Finally. After months. You found a friend of a friend of a friend who could get you fake I.d.
Had to be 18 to get in anywhere in L.A. Life was passing you by and you were stuck being 16 and missing everything.
Twenty-bucks and everyone will think you’re thirty. You’d settle for 20, but who are you to complain?
Somewhere in the middle of Van Nuys – a guy in his parents garage with a box of blank Student I.D. cards from the University of Denver. Didn’t ask where he got them – didn’t care, just as long as one of them worked.
You handed him your High School i.d. picture – he got busy cutting and laminating your photo on a card
Within minutes you became Sandy Goldstein, born in October 1949 – twenty-two – you could order a Martini with this.
You handed him your cash and all of a sudden you could feel your voice drop. You swore up and down you spotted a grey hair.
Trying it out at a local 7-11, you amble up to the counter, holding a can of Olde English Ale and mumbled “pack-a Marlboro Reds” like it was an afterthought..
Guy behind the counter, who really didn’t look much older than you, didn’t look up, didn’t ask to see any I.d. – slaps the Marlboros on the counter – tallies up the damages and barks out a number. Stuffs the Old English in a paper bag and hands you your change.
Maybe you look older than you thought. Maybe the bus ride to Van Nuys aged you.
All you know is, Foghat was playing the Whiskey Saturday night and you’re getting in.
The possibilities were endless, now that you were all of 22 – bars, nightclubs, adult bookstores – a whole new world just spilled out in front of you.
You became the “go-to guy” at your school – all your friends lined up with cigarette and wine requests. Within days you had a fan club.
You got so used to being 22 after a week that it would never occur to you in a million years that Mario, standing guard in front of the Whiskey would spend a lot of time staring at your I.d. card.
It got very quiet as Mario looked at the card and looked at you – and looked at the card – and looked at you again..
Finally, he asked when you had the sex change.
Perplexed, mixed with a healthy dose of paranoia, you croaked out “what?”
Mario, not to pull punches, handed you one of those “cut the crap” grimaces and reached into the box office pulling out a shoebox, filled with fake I.d. cards – all from The University of Denver. He dropped yours in, joining the others and pointed you in the direction of Sunset indicating not to come back any lifetime soon.
All that for all that. Kicked out of the club before you even got in – out Twenty bucks – facing all your friends who will yell “loser” and bother somebody else for booze and cigs.
The best it was going to be for you this night, and for a whole lot of others in the foreseeable future was lying in bed in your room – staring at the ceiling and listening to KPPC.
And pretending you’re an adult.
When you are finally an adult, you’ll think about this and laugh your ass off.
Or not.
Here is an hour’s worth of KPPC from September 6, 1971 with Bernie Mitchell and Zach Zenor.
