*Got a wonderful surprise text this weekend from a bandmate of mine from 1965. He’s coming to visit! Brought a flood of memories, condensed here to 144 words, from my crazy years in the 1960’s, when my blue-eyed soul band played the all-night R&B clubs in Newport Ky — the ‘wild’, anything-goes world, just across the Ohio River from conservative, hypocritical Cincinnati. His text sparked this piece, which is also inspired by an old poem of mine. Fluffed flashback, not fiction.
Rob on stage with duo partner Dave Oakley in 1965 at age 18.
Our gig ended at 3:00 AM. Now here we sit with smuggled single malt, and the crusty sunrise special. Me and my band of doo wop warriors are bliss’d out from giggin’, mixin’ ‘mong willing groupies, loud hanger-on’s, and other players — when far away an interrupted cry distracts me. My friend Joey, back from ‘Nam.
I wave him over. We’re sittin’ with steel-heart working girls, soul-bruised painted strippers, burnt drink slingers, tired cocktail mules, hustlers, grifters, gamblers, pimps, pushers — and cops. A strange, wonderful family of the night, hidin’ from those cruel first rays, ready to scurry to dark, well-curtained rooms.
Joey’s diggin’ it, but time to make that final score, to get us through ‘till sundown strikes up the band again. It’s cirque du morning madness, all sneakin’ up on breakfast.
lookin’ for a place to crash
ain’t this showbiz grand
Gladiator Restaurant, Newport KY – 1965
“actual site of the all-night breakfasts”
rob kistner © 2019
Rob & Dave of the Brothers Royal were with this group, in the Casinos Review
Hi! I’m Edgrrr, rob’s shih tzu.