| Paulie Gonzalez
Paulie learned to read and write in Trenton State Prison while serving
3-5 on a crime he did not commit to memory.
Las Vegas Punk!
I hadn't had the chance to order my first drink when a local stopped me and tried to sell me a $300 Coop poster. He spotted my bowling shirt covered with Coop's art including a large naked devil girl on the back. He was a local rocker with greasy hair and sideburns, wearing a t-shirt of some punk band I never heard of. It is Friday night and I'm in the Cooler Lounge, a punk rock bar far away from the strip in North Las Vegas. North Vegas is a slum and a graveyard. It's hard to recognize that you are in the fucked up part of town if you are an east coaster like myself. There are no filthy high rise projects, no burned out lots, steel storefront gates, or window bars. The drunks on the streets aren't laying in the gutter, they are driving around in old cars with no license plates. I was there to see a local band called “The Lucky Stiffs” who had been recommended to me by a local via the internet on lvpunk.com. I didn't expect to find much of a scene in Vegas mostly due to my chauvinistic cynical opinion that New York is the center of the punk universe. What I found made me want to quit my job, sell my apartment, drive my GTO into the setting sun, and write this article on my glorious weekend of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in Sin City. I go to Vegas frequently. My father is a pro poker player. He is getting married this weekend and I'm the best man -Elvis is performing the ceremony. In the past dozen times I came to the city, I failed to find the local flavors. I went to the big casinos, played craps, and drank at the hotel bars. I could never get laid here because of all the hookers. Several times in the casinos I sat drinking and tried to pick up several beautiful girls hanging around alone. After a drink or two, a few laughs at my bad jokes, and heavy flirting, I would always get an offer to “"Go up to your room?"” Holy Shit! Yeah baby, let's go! To which the dame would reply -”"$500." So I always shuffled off emasculated with a broken ego. Turns out I was just in the wrong neighborhood. When you're on the tour with the tourists, you get the tourist treatment. But I am not here to piss my money away on gambling, hookers, and buffets. I'm here to find a new level of self destruction and depravity. Sure, I can do that in New York, but I was taught you don't shit where you eat. So off to North Las Vegas and the Cooler Lounge, where everyone was amazed that I live in NJ. “"You don't live here? How did you find this place?" I became an instant celebrity, lots of finger pointing, exchanging of business cards, phone numbers scrawled on napkins, and candid conversations of the type you only have with people you trust you will never see again. I even got a piece of ass on Saturday night, but the details of that I doubt even Larry Flynt would publish. Ah, yes, back to the bar. The Coop poster peddler is still telling me about his art for sale, over a hundred posters, several signed. I think to myself 'Fuck off.' He tells me he has a roommate who knows Coop. I tell him I need to get a drink. Coop sells his stuff on the Internet and if I wanted to I could buy it direct from the artist. Besides, I'm not here to buy art! I tell him for the third time I need a drink and he goes off to talk to the band. I find a hole in the middle of the bar and wave a hundred at the bartender. In Vegas, nobody blinks at a hundred dollar bill. After serving three or four other drunks he comes over and asks what I need. “Sapphire and tonic, he simply gives me a puzzled look, I ask more specifically “Sapphire GIN and tonic, he tells me he doesn't have Sapphire and I settle for Tanqueray. After he pours it he asks if I want a lime, remembering that I am not in NJ, I resist the temptation to smash a beer bottle across his face, and nod with a smile. I sit down and watch the band set up. The bar is large by East coast standards. A long bar with almost 50 seats, several couches and tables, a large 3 ft high stage and an open area in the back. There are almost 150 people here, all locals. I am impressed with the number of pretty girls. Several look like dancers. I'm thinking to myself that Vegas has a thousand show girls, and some of them must be into the punk scene, so here they are! The guy next to me starts asking about my shirt. Not the fucking shirt again! He doesn't know who Coop is, he just notices the Speed Equipment patch. Turns out he's a gearhead who drives a 68 Roadrunner convertible with a 440. We talk cars for awhile and two tall gorgeous girls come by and say hello, both give him a hug and kiss but he fails to introduce me. They wander away and I comment to him on the number of hot girls here and tell him my dancer theory. I'm wrong, the blonde is his girlfriend and not a go-go dancer. He takes mild offense, but isn’t looking for a fight. The band breaks into their first song and a dozen or so rockers form a small crowd in front of the stage. I'm prepared to start telling people how great the east coast is and that they are missing all that is good and punk in the world, but The Lucky Stiffs rocked! They had an old school fast pace with a high energy singer that reminded me of Iggy Pop. The Stiffs played pure rock-n-roll with original orchestration. I found myself standing up and shouting approval. My new gearhead friend kept leaning into my face and screaming, "YEAH!"” with a huge grin. A tall girl near the stage removed her shirt and danced in her bra with another girl. They played for over 45 minutes and never lost any energy. The bartender kept my drinks coming and the place was alive and partying as if we just overthrew the government on New Year's Eve. It's just another Friday night in Vegas. Five girls next to me who I also suspected to be showgirls were loudly laughing and shouting and dancing and drinking. One of them grabbed my ass and accused her friend, which resulted in much more laughing and shouting, followed by a round of shots. Gearhead leans to me and ask if I get high, “sure, what do you got? He tells me he has some rare strain of Vegas weed that will get me “really high, "Awesome shit!" His girl returns and hops on his lap. I buy a round of drinks and we go out front to the parking lot to smoke. In his car he keeps telling me to keep the pipe down, he says this nervously and looks around. I am thinking this happens all the time here, but I'm wrong, he is obviously scared the bar will call the cops or come out here and mace us. I explain that in NJ, we just lock the doors and smoke in the bar while junkies tie off in the corner and street hookers work the bathrooms. He seems to believe me. Blondie does not indulge herself, but instead turns into a real bitch. We talk about cars again and she gives us dirty looks and crosses her arms. She doesn't want to see the next band or hang around with this drunk tourist from NJ. I ignore her and return to encouraging her boyfriend to spend more time drunk and stoned. I further extoll the virtues of tearing up the streets in a 30 year old musclecar while screaming some punk-rock anthem. Gearhead leaves Barbie pouting in the parking lot as we go to see the next band who are already halfway through their set. I can't really remember much of the band, who are called“Slow To Surface. Perfect name because they are going nowhere. Gearhead is also disappointed with the band who play some tiresome MTV metal-rock. He says they where good last time he saw them, and is embarrassed he told me they were good. The crowd also shows their disapproval by ignoring them. I am impressed that this small scene isn't easily amused by anyone with a guitar and a bad haircut as so many small cities are. This is good, because on our return we are accosted by several of the showgirls”. I am surrounded by four lively drunk models ranging from ages 21-30. A tall redhead starts talking in Arabic to prove she grew up in the Middle East. I learn that they are not models or dancers, just average Vegas girls. We flirt for several minutes, and she buys a round of drinks. She tells me that she is married and holds up her wedding ring to prove it. Her three girlfriends then clamor for my attention and hold up their naked ring fingers to let me know they are NOT married! But what does this have to do with punk rock? No more talk of wild women, after all, I am a gentleman. The band is still playing and a girl starts screaming at the stage, "YOU SUCK!! YOU FUCKING SUCK!"” The band ignores her, and during the break between songs I join in, “"FUCK YOU, YOU SUCK!" Somewhere in the craziness I am left by Gearhead, driving home now with Blondie, who is removing his balls with her fingernails. It's 3 AM and the bar starts to clear out. I am talking to a cutie who takes me out into the parking lot to smoke something from northern California. She offers me a ride to my hotel, but explains that her house is right around the corner, so close we could walk. I miss the hint in my stupor and head back into the bar. She drives away alone. I ask someone when the bar closes, he tells me that they never close, everyone might leave, but the bar doesn't close. I ask myself, “Is Las Vegas heaven?” But he is right, I look around and there are only about a dozen drunks in the bar. I ask the bartender to call me a cab. He calls and after finishing a drink I head outside to wait. 45 minutes go by. I am getting pissed off, he probably faked the call, or canceled. I start to walk away, to the Texaco gas station on the corner. Bartender steps out and yells to me -”"Do you want me to cancel that taxi?" "Fuck you," I reply, "what taxi?" He says that it takes an hour for a taxi to come to this neighborhood. I am fucking shocked. In NJ/NY if you call a taxi it takes ten minutes no matter where you are, and if they get a call from a bar, it takes two minutes. I stagger back to the curb and wait 20 minutes more. I give up and walk to the Texaco. The pumps are on and every few minutes I see a car careen into the lot for a few bucks of low octane fuel. The convenience store portion is locked and I bang on the door. An Asian guy opens the door and lets me in. On the shelves is the usual gas-station stock, candy bars, soda, chips, toilet paper, etc. But they also have an isle of beer and wine, and another isle of hard liquor. I buy a gallon of Jack Daniel's, a Slim-Jim, and a pack of Lucky's. I ask him to call me a taxi, “"No, we don’t do that." I go to the pay phone and call my hotel. This is Vegas! The Hotel is used to crazy requests. I talk to Judy and tell her who I am, where I am, and that I need to get back to my room. She is genuinely afraid for me. “"Stay on the line, I'm calling them now."”When she returns she tells me they will be there in 15 minutes, and that I am in Northside, and that I really don't want to be there. She even tries to keep me on the phone talking. I thank her and hang up. I observed several maddened drunks driving in and out of the lots in circles, spinning tires, screaming out the windows, madness. I did not see one cop all night. The taxi was there in ten. When I walked into the casino/hotel, I heard my name being paged. I picked up the house phone. It was Judy. She wanted to make sure I made it back in one piece, perhaps so she could tell house cleaning to put back my things and the front desk to forget about making the records of my visit disappear. I order one more drink at the "Alligator bar" in the casino, stagger up to my room, and order room service. "I need a grilled ham and cheese, some fried catfish, and a strawberry sundae!" "Yes Sir, we'll send it right up." The clock reads 5:46 AM. Maybe the strip is losing its decadent character, but Vegas will never suffer the fate of Times square, and if you have a taste for the dark side North Vegas is for you. Saturday afternoon I was watching the local news. Through blurred vision and a foggy brain I viewed a report of a fatal shooting at a Texaco station the night before. Most Las Vegans were friendly and sociable, the party never ends. I was interupted during one conversation by a local who wanted the opinion of his new band name from the guy next to me. It was something really bad, and I asked, "How about Fuck Your Mother?" I stood up and gave him a hard stare. He didn't flinch, just laughed and said it would be a good punk name. This was one of several fights I tried to start in the name of good journalism. Everyone was having too much fun to bother being tough guys. The Cooler lounge is a punk oasis in America's nuclear desert wasteland, just a few miles from the bright lights reaching into heaven to mark the Mecca of sin. If your think you're on a highway to hell it better be I-15 or else buy a plane ticket to LAS, rent the 59 Cadillac and point her North to the corner of Decataur and Lake Mead. Tell 'em Paulie from NJ sent you, but carry some MACE, just in case. |
© Erik Mintz 2002