`

The Stories Behind The Songs

Mary Is My Girl

Izzy once told me “Mary is my girl and I would do anything to protect her.”  I didn’t think much about these words as she said them, but this statement has resonated in my head for years.   

Isabel Gutierrez was unlike any woman I had ever met before.  I knew she was out of my league, but I wasn’t about to let it show.   

I wasn’t inexperienced when it came to women, but of all the women I had been with prior, Izzy was by far, the most intriguing woman I’d ever met.   

We partied that Friday night until 4am at the warehouse. We shared our “weekend dare” idea with Mary and Izzy. Nothing was off limits.  They were happy to play along.  It became an elaborate game of Truth or Dare.  Devin got to kiss Mary on a dare. We made Andrew do unmentionable things in front of the girls in attendance.  We all laughed our asses off.  

This was the one and only time that I had ever done coke. It was on a dare, and I wanted to impress Izzy. I knew I was caving in to peer pressure, but I was hoping it would lead to bigger and better things with Izzy.  

We went back to Izzy’s apartment in Westwood and continued to party into the morning.  

I was drunk, high, and in full clown-mode with this woman.  All I wanted to do was make her laugh.  And that’s exactly what we did all night, right into the morning.  

Izzy was 25 years old.  During our game of truth or dare, I discovered that she was bi-sexual, and she preferred woman to men (although she had a soft spot for long haired musicians).  We made her and Mary kiss several times, much to our entertainment.  She was an avid music lover, but she preferred rock & metal.   

She used to be a dancer at the Seventh Veil on Sunset.  She was instrumental in getting Mary a job there.  They had been friends for many years.  They met at a club called the Odyssey when they were still underage.  It was a dance club for the under 21 crowd.  According to some of the stories that she told me, it was a pretty seedy place.  They used to do ecstasy and dance until 5am, among other things.  

Izzy was a dominatrix, and she liked to frequent fetish clubs.  During her time at the Seventh Veil, she had accrued a clientele of businessmen that paid her a lot of money to whip them into submission, quite literally.  She told me Hollywood is a weird place with lots of fetish types.    

What these men, mostly corporate types, wanted to have done to them was the primary reason why she thought men were disgusting.  But this afforded her a lifestyle she had grown accustomed to, as well as paying her way through college at UCLA.  

Izzy was born in Los Angeles, but her parents originally emigrated from Columbia. She was thin with an athletic frame.  Without her stiletto heels, she was still tall at 5’9”, a trait she accredits to her father.  Her hair was dark brown and hung down to the middle of her back.  

She also had an unusual interest in politics, especially with regards to Los Angeles and its city council.  She was even acquainted with some of its council members on a first name basis.  

Another fascinating point about Izzy was that she owned an actual samurai, prominently displayed as you walked into her swanky Westwood apartment.  She actually owned a collection of exotic knives, in addition to owning a gun that she kept in her purse for personal safety.  

She wasn’t a big fan of organized religion.  She scoffed at how stupid the idea of religion was to her.  She believed in spirituality, but she would not tolerate religion, especially Catholicism.  This left a bad taste after years of Catholic school and the nuns in her youth.   

She was a practicing witch and proud to be. This was my first encounter with anyone outside of the Christian mindset, but I was trying to keep an open mind.  She enlightened me about the Wiccan lifestyle.  She was fascinating and I was trying to keep up.  

Unlike Mary, Izzy wasn’t an extrovert.  She was quiet until she got to know you.  I found her to be quite the intellectual, albeit she was shrouded in mystery.  She was both intelligent and beautiful.  We talked for hours. I don’t think we slept at all.   

When everyone else woke up, we had pancakes and then made plans to hit the beach.