MONACO COOL: TONY THE BARTENDER

FROM MONACO COOL:

Everyone in the principality comes equipped with a story, and Tony's is as good as any. A black man, from North Caroline, Tony hasn't been "home" since 1964 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and got shipped to Germany. Set free after a two-year stint, he roamed Europe, savored its fruit, picked up three languages doing nightclub work in Germany, Holland, and France, before settling in Rocquebrune, a stone's throw from Monaco. He hasn't seen his mother or seven brothers and sisters in twenty-five years, won't ever see his daddy again ten years gone. Tony almost went back twice, once after a sister was murdered ("It's a good thing--I would-a killed a man"); another time, bags packed, ticket in hand at an airport, Tony couldn't board the plane. A little voice kept nagging him, "You can't go home, Tony, you just can't go home."

MONACO COOL: THE CHILIMAN

FROM MONACO COOL:


"What do you like, boy, champag-na?"

"This is what the Chiliman says to me every morning outsie his Condamine Cafe, to which I had defected from the Dauphin Verte and Lyin' Leon.

"Hey Chiliman, I say, "just cook me one of your caps of cino and don't be sassy!"

The Chiliman calls everyone boy. I took him to Le Texan once and he wrankled Richie by ordering, "Gimme anudder Mezcal, boy!" Then he took one bite of chicken nachos and pushed the plate away.

"Something wrong?" asked Richie.

"No, boy, 'cept did testes lak sheet."

Then the Chiliman got down to some serious Mezcal drinking, the kind with a worm floating in the bottle, nearly blew his doughnuts on the Alamo Bar and had to be rolled down to his tiny houseboat at the port.

MONACO COOL: ISAAC

From Monaco Cool:

Isaac strolled the Alamo Bar, king of kool, engaging in small talk and saying, "I'm blessed" to do this and "I'm blessed" to do that. Blessed by Ali Baba or Bibi or something.

Then he dragged Miss Katie to the doorway separating the outdoor terrace from the Alamo Bar. He told her the terrace lighting, the kind that makes bad skin look like a rosy complexion, was all wrong.

"Look inside," he ordered. "Now out. Now in. Now out." Christ, he was trying to twist her head 360 degrees like that horrible scene in The Exorcist!

"Look in, Now out. In. Out." Isaac persisted. "See what I mean? It's all wrong!"

"It looks okay to me," said Kate, with a shrug.

"It's my opinion that it's all wrong," said Isaac.

"Well, everyone has their own opinion," said Kate sweetly.

"It's my opinion that counts." God hath spoken... or was it satan?

Because deep within that super-cool exterior, I sense a Jack Nicholson Devils of Eastwick soul. Something about his eyes.... something about all his friends... they were acting as though they'd come not for a wedding, but for a sacrifice. First, they nail the poor cactus. Next thing, they'll be slaughtering a poodle on the bar.

MONACO COOL: SHORTY

From Monaco Cool:

Shorty arrived in Monaco three years before with a pretty wife and a couple step-daughters, and was immediately smitten by the testosterone tick Pickleman yelps about. Mrs. Shorty saw this and decreed the principality unfit for family stability. She packed their bags.

"But Albert needs me!" cried Shorty, who had assigned himself the role of royal fishmonger.

It had nothing to do with mid-life crisis. One day he's living in Arizona, just another short person, consultant, in PR, doesn't matter, all three. Suddenly, he's sidekick to a real prince, rubs shoulders with tennis pros, film celebrities and pop stars, and he's surrounded by beautiful models, many of whom think he's a path to the prince. You think he's going back to Arizona?

MONACO COOL: GOOGER

From Monaco Cool:

Steven Googer. Half Hungarian, part American, all nutcase--with a cheshire cat grin, frizzy red hair receding two-thirds back and Son of Sam eyes.

"It's all a matter of percentages," says Googer, expounding on women. "I hit on twenty a day. Three respond."

MONACO COOL: PICKLEMAN

From Monaco Cool:

Pickleman was at the Alamo Bar, sipping red wine, unusually talkative. He shook his head, glanced this way and that, and spoke.

"Monaco," he said. "It's programmed to get people into trouble."

"Come again?"

"There's a web of temptation in this town. And just about everyone gets caught."

"What kind of web?"

"Take marriages. I've been here ten years, and I've seen every kind of marriage break up before my eyes. The women are always searching for a richer man. Yeah, there's a lot of unhappiness here. A lot of unhappiness in money. The nouveau-riche are the absolute worst. They don't have any discipline. Old wealth grew up with responsibility. They can handle the burden. The nouveau-riche break under the pressure, and that's what this town is full of."

"Broken nouveau-riches?"

"No, broken marriages," said Pickleman. "They find that money doesn't buy happiness. If I woke up a millionaire, this is the last place I'd live. And Bob Bicker agrees."

"But Bicker is a millionaire and he lives here."

"Sure, that's part of his PR show," said Pickleman. "He has to live here. But he agrees. If you've got a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and a thirty-foot yacht, someone's got two Lamborghinis, two Ferraris, and a forty-foot yacht. You look like small fry here no matter how much you have. Everyone's always trying to out-do each other."

"But you just said it can't be done."

"Yes, but they don't know it, these stupid nouveau-riches. They try anyway."

MONACO COOL: CRAZY GEORGE

From Monaco Cool:

"Crazy George. Commodity trader by day, party animal at night, and after two hours' sleep professor of statistics at Monaco's new university in Funnyville. He is not a millionaire, but has been able to wangle membership in The Club anyway, as part of the 15 percent not unemployed. And those 15 percent are the happiest people in Monaco--the Monaco Coolest."

MONACO COOL: BARRY SCHWARTZ

From Monaco Cool:

"The recluse that he is, even Barry Schwartz found Le Texan. He's a world-renowned investment guru and mega-millionaire who rarely ventures from his Monte Carlo sanctuary. Hollywood would cast Barry the Lamster as a flasher in his old overcoat and leering smile, and Tony (the bartender), knowing no better, sat him at Jaw's old table near the door.. That's where I found him, peering at me through the picture window, stabbing at enchiladas.

"Barry is tough on new people, presuming they are part of the Big Brother-Trilateral Commision-IRS conspiracy until proven innocent.

"Socializing is harder work for Barry than analyzing stock market trends, and his quota for the month was over after an hour at Le Texan. He dumped his drink, flashed a leer and disappeared down a Condamine backstreet to elude surveillance, pockets bulging with gold Kruggerands and six different passports."

MONACO COOL: BOB BICKER

From Monaco Cool:

"When Randy Newman wrote Small people, he was thinking about Bob Bicker. Walking with Bicker toward Le Texan one night, this smug little guy sneezed and inadvertently blew a fart so enormous, it propelled him six feet forward.

"Bicker likes expensive ornaments He sports a top-of-the-line gold and diamond-studded Rolex, carries a crocodile attache case and chain-smokes with a gold Dunhill lighter. Throw in the bouffant hair-do, cigarette holder and effeminate gestures, and you've got the know-it-all caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland."

MONACO COOL: MISS KATIE

From Monaco Cool:

"Miss Katie is Le Texan. A golden-haired, blue-eyed cactus flower in beat-up denim and cowboy boots, radiating raw spirit, Miss Katie runs the joint--and the quirrky character cabaret--with a finesse unseen since Amanda Blake and her Long Branch saloon graced our TV screens in Gunsmoke.

"Jaws and Jake are in love with Miss Katie, along with a dozen other Alamo Bar fixtures. And charismatic Kate knows how to treat each one like Marshal Matt Dillon."

MONACO COOL: JAWS

Another Le Texan character sketched by Papa Duke.

From Monaco Cool:

"This is a big, bullnecked longshoreman-type, the Brutus of Popeye cartoons, who everyone calls Jaws because his only teeth are sharp canines, used for gnawing nachos. Jaws sits at the bar and gulps pastis, a strong cheap licorice-flavored liquor, and smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, sounding like a squirrel in heat. He sometimes follows pretty waitresses into the communal washroom for an attempted grope, then washes his face and returns to his barstool, water dripping from his moist, grotesque mug.

"On this night, Jaws brought in a nudie magazine and, sans reservation, plopped himself at a table adjacent the door and positioned his dirty book so that anyone coming or going would catch its bawdy cover full in the face."

CHARACTER SKETCH: LYIN' LEON

Papa Duke drew a number of character sketches for Monaco Cool.

The first features Lyin' Leon.

From Monaco Cool:

"Lyin' Leon is the high priest of the Dauphin Verte's currency wizards. He boasts of running fifty-two companies that supposedly span the globe. And if it's true, Dauphin must be world headquarters, because that's where Leon holds court six times a day, walking a beat between the bustling cafe and his Shangri-la apartment around the corner. And if he sees you--bang!--you're nailed for another thirty-minute discourse on the status of his worldly assets.

"It's easy to tell when Lyin' Leon is telling a whopper. His eyes bulge out of their sockets as he says, 'I have three Porsches back home,' and he swings his head a full ninety degrees to the right, twisting his neck, as if to say, Here I go again..."

THE ALAMO BAR

This Papa Duke sketch graced the back cover of Monaco Cool.

It depicts Tony the bartender and Papa Duke's middle son at Le Texan's Alamo Bar.

From Monaco Cool: "There is no pretension at Le Texan, on a Condamine backstreet in the earthy port quarter. You step inside, greeted by the piquant aroma of ham hock stewing in a crock of beans, and this Tex-Mex saloon is immediately as comfortable as your favorite pair of denim jeans. For a couple of bucks you can linger over a bottle of Heineken, corn chips and salsa at the long Alamo Bar and watch the diverse cliques of Monaco mix it up: young international professionals here to transform the principality from an upper-crust retirement community into the financial center of Europe; the Monegasque establishment; royalty; the neighborhood eccentrics, spies and celebrities. You see them all."

Pen & ink, 12 x 8, 1992.

MONACO COOL

Papa Duke lived and painted in the Principality of Monaco for many years.

He did this painting--Le Texan Beneath Le Rocher at Sunset--for the cover of Monaco Cool, a book written by his middle son about living a year in the world's swankiest neighborhood.

Papa Duke was credited under the name Tito Vars, a nom de plume he used during his early years as a fine artist.

Oil-on-board, 28 x 18, 1992.