Charleton Heston Couldn’t Have Said it Better

We walked into the nightclub late last night – me and Don, the leader of our big band. It was a weeknight and people were still out partying.

The place was once a bowling alley. I used to bowl there in the late 60s with my high school buddies. A few years ago, it changed hands and was reconditioned into a combination of the old Playboy Club, the Drake Hotel, and, if you’ve ever been there, House on the Rock in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

The main dance floor could have been used as a set for Star Trek or any of the action movies, including Batman. There were lasers, more than half-naked girls, an unbelievable sound system that pumped really good, modern dance music.

Three other smaller side rooms served as auxiliary bars. By smaller, I mean the size of a large banquet hall with a 25-ft. ceiling as opposed to a gymnasium. Speaking of the ceiling, there were chandeliers – maybe 20 feet in diameter and God knows how tall – that had to have been taken from an old hotel downtown. Hotel Xanadu.

It’s all Polish. Young, affluent Polish, ultra-chic, not like grandparents who came over on the boat and worked in factories. They were dressed to the nines (I forget how to say “nine” in Polish). The waitresses and female clientele struck me as something you see on the internet (when you should be doing something else), or maybe Dancing with the Stars. This is like money Hugh Hefner doesn’t even have. Course, I’ve never been and never will be to one of his parties. I hear they wear even less clothes. I read about it.

I had to tell the blond, thin, fit, 20-ish waitress who drew our $7 beers that the girls were so pretty I wish I was 30 again. She thanked me. I could have been her grandfather. The bar was a huge mahogany and glass job that might have come from a world’s fair at the turn of the next century.

Did I mention there were four TV screens in the marble and frosted glass washroom?

You can call it sex, hedonism. Opulent sexuality. But I didn’t get the feeling of sleaziness or meat market. That’s from my culture. “Meat Market” was Rush Street in the 60s and 70s where you’d meet white girls who didn’t go to college and you’d see plenty of pro baseball players hanging out after a game.

The nightclub struck me as the pinnacle of Polish culture in America. But it wasn't exactly the America we knew. However, the owner seemed to have had some thoughts about that.

I finally noticed the floor – narrow strips of maple, worn. I motioned to Don. It was the original floor from the bowling alley. An artifact. How nice of them. You could even see marks where you’d spot your ball. I wondered if I was standing at the spot where maybe 40 years ago I’d knocked down some pins.

We headed out. BTW, we were there to see if the owner wanted to hire the big band. As of this morning, surprisingly, it looks like a maybe. Have to make another phone call. Got another smile from the waitress when I told her we were jazz musicians, had a big swing band and we were the “real deal.” She seemed to think that was cool.

Don and I went through the lounge, which could have come from the Palmer House. The door to the parking garage was chained, but we kept walking towards it, still exploring.

A wall had blocked what we were about to see. Slowly, on the left, a space opened up and something came into view. Take, double take, then swallow.

There, in dim greenish florescent light, were two remaining lanes of the original bowling alley. Pins were set in both lanes, many balls, black and colored (the ladies’ bowling balls were colored and lighter as I remember) were racked up between the lanes, a pair of small scoring screens still hung overhead.

“Damn you! Damn you all to hell!” Charleton Heston’s utterance was a mix of shock and disgust at the end of Planet of the Apes. We could have well come upon the head of the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the floor.

I wasn’t angry and I wouldn’t have damned anybody. I was shocked at the passage of time and seeing the culture I had known become quaint – distilled to a museum piece in the corner, contrasted by this grandiose opulence.

We’ve lived a long time. Maybe playing big band music at this club – music written before I was even born – will somehow balance all of this.