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The first person I ever interviewed as a professional journalist was a woman in a wheelchair clutching a Prince tennis racquet. She wore a crimson tank top and matching visor; resting in her lap was a tin container of Penn tennis balls. I remember the bold Penn logo printed across the can.
I don’t recall this woman’s name. But I do remember the date, August 19, 1984. It was one of those brilliant Sunday mornings in Chico, California, with sunlight cutting through the trees shrouding the athletic fields at Chico State University. The woman had just won a wheelchair tennis tournament, and I was there to record the event for the Chico Enterprise-Record.
My first question to this woman as a for-real professional journalist, all of 18 1⁄2 years old, was, “Can I look at your hands?” Her hands were hard and calloused. So I wrote about that, how her hands were her feet and they took the kind of beating a tennis player’s feet suffer on a hard court. My story appeared on the bottom of the E-R sports front page the next day.
I don’t readily recall my second or third stories. But I remember that first one, how nervous I was about introducing myself to the participants and organizers and collecting information. It was a bumpy day; when I unlocked the door to the E-R newsroom so I could write this epic, I tripped the office security alarm.
Such moments inspired this collection of “firsts” from a brace of Las Vegas newsmakers and the Las Vegas Weekly staff. We asked about memorable first moments, episodes or experiences that would be particularly revealing or life-changing. These were conveyed to us in person, over the phone or via e-mail. One—from star chef Guy Savoy—was shipped via e-mail from France to a PR rep in Vegas, translated, then passed along.
Reheated, so to speak.
A qualifier: If you are looking for one of those “firsts” accounts that made Judy Blume the first authority in teen literature, you will be sadly disappointed.
But it wouldn’t be the first time.
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STEPHANIE JORDAN
Fantasy star
My first Strip show ...
The costumes smelled like cat pee, much of the crowd dozed off during the show, and the owner hung out at the bar with his shoes on the floor and his toes sticking out of holes in his socks.
And the most promising performer was a somewhat gangly 17-year-old girl who walked precariously on her new 3-inch heels and nearly tipped over in her giant sequined headdress.
Yep, let’s hear it for Halleluiah Las Vegas, the fun-for-a-buck promenade of fine-feathered showgirls at Vegas World.
“It was absolutely a loss-leader. It was a 99-cent show, and I couldn’t believe this, but they gave back the penny so the customers would go back into the casino and start playing penny slots,” said Jordan, who is now the vocalist in the adult production Fantasy at the Luxor. “They didn’t give out comps. It was bizarre. It was my first time in a G-string, fishnets, a headdress and high heels that I couldn’t walk in, let alone dance in.” This was near the advent of G-string design for stage costumes and “these were very high on the hips, like what Jane Fonda looked like in her aerobics videos. They were that high.”
Halleluiah Las Vegas was Bob Stupak’s vision. He owned Vegas World, which of course occupied the spot on Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue where the Stratosphere now stands. Stupak attended the first show—he attended a lot of shows—and kicked off his shoes. And those socks needed some repair work.
Ronnie Fabre was the show’s featured vocalist and Betty Francisco the choreographer. “I had a costume I couldn’t handle, but I was 5’ 8” with hair I didn’t know what to do with,” Jordan said, laughing at the absurdity. “Taped music, but phenomenal singers. It was a makeshift Vegas revue. It wanted to be Jubilee, but it was not Jubilee. It really didn’t matter what you put out there; as long as there was alcohol and a show to bring in people, we were good.”
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JOHN RITTER
Focus Property Group CEO
My first house ....
In 1987 John Ritter bought a 1,600-square-foot, 30-year-old ranch-style house in the Arcadia region of Phoenix. Nice home, for $78,000.
“Actually, I owned the land before I owned the house,” Ritter said. “I was extremely nervous. I got an FHA loan, put down 5 or 10 percent, something like that.”
Prior to that transaction, the largest loan Ritter had ever received was $2,000. “That was for a car, and here I was going into personal debt for $70,000. I was 30 years old. I just remember it being a very nervous time.”
Ritter had just started his career in real estate. “It wasn’t like I worked for a Fortune 500 company, making a six-figure salary. I was working on commission.” He lived in the home for a little more than a year, then began commuting to Las Vegas, where the real-estate market was blooming. He rented the house out for nearly 20 years and, finally, sold it this year.
“I remember wondering if it would go up in value ...” The house sold this spring for $625,000.
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Mayor Oscar Goodman's first martini ...
It was the Christmas season of 1960, and snow dusted the streets of Manhattan. A young Oscar Goodman—he turned 21 that year—visited the apartment of his future in-laws.
“Before I went up to her apartment, I stopped off at a local tavern.
“I asked the bartender for his strongest drink,” Goodman said. “He said, ‘A martini, buddy.’ It was a traditional gin martini.”
The drink gave Goodman the desired courage and fluidity in his task.
“Her father's response was a little less raucous than World War III,” Goodman recalled, “but over the years we became very good friends.”
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PETER MAX
Artist
My first sale of my own work ...
This painting is still in the Max family. He’s just not sure who has it. “Boy, I would buy it if I could find it,” Max said. “It would be a museum piece.”
The painting in question is an oil-on-canvas that Max painted of his aunt Zeisel. His mother said that Max, who was in his second year in art school, would be doing portraits soon and was getting pretty good.
“I was paid for it, a single $100 bill,” Max said. “I was so excited—my first commercial gig. I was 19 or 20 years old. I think this was 1958, so it was a lot of money, especially since it was the only thing I earned two years before and two years after.”
Max would become America’s top-selling artist, most famous for his depictions of the Statue of Liberty and the 1999 Woodstock stage. He says the painting of Aunt Zeisel (who lived to be 107) is worth $50,000.
That much?
“If you put all the historic value on it, absolutely,” he said.
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BRYAN CHEATHAM
Chippendales star
My first appearance with Chippendales ...
Prior to arriving in Vegas six years ago to perform with the Chippendales all-male revue at the Rio, Cheatham heeded the call of the wild at Disney World in Orlando.
“I worked in the Lion King, which of course is a family-oriented show,” Cheatham said. “Going from that show to an all-women crowd, a crowd full of horny women ... it doesn’t even compare.”
Cheatham had performed in adult shows in Japan before signing on for theme-park work, so it wasn’t totally uncharted territory. He learned the steps in the Chippendales’ production numbers, but was quickly thrown by a change in the lineup and the interactive nature of the troupe’s audience.
“The singer/emcee in the show had just been let go, and they just threw me in,” he said. “I went out to sing the first song (‘I’ll Make Love to You’ by Boyz II Men), and the crowd just went crazy. I hadn’t had that kind of response before, so I thought, I’ll just go out into the audience ...”
Cheatham started to unbutton his shirt. A woman from the audience grabbed at him, then another. The shirt was torn off, and Cheatham backpedaled to the stage, where those in the VIP seats attempted to strip him of his pants.
“I went backstage with half my costume gone. The guys are like, ‘Where are your clothes?’” Cheatham said. “We sent a guy out to get the shirt. These women, they just come to see what they want, and they go for it. It was nerve-wracking.”
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TOM MCEVOY
World Series of Poker champion
My first visit to a poker room ...
The 1983 World Series of Poker champ and a longtime Vegas resident, McEvoy was fired from an accounting job near Grand Rapids, Michigan. “May 11, 1978,” he specifies. That month he flew out to Vegas looking for a game.
“I’d played home games for years and I checked out the Golden Nugget. They had a tournament there, a $110 buy-in.” McEvoy came away with the second-most chips and $1,600. I got hooked right on the spot.”
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LON KRUGER
UNLV basketball coach
My first victory ...
It was 1982 and Lon Kruger was head coach at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. Louisiana Tech handed Kruger his first loss, 66-58. The Broncos then dropped to 0-2 after a 76-67 loss to LSU. Kruger finally notched victory No. 1 with a 78-44 drubbing of Air Force (a school Kruger now faces twice each season in the Mountain West Conference).
“That was a big win for us, and we won that one pretty handily,” Kruger said. “It was exciting, different, a new experience. We had a lot of what we called winter Texans in those days, people who came down from Iowa, Michigan and Kansas. We didn’t have big crowds, but we had good fans, and Edinburg was a neat place. I look back on that period and I wasn’t thinking about the future. It was not on my mind.”
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Boyd Gaming CEO Bill Boyd's first day running a hotel ...
“I’d have to go back to the first day we opened the first [Boyd Gaming] property,” Boyd said. That would be New Year’s Day, 1975, the California hotel-casino. Boyd had been an attorney for more than 15 years before joining his father, Sam Boyd, in the resort industry, and their first gaming acquisition was the California.
“My father and I borrowed a substantial amount of money, and we were very concerned about how the business would be. You know, all we were worried about was if we’d make the payroll in two weeks,” Boyd said. “That first day, I sat down in my office and thought about it and then went down to the casino floor.”
Then Boyd worked the room.
“I said hi to all the employees, many of whom were also new to the business. Also, we had a bunch of folks out from Enid, Oklahoma [the Boyds’ original hometown], and I knew them a little bit.” Boyd said. “They liked to gamble, they were very exuberant and excited at being there at the opening. They had a lot of fun that day.”
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BERNIE YUMAN
Siegfried & Roy manager
Siegfried & Roy's first headlining show at the Frontier ...
“It was November 5, 1981, and for the first four minutes and 44 seconds I didn’t take a breath,” Yuman said. “I remember that the room was filled with electricity. I had been with them for some time, many years, and every moment of our lives had been leading up to that moment.”
Yuman said that opening night at the Frontier marked a turning point in Las Vegas entertainment, especially among production shows.
“For 50 years, the only successful shows here were the adult, feathered shows,” he said. “To premiere the Siegfried & Roy spectacle was a huge departure from the artistry we’d seen before. A stage had been built for us for this original art form. During the standing ovation that night, I knew we had changed entertainment in Las Vegas.”
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My first kiss ...
“Let’s play spin the bottle!” There they were, the words I’d been dreading since I had become aware of the opposite sex and packed away any notions of cooties with my blankie. I was in seventh or eighth grade and attending my girlfriend Jenny’s birthday. I lost my lip gloss to Michael, a short, earnest boy known for crying, but only when he was being beaten up. I can’t recall his last name or if I had any sort of technique to speak of other than not throwing up.
The next time I locked lips it was entirely by surprise. Hide and Go Get It was the name of this game. As the game required, I hid in a bush, and this time it was Charles who went and got It. But, struggling for air as I was and recoiling at the shock of this, my first ... gulp ... French kiss, it occurred to me that I had not yet experienced a third and most important kind of kiss, one where both parties are on board.
Sweet Alek, the jovial, floppy-haired tuba player, gets the credit for that first, doing the deed quietly and plenty awkwardly on my doorstep junior year of high school after seeing a performance of Twelfth Night. It was the first one I'd actually been anticipating, and though it was not perfect -- a little Hooverish and sloppy, to be honest -- it was a vast improvement.
I've kissed a lot of frogs since then (and toads and tadpoles and some reeeeeeal croakers, too), but even as I rack up my amphibian count, I've always rationalized that a girl wants to be in practice anyway before finding her prince.
-- Xania Woodman
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Critic Dave Hickey's first writing ...
Dave Hickey was in his third year of engineering school when he started printing a story, in neat engineer’s printing, on a giant pad of Quadrille paper. “For no reason at all, I just wrote this story. It was about some Chet Baker-type character.” He’d always been a reader, but now, under the pressure of an impending graduation, he realized that he was about to become an engineer, and that he’d only majored in engineering because the E-buildings was across the street from the fraternity house.
“Writing,” he said, “seemed like a pretty easy thing to do,” so he switched career paths and took a year to get his degree in English from Texas Christian University, and then he went on to graduate school at the University of Texas. Now he’s one of the world’s most respected art critics, the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (the so-called “genius grant”) .
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WAYNE NEWTON
Mr. Las Vegas
My first appearance as a Strip headliner ...
In the winter of 1963, Wayne Newton was 21, a little chubby and a lot impatient.
“I’d been booked into being the opening act for Jack Carter at the Flamingo, and as the months progressed I told my manager I didn’t want to be an opening act anymore. I said, ‘Tell Morris Landsbergis I’ll take the same money as an opening act if I can be a headliner.’” Landsbergis was the Flamingo owner at the time and said, sure, let him headline in November.
“Playing the Strip in November was like being on the moon—there were no people. It was a very dead time,” Newton said. “There were bets up and down the Strip that we were going to die. But we didn’t.”
The first influx of “Maniacs” made sure of that. In January of that year, Newton ended his engagement at the Fremont. Those fans filled the Flamingo showroom.
“We broke all existing records for the month of November,” said Newton. “The Flamingo had such an incredible lineup in those days. Bobby Darin, Bill Cosby, The Supremes, all the hot young acts. It was a real make-or-break-point for me, obviously. There was such a different vibe after that.”
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My first concert ...
Excluding shows my mother says she took me to when I was in diapers, the first concert I actually remember attending was a Beach Boys gig somewhere in Southern California when I was 4 years old. Thanks to the wonder of Internet-preserved minutia, I’ve recently determined that the night in question was December 27, 1977, at the Forum in LA. Furthermore, I now know that the Beach Boys my young eyes peeped were the real deal—Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine. Not that any of that particularly matters, except in retrospect. What struck me at the time—and I remember it as if it took place last night—was the electricity in the air the moment those lights went down. I had no earthly idea what was about to happen, but judging from the reaction of those around me, I just knew it would be the coolest thing ever. .
–Spencer Patterson
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TOM GRAFF
Paramedic
My first major emergency call ...
On the morning of November 21, 1980, Jon Graff had just finished a 24-hour shift at American Medical Response, where he’d worked for just a month. As he was driving home he looked to the sky and noticed it was black with smoke. “I lived on Flamingo and Maryland Parkway and headed toward the source, and as I got closer I realized it was something big.” It was; the MGM Grand was in flames.
“It was a classic case of an emergency where people are fleeing, but emergency personnel are running to it,” Graff said. Just 23 years old, Graff arrived at the scene in his 1979 Ford Fairmont and reported to supervisor David Skoff, who told Graf to start setting up triage areas.
“The first triage area we set up was out by the MGM pool,” Graff said. “It was me and two nurses, and we had one first aid kit between us, and we were just inundated with hundreds of guests coming at us in waves. Many didn’t speak English—we had all nationalities in that hotel—and they were covered in soot, dozens were suffering from smoke inhalation.”
The scene would become tragically familiar to anyone who has studied Las Vegas history. Rescue helicopters attempting to pluck guests from the hotel flew in so low that they blew equipment and supplies across the property. Linens and robes flew free, and some guests had bandages torn from their wounds from the blades’ powerful gusts. Eighty-four people died and 679 were injured.
“I came to Las Vegas, just a little old paramedic from West Virginia, and was totally mesmerized by the situation,” Graff said. “But your adrenaline and training takes over. My training in West Virginia was very extensive in mass-casualty, but that was unbelievable. I could not sleep for the next four days.”
Three months later, Graff was on-hand for his second major emergency call: the fire at the Las Vegas Hilton.
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FLO ROGERS
KNPR general manager
My first on-air appearance ...
In 1990, Rogers landed a job as evening DJ on Isle of Wight Radio, which is appropriate as she is actually from the Isle of Wight. “One of the most celebrated living Islanders is actor Jeremy Irons, and someone convinced him to record all of our station IDs in his sonorous voice,” Rogers said. “My first on-air shift included the current No. 1 Sinead O’Connor hit, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ which was entirely apropos. I have no recollection of my debut except being floored by having to speak on the tail end of one of Mr. Irons’ announcements.”
A decade later, Rogers and Irons attended the opening of the Guggenheim at the Venetian. “I thanked him for his support of the fledgling radio station a decade earlier, but I couldn’t quite work up he nerve to ask the great thespian about the motivation for the script, ‘And now your Isle of Wight Radio yachting, ferry and tidal report ...’”
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STEFANIE SCHAEFFER
The Apprentice champion and Trump International executive
My first meeting with Donald Trump ...
The Apprentice began filming its 2007 season in front of a mansion in Los Angeles, and Stefanie Schaeffer was hot.
“It was super-hot,” she said. “I was standing there and thinking, how do you sweat gracefully?”
The Donald showed up in a dark suit and a tie. Schaeffer can’t quite recall the tie, but it was a solid color, and the magnitude of the Donald was “so much larger than I expected. He has a larger-than-life presence.”
Schaeffer, a trial attorney who now splits her time between LA and Vegas, had 30 seconds to make her pitch to a man with a 29-second attention span. “I had to spit it out because I’m thinking, he’s going to cut me off in the most concise manner.”
So Schaeffer appealed to Trump’s litigious sensibilities. She went with, “I’m Stefanie from Palm Springs, I am a trial lawyer defending people just like you, Mr. Trump, against workers’ compensation claims and developers in construction-defect litigations.”
Trump said, “I could use someone like you.” For Schaeffer, the moment was golden as the exterior of the Trump International.
“I never forgot that he said that,” said Schaeffer, who survived the show and is the Trump International Las Vegas head of sales, marketing and real estate.
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Mystere's Paul Cameron's first flip on the Korean plank ...
It’s also called the teeterboard, and it’s something the meek don’t care to master. But Paul Cameron had competed on the trampoline, so being sent airborne by another person leaping onto the plank was not such a big deal.
But flipping after leaving the plank—different story.
“The first time I flipped was in February of 1997, I can tell you that,” Cameron said. “It happens really, really fast. The first time, I had no time to prepare to jump, no time to even think about it.”
Cameron said performing visualization exercises helped him master the technique.
“At the beginning, I did a lot of visualization,” he said. “But now, after 10 years, you don’t think about it too much. Just enough to do it right.”
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VINNY FAVORITO
O'Sheas comic
My first roast ...
Favorito is a maestro on the roast dais. He’s done about 20 celebrity roasts over the past eight years. The first was at the Joint at the Hard Rock, a charity event hosted by Bob Saget. The target was Tom Arnold.
“I was the unknown,” Favorito, a headliner at O’Sheas, said. “We had a bunch of NBA stars, celebrities, and we were going to play a benefit basketball game afterward.” Favorito made his way into the room because of a strong endorsement from Improv Comedy Club founder Budd Friedman. Bobcat Goldthwait, Margaret Cho, Ed McMahon and special-effects ace Stan Winston were part of the lineup that night.
“Every photographer is taking pictures of the dais, and I’m trying to lean into the photos, just to make myself known,” Favorito said. “Saget bombed, but I rocked the place. I told a joke about the bathrooms at the Hard Rock—’What are those, sinks or woks?’—and I got a standing O. Now, every photographer is taking pictures. I said, ‘I had to prove I could get a laugh before anyone talks to me?’”
Friedman began fielding requests for Favorito to perform at Friars Club roasts in Beverly Hills, and similarly styled events in Vegas. It is his shtick, as it were.
“I don’t write a joke until the roast starts,” Favorito said. “I feed off what people say and roll with what’s happening.” Favorito has not yet been roasted himself.
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University chancellor Jim Rogers' first car ...
“The first car I owned was a 1940 Ford Coupe, and we lived in New Mexico, where you could drive when you were 14,” Rogers said. “That was great. But when we moved out here in 1953, when I was 15, and I was no longer legal. The legal driving age was 16, so I was in the middle, but I drove the car until the police caught me.
“I was driving on St. Louis and Santa Inez, and I got caught only because a guy rear-ended me. The police officer asked for my license and that was it.”
That particular car was soon sold, but when Rogers began his classic-car collection that is now the 285-vehicle Sunbelt Auto Collection, his first purchase was—yes, you guessed it—a 1940 Ford Coupe.
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BRENT BARRETT
Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular co-lead
My first transformation into the Phantom role ...
This horror story is set in the basement of the Venetian. That’s the Latex Central for Phantom—The Las Vegas Spectacular.
“It was June of last year, and I’m in a little room used strictly for makeup,” Barrett said. “You have the barber chair, mirror, lights and a table on the side that has all the prosthetic pieces. It’s a little ominous.”
The process is painstaking and dramatic. A full head cast is made for all four Phantoms: the two leads (Barrett and Tony Crivello) and their understudies. A total of three molds are used to create the full Phantom effect, and a skullcap is placed over the head for a bald effect (“At least I know I have a good-shaped head, in case I ever go bald,” Barrett said). The three molds and, of course, half-face white mask are used to create the infected, scarred, patchy-haired (but nonetheless decisive and self-aware) Phantom.
“It’s an hour-long process,” Barrett said. “I was sitting in the chair watching myself disappearing behind this façade. Now, I don’t think anything of it. But that first time ... Ron Wild, our makeup man, who is a brilliant technician, made me look incredibly real.”
Barrett says, at first, he even felt ugly. Go disfigure.
“I was looking at myself as the Phantom and I actually started to feel ugly and very sorry for the character,” he said. “Without [the makeup], it would be far more difficult to sympathize. It would be a different show. There would be hostility.
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Caesars Palace publicist Debbie Munch’s first mega-movie ...
Munch has helped stage some of the more significant events in the hotel’s history. She was with the crew of Rain Man through six weeks of shooting during the summer of 1988.
The final shot on the last day of shooting was the scene in which Dustin Hoffman teaches Tom Cruise to dance in the two-story fantasy suite that visitors to the hotel refer to as the Rain Man suite. During rehearsal, the film crew could not get clean audio of the actors’ whispered dialogue because guests were using a Jacuzzi in the suite above.
Munch was asked to delicately request the Jacuzzi be shut down. She turned to Hoffman and Cruise, led them upstairs and knocked on the door of the soakers.
“How would you like to meet Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise?” she asked. The stunned guests met the stars, were told of the problem and left the suite “with the memory of a lifetime,” as Munch remembers.
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My first pet
Beastie and Socks were family dogs. But Harry? Harry was mine. He was a fluffy teddy-bear hamster with a white body, black head and shiny but vacant beady eyes.
Harry was an expert sitter. He’d sit in cupped hands or in empty coffee cups. He’d sit on my chest as I watched movies.
Thinking there should be more to his life than sitting, I got him a girlfriend. An ugly white cuss with reddish eyes named Buffy.
He knocked her up one day, to my delight. But Buffy had no maternal instinct. And instead of nurturing the wrinkly little hamsters, she stuffed them in her pouches. When that didn’t do the trick, she spat them out and climbed the wire hamster cage, rung by rung, dangling over the babies and dropping. Dangling and dropping.
Dangling. Dropping. Till they wriggled no more.
– Kate Silver
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GUY SAVOY
Restaurant owner
My first meal for a group ...
The first time Guy Savoy made dinner for a group was at the restaurant L’Esplanade, which was owned by his mother. She was hospitalized with an illness for a few days, and the 15-year-old Savoy was alone in the kitchen.
He prepared truites meunieres (trout sautéed in butter) omelets, coq au vin and gratin Daupinois (potato gratin).
Of the experience, Savoy says he could not believe that the guests liked the food he cooked. The guy’s good.
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MAC KING
Magician
The first time I performed my trademark Goldfish-In-The-Mouth trick ...
Mac King had just started a run at the old Maxim hotel-casino when he first attempted a now-familiar trick: Slip a slice of carrot into his mouth, and spit a goldfish into a wine glass of water.
He choked.
“The first time I do this, I have two people onstage from the audience, holding wine glasses, and I have the fish secretly in my mouth,” King said. “I show a piece of carrot going into my mouth, and the idea is to spit the fish out. But that fish decides to take a swim down my through and I start gagging, hacking, couching, trying to get it to come up out of my throat.”
It seemed the coughing went on for an eternity, but it was about 20 seconds. “Then I start to vomit into my hand,” King said. “I lean over to my suitcase of props, which is right behind one of the audience members with the wine glass, and I just lose it into the suitcase.”
The audience of about 100 Maxim guests did not seem to notice, or care, about the retched turn of events.
“Maybe they thought it was part of the act, I don’t know, but the guy onstage looked back at the suitcase and went, ŒGaaaah!‚” King said. “But the fish was there. As I recall it was on top of part of a roast beef sandwich I’d eaten between shows, because part of my deal there was I got to eat free at the buffet.”
So King slipped the fish back into his mouth and managed to prevent any further upheaval.
“After the show I’m selling T-shirts and talking to the crowd and no one mentioned it. There wasn’t a word,” King said. “I’m still amazed that no one said anything about that.”
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NASCAR champion Kurt Busch’s first main-event victory ...
The track was “The Bullring,” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was where drivers went to find out if they were good enough to drive for a living. Busch was good enough, as he proved at the three-eighths-mile asphalt oval in April 1997, when he won his first late-model class victory.
“I had been with my dad’s race team and had been in other people’s cars here and there, but nothing like the late-model at the Bullring. But [Star Nursery owner] Craig Keough called and he got a hold of one of the cars that Chris [Trickle] used, and he wanted to see if I was ready for the Southwest Tour.”
Also a promising young driver, Trickle was killed a little more than a year after being shot in February 1997 while driving on Blue Diamond Road near I-15. He died in March 1998; his killer has never been identified. Busch climbed into a Chevy Lumina that had been wrecked and resurrected and drove it during a Saturday night points race.
Busch was being pursued by some of the more famous veteran drivers in Las Vegas—Dick Cobb, Mike Ray—who were well-established at the track. “They were on my tail, chomping to get by me. But I ended up holding off these big guys and winning the race. I was surprised, along with the other 2,000 people there.”
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My first real fight
Ruis, that bastard. I’ve changed his name to protect ... me. (When I last saw him, he looked like Lou Ferrigno.) Nearly crapped my pants the day he and I tangled nearly 20 years ago. We were playing football in the street. I was waxing him. Scored like five times. Spiked the ball in the face. Told him his sister was a better athlete. Talked about his mom. Normal kid stuff, you know. I laughed. He scowled.
Game over, I began slinking away. Whew. I’ll live to smack-talk another day. Ruis and his sister headed to their house. Then he turned around and called me a bitch. My garage within view, I shouted back. He began sprinting. Like a cheetah. He never ran that fast during the game. My mind said, run! My ego said, run and you’ll be a wimp. Where were all those nosy-ass neighbors now, when I needed them? In no time, Ruis was on me. I thought I was going to have a massive coronary, I was so nervous. How much was this ass-whipping going to hurt? I braced myself. He pushed me. I flew. Once I landed, I pushed him back. He swung. It was a slow punch.
Telegraphed. Winging. He missed. So I swung and connected. He didn’t budge. Head down and without looking where I was going, I charged into Ruis and plowed him into a wall. “Uggh,” he shouted. Then I tripped him. He hit the concrete. Another “uggh.” I was ... winning? The next day, all the homies said his face was marked up. For the next year, I lived in fear, awaiting retaliation, avoiding his street at all costs—and telling anybody within earshot that, yeah, I kicked Ruis’ ass. You want to make something of it?
–Damon Hodge