Slugging Slut Drinks To Indie Rock In The High Desert

Childless and gay, basking in the blue dark.

*Prefer to listen? I got you! Article narrated by me (not creepy AI)—click voiceover above.

“The older you get, does having a child just seem less and less appealing?” I ask Owen, my best friend since sixteen. We’re deep in the Mojave at the infamous “Pappy & Harriet’s,” a kooky music venue/barbecue restaurant in kooky Pioneertown.

Photo Courtesy of Pappy & Harriet’s

Located in Southern California’s high desert, Pioneertown is a campy and strange unincorporated community, founded in 1946 by elite Hollywood movie stars and investors: Roy Rogers and Russel Hayden, to name a few. It was built to replicate the old, wild west of the 1800s, so it could serve as a “living, breathing moving set” for the Westerns of Hollywood’s “Golden Age.”

Pappy & Harriet’s is unique not just because it sits on the shoulder of the vast and windy Pioneertown Road, where there is no phone service, and the rock formations look as if they’ve been plucked out of a Salvador Dali painting.

Nor is it unique because it sits directly in front of the campy movie set “village” of Pioneertown—a walkable, carless stretch of dust laden with saloons, fake jailhouses, pottery stores with chickens sqwaking out front, and a functioning motel where you can find the lost hipster cowboys of the American Frontier smoking cigarettes and moon-gazing with big amphetamine eyes.

Blake, Mom, and I in “Pioneertown.” Our last family trip before Blake passed. This is NOT the functioning hotel mentioned above.

Pappy & Harriet’s is unique because it’s the only place in the world where you can stand beneath a taxidermied animal head, chowing on pulled pork whilst shooting the shit with a Hell’s Angel in a durag—and go outside and watch everyone from Paul McCartney to Robert Plant to Patti Smith to The Psychedelic Furs to the Arctic Monkeys to every indie band you’ve ever never heard of, rock out, the iconic stars of the mojave desert sparkling from above.

Being at Pappy & Harriet’s is like being inside of Lana Del Rey’s brain: there’s young runaways with waist-length hair and cut-off shorts clutching the thick waistlines of their big, bad biker daddies; there’s small town girls with big dreams serving up chili and bourbon to hardened criminals on the run; there’s seasoned microphones backlit by velvet and darkness; there’s rock n’ roll and the wild west.

I come to the desert as often as possible, it gives me so much to think about. I dragged Owen here because, like me, his mind can travel to dark places when there’s a shortage of things to think about.

“What did you say, again?” Owen asks, eyeing the crowd. We’re outside of Pappy’s, where there’s no taxidermy or pulled pork, just a humble stage, a bar that serves only beer and liquor, and of course, the conglomeration of music fanatics milling about in dark rinse jeans and band-teeshirts. “I’m distracted by all the straight people,” Owen says, incredulous and in marvel.

It’s just after five p.m., and the excruciating dry heat is in its cooling process, which is an extraordinary time of day in these parts. When you’ve been scorched to death all day, when that first subtle breeze hits, the whole desert comes back to life: the rattlesnakes, the people, the air.

A temperate wind blows against my cheek teasingly, and I’m suddenly eroticized. I take in the crowd.

“It’s like all the cool ‘alt’ kids we partied with in high school have gathered in the high desert—except instead of being nineteen and in a shitty band, they’re like dads, now.” I observe, my eyes glued to a skinny forty-something smoking an American Spirit in a faded “Pablo Honey” t-shirt. He looks like a weathered version of every boy I “dated” as a closeted teen.

“Speaking of dads,” I pause for drama, “what I was saying was—do you ever feel like the older you get, the less pleasant having a baby seems?”

Owen looks at me sheepishly and throws his hands up as if to say: Don’t shoot. “Yes,” he says, “I do think about that.”

“I never thought I’d be here. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, more than anything! But like, I don’t know. When I look at some of my friends with kids up close, some of them seem so…” I sigh wistfully. It’s my turn to throw my hands in a proverbial don’t shoot. I gulp the air and continue, “so lonely.”

My heart does this jarring thing whenever I speak the words aloud that *maybe* I could perhaps do this life thing without tossing motherhood into the mix. My heart vascilates in extreme rhythms, one beat it’s slow and heavy with irrevocable regret; the next, it’s light and fluttery—like when you’ve got a new crush, and the world feels open and full of possibility again.

It’s psychological and spiritual warfare, something that I don’t care to fixate on right now, with Owen in the sparse and stunning Mojave, where constructs like time and biological clocks don’t exist; the desert only moves moment to moment to moment.

I grab Owen’s hand, curl my fingers around his, and lead him to the bar.

“I’ll have a Bacardi Diet, please,” I coo to the tattooed bartender, who is seasoned sexy, not influencer sexy. She’s sexy like a rare vintage handbag thrifted somewhere cool and punk—Olympia, Washington in ‘94, perhaps. She’s got a sun-bleached shag and clumsily cut short bangs; tattooed biceps and big natural tits; silver rings wrapped around worn slim fingers and winged eyeliner.

She reminds me of the hot alt girls who were friends with the music boys I dated in high school. Always older and cooler, the hippy rocker babes I worshipped, even though they rarely gave me the time of day. ‘Cept maybe to bum a cig at the house party.

“Bacardi Diet, coming right up, honey,” the bartender rasps back at me. But when she calls me ‘honey,’ it’s not slightly condescending, even in her smoky gruff voice; it sounds earnest and kind. Tough girls like that soften as they age, I’ve noticed. And I still think they’re the coolest bitches to ever exist, TikTok fucking wishes.

“Bacardi Diet, I like it,” Owen says, fluffing my hair. I tremble at his touch. I haven’t had a hand penetrate my scalp in years. I removed my hair extensions yesterday for a “breather.” By which, I mean I’m testing to see if I can emotionally hack it for forty-eight hours without thirteen pounds of hair that isn’t mine to hide behind.

My hair extensions shampooed and air-drying in the yard of our Pioneertown Airbnb. Photo courtesy of Owen Gould.

So far, I’m doing pretty great. I’m as surprised as anyone.

Weaveless and definitely no longer in WeHo. Photo courtesy of Owen Gould.

I grin and tap my credit card against the machine, which the bartender holds steady in one hand, and expertly mixes a cocktail with the other. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, I think, nostalgic for the Myspace days.

I tip her fifty percent because no matter how many years go by, I will always be fifteen and desperately yearning for the approval of the tattooed cool girl. The only difference is now I can pay for her validation, which I am not above.

I refer to Bacardi Diet Coke as my “Slut Drink.” And I only order my Slut Drunk on special occasions, like tonight. I hear some people drink champagne for special occasions, but I’m not that guy. I drink champagne on dismal Tuesday nights, rotting on the couch alone in Hello Kitty pajamas, spooning my defunct hot pink vibrator that needs to be charged, but I lost the charger.

Owen and I link arms and wordlessly snake our way toward the stage.

“Do you think people think we’re a couple?” Owen smirks, taking a puff of his vape.

“Probably,” I smirk back, grabbing his vape, inhaling and exhaling, for theatre.

So much of this feels like high school: Owen and I getting off on the possibility that people might mistake us for a couple. The side part in my hair, artfully procured by Owen, hours earlier. Liquor in plastic cups. Smoke. His piercing blue eyes. My chunky platform boots. His black hoodie. Our arms slung over each other, too comfortable to be lovers, too affectionate to be casual friends. The two of us camouflaged in a crowd of straight counter culture music freaks, talking to no one but each other about things that are wildly out of context to the setting.

Owen and I at Pappy and Harriet’s right before the show. Photo courtesy of Owen Gould.

As if on cue, Owen lowers his voice cryptically, as if telling a haunted tale, and says, “I don’t know if it’s living in LA or working in fashion, but I keep just wanting to get plastic surgeries.”

“Me too,” I agree. “I’m desperate for a lower blepharoplasty surgery. Or as the kids say, ‘a lower bleph.’” I swig my Slut Drink. I don’t know what makes it so syrupy—the rum or the fountain soda—regardless, it’s divine and soothes my throat, which it didn’t realize needed soothing until this very moment. How long has my throat been sore? I wonder. Why am I so disembodied ‘til I come to the Desert?

“Same. Except I actually need it,” Owen says, pulling on his lower eyelid. “You don’t.”

“I’m the one with the fat deposit under my eye,” I point to the permanent mound of puff in the lower corner of my right eye. “My mother told me when she was high on morphine, right before she went under for surgery, that it’s all she see’s when she looks at me.”

“Oh, Lynn!” Owen laughs in faux outrage.

“We could get them together, in Florida, it’ll be cheaper. We can recover at the Barrie Compound.” I exclaim. For whatever reason, we’ve called my parents’ house the Barrie Compound since high school.

“Genius,” Owen cheers. “Hey,” his blue eyes glitter, “I guarantee we’re the only people here talking about plastic surgery.”

I cackle. He’s right. We’re at Pappy and Harriet’s and about to see Yo La Tengo, an indie rock band from the 90s known for their long-winded, atmospheric jams.

My brother loved Yo La Tengo, so I love them by proxy.

But Real Yo La Tengo fans, like my brother, aren’t the types to contemplate plastic surgery.

They let their beards go grey without experiencing a modicum of gay panic.

They let their tattoos fade.

They listen to old Radiohead in the car.

They smoke joints with their friends by bonfires and doze off to the dreamy music of their stoned youth: Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, Blonde Redhead.

Owen and I like to smoke joints by bonfires and doze off to the dreamy music of our youth, too—but we also do Botox and have considered buccal fat removal, and listen to Olivia Rodrigo at his house over orange wine and Adderall, when he does my weave every six weeks. We are mermaids; we are of two worlds.

The crowd rustles; the band is about to start. There’s a palpable longing to revel in the music, the desire pulses through the air. Yo La Tengo is one of those bands that might’ve never had massive mainstream success, but they’ve got a die-hard cult following. The cultishness of it all feels on brand for the desert. We are in no-man’s land after all, where the dark and the weird, the cowboys and the cults, feel normalized and safe.

I quietly wonder how many cults we’ve never heard of are hiding out here in the forgotten outback of the old American Frontier. I wonder what they’re doing right now. I wonder if there’s mass cult suicide happening just miles from us, as we sip liquor at Pappy & Harriet’s, gearing up to listen to a middle-aged alt band, with a bunch of middle-aged alt kids.

I open my mouth with the intention to ask Owen what he thinks about cult suicides in the desert, but different words spill out: “Should we get another drink before the show starts?”

“I’ll get the drinks,” he assures, “you stay right here.”

“No, no, let me get them. You’ve already gotten so much.” I protest.

“Stop it. Stay right here,” he says firmly.

Before I can further debate, Owen is standing in line. Even though we’re both gayer than Palm Springs, when it’s just us, we slip into heteronormative gender roles.

He refuses to let me pay, opens doors for me without fail, stands in line for the drinks, and asks waiters the questions I’m too embarrassed to ask, like if I can get my burger wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. He drives the car and navigates the route, and I’m the passenger princess, curating a playlist of sentimental ballads, encouraging him to process his feelings aloud.

I like who I am around Owen.

I always have.

It’s safe to soften in his orbit.

He’s a manly man who’d never dare hurt me.

Standing alone in the crowd, I start to realize he’s the closest to my brother that I have.

Masculine and protective, deeply sensitive—could weep about art all day long; but also you could tell them your most diabolical, depraved, and perverted thoughts, and there’d be no judgment, on the contrary: they’d get it.

Owen comes back with a fresh Slut Drink for me and a whiskey neat for him.

It’s golden hour, and there’s nothing like golden hour in the desert. The warm light glimmers in all the right places.

The band emerges and, without speaking, they start playing beatific soundscapes that send me to another dimension.

“My soul needed this,” Owen murmurs, as we sway, arm in arm.

“Me too,” I exhale. We passionately move to the moody melodies like we know every song by heart, even though we don’t. We’re not Yo La Tenga super-fans, but our siblings were, so it’s our blood, our lineage.

There’s a guy with a beard that looks exactly like my brother’s beard. “I whisper to Owen, 'Doesn’t that dude remind you of Blake?”

“I didn’t want to say anything, but yes. It’s wild. From the profile, it could be Blake.” In a few hours, that same guy will gently scold us for yapping too much during his favorite song, but we don’t know that yet.

All I know is that the sky has dimmed into my favorite color of all colors: the blue dark.

The blue dark is the temporary deep indigo of the early nighttime sky before it cuts to black.

The blue dark comes as quickly as she goes, before you know we’re deep in the darkness. She’s extraordinary but fleeting, all beautiful things are.

“Look,” I point upwards, “It’s the blue dark,” I gush to Owen, “Lana Del Rey talks about ‘kissing in the Blue Dark’ in her song Video Games. This, Owen, this—is the blue dark.”

Owen shivers in awe and wonder. “I want that tattooed,” he gasps.

I *only* bring up the blue dark to people I’m certain will get it.

I told Dayna about the blue dark when we were drunk and swimming in the pool at the Ace Hotel. She wrote a gorgeous essay about the blue dark months later, she titled it “Blacking out in the Blue Dark,” and performed at the monthly Literary Salon I used to host in New York.

I told Eduardo about the blue dark when we were walking home from dinner one perfect summer evening in Florida. He gay-gasped and stared at it teary-eyed like it was a moving piece of art, which it is. Every so often, he passionately thanks me for introducing him to the beauty of “the blue dark.”

I told my brother about the blue dark on our last family trip to Joshua Tree, six months before he died. We were smoking joints, hoping to catch a glimpse of a jackrabbit—our lifelong obsession. I don’t know why, but we’ve always been besotted by the lore of the cryptic and fascinating jackrabbits, who allegedly can be found in the desert. As we anxiously awaited a jackrabbit sighting, I noticed the blue dark setting in. I forced him to listen to Lana and made him begrudgingly stare at the sky for several seconds. Finally sighed heavily in resignation. “I get Lana del Rey, finally, Z” Smoke billowed from his lips. “But most of all, I get the blue dark.”

Maybe I’m a blue dark doula?

Maybe my purpose in life, what I’m meant to do while I’m here: introduce people to the blue dark.

Hours later, when Owen and I drive back, pull up to our Airbnb, the car lights shine bright against two jackrabbits hopping across the long, dark driveway and into the night.

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