I was all of 13 years old back in November of 1984 when I dove headlong into the leap of sanity compelling me to bail from the familial homestead, preferring instead to pursue a personal quest to test the limits of the Kingdom of the Outland(-ish). I had to split home.

The lure of the "circus" that sprang up around the Olympic Games in L. A. that summer was too great a lure to deny my raging wanderlust. Runaways from everywhere were likewise driven to explore the delicious risks waiting on the fickle double edges of life¹s brutal knife.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I was disinclined to find out how easily I might be able to emulate "Angel" - the "portrait of a prostitute cum cheerleader" TV movie ­ you know the one I¹m talking about. Me & my "gang" of little punk street urchins had panhandled a tidy sum from the ubiquitous tourists in town for the circus of sports. We carefully weighed our consumption options : food, alcohol, drugs or entertainment?

Well, seeing as P.I.L. Social D. and the Butthole Surfers were playing the Grand Olympic Auditorium, a rough venue set squarely within the decidedly unglamorous urban industrial core of downtown, juxtaposed between East LA. and "south Los Angeles". By night, it was a gangland ghost town. The idea that bundles of grumpy punks would be drinking, fighting, corrupting preteen punkettes, and generally trying to out-punk each other amidst the threat of actual gang violence was enough to get every pig in the city lubing himself up to slip into riot gear.

Of course, the very thought of punks and pigs rioting in the streets was more than sufficient to convince me this was the place to be, by any means necessary. Short on dough yet determined to get in, we panhandled throughout the line. We split up to garner our dollars, bail out, or weasel in.

As it turned out, luck was mine for having briefly befriended a heavyset Hispanic dude in a bright yellow "Staff Pro" jacket. He was clearly more familiar with the potentially uncool situation I could be in stuck outside. He took me under his arm and slipped me inside.

After the show there was the hugest collection of cops congesting the streets all around the place just lying in wait to kick our asses. Really, you¹d think there was donut convention or something. Well, oblivious to my surroundings I was really glad that he did Œcos it was the show that would hook me into this stupid scene for the next ten years at least.

Once inside, I marveled at the sight of BHS clad gaudily in housecoats and curlers. The were forelit in blacklight and the flourescent neon paints they wore glowed in terrific accompaniment to the chaotic undulations of sound they were creating. It must¹ve been around the time they released "Locust Abortion Technician" and it was the wildest thing I could¹ve imagined seeing live. I had never before seen such a great collection of punkers and punklings assembled in one place. It was great.

I recently read in an old issue of fLIPSIDE an account by Gary Tovar, the promoter of those historic Olympic shows, who claimed that he would look down and see five slam pits going in the pattern of the Olympic logo. I don¹t know how he could¹ve seen anything so cohesive amidst that throbbing throng of bodies. All I could make out was the person standing right in front of me once I got down to the floor for P.I.L.

I must¹ve been hurling through the pit for all of 60 seconds before being nailed in the jaw by an elbow outta nowhere. I started to go down but hadn¹t even hit the ground before an enormous skinhead grabbed me. I have to admit I was still a bit fuzzy so I scarcely remember how the hell he managed to hoist me up onto his shoulders. But he did and I was able to watch the rest of the concert from atop a thrashing, six foot-five skinhead in the pit. Man, what a view. It was definitely more comfortable than where I might have ended up. Maybe not the brightest thing to do, but ah, the adventure of it all. P.I.L. were great, too. - KV