Whatever Happened to Chet Thompson?

Ranter: Shaved-headed White Dude, mid-40s, in black hoodie and beret

Location: Waiting for No. 2 bus, West Hollywood

Time: 11 p.m., Sat., Oct. 16

Topics covered: Whether buses can be proved to exist; the possibility of a duplicate Earth; time travel; Slayer fandom as mortal sin; payola; real heavy metal; Chet Thompson's upside-down guitar solos; how to tell Mozart from Bach

The Rant:

Shaved-headed White Dude: Is this bus theoretical? Is it actually coming? I've been walking up and down here for God knows how long, and none of us knows if it's coming. They know we're here, but we don't know if they are. They've got the spy boxes, and the satellites — we can't see those. They've got this all set up so it looks like Earth, but Earth B has all this spy shit on it everywhere. That's how you can tell.

If one country, just one bunch of fuckers, can spin a black hole fast enough, they'll rip time. Then every other country — Poland and Warsaw and everybody — they can get their own time hole, and we wouldn't ever know. They could have done it already, and we'd never know, and we'll just end up spending the rest of our fucking lives waiting right here. ...

[Bus approaches. In midthought, SHWD dashes to the front of the line. He boards and immediately begins chatting up a Latino kid in a Slayer shirt.

You like Slayer?

[Slayer Kid nods.]

Their first album fucking rocks, but I'm Catholic, and they're satanic, so, whatever.

[Slayer Kid nods.]

What we should do is turn back time to before payola ruined the Strip. Right around the time of Guns N' Roses, you could see everyone — Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P., Accept. That was heavy metal, man, real heavy metal.

[Slayer Kid closes eyes.]

I wonder what happened to Chet Thompson. 2002, 2003, we signed him to Hollywood Records, recorded him with Dio's band. He could shred like nobody else. He rocked his guitar upside down, and he'd play these wild Mozart solos — do-da-da do-da-da do-da-da-do—

Slayer Kid: That's Toccata and Fugue.

Shaved-headed White Dude: No, it's not Toccata's. It's Mozart. It's in five parts.

[Slayer Kid closes eyes again.]

Chet Thompson, man. I wonder what ever happened to him.