This is the story of Buzz Gamble.
Well, first we'll back up a bit. A few years ago some friends of mine, Robin and Linda, who were in a lesbian punk band here in NY, got sick of the whole scene and they moved out to the desert in California. They bought a bar in a town called Pioneertown, which is in Joshua Tree about 2 hours west of LA. It's a good 20 minute drive on dirt road from the nearest town. The town was built for Roy Rogers movies and it remains exactly how it was in the 1940s: it has the aforementioned bar (called Pappy and Harriet's), a motel, and the facade of an old western town-complete with swinging saloon doors, the general store, and the hitchin' posts and such. It's great.
So Robin and Linda own this bar. They bought it from the actual pappy and Harriet. Pappy was obviously a shy man. He looked like Uncle Jessie from The Dukes of Hazard, and he has about 45 portraits of himself around the bar, even more photos of himself, and his bust behind the bar. He only sold the bar because he was old and sick, and has since died. He and Harriet were revered figures in these parts.
When Robin and Linda bought the place they were met with skepticism at first. Two NY punk lesbians are a tough leap for people who live in the desert and look like grizzled 1840s miners. But before long they found themselves town favorites. They know every single customer by name, they know where they live, and they know their story. And every story crosses everyone else's story at some point.
Somehow, even though people have to drive 20 minutes through nothing to get there, Pappy and Harriets is packed all the time. Old guys are waiting outside at 10AM waiting to start drinking. Country bands play at night and the whole place is two stepping. And somehow Robin and Linda have gotten name acts like Lucinda Williams and Shelby Lynn to play the place.
For the last two years my friends and I have gone out to see Robin and Linda for New years and rang in the year at Pappy and Harriets. We stay at the motel next door, run by Ace #1 Coltraine, who looks like Kris Kristofferson would look if he didn't bathe in a year. Ace #1 also works "security" for Robin and Linda, which consists of him getting drunk by 6PM, hitting on even drunker cowgirls, and saying "Rock the house" to everyone he sees.
Ace #1 hooked up with a lovely creature who could barely talk this new year. The next week he knocked on our room with a case or coors and asked if we wanted to join him and his new friend for a liquid breakfast.
But in a town full of legends (including Abby, the-Minnie-Pearl-loving-waitress who is rude to all the customers and yet manages to get all the orders wrong anyway, her daughter Lonnie, who works as a maid at the hotel and a $5 prostitute for anyone who asks-no kidding- and a customer named Bonnie who shows up every day with her 7 dogs and is angry every day when Robin tells her that she can't be bringing them inside)-the legend among legends was Buzz Gamble.
We met Buzz last year. He was 58 but looked 80. He had been in jail half his life for a bunch of different things, but most famously he did 3 years for robbing a donut store-for the donuts, not the money. Johnny Paycheck even wrote a song about that episode called "The Great Donut Robbery". I'm serious. And hence Buzz's legend.
But it would all mean nothing except for 2 things: 1. Buzz could sing the blues like no other white man. Well, he sang country blues -Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Willie Nelson. Stuff like that. But he was amazing. So I hear. Robin swears he's the best singer she's ever seen.
and 2. Buzz was usually too drunk to stand, never mind sing.
In the last year things got really bad. Buzz was shaking by 8AM if he wasn't drinking yet, and often had to drink through a straw because he couldn't steady himself. And Robin didn't want someone like that in her bar, and she didn't want to contribute to it, but he had nowhere else to go. Buzz mom washed dishes there. If she cut him off he would have just gotten drunk somewhere else. Nicholas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas" had nothing on Buzz.
But the sad thing is that he didn't want to die. Robin tried to take him to the hospital every night. She tried to get him to eat. She became his mother. He wasn't having any of it, but he just kept saying to her, "I'm scared to die."
Anthony Hopkins came in the bar one day saying he was looking to make a movie and wanted to use the bar as a set. He asked Buzz if he wanted to be an extra. Every single day after that Robin said that he asked if "Tony" had called about the movie. And she heard him telling other customers that he was gonna be a movie star. Anthony Hopkins never called and never came back, of course.
Buzz spent Thanksgiving at the bar. Of course. Robin tried to get him to eat something. He refused. She tried to take him to the hospital. She said he was shaking so badly that she knew something was really wrong.
He said he just needed to go lay down, so he went out to his car in the parking lot. He died in the front seat. Robin went out to check on him twenty minutes later and he was already dead.
She had him cremated and his ashes are in an urn behind the bar. She just didn't know what else to do with them and it seems appropriate. She put his picture up next to Lucinda's and Shelby Lynn, on their wall of fame, and has his boots in a glass case next to the bar.
And at midnight on New Year's Eve everyone in Pappy and Harriet's stopped what they were doing and we drank a toast to Buzz.
Well, first we'll back up a bit. A few years ago some friends of mine, Robin and Linda, who were in a lesbian punk band here in NY, got sick of the whole scene and they moved out to the desert in California. They bought a bar in a town called Pioneertown, which is in Joshua Tree about 2 hours west of LA. It's a good 20 minute drive on dirt road from the nearest town. The town was built for Roy Rogers movies and it remains exactly how it was in the 1940s: it has the aforementioned bar (called Pappy and Harriet's), a motel, and the facade of an old western town-complete with swinging saloon doors, the general store, and the hitchin' posts and such. It's great.
So Robin and Linda own this bar. They bought it from the actual pappy and Harriet. Pappy was obviously a shy man. He looked like Uncle Jessie from The Dukes of Hazard, and he has about 45 portraits of himself around the bar, even more photos of himself, and his bust behind the bar. He only sold the bar because he was old and sick, and has since died. He and Harriet were revered figures in these parts.
When Robin and Linda bought the place they were met with skepticism at first. Two NY punk lesbians are a tough leap for people who live in the desert and look like grizzled 1840s miners. But before long they found themselves town favorites. They know every single customer by name, they know where they live, and they know their story. And every story crosses everyone else's story at some point.
Somehow, even though people have to drive 20 minutes through nothing to get there, Pappy and Harriets is packed all the time. Old guys are waiting outside at 10AM waiting to start drinking. Country bands play at night and the whole place is two stepping. And somehow Robin and Linda have gotten name acts like Lucinda Williams and Shelby Lynn to play the place.
For the last two years my friends and I have gone out to see Robin and Linda for New years and rang in the year at Pappy and Harriets. We stay at the motel next door, run by Ace #1 Coltraine, who looks like Kris Kristofferson would look if he didn't bathe in a year. Ace #1 also works "security" for Robin and Linda, which consists of him getting drunk by 6PM, hitting on even drunker cowgirls, and saying "Rock the house" to everyone he sees.
Ace #1 hooked up with a lovely creature who could barely talk this new year. The next week he knocked on our room with a case or coors and asked if we wanted to join him and his new friend for a liquid breakfast.
But in a town full of legends (including Abby, the-Minnie-Pearl-loving-waitress who is rude to all the customers and yet manages to get all the orders wrong anyway, her daughter Lonnie, who works as a maid at the hotel and a $5 prostitute for anyone who asks-no kidding- and a customer named Bonnie who shows up every day with her 7 dogs and is angry every day when Robin tells her that she can't be bringing them inside)-the legend among legends was Buzz Gamble.
We met Buzz last year. He was 58 but looked 80. He had been in jail half his life for a bunch of different things, but most famously he did 3 years for robbing a donut store-for the donuts, not the money. Johnny Paycheck even wrote a song about that episode called "The Great Donut Robbery". I'm serious. And hence Buzz's legend.
But it would all mean nothing except for 2 things: 1. Buzz could sing the blues like no other white man. Well, he sang country blues -Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Willie Nelson. Stuff like that. But he was amazing. So I hear. Robin swears he's the best singer she's ever seen.
and 2. Buzz was usually too drunk to stand, never mind sing.
In the last year things got really bad. Buzz was shaking by 8AM if he wasn't drinking yet, and often had to drink through a straw because he couldn't steady himself. And Robin didn't want someone like that in her bar, and she didn't want to contribute to it, but he had nowhere else to go. Buzz mom washed dishes there. If she cut him off he would have just gotten drunk somewhere else. Nicholas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas" had nothing on Buzz.
But the sad thing is that he didn't want to die. Robin tried to take him to the hospital every night. She tried to get him to eat. She became his mother. He wasn't having any of it, but he just kept saying to her, "I'm scared to die."
Anthony Hopkins came in the bar one day saying he was looking to make a movie and wanted to use the bar as a set. He asked Buzz if he wanted to be an extra. Every single day after that Robin said that he asked if "Tony" had called about the movie. And she heard him telling other customers that he was gonna be a movie star. Anthony Hopkins never called and never came back, of course.
Buzz spent Thanksgiving at the bar. Of course. Robin tried to get him to eat something. He refused. She tried to take him to the hospital. She said he was shaking so badly that she knew something was really wrong.
He said he just needed to go lay down, so he went out to his car in the parking lot. He died in the front seat. Robin went out to check on him twenty minutes later and he was already dead.
She had him cremated and his ashes are in an urn behind the bar. She just didn't know what else to do with them and it seems appropriate. She put his picture up next to Lucinda's and Shelby Lynn, on their wall of fame, and has his boots in a glass case next to the bar.
And at midnight on New Year's Eve everyone in Pappy and Harriet's stopped what they were doing and we drank a toast to Buzz.
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you'll see some kids.
Leave the car running, though.
Just a piece of advice.