Above is the site where mild-mannered me once found myself bent over the hood of a police car and frisked. Perhaps at the end of this alley you can make out a staircase, which leads to the roof. That is also a stairway to mischief.

It was late high school, and I had been looking at a book called The Doors: The Illustrated History. There were some pictures of them on a rooftop overlooking Los Angeles, and I decided what our band Zen needed was some rooftop pictures. The singer and I scouted this location one day, since the Square is the only urban-looking location in the county.

We returned with the rest of the band and these two girls I knew. One was a black girl who was some sort of combination of goth, hippie and impudent. The other was another little white hippie nut who had a old-timey black-and-white camera, the kind with an accordion hanging off the front. The high-contrast graininess the camera produced was going to look perfect for our retro band's pics.

The photo session was going fine until the black-goth-hippie girl decided to grab a handful of gravel and fling it off the roof to where cars were passing on the street below. I knew that was a bad move. We heard a horn honk and realized we needed to beat it off the roof ASAP. As we descended the staircase I heard the white hippie girl say, "They're coming!" They who? Oh, shit.

Our drummer rounded the corner first and saw a cop car pulling into the alley. He threw a leg over the edge of the staircase and escaped unseen. Our frequent guest Scott laughed a nervous laugh and escaped behind the drummer. The singer, the two freaky hippie chicks and I weren't so lucky, though.

Up against the car, longhairs! So here we were, over the hood and being frisked! Holy shit! To help smooth things out the black-goth-hippie girl mused out loud, "They'll probably grab my tampon."

"Will you shut up?," I growled through gritted teeth.

"Bambi!" the white girl pleaded.

"You might as well fuck with them while you can," she said as a female cop's hands ran down her ribcage. Knowing what those girls might have had in their purses, it's really a wonder I'm not writing to you from the state pen.

Then the owner of the building made an appearance to deliver a message to us meddling kids, our Great Dane and our Mystery Machine. "These buildings are over 100 years old! The roofs could collapse very easily!" Okay, then I have a tip for you, sir -- don't have a staircase that practically invites me up there!

Anyhow...I got out of that, my one-and-only brush with the law. The white hippie chick actually found me on the Internet recently, but y'know...I looked at her MySpace and thought maybe some people need to remembered fondly for the place and time they occupied in your life...and stay there. I'm too old for prison.