The Minx

By Pleasant Gehman

In the late seventies, the Palomino was the nerve center of country music in Los Angeles. The famed San Fernando Valley roadhouse hosted Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, like, every other country star whose name meant anything. “The Pal,” as regulars affectionately called it, might as well have been the West Coast wing of the Grand Ole Opry or Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. That’s jes’ how country it was. The air was always so thick with a haze of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume that it seemed like a gardenia-scented bomb had gone off. It was the type of place where the patrons really did sit at the bar drinkin’ doubles and feelin’ single. The cocktail waitresses, all genuine Honky Tonk Angels and Buckle Bunnies who’d moved to L.A. from places like Bakersfield or Needles or Kingman, Arizona, had aspirations of being the next Crystal Gayle. Their faces were hard lined and overly made up, and instead of Farrah-dos they had big Nashville hair, teased and sprayed. Stealthy and discreet, with the finesse of thieves, they’d sidle up to tables on the pretense of clearing empty glasses and slip their demo cassettes into the suit pockets of their music-biz clientele…

This is an excerpt of an article originally published in Slake No. 1. To read the entire story, purchase or subscribe at shop.slake.la.