The Zulu Lounge

Over twenty years ago, in May of 1990, Tania and I moved to Long Beach.

At the time we were involved with a group of artists, actors, musicians and short-film makers (who had migrated from Colorado to California together) which we had met through our job working at an interior design company’s warehouse in Costa Mesa/Irvine.

I was writing a lot of poetry, and one day at work I mentioned to Tania and our friend Brian that I needed a place to read my poems out loud, and get some feedback…

So we formed a Wednesday night group called The Zulu Lounge which met in the garage of Brian’s rented house in Irvine to read poetry, share our art, smoke cigarettes and drink.

I Like To Smoke by Jon Christopher – The Zulu Lounge – 1990

Here’s an audio recording of the first poem ever read at The Zulu Lounge. This was one of the “Smoker’s Rights” poems I was writing at the time called I Like To Smoke.

During the middle of this poem I try a flip a cigarette into my mouth…

From The Lounge To Long Beach

When Tania and I moved to Long Beach, so did many of our friends from this group.

Three of the guys from The Zulu Lounge – Brian, Phil and Kirk – moved into an apartment on Broadway which had several bedrooms and, most importantly, access to the roof.

Soon after they moved in they threw a very big house-warming party…

I barely remember it, and I don’t think we have any photos of the night, but I still have the audio-invitation cassette tape and my Fish Pass.

When Cassettes Were King

In 1990 the cassette tape was king. We listened to most of our music on cassette tape.

If you wanted to share some music with a friend, you made a mix-tape and gave it to them… a special kind of gift you listened to over and over again.

That’s probably why I kept this particular cassette tape. It’s both a sound collage of audio theater and an amazing invitation to a party.

An Audio Invitation

Here’s the audio from the cassette tape – It’s about 31 minutes long and very funny, strange and unique souvenir from the late twentieth century.

Included in the cassette invitation was a FREE Pass To See Chilly Willy Talk, and Entrance to The Attic of Doom – Enter and Worship

The Fish Pass

The prime party spot that night (if I remember correctly) was on the roof, which required a special Fish Pass – which we were suppose to share. I think the idea was to keep the number of people on the roof limited…

As you can see I kept mine. Here’s the photo I took of it today…

Note: If you have any photos from this party, please contact me so I can add them to this page…

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