The De-Flowering of the Long Beach Lounge Scene

by Garrick H.S. Brown
Illustration by Tom Powers

Just eight sad weeks ago, devotees of the once vibrant South Bay/Orange County/Long Beach Lounge Scene were in utter dismay… most of them wondering how to raise the gas cash to hitch it up to La-La-Town without seriously damaging their cirrhosis funds. The golden days of Long Beach Lounge had seemingly fizzled like a gross of Alka-Seltzers in a hot tub full of pot-bellied swingers. Cocktail Coalition statesmen, See golden and John Goden, had hightailed their monthly Mancini worship-fests back to the $8 a drink environs of Heptown and even the crappy neighborhood coolspot – The Foothill – had (in a move only explainable as an attempt to reach out to all the O.C.Ken and Barbies of the world) resorted to playing godawful LaBelle songs in between real funk/soul like Curtis Mayfield and Archie Bell and the Drells.

Lone Queen City entrepreneur Doug Hart and his monthly Satellite Lounge (at Que Sera on Seventh Street) had only managed to hang on through his own personal mixture of tenacity and club operator sleaze.

“We were doing everything right. We were playing mambos from Perez Prado, cool spy-calypso from the Dr. No soundtrack, even great funky themes from ’70s German porno flicks,” Hart laments. “Nothing was working.”

And a sad scene it was. With only a few Que Sera regulars in attendance (this tavern also doubles as one of the friendliest neighborhood lesbian bars in Long Beach), nay-sayers got themselves busy writing the club’s epitaph (and some choice phone numbers) on its own stinky bathroom walls. Even more shocking were the ungrounded rumours circulating that local A.A. cells were doing a booming business.

Even I can attest to an evening in which there were no more than twelve half-baked barflies on the dance floor – the vast majority of them looking extremely confused by the profusion of Louis Prima tunes, as opposed to the drab folk-rants of Melissa Etheridge. Of course, being personally terrified of huge throngs of so-called humans, I actually found the lack of wall-to-wall, hepper-than-thou-hip-meat to be liberating. Plus, by break of dawn (in an unrelated bonanza) I had managed to swap my trademark fez for the sexy spiked disco dog collar of a rather enticing (and beautifully pierced) weightlifter named Fran.

And so, if you are a retro devotee, you may now be asking yourself the inevitable question, “Just what the hell happened in the last few weeks to turn this mirror image of the Sinatra deathbed watch into an overflowing buffet of live, vibrant swingers?”

“One word,” promoter and bon-vivant Hart announces. And, after a brief pause to count fingers with his martini-free hand, he slurs: “Total Entertainment. Wink!”

Wink Musselman and his Quartet of Shame have only been together for a few months, yet have been playing packed houses almost since their inception. Whether at Que Sera,Cohiba,Blue Cafe, or DiPiazza’s they’ve almost single-handedly revived the struggling South Bay Lounge scene. With Musselman’s distinctive game-show-host stylings and the musical leadership of group elderpianist Don Lee Ellis, the quartet has hit their chord both with the local irony-mongers and the ancient geezers who really dig this kind of stuff.

Performing classic elevator-era standards such as “Misty” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” (with an overwhelming sense of cheezeball earnestness), Wink will disarm you. Then, exposing the punk background that he shares with other bandmates Mario Barniosca (bass) and Michael Milley (drums), he is just as prone to leap into such lyrically shocking group originals (straight lounge-ballad readings, of course) as “Daddy, I Love You (But Don’t Touch Me There),” and “Momma Sure Loved Her Backrubs.”

This, perhaps, would not be so disturbing if one were able to discount such themes as the product of yet another young hipster shock artiste. Yet, until now, Musselman has been known in entertainment circles less for his abilities as a crooner than for his reputation as the child actor for whom everything went wrong.

You may remember little Wink’s late ’70s commercial spots for the late, great Southern fast-food chain,Burger Chef. The unforgettable mantra of “Meat is Nice!” pan-fried its way into the public consciousness at about the same time as infinitely more successful child-phenom Rodney Allen Rippey announced his retirement so he could go to junior high. Musselman claims that his own acting career came to a jarring crash when (at the tender age of 12) he made the mistake of signing on to the ill-fated, fish-out-of-water network sit-com,What Would The Neighbors Say.

What could have been the quintessential early ’80s family sitcom, What Would The Neighbors Say was instead one of the more bizarre sagas in Tinseltown television history. This story of a precocious young white child who is adopted by an extremely prominent black family (who, for reasons unexplained, still lives in the heart of the ghetto) never actually made it onto the small screen. Though two years’ worth of episodes were shot (including an astounding three hour pilot!), the show never appeared on prime-time – mainly due to network concerns over the potentially offensive racial subject matter. By the time this particular network saw the light, a new show (on a rival network) entitled Diff’rent Strokes had stolen Neighbors‘ thunder.

“To this day they deny its very existence,” Musselman says of the network in question. “Were Wink even to hint at the acronym of the particular Big Three network that nearly destroyed him, he would surely be sued into oblivion. But don’t let his silence fool you. They hurt Wink. They showed an impressionable young man the true meaning of pain. And shame…”

And so begins a dark period in the enigmatic Musselman’s life. Shortly after his series was cancelled, his best friend – both on the series and in real-life, adolescent actor Abraham M. Levy, committed suicide by ingesting an overwhelming mixture of rat poison and Pop Rocks sugar candy.

“He had so much talent,” Musselman reminisces. “He really was the Robert DeNiro, or Harvey Keitel, of the pre-pubescent set. He was a tortured genius, and I think his genius just ate him up from the inside – just like those D-Con pellets and Pop Rocks he swallowed.” It is rumored that Levy had just been turned down for playing the juicy role of Gary Coleman‘s nemesis, “The Gooch,” on rival show Diff’rent Strokes.

Wink won’t comment on the subject (other than to explain that Strokes producers had inexplicably decided at the last moment to keep “The Gooch” as a constant – but unseen – character on the show), but he is also quick to add: “Conrad Bain will burn in hell for all eternity.”

It is also said that the then-14-year-old Musselman developed the rare psychiatric condition known as R.M.T.S. (Reverse Munchhausen Transference Syndrome). Labor advocates, in an unsuccessful 1982 push for child labor law reform (with regard to the entertainnient industry), charged that Musselman was the victim of a reckless industry which had no regard for the welfare of its youngest employees. Supposedly, Wink went through a period in which he couldn’t tell the difference between his black onscreen parents and his actual white ones at home. Though such speculaton seems relatively outrageous and unbelievable, Musselman added to the controversy by keeping silent on the issue. Even today, the most he’ll say about the entire affair is: “Wink’s got soul.”

Rumors of drug addiction and alcoholism also plagued the young has-been. These were sadly confirmed with Musselman’s late-’80s arrest for intoxication and public indecency. It wasn’t until longtime friend and fellow child actor Bryce Beckham (who played the obnoxious “Wesley” on Mr. Belvedere) hosted an all-former-child-star intervention – that Musselman checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment of multiple addictions.

“Things were tough there at first,” Wink admits. “I was crankier than Todd Bridges on crank.”

Normally, this would be where the sad tale of a child star ends. Either he gets himself sober and then fades into obscurity at some godawful lower-level broadcasting gig, or he falls off (and under) the wagon – only to watch from some gutter as the world rolls over him in search of its next victim.

Instead, when Wink emerged from Betty Ford, he emerged reborn; with a newfound love of lounge singing, a “show must go on” attitude, and total dedication to what he almost mystically refers to as “total entertainment.” He immediately hooked up with the man he calls “The Master of Shame,” pianist Ellis (“he’s got over six decades of the stuff”), as well as other bandmates Barmosca and Miley (“they’re absolutely filthy – beautiful people”). They set off on a frantic touring schedule with Musselman somehow also finding time to pursue his own scholarly pursuits.

No intellectual slouch, Wink is by turns literary: “I dread to think what Nabokov would be able to fish up on the internet…” and erudite: “I love Gore Vidal. Just finished his Roman opus,Julian… all those scenes of eunuch slaves and olive-skinned, teenage maidens… Sunshine, grapes and honey-coated genitalia… you’ve just gotta love a Sodomite who can write a history book.”

Musselman’s own progressive (as he refers to it) sense of humor may well have cost him and his bandmates a lucrative steady gig at downhome Italian restaurant and bar, DiPiazza’s. “Perhaps it had something to do with our `Thank Heaven for Little Girls/Maurice Chevalier Meets JonBenet Ramsey Medley’,” Wink sadly reflects. “It’s kind of a traditional family spot… full of people who suffer from delusions of innocence.”

Musselman gets a delicious kick out of the fact that the very next day they signed on with Hait’s Satellite Lounge. “Wink loves playing at a lesbian bar,” he explains in creepy Bob Dole-style third person. “Lesbians hold a special place in Wink’s heart. Lesbians know what it is to be naughty…”

His whimsical approach to humor, as well as the sleazy infomercial-pitchman vibe he (admittedly) gives off, have led to much speculation about his own closely-guarded sexuality.

“We’re adrift in a world consumed by labels. Left, right, conservative, liberal, up, down, gay, straight. Everyone’s got a label… yet none of them mean a thing. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only two real labels in this world: dull… and naughty. And I know you know where Wink stands on that one…”

And so, Musselman and his troupe continue on, leading their own peculiar brand of lounge revolution; full of plans for the future. “I really enjoyed George Harrison‘s early ’70s stuff. Especially when he retooled all his old Beatles songs with Hare Krishna lyrics. Now that man was truly subversive… and a humanitarian. I’m thinking of doing something like that myself,” he says, fondling a lock of his own abundant mane of disco curls. “Perhaps a `Shame and Salvation Hour’, with Wink singing evangelical lyrics to Cole Porter tunes. ` I’ve Got Jesus Under Wink’s Skin…'”

Other possible themes discussed for future Musselman extravaganzas have included a “We Love You, Barry Manilow” night (the band is currently raising funds for powder blue jumpsuits); a “Wink-in-Space Revue” (dedicated to Wink’s comrade-in-child-stardom-infamy,Lost in Space wunderkind Billy Mumy), and even a “When Wink in Rome” night (Musselman states: “the Quartet and I are huge fans of that ultraswinger…Caligula“). Musselman adds, “Historically we are a mirror image of ancient Rome, except with perhaps better products for body hygiene,” Wink admits. “As both a humanitarian and a people-lover, I would hate to see us go the way they did. After all, Wink would hate to see the party end. That’s why we need to come to our senses in this country. We have no sense of moderation, of reason, of common sense.

“I mean, ask any Joe on the street and they can’t even tell the difference between a child molester and an adolescent molester. But, hey, let’s face it, while one ot those individuals may in fact be a horrible, sick and perverse person, the other is simply… well, naughty.”

Garrick H.S. Brown likes to think of himself as a “sit-down comic” and a “stand-up guy.” As with just about everything else, he is mistaken.