When I was twenty-three, I found myself unemployed and living in my girlfriend’s room in her parents’ beautiful brick home on the South Side of Chicago — an affluent white neighborhood slipping into descent after the M.L.K. riots of 1968.
They kept me upstairs in her room and visible, with my girlfriend sadly relegated to the basement. Wonderful folks, actually, and I’m thankful for them.
I remember wandering the streets day after day, week after week, begging for work, sliding in and out of tawdry bars — sticky-floor flyblown dives I’d never venture into for a drink on my own — but now prayed would hire me. I had just spent $250 attending Professional Bartender’s School and earned a Professional Bartender’s Certificate after a week pouring colored water out of fake liquor bottles into appropriate glasses.
Armed with this “certificate,” I wandered into dozens of Chicagoland watering holes, but no one would hire me.
Sheila’s Puke Shack owner, S. Hardnutter, threw me the stink eye the second I dangled the certificate in front of her narrowing eyes, then pointed me toward the door.
Each night, I’d limp home on sore feet and sit on my girlfriend’s bed in despair. I remember a lone tear running down my cheek one night, followed by spontaneous laughter.
My mind ran to Iron Eyes Cody — a pure-blood Italian, we found out later — who made an environmental television advertisement as an American Indian saddened by the rape of the land, a single tear running down his cheek. Miraculously, it prodded Americans into picking up roadside trash. For a while.
Swinging for the fences the next morning, I took a train downtown and hit all the major bars on Michigan Avenue — thumbs down everywhere.
Fingering the last $10 in my pocket, I stood at the corner of Walton and Michigan Avenue, eyeballing The Drake — where visiting Queen Elizabeth had stayed. Too classy for my zero experience, I reckoned.
Looking southeast — across the street at the old Palmolive Building — I saw the Playboy Club’s flashing siren lights.
Shrugging off my gut instinct to give up, I walked inside and told the smiling Bunny at the door that I needed to see the human relations rep. Turns out — it was my girlfriend’s sister’s best friend.
“You’re in luck!” she smiled. “We need a bartender pronto. You can start Monday morning! Get here at ten for an orientation on lunch, which starts at eleven.”
The Playboy Club & Lynyrd Skynyrd
Only two months after donning the brown polyester Playboy bartender outfit, I was working the back bar, where they keep rookies out of sight. Bunnies, bottles, glasses, and drinks were the only things I saw until we heard a sudden commotion.
“Lynyrd Skynyrd just walked in,” said Nina, a six-foot-two black beauty South Sider with popping biceps. I’m six-four and she looked down at me from her heels. Her biceps sprung while her lips snarled. “Rednecks from hell,” she added.
The party intensified. I slung drinks like a three-arm robot. About twenty minutes later, a scream cut the air:
With Ed King.
“Get your hands out of there! I’ve already got one asshole in there!” Nina shouted.
The band fell silent. Slowly rose. Trudged upstairs to the Red Room while patrons observed how scrawny they looked.
I’d seen them live at the RKO Orpheum in Davenport, Iowa in 1974 — playing “Free Bird” before it was released. Aerosmith opened, playing “Dream On” before it hit the airwaves. Knocked us out of our bell bottoms.
Ed King was in Skynyrd back then, a stocky blonde dude from California. But this was 1979 — these greasy rockers, weaving in stained denim, had a sad feel two years after the plane crash that cored their creative apple.
Good thing Nina didn’t knock their teeth out and retire them for good.
John Entwistle & The Who
Another bartender — an American Indian named Warren — told me The Who was playing the Stockyards the next weekend. So my brother Jim, girlfriend Kim (a Northwestern nursing student), Warren, and I piled into my 1952 blue Chevrolet.
City buses actually moved over to avoid that giant hunk of straight-six powered steel.
At the ticket counter, Warren was missing. He soon appeared, nervously offering us lozenges.
“Quaaludes,” he said. “Eat fast. Cops saw me buy them. If they find them on you, you’re going to jail.”
Idiot, I thought, as we choked them down. Except for Warren.
Then the cops appeared, frisked us, found the Lude on Warren, and cuffed him. I never saw him again. He likely had warrants elsewhere.
The concert? It sucked.
The International Amphitheater — near the old Stockyards where my great-great-grandfather rustled cattle — was a giant cement box. All you could hear were the first and last chords. The rest? Swirling vulture screams.
Townsend leaped, Daltrey pinwheeled, and Entwistle glowed. Roses flew his way.
Afterward, we met up with Pat — an English major who dated Bunny Traci — who was now driving Entwistle’s limo. Entwistle sat in the backseat, smiling.
Just as I was about to ask for an autograph…
Kim and Jim began to spin slowly, then stopped. Then — splat — fell flat on their faces. Entwistle waved. I waved back, brushed gravel from their mouths, and dragged them to the car under the limo’s lights.
Lady Di
On my first trip abroad at 28, I was walking through Hyde Park on my way to see my old neighbor Jim Ringenberg play Camden’s Electric Ballroom with Jason and the Scorchers.
The park bustled. A vivacious young woman in white shorts and black rollerblades — with a black Sony Walkman — charged at me. I stepped aside. She twirled, smiled, and skated off. Three bodyguards followed thirty yards behind.
A fan magazine later said she was listening to Dire Straits’ “Skateaway.”
The President of Bangladesh
In 1999, I toured Bangladesh with Rotary International. At the end of our visit, we met the president — a figurehead role in Bangladesh. Like what America might actually need.
Seriously, one person shouldn’t run the country solo. We need an executive council, split 50/50, with real talent and courage. Let a “figurehead” do the photo-ops while twelve leaders guide the nation.
Anyway — as we sat in the anteroom of the presidential palace, I imagined Omar Sharif. Then in walked… Groucho Marx. Dead ringer. Eyebrows and all.
We sipped tea, talked, and I bit my lip trying not to laugh. As we left:
“Your lower lip is bleeding,” a colleague said.
“Had to bite it,” I replied.
“Me too!” she laughed, and we doubled over on the palace steps.
Maya Angelou
While teaching in East Tennessee, I saw Maya Angelou perform in Nashville. She was being paid $50,000 for the event.
I thought, “No one is worth $50k an hour.”
After her performance — where she sang, danced, cried, and made us cry — I thought: “She got ripped off. That was worth $150,000.”
Later that evening, I ran into her at a bookstore. We talked for ten minutes. She looked into me — really looked — and spoke to truths I hadn’t acknowledged in myself. Because acknowledging them would mean acting on them.
So tears drip onto the paper today as I scribble these notes.
The caged bird sang again on Tuesday. And the world applauded, then danced in the streets.
Gene Scott is an Appalachian writer, songwriter, and independent publisher. His work blends folk noir, protest music, and literary nonfiction rooted in the rural South, exploring faith, corruption, memory, and moral reckoning. He writes from the edge of empire, where history echoes and power hides in plain sight.
Follow his work at GeneScottBooks.com on Substack.
