For starters, in all the years I'd been hanging out there, I'd never seen anyone simulate sex with a cement bollard at the crosswalk. Granted, I'd seen some crazy stuff — a tough guy kicking through a plate-glass window and a bicyclist waving a gun as he rode down the street stand out in my memory — but this night was the first time I'd ever witnessed the sexual harassment of a traffic safety apparatus.

At the pub, with a band on the indoor and the outdoor stages, the bead-wearing hordes of SunFest drunks mixed with the local music scenesters. The mix wasn't necessarily a match.

I felt like I'd been sucked into a drunken subtropical Twilight Zone episode. I sidestepped two dudes squaring off at each other and nearly tripped over a wrestling match for a just-vacated plastic chair, one whose rear leg snapped when the victorious woman plunked down in it.

"We gotta find someplace else to go," a neatly dressed guy said to his date as they were jostled by the mob. Agreeing with his assessment, I recalled the days of yore before I was a Night Rider — when I was still just a day-tripper.

Back then, I spent many of my nights hanging on Clematis with my street-savvy compatriots. O'Shea's was where we chilled, and Respectable Street was where we revved things up. Attracting gender-benders, punks, and goths long before Hot Topic was even a gleam in an entrepreneur's eye, Respecs was the mental ward where many gathered after getting their "meds" at the parking lot across the street.

I always wax nostalgic when I return, especially since so much has changed.

For instance, earlier in the week, I'd inadvertently stumbled into a rock show at RSC (it keeps the C though it no longer has its daytime café) that exemplified one of the differences. A musician pal of mine had invited me to the show, and trusting his taste in music, I didn't investigate the bands. I was halfway through the night when I realized that all the bands were Christian — or, as I like to call it, "the other white music" — and far from the club's usual freaky iconoclasts and irreverent indie rockers.

"I feel like a Black Jew at a KKK rally," I told the music promoter.

"With that attitude, you're no better than they are," he admonished.

I was still chewing on that idea on Saturday when most of the regulars were displaced by the SunFest crowd. There was not a goth to be found (perhaps they were disguised, rendering them invisigoths?) Even many of the usual suspects were there in daywear rather than the usual retro gear and hipster apparel.

The jittery vibe of the street gave way to a strange calm inside the club, especially notable since Truckstop Coffee, a rockin' alt-country band, was kickin' it with lots of down-home energy. The audience, however, was unmoved — with one exception.

On the black-and-white checkered dance floor below the stage, Dennis, lead singer and guitar player for the evening's final act, Fantastic Amazing, was riding a spring-mounted, playground donkey like it was a mechanical bull. His hand whipped around his head; his back arched and bowed as if he were hanging on for the ride of his life.

"This guy is a performance-art genius," my friend Keith declared.

When his band took the stage, Dennis' antics — including playing his guitar by sliding it against the mic stand — bred more insanity. As the band rocked it out with surf-punk abandon, one chick tossed her hair while playing air guitar. Another woman started grinding against the donkey's head.

Strangest of all was a dance done in earnest by a beachy, longhaired guy in T-shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops. Wildly, his lanky arms and legs flailed in different directions — to his credit, right with the beat. He looked like a marionette whose invisible strings were being pulled from above by a whiskey-sotted deity with a warped sense of humor.

The dance was not diverted by the arrival of his beach volleyball buddies, immediately identifiable by their blond hair, tanned skin, and beach apparel. Later, Puppet Man introduced himself as Scott and cajoled me into joining him on the dance floor. The good thing about a dance partner like him: No one would notice if I looked awkward.

As we danced, there was something in the air. No, not love.

It smelled like citrus and babies, like Kleenex, something innocuous. I couldn't place it.

At the bar, I smelled it again. Perplexed, I leaned over and sniffed Scott's buddy Louis.

"You guys smell the same."

After revealing they'd used Dolce & Gabana to cover up the stench of their SunFest sweat, he looked at me quizzically, "What are you, a bloodhound?"

I guess it was better than being called a drug dog.

When I asked Louis about his line of work, he replied, "I'm a half-assed contractor."

"So you build cheap buildings and get your ass chewed out?" I quipped.

He laughed and gave my booty — no half-ass, to be sure — a playful whack. I chalked it up to harmless drunkenness (some things never change) and shrugged it off.

Soon, the beach boys left to go check out a live radio broadcast a few blocks east, so I slid into the booth where the guys from Fantastic Amazing were stationed. Edo, the bass player, had just finished drawing a face on a piece of cardboard packaging, then became the Man in the Cardboard Mask as he pulled it over his head and bobbled it side to side.

Once liberated from his headgear, he challenged me to a game of ticktacktoe.

Then he grabbed an old issue of New Times from the stand. After reading my column about a fetish party, he had a weird look on his face. Not by cardboard mask standards, but weird nonetheless.

"You know, I've never even been to a strip club," he confessed.

A rocker who's never been to a strip club?

"You're not a Christian rocker, are you?"

"I'm from Israel."

I took that as a no.

Out on the back patio, a tall mocha-skinned dude was leaning against the DJ booth. He was so attractive, charming, and enthusiastic that I thought I heard a blip on my gaydar.

He introduced himself as Garth, a 29-year-old DJ who moved from Jamaica and now lives in Sunrise.

"You fit the stereotype," I said trying to get him to give up his orientation.

"What stereotype is that?"

"Flamboyant."

"Are you saying I'm gay?" he gasped. His tone and expression told me he was not.

"No," I answered innocently, "I meant as a DJ."

I was interrupted by the return of the beach volleyball players who were among the bodies bobbing to "Jump Around" by House of Pain. They'd returned from their expedition, but not unscathed — one of them had found his own house of pain down the street. Louis' still-smiling face was battered.

"He got in a fight," Scott reported, though he was hazy about the details. Maybe this time, his friend had picked the wrong ass to whack.

It reminded me of back in the day, as we say, particularly a night on the same back patio when I fell in love with my first tattooed hoodlum.

"What's the worst that'll happen?" he asked when I warned him about another guy who would be pissed that he was hitting on me, "I'll get my ass beat? You're worth an ass-beating."

How could one not be nostalgic?

Seventeen years ago, the boisterous clubland of West Palm Beach was home to rows of boarded-up storefronts.

Then, an ex-film student and restorer of commercial buildings opened a lone music nightspot in a former Salvation Army soup kitchen.

At that unlikely moment, a city's nightlife scene was born.

Respectable Street Cafe, at 518 Clematis St., offered a haven in the wilderness for alternative music fans. It caught on, and after several years sailing solo in the neighborhood, more clubs popped up. So did an Irish pub or two. Then came the streetlights, restaurants, big nighttime crowds and merchants such as the Gap.

But now the club that sparked the Clematis Street rebirth -- and a boon for downtown West Palm Beach -- is facing a major hurdle.

Its hand is being bitten, so to speak, by the city that it once fed. The city that on May 6 adopted an ordinance prohibiting those under 21 from venues "whose business is primarily serving alcohol."

If the law stays in effect as it is, the club's promoter Steve Rullman says, "We could not book [alternative] shows." For the past five years, he has been scheduling talent that attracts the younger-than-21 crowd and new shows are now on hold. "It's financially impossible."

Before Rullman, it was owner and founder Rodney Mayo bringing in local and national acts of an underground or independent spirit, booking bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dashboard Confessional before they hit it big.

Mayo insists that his club's primary purpose is entertainment, although it does serve alcohol -- but only to those 21 or older.

The numbers are telling from their most recent alternative show.

"Planet of the Drums played the Wednesday before this law went into effect," says Mayo. "We had 170 people. 65 were between 18 and 20."

But Mayo, who with business partner Scott Frielich, now owns clubs in Delray Beach and South Beach, a popular artsy restaurant in Delray called Dada, and The Lounge across the way from Respectable Street, is not giving up just yet. He's been meeting with downtown development and city officials, seeking relief for concert venues.

City Commission President Kimberly Mitchell, who remembers when Clematis Street was "desolate and rather dangerous" is hopeful that a solution can be worked out, one that will "be palatable to everybody."

While she and others are concerned about too many "very young people" roaming the area at night, she is very much aware of Mayo's contribution.

"I absolutely believe that Rodney had the foresight and a glimpse into the future and rebirth of downtown, long before most others did ... and he didn't just see it, he made a life commitment, a financial commitment ... and saw it through."

Fighting city hall:
Rodney Mayo, 42, top, owner of Respectable Street Cafe in West Palm Beach, attracts a younger crowd with alternative bands and wants an amendment to a new ordinance prohibiting those under 21 from entering venues that serve alcohol.

Likable entrepreneur
At first glance the 42-year-old Mayo might be mistaken for a roadie or band manager, with long shaggy hair, T-shirt and jeans. You might imagine that a guy who runs Blue and Lost Weekend in South Beach, Deluxe in Delray Beach, and one of South Florida's longest-running clubs for live music, would appear in a highly caffeinated state, perhaps wielding a cell phone.

Not Mayo. The entrepreneur is laid-back, approachable and instantly likable. The signs of his success are in his patient listening, and his mannered intelligence.

Sitting on a bench in the back patio of Respectable Street in the hours running up to midnight on a recent Saturday -- as the dance floor inside is just starting to fill up -- he reveals he's not all business.

For example, he's just finished a week of designing and laying out "50 percent" of the next issue of Closer, a classy arts and politics magazine where he also holds the title of publisher. The May issue of the small-format journal has thoughtful interviews with Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer and features on filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and the Stereophonics, a British rock band.

Closer, Mayo says with affection, "loses less and less each month."

The club owner-publisher-graphics designer is spending all his other free time flying Piper Arrows. What the heck -- he's no longer racing Formula 2000 cars at Sebring or Daytona, as he did for "eight or nine years," he says.

And beyond that, he's working on a documentary movie -- after all, he did study film for two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Working with footage shot in 2000, when election demonstrations lit up Palm Beach County, Mayo is struck by "all the crazies from California."

"What type of people," he asks, "are that passionate who'd spend a weekend in a motor home just to demonstrate?"

Legion of acts
A visit to Respectable Street reveals a club that is designed as if geared to different moods. Cozy couches greet you just on the right as you enter. On the left, a set of elevated booths evokes a dimly lit diner, with well-chosen framed art on the wall. A neon-lit bar curls around in the club's center, and connects with the largest space, a dance floor and stage. The outside patio is at the rear, with benches and tables, a small bar, and the West Palm Beach night overhead.

The acts to visit over 17 years have been legion, of course, and across the alternative spectrum. A Japanese pop duo called Pizzicato 5. Techno-metal band Gravity Kills. Americana singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

The club gave South Florida's own Dashboard Confessional, with Chris Carrabba, the Boca bard of punk/rock hybrid called "emo," a place to play early on.

When they're not booking bands, "Respectables," as the locals call it, presents DJs with far-flung, intriguing tastes leaning toward indie, alternative, goth and electronica.

Mayo and the music?
"I still listen to a lot of old music. Joy Division, Swans, Slowdive." His favorite shows at the club: Dick Dale, surf guitar legend, and Bo Diddley.

Rullman lists among "the great shows" he has booked: Death Cab for Cutie, The Faint, Luna, Mates of State.

And of course, there's the famous Chili Peppers' 1988 visit, in which the drummer's signature of sorts appeared on the dressing room wall.

"They had just released what would later become a hit album, Mother's Milk," recalls Mayo. But the band's drummer was apparently "having some anxiety problems."

"He wanted a TV in his dressing room, but we had trouble hooking one up. Meanwhile, a guy from the band was saying, `You've got to find a TV to calm him down!'"

Shortly after that, while Mayo's people were scrambling to find a TV hookup, they heard from the dressing room "the sound of the drywall crashing in ... "

Surviving City Place
While the wall didn't survive the fist, Mayo and Rullman seemed to have survived a more recent punch to the gut. Call it City Place.

The large mall, village and dining enclave several blocks west of Respectable Street took down others and put a damper on the Clematis Street sizzle.

"It's affected us in that it's basically taken all the restaurants," says Mayo. "There used to be people who would come and eat dinner and then go out to a club. Now that crowd stays at City Place."

Mayo says that while it's only marginally dented attendance by his alternative-minded patrons, there are things that could be done to help the Clematis area.

"It seems so simple. Eliminate the paid parking, for one." Mayo notes that City Place has areas where you can park for free. "Somebody once decided to have a militant meter maid campaign here," Mayo asserts. "They'd stand around the meters and wait for them to expire ... "

Second, says Mayo, enforce laws on books. "Security issues have been a problem at the east end of the street. They have enough police but they seem to be extremely ineffective in curbing nuisance crimes."

The same concerns are echoed by fellow Clematis businessman Maurice Costigan, owner of the nearby Irish pub called O'Shea's.

O'Shea's is not affected by the new ordinance as much as Respectables and others, and Costigan "understands what they want to achieve." But, he says, "There probably wasn't any need for a new law if they'd enforce the rules already on the books."

And further, and perhaps more importantly, "Nobody sat down and thought how this law would affect the businesses on the street." He notes the same thing wasn't done when the commitments were made for City Place.

Meanwhile, city commissioners such as Ray Liberti say, "We've become known as a bar capital, and there is a level of rowdiness associated with the downtown." So the city passed an under-age ordinance similar to the law passed in Fort Lauderdale in 2001 for the beach area. Fort Myers enacted a law, too, but city leaders have had to revisit it several times because of debate, exemptions and loopholes.

Mayo claims that Respectable Street has had a good record for 17 years and shouldn't be punished for the rowdiness on other areas of the street, which by all accounts emanate from dance clubs three or four blocks east.

Councilwoman Mitchell agrees. "It's one of the only establishments that have no incidents reported."

If the ordinance cannot be amended, Mayo's alternatives are few. He could fight it legally, which could be costly, or he could drop the live alternative and independent acts that made the club. As a last resort he could move.

He's hopeful it won't go that far, as is Mitchell.

"Respectable Street has always appealed to a wide range of people, from Palm Beach to yuppies to people from all over," says the councilwoman, who calls the last meeting with Mayo and city officials "very productive." She is confident a solution will be reached in the coming weeks or month.

Respectable Street was cool on Clematis Street before Clematis was cool. It has survived and thrived for more than a dozen years by changing, like a quiet two-laner that transforms into a broad boulevard.
Respectable's broad sweep has evolved into a Wednesday-Saturday schedule that includes DJs spinning retro, goth, indie, or funk, and a monthly showcase of local bands.

The latter, dubbed "swarms," involve a modest cover, free pizza, and a rotating roster of four acts from 9 to 11:30 p.m. Respectable allows in 18-year-olds. (The next swarm is Aug. 27.) Other bookings range from locals the Livid Kittens to national guitar legend Dick Dale.

Wednesdays are set aside for electronic dance. Thursdays are ladies' night with disco tunes.

Respectable has exorcised the musty odor of the past; what remains is the open, airy decor. The high-ceilinged room is dim but accented with attractive glass block and painted murals that cover entire walls

The dance floor is large, warmed by thickly upholstered furniture, including sofas on a high stage. A row of booths lines one side of the lounge. A small, attractive garden in the rear offers respite from the smoke and thumping music.

The crowd of mostly twentysomethings is a sartorial dim sum, from leather to baggy jeans.

This long-lasting lounge has earned respect from a broad spectrum of audiences.