The Saga of El Cabeza Del Oro!

A High-Speed Weekend After-Action Report
courtesy of S3 Agent Rip Thrillby of The Penetrators

SATURDAY, MAY 18

Practiced and arranged some new material at a friend's house in his spare bedroom Saturday, then hit the town. Went to some clubs and crashed some parties afterwards.

They say an idle mind is the devil's workshop. And HOW. As we retired to Trace's pad, I noticed the gold football helmet without a facemask he had secured for next week's Hooper show. Hooper is the world's first and only stunt band. They play like, twice a year, and we always take part as members of the "star band." We get up onstage, the "director," played by Spanky, calls "Places! Action!" and then we all hit an A chord. "Cut! Bring in the stunt band!"

The real band comes out, dressed identically to us, as characters from BR films. We say, "Make us look good, guys" and then they play bubblegum-punk/garage songs all about Burt movies, plus the themes from "Hooper" and "Smokey & The Bandit." We walk around and act like movie stars while they're on stage, then at the end of the show, "Cut! Bring back the talent! Action!" Then the star band hits the final chord and gets all the applause/chicks/credit. Pretty good deal for us!

So anyway, a highlight of the show is always the appearance of The Golden Helmet, based on the famous scene in Hooper involving the Golden Helmet and the jukebox. Spanky will call cut, saying something's just not working. "Maybe we need the Golden Helmet," Jan-Michael Hooper, my stunt double says, and then a guy comes out with the helmet and sings The Cars' "Just What I Needed." So Trace had secured a modern Riddell golden helmet for the "star" Golden Helmet to wear (a new feature for next week's show), while Chuck, the "stunt" Golden Helmet wears this piece of crap helmet that would be unsafe in 5 mph collision.

So I put the helmet on Saturday night and dared anyone to whack me on the head with the hammer sitting onthe coffee table. Spanky did, and quite hard, I might add. I laughed at his puny attack, and it wasn't long before we were all taking turns wearing the helmet and whacking each other with the hammer. "This is starting to turn into a set-up for those Darwin Awards," Spanky sagely observed. After 30 minutes of it, it was getting boring anyway.

The Taco Bell about 50 yards from Trace's pad caught our attention, as the parking lot was full of drunks waiting in the drive-through line for their late-night gut grenades. "You know," I said, "how often you think those people waiting so patiently for their tacos ever have just plain ol' bona-fide surrealism intrude on their comfortable little lives?" Hardly ever, we all decided. And we're just the guys to change that.

I put on the wrestling mask I bought from Los Straitjackets (same one the hitman wears in our "Redlined" video), and then put the Golden Helmet on. Jet put on the Clint Eastwood Man-With-No-Name poncho Trace had, and grabbed an acoustic guitar. I became El Cabeza Del Oro, down-on-his-luck Mexican wrestler, and we went panhandling for tacos. Jet played my theme music, an E-E-E-E-F-F-F-F-G-F-E flamenco thing, and I began introducing myself to people in their cars. "I am El Cabeza Del Oro... I am, how you norte americanos say, 'legendary wrestler,' but you see, I have no dinero, pero yo quiero Taco Bell!! Will you buy me some tacos por favor?"

Then Spanky would walk up behind me and smack me on the head with the hammer with a full-arc swing, which would cause me to raise my arms in the sky, laugh triumphantly, and declare my invincibility to the parking lot patrons while I made lots of wrestling muscle-flexing poses. At this point the rest of the entourage would begin bowing to me with their arms up, chanting, "All hail El Cabeza Del Oro! All hail El Cabeza Del Oro! Please buy him some Tacos!" while Jet would furiously strum my theme music. I thought this carload of sorority girls were going to expel all the beer in their bladders into their car seats they were laughing so hard. "What kinda drugs are you people on?!" the driver, a hot little number asked. "Comes from St. Louis in an aluminum can, ma'am," I told her, and took a sip from my beer. The reactions ranged from the sorority girls' to confused stares to a carload of black guys who did not look amused at all. After about 30 minutes this got boring too, and when we saw a cop pass the restaurant, decided discretion was the better part of valor and retreated. Plus we were getting wet, as it was raining. And can you believe NO ONE would buy me any tacos!? Fuckin' cheapskates.


David H. Adler
Last modified: Tue Jun 1 16:49:33 1999