How does one go from serving up AssJuice in the Las Vegas gayttho affectionately known as "the FruitLoop" to mixing up one mean Mai Tai in the grooviest new Tiki Bar just outside of downtown Vegas?
And why on earth is Las Vegas just now getting the world's first 24/7 Tiki Bar?
Who gives a fuck?
The point is that the King of Ass Juice is now the Big Kahuna of Las Vegas nightlife.
P Moss has been a fixture (slightly tilted, off center, yet, completely fixtured) in Las Vegas since the dark ages.
Ok, it was the nineties but if you were here then you know that fire had only just been invented.
Just.
I swear.
Really.
I remember that first time I went into the Double Down saloon. Well, remember is a relative term.
My parents, Babs and Pere had moved here to Dronehenge in the days when Desert Shores and Summerlin were just big holes in le ground.
That's French for, I was drunk like a muthafucker.
I had followed my best chance at a free couch and a convertible after a particularly interesting period in the Beverly. Hills that is.
Ok, it was West Covina. Who's telling this fable? Aesop? I thought not.
I had staggered out of one of Vegas' really bad dudes with wigs bars (Gypsy or some such). So, there I was lamenting the fact that I hadn't seen a decent guy in weeks (Don't cry for me Silverlake, the truth is I never left you) when I see one more bar at the very end of the parking lot that passed as the Las Vegas version of boystown.
As I walked in, the smell of dank , skanky fur burger mixed with the twangy sounds of one of my fave bands....
"I'm a teenage tiger and a Goo Goo Muck...."
As I fought back the taste of vomit in my nose I knew that I had found a home.
At Last.
I staggered up to the bar and thought it rather funny to order an "AssJuice".
Rather.
I lost a tooth that night. Or was that bowling at the Orleans?
Hmm.
I digress.
I do know that I saw (or felt) the sun rise sometime after that. Hours? Weeks? Months?
I felt the sun rise again many years later as I was driving in my little Lesbianesque Daewoo StyleWagon down a stretch of Charleston blvd that you only stop at to...well, actually, it's a stretch you never stop at.
Ever.
Then heavens to Murgatroyd! Eureka! Keely Smith and Merle Oberon! There it was. The sign announcing:
FRANKIE'S TIKI ROOM OPENING DECEMBER 4TH
Well, opening dates, and expiration dates on milk for that matter, just get in my way. So, I flipped a uterus and flew into the unopened Tiki Room.
Zoots!
What a temple of alchoholic revelry lay before me! Yes Lord Jesus, I am home.
From the hand carved Tiki sculptures to the dim lighting and the booths covered in grass mats I knew that my 80 year old retro self had found my new clubhouse! I sauntered in only to be met by a bespectacled giant who informed me , "we're not open yet!" .
Really? I guess the construction dust and hot worker guy I had missed.
Bother.
Well, before the giant threw me onto the Rebel parking lot next door I soaked in my soon to be Tiki Paradise. It turns out I was in the presence of his munificence.....
P MOSS!
King of AssJuice!
Angels sang and clouds parted as the celestial lights shone upon his beatific face. I got his business card to ask for an interview and ran to the Style Wagon and threw up slightly in homage to my youth.
"I'm a teenage tiger and A GOO GOO MUCK!"
Herewith is the interview:
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