HONEYMOON of HORROR |
| Son of Satan Weds Daughter of the Devil in City of Sin - A Report from the Las Vegas Grind |
As many of you have noticed, I do my best to avoid comic book and monster
movie conventions. This is because very few women attend these shows, and I hate hearing
arguments over which 
X-Man is the strongest or watching boys drool over C-movie actresses. That is
why the Psychotronic Film Society has always met at bars. You have to be 21to get into our
events and able to drink, and women are more than welcome.
But there was one gathering that caught the Mistress of Mayhem’s eye, and that was the LAS VEGAS GRIND three-night music festival. Set for Las Vegas on Halloween weekend, 1999, it looked like the perfect place to set a wedding around and for both of us to for the first time explore the sin city.
America was built on sin cities and sinners. Throughout our history you
see the same pattern -- the wild ones move into the area. Prices and property values are
low. The educated, the sinners and the artistic move in, replacing the natives who speak
little English. The scenario plays out as nice restaurants and art galleries open, and
ultimately
those early pioneers are pushed out for the rush of new singles bars and chain stores.
Times Square goes from crack whore central and live sex shows on stage to Disney and
glitz. As if we were cursed to forever recreate what the early Americans did when they
discovered this place and its natives, those who first wrestled the area from the wild are
pushed aside.
Las Vegas is different. The very heart of Las Vegas was always greed. The
roots of that city simply can’t be pulled out and ignored the way we try to do with
our gangster past in Chicago. You run into names like Bugsy Siegel when you read the city
literature. Las Vegas has changed rapidly with the times, so that the gambling is only one
piece of the
puzzle of Vegas. But always you are reminded that this started with a wild dream of some
gangsters in the 1940s; they built a city in the middle of the desert and its roots
haven’t been eradicated the way the "spirit" of Times Square was. If you
didn’t travel beyond the Strip, you’d think the only jobs for women were as
dealers or showgirls. Gone are the expensive hookers hanging out at bars; families stay at
the hotels now. You can find cheap buffet, prime rib and shrimp cocktails -- but you can
also find terrific food created by master chefs. But you can never forget who built this
awesome playground for adults. How do you walk by the new Sands and NOT 
think of The Rat Pack? You
really can feel the history of Vegas when 
you walk the Strip.
And the Strip simply overwhelms you. It is proud. It wallows in the fake, the artificial, and is so seductive you cannot look away. And as you walk from hotel to hotel, carrying the beer or liquor you are allowed to walk down the Strip with, and watch a pitched pirate ship battle just feet away from the street and sidewalk, you cannot help but smile. You pass by the Japanese girls in packs wearing the most beautiful of designer clothes, the couple that looks like mom and dad from the ‘burbs followed by two hardcore punks. . . and it’s all Vegas.
On Halloween weekend there were also 2,000 fans of garage, surf,
and frat-party bands.
Performing were Andre Williams and the Countdowns, Rudy Ray Moore, The Trashmen, Thee
Mighty Caesars and more. Ray Dennis Steckler was on hand to show his films; The
Devilettes, a bevy of briefly-clad beauties from San Francisco, pulled the Caesars in a
chariot out to the stage. It was three nights of great fun.
I
have been asked a few times why I like this kind of music, and more than one person has
pointed out that, despite its street-level 60s strip-club sound and its attendant
trappings of sleaze and sin, it‘s appreciated mostly by record collectors who have,
in fact, never lived with a stripper or been anything close to a delinquent. And who in
their private lives are easily shocked. Well, that is not exactly correct, as some people
at the fest were indeed strippers and I’m sure others had at least spent a night in
jail. But when Rudy Ray Moore got on stage to do an old-fashioned chitlin’ circuit
intro to Andre Williams, the creds of the show were firmly established. 
This wasn’t fake at all.
Rudy Ray Moore pops up in a lot of rap videos today. In the late 1960s his self- made and sold album, DOLEMITE, sold over 1,000,000 copies without ads or radio play from his home. I cannot stress this enough. He made movies, which are genuine fun, and he was a major influence on Richard Pryor, Blowfly and Eddie Murphy. He got up onstage at the Grind in his mirror-covered Afro-inspired clothes and sang snippets of his latest CD while building his intro. It’s an old trick from the chitlin’ circuit; you plug your stuff while teasing the audience. By the time he brought out Williams the audience was ready to explode, and did as soon as Andre stepped out.
I do not know much about his backup band, but I want to tell you they
kicked like a bucking bronco. Andre was as real as a heart attack and if you hear of him
playing in your town with The Countdowns you should go see them. Hell, if you hear of The 
Countdowns playing anywhere
you should go see them. Andre did some cuts back in the 50s that never played on white
stations and had a lifetime of partying to the point that isn’t fun anymore, and it
was all there on stage. He wrestled with his dentures onstage but refused to soften the
attack, instantly blowing away those that don’t know. Everyone there knew that Rudy
Ray and Andre have been there -- a few times. And have survived. 
Add to that that the event was put on by Tom Ingram, former Teddy Boy (they like rockabilly music, and used to beat up mods and hippies. I’ll buy him a beer!)
Tom appears in the film QUADROPHENIA, was a famous DJ in England and has
been attracting a large following in Los Angeles. He is also flown around the world to
spin his discs at nightclubs. In other words, the people putting on the Grind were as real
as you can get. He also does a rockabilly fest in Vegas that you can read about on his
website,
The event was held at the Gold Coast Hotel, right next to the Rio 
with
its spectacular Voodoo Lounge that gives you a 51st floor look at Las Vegas. And at night
that neon is gloriously beautiful in a way that makes you overlook the beauty of the
desert.
Kat and I got a room at Circus-Circus, which has a giant amusement park
in the middle of the hotel. Now what architect sits down and says, "What this hotel
lobby
needs is a
water sled ride"? Yet it works. Each hotel is set up to entrap you for days. You
never have to leave. Restaurants, games, gambling, shows, rides, on and on. It is said
that if you don’t gamble it is the cheapest city to vacation in. Gambling is made so
easy, however, that it is hard to not try it. From the minute you get off the plane there
are slot machines everywhere.
And hovering around those machines are people of all ages, sizes and
shapes dropping their nickels in, drinking the free booze they get for playing the
machines, scooping up their coins 
from huge cups and collecting their winnings and
pouring them back in. Occasionally one wins the $500 prize and a light goes off on the
machine and everyone stops to turn and watch the winner. The crowd gathers around the
winner as if to reassure itself that yes, you can win. The eyes of the crowd return Vegas
to its roots, the pure greed that beats below the surface that no amusement park ride or
clearing away of prostitutes will ever cover up.
Not that there isn’t prostitution anymore; everyone knows
it’s legal if you go about 150 to 200 miles out in the desert. Which is a long, hot
car ride. The prostitution is the escort business. Did you 
ever why when cops crack down on prostitutes they always
go after girls hanging out in bars or on the street? The working girls. They rarely go
after the middle- and upper-class whores that are sent out by escort services, and they
never bust bachelor parties. Since the escorts start at $1000 and up (most cities are more
like $300 and up, with the girl
getting 40% or less)
and competition is so strong, you’ll find people passing out booklets with
escort-service ads all along the Strip. But $1000? I’m reminded of the old burlesque
joke: the young hooker asks the old hooker, "I know I charge by the hour. But what do
I do for the other 45 minutes?"
I don’t know of any city in the United States that makes it as easy to get married. From Friday until Monday morning you can get your marriage license, available 24 hours, no blood tests, a piece of ID is all you need. And every hotel has a chapel (although these are the most expensive places to get married in), not to mention that there are chapels of all kinds everywhere. Chapels with preachers that look like Elvis, drive-through wedding windows and everything in between.
There were plans being set up by the Grind people to have weddings
onstage, but hey, I may be an egomaniac but I’m not a total exhibitionist. So we made
plans to get the license, get married and 
head over to the Voodoo Lounge at Rio to sip some drinks and
take a look at Vegas at night and the beautiful She’ (pronounced Shea), who was our
cocktail server the night before.
As we ran around town with best man Elce Redmond to get our license, pick up Kat’s friend Jillian and race to the chapel, we were in too much of a hurry to be nervous. Well, standing there in front of the minister it immediately became very real. And as we held each others’ hands and the minister looked at our $3.50 ring, we suddenly felt warm all over. (The next day we did get gold bands.)
So late Halloween afternoon, Mistress Of Mayhem Katherine Southerland and Fearless Leader Michael Flores got married at the Little Church of the West (just south of the Laughing Jackalope Motel). It should be easy for me to remember the anniversary. I think we ran into about 20 people from Chicago over the weekend: Mike Miller from Delilah’s with the lovely Sally, Carlos from Casolando, many others. I have a feeling we’ll be running into a lot of them again at the next Grind at the end of June. But no matter what, we have not seen the last of Vegas, and as with my other favorite party city New Orleans, I can’t wait to go back.
Cheers,
MICHAEL FLORES
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