At the Slipper Room with Mel Frye and Matt Musselman

I perform often with live bands, and I have a great time performing with Grandpa Musselman and the Syncopators. Last night we were at the Slipper Room, with Mel Frye (actually Slipper Room owner and my business partner, James) hosting.



Matt Musselman (with redeye) and Mel




The Set List




Violetta Beretta from Hawaii, seen from the dressing room at the side of the stage, as tiki lamp




Amber Ray Backstage




Lady Lucerne




Walking home, Tigger and I ran into Pinkie Special and Melody Sweets, who had just come in from Coney Island, where they performed with a live band as well at Fisherman's Love Luau. I had to take a picture of everyone with all their bags, to document what I call "The Culture of Schlep." One of the influences on the style of New York burlesque is the lack of cars, and therefore car trunks. So we have to be able to tote our numbers around. Yes, it gets old, and we all want sherpas; but what we do is schlep. We are the glamourous bag ladies of millenial New York.


Street Walkers




Now, as someone who frequently walks the street in various versions and stages of drag and costume, I expect to get some looks and comments from people who notice that I'm, uh, colorful, but the past two nights have been exceptional in that regard. A whole new level of people who are just aghast that I (or, in this case, we) go around looking like sideshow freaks and circus characters. A little bit of this is entirely expected, but it was nonstop last night. People, calm down--we KNOW we're eccentric!




When using photos or text you found in this blog, please credit the following:

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, for her Burlesque Scrapbook. Failure to credit properly will mark you forever in my eyes as shady and dishonorable.

Burlesque at the Dickinson Gallery

Last night there was a lovefest and a festschrift for our dear friend Mickey at the amazing Dickinson Gallery. My very close friend Whitney and her husband Joe, who are directly responsible for so much of my inspiration in life, not to mention my survival, invited me and a few other performers to take part in the celebration.



First I had a lovely cabride. When I was a real estate agent I would ride up First Avenue in a bus to show apartments on the Upper East Side. I miss the money, yes, but more than that I miss that lovely morning ride! So I indulged.









Then I had a lovely scallop appetizer with Joe and our friends.










The performers got dressed in the archive room.









Bunny Love was a walking photo album of Mickey.











By the end of the night most of the photos had come off. The photo on her left nipple is Joe's painting of me. In this photo with Bunny, I'm wearing a g-string and cape that used to belong to Liz Renay.








Whitney wore the insane mermaid tail that Garo Sparo made for her. Incidentally, my interview with Garo is in this month's print edition of Alarm Magazine.









The tail has an "assgina." You can put your hand in. I did.










Darling Hugo and lovable Tigger had a drink together and bonded a bit.











Somehow I ended up with no photos of Mickey in my possession.





And then I rode home to the Slipper Room in a cab with Bunny and Tigger.



My life is pretty good some days (in spite of, or maybe because of, the lack of real estate commissions), but it's definitely not THIS good every day!



When using photos or text you found in this blog, please credit the following:

Posted by Jo Weldon, Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, for her Burlesque Scrapbook. Failure to credit properly will mark you forever in my eyes as shady and dishonorable.