I liked old go-go bars.
My first was the 2 O'Clock Lounge in Boston's Combat Zone.
1971.
Drums, bass organ, sax, stripper.
Paradise.
I hate gentlemen clubs.
They have no class, but class went dead in the beginning of the 21st Century, except for those who never gave up the dead.
In the late 60s lower Washington Street was anointed Boston's Combat Zone for sex and sin. Working-class drinking dives became go-go bars named the Naked I and Two O'Clock Lounge. Gay clubs like Jacques and The Other End flourished freely in the alleys. Porno theaters openly screened XXX-rated to enthralled men and the cops ceased to persecute the flesh trade, so hookers plied their trade in front of Goodtime Charlie's on La Grange Street.
Everyone was getting their cut.
The Mafia, the bartenders, the pimps, the musicians, and the taxi drivers scored cash off these strippers and hookers.
They were a gold mine.
From 5pm to 2am the hookers strutted their stuff. Hospital workers, lawyers, firemen, and sailors loved them and the girls loved them back for a price.
A quickie was $20.
An hour ran $50.
Showgirls cost a lot more.
The nearest hotel was the Avery, although most johns opted for the short-time rooms above Goodtime Charlie's.
Sherri was the hottest girl in the Combat Zone. The blonde's long legs stretched out of tight hot pants and her cupcakes breasts popped under a tube top. Platform heels transformed the 18 year-old into an Amazon.
She was better than good.
Sherri was wicked.
But she was far from easy.
Sherri was a freelancer in the Combat Zone. Many pimps tried to recruit the freelancer into their stables, but the blonde teenager was too hot for a single man and the police protected her for the sheer pleasure of her smile.
A few of the go-go dancers offered Sherri competition, but they needed beer, booze, and a three-piece band to create her aura of lust. The trios of sax, organ, and drum played low-down soul and the dancers loved grinding flesh to James Brown covers.
The strippers danced like ballerinas on 'Ludes.
It was a true art form.
Bad people walked on Washington Street
The Combat Zone had dark alleys. Crazy Jack was the King of the Shadows. No one was scarier on those back streets.
Crazy Jack was running ten girls. The pimp treated them bad. He asked Sherri to be his queen. She told him 'no' every day of the week and Crazy Jack wasn't happy hearing those nos.
Sailors from the navy Yard haunted the go-go bars. The girls never fell in love with them. Sailors had sweethearts in every port. One lieutenant said he loved Sherri.
"I bet you say that to all the girls."
"Only you, Sherri. Only you."
It almost sounded true.
Sam had gold braid on his shoulders.
He was an officer and a gentleman.
Normally Sherri ended her nights at the Hillbilly Ranch across from the bus station. The 45s on jukebox were mostly country-western. Hustlers drank at the bar and none of midnight cowboys queers bothered her.
A gin and tonic cost $1 and she liked the music on the jukebox.
Sherri came from the South. She never said where, but she listened a lot to Patsy Cline.
The Hillbilly Ranch was her home away and after work she pulled on a red wig to be someone other than herself.
Boston's bars closed at 2am. Combat Zone was empty by 3. Sherri walked out of the Hillbilly Ranch at 3:10. The owner asked if she needed a cab. She shook her head.
"I'll walk."
Her apartment was short walk across the Commons on Beacon Hill.
She took a shortcut down an alley. Someone followed her into the darkness. Sherri walked faster, then heard a wet smack.
Crazy Jack lay out cold on the sidewalk.
The sailor was walking the other way.
She called out to Sam.
"You want to have a coffee?"
"Sure."
"I'll meet you at the coffee shop in ten minutes." Sam walked away into the shadows.
Where she didn't ask.
Nine minutes later Sherri checked at the clock. Sam was almost late.
A girl like her didn't wait more than fifteen.
She had someplace to be.
And that someplace was bed.
With or without Sam.
FOTOS BY JERRY BRENDT, ROSWELL ANGIER, AND JOHN GOODMAN.
I liked old go-go bars.
My first was the 2 O'Clock Lounge in Boston's Combat Zone.
1971.
Drums, bass organ, sax, stripper.
Paradise.
I hate gentlemen clubs.
They have no class. Not like the old school.
In the late 60s lower Washington Street was anointed Boston's Combat Zone for sex and sin. Working-class drinking dives became go-go bars named the Naked I and Two O'Clock Lounge. Gay clubs like Jacques and The Other End flourished freely in the alleys. Porno theaters openly screened XXX-rated to enthralled men and the cops ceased to persecute the flesh trade, so hookers plied their trade in front of Goodtime Charlie's on La Grange Street.
Everyone was getting their cut.
The Mafia, the bartenders, the pimps, the musicians, and the taxi drivers scored cash off these strippers and hookers.
They were a gold mine.
From 5pm to 2am the hookers strutted their stuff. Hospital workers, lawyers, firemen, and sailors loved them and the girls loved them back for a price.
A quickie was $20.
An hour ran $50.
Showgirls cost a lot more.
The nearest hotel was the Avery, although most johns opted for the short-time rooms above Goodtime Charlie's.
Sherri was the hottest girl in the Combat Zone. The blonde's long legs stretched out of tight hot pants and her cupcakes breasts popped under a tube top. Platform heels transformed the 18 year-old into an Amazon.
She was better than good.
Sherri was wicked.
But she was far from easy.
Sherri was a freelancer in the Combat Zone. Many pimps tried to recruit the freelancer into their stables, but the blonde teenager was too hot for a single man and the police protected her for the sheer pleasure of her smile.
A few of the go-go dancers offered Sherri competition, but they needed beer, booze, and a three-piece band to create her aura of lust. The trios of sax, organ, and drum played low-down soul and the dancers loved grinding flesh to James Brown covers.
The strippers danced like ballerinas on 'Ludes.
It was a true art form.
Bad people walked on Washington Street
The Combat Zone had dark alleys. Crazy Jack was the King of the Shadows. No one was scarier on those back streets.
Crazy Jack was running ten girls. The pimp treated them bad. He asked Sherri to be his queen. She told him 'no' every day of the week and Crazy Jack wasn't happy hearing those nos.
Sailors from the navy Yard haunted the go-go bars. The girls never fell in love with them. Sailors had sweethearts in every port. One lieutenant said he loved Sherri.
"I bet you say that to all the girls."
"Only you, Sherri. Only you."
It almost sounded true.
Sam had gold braid on his shoulders.
He was an officer and a gentleman.
Normally Sherri ended her nights at the Hillbilly Ranch across from the bus station. The 45s on jukebox were mostly country-western. Hustlers drank at the bar and none of midnight cowboys queers bothered her.
A gin and tonic cost $1 and she liked the music on the jukebox.
Sherri came from the South. She never said where, but she listened a lot to Patsy Cline.
The Hillbilly Ranch was her home away and after work she pulled on a red wig to be someone other than herself.
Boston's bars closed at 2am. Combat Zone was empty by 3. Sherri walked out of the Hillbilly Ranch at 3:10. The owner asked if she needed a cab. She shook her head. "I'll walk."
Her apartment was short walk across the Commons on Beacon Hill.
She took a shortcut down an alley. Someone followed her into the darkness. Sherri walked faster, then heard a wet smack.
Crazy Jack lay out cold on the sidewalk.
The sailor was walking the other way.
She called out to Sam.
"You want to have a coffee?"
"Sure."
"I'll meet you at the coffee shop in ten minutes." Sam walked away into the shadows.
Where she didn't ask.
Nine minutes later Sherri checked at the clock. Sam was almost late.
A girl like her didn't wait more than fifteen.
She had someplace to be.
And that someplace was bed.
With or without Sam. FOTOS BY JERRY BRENDT, ROSWELL ANGIER, AND JOHN GOODMAN.
In the 1960s urban social scientists in Boston created an adult entertainment area between the bus station on Boylston Street and Chinatownan to contain the wickedness of modern mankind. The experiment green-lighted prostitution, drag queens, piano bars, go-go bars, rent boys, and pornography along Washington Street and its adjacent blocks. The Boston Record-American newspaper labeled haven of sin the 'Combat Zone' and men across New England gravitated to Boston's Decriminalized Zone of Sexuality to cut loose with friends and complete strangers.
The Combat Zone featured top-notch strippers at go-go bars such as the 'Teddy Bare Lounge', the 'Two O'Clock Club', 'Club 66' and the 'Naked I'. LaGrange Street was the hot spot for street hookers running out of 'Good Time Charlie's'. Most of the pimps frequented the Sugar Shack. I saw James Brown performed on that stage and my friend Andy K swears that he went to the Sugar Shack with Bill O'Reilly, future right-wing propagandist for Fox News. I
During the early 70s I was driving taxi to pay for college and every night I stopped in the Combat Zone to drive the strippers and whores home after closing. It was a good fare and sometimes we smoked a joint together on the route to their apartments. I never thought them bad, but the Record-American attacked the Combat Zone as proof that Satan was walking the Earth.
I wish that I could TRANNY TRICK OR TREAT Back in 2010 my friend and fellow farang Richard was on holiday from the Gulf, where he taught school in Saudi Arabia. He says it sucks, but he's coining good money. He asked, if I want to join him. If all else fails, "Why not?" Saudi Arabia is closer to Thailand than New York. He sent an old joke yesterday. A man is in bed with his Thai girlfriend. After great sex, she spends the next hour just stroking his dangly bit, something she had lovingly done on many other post-coital occasions. Rather enjoying it, he turns and asks her: 'Why do you love doing that ?' She replies: 'Because I really miss mine...' Erk! Ladyboy slipped under the radar. It's so easy to be fooled especially when your lust blinds the shrouds of deception. Years ago, 1986 to be exact, I worked at a bar in New York. The name was the Milk Bar. The decor was an imitation of the Malchek Milk Bar from CLOCKWORK ORANGE. White Lucite and gelled light red white and the softest blue. The crowd cut across the layers of New York. The good, the bad, and the in-between. One of the customers was a narcotic detective. Rob led raids on the coke house in the Red Hook proejects in Brooklyn. Whenever he walked into the bar, people walked out. "Friends and colleagues." Rob would shrug off their departures. "I'm not here for work. I'm here to have a good time." He was only 24. Good times at the Milk Bar meant something else other than Disney rides and one night I see Rob drinking with Dove, a lanky ex-lover in a slinky Azzadine sheath. An hour later they're holding hands and shortly thereafter both of them are kissing with an audience. I knew Dove was trans. That didn't matter tonme. I was a sexual adventurer and Dove resembled Janice Dickenson, one of the most beautiful models at the time. Dove fooled most of her prey. She liked her men straight. When Dove visited the ladies room to powder her nose, I sidled next to the detective. "So what you think?" His face shined with an eager redness. Few women exuded lust as much as Dove. "I thought she was Janice Dickerson" Normally I would have let Rob discover for himself about Dove's gender, but he had become more a friend and my job as a doorman necessitated a little violence from time to time. Having a cop in your pocket was a good card to hold. "Dove's great, if you like guys." "Guy?" Rob choked on his beer. "Dove's been a girl for a couple of years. Beautiful and sexy, but a guy no less." I was worried about Dove's reaction to my snitching her out. She could be very mean. "A guy?" "Not anymore." "Have you?" Rob looked around the bar, as if he were trying to spot a familiar face. The crowd consisted of perps, dealers, politicians, models, musicians, diplomats, actors, and starlets. None of them were saints. He swigged his beer. "She's a friend." "I can deal with that." "You can?" I thought my warning would steer him to clearer water. "Dove's the best looking woman I've seen in years. Man or woman. And she wants me." "Then you have my blessing." The two of them left within the hour. No one noticed their departure. Dove showed up the next day with a smile and Rob's watch. "He gave it to me." "Really?" I almost believed her. It was a cheap watch. I said not "Really." Dove waited that night for Rob to show up. He never did. Dove and I went to my place. In the dark she looked like Janice, but I preferred Dove. He was twice the woman I will ever be. always. they were wrong, but the Combat Zone was too much fun for most men and bad things happened on those wind-blown streetst. APimps beat up girls, girls ripped off johns, hustlers robbed gays, drugs killed the weak and in 1976 a Harvard football player was murdered on LaGrange Street. That well-publicized homicide brought on the end of the Combat Zone, although its true killer was the higher rents for downtown properties.
Sin was cheap.
No sex is expensive.
Few people remember the Combat Zone, but I recall the organ/bass/drum trios supporting the white-skinned strippers. I learned about sex from the stroke books in the XXX parlors. I had good luck with the dancers after midnight. I was their ride home and I got them there fast.
It was the best a man could do.
