The Fahrvernpüssy Leopard Lounge

Once upon a roadside breakdown, there was a girl, a dream, and an $800 Craigslist miracle — a faded blue 1973 VW Transporter covered in Grateful Dead stickers and hope. I found her sitting there in Berkeley, whispering, “paint me wild.” So I did.

She became The Fahrvernpüssy Leopard Lounge — half jazz club, half spiritual medicine wheel on wheels. I gutted her, rebuilt her, sang in her, and broke down more times than I can count. For fifteen years she purred (and occasionally wheezed) with a Porsche high-performance engine and the attitude of a diva on tour.

Fahrvernpüssy is a word… Found in the Urban Dictionary!

It all began with a band: Dangerous Martini. Me on vocals, Doug Wendt on guitar, Ruben Salcido on Saxophone & Flute, & Mark Petrella on Bass, leopard-print dreams in every note.

My grandmother Ruby — the original leopard-print goddess — inspired it all. She called her stilettos “The Cougar Shoes.” From her I learned that glamour is a survival skill. If you’re going camping, make it glamping.

🎶 The Leopard Lounge Music Jam Camp & The Boomerang Bar

We called it the Boomerang Bar — because everyone who came always came back, then later it became the red topped “Leopard Lounge Bar,” of legend.

It was built by love, laughter, and my brilliant friend Paul McGregor, who helped me design and build the bar from scratch in his backyard in Pacifica, California, just blocks from the sea.

Between his “Bar in the Woods”, and his pirate workshop in Manor-by-the-Sea, we glued and forged during our paint sniffing sessions, we turned plywood and dreams into an epic portable bar — a thing of beauty that still anchors our tribe.

🍸Making of the Boomerang Bar HERE!🍹

The neighbors didn’t always get it — why a parade of wild glitter-glued vehicles and jazz musicians were rolling through the cul-de-sac — but somewhere on Google Maps you can still spot my art cars parked out front like colorful UFOs. I call that historical documentation.

When the bar got a little weathered, I wrapped it in red metallic vinyl and rechristened it The Leopard Lounge Bar — a continuation of the spirit that started with my VW bus.

Even after the original Leopard Lounge VW moved on to its new owner, the Leopard Lounge Bar lives on. Because the Leopard Lounge isn’t just a vehicle — it’s a state of mind.

When you wear leopard print, you let your wild side roar. You express your creativity freely — sing, laugh, tell stories, burn bright. At our camp, everyone had a place: musicians, poets, jokesters, cocktail alchemists.

We offered complimentary cocktails to celebrate bravery — a new solo, a harmony, a joke, a recipe, a truth. Over time, our camp became a living tradition — a family reunion for the beautifully unordinary.

It wasn’t always tidy — art never is — but it was sacred. Those gatherings were how I began to heal.

🚐 From VW to Stealth Van Life

My old VW bus took me to Harbin Hot Springs, the Strawberry Music Festival, and countless Pacifica sunsets. Salt air and rust eventually said their goodbyes, so I let her go to a new home and moved into my next chapter: a 2015 Ford Econoline 19-ft stealth camper.

Now she’s my creative studio on wheels. I write from her desk today, parked in downtown Napa on a rainy October afternoon, kids trick-or-treating along First Street as the late-harvest grapes glow amber in the vineyards.

That first van gave me something I didn’t know I needed — a safe place. A cocoon for a neurodiverse artist learning how to rest, breathe, and belong on her own terms.

I could nap between gigs, write lyrics at midnight, and cook tiny meals with the ocean roaring outside. For fifteen years, that bus carried my chaos and my cure — and out of it rolled a lifetime of music, laughter, and improbable grace.

🌈 Reflection: Art as Medicine

Every artist has their totem. Mine had four wheels, a roof vent, and a Porsche engine. The Leopard Lounge taught me that healing isn’t found in perfection — it’s found in motion.

It’s in the moment you decide to not just paint over your rust spots and keep rolling, but clean out the rust completely so you can heal it for the long term.

This isn’t just a story about a van. It’s a story about what happens when you give yourself permission to take up space in the world — loudly, lovingly, and with leopard print.

So here’s to the road, to art cars on Google Maps, to boomerang bars, to music families, and to the wild souls who still believe a vehicle can be a temple.

If you ever see her out there — painted wild, music thumping, heart open — wave.
You’re looking at the first purr of a lifelong song.

✨ With love, music, art, and fun,

Tré Taylor & Bleep the tattoo