--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, vpFREE Administrator <vpfree3355@...> wrote:
>
> LVA Question of the Day - 11 MAY 2012
>
> Q: Your QOD from May 4th briefly mentioned some history on
> the Bonanza Gift Shop. Can you give us the full history on
> the site and how the gift store came to be? The QOD archives
> does not have a lot of info on it.
>
> Read the answer here:
>
> http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm
>
>
This QOD has definitely jogged my memory of where I was at and what I was doing in 1979, and 1980. And I do know that there was a casino in January 1980 where the Bonanza Gift Shop is today.
In February 1979 I split up with a red-headed femme fatale in Juneau, Alaska that I had been shacked up with for over 4 years. I had a friend there, Mark Pisciuneri, who was from Rancho Cucamonga, California. We had both cleaned carpets for the same outfit in Juneau.
Being newly single, and only 26, I had no experience with meeting girls in the bars. But Mark did. He was a ladies man par extroardinaire. I hung around him just to take his castoffs. Mark decided to move back to Southern California. I told him to give me a call and let me know how he was doing.
In the fall of 1979 he called me and told me I should come on down to Santa Barbara as he could get me a job cleaning carpets with him for Coit. We covered the area from Solvang and Santa Ynez all the way to Simi Valley and Agourra. My favorite place to clean carpets was Goleta/Isla Vista. The first time we went there to clean carpets my eyes popped out of my head. College girls! California girls! Wall to Wall California girls! Wow!!!
Mark and I were in a nightclub in Goleta one night that was packed with girls. The house band was pretty good, albeit very shabbily dressed. But the girls were all over them. Mark jumped up from the table and went and talked to the lead singer between songs. When he got back to the table he told me to play along. "What's up?" I asked. "I told him we were rock promoters and was wondering if they were interested in doing some high paying gigs in Alaska" he responded. I laughed my ass off.
When the band took a break they made a beeline straight for our table. And here came this thundering herd of girls right behind them. When the girls found out we were rock promoters they were all over us. Mark was good. Damn good. We both got lucky that night, or at least I did. It was just business as usual for Mark.
I took off out of Santa Barbara just a few days after New Year's 1980. For some reason Las Vegas was calling me. I had never been there. I hitchhiked out of Santa Barbara. From Barstow I caught a ride into Las Vegas. The guy dropped me off at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Sahara. I bought a newspaper and was scouring the classifieds for a place to stay and jobs. Then I seen something. Tramps were steadily coming down the Boulevard and entering this casino where Bonanza Gift Shop is today. Then I seen the sign in the window: FREE BOWL OF BEEF STEW. What the hell? I like beef stew. It was the first casino I was ever in in my life. I didn't gamble, just ate the beef stew. I was too busy thinking about where I was gonna stay and what kind of job I could get.
I rented a room for $50 a week in this old flea bag hotel up Main Street in North Las Vegas. It was right across the street from St. Vincents. I got a job selling advertising, for a commission, over the phone for a rag called the Casino Employee News. For the first few weeks I was given good leads and made some pretty good money. But after that it was pretty bad. There was something else going on. I was blowing the money in the casinos every night. I started telling myself "I'm never gonna have any money in this spot."
Las Vegas is the toughest place in the world for a loser. I hitchhiked right on out of that town.
