Old Martinez Hall: Circa 1971
(This morning I was editing Gringo Lessons, a book of memories, and thought La Martina might enjoy the following excerpt.)
Back in Ranchos de Taos, a tall shaggy-haired substitute English teacher, Ken Jenkins talked me into leasing the El Cortez Tavern—Old Martinez Hall in the spring of 1971. Ken had retreated to Taos from LA to write a book about the Manson Family massacre. He and his wife, Nancy, the schoolteacher and breadwinner, lived across the street from the downtown business district and post office in an adobe retreat under the watchful eye of St. Francis de Asis, where they kept company with a porcine pet. After a movie at the El Cortez Theatre, I sometimes trundled across the street to discuss Yeats’s poetry or George Stevens, the director of “Shane,” while sharing a bottle of Scotch.
Ken said we’d get two bars for the price of one—the daytime Tavern and nighttime bar and dance hall for a total of $600 per month. The income from the El Cortez Tavern with a couple of pool tables should pay the monthly rent. We figured we could make a ton of money by scheduling Spanish wedding dances and rock concerts in the Old Martinez Hall, which could hold five or six hundred revelers. The Martinez Brothers, Edmundo and T.P. wanted out.
The huge two-story wedding dance hall came complete with WPA murals like the ones inside the El Cortez theatre. Thick vigas spanned the stage and the dance hall–big enough for a basketball gymnasium. The El Cortez Tavern was connected to the Old Martinez dance hall by double doors. A neighborhood clientele—pool players, pensioners, miners and errant husbands, artists and layabouts—made their home at the tavern. The aroma from the partitioned-off pissoir wafted up and out, over the pockmarked linoleum floor and stained hardwood bar. After an hour, body heat and beer subsumed the previous night’s aroma.
In the newly remodeled lounge beyond the double doors, the bar for the dance hall featured muted brown adobe bricks framed in polished brown wood. The dance hall itself retained its traditional roots. The nicked wood dance floor, the giant vigas overhead, and a sizeable stage were dwarfed by the thick high adobe walls. The summer before Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino performed a commedia dell’arte version of “Viva la Huelga” in support of the great sugar beet strike against the Coors brewery.
The locals switched cerveza;. ‘No mas Coors. Schleetz, tan bien.”
Harvey (Mudd) put up $5,000 for seed money. Edmundo Martinez, the managing brother and a veteran employee of the Department of Motor Vehicles, made a phone call to Santa Fe and the liquor license approval sailed through the bureaucracy in a day. Our lease went into effect the first of May.
The first time I stepped behind the plank at El Cortez Tavern, I remember muttering to myself: “Whaley, you gringo, what the hell are you doing in this bar?” Most days Ken worked the Tavern while I tended the newly remodeled bar at night and managed the wedding dances on Saturdays.
The El Cortez/Old Martinez Hall complex was about one hundred yards across the street from the church, while the Vigils,’ La Fiesta Lounge and dance hall was less than fifty from the entrance to the front door of the holy edifice. The massive architecture of St. Francis de Asis inspired artists from Ansel Adams to Georgia O Keefe to reproduce its image. The Plaza and church, sandwiched between two dance halls reminded one of a raucous western movie set—except there was no sheriff or marshal in town.
During the wedding dance season, I witnessed hand-to-hand combat between waltzes and polkas inside the hall and street fighting outside between cars and trucks. One of our bouncers, Manuel “Pablito Red” Trujillo, fancied himself a politico and didn’t like to make enemies or lose potential votes by throwing out troublemakers. The term Native Taoseno and “bouncer” was a contradiction in terms like a political “conflict of interest.” El Norte had its own language and culture.
In the early 70s several wedding dance halls competed for business. Los Compadres on the northern town boundary between Taos and El Prado, was numero uno. The owner, Martin Vargas, had slicked back hair, sported a cigarette holder, dressed in a fancy suit, and drove around town in a black Cadillac. I wore scruffy Levis a shirt with a collar and drove a VW Bug. Martin looked down his nose at me—though in person the shorter man looked up.
The wedding parties scheduled receptions on Saturday afternoons from about 2 pm and dances for the evening at 8 pm. But the hours were as flexible as the guests were adaptable. The general public paid a dollar at the door. According to custom, wedding parties paid a fee for the use of the room and for the band. Since revenue from the cover was enough to pay for the band and the operating expenses, I waived the fees to become more competitive and booked the popular Visarragas band from Penasco. Happy couples soon booked most of the available Saturdays at Old Martinez Hall.
In the Tavern los viejos (old guys) aka los tios (uncles) came in at 10 and left at noon after one or two drinks and occasional fisticuffs. A daughter or grandson would appear and walk them home. They dressed in coats and ties and wore fedoras. Weightless, they caused little damage when they got fired up and remembered old feuds with their neighbors.
Draft beer was a quarter to fifty cents. Drinks were seventy-five cents to a buck. We ordered three new pool tables and Ken organized tournaments with prizes—pool cues, trophies, or cash. The pool guys from Albuquerque, who furnished the tables, took fifty percent of the table grosses. The tournaments were exceedingly popular. And the pool guys told us, “If you need an emergency loan, we can come with the money anytime.” Pool was very popular and we started pulling in the dough.
When I asked one of the locals, Pat Martinez, a retired sheepherder and schoolteacher, why business was so good in the beginning–despite our being gringos, he said, “Because you have no history of screwing people.” Pat was fond of saying, “I’m bilingual, I speak neither Spanish nor English.” The older generation was Spanish but the younger guys, especially the ex-cons and the college boys, referred to themselves as Chicanos. Applying the word “Spanish” or “Chicano” to the wrong individual—even if related–could mean a fight” “I’m no Chicano, cabron!” Nobody used the term Hispanic or Latino. “Mexican” was a dirty word. I got my first lessons in political correctness right there in Ranchos de Taos.