Visiting Sunset Strip, 1963
by Bryce Martin

The route I chose on beautiful Southern California sunny days would take me down Santa Monica Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard. The area called Sunset Strip took up maybe a dozen blocks between Doheny and La Cienega. To heighten the excitement I felt coming, sometimes I would drive around before settling in on Sunset. Nearby was Beverly Hills. Just being in Beverly Hills was like a dream. The area street names, too, were magical, especially Hollywood and Vine. Once, I made it a special occasion to park my car and walk to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, just to know for myself I had stood there with my own two feet. Another time I drove to the end of the Strip and beyond and breathed in the lusty breeze coming from the direction of the Pacific Ocean. I drove way up into the Hollywood Hills, on winding, steep roads and past big iron gates that framed elaborate estates, where I knew had to be hidden movie stars and famous film directors.

Clubs on the Strip showcased on their marquees go-go girls and rock bands such as local favorite Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and teenage girls hung around outside on the sidewalks, wearing long dresses and waiting around as if this was the place to wait around for whatever it was they were waiting around for. An exchange of pleasantries, a light if they asked. They were there to hustle up some drug money, to feed their addictions. The idea of having sex with any of them was a turn-off. I thought of drug addicts as being scabby and having who knows what kind of diseases. True or not, it was not an image I could shake.

The Whiskey A-Go-Go was fairly small inside, the band's music painfully noisy. Regularly, I went outside for a cigarette just to see if my ears still worked. When the lingering girls accepted I was not a recruit they spoke openly among themselves. They talked of needing a "spoon" in hopeful and optimistic tones.

In one of the lounges I looked around from my bar seat and spotted Sal Mineo. His gaze caught mine about the same time. I was a rebel in a pause. It would be like this every night, I thought, if I lived around here. It would be expensive, too. The draft beer I was drinking from a tall, tapered glass held less than the contents of a regular beer bottle, and I paid a dollar. In Tijuana, a bottle of Carta Blanca was a quarter. But, sure, that was Tijuana. This is Hollywood, Sunset Strip and it's all one big dreamland, or "Gollywood" as I remembered how columnist Walter Winchell described it.

Some of the clubs on the Strip I had never entered, and some I was sure I never would. The Playboy Club. Can you spell r-i-p-o-f-f? Playing big shot, or watching others in the role, is a sad waste. Dino’s, I liked the arty Dino's sign, but I was sure Dean Martin could survive without my help. Shelly’s Manne Hole sounded way too corny. After I found out Shelly Manne was a jazz drummer I knew it was not for me. If it had been Sandy Nelson's Teen Beat, that would have been a different story. Nelson had the hit instrumental "Teen Beat" during my not to distant high school days.

I was mostly an observer. That kept me plenty busy, even if it might not have looked so sometimes from the viewpoint of observers watching me. There had to have been some. Watching as if you're not watching is difficult to pull off. I felt I had mastered the form. Girls I attempted conversations with in the clubs were way beyond my maturity level. Neither did any of them seem sweet. It was as if each had their own particular hustle, and they could write a textbook on it.

I frequented the corner where the Whiskey A-Go-Go stood. Sneaky Pete’s was next door. Sneaky Pete’s was a dump. That is what I told myself each time I went inside. I drove all the way down here from my lost-city apartment out on the Mojave Desert for this? The few people milling around inside would fidget and fumble around with items drawn from their pockets, open up folded squares of paper and study them and then be off on their way to their real destinations. Around the corner was PJ's. It was a club with peppermint-striped awnings, like what you might see on a pair of pajamas. On the marquee was the name Joanne Worley. She would be a name I recognized later on the TV show Laugh-In.

A nice stretch of the legs involved walking up the street to Pandora’s Box, a club building situated smack dab in the middle of the split intersection. It was painted an outlandish purple color and located where the Strip began. The club's black drummer wore a mop hairdo and shot everyone the bird as they entered. With his hair he looked like Larry of the Three Stooges. I thought it brazen, his mannerisms, and his appearance was outrageous. Wild it was, this area. I'd be back.

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