The Mapes @ The Aruba Lounge

Written by GE 138.

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So right after the Fear show, after chilling out with Mr. Lee Ving at the Merch Booth, where he was holding Court and posing for pictures and signing autographs, I'm outside of Wasted Space conversing with George and Jennifer, looking for Dean to see if he was game to go see The Mapes tear up the Aruba Lounge, and after a series of text messages back and forth, Dean said he wanted to go and we all headed out past the shitty driving conditions and got on the Strip to take us to the Thunderbird Casino. That's where the Aruba Lounge is. I haven't been here in years, since like, some Suite 666 gig many, many moons ago. Talk Of The Town is directly across the street, and I was texting my friend Treasure, who happens to own Talk Of The Town, to meet me at the gig, and of course she said she would. We pulled into a parking lot that was chock full of various vehicles, some showing their "non-conformity" by sporting Punk Rock stickers in different places. Dean parks the car, I grab my camera and my digital recorder (I was still hoping to get that Mapes interview that I was flaking on) and we headed towards a side door that was, of course, locked. Thank Gawd Sheriff Turlet was standing there, as he let us in the side door, which meant that we circumvented the cover charge (if there was one). Punk Rawk maaan. Sneaking into gigs. What was I, like 16 again? LOL The Mapes musical equipment was on stage. They hadn't played yet. We had gotten there just in time. I made a bee line to the bar, grabbed a bunch of Corona's and took position center stage, anticipating the madness that was about to begin.

So Baron Von Ding Dong, the madman who plays bass for the Mapes, starts things off by asking for contributions to help get his truck out of impound, as it was towed earlier when he parked it somewhere he shouldn't of, obviously. All his stage equipment (face mask, fuzzy white jacket, and air horn) was in his truck, and the mask he was wearing tonight looked like it belonged to some Japanese superhero character. I only mention the towing thing because it becomes a factor later in the story. A few people threw a couple of bucks towards him, to help get his truck back from the tow yard (yours truly included), and after a bit, and an opening misfire, the Mapes launch into Your Pussy Makes Me Vomit and the room goes Electric! People are shaking and dancing, and lurching to and fro, fists are pumping in the air, Joe from 1/2 Ast is directly behind me and keeps reaching over and playing with my nipple, and it feels pretty fucking good! hee hee hee The band is looking good, but they're sounding even better. Szandora is hula-hooping her heart away directly in front of the band, which only adds to the great visual display that's happening on the stage. You got guys in costumes playing this amazing kick ass Punk Rock music, and this hott ass chick who is practically nude, fucking gorgeous, and twirling around like some beautiful drunken dervish. I mean, what more do you need at a Punk Rock gig! LOL Every eye in the house was focused on what was happening on the stage, and directly in front of the stage. There was another room in the Aruba Lounge, where some Indie Folk band was playing (Bob said they made Coldplay sound like Pantera), and people were filtering over to see the shenanigans that the Mapes were manipulating and orchestrating. The Mapes are smooth like Patron. Szandora is like the lime and salt after the tequila shot. And you gotta keep your eye on her too, because if you don't, you're gonna catch an errant hula-hoop rotation that will slap you right in the nuts. Believe me, I found this out very quickly... heh heh heh. This kind of chaotic element is exactly what the Mapes feed off of. Their self-depreciating cracks about musical limitations is pure bullshit. These guys can play. Their songs are catchy as fuck, packed with the power of a vicious sugar rush, and just as short and intense as an ice cream headache. If they weren't singing about things like Voltron, Dingo's or Vagina's, while looking like the Devil's favorite house band, then there's a good chance that The Mapes music would be taking over the world. Quite possibly, it still might happen, but probably only after one of the band members dies in a very Rock and Roll fashion, either a drug overdose, a car crash, choking on one's own vomit, or self-erotic asphyxiation.

A Mapes show is never boring. A Mapes gig is always entertaining, and tonight's gig showed that in spades. Lots of crowd interaction (some jack ass kept yelling SHOW ME YOUR CUNT at Szandora, and SHOW ME YOUR TITS at the band), lots of jokes from the band, and creamy loads and loads and loads of beautiful music. I think the band might of played everything they know, including the Mummies cover I last saw them play at Tromapalooza, where they said they would never play it again. Damn fibbers... hee hee hee. The Mapes gave everything that they had, and everyone in the place (and there was a lot of people there) were happy that they did. The band toyed with the idea of repeating a few already played songs, or maybe in their drunken state they just forgot that they had did them earlier, but whatever the case, The Mapes ran out of songs and just like that, it was over. The impromptu male hula-hoop clinic towards the end of their set was like the cherry on a hot fudge sundae. :-) Joe 1/2 Ast, that guy from Dirty Sanchez, and some other dude were trying to do their best Szandora imitation, and failing miserably. You can click here if you wanna see what I'm talking about. A fucking great performance from the Mapes, which is pretty much par for the course by now. They never disappoint. Never.

So afterwards, me and Jennifer and George are sitting at a booth. We're catching up, and George pulls out a CD he had found lying around. It was an Objex CD. I took great delight in watching him rip it apart with his bare hands and cap on it without mercy, all within earshot of the band who was sitting 1 booth over from us. I'm really getting too old for this shit... hahahaha. While we were both laughing, remembering that Motley Crue song that the Objex ripped off cleanly (Kickstart My Heart), Bob comes in and tells us that everyone's car is gone, and that they all got towed away. We thought he was kidding at first, but quickly found out he wasn't. I walked outside to a scene of angry drunken chaos, with people banging on doors and arguing with Security about

A) Why their cars got towed, when nothing was marked with NO PARKING signs (there was a NO TRESPASSING sign, but that was it) and

B) Why the fuck didn't anyone give any of the people inside of the place a warning, a heads up over the P.A., something.

I mean, we knew the dude from the Mapes car got towed, but nobody mentioned that he had it parked in the Thunderbird Casino parking lot! The bartenders knew about it. The Casino Manager knew what was going on (Moe from The Dirty Panties pointed out that the Manager was hiding out in his office, avoiding the fracas going on outside), and more than a few people were more than furious at the fact that their vehicles got taken away, with no clear markings saying that if you parked in the parking lot, your car would get towed. The fucking greedy bastards, and at $275 a pop, you can see what a major cash generating scam this was. Major fucking bullshit, and I was glad that I didn't drive to the gig, but I felt sorry for Dean because he did. While Dean went with John and Brent from 1/2 Ast (their cars got towed too) to the Tow Yard, to get their vehicles out of car jail, me and Bob wandered around Las Vegas Blvd., covering all sorts of things with onethirtyeight.org stickers while walking around. We hung out in front of Talk Of The Town, putting Bob's newly purchased Mapes 7" inside the blouse of the Marilyn Monroe zombie mannequin thing that hangs out by the swings, Yeah, we were that bored. Bob decided to start swinging on the swing, which brought Security out to tell us that "Talk Of The Town is not a fag place. We do not promote homosexuality here." Apparently, Bob is a fag, and him swinging on the swings was promoting homosexuality... hahahaha Whatever. We hung out at the bus stop, chatting with people coming out of the strip club, waiting for Dean and Brent to come pick us up, and after they did, we stopped at an ATM to grab some cash to pay the $275 to get Dean's car out of the tow yard, and headed off down the road, dodging a few cop cars while driving down there. Once we did that, we said our good bye's to Brent and after getting Dean's car back, we headed off to Denny's, where Bob proceeded to drop an F-Bomb every4 seconds or so, and where he regaled a group of older black gangster looking people with the story of how DMX bought him a 40 ounce once, and how DMX owed Bob $30. Don't ask. We ate our food and headed out to the parking lot, were we were thankful that our car didn't get towed... heh heh. We dropped Bob off, and me and Dean headed home, laughing about the nights events. The false dawn was creeping over the mountain range. Typical Las Vegas ending. It was a good way to end a night that had it's Ups and Downs. Fun stuff.