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Touched by a Honky Tonk Angel by Guy Babineau
“Where to?”
The cabby checked us out in the rear view mirror.
“The Gold Coast,” I replied.
Our taxi swerved out of the hotel driveway, maneuvered thick traffic and sped up a ramp onto the freeway heading away from downtown. Matthew and I craned our heads to look out the back at a Celine Dionysian skyline of casinos outshining the stars in the desert night sky. It was real purdy.
“What’s going on?” asked our driver.
He had a been-there-done-it delivery. Taxi drivers are like spies, they see and hear what you and I can only imagine. They keep their cards close to the chest. Play yours right and they might disclose something. I turned around in my seat, leaned forward with a flirtatious two- cocktails-under-the-belt grin, and produced a flush.
“Pardon me?” I said.
“What’s going on at the Coast tonight?”
He seemed to think it was strange that we were heading out of The Strip. Maybe he thought two guys who were light in their loafers, and well heeled to boot, would be more inclined to par-tay in a ritzier dive. I didn’t want to see mega-spectacles or refried celebrities. The new amusement park Las Vegas with its rides, fake international landmarks and theme hotels, like New York New York where we were staying, had unending tee-hee-hee appeal but we could have been anywhere. I wanted to experience the real Vegas.
“We’re going to see a country and western drag show,” Matthew said, subtly sarcastic. My friend had taken a bit of persuading.
“At the Gold Coast? A drag show? Really?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “It’s called Honky Tonk Angels.”
The cabby dealt me an odd look. Assuming a poker face, he kept quiet.
I’d never paid much attention to country music but had a soft spot for talented transvestites so I was excited to come across an ad in the Las Vegas show guide with a picture of three over-the-top queens in scare-dos and tarantula eyelashes, ostensibly doing Reba, Patsy and Tammy. Yay-hoo! Talk about standing by your man. At $9.99, a little lip sync about a lot of heartache was just the ticket. For $14.99, you got prime rib too.
Las Vegas is obsessed with red meat. I couldn’t take two steps without someone dangling a slab of beef in my face. It reminded me that one of my grandfathers died of a heart attack right after eating a steak. He was big on drinking and gambling. My other grandfather ran away with another woman. Several of my aunts married abusive alcoholics. Add a simple chord progression and a pickup truck and my genealogy could be a country hit. Maybe my disinterest in C&W was actually denial. If so, I was in the right town. People should give their denial a holiday at least once a year and this was the place for it.
“You don’t gamble, do you?” asked our cabby.
We told him no. I said I thought it was boring.
“I can tell. People who don’t gamble always have a good time when they come here. Half this town’s addicted.”
He was exaggerating. However, Nevada doesn’t have a state lottery because they think it would keep people out of the casinos.
We pulled up in front of a hacienda-style ranch the size of a city block, tipped our driver and poured ourselves into The Gold Coast. The red decor was tarted up with dark wood trim; baronial hall meets Legion Hall, with a hint of High Noon.
When the Vegas locals want to whoop it up they hang out in the casinos on the fringe of town. The Gold Coast, with the largest bowling alley in Vegas to recommend it, is particularly popular. It was packed.
We made our way passed the sweatpants and stovepipe jeans, through a cacophony of clanking slot machines and piped-in pop music, trying to keep clear of the walkers and wheelchairs. Vegas has a huge seniors population. Some of those old dolls are on a mission so you’d best get out of their way when you see them coming.
We found the show lounge and were ushered to our seats. Red tablecloths and chrome and nogahyde chairs; I was SO in heaven.
“Oh my God, we’re in Winnipeg,” said Matthew, who grew up there. “This is just like the Stage West dinner theatre.”
“Here you go, Hon,” said a pleasant server as she plunked down my $2 vat of merlot.
The room filled up with couples who were likely courting around the time Patsy Cline serenaded the airwaves with Crazy and Walking After Midnight, before the legendary vocalist died in a plane crash in 1963. The house lights went down and the show started. I fell to pieces. These women were real. What a rip-off!
Now I knew why our cabby had been giving us strange looks. He thought we were complete knobs.
A puppet show introduced the evening’s gimmick, a doorway that would turn whoever passed through it into the entertainer of their dreams. When someone did, there were really bad thunder and lightning effects. I guzzled merlot to make it better.
My reservations were short-lived. The three stars, Sharon Haynes, Lori Legacy and Corrie Sachs, trotted out about a dozen of country music’s greatest gals and they were magnificent. As Patsy Cline, Haynes alone was worth the price of admission. Previously, she had performed a solo tribute to Cline, backed up by the Cline’s original band, The Jordanaires. Her voice was as powerful and durable as a long-haul flatbed. Suddenly I wore an invisible Stetson. My soul filled up with southern comfort. I hankered for chew tabacky. It was all I could do not to say, “Yup.”
I’m not about to make a dash for the Grand Ole Opry but at the time, the old adage “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” seemed apropos. After the show we joined a line-up to shake hands with the Angels. I pumped Haynes’s paw prodigiously. She thanked me for coming. Well, actually, she thanked “y’all”.
In Vegas, when you’re on a roll, you don’t stop. The next night we went to another saloon off the beaten track, Sam’s Town, to see Little Richard, the king (and queen) of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a little known fact that the original lyrics of Little Richard’s first big 1950s hit, Tutti Frutti, casually extemporized while he was fooling around on the piano, were a little too fruitful for public consumption.
Sam’s Town was similar to The Gold Coast, another frontier outpost. But the auditorium was better and the audience comprised all ages.
“Am I still pretty?” asked the 68-year-old singer, who is also a legitimate Seventh Day Adventist preacher. His adoring fans applauded.
The guy’s right out of his gourd but man, what a great performer, and what a kick-ass band. Little Richard was terrific but that was partly do to the audience and ambiance. Everything clicked but I’m not sure the same magic would occur somewhere else. He was on home turf. At the end of the show everyone received a book of inspirational evangelism and a fan photo of Richard scrawled with a message from the singer telling us that God loved us.
Angels one night, God the next: it could only go downhill from here. Good thing we were going home the next day. After checking out of our hotel I realized that I had several quarters in my pocket so thought, what the hell, I might as well try a slot machine. On my sixth quarter I got two doubles and a 7. There was a clink, then another clink, then a barrage of clinks and before I knew it I had $120 worth of quarters. It was a miracle. Suddenly gambling wasn’t boring. I can’t wait to go back. First thing I’ll do, quick as a freshly branded steer, is head to The Gold Coast to shake the hand of a Honky Tonk Angel. You know, for good luck. Not just in the casinos. Maybe it’ll help my stock portfolio too.
More than 4,000 people move to Vegas every month to start new lives, or escape old ones. If Kris Kristofferson was right, that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, then America’s last frontier town has to be the freest damned place on the planet. We got in a taxi and headed for the airport, driving past a replica of the Statue of Liberty just outside our hotel. I’ve been inside the real one but this one was smaller and didn’t have room for people. You had to admire it from the outside.
Originally published in The Georgia Straight, Canada's largest independent weekly © Guy Babineau 2003-2004
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