Las Vegas has been something of a phenomenon for generations, its popularity rarely flagging for even a moment, a bewildering sense of je ne sais quoi pervading the expectant tourist’s every step and glance. At any moment, “Mr. Las Vegas” himself might show up to shake hands and break into song. Or, Cirque du Soleil might delight the crowds with an impromptu performance in the middle of The Strip, prancing atop stopped cars alongside exotic dancers busy exhibiting their wares. This is Las Vegas, and everything should be over-the-top. Until the late ‘90s, however, finding a bartender interested in anything other than a tip (and, absolutely hammering patrons with mediocre cocktails, at the behest of the casinos) took more luck than Las Vegas was willing to concede. On the surface, a bartender known to some as “Bullwinkle” seemed to be just another drink-slinger in a larger-than-life town.
Bullwinkle darkened the bar in an establishment which shall forever remain unnamed. Toast of the town for nearly fifty years, and existing (for a time, in two iterations) just feet from the glitzy, sticky sidewalks of The Strip, this was the destination for the Grand Elite, the moneyed shady, and celebrity wishing to not be acknowledged. And, Bullwinkle, sounding nearly unhinged behind a heavily nasal Baltic growl, snapped the same greeting at all: “‘Ey! What you wan’?” His delivery was gruff, his jokes horrifyingly untenable. He would never allow a paltry tip to slide. “What you think, I’m cheap hookeh?! Don’ order drinks at table…idiot!” And, no matter a person’s station in life, years later, he would remember their previous meeting as soon as he saw the face. “Oh, no! You tip me, this time and for las’ time.”
In the same vein as the demigods of Greek and Roman mythology(whether or not the responsibility is wanted or warranted), bartenders are the earthly embodiment of Personality in their respective establishments; the first experience past the host/ess and the last impression before the exit, they can in an instant ruin for patrons what had been an otherwise-wonderful experience. Bullwinkle’s “personality” was more a stand-off between angry clowns with knives, or a married couple just prior to divorce, his drinks—like his acerbic banter—too strong, too weak, or the wrong color. Often, when he didn’t recognize the name of a cocktail, he would mix together a bit of this and a smidge or three of arbitrary bottles within reach, then serve it; rather than having taken a moment to research the recipe, he would then smirk and lean his six-foot-two frame over the bar, hands firmly planted, bullying the patron or server into accepting it. “It is that..It is…It is…If you do’ know what’s the drink, why you order it in firs’ place?!” No matter how much loving care the other staff took with guests, he could decimate a room’s vibe simply by entering. This demigod-in-residence tended to come off as an explosive alter-ego better left hidden.
By now, you are saying either, “I remember him!” or you are hoping to never meet him. The miracle seems to be that for every patron who left appalled and offended never to return, five would come in search of “the crazy, old guy who’ll be rude to me.” With two decades behind the bar—averaging two-dozen insults, four colorfully crass epithets and fifteen indistinct hand-gestures per shift—here was a character who would have shuttered the windows of a lesser establishment singlehandedly. But, tourists rarely travel to Las Vegas to stare at the desert landscape; they go to be shocked and titillated, to shake off the stiffening scabs of their predictable lives. For all his seeming sins, Bullwinkle was simply another glorious and radically abusive facet of the humbling experience which can be Sin City. Some of us will pay handsomely for a fantasy, or abuse. And, just like vague French descriptors, this talented and big-hearted bartender always seemed to fit the bill.
