CHAPTER 9
Chips Ahoy

    The year was 1969.  Jon and I were back in Cajun Country with no gig, no money and no band.  Since we had been to the bottom of the well many times before, we knew there was only one thing to do.  Put a band together!  We knew that we couldn't put a band together with no contracts and no gigs, but as luck would have it, a booking agent from Boston called just in the nick of time. He had some February gigs in New England that paid good bucks.  We, once again, set about the task of organizing yet another band.  We hired Benny Graeff, one of our good friends, who played great bass.  Ken Herpin was still reluctantly hanging on.  His wife, Bonnie, agreed to sing with us. This was the fourth "What's Happening" band in only two years.  Robert Vernon was our new drummer and Nick Farkas was the B-3 organ player.  Gary Walker was hired on vocals and Linda Walker (Gary Walker's wife) and Darrell Cox's wife teamed up with Bonnie Herpin for a backup trio.  Jon and I were the horn section. We re-named the band "Whispering Dust and the Secret Dog."
    We needed a place to rehearse the group, so we rented the Rathskellar Club in Baton Rouge for two weeks and locked ourselves up with some speed.  Two weeks later we had a show. Not the best show I've ever had, but nevertheless, it was a show.
    I had a new girlfriend.  Gwen would hang with me through eleven years of turmoil.  She was the type of female that would always get her way, being a beautiful platinum blonde with green eyes.  A lovely combination.  Let me tell you how cunning and smart Gwen was. We were not in a relationship at that time.  At least, I thought we weren't, but Gwen had other plans.  Behind my back, she had called the booking agent and after flirting with him on the phone, she booked herself on the New England gigs as a go-go dancer.  I had told her earlier that she wasn't coming with us.  She wasn't going for it.   I hesitantly decided this was okay, and we loaded up and headed east. I had no speed to help me drive, but I made it all the way non-stop, with only 82 cups of coffee.  The closer we got to Boston, the colder it got.   It was eighty-five degrees when we departed from Baton Rouge.  When Gwen and I arrived in Boston it was zero degrees!   I had never been in such bitter cold. I froze my balls off!  We were like two zombies when we arrived in Boston.  We looked all over for a cheap motel and finally found one with a weekly rate.  Most of us stayed at the same motel, which was owned by an Italian character named "Mario".  We finally got situated and rested for the night.
    The next morning, to our great surprise, we woke up to find that we could not open our motel room door.  There was snow three quarters of the way up. After struggling with it, we finally got it open only to find a solid white blanket of snow on everything.  All of our cars were buried and we had a difficult time finding them. We actually had to dig them out. This was something we were not accustomed to.
    When we would leave to go somewhere, Mario would knock on our room doors, hoping to make some time with our old ladies.  He would always say in a singing voice, "It's Mario"!  Of course he struck out everytime.  I guess his wife wasn't giving him any.
        Gwen was a fantastic cook. She took an electric skillet with us everywhere we went.  When she would cook, Mario could smell the food and he snooped around, trying to find out if we were cooking in the room. When he'd ask If we were cooking, we would always hide the skillet and tell him no. But you could smell Gwen's rice and gravy for blocks.  Robert Vernon actually had a big Labrador dog that he kept in the van.  People that would read the "Whispering Dust and the Secret Dog" sign on the side of the van would often peek in the window thinking that the lab was the "secret" dog. But there was no secret dog. That was just a name that Mike Pollard or one of his friends made up.  
    The first gig was at some dipshit club in Everett, Massachusettes.  Gary Walker was the lead singer.  Good old Gary, he could always make us laugh.  I don't think he ever had a down moment in his life.  Because of that name, he came up with one of the funniest routines that I've ever seen. It would crack me up every time he would do it. Gary would be on his knees singing Rainbow ‘65,  and we would black out the stage. While the lights were out, he would slip on a rubber dog mask and on a pre-arranged signal, he would raise his head and start barking and at the same instant I would hit the strobe light.  We would flash this for about two seconds and then go black. As the people would begin to figure it out they would crack up!  Gary Walker had a wonderful sense of humor, and was never egotistical for one split second. I had a very high regard for his genius. Everyone who ever worked with him lost something when Gary Walker died. Rest in peace, my brother. I love you.  We will always sing your song.
    Benny Graeff was the only one in the band that didn't have white trousers. That was our uniform.  White trousers and whatever.  I drove Benny down to the K-Mart one day and I told him to go in and buy some white trousers. Benny went in and came out with some khaki, tan trousers.  I asked him, "Where's the white trousers?"   Benny looked at me and delivered his now classic line, "Ned, one hundred bucks a week, you get khakis.  Two hundred bucks a week, you get white trousers!" I never did get Benny in white trousers, but he did play his ass off.
    By some quirk of fate, the "Jack Hall" Boogie Kings happened to be playing in Boston at the same time that we were in that area.  Even stranger than that,  was the fact that after a cancellation, we ended up playing at Teddy Venus' club, the Downtowner, and guess what band we followed?  Of course, the Jack Hall Boogie Kings!
      The Downtowner was located in the center of Boston's "Combat Zone," so named because of all the shootings that had occurred in this area.  It was actually a topless bar with bands.  It was hard to reach the audience because of the proliferation of female breast exposure.  It was also very hard not to lose our concentration up on that stage!  Musicians were treated like dogs in Teddy's club.  During our intermissions, we could not stay in the club.  They made us go down to the boiler room where it was hot, steamy, and dirty.  I remember looking at Jon Smith one night and remarking, "What the fuck are we doing here, man?  Let's go back home and re-think this shit."
     We made one more engagement at a place called "Luther's", but the combination of snow, bad gigs, and a healthy score of downers that messed with our brains,  finally made us decide to return home to Louisiana.  I was broke, defeated, and desperate again when I got home.  
Benny Graeff quit the band and so did Kenneth Herpin.  That was the end of the great "What's Happening" band Part 4.
     I farted around for a few months with no direction. The Jack Hall Boogie Kings were dying a slow death.  Chester Carr, a slick promoter was helping their situation along.
     I got a phone call from Duane Yates in May of 1969. Duane and I still faced drug charges in Lake Charles.  After inquiring about how we stood with Camille Gravel,( our "Perry Mason")  Duane asked if I could bring some players to Vegas.  After what we had been through with Duane and Rosemary the first time around, I really had to think hard about getting myself beat up again.  I hesitated, but having nothing going for myself, I got some players and headed once again to Vegas to pursue our elusive dream.
Getting back to Duane's phone call, he said we could stay at his rent house while we put a band together. This sounded like a pretty safe situation to me. I was still with Gwen and had managed to hang on to my ‘67 T-Bird.  We had just enough money to get there. In fact, I reached Vegas with thirteen bucks in my pocket.  When Gwen and I arrived in Las Vegas, after a grueling trip, we moved in with Duane and Rosemary.  They had a nice house, but the utilities were shut off, and we had no air conditioning or hot water. It was 115 degrees outside.  I could not believe that anyone could live this way, but we were hurting and we had to survive the best way that we could. No one had any drugs of any kind at this juncture.  Kenneth Trahan, our friend and hairdresser, was living with Duane and Rosemary, and about six of us house guests. We had no food or money, so we were forced to steal food or starve.  We tried a few rehearsals, but that went nowhere.  Gwen and I were just about fed up with everything around us and we had nowhere to turn.  We needed money and we needed it fast.  We were desperate, frustrated and hungry and we wanted to get out of that situation. 
             We moved in with Jack Clark and his wife Drucilla, after they graciously offered to rescue us from the pits of hell.  I was very happy to get away from that sad situation.
        Before we moved in with Jack and Dru, we rode around Vegas in the T-Bird and regrouped our strategy.  I had no band and no money, but Gwen wanted to work.  As we rode around,  Gwen told me about a conversation between herself and Druscilla about chip hustling.  I knew about this game because Dru had told me about it the year we played at Lake Tahoe.
        Let me reveal to you the way that chip hustling operates. It takes two people to be partners.  A beautiful woman, which Gwen happened to be, is used as bait to entice rich guys to hit on them.  The woman sits at a bar in a casino, all decked out, intermingled with the hookers. The woman is actually posing as a hooker, but really has no intention of ever going to the room.  The objective is to snare a rich old guy  that will sponsor the woman at a gambling table.  After the initial step, where the old guy hits on the woman at the bar for some room action, the chip hustler enthusiastically accepts the offer, but suggests that they gamble a while first.  The chip hustler accepts the old guy's room key to give him the impression that he will end up in the sack with her.  The backup (usually me) watches from a distance, never losing sight of the couple, just in case something goes wrong. As they gamble, the casino gives the old guy free drinks. (The chip hustler does not drink anything but sodas).  This gives the advantage to the chip hustler, who must be on her toes at all times. As the chip hustler gambles with the old man, she steadily diverts the large chips ($25 to $100) into her purse.  A skillful and talented woman like Gwen could make as much as three thousand dollars a night.  She seldom came home with less than a thousand. If the old guy wants to go to another casino, the woman insists that they go by cab. It is dangerous to be in a car alone with a stranger in Las Vegas. Of course, as the night progresses, the old guy keeps pressing for the woman to accompany him to his room.  As the events continue, the chip hustler goes to the ladies' room, where the backup usually is, and lets him know what hotel they are going to.  It is important for the backup to have the chip hustler in sight at all times.  Like I said, it's a dangerous business.
        Gwen was so skillful at chip hustling that she never got caught .The pit bosses knew exactly what she was doing, but they could not catch her. Gwen was double jointed and had such skillful hands that she could make a chip disappear like a professional magician!  She used a purse that was smaller than a man's pocket. (Pit bosses look for large purses.)  This little purse would be stuffed with nothing but kleenex so that the chips would not make a clicking sound as they accidentally on purpose fell into her purse. She had her shit together. If she got too many chips, she would excuse herself and head for the ladies' room, where I was standing close by and hand me the chips. She would go back for more and I would hold the excess chips and cash them  the next day at a different casino.  Getting back to the strategy, the old guy inevitably says, "I'm done, let's go to the room."  At this time the chip hustler agrees, but says that she would like to stay with the old guy, who was usually very drunk by this time, all night. She then suggests that she go to her place, a few minutes away, for an overnight bag and a freshen-up kit. The old guy, most of the time, will like this idea.  At this point, he still does not realize that he's been had!  The chip hustler tells the mark that she has the key and she will meet him in the room in a few minutes, and the old guy goes to the room and plays with himself and waits, and the chip hustler simply walks out the front door and takes a cab home, not to return, knowing the old guy would be going home in a day or two.
    Gwen got to be so proficient at this game that she was able to support us for a few years while I tried in vain to find something to do with my life.  I was getting tired of Vegas and I was too strung out on drugs.  I really missed my kids and I didn't like being so far away from them.  I didn't want to see them in the condition that I was in.
In the meantime, the United States put a man on the moon, and the Jack Hall Boogie Kings band disbanded.
Just as I had predicted, the Boogie Kings could not survive without a strong leader.  No one was doing the booking, making the phone calls, and no promo was being sent to venues.  The big miscalculation that the band made when they fired me is that they thought the phone would ring automatically and the gigs would never end.  It just doesn't work that way.  A bandleader must work tirelessly every day to promote and book a band, no matter how great they are.