Strip-joints

No Round The World Journey should miss taking in Hollywood. This one (2001) didn't, as I told Jo,- Jo, I looked back at my last in the “Sent Messages” and realized that I hadn’t been in touch since Papeete - I was up to here with the place, Tahiti, then and had pretty much given up on finding our Pacific paradise. We’re in L.A. now – and lots has happened but you’ll be as delighted as I was to know that we found it after all. It was called Moorea and we got there from Tahiti by ferry. You can see the island from Papeete. It was green and peaceful and we stayed in a beautiful orchard where there was a motel, and went sailing, and saw a Polynesian show where all the boys had tattoos on the most delicious arses ever and played with fire, and talked to the locals and ate good meals – and I want to live in the Pacific. There is a Paradise for Mandy! After a few peaceful days, in which Roger cheered up a lot, we went back to Papeete and flew on to here. Now, Jo, we’re in Hollywood. Mandy Goes To Hollywood! Actually it’s West Hollywood, which is a bit different, where all the gays live and walk their dogs and we’re in a motel on Santa Monica Boulevard which is handy because we’ve arrived in time for the L.A. Pride Festival next weekend, and there’s a Parade and I want to be in it! And I couldn’t begin to tell you how big L.A. is. Just driving from the airport to here in our hire car was like a trip to Manchester, and that’s only a little jump on the map – it goes on for ever, with freeways and boulevards and miles and miles of who knows what behind the palm trees and buildings. It wasn’t an easy drive – the temperature was high and we couldn’t work out the car air-conditioning – but Roger managed it, bless him! and he can do the driving around here as far as I’m concerned, I thought. And we’d hardly settled in when we were out again because we’d arrived on the date of a once-a-month drag night called DragStrip which is held in Rudolpho’s somewhere where we weren’t. So we had to drive, and it had got dark by the time I was ready (long black dress, starlet hair, stocking tops, and the trusty stillies in a bag for when we got there). Oh, my God, what a drive! Maybe it was jet-lag but maybe it was just impossible. We’d got this L.A. A-Z-type map from a friend of Roger’s and off we went with an hour to get there in time for the show. Well, U-turns, lights, signs, everybody hooting when we weren’t in the right lane, or turned wrong – we went up dark drives, and through moody districts and changed directions and found the baseball ground, and Sunset Boulevard and everywhere but where we were meant to be, and it got to show-time and we were still stopping to look at the map (and you know what my map-reading is like, don’t you?) and we were still lost. Roger got into a right state and I have no idea what got us there in the end but at least half an hour after the show was due to start we found this driveway, and the sign – “Rudolpho’s” – and pulled up. As soon as we did a neat Latino opened the door and wanted to park the car for us – and it cost $5! It’s called valet parking, and it’s the easiest way of coining it I’ve seen for a long time. But we couldn’t do it ourselves so out we came, and there was this stockade – like in Treasure Island - and the music was coming from there so we paid our way in. I’d hardly had time to get my shoes on. I know Los Angeles is strange place, but I’ve never come across drag quite like it. There were a lot of queens dressed up and it was like walking into a Flintstones film – huge drag, like cartoon-drag really, big, big hair, rough make-up, smeary lips, big padded bosoms, queens with cigars in their mouths, glittery tops and bad legs, all the candy colours, dressed to distress – me, at least. No, that’s not fair, that’s the kind of night it was, - boys being girls for fun. And the ones who weren’t over-dressed-up were underdressed fellers, mostly. Lots of average polo-shirt Americans, college-looking boys, in baseball caps. The more I looked the more I caught sight of individuals, thank God – some muscular Latinos in shorts, small neat Asians, tall elegant blacks, and bits of leather, glam, and fetish, obviously on the camper gays around. One guy had an illuminated jacket on – done that in Sydney, honey! But what a crowd! all crammed in to this really basic club-shed where the show was on. As I say, we were late and what I know about the show is more from what I was told than what I saw. I did see a stage full of men in wigs and butch drag doing “Hot Legs”. The theme of the night was “Miniskirts”, and Soren, a hunky masseur we met, told me that the songs were mainly skits on famous numbers like “Down-town!” (“Drag-strip!”) and “These Boots are Made for Walking”. They did a send-up of Destiny’s Child (Destiny’s Orphan), and the whole thing was big joke. Trust the Americans to turn drag-queens into cartoons. I mean, I’ve seen it all before – and some queens only want to, or can, manage that look – but It just wasn’t what I’d been expecting from a major drag date, or what I needed after hours of driving-madness. We stayed on – we’d paid to have our car parked after all – and the club turned into a dance-night. And that was odd – it was all rock n’roll. Never in my life did I expect to end up dancing to “Paperback Writer”, I don’t think. But then by this stage I was ready for anything. If the ceiling had opened and Joan Collins had flown in on Donald Duck, I wouldn’t have blinked a falsie. It wasn’t a bad club, with lots of projections, and the stockade bit was a restaurant, but the queue for the loos was mad, and if you wanted to smoke you had to go outside, and that was where the more interesting people were. Trust the smokers to have the best attitudes. I’d only had a Coke all night, the bar was so mad, and, honestly, that was all I felt like after the stress of it all, and that was making me feel sick, so after a dance with a hunky boy or two, and a chance to show off my stocking tops, I asked Roger to drive us home. God, did he look pleased! Not! He’d been dreading it. But the boys got the car while I talked to some of the local queens in the car-park, and we set off into the Big Old Night. Like rats in a maze. More by luck than judgement – and me saying things like “Didn’t we pass that bridge/stadium/warehouse on our way there?” – we got home. Sleep, thank you. That was Saturday night, and it took most of Sunday to recover. But I wasn’t going to let one night put me off from my search for the Ultimate Drag. There’s lots going on here, not all close and family like in Sydney but it’s a big place and you can do drag twice a night every night of the week – if you’re prepared to drive long distances. Which I wasn’t. Luckily on the Monday night, just up the Boulevard (only five minutes by car!), there’s a club called “7969” which was once “Peanuts”. Sherry Vine told me about it and it’s been rebuilt since Peanuts burnt down. The drag there is run by Miss Viva Sex who does the Ultimate Madonna, or at least the one Mads likes best, and Monday nights are “Illusions” night. So went along, taking the car. I didn’t know what to expect after Dragstrip but I thought it was time for Mandy-girl to change her look a bit. So I got out the old cherub miniskirt and the denim halter-top and played about a bit with the make-up. And then,…the Hollywood hair! The short ultra-blonde which hasn’t had a proper outing since Australia. And since it was a bit cool at night my possum-skin (?) coat. How many times in these mails, Jo, have you had me trying not to get to somewhere too early? The show’s on at 10 so that means 10.45 at the earliest, doesn’t it? I get there at 11 – no valet parking! – and pay my $8 to get in. And here we are – “Someplace Else”! (You remember the club in New Delhi?) – people round the edge, mainly men on bar-stools, and a big empty dance space,- in front of a wide stage with a pole coming out of the middle of it. So it’s going to be a wait, and I get myself a Coke and…it’s no-smoking bar! And the pool-room is the same. All this set up for misbehaving’ and you can’t smoke! This must be very American. So I have to go out onto the street in front of the club if I want a ciggie, and I can’t take my drink with me. Sabrina, a Thai girl is there, in a red silk embroidered two-piece. “You come on your own?” she says, “Well, you’d better set about finding you a man to go back with.” Then she’s back to chattering away in Thai to one of her mates. And so here we are again, in Ye Olde Trannie-Chaser Knocking-Shoppe – L.A.-style! And if this is Ye Olde Knocking-Shoppe then I’m in the shop-window here, with my ciggie and my miniskirt and my possum. Cars are passing – I should be strutting my stuff. God, I could have paid for this trip ten times over if I’d put my body on the line. Well, maybe not. Back inside it’s a cattle-market. Men in overalls and a preppy type who invites girls into one of the side-booths. I hope he doesn’t invite me. Already a girl is leaving with an older bald man. There’s a drummer onstage, beating the congas to some good hard house. And Greg moves in on me. He’s big and soppy, with long hair. I ask him why he’s come here. “I hoped I might meet someone nice, like you.” So he starts getting closer. I take a break to the bathroom where there’s a strong smell of draw and sound of breaking glass and when I come out the place has filled up. Greg is still there for me, we dance, he’s a gangling stumbler, we sit, he closes in again – and a girl is working the pole in the shadows. What does he think of her? He doesn’t like her. “She’s dressed like that to get attention.” It’s nice to be cuddled, it all feels safer, he’s putting my hand on his leg, his crotch – I move it. And he goes to the bathroom, and out of my life forever. I’m sorry to miss the cuddles but not to lose the experience of being dry–humped by a slow-wit. I dance. And I realize that everything about our world is here. Full post-op TS to casual trannie to sexy women to women who’ve come to dress sexy, from Latino to white to Eastern. From working girls to fun-timers, from fine brown frames to big girls, from convincing to debateable. The whole world is here, from trannie-chasers to entertainers. I go for another cigarette, and the chatter is Spanish this time, a sexy Latino in a big fluffy coat hanging down her shoulder. Sometime late the show starts. There’s an American voice – Viva Sex – saying it’s “all about being a Diva”, and out comes our first Diva. She’s the Latino Diva for tonight, Pamela, in a big silver cloak streaming with pink boas, silver straps and nipple-caps. She comes onstage and starts synching, but who’s looking at her lips? And then it happens, - the money starts to flow. Bill after dollar bill attached to her body – boys, men, girls, “girls”, even. Pamela just gets on with it until she’s shedding dollar-bills, and boas, as she goes. She works the pole, the front floor, then her neck-halter comes loose and the bills cascade with it, and a boy has to collect them up from the floor when she’s finished her number. (Even then I was wondering if they get re-cycled for future shows) The Eastern Diva is Alexis. She’s wearing silver bits, with lots of space between them, under a big peach robe. She works her body, splits, the lot. Torrents of money fly her way, tucked into her G-string, she pretty much has to give up synching and dancing. “I Need A Miracle” – no way she does, she’s got more money on her body than the average savings bank. Some people give twice, tucking a note in so that you can see it’s a 20. By now the robe’s gone and Alexis disappears into the dark trailing notes. Security picks them up. Slight problem. The Indian Diva is actually from Indonesia (and by now, Jo, I know the difference). Raja, tall with her own hair plastered back and two huge yellow fans, a long pink skirt, corset in pink, green and purple. She stays up onstage longer but when the money comes her way she’s got a big, convenient pocket in the front of her corset where the notes can go, and she gets loads of them. The Diva from Trailer Park is actually Viva Sex herself and she wasn’t my idea of Trailer Park – not that I’ve actually lived on one but I’ve seen American TV and nobody I’ve seen comes out of their caravan with black and red streaked hair, a bat-cloak and goth boots. Or maybe I’ve not been in the right places. Or maybe that’s not the point. Anyway she does her stuff and gets the money. It’s her show after all. And the last Diva, the Filipino Diva, - Corinne – has this amazing costume. There’s a huge silver metal head-dress and a spider-web-linked body-suit, and she has these big bat-wings on sticks. She comes on like a queen to do the big fabulous dance finale and goes off with her spider-web all tucked up with cash. She’s a real star, and I don’t say that about all the queens I’ve seen. We get them all back for applause, - and it’s not an easy stage to get on to at the best of times – and they all look shy. Viva Sex credits everybody involved, plugs the Soul Divas Night coming up and we can all dance now. It’s the best club music I’ve heard on my travels, with a great hard beat, real tunes (call me old-fashioned),- no cliches, So we dance, baybee, we dance! Lots of people play the pole now, the crystal heels are out in force. You know, Jo, it was the best mix of business, art, sex and music ever. Los Angeles as I should have expected it. Was that sex on the dancefloor I saw over there? I get distracted by people dancing with me. At 1.30 there are still people arriving, but it is emptier. I go. Outside, a black guy stops me, tells me he’s a musician, a DJ, worked with Carl Cox, but he looks a bit of a Boulevard bum to me. “Can I walk you to your car?” Now I had it in me to say, “I’ll suck you off over the bonnet if you like but I don’t think that’s considered good behaviour round here.” But I didn’t. My hunt for the Ultimate Man has turned up some bad-uns but I’m getting choosy these days. It’s L.A., Jo, it’s another place in the world! Two days and I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Oh, thanks for your news. Sorry I I’m so wrapped up in mine. Mandy