Parkway of Broken Dreams is a new documentary film from director/producer PJ Perez. This is a documentary on the alternative scene in Las Vegas during the 1990s, which was amazing.

Several of my friends and acquaintances, and one of my bands, are seen in the trailer. Also some of my friends, including one of the band members, are featured interviews in the film. I was a bit shocked to see that my band appears twice in the trailer. I am not featured in the film myself, but you will at least catch a glimpse or two of a much younger me at a time when I was such a struggling artist that I was literally on the verge of starvation. But, what a time to be alive!

The scene flourished on Maryland Parkway for many years. When I arrived in Las Vegas in March of 1993, anything that was local and weird was happening on Maryland Parkway near the university, between Tropicana and Flamingo. That was the place to be for all the kids and young adults who weren't into gambling or mainstream media entertainment.

For the first year I was living south of McCarren airport and had to ride bicycle 8+ miles roundtrip to get around the airport and find something fun to do. The first best thing I discovered was the open mic scene which was bursting with talent, some of which will be evidenced in this documentary.

Tangent 1: Later I would spend a couple years living in a townhouse on Maryland Parkway south of Tropicana within walking distance of so many good times. Two days before we signed the lease paperwork there was discovered a dead body in the one of the dumpsters and the day we moved in there was a police raid of a meth lab. But we had a nice and affordable place with a garage for band practice, so we weren't going to complain.

The downfall began when the university hired a non-resident to be their chief executive. He didn't like the diversity of music played by the live and local DJs. He wanted to hear Jazz 24/7 whenever he tuned in on the few days a month that he was in town. So all of the DJs were kicked out and KUNV went to an "all jazz all the time" format that was pre-recorded in a completely different city and state. So much for local radio. There were protests and a petition drive. His idea of compromise was to allow the local DJs and musical diversity to return on the weekends when he would be back in New York.

That was the beginning of the death of a cohesive Las Vegas alternative scene. Then a few more clubs opened up downtown and the scene began to spread out. Then some of the bars and cafes on Maryland Parkway closed down; beginning with arson at Cafe Copioh which was not long after John Emmons, host of the Poetry Alive open mic, was shot behind the cafe. John survived being shot, but others didn't. There was the double murder of Lin "Spit" Newborn and Daniel Shersty who were lured to the desert by two young women, where they were shot to death by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads. There was also the murder of Ginger Rios which happened inside the first spy shop in Las Vegas, on Maryland Parkway north of Flamingo across the street from the mall.

I met my wife (now ex-wife) and several good friends at Poetry Alive at Cafe Espresso Roma on Maryland Parkway directly across the street from UNLV. The building doesn't even exist anymore. I watched it being torn down in 2018.

Las Vegas doesn't do much to preserve its history. Thankfully there were some folks who preserved evidence of the fun that we were having then and there.

That scene was a big part of my history and development as an artist. Not that it influenced my artistic expression so much, but, that it it gave me multiple creative outlets and drove me to both improve upon my efforts and to become more prolific.

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to read my poetry on the radio at KUNV before the downfall. That was part of a series of poetry slam events to choose a team of local poets to be featured on a side stage at Lollapalooza in competition against the "road poets" team who were all established and published poets, some of them fairly famous for as far as poets go in modern entertainment.

Tangent 2: I didn't win the radio slam because of cheating on behalf of one of the competitors who was disqualified from competition at the concert due to being underage. Another poet dropped out for reasons that I don't recall. The two empty slots were selected, one by the rest of the team and one by the host of Poetry Alive where all of the heats had happened with the exception of the radio round. I was not liked by the team but John chose me, partly out of respect for me and partly out of contempt for the rest of the team. I was eliminated from competition at the concert in the third round, because I didn't really understand the slam format. I was reading a different poem for each round while the road poets performed the same piece each time. The audience was different every few minutes, so that worked out for them. However, a local poet, Dayvid Figler, won the competition. His prize was being allowed to read the winning poem on the main stage before the headliners the Beastie Boys. The audience booed and threw water bottles and shoes at him which he dodged like a champ without skipping a beat. He even swatted one bottle out of the air and jumped over a few more as he stalked around the front of the stage giving the rowdy crowd a moving target. John and I were laughing up in the bleachers drinking warm beer that he had smuggled in.

One of my bands, Nature Boy!, twice got to perform live on air at KUNV. We also were featured on a local AM station, KLAV, when a show about local music interviewed us and played a half dozen of our songs. We also had a couple of selections from our only release (a handmade cassette tape of which less than 100 were ever made; 80 if I remember correctly), Karaoke Abattoir, played once or twice on KUNV, with friends calling me to say they had heard us on the radio.

Where else and when else could that happen?

I don't know if any of that could happen anywhere today. Although, as a newcomer late to the party in 1993, I often didn't feel welcomed by the dominant factions, I have a lot of great memories from then and there. It was truly a magical time and place to be alive and cruising around the Parkway of Broken Dreams.

World Premier;
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/parkway-of-broken-dreams-world-premiere-tickets-174342060797

Teaser Trailer:
https://youtu.be/TdNesMNuqmw

Official Trailer:
https://youtu.be/mrnefYZ_jT0

Benway Bop:
https://youtu.be/ZH62Q3hDlxQ

Life on the Parkway:
https://youtu.be/JU3224LENNw

Remembering Spit and Dan:
https://youtu.be/PcqQF80nx8Q

Official Website:
http://www.parkwayofbrokendreams.com