06/26/04 - Los Angeles, Avril Lavigne and 50 Cent

We had a schedule from hell: 48 hours packed with three shows and not enough naps for my taste.

After our show at The Viper Room (which was excellent - wonderful club) i headed around the block to collect myself. Towards the end of the night I went down to the little hotel bar with our manger for a nightcap (Brian was already in LaLaLand). I bumped into Avril Lavigne in the bathroom. Every single one of my mothering insticnts (coupled with my meglomaniacal insticts) kicked in and I started wondering....what could I possibly say to this girl that would be meaningful? I wanted to reach down her throat, grab her soul and give it a sound shaking.

She was trashed, however, and we instead talked about my eyebrows. I told her about the band. We wound up sitting across a table from each other and I swear to god, I couldn't keep my eyes off her. Here is this young pop starlet, only 19, and I feel like she represents the past and the future all at once. I wanted, at her age, to be in her position so bady...making records, being seen and heard, the focus of everyone's attention...but instead I was hiding out, more or less, stewing and fermenting.

And thank god I didn't get my wish, I think nowadays...if I had been in her position when I was 19 I'd be fucked right now. I wouldn't have learned anything about anything. I wouldn't have had a chance to live life, have "normal" relationships (hilarious, isn't that) scrape together rent, and generally fuck around trying to figure it all out. But I see here, in these mascara-heavy eyes peering at me through their purple cosmo: is she the future i've set in store for myself? This girl can't walk into a bar without everyone taking note and acting excited or desperatley non-chalant. She's famous.

And what are we? We just sold out our first show in LA, we're getting rotation on MTV, we're getting known...is this what I'm in store for? Avril looks so desperate in a way, sprawling across that armchair on her girlfriend's lap, screaming pop songs at the top of her lungs, knowing that the world and the bar is her audience, whether they like it or not. She's only 19. I was certainly drunk nearly every night back then. Good night, Avril...I hope real life comes to you in the form of a smashed cosmopolitan.

On another, even more ridiculous, note....50 Cent was on our plane back from LA.
I met him briefly and gave him our disc, which he seemed moderatly fascinated by.

I addressed him as "Mr. Cent" and he told me very graciosuly that I could call him "Fitty".

Apparently he has some new porn flicks in the works, and I will be strongly considered
if he is in need of an "intellectual, suburban white girl".

Onto Paris.