LA Brats

I was watching a documentary about coming of age in the nineteen nineties told by a bright young girl with a bright future and a hit signature show on NBC. Not bad for a seven year old. She is candid, honest ( sometimes embarrassingly so I would imagine). The information and film footage is gritty and real. The presentation is pure and captivating. It’s like watching a train wreck, YOU CANT STOP. Except this train wreck is being operated by all your favorite teen stars from the 90’s.

As I was watching I became uncomfortable and started to become fidgety. Then what was so obvious finally sank in. She was telling the same story that I lived in the 80’s minus the celebrity aspect in our group. But the rest of the necessities needed for this type of story were very apparent. It was a time of excess, we all lived in the surrounding cities to Hollywood. Cities like Brentwood, Northridge, Chatsworth, Calabasas, Bell Canyon and Canoga Park. Took weekend trips, all the time , to Palm Springs and stayed in family dwellings. We were in your face, at times arrogant, but always the lives of the party. We went from no name underground clubs Downtown to a Shieks clam bake in the Marina. From the Hills to the Valley there wasn’t a party that we didn’t get invited to.

We called ourselves ‘the brats’ and usually lived up to it. A few of us even had personal license plates with the word brat in it. We drove cabriolets ( the VW) Audi, Porsche and anything else foreign. Most of us unfortunately got DUI’s for our stupid antics. No one was ever hurt. Thank God we successfully grew out of this. To look back at our photos you can somewhat imagine how everyone will grow up, once they grow up. The fresh faced, the university route, the career minded, the industry, the lost and also the one who would be crying out for help but masked so quietly no one could see.

As the documentary evolves we see our host through a camera and a live camera at that. That footage was cut with current footage. A couple people were not present for the latter. And that’s the point when our host mentions if someone only noticed the cries for he might not be dead. Wow! All that before 20. But this is Hollywood. It was fascinating to watch these kids grow up. Seeing how their career choices worked or not.

Back to my show it’s also been a privilege to watch the privileged become adults. The business owners, sports star, healer, stay at home moms, career women and so on. The guy I mentioned before that needed rescuing was rescued time after time. A few attempts at his own life, several rehabs, failed marriage and so on. This entire group is still with us on this planet and we all still communicate. Branches break off and meet for dinner at times.

New friends, new experiences, new responsibilities and prioritie. I still have a friendship with a small handful of the same people I write about. Now it’s kids, jobs, breakups and retirement accounts that dominate our conversation. Its funny because I still feel like im 26! Most of the time I do act 26. I think having a young son , at my age , has kept me a youthful adult.

I so appreciate the documentary I watched tonight as it walked me down memory lane. A lane I was never sure I would see this late in life