A cloudy Vegas Friday in mid January, the day chilled enough that the slutty showgirls prowling the strip are encased in flesh colored leggings and North Face Parkas.
It’s a small crowd at Harrah’s Piano Lounge, and I easily make it in for the 3:30 Big Elvis show.
As I enter the room Big Elvis-Pete Vallee – is sitting on his plywood throne, listening to his hype man warm up the room.
The emcee goes through a tired karaoke rendition of Sweet Caroline, a performance so lackluster he can’t even coax the goddamned bah bah bah’s out of the tourists.
Ol Pete, though, he’s a fuckin’ trooper.
He sways to the music, yelling yeah, get it boy! as his valet croaks through yet another verse.
I point at Pete as I walk past, and he hits me back with the double finger guns-pow pow!-in response.
Surely, I think, he recognizes me.
For I am one of the true fans; I have followed his act for well over a decade.
Sure, his size (Big Elvis being the marketing hook, after all) brings them in the door.
Bemused hipsters come into the room and roll their eyes, turn to each other and mouth oh my god…….
They’ll stay just long enough to take a discreet photo for their shameful Insta-feeds.
I imagine the insipid captions: What a Riot! Viva Fat Vegas baby!
But we-the devoted-stare them down and shush them.
For when Pete takes the mic and sings, you are transported back to a far better time.
These songs, long parodied, come alive with conviction.
And though it is within these gaudy temples of Willy Wonka slot machines and 99 cent shrimp cocktails we are presented with the Great American Songbook, it somehow all makes sense.
The greed and shame, the impossibly decadent food, the yardstick tall novelty glasses shaped like the Eiffel Tower.
I watch as a lithe hooker takes the seat next to a Midwest convention goer.
She whispers something into his hair covered ear and when he responds, she throws her head back in almost-convincing laughter.
And though her cruel little teeth are white as aspirin, they are also fanged and crooked.
This is America baby, extra cheese and double sized.
We are gathered on the weekend for the DiWulf Publishing takeover of the Punk Rock Museum.
There is to be some guided tours, some talks on the books, vague plans to play a few songs even.
Dave and Jack from Adrenaline OD are already doing a tour when Kimm and I drop in Friday evening.
Amy and Howard from DiWulf wave us over to the merch stand.
“How long they been at it?” Kimm asks, tilting his head toward the NYHC room.
We can hear Dave talking in there, telling yet another one of his stories of adventures past.
Amy checks her watch.
“Dunno, ninety minutes? Two hours? You know, when Dave starts talking……”
KImm and I look at each other and grimace.
We will be tasked with leading a couple tours on Saturday, but have no idea how we will fill in the minutes.
I mean, sure punk rock, I’ve been there.
But I lack that baseball-nerd proclivity for statistics and dates that seem so important when considering our music as history.
And as far as museums, I just don’t buy into that hushed reverence crap brother.
May I remind you, I toured the entire Louvre once, in 28 minutes..
Running past the masterpieces on the way to happy hour at Harry’s, pausing only once to take a dick pic in front of Michelangelo’s David, my thumb and finger held two inches apart, my mouth open in howled laughter.
Museum? Punk Rock?
Didn’t we set out to destroy the past, not celebrate it??
But as we walk through the joint, trailing Jack and Dave’s tour, we are charmed.
By the tasteful exhibits, by the flyers of golden nights forgotten until just now.
There are photos that ignite remembrances that leave us teary eyed for a suddenly distant past. .
And if we have to call this memory warehouse a museum, so be it.
On Saturday we meet at the appointed hour and are shocked to find a group of people there ready to follow us through the exhibits.
A few friends and family, our old pals Becca and Debbie (though I suspect they are mainly there for a reunion with the AOD guys rather than a chance to see our old mugs again).
But there’s also a handful of people who actually paid and made the appointment to join us on this tour!
We start out tentatively, pausing in the first room and pointing out the different photos of Punk legends that need no description.
But thankfully Kimm takes the reigns, connects the flyers and photos with our own long history, people and places we have shared with these memory triggers.
I point out a half dozen photos of shirtless lead singers, accusing Becca of sleeping with them all.
“Oh fuck off Magrann,“ she crows, and then takes over for me, filling in each exhibit with her own remembrances of what really happened.
We come to a guitar I had used on several European campaigns, as battered as a sword used to defend a mad king.
There are flyers on every wall, and we are noted on several.
I note aloud the positioning of our band, growing in size of font and placement near the top, until we are headlined.
And then I point out the sad but inevitable decline, falling once again below the headliners until we are listed as special guests, and then, tragically, as only support act TBA.
I think of those nights stumbling hone from the Cathay, emptying my jacket pockets of a dozen flyers like these.
The hand drawn art, the transfer sticker lettering.
Printed at Kinko’s and handed out .by hand.
Fitting they are here, as primitive as cave paintings depicting a woolly mammoth meeting it’s gory demise
We come to the Pennywise Garage, a quaint little tableau meant to recreate a cramped South Bay practice room.
We just happen to have Ant and Nick planted in there like animatronic rats in hibernation mode, ready to perform for the kiddies.
Kimm and I climb over the chains and strap on guitars ourselves.
I’ve chosen Chet’s Dan Armstrong from the Wasted Youth session, it’s Plexiglas body drilled out in effort to lighten the guitar.
I plug in and feel, if not the weight of history tugging at my shoulders, then perhaps the heft of time.
And then we launch into a three song set, ending with the shameful Wetspots after being hsckled mercilessly by Becca and Deb.
As a bonus, Jack and Dave get inside the chains with us, and we all rip though AOD’s Suburbia.
The night culminates with Fat Mike himself taking on vocals.
The crowd retires to the attached Triple Down bar then, drinks are poured into Pringles cans, everyone sparkling over the day.
I scan the room and see gray heads, punk tees stretched over expanded waistlines.
I see survivors.
This celebration of our little thing turns out to be not so bad.
We are institutionalized, yes, cataloged and frozen for time.
Displayed in a museum.
My flight home is delayed yet again on Monday, but that’s ok.
Pete is back in the lounge.
A free lounge act in the middle of the day, just like it used to be.
Back when the stars shone bright in the showrooms, when cigarettes were free at the blackjack tables.
When men wore goddamned long pants and blazers when they went out to gamble away money they didn’t have and drink irresponsibly.
Pete kicks off the set with, naturally, Viva Las Vegas, and is energized enough by our clapping and whooping that he actually stands for a few bars, shaking his hips and pointing to the skies.
I sit at the bar, feeding dollars into the video poker machine as I watch Big E do his thing.
“Say, he’s good isn’t he?”: says an old gal at my elbow. “I mean, for a big fella, he’s got the pipes, huh?”
I’ve just been dealt three Aces and I hold my breath as I hit Deal.
Nope.
“Oh yeah,, he’s the best. I must’ve seen big Pete at least twenty times,going back to Bill’s Gambling Hall” I boast.
“Yeah?” she says. “Well, I was at the opening night when the real Elvis played the International. He split his pants during the encore, and my friend Vicki gave him a handjob after the show.”
And here she rolls her eyes, dismissing the memory.
“I dunno, Vicki’s a liar though, huh?”
But isn’t that how it is?
There’s always someone there before, someone that can top your own memory.
The best we can hope is to hold onto our own little slice of history, futile as trying to bring a snowball back from the mountains to live in the freezer.
Mention you saw Black Flag with Dez singing, and some wag will tell you how they overdosed in the bathroom while the Sex Pistols imploded at the Winterland Ballroom.
Pete goes into the American Trilogy then, and the old bird next to me lets out a Whoo!
I’m dealt a heartbreaker, Ace, King and Queen all suited, while out on the strip two nearly naked policewomen handcuff a hapless tourist, releasing him only after he submits to a twenty dollar selfie.
And this moment, now, is frozen in time, as if hung on the wall of a museum.
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