After the dynamite went off Vince came running out of the parking garage as if chasing the fireball. He shouted, “That didn’t get them all. Run!”
At that moment I was tempted to say I quit; however, it seemed prudent to wait until we’d dashed back to the boat. Bullets buzzed by like angry bees. I remember thinking something much more poetic and profound at the time, but I lost it. It’s hard to keep track of such things when being chased by the Pirates of Lake Michigan.
We jumped aboard a waiting cigarette boat, and Ruiz punched the throttle to the limit. We cut across the glassy surface of the great lake, jetting our way back to the Queen Anne.
Vince said, “I’ll be the first to admit this documentary has gone sideways… as soon as I find someone to blame who isn’t me.”
“Yeah,” I said, “While that’s all going on I just wanted to say I quit.”
#
Not long after I wandered the streets of Chicago looking for someplace peaceful. So I stepped into a bar. I might as well have stepped into a dream.
The crowded room sat or stood in silence. The lights turned down to midnight, only a few small stage lamps illuminated a small corner. All eyes watched a tiny stage large enough for any band willing to play shoulder to shoulder. There stood a young woman. Porcelain skin wrapped in wisps of black and red lingerie, auburn hair tumbling passed her shoulders, she held a pose as a nearby quartet – drummer, bass, guitar, and trumpet – played a rendition of Slim Gaillard's Atomic Cocktail. The young woman held up a black rod. She ignited the rod with a bit of sexy sleight of hand, and as the music rose, she danced.
Whirling the torch around her she used the flame to burn off a flash paper top. Nipples hid behind teasing lids of sequined pasties struck me as more provocative than anything nude. Like being left with only the aroma of a fine meal, never to taste it; and of course, the Catholic in me felt like I didn’t deserve to see the rest of her, and somehow she knew it, especially the longer I watched her.
Using the torch she playfully pushed the audience back, and serpentine slid off the stage. Fire caressing her skin as she twirled to the music, her body moving like mercury, she whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Cheers erupted from all around.
“Woo!”
“Yeah, yeah!”
“Ow ow owooooo!”
The music quieted. Snap of her fingers, the other end of the torch burst into flame. The drummer struck up a jazzy polyrhythm. The dancer juggled the torch for a moment before spinning it like a helicopter blade, and I’d swear lifting herself off the ground a few inches. The crash of a cymbal brought her back to Earth, where she bowed, and departed the room, but never my memory.
Later that evening I spied her, fully clothed, at the end of the bar. I approached slowly.
“Hello. I don’t mean to bother you, but I just wanted to say that was fantastic.”
She smiled, “Thank you.” Reaching into a pocket she produced a card. Handing it to me she said, “Follow me online, so you know where to see me again.”
The card displayed her name in purple calligraphy: Lola Lampe.
It is always an error to buy anyone who performs any kind of sexual show a drink. They’ve heard every line conceived since the dawn of time, and after shows are typically set to a mild degree of defensive, knowing all too well there is often always one drunk Don Juan fired up on Don Julio thinking tonight he’ll bag the burlesque babe. I know this.
That’s why I asked, “Can I buy you a drink?”
Because I had been drinking whiskey not tequila, that’s how liquor logic works.
Yet, to my surprise, she said, “Sure.”
I signaled the bartender, and in the process caught the attention of the grand dame hosting the show. A stunning matriarch of the burlesque scene, instead of a crown she wore her silvery hair in a stylish updo. She glided over.
Standing between me and Lola the Grand Dame said, “How you doin’ Lola?”
Lola said, “I’m fine. This fellow was just buying me a drink.”
Turning to me, appraising all at a glance, “Good lord, you look like central casting sent over an ax murderer.”
I joked, “Well, I do have an ax, though I’ve never killed anyone. One of those statements is a lie by the way.”
Grand Dame said, “So you don’t own an ax.”
“May I buy you a drink as well Madame…”
“Dee Dee D’lish.” She offered a gloved hand adorned by a ring large enough to be a doorknocker. I kissed the ring, mainly because it covered most of her hand, but she seemed satisfied by the gesture. Enough at least to congenially chaperone my conversation with Lola, provided I kept buying rounds for both ladies.
When Lola departed to powder her nose Madame D’lish told me, “Lola’s the new girl. Kind of my protégée you might say. She got a hell of a routine, and one hell of a body, but the girl is greener than a green snake. She’s going to be one of the greats someday…”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said.
“… provided she doesn’t make any mistakes.” Over her wine D’lish cocked at eyebrow at me.
Looking her square in the eye I said, “I’m not going to lie to you because I don’t think I’d get away with it. I would love to be that mistake… though it would bother me if it derailed her.”
Dee Dee patted me on the shoulder, “Only an honest man stabs himself on purpose.”
#
Whatever else happened that night Dee Dee D’lish set me up with a job. She owned a few holes in walls around Chicago. Dee Dee set me up as the front doorman at one of her Burlesque Burrows over on Milwaukee and North Ave. I sold tickets, booze, and did some light hosting duties. Working there I got to see a side of the show many never witness so rarely appreciate.
In these makeshift theatres she funneled new performers to see who possessed any talent, wanted it bad enough – panning for gold among those drawn to burlesque. Everyone came for their own reasons, but most, I found, wanted to feel special in a way missing from their own lives. Sure, some grew up dazzled by the likes of Sally Rand, Tempest Storm, Gypsy Rose Lee, or contemporaries like Dita Von Teese, or Michelle L’amour, but many appeared drawn to a sensation only burlesque seemed able to provide. A chance to be daring, sexy, dangerous, entertaining, creative, any adjectives only hinted at the depth of their reason.
There’s something about witnessing a young housewife shiver out of her skirt, body not exactly centerfold material after her first kid, stretch marks like scars after a bear mauling and still holding enough pregnancy weight to keep jiggling after she stops shimmying; that is inspiring. It’s easy for the ladies who look like lifelong gymnasts to parade around near naked. It’s something else entirely for someone clearly self conscious to take the risk because it isn’t on the same level. People will cheer for the beautiful no matter what they do. The way that housewife’s eyes lit up by the thrill of performing, she could see through any dark thoughts to some place better.
Now as for those aforementioned ladies who fit society’s unfortunately standardized beauty requirements, their work is easier and yet somehow harder. Beauty is a part of the business, there’s no denying that, but beauty fades, so there is a definite window of opportunity. Those tits won’t always be so perky, that ass is destined to inflate, sag, wrinkle – you get the picture. And the beautiful ones know it. There’s a certain desperate terror to their performances. Ambition to be a star fueled by the fear of time slipping away, they turn into acrobats dancing on air in sheer bits of cloth inspiring lusting eyes to hold them aloft. In that moment the fear melts away because in that instant they’re the stars they want to be, whether they shine in the sky or a hole in the wall. Watch one sashay to center stage, and notice the satisfaction spread across her face, beaming bright enough to light up the night.
And that’s what I realized I liked most about burlesque. The tease is sexy as hell, don’t get me wrong, but the performers always look like they’re enjoying themselves. I’ve been to too many strip clubs. Sure, they get totally naked, but their dead hollow eyes and bored expressions are haunting, as if they couldn’t enjoy anything ever again. But burlesque performers seem so joyous.
Never mind the sound of cheap wood crackling like the stage is about to give way under a feather’s touch, or the grim illumination of a galaxy of bare bulbs bouncing off exposed brick walls, and perhaps the audience is composed of a hobo or two, and definitely a cavalcade of gutterpunks, this is a chance to shine. So few get to have that – the ladies come alive.
#
For weeks I started noticing a trend. Some performers went less into routines, and more into aggressive displays of disrobing. They stomped back and forth across the stage, ripping their costumes off, and flinging them aside. Anjelica Foxxx would slap her breasts, and shout at the audience, “Eggs on a nail! Eggs on a nail!” Then she would flash a disgusted sneer on her way backstage. Other ladies like Vicky Velveteen and Lola Lampe came out in pasties and a thong, their act primarily putting clothes back on. Granted, the latter did it to a kind of dance number, but I couldn’t quite get the point.
The burlesque used to be about some kind of theme. The ladies would craft a series of routines making fun of a bit of pop culture. Anjelica and Vicky wrote a hilarious show called How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse… with Boobs! You have not lived until you’ve seen a zombie ecdysiast chased off stage by a shaking pair of titties. On other occasions they went with holiday themes. However, once hate fucking became the norm the themes confined themselves to simple costumes and bait titles. Instead of telling jokes the performers just came out. The theatricality disappeared.
When I mentioned it to Dee Dee D’lish the grand dame informed me, “That’s the way the girls want to go. They say it’s sort of a punk rock fuck you. Don’t want to see my fat ass naked? Well, it’s all you gonna see. So-called pretty girls keep they clothes on, and the others all anybody gets.”
It made sense. More than once after a show I heard audience members chatting with each other:
“Oh that ass is going to haunt me.”
“All cottage cheese and shit.”
“Motherfucker, I didn’t pay $35 bucks to see that.”
“That chocolate elephant scared me.”
“One hot girlie in that whole group. One.”
“I’m hotter than most of these bitches.”
And I’m sure those insults made it backstage one way or another. So naturally hate fucking the audience evolved into the new performance style. What bothered me the most, though, is that the show steered away from performances, especially the parodies. Without humor, the show bled happiness like a hemophiliac.
One evening I found myself going through my duties mechanically. I helped the ladies get prepared backstage, primarily by staying out of their way. At the start of the show I got on stage:
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Please, no photography. If you feel like hootin’ and hollerin’, anything kind is, of course, permissible. Let the ladies know you love ‘em. That said, Dee Dee D’lish proudly presents Law and Order: Booty Unit.”
Then I retreated to the rear. Betty BaBoom took the stage. Blonde Betty worked her way from one side to the other, pacing, shedding layers until she stood bare ass in front of her audience, bent over, and pulled her butt cheeks apart. She stayed like that for what felt a minute as if demanding the crowd stare into her anus.
At the onset it produced an immediate collective gasp from the audience, “Oh!” that quickly shifted into a hesitant, “Woo?”
Then Betty skipped off stage giggling.
I sighed. I went to the theatre front, grabbed a tallboy, and cracked it open. Eyes hypnotically fastened to Betty’s balloon knot it dawned on me that for the last three weeks the only time I saw any joy on the ladies’ faces it came from a solid fuck you to the audience. Someone watching Betty might’ve been thinking, “You go fat lady. You’re bold, and that makes you beautiful.” But whatever good feelings she elicited got swallowed by that brown hole. Worse still, I realized the shows weren’t about having a good time anymore.
Some came out expecting to be disliked, so they shaped their act in order to can-can the hate back before it could touch them. Unfortunately this often resulted in a preemptive strike nuking the crowd – killing all to get two or three possible trolls. Others like Lola and that young housewife, Rebecca Double D-Decker, needed to work twice as hard to win the blasted crowd over. They felt a need to be perfect, so every misstep, real or imagined, flooded their minds with doubt. Their acts turned into torture sessions. They didn’t believe the cheers or applause because they couldn’t see how they shined anymore.
So I wrote a note to Dee Dee thanking her for the job, and though I hated to do it I still needed to say, “I quit.” Then, tallboy in hand, I hit the street.
At that moment I was tempted to say I quit; however, it seemed prudent to wait until we’d dashed back to the boat. Bullets buzzed by like angry bees. I remember thinking something much more poetic and profound at the time, but I lost it. It’s hard to keep track of such things when being chased by the Pirates of Lake Michigan.
We jumped aboard a waiting cigarette boat, and Ruiz punched the throttle to the limit. We cut across the glassy surface of the great lake, jetting our way back to the Queen Anne.
Vince said, “I’ll be the first to admit this documentary has gone sideways… as soon as I find someone to blame who isn’t me.”
“Yeah,” I said, “While that’s all going on I just wanted to say I quit.”
#
Not long after I wandered the streets of Chicago looking for someplace peaceful. So I stepped into a bar. I might as well have stepped into a dream.
The crowded room sat or stood in silence. The lights turned down to midnight, only a few small stage lamps illuminated a small corner. All eyes watched a tiny stage large enough for any band willing to play shoulder to shoulder. There stood a young woman. Porcelain skin wrapped in wisps of black and red lingerie, auburn hair tumbling passed her shoulders, she held a pose as a nearby quartet – drummer, bass, guitar, and trumpet – played a rendition of Slim Gaillard's Atomic Cocktail. The young woman held up a black rod. She ignited the rod with a bit of sexy sleight of hand, and as the music rose, she danced.
Whirling the torch around her she used the flame to burn off a flash paper top. Nipples hid behind teasing lids of sequined pasties struck me as more provocative than anything nude. Like being left with only the aroma of a fine meal, never to taste it; and of course, the Catholic in me felt like I didn’t deserve to see the rest of her, and somehow she knew it, especially the longer I watched her.
Using the torch she playfully pushed the audience back, and serpentine slid off the stage. Fire caressing her skin as she twirled to the music, her body moving like mercury, she whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Cheers erupted from all around.
“Woo!”
“Yeah, yeah!”
“Ow ow owooooo!”
The music quieted. Snap of her fingers, the other end of the torch burst into flame. The drummer struck up a jazzy polyrhythm. The dancer juggled the torch for a moment before spinning it like a helicopter blade, and I’d swear lifting herself off the ground a few inches. The crash of a cymbal brought her back to Earth, where she bowed, and departed the room, but never my memory.
Later that evening I spied her, fully clothed, at the end of the bar. I approached slowly.
“Hello. I don’t mean to bother you, but I just wanted to say that was fantastic.”
She smiled, “Thank you.” Reaching into a pocket she produced a card. Handing it to me she said, “Follow me online, so you know where to see me again.”
The card displayed her name in purple calligraphy: Lola Lampe.
It is always an error to buy anyone who performs any kind of sexual show a drink. They’ve heard every line conceived since the dawn of time, and after shows are typically set to a mild degree of defensive, knowing all too well there is often always one drunk Don Juan fired up on Don Julio thinking tonight he’ll bag the burlesque babe. I know this.
That’s why I asked, “Can I buy you a drink?”
Because I had been drinking whiskey not tequila, that’s how liquor logic works.
Yet, to my surprise, she said, “Sure.”
I signaled the bartender, and in the process caught the attention of the grand dame hosting the show. A stunning matriarch of the burlesque scene, instead of a crown she wore her silvery hair in a stylish updo. She glided over.
Standing between me and Lola the Grand Dame said, “How you doin’ Lola?”
Lola said, “I’m fine. This fellow was just buying me a drink.”
Turning to me, appraising all at a glance, “Good lord, you look like central casting sent over an ax murderer.”
I joked, “Well, I do have an ax, though I’ve never killed anyone. One of those statements is a lie by the way.”
Grand Dame said, “So you don’t own an ax.”
“May I buy you a drink as well Madame…”
“Dee Dee D’lish.” She offered a gloved hand adorned by a ring large enough to be a doorknocker. I kissed the ring, mainly because it covered most of her hand, but she seemed satisfied by the gesture. Enough at least to congenially chaperone my conversation with Lola, provided I kept buying rounds for both ladies.
When Lola departed to powder her nose Madame D’lish told me, “Lola’s the new girl. Kind of my protégée you might say. She got a hell of a routine, and one hell of a body, but the girl is greener than a green snake. She’s going to be one of the greats someday…”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said.
“… provided she doesn’t make any mistakes.” Over her wine D’lish cocked at eyebrow at me.
Looking her square in the eye I said, “I’m not going to lie to you because I don’t think I’d get away with it. I would love to be that mistake… though it would bother me if it derailed her.”
Dee Dee patted me on the shoulder, “Only an honest man stabs himself on purpose.”
#
Whatever else happened that night Dee Dee D’lish set me up with a job. She owned a few holes in walls around Chicago. Dee Dee set me up as the front doorman at one of her Burlesque Burrows over on Milwaukee and North Ave. I sold tickets, booze, and did some light hosting duties. Working there I got to see a side of the show many never witness so rarely appreciate.
In these makeshift theatres she funneled new performers to see who possessed any talent, wanted it bad enough – panning for gold among those drawn to burlesque. Everyone came for their own reasons, but most, I found, wanted to feel special in a way missing from their own lives. Sure, some grew up dazzled by the likes of Sally Rand, Tempest Storm, Gypsy Rose Lee, or contemporaries like Dita Von Teese, or Michelle L’amour, but many appeared drawn to a sensation only burlesque seemed able to provide. A chance to be daring, sexy, dangerous, entertaining, creative, any adjectives only hinted at the depth of their reason.
There’s something about witnessing a young housewife shiver out of her skirt, body not exactly centerfold material after her first kid, stretch marks like scars after a bear mauling and still holding enough pregnancy weight to keep jiggling after she stops shimmying; that is inspiring. It’s easy for the ladies who look like lifelong gymnasts to parade around near naked. It’s something else entirely for someone clearly self conscious to take the risk because it isn’t on the same level. People will cheer for the beautiful no matter what they do. The way that housewife’s eyes lit up by the thrill of performing, she could see through any dark thoughts to some place better.
Now as for those aforementioned ladies who fit society’s unfortunately standardized beauty requirements, their work is easier and yet somehow harder. Beauty is a part of the business, there’s no denying that, but beauty fades, so there is a definite window of opportunity. Those tits won’t always be so perky, that ass is destined to inflate, sag, wrinkle – you get the picture. And the beautiful ones know it. There’s a certain desperate terror to their performances. Ambition to be a star fueled by the fear of time slipping away, they turn into acrobats dancing on air in sheer bits of cloth inspiring lusting eyes to hold them aloft. In that moment the fear melts away because in that instant they’re the stars they want to be, whether they shine in the sky or a hole in the wall. Watch one sashay to center stage, and notice the satisfaction spread across her face, beaming bright enough to light up the night.
And that’s what I realized I liked most about burlesque. The tease is sexy as hell, don’t get me wrong, but the performers always look like they’re enjoying themselves. I’ve been to too many strip clubs. Sure, they get totally naked, but their dead hollow eyes and bored expressions are haunting, as if they couldn’t enjoy anything ever again. But burlesque performers seem so joyous.
Never mind the sound of cheap wood crackling like the stage is about to give way under a feather’s touch, or the grim illumination of a galaxy of bare bulbs bouncing off exposed brick walls, and perhaps the audience is composed of a hobo or two, and definitely a cavalcade of gutterpunks, this is a chance to shine. So few get to have that – the ladies come alive.
#
For weeks I started noticing a trend. Some performers went less into routines, and more into aggressive displays of disrobing. They stomped back and forth across the stage, ripping their costumes off, and flinging them aside. Anjelica Foxxx would slap her breasts, and shout at the audience, “Eggs on a nail! Eggs on a nail!” Then she would flash a disgusted sneer on her way backstage. Other ladies like Vicky Velveteen and Lola Lampe came out in pasties and a thong, their act primarily putting clothes back on. Granted, the latter did it to a kind of dance number, but I couldn’t quite get the point.
The burlesque used to be about some kind of theme. The ladies would craft a series of routines making fun of a bit of pop culture. Anjelica and Vicky wrote a hilarious show called How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse… with Boobs! You have not lived until you’ve seen a zombie ecdysiast chased off stage by a shaking pair of titties. On other occasions they went with holiday themes. However, once hate fucking became the norm the themes confined themselves to simple costumes and bait titles. Instead of telling jokes the performers just came out. The theatricality disappeared.
When I mentioned it to Dee Dee D’lish the grand dame informed me, “That’s the way the girls want to go. They say it’s sort of a punk rock fuck you. Don’t want to see my fat ass naked? Well, it’s all you gonna see. So-called pretty girls keep they clothes on, and the others all anybody gets.”
It made sense. More than once after a show I heard audience members chatting with each other:
“Oh that ass is going to haunt me.”
“All cottage cheese and shit.”
“Motherfucker, I didn’t pay $35 bucks to see that.”
“That chocolate elephant scared me.”
“One hot girlie in that whole group. One.”
“I’m hotter than most of these bitches.”
And I’m sure those insults made it backstage one way or another. So naturally hate fucking the audience evolved into the new performance style. What bothered me the most, though, is that the show steered away from performances, especially the parodies. Without humor, the show bled happiness like a hemophiliac.
One evening I found myself going through my duties mechanically. I helped the ladies get prepared backstage, primarily by staying out of their way. At the start of the show I got on stage:
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Please, no photography. If you feel like hootin’ and hollerin’, anything kind is, of course, permissible. Let the ladies know you love ‘em. That said, Dee Dee D’lish proudly presents Law and Order: Booty Unit.”
Then I retreated to the rear. Betty BaBoom took the stage. Blonde Betty worked her way from one side to the other, pacing, shedding layers until she stood bare ass in front of her audience, bent over, and pulled her butt cheeks apart. She stayed like that for what felt a minute as if demanding the crowd stare into her anus.
At the onset it produced an immediate collective gasp from the audience, “Oh!” that quickly shifted into a hesitant, “Woo?”
Then Betty skipped off stage giggling.
I sighed. I went to the theatre front, grabbed a tallboy, and cracked it open. Eyes hypnotically fastened to Betty’s balloon knot it dawned on me that for the last three weeks the only time I saw any joy on the ladies’ faces it came from a solid fuck you to the audience. Someone watching Betty might’ve been thinking, “You go fat lady. You’re bold, and that makes you beautiful.” But whatever good feelings she elicited got swallowed by that brown hole. Worse still, I realized the shows weren’t about having a good time anymore.
Some came out expecting to be disliked, so they shaped their act in order to can-can the hate back before it could touch them. Unfortunately this often resulted in a preemptive strike nuking the crowd – killing all to get two or three possible trolls. Others like Lola and that young housewife, Rebecca Double D-Decker, needed to work twice as hard to win the blasted crowd over. They felt a need to be perfect, so every misstep, real or imagined, flooded their minds with doubt. Their acts turned into torture sessions. They didn’t believe the cheers or applause because they couldn’t see how they shined anymore.
So I wrote a note to Dee Dee thanking her for the job, and though I hated to do it I still needed to say, “I quit.” Then, tallboy in hand, I hit the street.
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