I'm beginning to get the idea. Courtney has a knack of answering questions before they're asked, accepting compliments before they're offered, spotting every gambit from six moves away.

"Don't jaywalk on Hollywood Boulevard," says Courtney, apropos of nothing. "The cops hang around on the corners busting tourists to make up their quotas. I'm serious."

LOS ANGELES-BASICALLY Tehran with film studios-is horrible. It's ugly and it smells bad and contains a greater density of humourless and desperately stupid people than anywhere on earth. When the big earthquake finally comes, it will cause billions of dollars' worth of improvements.

Los Angeles is annoying in all the ways you knew it was going to be annoying, and that's kind of annoying in itself. People really do tell you to have a nice day. Restaurant staff do actually say, "Hi, I'm Wayne, and I'll be your waiter." And they still smile pleasantly and vapidly at you if you respond, "G'day, I'm Andrew, and I'll be your customer," or, "Cool! Can I meet the bloke who washes the dishes, as well?" or even, "Mate, I don't care what your name is, as long as you keep your thumb out of my soup."

But Los Angeles is, as advertised, a city where miracles happen. On my first afternoon in Hollywood, as I'm walking, jetlagged and blinking, along Sunset Strip, a car screeches to a tyre-scorching halt on the road next to me. For a second, I wonder if I've just been discovered or if I'm about to get shot. Then Barry gets out of the car. Barry is a friend of mine from Sydney who was staying with me in London three months ago before going off to drive round America. He is possibly the only person in the entire North American continent who'd recognise me. When he left my flat, he forgot his leather jacket, which I have been borrowing regularly since. In fact, I realise, as he walks towards me looking like someone who's just found a pterodactyl in his broom closet, I'm wearing it right now.

"There you are," I say, handing him the jacket. "You forgot this."

It is, yes, just like a movie.

"We'll always have Paris," says Barry.

COURTNEY SAYS THAT her band couldn't have come from any city but Los Angeles, though she knows that Hole are not a Los Angelean band, at least not a proper one. Courtney seems to be one of those people who need to define themselves against what they're not, and if she's trying to define herself as against shallowness, complacency and inexorable idiocy, then she's come to the right place.

"When I first moved here and started this band," she explains, "I lived a block away from Hollywood Boulevard."

On Hollywood Boulevard, there are shops that sell "Rock Star Accessories." They are not joking. n.o.body in Los Angeles ever is. I bought a new leather jacket in one of these shops, because Barry wanted his back. The man in the shop told me that the jacket I'd bought would "look real cool with maybe one of these portraits of Axl Rose or the dude from Skid Row airbrushed on the back." He wasn't joking either, though I definitely laughed.

"Yeah," continues Courtney. "Right near those shops. Anyway, the building my apartment was in was near this thing called the Guitar Inst.i.tute of Technology. It's this school, a college, it's really expensive, and it's full of kids with trust funds from all over America learning how to play heavy metal guitar like Steve Vai. So, in every other f.u.c.king apartment in my building, there was a guy from G.I.T."

I maintain that this is the only city in the world where n.o.body among the school's founders would have noticed the initials.

"And so all day and all night it was like freeeeeeeowwww bwam bwam bwam widdly widdly skreeeeee widdly widdly, like really f.u.c.king loud. Anyway. We, I mean, Hole, my band, we had a couple of practices in my room, and in seconds, all these heavy metal kids would be banging on the door yelling 'Hey! What the f.u.c.k are you doing?'"

This can only be a recommendation.

The first song Courtney ever learned to play was Iggy Pop's "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Eric's was "Rock'N'Roll All Nite" by Kiss. Jill first made her parents wince with the riff from The s.e.x Pistols' "G.o.d Save The Queen," and Carolyn first hit things along to The Psychedelic Furs' "Sister Europe." Hole's debut alb.u.m, Pretty On The Inside Pretty On The Inside, sounds a bit like all of these without sounding quite like any of them.

"What do you mean?"

I have no idea. Actually, Hole remind me mostly of The Go-Go's, whom they sound nothing like at all. Something to do with being Californian but not taking it seriously.

"We used to play 'This Town' live."

That was always my favourite Go-Go's song. It was about being Californian but not taking it seriously.

"I'm pleased you mentioned them," says Courtney. "I like it when people say we do good pop songs. I'm really getting into songwriting as a craft, so maybe our next alb.u.m will be more like a tribute to The Beach Boys. Or maybe not. But I do know that we are still evolving, and that there's a pop consciousness out there that I really don't know anything about. But it's nice of you to say that."

I didn't. She did. We'll let it go. I wonder if I should pursue The Go-Go's a.n.a.logy further, through the fame and the drugs and the split-ups and breakdowns, and tell Courtney that I think it'd be just great if, in ten years from now, she was all respectable and designer-clothed and married to a besuited Republican party drone and plaguing the world's airwaves with anodyne radio ballads.

"I know this record is really bilious and black-hearted in a lot of ways, but there's a lot of other s.h.i.t in us . . ."

Courtney gets up and goes outside to get some more coffee. A slight blonde bloke with red eyes and black and grey stubble comes in, says something to Eric, then nods at me and asks after another writer at Melody Maker Melody Maker. I have half an idea that I know this guy from somewhere, but I can't place him, so I just a.s.sure him that our mutual friend is fine, or at least was last time I saw him.