Besides strippers, there were live sex shows, Korean handjob joints, gypsies, drag queens, drug dealers and whorehouses with lines of swabbies out the front door.
At 3 in the afternoon! The band was a sax player and drummer, older black guys about to fall asleep onstage. To come from Mountain Home, Idaho to that hardcore red light district was like going from a Pat Boone show to the 2 Live Crew tour bus. Vomit and blood on the sidewalks. Mah Jong tiles forcefully clicking upstairs. Fucking loved it.
(mh=2bABjMiLwJUw3s8g)11.jpg "Adult Guide Honolulu")
Topless and bottomless joints were the Starbucks of Shit Street. Saw my first naked lady standing on a wooden crate in a back alley, peering through the slow oscillation of the Hubba Hubba exhaust fan. Lucky T-Shirts around the corner at the former Smith St. I was blasting Elvis Costello one day and we had a nice talk about music we liked. She had a wicked Southie accent that made every band sound coolah.
I guess I crossed the line from friend to mark and we were never the same. The club at 25 N. Hotel St. I met him through his partner Kate Hellenbrand, who was my first editor at Sunbums magazine in Rollo would sometimes take visiting tattoo artists to Hubba squared. He and Ed Hardy and maybe Miss Roxy were in there one night, sitting behind a table of shitfaced Australian sailors on the rail.
After one stripper came out in her ridiculous costume and went through a song, taking off accessories, one of the Aussies stood up and started patting the runway. He had the Australian accent down.
