The Hottest Club in Town

The Golden Lion was a moderately large lounge inside the Holiday House, a low-slung building on Old Highway 99, where White Lane crosses. Once a Holiday Inn, the new Holiday Inn relocated west, down White Lane at an exit just off the new Interstate 5. The older building may have changed names but you can spot a dead and repurposed Holiday Inn sign by its shape and overall design.

I was the new ID checker. My boss, Bobby Cline, I had worked for previously with his salvage operation. Salvaging iron, I drove his heater-less pickup truck up the foggy Grapevine early each weekday morning with two black men as my passengers. They were co-workers I picked up at their residences along Cottonwood Road. The three of us cut cement-laden railroad track from tunnels in the mountains and loaded the heavy iron strips on a truck bed provided by Bobby's driver, who trucked the load to a salvage yard that would weigh it and pay for the tonnage.

While we were not involved in the drudgerous laying of track in the tunneled-out mountain, cutting lengths of track no more than four foot in length and loading them on a high-up flatbed trailer was no picnic, either. Just cutting the track into sections would have been easy enough, but the track was mostly covered in hardened concrete. That made it more difficult to cut through and the load heavier. The concrete had adhered to the iron so well it was not coming off. Apparently the salvage yard had a method to account for the additional weight of the concrete. My guess was that concrete was mixed and loaded into tubs outside the tunnel and the tubs were rolled down the tracks and inside the tunnel and the concrete used to reinforce the walls. Much of the concrete then splattered out and on the sides of the tracks in the process.

A small, wooden and grey-weathered deserted shack was nearby. A peek inside revealed a hardened wipe rag and a typed, construction company memo nailed on a wall. It was signed by an "Alastair McTaggart." I thought what a great name for a writer. Years later, I saw the name again as a byline on some published piece. He was a writer, or had become one by then.

I first met Bobby at the House of Pies across from Valley Plaza. I hung out there in the afternoons drinking coffee and eying the waitresses. Bobby was a semi-regular. A regular joke for the waitresses was, "Hey, about a quickie?" It helped if you held up a menu, pretending you was reading it when you said it, because a menu item was "quiche lorraine."

When the tunnel work played out, Bobby took over managing the Holiday House. It was just a few years back when he operated his own steakhouse, known by its motto: "Wine And Dine With Bobby Cline."

I even had a free room at the motel. I manned the door Friday and Saturday nights. That was it. I was paid "transient pay." That is, I made up a name each week, was given a check with that name and Lee, or whomever was behind the front desk, cashed it for me. Each week, it would get a good laugh, the name I picked --"Simon Bolivar, " "Jake Puckett," "Spud Fields," whomever fit my fancy.

Still in my 20s, I could pass for under-21, a point many of those I checked for indentification liked to point out when they relunctantly had to dig in their pockets and find an acceptable form of ID.

I actually had the free room before Bobby took over all motel operations. He lived there and was able to get me Room 129 as part of my working for his salvage operation. When I found out he was to manage the place, I asked him for a job that I knew to be open.

"I don't know," Bobby said, surprised, his eyes rising to wrinkle his forehead. "I don't like to hire friends. It is not always a good idea to have friends working for you."

"I need it," I said. "You've got it," he responded.

I guessed I had become his friend after once working for him and, even though I was now working for him again, I would somehow remain his friend.

My room faced the northern outside of the motel. My view was a long stretch of vacant land formerly owned by Bakersfield resident Delbert Autry, father of cowboy singing star Gene Autry. Delbert had lived in Kern County since 1940. The land was still in the Autry family even though Delbert died in Bakersfield at age 85 in 1968.

Lee, who worked the front desk and who tried to do whatever needed to be done in a front capacity, still worked his old job at nights as a single employee at one of the 19th Street's peep show joints.

Bobby had once been a bartender at the Country Club. Like radio DJs who move around all the time, bartenders, too, all seem to know each other. "Pinky" was a well-know bartender Cline hired. "Duffy" was another. The day barmaid was Jeannie Martini, well-known by vice cops in another profession.

I replaced Rick Sessions in checking IDs under a previous regime. Sessions was a former pro boxer and brother of singer Ronnie Sessions.

On his own, one of the barkeeps felt a need to offer his opinion on how I landed the job. "Ideally," he said, "for such a job you want someone at the door who can handle people without hurting anyone. With Rick, he'd tear your arm off and beat you to death with it."

I kept silent, but felt a little guity in doing so.

Bobby hired a band but did not like the results. They played a sort of upbeat brand of pop music. The crowds were decent, mostly blacks from nearby Cottonwood Road, but few drinks were bought. They'd sip and they'd sit.

Bobby said he had nothing against blacks, but he wanted a sort known to drink, that is, spend some money. He wanted also to make sure that the sippers had not liked the place so well as to think of it as their regular spot.

"The best way to get rid of the blacks is to hire a country band," he said. He did, and right away the drinking activity increased to a profitable rate and, no blacks.

Bobby had a new motto on the marquee, thanks to Ray Price's song of the moment.

As myself, Cline and fellow roomer Lou Cryts looked up at the message, "For The Good Times," Cryts said to Cline, "I think it should say, 'Wine and Dine With Bobby Clinestein.'" Cline didn't flinch. Instead, he smiled and said, "That would be all right -- as long as it brought in some business."
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in Bakersfield, California, “Lorene’s Coffee Shop,” which has been a fixture on the Bakersfield scene since the 1950s. Lorene was the first wife of deceased restaurateur Freddie Giovanetti who was whacked by the mob for gambling debts at the front door of his home. Lorene divorced him several years prior to his untimely demise and got a restaurant out of the divorce settlement and she established one of the better eateries Bakersfield has ever known.
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Freddie died September 1971
victim of unsolved murder
He opened his lavish, $250,000 dinner house in 1965 with all union employees.
Before it, he had Freddie's Cafe at 1524 30th Street
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The Golden Lion was a dead lounge then. Now, it was the hottest club in town.
>Al Garcia and the Rhythm Kings packed them in.
> I was going to make my own reputation on this night. ID
>checker or bouncer. It was to be my choice.
>
>

My subjective answer is a movie stuntman would require athletic abilities in order to perform his stunts without injury. No, he is not competing against anyone and no score is being kept. But you mention a rally race car driver, which for years people have debated whether race car drivers are athletes or not. They drive cars to see who gets the checkered flag and races requires stamina, hand-eye coordination, ability to react in a split second at 190 miles an hour. But the car is doing most of the work. The driver drives. I would include a movie stuntman if for no reason than to provide a reason for debate. Hope this helps and good luck with the book.

You can count on Chad

“That will never happen again under my watch.”
That was a quote from Miami QB Chad Pennington after a playoff loss last season in which he tossed four interceptions.
Considering that hardly ever does an NFL QB throw as many as four interceptions in a game, was it necessary for Pennington to make such a comment?

It reminds me of someone who gets hit by a wayward car on the freeway, causing their vehicle to fly 40 feet in the air and roll 16 times before coming to a stop in a field where a wild panther has escaped from the zoo and nearly bites the unlucky motorist who barely has time to close his banged up door to avoid the animal, and who afterward says, "I'll never forget it."

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