I was born in LA and lived there until I was 9. You could see the start of the Hollywood sign out my kitchen window. I remember looking at it right before I got under the table during my first earthquake.
I went to a private school in Laurel Canyon from preschool till the end of 3rd grade, which was the summer of 1988. We had frequent earthquake drills. That’s how I knew to get under a table and duck and cover when there was an earthquake.
A lot of famous people’s kids went there. There are things I did that I don’t even remember, like going to a birthday party for one of Frank Zappa’s kids. I guess it was Diva because she was born the same year as me.
But there are lots of things I do remember. Kurt ‘Jack Burton’ Russell’s son went there and had some kind of weird Peter Pan fetish (the character, not the peanut butter), he was always dressed up in a Peter Pan costume and running around being strange and pretending he could fly and whatnot. The iconic Bobby Womack’s son went there. This one time I kicked him in the head on the playground when we were fighting by swinging on a bar at him. It was dope, like some real swashbuckling type shit. He came over to play once and he got dropped off by a limo. He brought his copy of The Legend Of Zelda over and I was freaked out because he had given all his saved games names like ‘HOT SEX’ and ‘SEXY LOVE’. I didn’t really understand how those words made me feel, it just seemed like he was so advanced. This was, like, first or second grade.
I played Ding Dong Ditch with the nephew of Andy Williams. That was one of the best days of my life back then. I never got to do shit like that in MY neighborhood, my parents kept me on a short leash.
My homegirl’s dad directed that movie with the chick and the wolf and John Cusack on a train and of course we all saw it and talked about it at school. My best friend’s dad had done the lighting on The Goonies, which was already my favorite movie. My other friend’s dad produced Re-Animator and other wacky horror movies like From Beyond and went on to be one of the writers of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. One time I saw him playing The Legend Of Zelda at, like, 3 in the morning. I never could sleep at slumber parties and I was just wandering around and there he was, fucking up my homeboy’s game. Grown ups are weird.
I knew a girl named Tammy Glupczynski and years later I saw her on a young people’s episode of that game show Card Sharks. You know how there is always that older girl that just thinks you are super cute for some reason and makes you feel gross because you are too young to realize that’s a good thing? She used to chase me around the playground during recess. If I knew what I knew now, I totally would have tongued her down and then thrown a dirt clod at her. She was pretty. I tried to find her on Facebook and I think I did. She is still hot and just got married, based on the few pictures I was allowed to see. Not sure if it’s the first time or not, but anyway.
I went to auditions for a Disney Channel commercial and some show that never got made. Wasn’t called back. I think I’m in the background for some cheesy music video to an even cheesier version of ‘Everyday People’, though I don’t know why I remember that being the song. They filmed it at my school in front of the handball court. Gil ‘Buck Rogers’ Gerard used to come kick it at the school because he was friends with the drama teacher, Bobbie Chance aka Bobbie Shaw, who used to be in movies like Beach Blanket Bingo and things of that nature. What a perfect porn star name she had. Gil Gerard was on that show Sidekicks with that tiny ass Filipino kid that would jump kick all over your ass and it was one of my favorites cause I loved martial arts and that little dude, he was in Red Sonja and an episode of MacGyver and eventually in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
Breckin ‘Robot Chicken or Travis Birkenstock, take your pick’ Meyer also went to my school. We used to play a game called Buns Up together. It’s horrible that I had to write that last sentence, but it’s the truth. Buns Up is what people refer to in North Carolina as Spread. Ok, that sentence also sucked. Buns Up/Spread (and sometimes just Wall Ball) is one of those games where there are lots of kids throwing a tennis ball against a wall. You try to catch it, you fuck up and drop it, you gotta run and touch the wall before someone else hits it with the ball ... and if you don’t make it and it happens enough times, you gotta put your hands on the wall with your ass out and someone can bean you with the ball. I must have grown up with a bunch of private school softies, because I never saw anyone ever get really hit hard, people would either throw it at you super weak or throw it really fast at the wall, but making sure they missed. (I mean, there were fights and shit at school, I guess people just kept it sportsmanlike.) Anyway, me and ol’ Brizzeckin Mizzeyer would be all over the handball court during after school, getting our Buns Up on. Sometimes with a baseball glove. It would be mad fun when there were a bunch of people. This is not to be confused with 3 Flies Up which is totally different but does involve a lot of people and a ball.
I got other stories like the time I was at one of my friends’ private birthday parties at a 1950’s themed diner in Hollywood and there was a phone in our giant booth and the only number that worked was 911 and we started doing all these prank calls (my best one was “Hi, I’m in China. Can you tell me how to get to Knott’s Berry Farm?”) and we just kept on doing them and I dropped a fried zucchini under the table and while I was under there grabbing it I saw these 2 pairs of tough ass boots and slacks roll up and when I came back up cops were standing there and I was totally busted! But I should really move on.
When Drew Barrymore accosted me, I was play fighting with some of my friends during after school. It was 1985 or 1986, which means I would have been in first grade, and she would have been in the fifth. She was born in 1975, and I was born in 1979 - I was young for my grade because I was smart, technically I could have been in kindergarten. By this time she was already smoking cigarettes and maybe drinking, too. I mean, Wikipedia says she didn’t start drinking till 11, but what do they know. Maybe they read Little Girl Lost.
So me and Craig Ishihara and some other dude are pretending to fight with one another on the dirt field down by the front gate. Drew rolls up with her posse of vigilantes. Like, seriously. They are in triangle formation, with Drew, their leader, in the front. Behind her is a giant brunette on one side, and a less-memorable henchwoman on the other. They begin to yell at us on some tough love shit like they are the Guardian Angels and are going to reprimand us for fighting and my homeys run away while I hold my ground. I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I ain’t running from no girl. Praise Allah that I thought that or this story would be over.
So Drew senses my indignation because she takes it upon herself to teach me a lesson. She is fearless, and reeks of Riunite and Marlboros. Haha, just kidding, I don’t remember what she smelled like, I didn’t start sniffing girls until the mid 2000’s. Anyway, there was a little hill that her gang had come down on the way to the field. This hill ends with a low, wooden wall thing, like some kind of support system for the dirt. I don’t know shit about landscaping, but there it was. This hill is now behind me and Drew gives me a shove that sends me toppling over as the backs of my legs hit the wall. She then jumps on me, grabs me by the hair, and bashes my head on the ground. She yells “Jerk!” at me like she really means it.
At this point I am flummoxed. This girl has just laid me out and her friends are egging her on. My friends have totally bailed on me and are not offering any kind of retaliation. I mean, where are the dirt clods, the rocks, the pine cones? How come nobody has run and grabbed a whiffle ball bat or some other primitive playground weapon? I am learning quickly that girls can be a lot tougher than I gave them credit for. And that your friends are usually pussies. So I did what any other like-minded American in the same situation would have done. I ran away and I told on her.
Oh man, it felt good, what with the pointing and the “She called me a jerk!”-ing. I may have even thrown in some tears for effect. I remember looking down that hill at her and seeing the fear in her eyes as she realized that she was going to be in trouble with an after school counselor. Boy, you KNOW them after school counselors don’t play! She might have to sit on a bench for 5 minutes! BY HERSELF!!
And, um, that was pretty much it.
It was only after the fact that I found out who I had been assaulted by. One of the counselors told my mom when she picked me up that day. I was pumped that I had been in a row with a celebrity but I had no idea who she was. My mom tried to explain to me the movies that she had been in like Firestarter and such but I had to settle with “Oh yeah, it’s that girl from E.T.” since that was the only one of her movies I had seen.
Over the years that would follow, I told this story over and over, and often people wouldn’t believe me. When I came across one of my old yearbooks that had both her and me in it, it made its way into my collection of prized possessions that traveled with me everywhere I moved, like my first issue of Uncanny X-Men and the gun that my dad gave me. If I told someone the story and they tried to call bullshit on me, I would just show them the yearbook. In my twenties, I (apparently) would use it to try and get laid, since it was a thing I would show girls late-night when they were in my bedroom. I laugh to think that I did that, but I can see myself doing it in my head in so many different situations. It’s possible that I would start the Drew talk at the bar and elude to the yearbook back at my house. It’s like a repressed memory, I need to be wrapped tightly in a blanket and beaten to know for sure. But one of my ex-girlfriends that I am still super close with always reminisces jokingly about me taking her home and busting out my ‘Drew Barrymore Yearbook’.
I always thought that this would be a good story to tell one day on a talk show after I became a famous rapper/actor/director/model and returned to Hollywood. I figured Letterman would be the best since we all know he is obsessed with her and was arrested stealing dog turds from her yard back in 1997. But Letterman’s old now and now and Jimmy Fallon wouldn’t believe me even with the yearbook. So fuck it.
Seriously, I feel like I lost my virginity that day. My famous-actress-playground-fight virginity. How many of you are still holding on to THAT one, huh?? Yeah. I thought so.
