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There's always been downtown culture.
It was rough
and it was naughty.
It was dangerous.
You could feel
this incredible
energy that something
was bubbling here
and about to happen.
There really were artists living downtown back then
and I was very lucky just to end up here.
It was
anarchy.
It was
much more exciting
'cause you were running for your life.
It was just
a completely different
world.
Chi Chi: Well, I arrived almost in
a taxi cab
[ Laughing ] in the mid-
1950s. I was almost
born on 57th Street
closeby here.
Johnny: Well I'm from a very small town,
Honey Boo Boo, sorta like [ Laughter ]
Watching that TV show
is hard for me to watch, 'cause that's
kinda like the town that I'm from.
I couldn't' wait to get here.
I, just, right outta high school - boom -
came to New York.
Joey Arias: I'm from North Carolina,
an army child,
Fort Bragg...
about 5 years old,
we moved to Los Angeles,
went to Catholic school my whole life.
So being in the Hollywood scene or whatever
I guess a protected child,
and so
I always loved music, my parents play a lot of music
and saw a lot of films.
Hollywood was there,
so I started going to Hollywood, hang with friends
and somehow, in a store called
Garment District. It was like the hippest
store and I was like, I'm thinking,
what year that was, I was
really young, but I pretended
to be older than what I was
and dressed crazy and fantastic
I had some clothes people made
me and these shoes that were all hand-painted.
I was wearing women's shoes as a kid
All the rock stars, they'd come into the store
Sly and the Family Stone
So then
A lot of New Yorkers came in and eventually became my family.
I was actually born in Gainesville, Florida.
Both my parents are at the university
there and...
But I didn't grow up there.
And then moved to Maryland when I was
like 6 months old, and I grew up
outside of Baltimore
I had a group of friends in Baltimore
and we were all
in theater. I went to
LA to go to graduate school.
My best friend Doug went to Chicago.
Our friend Joey came to New York.
And then after Doug finished school
in Chicago, he moved to New York
and one day they called, and they're like
Oh, we're gonna start a theater company
and I'm writing a play and you have to come out
and be in it.
Ok.
And I moved to New York in 1992.
And so I kinda came out on a trial
basis and then ended up staying.
In 1976, you could feel
this incredible energy
that something was
bubbling here
and about to happen. There was this feeling
that
the very edge of culture
of the entire world was
happening here in
a very small
space which would've been
East Village
West Village,
SoHo, which was just about
empty, but still
amazing things going on there.
A little bit of what came to be called
Tribeca, it wasn't even called that
back then. Johnny: I came to New York to go to art school.
And I went to the School of Visual
Arts, and
was really just
lucky enough to
live downtown
live in the East Village
and Tribeca. I used to live at
Franklin and Church Street
in a loft that was
$350 a month
for 3,000 square feet
with 4 other people.
Twyla Tharp was upstairs.
There really were artists
living downtown back then
and I was very lucky just to end up here.
When I came here in '76 with Kim Hastreiter from Paper Magazine
started working at
Fiorucci, and that was like the hippest
newest
thing in New York.
The movie stars, even the Mamas and
the Papas, they would walk in the store
and say, oh my god, what are you doing here?
So that was like my house
my playground,
I was selling and on the streets
then
at the nightclubs.
My first days in New York, I met Debbie Harry
Klaus Nobi
the list goes on and on and on,
and then it was the beginning of disco
and then
I went to London for the New Wave scene
and met with like the punks
there and came back to New York
and just as a punk, I had my hair dyed
bright pink. No one had...
when I came off the plane...people were literally
freaking out on me. People were throwing rocks at me.
It was crazy. I was walking
around in seditionary outfits
with like
wraps and zippers and pins
and people were just
really screaming at me.
Johnny: In the
late '70s, it was punk.
It was this hard rock
everybody wanted this hard rock sound
and it was
a reaction to
the Saturday night
fever, Bee Gees
sort of thing. But
a few years later, those worlds were
coming together and musically,
punk was ... look at Blondie
You know, they still rocked, but
they did disco
better than anybody.
They could easily go
to Studio 54 and the Mud Club
They could go back and forth. It really did
kind of come together
and eventually turned into dance
music. You know,
it wasn't rock anymore, it wasn't
disco, and they just called it dance.
We were both working
at a club called
The Mud Club, which was one of
those petri dishes
of culture of
the culture that went out to become
the world.
New York, new wave,
no wave, whatever wave.
We were both working there
and it was right at the turn
of the year at 1980,
a little before, and a little bit after.
We were both dressed for a party
called Combat Love
and I'm not sure
exactly what Johnny was wearing
but I was dressed in full
Charlotte Rampling, night porter
and that was
a legendary party
that you will still see
some pictures of like
Debbie Harry
in full military drag that night
and it was at one of these
elaborate theme parties
and then I was working
on the door of the Mud Club,
the door to
the, quote, Upstairs VIP
room which opened at 2:30AM
and was open
until about
6:30 to 8AM, only
on the weekends.
And Johnny was
Johnny: It was my first DJ job.
And actually I used to live
in the building.
Ross Bleckner
lived on the top floor.
He had a painting studio
on the floor below
and I used to sleep in his studio
[ Laughter ]
And I guess the first I saw
Chi Chi standing on the stairs
one night in these
Charles Jourdan
heels.
And a fox coat.
And all the stuff she would never wear
now, she would never wear fur, but
she was wearing this fox coat, and she had this platinum
Gene Harlow kinda hair
and she
smelled like ***.
I mean, not the drug,
but the perfume. Chi Chi: I smelled
like other drugs [ Laughter ]
We fell in love at first sight
and moved in together
that night.
And have been together ever since.
Chi Chi: I went on to
really be
overwhelmed when certain people
for example would come to
the club at that
point, like, I remember
the first night that Brian Ferry
sailed in at 5AM and
left at 5PM.
Stuff like that.
Johnny: I remember when David Bowie
was on Saturday Night Live and
Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi were singing
back-up for David
Bowie. That was huge
and standing outside
the Mud Club watching them pull up in a
limo, and I was like, lookit, Joey
is in the limo!
It was such a big thing
to see Joey pull out of a limo. Chi Chi: Or ANYone.
We were so floored.
Joey: I found myself doing drag
and that was
a mistake that happened.
I went to an art party with Warhol and Truman Capote
Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring
and so part of the invitation was
you had to go in drag
and I really hated drag
and I got dressed in drag and went there
as a character, I delved as Justine
and when I walked in, everybody said
Oh my god, you HAVE to do drag
It was a latex top
It was like a vest
and it had a circly weird
thing, you know, women's tops for a fetish party
It was a vest, kinda oriental
so I used to wear it as a shirt
with a white shirt with a tie
and the top would kinda move around
so when I was fitting this up,
I filled it so it would have
these ***,
a shredded skirt, red stockings
and pumps, a big red
wig from Barry Hendrickson, who does
my hair still.
And a bandana, so it was kind of like
60s, Russ Meyers
*** girl. As I walked in
with the eyeliner like out to here and this red hair
pale skin and black lips
and just people were just shocked
People offered me a lot of money to drag and so
I thought, ok, why not? The
money's great and
it's putting me in a different level
and it was an art form
and so that's how I started telling people
that drag was the punk of the 80s
driving to the 90s or something like that
Drag Darnell in those days, I think he had
a record album, and it was
becoming the big star
and he was doing
all these shows
and it was an honor meeting Johnny
and...we weren't very close
even though we worked...I was closer to Chi Chi
in those days.
Chi Chi: The first
event that I ever did
of any size
was in the
enormous Bonds International
Casino in Times Square
where The Clash
played their 3 weeks of shows
right after and tore the place up
and that was
a party called
Hollywood Babylon that I had had
an idea for and was going to do
in the backyard of
the little Jefferson Theater
which I lived upstairs from
at the time on 14th Street
and Johnny and I went out one night
and we met John Addison
at the newly
opened Bonds
John Addison was the owner
of Bonds, and also
New York New York
and after that
night of just meeting him
he wanted to take on
doing the parties. That party
was done in
Times Square with
a $50,000 budget
which was like having a
$500,000 now
The Lounge Lizards played
many stars
of downtown
uptown and every town
mingled all dressed
for the Hollywood Babylon theme
and that's an example of
how those boundaries
were at the time very very
soft. They would have
these theme parties
and so would the
Mud Club, and so would
other bigger gay
parties and so forth
and that device of the
theme party is something I think
that is a thread that goes
through everything and allowed
us to go do this enormous
event in the middle of Times Square
but have it feel like us.
Johnny: I mean, the Mud Club was kind of a
nursery for that, for the
theme, the idea of theme parties.
Like, there were theme parties like Chi Chi said,
at Flamingo, but that was like
the black party, the white party.
The Mud Club, which had this punk
sensibility would do
the Joan Crawford
Mother's Day party
or the Nuke Em Til The Glow
you know, Nuke Em Til They
Glow Military Party with
a Cambodian village
on the second floor, bombed out.
I mean, just crazy, you know
It was just...
They would take the idea of themes
but really run with it.
Joey: This was given to me by
Keith Haring.
He, on my birthday, he gave it to me
This is like,
1980, I think?
I had it in the closet for a long time
and so
kinda washed it down because it was kinda dirty
but I shouldn't have done that. But anyway,
it's a piece given to me by Keith Haring.
It's reversible, whatever.
Klaus Nomi and...I met Klaus
when I first came to New York that first week
he was known as Klaus Schburber
And I came to this apartment
and my friend Katie K was living here
at the time, and so
there was a picture...a painting on the wall
I saw this little drawing, and I thought
this is weird. Who is this? She said, that's my friend Klaus.
He's a painter, he's a baker and
an opera singer, and I thought, what an unusual person.
And so we went downstairs
to go walk around the village
and there was Klaus walking down the street. He had like a
fedora hat on, aviator glasses
on, Brooks Brothers striped shirt
and chinos on and penny loafers
and he just looked
so unusual, but he's not the Klaus
Nomi that people are like, think like
you know, punked out or
that, he's very
kinda boring looking. But I liked
his face and that accent, because he was from
Germany. We became friends like
like that fast [ Snap ]. I think it was that week
I went to his apartment on
8th Street, and we had coffee and cookies
and talked about art and music and we
just became friends ever since.
I actually, when he passed away...
I have this chair that belongs to Klaus
It's a
Bowhouse chair
and it was one of Klaus' favorite things. He had a very
sparse apartment, it was all mirrors
and so he could sing opera
so this chair was there
and he would sit on the chair and
and it became one of my favorite chairs
also. This is Klaus.
Revel in New York City
I guess it was like
you know, that was the classic iconic shot taken by
Michael Halls
where I was standing with the light
helped light my friend Klaus
and after we did Saturday Night Live with David Bowie...
Bowie had that
Dada outfit on
that was from the Ballhouse
and so Klaus loved that bit
and kinda transformed it
because he was already doing a tuxedo
look that Ferucci made for him
so that he morphed the look
into the tuxedo into that.
The success of Klaus
the success of the new
wave scene, Keith, Kenny
Jean-Michel...
Just to see this
fun group explode
and become
superheroes. But then...that...
superheroes also got
a black cloud over it
you know, AIDS and
it was like somebody was
saying you're not supposed to make it
so fast.
We're trying to kill you all for something.
It was terrible. With all success,
so fast, came death
very quickly also.
Chi Chi: As the 80s went
on and we saw
so many of the
people that were so
important to us disappear.
Like one night, they would be out
doing a show in the club, and the next night
they'd be gone, because people were
actually still dying that fast.
We just realized
that
so many of the people that used to
make the culture for everyone else...
the most talented,
the most avant garde,
that wave of people were unfortunately
the first ones to die.
And that if we
wanted
to have this kind of
very very
avant nightlife, we were going
to have to create it.
Sherry: I moved to
New York in 1992.
I was definitely really aware
of danceteria and
these parties and I was like
Oh, it would've been so fun and
Boy Bar was a like a big, big
popular Thursday night
out. And then Marc Berkeley who was
a club promoter kind of had the
reign with Peter Gatien and the
all those clubs were going on, like,
Limelight, Palladium.
Well, it was really
a different New York City
it was just a completely different
world. There were hundreds
of drag queens
and like, doing different things, and I wasn't sure
that that's what I wanted to do as a career.
I moved here really
to do theater
and so we started this theater company and I was
playing the leading lady
but I was also still auditioning for
shows and stuff, and
I hadn't really started performing
like in bars and clubs as Sherry Vine
and then it just kind of like
transitioned and segwayed into that.
And Doug, who was my best friend
was the one who was like,
I don't know why you're fighting this and not embracing this.
You know, you do something that is
different than what a lot of other
drag queens do, and you should just
do it. It's better than waiting
tables. And I was like,
maybe you're right. And so
once I kinda like let go...
and then I really was really happy.
Sherry: In the very beginning, I was doing a lot of stuff
in the East Village. It was really...
there were so many drag queens
and so many different scenes
that you had like the East Village
which was like a bit more
comedy, kooky drag.
You had Boy Bar, which was
like the glamour, like,
a lot of the transgendered performed there.
You had the West Village which was
a little bit more like lip synching and
impersonating. You had Uptown
like the Latin queens
and it was so, so
much going on. And so
I really started in the East Village and it was much more
comedy like the Pyramid
With Mistress Micah,
Linda Simpson,
Lady Bunny, all these East Village
people. Linda Simpson used to
do this night at
Pyramid called Channel 69
and that was THE hot party.
I really wanted to perform there
and I was like, oh, I wanna do that
'cause it was different, it was a little more
like thematic, and story-
oriented
and I was like, I wanna do a show there, so I
finally talked her into letting me do a show
and I was gonna do it was this other queen like Ebony Jett
who was this black queen
and we were like, let's do a take-off
of jungle fever
where we're like, you know,
hot lesbians who fall in love.
It was called Lower Eastside Lesbian Jungle
Fever.
And it stands out in my mind because no one really
had, what I was told anyway,
no one had done anything quite like
that. And it just
people in the audience were like
loving it, it was just really
really funny. It just stands out in my mind of like,
Oh, ok, I think I've found my place
and
[ Sigh ] Wish we'd have had
that on video. And the big parties
when I came, this was
even before Squeezebox, Jackie 60
had just started.
Chi Chi: We started Jackie 60
super super
small, just a couple of tables
of people at Nell's, passing
the microphone around
with this miniscule budget
for it to have a show
or two and took it from there
It was called Jackie's 60
for a reason
It was never
Johnny and Chi Chi presents...
It was like Jackie 60,
like, Jackie...
Who's Jackie?
And then the answer was, we're all Jackie.
Being this little tiny
germ of an idea on this little
postage stamp size,
this is going to happen every
week and it's always gonna be around
a different theme, and the shows
are $20 worth of decor
that we can afford to buy or make
or paint or whatever
It's all gonna be
around this idea and
we'll play the music
from it and
so forth, and just take it from there.
And then after you do that for awhile
you become
lucky enough to have people
come to you with
I wanna do an all-drag
Gone with the Wind.
Johnny: Well I don't know if we created it, it was kind of like
they were there. And we
were all part of this community
And there was like the
Boy Bar community, the Pyramid
Club community, our friends from the
Mud Club, our friends from
Times Square,
our Ballhouse friends, like an
extravaganza that there were
you know, the Ballhouse people
My Paradise Garage friends and DJs
There were all these different people that were
communities that were already
there, and
you know, you put them under one roof
and...it wasn't just us,
I mean, that's the thing.
It wasn't just Chi Chi and I
It was a
community, it was a group of people.
Sherry: Jackie 60 was
so special because
for so many different reasons.
One, no one I have
ever even seen since has had that
kind of dedication where
every Tuesday, I mean, every
single week, it was a new theme
it was decorated to that
theme, there was...the show was
about that theme, the go-go dancers dressed
to that theme, and also was the platform
to do these things where they'd be like, oh,
this week we're doing Sister K, sure, can you
do Sister Aimee McPherson, and I'm like
I don't know who that is, I'm gonna go research it
and yes, I got to do a lot of different characters
and it was very
skit/sketch comedy
kind of oriented, it was really fun.
Sometimes I would just go go dance
because it was method go go. You know, in the beginning,
of course, working with Johnny and Chi Chi
I was a little timid, 'cause
I was like, oh my god,
Johnny and Chi Chi.
They were just...they're very
nurturing. I still call them, you know,
the daddy and mommy.
Chi Chi: Sherry was
perhaps the
brightest star in the
Jackie theatrical
orbit, and the star
of so many of our productions
and so many
of the theater couture ones
that kind of were
just outside of our orbit
and Sherry is one
of those people who
you can work with for
decades and she is just
like completely flawless.
She does what
she says she's gonna do, she gives it
110%.
Sherry: Johnny and Chi Chi were always really
encouraging
to expand
and to do these things and to try stuff out.
Johnny's the one who's like,
Oh, you should do this, sing
Port of Amsterdam by Jacque Brel, and I'm like,
Okaaaaay. And it turned out to be
a song that I still do
now.
Johnny: Tell our little secret
We had a secret
rating system
at Jackie, and it
was like a 1 through 10
and certain people were...they were a 4
they were a 6....
or you know, they were almost
a 10, they were really...9 and a half...
not really a 10....
Sherry was always an 11.
And the problem
is, you wanna use Sherry for everything
and that was kind of a problem
Whenever we were thinking, who should we get to play
this or who should we get...
It was always Sherry, and we're like, no,
we can't use Sherry every week
You just wanted to use her 'cause she was just
so easy to work with, and
so smart, everything.
Sherry: I wore many many different hats
at Jackie 60
There was a time where I was like the stage manager, so
I was just out of drag, running around, organizing,
getting people
together on stage, getting the go go dancers
on stage. I performed there a lot
I did method go go dancing there a lot.
They really created
a platform for performers
and they had an appreciation which
a lot of places don't
Chi Chi: You give them
this device
of the themes
which we certainly brought forward with us
and
maybe
make a few that are obvious to
begin with, with people that are
already doing something very fully blown
like, the house of
domination that the
fetish designer at that point
Kitty Boots
and her group of
dominant
go go people, really,
all female, all
dressed in amazing fetish costumes
that she made
so let's take Kitty and her group
and Kitty was an early
producer of Jackie of as well
and let's do a
salute to their icon, Betty Page
who at that point hadn't...
her whole revival
was only
a twinkle in someone's eye. She was
still...she hadn't been
re-disocovered, she was living
her Christian life
and all of that was to come
Let's do a night
that combines these 3 performers
that keep meeting people at
Jones Beach when Stevie Nicks played.
Let's just do a one
night of these 3
amazing
Stevie Nicks impersonators, Dean Johnson
Joey Arias, and
Wendy Wild. We didnt' know
that it was gonna become
Jackie 60, this
10 year thing. We just knew that
something would
was really really missing
from the nightscape and that
it was kinda time for
a do it yourself, which is a tradition
that we came from, in terms of
do your own flyer. There were
of course the
trannies that were
in the neighborhood working, but there were also
the secret
Hasidic trannie chasers
who were among our earliest
and most enthusiastic
people.
Sherry: It was fun, I mean, it was
crazy
It would be packed, you couldn't move, there was like
2 little
toilets, and I just remember there was always this
long line, and you know,
if you were in drag
I gotta do this show, and even if you weren't
and you know, it would get a little
naughty there sometimes, it was a really
fun party. Chi Chi: It was just so
interesting, the meat market
itself was really off the beaten
path. Sherry: It was really was
kinda this Meatpacking District
so you had these meat packers
and then almost nothing else
These warehouses, and then there was the
Florent, Jackie 60, there was a
bagel shop. Chi Chi: We had
meat guys, a few meat guys who were
trannie chasers, and one that was a
tremendous fan of Hattie
Hathaway, who was
about up to Hatti's kneecap
Johnny: He's probably 4 feet tall
Chi Chi: Who we called Gnome
Gnome was
I don't know what he
did, he might've worked as a meat packer
and he was just
always kind of always around at the end of
Jackie 60. I have one
memory of him at Florent at like
5 o'clock in the morning, and me and Joey
were fooling around or whatever, and I think he was
one of Hattie's
special friends, so...
I mean, you had this little cast of
characters that were...it was like
a Fellini movie and it was just so
crazy and fun
You never knew what was gonna happen.
Johnny: The star system was not about money
or fame
It was about
kind of...
Chi Chi: Being legendary as Jackie
Johnny: Legendary Jackie, exactly
Chi Chi: Being the Gnome with the piece of meat
slung on your shoulder...
Johnny: Gnome was a superstar, just this 4-foot tall
guy at the
meat market, was a superstar at Jackie
Strawberry...
you know, I mean,
You could be just
a trannie ***, but if you were a
legendary trannie ***
on 14th Street, you were a superstar
at Jackie. Chi Chi: And then we
might have like a
deposed dictator
of some country
purportedly...
I never saw it...doing
*** in the alleyway
until...well,
entering the club at say,
4:15AM and exiting way after
the cleaning crew. It was
that total mix of things.
Chi Chi: Joey is so
important to
He's so
important to the entire evolution of
Jackie, and actually
he
did a show or two
right when we were
moving this infant Jackie
at Nell's and just
sort of gave us the money to help
with the move. I mean,
you can't
be more family than that
We've done shows all over the world
together and seen
him in some very compromising
positions, and he's just
...Joey is always
like Sherry Vine
a perfect 10.
Sherry: Joey Arias.
Well, it's funny, before I moved to New York
I knew who Joey was, because I'd
seen his documentary
this movie called
Mondo New York. So when I
moved here, I was like, oh my god, Joey Arias
Joey: Miss Sherry Vine
She is
just an amazing
an amazing artist. I met her
through a guy I was dating
at the time, who took me to go see her
on Bastille Day, performing.
Sherry: Then I was performing this restaurant that used
to be in the Meatpacking district, called Florent
It was the only restaurant whose
24 hours, and so everybody after Jackie 60
would end up there and it was
a big scene, and it was so gorgeous
and fun. Every year, they did a big
Bastille Day party there on the street
A mutual friend of ours
this guy Chris Kelley
was dating Joey, and said
Oh, you have to come and see my friend Sherry
perform, she's doing Edith Piaf.
Joey: I kind of
get weird when people say that
like, oh you guys have to be great friends, I'm like, yeah right
And I thought she was great
and
we shook hands and it was nice to meet her
and she was kinda raw in those
days, she had a little choppy wig
and Edith Piaf look
and had a little black dress on, these little funky
granny shoes on.
Sherry: Joey saw it, and was like, hey girl, you should
come over, we're starting this Bar d'O
party, it just started
You should come and perform at this one
night. I was like, ok.
Joey: We needed her services at Bar d'O
and she came in
and she would sing these songs
and she wasn't really doing parodies
and stuff, and she was actually afraid to talk
in those days. Eventually Bar d'O
became the house of where
the queens were brought in and
everyone started to talk
and everyone started to sing
and everyone started to parody, 'cause I knew like
I was doing Billie Holiday songs
and I had to change the lines a couple times
so that people knew that I was actually
singing, and so
I think people
...the idea of cursing the people
through songs, and people found
their own path, and look at Sherry now.
She's got her own television show,
She's Living For This.
It really took a couple
of years to,
maybe like 2 years, before we became
like super close.
Sherry: We were in, I was in Berlin actually with
Josh and Jackie B for
the film festival for our
movie, Scream
and Joey was there
in Berlin also for the film for something else.
And our flight...
we were all at the airport, and was like, oh hey, hi...
The flight got cancelled.
And so we're like
oh let's stay and so we all went out
that night and that was the night that
Joey and I got bombed and laughed and everything
and ever since then,
we were like sisters.
Joey: Sherry's part of me, I love
that she, I think we inspire each other
I was starting to do my Billie Holiday show
and to a different look
and sort of being more elegant
and I was working
with Mr. Manfred
whose
directing me in my looks
and shows, kept telling me
bra and ***
simple black silhouette
elegant look, and he kept
pushing me
and he does, he pushes me all the time
You have to work on it, you gotta
like, now, I'm known as a legend
[ Laughs ] And so
it's one of those crazy things that you just
you never know, you just keep working and doing your thing
and this whole group of
the Downtown 500
was I think based on friendship
and fun and people
who are having fun. I think
the idea that people were doing
it because they were gonna get famous was not
in the psyche of it
'cause I think anybody who thought like that was
expelled from the group
and that's the way it worked because
if you think you're gonna be
hanging with people because you're gonna get famous
it's not the way it works.
Chi Chi: We had done Jackie 60 from
late 1990
it was then 1999,
and through
the whole course of Jackie, we did
450 additions
It was still uber popular
and it was so...we had never
really had that problem
in nightlife
or known of it really where
after that
many years, it was still
popular but it had become almost
like Mama Leone's, like
you must visit it
when you're in town. It was part of this
kind of path that people
had to visit. And so we realized
that we were gonna have to decide
to close it, to end it
And then we saw that
the century
was changing
and so we decided
40 weeks before,
that on the last Tuesday of the
20th century, that was gonna be the last
Jackie, so it was very easy
We felt very much about
leaving that in
the 20th century so
we could become like the
last of its kind
of the century just the way
the Cabaret Voltaire which
had also inspired us was
the beginning of the century.
As many of you know, because you were there
Jackie 60
began in late
November 1990
and moved over to this
hallowed house in
March of 1991,
an anniversary
we celebrate every year
with these awards
Since then,
we've been blessed with the kind of extraordinary
long run
that almost never happens in clubs
We've also
...thank you...
[ Audience cheering ]
We've also had the immense
honor of finishing the club tradition
for our century
A straight line of mischief
and invention, of evening
magic and meaningful glamour
that began 100 years
ago at clubs like the
Chat Noir and the Cabaret Voltaire
and ended up haunting this
house and this stage
for the very best
part of the day came.
[ Audience Cheering ]
Now, our club motto
borrowed from the situation,
says finally come true, we
are leaving the 20th
century for good
Much more triumphant
than sad, this
new beginning is filling us with excitement
which we hope you'll share
for all who have
walked with us thus far
our deepest appreciation
For the
stardust, the brown
couch memories, and of course
the Jackie hustle
Now
the glorious final
41 performances await
but before then - tonight,
we have another
6 Jackies to present in act 2
I turn you back
to your estimable hostesses
The Doolin Dang
[ Audience Cheers ]
Sherry: Everything in New York changed, the nightlife changed
And the internet definitely DEFINITELY
had a big effect on
the nightlife, and then
Giuliani was the
big, you know,
nail in the coffin
Squeezebox was coming to an end,
Jackie 60 was coming to an end,
all the big clubs were done
and people were just like, ok, whatever
You know, Mistress Micah, I remember
from Micah trying to rally people, like, we have
to...hit the streets and we have
to march and we have to do something and
it just couldn't take off
People were just like oh, oh well
It was horrible
I mean, I remember that they
were really really cracking down on
the gay parties
and they said that it
wasn't just the gay parties, but it really was.
The fire department would come at like
midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning
turn the music off, turn all the lights
on, they would line people up
on the wall and search them for drugs
and it was really weird, it was like
are we living in this fascist,
like, what's going on? This is
New York City!
Joey: The gentrification started
changing everything
and it was easier for people to move into
but it kinda ruined
the funkiness of the neighborhood
Sherry: Well, I
navigated through this whole change
in the nightlife by leaving.
This is when I
I jumped ship
and moved to Berlin
I was in Europe for almost
4 years 'cause I was like, this is
not fun
and I just needed a
change and it was time, it was the perfect
opportunity, like, ok let me do this
And then I
came back and now
I mean, nightlife can be fun
now, it's not the same...I don't know
if it ever will be, I mean, it was just
It was
anarchy.
Of course, you have people having sex and doing drugs
everywhere in the clubs, I mean, that really
was happening, so I can see why the city
might have a problem with that
But still, sometimes I go to parties
like in Kansas City
or Alaska - I did a show in Anchorage -
and went to this gay club, and I'm like
Why is this
crazier and more fun than a club in New York City?
Chi Chi: I still see it happening
around the city, but
unfortunately, almost
not at all
in Manhattan. But when I go out
to places like
for instance,
The Red Lotus room and see
like in one of the big
shows that someone like Eric
Schmalenberger might put together or
Muffinhead... Johnny: You know, I think
Chi Chi nailed it.
You see it happening but you don't see it happening.
in Manhattan. It's in Brooklyn
it's in, you know,
some spank parties in some loft
some warehouse
it's...Daniel
Nardiccio parties
his crazy fleet week
parties, sponsored by
fleet enema. [Laughs] You know, I mean,
people are still doing it.
But Manhattan is sorta
dominated by bottle bars
and big clubs like that
so those kids are not
spending
$750
to buy a bottle of ***
and sit on a couch.
The creative kids are out in Brooklyn
different places now
but they are still doing
doing creative things.
Chi Chi: The whole idea of a creative collective
putting something on
instead of one person with
their name over the top or
perhaps two. I think that that's
a big part
of
what we've given to
the kind of night world and I see
that a lot and I also see a
real rise in
people calling themselves
a collective because
for at least
10 years, people were...
and you guys, as promoters, and I'm like
promoters are people that work around
you know, handing you
an invite, you know, we're
producers, we're a collective
and so that's one place where I really see
it, and another
thing that I'm always
so touched
by is how much
you'll see people
saying that our work which they found
out about in
the early days of being online
or that they
collect all Details Magazines, or whatever
it is that they were inspired by
us or by
say, my poem Take Back
The Night, or so many things
and this is why we did
this night in Pittsburgh, and it's...
that is the
greatest compliment that you could
ever get.
Sherry: Sometimes I'd
walk down the street,
and I just look up instead of down
and I'm like, how come we never...I've lived on this street
for 10 years and I've never
noticed these buildings
and you know, that's inspiring
to see a picture of Debbie Harry
and be like, oh,
no one is that gorgeous
Love love watching stuff
still from the 1970s like variety shows
like Carol Burnett and all that stuff
I could watch a hundred times
and that inspires me in one way
Chi Chi: There's
a few ways you can go in life
but it's always to us
about
what is the new
work that we can bring all of this
to, and make in this
time period... Johnny: But the thing is, we don't
try and recreate what we did
at Jackie. Chi Chi: Yeah, that's why we
never do reunions. You'll never
see like a Jackie 60 reunion
or a Mother reunion because the work
is ongoing.
Sherry: And so I
try to now that I'm kinda like on the other side
of things, I try to
and like, whenever someone new
is like, oh, can you help me
I'm like absolutely. There's like this whole
renaissance right now
which is really exciting
'cause for a long time, there weren't so many
new queens. Once in awhile, one would come up
and there'd be a lot that just wanna
dress up and go out and have fun
And now, there's
a lot and they're really talented.
So it's really kind of exciting
Johnny: Well, a lot of people still live here
a lot of people
you know, just for
historical sense
come down here because it really has that vibe
still, you could
try to whitewash it as much as you want
but the vibration of that still
will always flourish
you know, the
Lenny Bruce will always be walking around
on Bleecker in the villge
Janis Joplin will
always be walking around
Thompson Square Park. It's crazy
it's the spirit of what
keeps the city alive because it's
the magic of the city.