[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:18] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live and where we

[00:27] Meg: podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do. Ripped from the headlines.

[00:32] Jessica: Do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: This week, I watched the documentary called Ask Eugene.

[00:39] Jessica: Oh.

[00:40] Meg: Which is not easy to come by because they couldn't get distribution because of the subject matter.

[00:50] Jessica: It's.

[00:51] Meg: It's all about her life, really. But it focuses on her lawsuits and I guess all these places, Netflix, Amazon prime, all these places, they're not gonna show that.

[01:03] Jessica: Oh, wow.

[01:04] Meg: Isn't that interesting?

[01:06] Jessica: But.

[01:07] Meg: And this is why I am talking about this, because this is a public service announcement. If you go on kenema.com, spell K-I N E M A dot com, you can rent it for $9. And it's amazing for a number of reasons. Do tell. One of the things that it made me think about, besides the details, which I. I didn't really know much about her.

[01:34] Jessica: She.

[01:34] Meg: She was in the 90s, and she wrote for Elle magazine.

[01:37] Jessica: Yeah, she had that column, Ask E. Jean.

[01:39] Meg: That was not part of my life. I had never heard of it. But you had, clearly.

[01:42] Jessica: Yes, indeed.

[01:43] Meg: Okay. So, yeah, she was new to me when all of this surfaced in the middle of the MeToo movement, when she talked about how Donald Trump raped her at Bergdorf. So the story, you know, gives us all of, like, her. Her backstory, who she was as a person. You know, she was from Montana. She came to New York. She was one of those people. Once she hit New York, she was like, I can't be anywhere else. But she's also of that generation. Like, it's a struggle to be a working girl. And so that's part of her story, too, of everything she had to put up with and what she. The story she had to tell herself in order to succeed as far as what she decided success was. But beyond all that, and absolutely, please watch it. Please, guys. It's fantastic. But it also reminded me of Bang My Box in that. Here are these two women who, during the same relative period of time, who had such complete different experiences, but are the same approximate age in New York City. And just putting those two documentaries next to each other, it just made me go, we've got to be talking to these women who are 80. They've all got, like, such frigging interesting stories to tell.

[03:07] Jessica: I will find it and I'll watch it. I remember her column, actually. Very Vividly. And that her tone was sometimes a bit harsh.

[03:16] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[03:17] Jessica: And tart even.

[03:19] Meg: Okay, well, if you do watch it, let me know and then maybe we can talk about it a little bit.

[03:22] Jessica: That sounds fabulous.

[03:24] Meg: I would love, love, love to hear your perspective on it.

[03:28] Jessica: Cool. Alrighty. Alrighty.

[03:30] Meg: Should we get started?

[03:31] Jessica: Yes, please.

[03:42] Meg: For my engagement question. You didn't see my phone, did you? Okay, good. Don't pee.

[03:46] Jessica: No, no. I was shaking my head no and I realized that's not audible. No, I did not see your phone.

[03:52] Meg: Okay, I'm going to play something into the microphone just a little bit, and I just want you to give me your respons to it, whatever that is. I'm curious.

[04:03] Jessica: Okay. This is Mississippi Queen.

[04:23] Meg: It is indeed.

[04:24] Jessica: Yeah.

[04:25] Meg: Tell me what you know about Mississippi Queen.

[04:28] Jessica: What do I know about Mississippi Queen? I mean, not much. It's just. I mean, a song that I'm extremely familiar with because, you know, I have a taste for 70s rock.

[04:40] Meg: Okay, so what genre does it fall in?

[04:43] Jessica: It's. I think it's kind of like 70s Southern Crunch garage rock.

[04:50] Meg: Okay.

[04:51] Jessica: Yeah, well, that's. It's like. It's like, like if. If they went on tour with Skynyrd, I would not be surprised. Like, it's all of that ilk, or like Ram Jam, you know, the guys who did Black Betty, like, that's, that's all the same kind of sound and

[05:10] Meg: just reeks of the seventies, Am I right?

[05:14] Jessica: I mean, anything that starts with a cowbell, as we all well know. Yes, absolutely.

[05:20] Meg: All right.

[05:20] Jessica: I will tell you though, that for a second, just because of the cowbell, I was like, is this lover boy working for the weekend? And then I was like, no, no, no, no, no, it's. It's not. No, no. Mississippi Green.

[05:31] Meg: Okay, well, I'm very impressed that you recognize that song. My Sources are Louder.

[05:37] Jessica: I like the mime that went with louder. Like palms up, question mark louder. I don't know.

[05:45] Meg: I think our listeners will be shocked that I am way out of my depth in this subject matter.

[05:52] Jessica: I think that's always what makes it so goddamn charming.

[05:55] Meg: So good.

[05:56] Jessica: Bring it. Bring it, baby.

[05:58] Meg: New York Times, thank you very much and the New York Post. At 6am on April 17, 1983, 911 emergency operators received a call from a fifth floor apartment at 40 Waterside Plaza on the East river at 25th street, which is very close to where I live right now. The caller was Gail Collins Pappalardi. Does that last name ring a bell?

[06:29] Jessica: No, but I'm So hopped up on flu medicine goofballs that. No, I barely remember who you are.

[06:35] Meg: You recognize Mississippi.

[06:37] Jessica: That's like muscle memory ingrained.

[06:41] Meg: Well, Gail Collins Pappalardi was a music producer and a songwriter and an artist who. Who worked with 70s hard rock band Mountain.

[06:52] Jessica: Oh, Mount. Yes. Okay. Mississippi Queen. Mountain. Got it.

[06:55] Meg: Mississippi Queen is a song by Mountain.

[06:58] Jessica: By Mountain, a band name that I always found perplexing.

[07:03] Meg: Mountain, you said Southern. It was actually formed in Long island, really, in 1969 by Leslie west and Felix Pappalardi, who happened to be Gayle's husband. Now, Leslie, he was like, the big guy, if you can picture this.

[07:23] Jessica: No, I. I know who Leslie west was, Guy.

[07:26] Meg: Raw talent. He was huge. Huge in every way and a huge sound. And Felix, he was a more of a producerial ear. They both grew up in, you know, the Tri State area, but they had very different backgrounds. Felix actually went to a school for the performing arts, so he was like a legit musician. And he had been doing a lot of producerial work before he founded Mountain with Leslie, because Leslie was just so clearly this. Just huge talent in many ways. So they joined forces to create this sound that people call a precursor to heavy metal. So that made sense to me.

[08:12] Jessica: Right? Yes, absolutely.

[08:14] Meg: If you're just talking about, like, the history of music, this is the kind of music that influenced heavy metal.

[08:19] Jessica: Got it.

[08:20] Meg: Gail and Felix had met in Greenwich village in the 60s, and that's also a vibe. We've got beat poets, folk singers, that kind of thing going on. So that's where Felix and Gail meet, and they fall in love, and they work very closely together as artists and producer. They were a great couple in the early days.

[08:46] Jessica: Oh, no.

[08:47] Meg: They wrote songs together, and Gail did the album artwork. Partnering, but never, obviously, like, getting the credit that her husband got. But people considered them artistic creative partners. Mountain bandmates Leslie west and Corky Language described them as a brilliant creative team. But on that Sunday morning, Gail's 911 call told a darker story. Gail told the operator, quote, I killed my husband. I didn't mean to. The operator asked, how did you do it? Gail's reply, anger, but not intentional. Never, never, never.

[09:36] Jessica: What scale?

[09:38] Meg: When the detectives from the 13th Precinct on East 21st street arrived at the apartment, Gail said, I just shot my husband. The officer asked where? Gail replied, in the neck.

[09:52] Jessica: He's like the kitchen or the dining room.

[09:56] Meg: He said, no, I mean, where is he? He was lying in the bed in his underwear with a single bullet in his neck.

[10:04] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[10:05] Meg: The weapon was a Derringer pistol, which is apparently rather cute.

[10:10] Jessica: A lady's pistol.

[10:12] Meg: All right. Gail was taken into custody. A blood test showed she'd taken 40 Percodan.

[10:18] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[10:19] Meg: Now, what's Percodan do? Is that like a. It's a painkiller, so that's a lot,

[10:24] Jessica: but, yeah, it'll make you super dopey.

[10:27] Meg: Super dopey, right? Not anxious and trigger happy?

[10:31] Jessica: No.

[10:32] Meg: When asked what happened, she said, oh, it was an accident. Felix was giving me a gun lesson. He was trying to get me to be familiar with it. Something happened that I have no recollection of. A noise, something. The cat and I moved or something, and the gun went off. Time froze for a second when I realized Felix had been hit. I could not remember my own name at that point.

[10:56] Jessica: What about the anger, Gail? What about the anger?

[11:00] Meg: She didn't talk about the anger.

[11:01] Jessica: What about the anger, Gail?

[11:02] Meg: Felix's bandmates and friends said that was the most ridiculous thing they'd ever heard. For one thing, it was 6am so you know what? What? You're doing a gun lesson at, like,

[11:16] Jessica: 6am in bed, in your underpants. Just.

[11:19] Meg: What? Also, neighbors heard loud arguing that night. Also, their framed wedding certificate had been hung on the bedroom wall and it was ripped to pieces.

[11:32] Jessica: Oh, no. Yeah, that's damning evidence.

[11:36] Meg: Gail claimed the arguing was actually the gun lesson. And the certificate was ripped by accident by Felix while he was clearing out

[11:46] Jessica: old papers from the wall out of a frame. Gail, Gail, Gail. Gail's gotta learn how to come up with an alibi.

[11:55] Meg: Seriously. And 911 was Gail's second call that morning. Her first call was to her lawyer, so that came out.

[12:04] Jessica: Oh, dear.

[12:06] Meg: Now, even Felix's closest friends and colleagues were not shocked by the news of his tragic death. He'd been a hot mess for a while. Heroin was a big problem.

[12:18] Jessica: Oh, dear.

[12:19] Meg: So an O. D or car crash? Everyone was kind of expecting that at any moment. He and Gail were horrible influences on each other. And when they got high, they got violent. And they also liked guns. One time, when they were high, Felix heard an incessant buzzing sound. It turns out a disgruntled contractor who thought he'd been ripped off had stuffed hornets nests between the walls.

[12:50] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[12:51] Meg: And Felix just shot the whole house up trying to get the buzzing to stop.

[12:56] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[12:57] Meg: And Gale liked guns too.

[13:00] Jessica: Wait, wait, wait. I just need to stay for a second on the Hornet gun situation. So was that to find where the buzzing was? That was just to, like, locate, like, what could. What is hiding in the wall?

[13:11] Meg: I can't tell you why he did that. I can't. I don't know.

[13:16] Jessica: Because then were they flying out of the walls and it was. Was it like, my girl. Were they, like, stinging him to death? He can't see without his glasses.

[13:27] Meg: I guess I was sort of figuring that he did realize the buzzing was coming through the wall, so he was trying to shoot at whatever it was that was making that buzzing sound. Like maybe he thought it was a, you know, fire alarm or something. Like, I. I know.

[13:41] Jessica: I. I acknowledge he was super high

[13:43] Meg: and he was super high, and he liked guns. So when his response to things was uncasy, not same. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.

[13:52] Jessica: Got it.

[13:53] Meg: Now, speaking of shooting, Gail liked guns, too, so. Yeah, she didn't need a lesson. Gail, everyone knows that you go to the range on the regular. So you saying he was trying to get me used to the new gun is like, duh. No.

[14:11] Jessica: Who. No.

[14:12] Meg: Who's gonna buy that?

[14:12] Jessica: No one's buying it, Gail. No one's interested. Gail.

[14:15] Meg: She was charged with second degree murder. The prosecution theory was that she shot Felix out of anger. And what causes anger with women?

[14:28] Jessica: Abuse.

[14:29] Meg: Oh, that's a good answer. Jealousy. Oh, jealousy.

[14:32] Jessica: That's.

[14:32] Meg: That's what the prosecutors were saying. They weren't giving her any sort of, like, excuse, like, oh, she's being abused or anything.

[14:39] Jessica: Oh, it was the prosecution saying.

[14:41] Meg: It's the prosecution.

[14:42] Jessica: Sorry, I thought you meant the defense team. Okay.

[14:44] Meg: No, no, no, no. We'll get to the defense. The prosecution says she shot him out of jealousy. Felix had started seeing Valerie Marians, and according to Valerie, she and Felix were very much in love. He's a total hot mess. I mean, by the bandmates in Mountain, which I've got to say, I don't.

[15:04] Jessica: Not a high bar. Not a high bar.

[15:06] Meg: I mean, these guys are like, now he's messed up, right?

[15:09] Jessica: Exactly. But she saw he uses heroin in the morning.

[15:16] Meg: But Valerie just saw, like, great potential in this.

[15:19] Jessica: Oh, oh, don't fall in love with potential, ladies.

[15:22] Meg: And she's gonna run off with hot mess Felix. With hot mess Felix. And, yeah, she had imagined a real love story coming out of their union. Reportedly. Now, I don't know how anyone would know this, but reportedly, Felix had told Gail that night that he was leaving her for Valerie. Now, how would they know that Felix is dead? Gail didn't say that.

[15:46] Jessica: So he's amazing. I'm going to call the DA's office and let them know That I have the hots for Valerie, just in case.

[15:54] Meg: Now, Gayle's response to all of that jealousy malarkey. Well, she was like, we're in an open relationship and we both have sex with whoever we want to, and it is zero big deal. And in fact, we both have sex with Valerie.

[16:10] Jessica: Valerie.

[16:12] Meg: So she's just like, nice try. I'm not the jealous sort. And then there was that gun. Now, when the derringer was presented at trial, Gail recoiled, sobbing, I can't touch that gun. I can't. I can't touch that. And openly wept.

[16:31] Jessica: But, oh.

[16:33] Meg: Frances Lang, Corky's wife, told a story of how once she was trying to have a conversation with Felix, but he couldn't hear her. So they went and sat in a car. Suddenly, Gail was at the window of the car pointing a gun at Frances's head and screaming, you gotta stop fucking around with my husband or I'll blow your brains out. Classic now. Yeah. And that belies what she said about jealousy. Guns and jealousy.

[17:03] Jessica: Yes. Yes.

[17:04] Meg: She likes the gun and she is jealous.

[17:08] Jessica: Okay.

[17:09] Meg: Now, Mountain had actually broken up in 1974. Would you like to know why?

[17:16] Jessica: Guns and drugs and jealousy and anger.

[17:20] Meg: No.

[17:21] Jessica: Oh, okay.

[17:22] Meg: The extreme bone rattling volume which the band played at caused Felix to suffer severe hearing loss and he had to stop touring.

[17:36] Jessica: Oh, my God. Fascinating.

[17:40] Meg: Now it is, because now we have a number of stories of Felix not being able to hear very well. He's got a buzzing in his head that's driving him crazy. He can't hear well enough to play in a band. He couldn't hear that night when Francis was trying to talk to him, so they had to go to a quieter place. Felix's hearing loss is, like, I think, very central to this story.

[18:09] Jessica: Okay. I mean, the buzzing, though, there were hornets in the walls. So if you did hear hornets in

[18:17] Meg: the walls, but imagine all the other stuff that's going on in his brain. Wouldn't that cause him even more paranoia?

[18:23] Jessica: Is paranoia part of it now, too,

[18:25] Meg: when you're shooting up your house?

[18:27] Jessica: Well, yeah, but I'm just saying, if

[18:30] Meg: you go with me for a second.

[18:31] Jessica: Okay. Okay. I'm fine.

[18:31] Meg: When you lose your hearing, it doesn't. It just means you can't hear things. But you also, like, you hear inside your brain. You know what I mean? So I'm just. I think it's okay. All of his hearing problems.

[18:43] Jessica: Okay.

[18:44] Meg: Now, Gail was also blamed for the breakup. Corky called her evil and a witch.

[18:49] Jessica: Evil witch. Evil witch.

[18:52] Meg: So there was plenty of Negative press about Gail. In the wake of the shooting, there were comparisons with Yoko Ono.

[18:59] Jessica: Aren't there always when there's a woman involved, it's so boring. Boo, boo, boo.

[19:04] Meg: Yes, but the jury saw it differently. A six man, six woman jury found her guilty only of criminally negligent homicide. One juror said, quote, we were very impressed with her. We did believe her story. We felt there was no intent. She did not want him to die. Mike Pearl of the New York Post, though, editorialized at the time, quote, new York juries sometimes seem willing to believe anything. People get away with things in New York that they wouldn't get away with anywhere else. I thought she got away with murder. When all was said and done, the jury heard about a difficult relationship full of drugs and sex with other people. And Felix didn't come off looking so great. And the jury felt sorry for Gail. I mean, she's the only one there and she's telling her side of the story. No, the judge did not feel sorry for Gayle. Judge James Leff, have you heard of him?

[20:09] Jessica: No.

[20:10] Meg: Somehow I've got to figure out how to do a story about outspoken judges in New York. Because they were characters. Oh, yes, and you know, Maldenoff here and there. And Judge James Leff was one of those. He admonished the jury for being lenient and sentenced Gail to four years, which was a little extreme. For criminally negligent homicide. She served 24 months and after she was released, she dropped off the grid. Lots of people thought she'd killed herself.

[20:43] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[20:44] Meg: She just ran. Far, far away. She ran to a small village in Mexico and her body was found.

[20:50] Jessica: Oh, no.

[20:52] Meg: Not too long ago. Well, 2013. And she died of natural causes. She died of cancer. And they were like, who is this mystery lady? That mystery lady was Gail Leslie west, arguably Felix's closest creative partner. After Gayle said, quote, you want my advice? Buy your wife a diamond ring, some flowers, a push up bra. Don't buy her a gun.

[21:18] Jessica: Oh, Leslie west coming in with the great Bulma. That's a very peculiar story.

[21:26] Meg: It is. And I would read things that said that. The trial was covered in depth in the Post and the Daily News, and yet I couldn't find it in the archives.

[21:36] Jessica: How strange.

[21:37] Meg: I know. I mean, they don't archive everything, you know, so it's just. It was like a murder that happened in the city that was just like, eh.

[21:44] Jessica: Well, people get weary, people get excited.

[21:46] Meg: Heavy metal, guns. What did you think was gonna happen? Felix?

[21:52] Jessica: He had it coming.

[21:53] Meg: I I mean, that's the only thing I can think as to why it didn't get more, I don't know, press. I mean, where's the Village Voice article? Where's the Vanity Fair spread? Or maybe because, I mean, they were a huge band.

[22:11] Jessica: Like, why didn't that.

[22:13] Meg: Maybe people were interested in other things.

[22:15] Jessica: Well, they were 10, 80, broken up 10 years earlier.

[22:18] Meg: Exactly.

[22:19] Jessica: So who cares? Yeah. And there's poor heroin addicted, deaf Felix wandering around in his underpants. Oh, Valerie, there. It's just. There are a lot of weird characters attached to this. What is the place at the end of the Shawshank Redemption in Mexico when he's like, oh, God, what's it called? Where he's like, I'll meet you in blah, blah, blah, Wakanejo or whatever. Like, I imagine that's where Gail went.

[22:49] Meg: That's where Gail went.

[22:51] Jessica: Going to a fishing village. I'm opening a bar on the beach. That's it? I think so.

[22:56] Meg: Absolutely.

[22:57] Jessica: Painting in shells.

[22:58] Meg: Exactly what happened.

[22:59] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I think what's weird for me, like, the weirdest part, is how easily people were able to drop off the earth at that time. Right. Like now that's pretty impossible. It's. Or it's difficult, but then it's like, you know what? I'm outies. Okay, Private eye. You can get a private eye to find her, I guess I imagine instantly, like, a guy looking like Humphrey Bogart. Like a full, you know, like, trench coat, dress, shoes, trudging on the beach. Where's Gail? Where's Gayle? So this story is the result of going down a rabbit hole. I don't even remember how the rabbit hole began, but what I can tell you is that it taught me a lot about stripping.

[23:55] Meg: Okay.

[23:56] Jessica: All right, so we're going to talk about taking your clothes off.

[23:59] Meg: Great.

[24:00] Jessica: In New York City for money. For fame, glory, money. Right before the deuce got cleaned up, all of those strip clubs were owned by sort of, you know, like, production networks. And there was one called the Harmony Theater Network, and it was very influential collective of adult venues and strip clubs in Manhattan that started in the 70s. So this is like real gritty Times Square kind of stuff.

[24:36] Meg: You're saying if we've got, like, three dozen strip clubs, you only have, like, three or four owners because each of the owners owns a few of them.

[24:47] Jessica: Yes.

[24:48] Meg: Okay, got it.

[24:49] Jessica: It started out as the melody Burlesque, spelled B U R L E S K as, as one does, and then was rebranded as Harmony Theater because of police crackdowns. They just Needed to rebrand. Got it. Okay. It was falling on hard times. And as frequently happens when businesses start to fall on hard times, who are the people who want to snap it up? Because they know they know how to do that business? The people who were working there. A woman named Dominique, who was a stripper, a dancer, Purchased the entire Harmony Theater Network.

[25:32] Meg: Network. So that's a few different venues.

[25:34] Jessica: A few different venues, exactly. And she brought a lot to the table. And this was really fascinating to me. We think of the lap dance as sort of like a staple of strip clubs, if we think of them at all.

[25:49] Meg: I mean, certainly in the 90s, I seem to see that on the TV.

[25:53] Jessica: Well, Dominique pioneered that. Ooh. She came up with that idea, and then it. And then it became. By the time it was. Is the 90s that you're remembering, the universal. Like, would you like to come to the Champagne Room for a lap dance? Always called Champagne Room. So that's Dominique. She was enterprising. Her flagship. Because they had to move out of the Deuce, she moved to Tribeca. Okay. Her flagship was at 279 Church Street. She also had a place in Chelsea, 161 West 22nd. And she had another place at 44 Walker Street.

[26:36] Meg: I find all Walker Street's also Tribeca. I find all this so interesting that it spread out so much.

[26:43] Jessica: Well, she had to find places to go where there was gonna be space and no one was really gonna care. And at that time, Tribeca and a little bit of Chelsea was the place to do that.

[26:53] Meg: What was the address on walker street again?

[26:55] Jessica: 44.

[26:56] Meg: But keep that in mind.

[26:57] Jessica: I know. I know.

[26:58] Meg: I know that block.

[27:00] Jessica: Yes. Hold that thought.

[27:02] Meg: Okay.

[27:02] Jessica: Okay. So one of the things that she was also very clever about was that these clubs, unlike other places where dancers danced, where they were trying to be ritzy, she was not. She was leaning into the idea that these were places where people who were into rough trade were going to want to go, so they wanted things a little seedier, and Dominique was happy to do that. Former dancers and patrons described the venues as rough trade central, featuring walls covered in chipped red paint, vintage adult star promotional photos, and plush red chairs where dancers worked entirely at their own pace.

[27:46] Meg: Okay.

[27:47] Jessica: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That reaction is correct. You're getting. You're getting the. The vibe.

[27:52] Meg: What do you mean, pace?

[27:54] Jessica: So in these. I was gonna say more corporate, but at strip clubs, like, you know, you've gotta. Yeah, you. You gotta move, like. You've gotta be, like, hustling guys. You've gotta like, you know, this guy. Buy you a drink, da, da, da. Lap dance, you know, tip, tip, tip on the, on the pole, move on to the next. She was kind of like, this is the place where the dancers are going to take control. And so whatever they wanted to do. Now, there's another thing about this whole scene that was very bananas because of Giuliani. There was. I mean, all roads lead to that mess of being. Yes, there was a crackdown on strip clubs. And I don't know if you remember on 6th Avenue, there was Billy's topless.

[28:46] Meg: Yeah, we've talked about it.

[28:47] Jessica: That became Billy's Stopless. It was all about whether or not you could serve booze. Okay, so if you covered up with pasties and a G string, you could sell alcohol. If you were totally nude, you couldn't. And that was like the way that they were gonna get people. Giuliani.

[29:06] Meg: No.

[29:07] Jessica: Who had the.

[29:08] Meg: Just picture the meeting where they're like, that's gonna be the dividing line. Whether I see nipple. Well, it's gross.

[29:16] Jessica: I mean, it's just like, what is? I. I can't tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it. I know a nipple when I see it. And that's clearly what turned on.

[29:26] Meg: So what was the thinking behind completely nude no alcohol for? Why?

[29:32] Jessica: Well, I think that the idea was they didn't want to have fully nude people. And the whole way that these places made money was on alcohol. So if you couldn't serve alcohol because you had someone who was totally naked, you could crack down on obscenity or, you know, loose morals of having naked ladies running around. But Dominique leaned right into that because she was already interested in this rough trade feeling, right? So she leaned into what became known as the juice bar model, which was allowing completely nude dancing, no alcohol served. But they, she would have a juice bar and soft drinks for people.

[30:20] Meg: All right, you could pre game.

[30:22] Jessica: That's exactly it. They. They charged very high admission fees to get in. That was the way that they were making up the difference. And they sold non alcoholic beverages, soda and juice at the bar. They legally showcased uninhibited, raw burlesque lap dancing style that they were famous for. She was getting famous for and didn't risk anything. Now, Dominique, born Malene Droi, was a mastermind, as so many of these women are, where they're like coming out of nowhere but super smart. And it's like, okay, how am I going to work with what I've got? In 1982, the original owners of The Melody Burlesque, which became the Harmony Theater Network. They were arrested for operating a house of prostitution.

[31:13] Meg: Oops.

[31:14] Jessica: They wanted to get rid of the venue to cover their legal expenses, so they just handed the lease over to Dominique and her business partner, a former big band singer named Bob Anthony. She took over the operations and immediately did the rebrand. Under her leadership, the venue thrived on this raw, highly interact. Now, keep this in mind. Highly interactive style, heavily pushing the Mardi Gras concept. So that was sort of like, it's a party. It's like a free for all.

[31:46] Meg: Okay.

[31:46] Jessica: Anything can happen.

[31:48] Meg: You mean instead of a bunch of guys sort of staring in a stupor.

[31:52] Jessica: Exactly.

[31:53] Meg: Like, they're actually partying on their juice drinks.

[31:56] Jessica: On their juice drinks. And I'm. And I'm quite sure that there was a lot of drug dealing, I would imagine. Yes.

[32:02] Meg: I mean, come on.

[32:04] Jessica: Okay, so I'm reading about this, and I'm like, oh, so this is really interesting. So, okay, strip clubs left Times Square. They wind up in Tribeca. This winds up in Tribeca, of all places. It's helmed by this woman who's really into this idea of capturing this market of rough trade where everything just looks seedy and terrible. And obviously, it's like the dirty raincoat crowd, like, yuck. But there's money to be made. So she's like, fuck it, let's do it. And she's smart enough to make sure that she's got three of these places. They're all making enough money. She's got it going on. I'm like, well done. That's so interesting, but also so weird, and it all seems so familiar. And I was like, hmm, 44 Walker Street. And then I looked up the address, and I was like, that's right. I was there.

[33:10] Meg: You've told this story.

[33:11] Jessica: I have, yes. So William Ivy Long, very famous costume designer, wound up buying the two floors in that building. And when I went to do a book with him, I was like, I've been in this basement. And he was like, yeah, it used to be Fallen Angels. So that was the name of Dominique's 44 Walker street outpost.

[33:35] Meg: Wow. But my memory of your story isn't that you were in a seedy burlesque place, but you were in kind of a cool avant garde burlesque place.

[33:43] Jessica: Well, great memory, because it was seedy. It was a juice bar. But this is the second part of my story. Fallen angel was the one of the first places where Neo burlesque happened in New York City. So Burlesque like The revival of 1940s burlesque started with performance artists like Annie Sprinkle and Karen Finley, who were, you know, doing all kinds of crazy stuff with their bodies. I think I've talked about Karen Finley and her famous yam. They were the first. Like, we're now going to reclaim this whole idea of we're gonna display ourselves as we choose. Then in 1993, Urahana opened the Blue Angel Cabaret in Manhattan. And the Blue angel intentionally wed the technical art of the stripper with downtown performance art. And that is where I wound up with Fallen angel, because that's what that became now. But it was right before. It was right before it really hit. It was the juice bar thing, and people were totally nude. And I. I went with this friend of mine who was like, you won't. You won't believe this. And I'm like, you are correct.

[35:07] Meg: Now, was Dominique still in charge at that time?

[35:11] Jessica: Yes, she was.

[35:12] Meg: She was just changing with the times, just getting a little artier.

[35:15] Jessica: She was like, let's see which acts want to come in and do this. I want to do all nude. And so it was totally dank and gross and painted red and all of that stuff. And it was these plush red chairs in a circ. You had everything from people who wound up became becoming really famous, like the Notorious B O B and Dirty Martini. And then you also had women who were burlesque dancers in the 40s who were like, no joke, 80 years old and came out with, like, flaming batons.

[35:51] Meg: Amazing.

[35:52] Jessica: And whatever, whatever. So Dominique just created the space where this could happen. And I guess the consumers shifted from the Dirty Raincoat crowd to hipsters. That was how we wound up there and how the neo burlesque excitement really, really happened. And then from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, I found a contribution from someone who worked there. And if you would like, I can read from it. Anonymous writes, I used to work there. I worked at all the bigger clubs uptown and heard about the club owned by a woman who danced. I was intrigued. I looked a lot like Drew Barrymore. And I was very young at the time. Dominique wanted me to work there because it was right after the real Drew Barrymore got on stage in the other club, Angels, around the corner. I generally have fond memories of the place. My experience was good. I met nice men and never had to do anything unusual to make money, unless you consider a lap dance unusual. It was fun. I could even act silly and play up my very young look on stage. I once even got on stage in My jeans with my book bag and the crowd ate it up. I had a following. It was good, fun times. And I was young. She's really leaning into the young part, which is a little uncomfortable.

[37:15] Meg: Yeah.

[37:16] Jessica: There was a write up about the harmony and I was included. I used to walk around with a box of baby wipes and make people wash their hands before even touching me.

[37:26] Meg: Well, that's smart.

[37:27] Jessica: That does seem smart. Here's the thing.

[37:30] Meg: Treat Purell.

[37:31] Jessica: Yeah, exactly. Here's the thing. It is terrible that the club closed. I am not a man whining about it. I'm a woman and is part of the culture of New York City, the authentic New York City. There was not prostitution in that club or any club I worked at. It was strictly prohibited. Why would any club owner in New York City promote that and risk losing their club? Any logical person would realize this. I wish I knew what happened with the owner, Dominique. I did a ton of cool photos for her website and they're all gone. I'm older and it's a part of my story. I wish that I could have them now.

[38:07] Meg: I guess she must have compiled them and handed them over and they put them on a website that no longer exists.

[38:12] Jessica: Exactly. Ooh. And because all things come back to so many things that we describe on this podcast, I also wanna add, she says that this club was featured on HBO's Real Sex. They did a really good piece at the time. That was. That was my little weird rabbit hole that I was, like, popping back up in William Ivy Long's basement like a little gopher.

[38:35] Meg: Very interesting. And also reminiscent a little bit of the Robin bird story, which is sex work is being empowering and woman driven and woman supported. And we're looking out for each other. And there's a community. Yeah. Indeed.

[38:53] Jessica: So, yeah.

[38:53] Meg: Interesting.

[38:55] Jessica: Despite the fact that I'm dying, I managed to put that together. You.

[38:59] Meg: You fighting the good fight.

[39:01] Jessica: Thank you. I'm sweating now. I'm sweating.

[39:04] Meg: It's really hot in here.

[39:05] Jessica: Is it hot in here or is it that I'm really. I'm dying really hot in here. Oh, my God. I'm not wishing for the winter, but, my God, when we close the door in this office, it's hot.

[39:16] Meg: It's. It's time to move on. We need to move on seasonally.

[39:19] Jessica: All right.

[39:29] Meg: I think the tie in is something about the precursors to something else. You've got, like, this drip clubs and the lap dancing and all of that being the precursor to big burlesque and nouveau burlesque. So just the history of that. And then we were also talking about hard rock being the precursor to heavy metal. To me, it was interesting because when I listened to that music, which I didn't have a lot of exposure to when I was younger, when I was a babe in the 70s, but I have so many visceral memories of it because. Especially because I lived in Austin, Texas, at the time.

[40:13] Jessica: Oh.

[40:13] Meg: So it just does hearken me back. And I don't for heavy metal at all.

[40:19] Jessica: Yeah. That wasn't our milieu at all. I'm trying to think if I have any different opinion about a tie in. I'm trying to think of, like, what might the tie in be between, like, Gail and Dominique or Gail and, like, is there anything about the woman side of this? I'm grasping there's straws.

[40:41] Meg: I mean, Dominique sounds like she really figured stuff out. And Gail.

[40:45] Jessica: Well, Gail certainly did because she got away with murder.

[40:48] Meg: It wasn't a solution. Well, unless you think going to Mexico. I don't know. This seems very tenuous.

[40:54] Jessica: I'm not saying it's one of my best. I think you nailed it as the evolution of.

[40:59] Meg: Evolution. Evolution of.

[41:02] Jessica: Of stripping, of dancing.

[41:05] Meg: How one thing leads to the next thing. Yeah, I'll go with it.

[41:10] Jessica: I just think if we keep using this tone of voice, we'll get more. Yeah.

[41:14] Meg: It's going to convince ourselves.

[41:15] Jessica: That's interesting. Yes. It's a vibe, man. I get your vibe. Okay. It's a vibe. I support your vibe,

[41:28] Meg: Sam.