February, 28th, 2024
The Powder Blue Tuxedo Boys & The Mongo Bongo Band
February 28th, 2024
It’s 4:30 PM on a beautiful sunny 65F day in Los Angeles. The air is clear and bright and the skies are blue after days of rain. Snow covers the distant mountaintops. LA has rarely looked so beautiful.
The Powder Blue Tuxedo Boys, Timothy, and Patrick, are in their booth at the Frolic Room on Hollywood Boulevard. They are drinking their usual Becks beers.
The door jingles as in walks an odd looking fellow. He’s wearing a kilt and a red plaid Tam-O-Shanter with a red yarn ball on top. He has long reddish hair, a beard, and wears red-framed sunglasses.
“Aye! ’Tis I Angus fookin’ Stuart come to your fine pub to see me friends the Powder Blue Boys. Are they aboot?
Eddie the bartender points to Patrick and Timothy at their booth in the back of the room by the jukebox.
“Aye lads! ’Tis I your old friend Angus Stuart come to Hollywood to say hello.”
Patrick and Timothy look at each other incredulously.
Angus: I’ll just squeeze in here alongside me friends.
Timothy: Angus, what the fuck are you doing here? I thought you were in the Orkneys.
Angus: Aye. Well, me and the boys thought we’d come over the pond and the continent to say ‘Hello’ to ya’s.
Patrick: You don’t mean that Peri Urban and Arthur are here in Los Angeles, too?
Angus: Oh, aye. They’ll be driving over in the limo from the hotel soon.
Timothy: Hotel?
Patrick: Limo?
Angus: Oh, aye. We’re all stayin’ in a suite at the Beverly Hills fookin’ Hotel. It’s a damn nice fookin’ suite. We even have two loos. We put Arthur in his own bedroom. He fookin’ snores.
Patrick: The Mongo Bongo Band broke up years ago. The records didn’t sell. The tour dates were a disaster.
Timothy: Yeah, Angus. Mostly thanks to you electrocuting Peri once on stage and the lighting falling on the audience in Glasgow.
Patrick: We’ve been banned from Scotland.
Angus: Oh, aye and that’s hard to do. But Arthur wants to put the band back together and Peri is game as he’s retired now and is tired of watching game shows on the telly.
Timothy: Can Peri still play guitar?
Angus: After a fashion. Some like it.
Patrick: We just finished paying off the lawsuits and the damages from the last Mongo Bongo Good Manners Tour in Canada.
Timothy: We’ve been banned from Canada, too.
Angus: Those Canucks have no fookin’ sense of humor.
Patrick: You had a stuntman dressed up like Justin Trudeau and set him on fire in the finale.
Angus: The audience fookin’ loved it!
Timothy: The stage, curtains… it all burned down.
Patrick: And like we said. We just paid off the bill on that.
Angus: So now you’re fookin’ flush again. Peri has some new material. Arthur is ready to manage the band. He’s recruited some great bongo players from Jamaica.
Patrick: What the hell was Arthur doing in Jamaica?
Angus: Well, he wasn’t buyin’ fookin’ cigars, at least, not the ones made with tobacco.
Timothy and Patrick exchange glances again.
In through the doorway comes Arthur and Peri Urban. They are dressed up in tweed suits and ties looking very dapper.
Arthur: We’ll all just squeeze in here in the booth with you boys.
Peri: I brought my latest songs on my iPhone. How about a listen?
Angus: But first… Barkeep! A bottle of Balvenie whisky and five glasses if you please.
Patrick: We aren’t funding another Mongo Bongo Tour.
Timothy: No way. No how. As we just told Angus. We just paid off the bills and lawsuits from your last tour in Canada.
Arthur: So you’re flush again. No worries. These Jamaican drummers I hired are great.
Patrick: They aren’t here too are they?
Peri: No. Immigration in New York was giving them some trouble. I think they got sent to El Paso, Texas.
Timothy: How did you guys rent a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel?
Patrick: And hire a limo?
Angus, Peri, and Arthur look at each other.
Arthur: Aye. We may have mentioned your names when we checked into the hotel and told them you’d be producing our new record.
Patrick: What?!?
Angus: Oh, they were very fookin’ excited about the Mongo Bongo Band putting out a new record and going on tour.
Eddie brings over the Balvenie and five glasses.
Eddie: That’s great! A new Mongo Bongo record and tour! Can’t wait!
Patrick and Timothy look at Eddie as if he’d just come from the sewage treatment plant.
Arthur: We’re going to call the album “Mongo Bongo in Rio Hondo.”
Peri: I’ve written all these songs about LA. The gangs, the river, the bums, OJ Simpson, the mayor, and the new 6th Street Bridge. They’ll be big hits. I even wrote some lyrics in Spanish.
Patrick: Oh, yeah. A Scot speaking Spanish in LA. I can barely understand your English.
Peri: Eddie! Would you please play my songs over the speakers?
Eddie plugs in Peri’s iPhone to the stereo system and for the next 45 minutes the five of them listen to the music.
Patrick: Okay. It’s pretty good. We’ll book a studio for you to record and see about getting you a gig here in LA.
Timothy: I’d take out insurance on you guys and the tour but the insurance companies have blacklisted us.
They all shake hands. Down their whiskies. And listen to Patsy Cline on the jukebox as the sun sets over the Pacific.
TJM
Timmy Tae's Thoughts 