Rock and Roll Meltdown (eBook)

10.
Daredevils and Snake Charmers

We kind of thought of ourselves as trailblazers. Everyone says this, and every bar would like to think this, but we had all the crazy stuff going on before most clubs. Clearly, our experience showed how crazy we were. But in a money contest, my cash is often on the guy with googly eyes in a suit made of buffalo wings, and springs on his shoes. That’s the guy who will do anything.

We always wanted to be the first at everything. Sometimes it paid off, and sometimes it sank out of sight. But as my father always said, “If you want to launch big ships, you have to go where the water’s deep!” We spent years searching for deeper waters.

Usually, bands tried to pass me a demo tape, because they wanted to play at the club or maybe just open for one of the big acts. Even though we usually booked through agencies, I felt everyone deserved a few minutes of my time, even though my brother had the final say regarding who would play at our club. He had a great track record of delivering huge talent, and I wasn’t going to second guess him.

So, this guy comes into the club one afternoon. That’s how this story begins…

Here’s this kid, I think his name was Dale, about 15 or 16 years old, sitting in a booth with me in the middle of a quiet afternoon.

“Dale,” I said, “I don’t want to be rude, but you have five minutes, and they start right now.”

The kid looks me right in the face and says, “I’m the youngest daredevil escape artist in the world. I’ll bring in a huge truck with a crane and hang upside down from a burning rope wearing a double straight jacket, 200 feet in the air. If I don’t get out of both straitjackets within minutes, I’ll fall to my death. I’ll have all the big TV stations here. They’re always looking for something spectacular.”

I was charmed, to be sure, but I replied, “That’s cool, Dale, but I have two questions. ‘How much?’ and, ‘Who the hell would insure you, because without insurance, I’m not interested.’”

The insurance carrier was Lloyd’s of London. Lloyds of London, in case you don’t know, is world-renowned for insuring just about anything. Like these things, according to the website, howstuffworks.com

• In 1957, world-famous food critic Egon Ronay wrote and published the first edition of the Egon Ronay Guide to British Eateries. Because his endorsement could make or break a restaurant, Ronay insured his taste buds for $400,000.
• While playing on Australia’s national cricket team from 1985 to 1994, Merv Hughes took out an estimated $370,000 policy on his trademark walrus mustache, which, combined with his 6-feet 4-inch physique and outstanding playing ability, made him one of the most recognized cricketers in the world.
• From 1967 to 1992, British comedian and singer Ken Dodd was in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s longest joke-telling session. He told 1,500 jokes in three-and-a-half hours. Since then, he’s sold more than 100 million comedy records and is famous for his frizzy hair, ever-present feather duster, and extremely large buck teeth. His teeth are so important to his act that Dodd had them insured by Lloyd’s for $7.4 million, surely making his insurance agent smile.

So, a guy hanging from a crane? Please. No problem. The cost was $350. We shook hands, and the gig was set. We promoted it on radio, print, and inside the club. We promoted it like the Second Coming. Better than the Second Coming, since we had a contract.

Now it’s Saturday, it’s daylight and the show was to start at 1 p.m. By noon there must have been 500 to 600 people in our parking lot waiting for this crazy stunt kid to show up. An ambulance was in the lot adding to the drama, along with a police contingency and several news crews, cameras ready. Right on cue, a white limousine turns the corner onto Washington Avenue and heads toward our parking lot. By now, it’s about 2:30 p.m., an hour and a half after the stunt was supposed to start. Even better, there are now close to 1,500 people in the parking lot. Dale slowly gets out of the limo, coolly walks up to a makeshift stage, and begins to address the crowd for half an hour.

It was the usual carney midway stuff. “Ladies and gentlemen, should I crash to the pavement, and splatter my soul and all my intestines on this pristine parking lot, and I don’t see you again, thanks for coming out. Please know that you are my favorite audience ever!” It was that sort of thing. It was like Evel Knievel performing one of his stunts – 1 hour and 58 minutes of talk and commercials, and two minutes of stunt. Finally, Dale puts on the double straight jacket and is hoisted up the crane from the rope, upside down. When he gets to 200 feet, they somehow light the rope, and his assistants act like something is suddenly going terribly wrong. Part of me is thinking, “Oh, here comes the shtick…” and the other half is saying, “Hmmm… really?” It did make me think.

He escaped (in the nick of time!), the show was a huge success, and we got unbelievable PR exposure. At least two major local networks covered and broadcast the story. I was getting tons of calls from people telling me they saw it on the news. For at least a day, the stations would end each news broadcast with the story. And, of course, the lower third on the screen read, “From the parking lot of Circus-Circus, Bergenfield, New Jersey.” For $350 and some advertising costs, we got a million dollars in publicity!

Actually, we tried our hand at just about anything we thought would fly… including female mud wrestling, of course. The date was February 7, 1981… maybe you were there!

They were called the “Chicago Knockers,” and you would know why if you saw this group of beautiful women in their skimpy bathing suits with names such as, Raging Apache, Killer Kelly, and Bone Crusher Bonnie. The action took place on the stage in a pool filled with mud. A pair of wrestlers were matched up against one other as an emcee egged them on, along with a houseful of drooling young guys just hoping and praying that a bathing suit top would be pulled off during the match.

The show usually consisted of three or four wrestling matches with the crowd determining the winner by applause. At some point in the show, a male volunteer from the audience would be coaxed into giving it a shot in the pit with a wrestler, and on occasion, we even had a guest celebrity.

That’s when it got crazy. How crazy? Crazy enough that The New Jersey Athletic Control Board ordered The Chicago Knockers to cancel two South Jersey engagements, because the ladies didn’t have professional wrestling licenses, according to Enquirer staff writer, Laura Quinn. The promoter for the Knockers stated in the article that the wrestlers had performed in all 50 states, including Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement Park and had never been prevented from staging a show by a state athletic commission.

“It’s not billed as professional wrestling. We didn’t think it fell under the state’s jurisdiction,” he stated. If they were to be categorized as “wrestlers” then certain rules were to apply, such as a state wrestling inspector would have to be on hand during performances along with a host of other requirements. Well, at least our show came off without a hitch. I seem to recall we did okay that night financially.

Then we tried to get something going on Sunday night – male burlesque. Of course, right? They were called “Morris’s Mixed Nuts” You get the point. Talk about successful. About 150 to 250 screaming ladies would show up on a night that we were usually closed. It was $5 to get in, and we raised the prices of our drinks by 25¢. That was quite a high cover charge more than 40 years ago.

Besides a couple of waitresses serving cocktails to the screaming ladies, we had Danny Dooner, a tall, good-looking muscular, 18-year-old kid from Glen Rock, who would sometimes double as a beer runner, bouncer, waiter, or whatever we needed. When we had the male review on Sunday nights, he would wait on tables and had the ladies going crazy. His entire uniform was just a bow tie, no shirt, and black pants. There’s a line in the first Godfather movie where Moe Greene, a Vegas casino owner, is being bought out by the Corleones. Asked to explain why he was “slapping Fredo” (brother of Michael Corleone) around, he replied, “He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time. Players couldn’t get a drink at the table!” That was Danny. He had his pick of any woman in the place.

And then there was the infamous snake show. One evening a guy pulled his car into our rear parking lot, and a small crowd began to form. I made my way down the back stairs into the lot to see what the commotion was about, and I noticed that his trunk is open. Looking a little closer I saw a bunch of live snakes loose in his trunk hissing and slithering around.

“What are you doing?” I said to the owner of these slimy creatures. He told me he raised king cobras and was interested in doing a show at the club. His shtick, if you will, was to charm (essentially play with) four or five of these venomous and sometimes deadly snakes at the same time in front of an audience. He also told me that, should he be bitten, he would have about 30 to 45 minutes to get to a hospital and get an injection of antivenin, although, survival depended...