My Last Supper At Bill's Gay Nineties

I haven’t been to Bill’s Gay Nineties on TWM yet and decided I should go soon. Rumors started swirling last year that Bill’s is going to be bought out by restauranteur John DeLucie, whom I and many others fear would wreck the joint if he takes it over. On February 10th, Lost City reported that they’ve heard it’s a done deal. I’ve heard the same thing from various people and decided I better get in there before this happens. I’ve never eaten in Bill’s and I’m meeting my friends, The Duncester and Shawn there tonight for what could very well be a last supper at Bill’s Gay Nineties. The Duncester was inspired by my Mad Men tour and said he’s wearing a suit tonight. Not to be outdone, Shawn and I decided to dress up as well. Hey, if this is a last supper, may as well go out in style and with a smile!

Here we are, Bill's Gay Nineties, it's always like a trip back in time walking in here.

And it's through the swinging saloon doors we go, into Bill's.

And as usual the bar is packed, but I see a small opening so I'm going to grab it.

And here's Tom the bartender. Tom confirmed the sad news that the nights for Bill's in this location are numbered. The last day it's open is March 24th. It seems that the landlord isn't going to renew the lease and someone else is going to take over. The landlord hasn't revealed who this someone else is, but all bets are on John DeLucie, even though it's been denied in the press. My question is why would the landlord deny Bill's lease when they pack them in nightly...

I mean check it out and this is a Tuesday night! The good news is that Tom told me that they're moving the whole operation somewhere nearby. Stay tuned for details! In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my last night at Bill's.

And here's a blast from my 365 past, it's Marc who was bartending the night I came in for the 365 bar crawl! Great to see him again!

I love the vintage boxing photos on the wall's in here.

And the framed original Broadway playbills are classic as well.

Okay, Shawn and the Duncester should be here any minute, so time to move to our table in the back.

And here we are, The Three Amigos! From the left: The Duncester, Yours Fooly and Shawn. Shawn broke out a tuxedo for the evening, he doesn't fuck around!

Shawn, shaken, not stirred!

And here's Bill's piano man, Elliot Paul with the Duncester.

Here's our charming and lovely waitress Maureen, who's worked at Bill's for years.

And the food arrives! The Duncester got the cheeseburger and fries.

Shawn got the filet...

And I got the crab cakes. The food was delicious, our compliments to the chef!

And Elliot starts the first song of the evening. He has an impressive song list that ranges from The Rolling Stones, to Billy Joel to Frank Sinatra and everyone in between. A great and talented piano man!

And at the end of the evening, we were lucky to be joined at our table by Bill's proprietress Barbara Bart. Barbara's run this place since her father passed away in 1979. She told us that there will be a new Bill's in the future, not far from this location. Look for updates here and on Bill's website. The good news is that Barbara owns all the memorabilia and antiques in Bill's and they and the staff will be transported to the new location. I can't wait for opening night!

And as the empty's stack up, time to call it a night at Bill's. Thanks To Barbara, Tom, Marc, Elliot, Rich, Shawn and The Duncester for a great last night at Bill's. I look forward to many more at the new location!

Bill's Gay Nineties

Further Reading: Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, Village Voice and Eater NY.

Well it's all right, everything'll work out fine,
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Photos by Shawn!

Shawn sent in some photos he took last night and here they are. Great shots, Shawn! Thanks for sending them and for hanging out last night!

Bonus Linkage!

My friend Gidget is tweaking her blog and yesterday posted a story about how she met and became friends with legendary radio personality, Rodney Bingenheimer. I’ve bugged her for a long time to write this and she did a great job, check it out here: Gidget Bates Crap She Spews.

And don’t forget to tune in to “The Secret Weapon” on Woody Radio. DJ Gidget hosts the show and “Boris” picks the tunes, it’s a great show and you’ll hear music that you’ve probably never heard and will want to hear over and over!

Don Ward—The Shoe Shine Dude

One of the things I like about writing and blogging is the people you meet along the way. There’s a man who has a shoeshine stand a few blocks from where I live on 6th Avenue between 15th and 14th Street. I’ve probably walked by the man and his stand thousands of times and never said anything. Last Saturday I stopped and said hi and he turned out to be a real nice guy and his shoe shines are just one dollar (the same as a slice of pizza in the joint next to his stand), so I made plans to meet with him today, get a shoe shine and take some pictures. I’ve never had a shoe shine, so I hope he’s gentle with this virgin voyage!

He's located one block down here on 6th Avenue.

And here he...isn't. He told me he'd be here, so I walked around the block, got a bottle of tea from a deli, came back and he's still not here. The guy at the fruit stand said he's usually not here on Monday's. Well, it's time to improvise!

I came back home, went to my good friend Google and typed in, "NYC shoe shine guy." The first posts were all about a guy who is supposedly the most famous shoe shiner in New York and his name is Don Ward. Then I remembered talking about shoe shines with Paul Scanlon during our Bar Exam interview and I thought he mentioned this guy. After emailing Paul, it turns out this is the guy. His stand is on the corner of 47th and 6th. Off to the subway we go, hopefully he didn't take the day off!

Just as I hit the subway, the train pulls up. I love it when that happens!

Okay, we're about a block away, I hope he's here, or this may not be much of a post today!

Look at that on the corner, yes Virginia...

There is a Don Ward! And he's busy shining Eric's shoes, who is like me and has never had a shoe shine experience. Don told me he took one look at Eric's shoes and told him to get in the chair. That's how Don gets a good percentage of his business, he's not shy and calls out to people on the street with pitches like: "If you want to save money, go to Geico, if you want to save your shoes, get on the chair!" He's been shining shoes for the last 22 years in New York and the last eleven have been spent on this very corner. Before he started shining shoes, Don was an accountant and a pastry chef, but he says having his own business is, "Priceless." I asked him if he had a job title and he told me, "Just call me the shoe shine dude!"

Eric's done with his shine and gives Don the five dollar shine fee. The five dollars is worth it just to listen to Don call people out on the street, it's like the shoe shine is a bonus to the stand up act he puts on.

Check it out, Don knows his business. Looks like I'm up next!

And here i am, up on the stand with Gumby. Gumby is just along for the ride, he doesn't have shoes. Oh, okay, he doesn't have feet. Sorry, Gumby, but I have to tell it like it is!

Don put my feet on the marks and told me not to move or I might get hurt.

And he quickly goes to work applying polish to boots that have never been shined in over a year.

As you can see, Don has fast hands, I can see why he told me not to move!

Even as he shines the shoes, he's constantly on the prowl, looking to give someone with scruffy shoes a shoutout on the street.

He got a laugh from this woman as he called out to her and said, "Seriously, you're going to let him walk around the city with shoes in that shape?" Most people smile as Don hurls out his pitches, but not all are amused. He told me that he occasionally gets grief from people and a couple years ago he even got hit with an attache case. "There's always going to be a certain percent of miserable motherfuckers out there," he told me while shining and looking for new targets on the street.

Okay we're in the final stages of the shine right now.

It's a real sight watching him work the towel and buffing up my boots. I can't capture it with pictures, but he's moving at lightning speed.

Okay, we're almost done as Don puts the finishing touches on the boots.

Wow, look at the shine on those boots, they look like new!

Here's the tool's of the trade, located beneath the chairs on top of the shoe shine stand.

And here's a sign listing Don's services. In addition to shoe shines, Don will shine and clean anything leather and for 100 bucks you can have a year of unlimited shines. There's also a drop off service available.

Within minutes of myself stepping down, two regulars climb aboard the shoe shine pedestal. Kevin and Eddie are bus drivers who are regulars and friends of Don's. They said he's the best in town and I have to agree.

Here they are scoping out potential customers, I can almost feel a one-liner brewing in Don's brain.

And here I am, headed for home with a new shine on the boots. Ah, there's no business like shoe business! Oof, sorry, I just couldn't help myself!

Don Ward—The Shoe Shine Dude
Southwest corner of 47th and 6th, from 10 AM to 6 PM, Monday through Saturday.

Further Reading: New York Times, Ask Men and Denver Post.

To steal violets from your crown,
Glue them to her wrist,
You have to spit to see the shine.

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The Bar Exam—With Paul Scanlon

I thought I’d start a new semi-regular (maybe monthly) feature here at TWM. It’s going to be a feature where I interview someone at a bar. Maybe a writer, maybe a musician or maybe a total stranger, who knows? As usual, I’m just winging it here. To start off this series, I asked my friend Paul Scanlon who’s various credits include being the Managing Editor at both Rolling Stone and G.Q. and last year editing the book: “Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson” with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner. I met Paul at our usual meeting spot, Mumbles Bar and Restaurant for some drinks and some questions. Paul’s had a great career in journalism, but since I grew up with Rolling Stone, I thought I’d keep the questions to that particular time in Paul’s history. And now, live from Mumbles, the debut of, “The Bar Exam.”

Marty: First off, great to see you, and cheers!
Paul: Cheers right back, and TWM rocks!
Marty: Thanks, Paul! You were the Managing Editor of Rolling Stone for most of the 1970s. How did you get the gig?
Paul: I had worked on the San Francisco State University paper with Ben Fong-Torres, who was one of the early Rolling Stone hires. I started reading Rolling Stone when I was in the Army, stationed at Ford Ord, near Monterey. Ben invited me up to San Francisco for a couple of days. He took me to the first Rolling Stone office on Brannan Street. I was amazed by the sheer energy of the place and of the people. I got out of the Army and got reporting  job with the Palo Alto Times. It was a good gig, and my beats included a nearby NASA research facility and the Stanford campus. Got a call from Ben late in 1970. He said Rolling Stone was looking for someone to "write about rock music in the Bay Area." I got the job. The short version of the next part is that Rolling Stone was very much in flux and that time, and nine months later I was the Managing Editor.

Marty: Some people see those years at Rolling Stone as the "glory years." What do you think?
Paul: Well, it was San Francisco and it was the 70s, and that was pretty damn great. It was also the period when the magazine took some giant steps and established itself in the national conversation. The Manson Family and Altamont issues won Rolling Stone's first National Magazine Award in 1970. An exhaustive investigative piece on the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst caused a sensation in 1975. On the day it hit the newsstands, the story led off all three networks' primetime news broadcasts. Walter Cronkite talking about Rolling Stone? Holy shit! There was also an amazing aggregation of talent on staff, not the least of which was Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Big Sur Editorial Conference, December, 1971. Left to right, rear: Tim Ferris, NY bureau chief; Andrew Bailey, London bureau chief; Grover Lewis, dark glasses; Paul Scanlon, dark glasses; art director Bob Kingsbury against wall; Jann Wenner; Jerry Hopkins behind Jann; Hunter Thompson in hospital gown; Bob Chorush, LA bureau chief; Jon Landau, in front of Chorush; Bob Greenfield and Joe Eszterhas; Tim Cahill in plaid shirt. Left to write, front: Tim Crouse, Charlie Perry, Ben Fong-Torres and David Felton. Jonathan Cott was on assignment in Europe. Photo by Annie Leibovitz.

Marty: What were your day to day duties there?
Paul: I edited all the staff writers in San Francisco, L.A .and London, and a bunch of freelancers, to boot. Ben Fong-Torres was the music editor, so I really didn't have much to do with rock and roll, but if Ben, or Chet Flippo or Cameron Crowe wrote a cover piece, I was usually the editor. I also edited a sort of op-ed section called News & Opinion, and Ralph Steadman was our political cartoonist. Working with Ralph was so much fun I almost felt guilty.

Marty: You were one of the first people to read the manuscript for Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." What was it like reading that for the first time?
Paul: It was actually only about a dozen pages, with Duke and his attorney roaring through the desert in the Great White Shark. Hunter loped in one day—he never really walked—and handed a sheaf of legal-sized pages to me and two other editors, Charlie Perry and Grover Lewis, and loped out. It was amazing stuff and none of us could stop laughing. By that afternoon, most of the staff had read the pages, and we were tossing lines back and forth: "One toke? You poor fool. Wait until you see those goddamned bats!"
Marty: Do you have a classic Hunter story to share?
Paul: Actually, all the best ones are in my introduction to "Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone." (Nudge, nudge.) But here's a quick Hunter-related bit: The head fact-checker in San Francisco had a sign over the doorway of her office: "If you call someone an ignorant pig fucker, you had damn well better be able to produce the pig."—Hunter S. Thompson.

Marty: What was it like when Rolling Stone moved from San Francisco to New York?
Paul: I was lucky because I moved here 11 months before everyone else to run the New York  City bureau while continuing as Managing Editor. The plan was for everyone to follow me in about three months, but moving a magazine and its staff from one coast to the other turned out to be complicated and expensive. We put together a special New York issue here and had it in the can so the San Francisco folks could have a little breathing room. But just as they arrived, Elvis Presley died, very close to the end of the two-week publishing cycle. We shelved the New York issue and put together an Elvis tribute in four days and nights. It was 1977, the Summer of Sam, and the city was still in the grips of a vicious heat wave. The new offices on Fifth Avenue were only partially furnished, the paint wasn't completely dry, and there was no air conditioning. Welcome to New York!

A photo of Jann Wenner in 1976 announcing to the Rolling Stone staff that the magazine is moving to New York City. Paul Scanlon is on the far left, leaning in the doorway.

Marty: As you know, I'm obsessed with bars and enjoy the occasional beer or twelve. What can you tell me about Jerry's Inn, the San Francisco bar where Rolling Stone's writers and editors took refuge?
Paul: Rolling Stone was located  south of Market Street, which was a very gritty, light industrial district with blue-collar taverns not friendly to young people with longish hair (Nowadays it's almost totally gentrified, and known as "SOMA"). Jerry's Inn, just across the street, was slightly more upscale. Jerry and Ken Francheschi welcomed us with open arms, possibly because Grover Lewis, Joe Eszterhas, Tim Cahill and I could really knock them back. By 1973 it was our clubhouse, not just writers and editors, but art directors, ad sales people and accountants. The booze was plentiful, Ken's lunches were decent, and the vibe was excellent. Between lunch hour and cocktail time, the place was pretty quiet, and we'd often entertain visiting—and thirsty—musicians. I remember having beers with Doug Sahm, Bob "the Bear" Hite of Canned Heat, and Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Jerry didn't have the foggiest notion of who these folks were. One day Ben was entertaining Bob Thiele, legendary record guy and John Coltrane's producer, and his wife Teresa Brewer, who had been a pop singing megastar in the 1950s. Jerry went completely nuts. For weeks he would say : "Little Tessie Brewer was in my place!"

Marty: What are some of your favorite New York bars these days?
Paul: I have to give a shout out to The Lion's Head in the West Village, one of the last great saloons, that closed in 1995. It was a literary bar, and the regulars had their book jackets framed on the back wall. One day a tourist wandered in and said, "Is this the bar where writers with drinking problems hang out?" The late, great Joe Flaherty shot back a reply: "No! This is the bar for drinkers with writing problems." I love Bill's Gay Nineties on East 54th Street. It was originally a speakeasy and has a terrific piano bar. I've been going to Molly's, on Third Avenue near 23rd, since I moved here, It's an authentic Irish "Shabeen." And of course there's Mumbles, a great place to watch sports on TV and the home of two of my favorite bartenders, Hal and Sarah.

Marty: It's time for another round. Any parting words?
Paul: Sure. Sarah! Another Harpoon lager, please.

Further Reading: The Wall Street Journal, Blog Critics and Good Reads.

Memphis Underground and New Orleans by Herbie Mann

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!