I arrived in North Beach in the early 1961, at age twenty, to join the Beats, just when topless dancing in San Francisco made national news for a few months.

God Bless America, from sea to shining tits.

Paddywagons pulled up in front of Big Al's and carted the dancers off to jail for awhile. The dancers were then released and went directly back to the clubs for more topless dancing, bigger boobs, bigger crowds, bigger news photos, and bigger arrests.

All the cops wanted that duty, I'll tell you.

For Big Al,  an ten layer publicity cake, as Al's joint was next door to the Condor, where it all started, eventually spreading across the country. And Big Al's mob image worked even better than the Condor, because what could be more appealing for topless photo-ops than shots of the dancers being taken away, in front of a mob club. Media loved Big Al, and Falgiano was the consummate showman through and through.

In fact, my childhood fantasies of running away and joining the circus sideshow were fully realized, finally, at the old Big Al's Club on Columbus Avenue in North Beach. Today, there is a topless club in North Beach, (above) with the same name, but it's not the same club. Now "Big Al's" is a Broadway pole club with canned music. We had six piece bands, in those days, and good R&B singers. The clubs now, are nothing at all like the original clubs. Vic Falgiano and Johnny Buffa were top club players at the time. The area had been sexy since the 1849 Gold Rush, when it was centered a few blocks away, and called the Barbary Coast.

Our carnival fat-man was Condor publicist / entrepreneur, "Big Davey" Rosenberg, the guy who promoted Carol Doda into the High Priestess of Topless ART. Carol was immortalized nude, on a huge neon sign that rivaled Mount Rushmore for tourists.

"Look ma, her boobs are blinking!"

Blinking red too, right in the face of the San Francisco Vice Squad. For it's day, outrageous.

Big Davey Rosenberg was a 450 pound medicine-ball lurching down the sidewalk on stump legs, with flipper-arms like an elephant seal, and one of those shoulder-necks that absorb the better part of some overweight heads. And always, with part of a dead cigar in the corner of his bull frog lips, like some cancerous growth, therefore impolite to stare at. About his weight one always wondered ... "but  Davey,  why ..."

My second floor art studio was directly across the street from Big Al's and it's neighbor, The Condor. Therefore, on many mornings I enjoyed coffee at a table in my studio window, watching Big Davey get out of his Caddy.

(Note: Obese Car Exiting / Olympic event).

I mean it.

The man had to open the door of his car into full-out position, then twist and reach for the roof with both seal flippers --- gripping tight --- somehow managing to sink claws into hard steel, then holding that astonishing position, Big Davey would do a sort of, "shimmy shimmy" to  the edge of the seat, then a HARD pull, and, "BAM," one Ferragamo cracked asphalt ... then, shimmy, shimmy and, "BAM," the other, and somehow, Davey was out.

Davy was what was called in those days, "a trencher man". Watching him eat at Vanessi's was astonishing. A "trencher" can put food away impossible to imagine. Davy had twelve eggs, a loaf of toast, pound of bacon, etc. For starters. Then enough pancakes that end-to-end would reach Sausalito. The man was a Damon Runyon character. All these club guys were larger than life. Publicizing the topless was Davey's idea, that is: having it busted. He's the one who called the cops. Well, he would have. He and his buddies like Big Al started the whole thing. And paddywagons were exactly what they wanted. Not supprisingly, the man died young. 

May Big Davy's stomach R.I.P.

Back then North Beach was like Gold Rush ll, The Movie.

I mean, the village idiot had a job in North Beach back then. I should know. Even today, if you can't get a job in that Circus, you're one sad-sack wino.

And these new gold miners were not about to give up their claims, especially after hitting the: Mother "Doda" Load.

The clubs hired Melvin Belli and Patrick Hallinan to defend them against charges of exhibiting public indecency. The trial culminated when Hallinan, using a blackboard, upon which, he had drawn two Grand Tetons with ordinary white chalk, then covered them both with a sort of bra made of colored chalk. Red, as I recall. Then, with the head of the San Francisco Vice Squad on the stand, the famed attorney began erasing the bra, little by little.

Hallinan would erase part and say, "Would you say this is obscene?"

The man could hardly say "yes," with dignity.

Finally, down to "pasties," the good officer gave a final red-faced "no," and the: War Of The Poses, ended right there.

As least the first major battle.

Ass Over Teakettle came a few years later.

Anyway, ever since that day, Broadway nipples have stood as proud two middle fingers.

And what a time and place it was for a young artist to be alive.

Stained bar napkin from Big Al's circa 1964 with portrait
of Vic Falgiano as Big Al. Note old style telephone
number from those days

Big Al's was the first "Badda Bing" in America really, taking it's name from the fact that Chicago mob boss, Al Capone, had served time onAlcatraz / Cell #85. Capone had been transferred in 1939 due to ill health and died shortly after. Many tourists however, thought  Falgiano was the real Al Capone, and right there the fun began.

And Vic, God rest his soul, "The Leader Of The Mob," ever the showman, simply loved wearing fabulous white suits with black shirts and white ties, and doing everything imaginable to enhance tourist fantasies. People from Omaha came in the club, and figured Capone had been released from Alcatraz, then like retired boxer, Jake "Raging Bull" La Motta, had opened his own club, and was lookin' pretty good for his age. They saw Big Al's as a sort of "Midnight Sun City" for retired gangsters. Countless times I watched star-struck tourists get "Scarface's" autograph. Vic signed, "Big Al," with a flourish on bar napkins printed with his portrait, then pushed the napkin at them with a bossy grunt.

It was hilarious, and you didn't laugh, because you were part of the act. It was great fooling people. Big Al would bark an order, and us mugs in black shirts and white ties would jump to protect him, or get something for him. Ha!

My jobs ran from bar-boy, burger-runner, window box decorator, painter and handyman to: artist in residence. Vic wanted the toilets painted every two weeks, or less. Great art. As Big Al would say, "Class Dave, class, dem's guys got no fokin' class". I came in early, iced the bar, and cut limes and lemons for the bartenders, as well as working occasional bar-boy shifts, over sinks of glasses.

Mostly, I worked the door. Many nights I held the curtains for Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain. And when Simon and Garfunkel wondered where Joe DiMaggio went, I could have told them. Big Al's every night for years, picking up cocktail waitresses and dancers.

Snapshot I took of my best friend Michael Kelly working
the curtain at Big Al's circa 1965. Mike looks nice here,
and he was, still, there was a hickory ax handle above
the door. Let me put it this way: you did not want to be
bounced out of the club by Mike.

The late Vic Falgiano was handsome compared to "Scarface" Al Capone. Yet, he did have a way of looking like the mobster, especially in the dim light of the club, sporting his amazing Vegas suits. Tourists only knew Capone from old news photos and newsreel clips. Whatever Vic lacked in likeness, he covered with sheer menace. Vic Falgiano soaked up every minute of it. The man loved his work.

Our "capo di tutti capi" always puffed enormous cigars and carried a roll of at least three or four grand in his pocket. I was usually paid by others, the co-owner Johnny Buffa, or the bookkeeper. When Al paid me it was always in cash. He would pull out the whole wad every single time, then hold it out and thumb through the bills so I could see. "Nice, huh Dave?," he'd say, as if we had never gone through this ritual before. That is, with sadistic relish, knowing I'd never had that much money in my starving artist life, Vic would pull a ten and a five from the bottom of the pile, then hold them out for me by one corner, as if holding a couple of dead mice by their tails, playing up the Boss. Hey, he played it all the way. Vic was something to watch. Never missed a beat.

After-hours snapshot I took of, Vic "Big Al" Falgiano,
with my North Beach best friend Michael Kelly.

Vic passed away recently (August 2004). Rest in peace Al ... ah, Mr. Falgiano. I forgive you, that's for sure. Thanks for all the great stories Vic. And thanks for getting out of the shower in West Lake, and taking my one call from jail, to spring me from the border patrol in San Diego, in July, in a heavy WOOL three-piece double-breasted two sizes too big. It was like arriving in Hell wrapped in three thick blankets. And thank you for tipping me a C-note for cleaning Uncle Tony's bedroom; for carrying a full-to-brim plastic wastebasket of mold-skinned urine down three flights of narrow steps to the back alley with the expertise of Charlie Chaplin. Hey, I loved Uncle Tony and would have done it for free Vic ... once anyway. And thanks for only getting a little angry at me, when I gave away all the club secrets in the Christmas back-bar mirror painting. I know, you made me clean it off the next day, but you didn't fire me.

And while I'm at it, thank you for testing me for stealing, and seeing that I didn't steal, (at least you never caught me) and respecting that, and telling me so. Hey, Tony's room, sorry. I had to get drunk to do it. And thanks for taking my grandfather Truesdale's stage pistol, then covering that gas station stickup for me. Of course, I never robbed a gas station, but you didn't know that Al, so when I was having a nervous breakdown and gave it to you as a gift, I understand how you misread my goofy intention. I was bonkers that night. How was I to know that one hour after I gave the stupid pistol to you, the beat cops would come in and tell you some guy with blond hair stuck up the gas station three blocks away. It wasn't me. I was just another wannabeatnik painter, never a stickup artist. Still, you kept Omerta man, thank you.

And thank you for giving me the entire back bar of specialty booze, just because each bottle got a few little fruit flies it it. We could hardly see the little buggers. Remember, we wondered about filtering the bums out in cheesecloth, and putting new stoppers in all the bottles, but Johnny said no, the law was too tough. I built three shelves in my hotel room just to hold them all. I guess I was a true beatnik after all, huh. And, I am horrified to report sir, I drank every bottle flies and all. Yikes! I left them in so my friends would drink them.

Shortly after I started at Big Al's, Vic's eighteen year old nephew, Walter Pastore, arrived from New York to work for his uncle tending bar. Vic figured he was teaching his nephew, but Walter arrived on the scene as a natural club genius on delivery, and was soon managing Big Al's, years before legal drinking age.

Over the coming years in fact, Walter would come to actually own most of the joints in North Beach, becoming a San Francisco legend in his own right, loved by his friends and employees. I feel honored to have worked with him at the very beginning. All the laughs we had, man, those were the days for me.

And we worked hard. Double shifts, etc. Walter retired from his clubs in the 90's, because as he told me, "Only one reason Dave. I love this business. If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a single thing. But kids don't want to work today. Not like you and me. I employ one hundred and fifty people. Some of them have been with me from the beginning and they're great, but nowadays, these kids, they only want to do two, three shifts a week and go clubbing the rest of the week. All the hiring and firing I have always done myself, every interview, and is too much now. It's no fun anymore".

Big Vic played off celebrity connections. The man knew everybody. My painter friend Charlie Ware, one of the founders of the San Francisco Visionary School --- therefore always in need of rent --- painted oils of the "Rat Pack" for the club. Sinatra, Dean Martin, plus others like Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Vic Damone and Tony Bennett. Each canvas hung in the club with a portrait light over it to impress the tourists.

When "Big Al" ate out, which he did nearly every night, he would have his nephew Walter phone the matire'd and say Sinatra or Dean Martin was calling for him. Either they would bring a telephone to his table, or Vic would be called to the bar for a faked-up conversation. Vic really got into this, all to Walter hanging on the other end of the phone, wondering if his uncle were perhaps, going off his mob rockers.

Walter would sit there listening to: "Yea ... Frank, hey wat's doin'? ... ha, ha, ha, that's a good one ... hey, you tell Lawford to call me right away ... that prick ... who's he think he is ... oh yea, huh? ... Pebble Beach? ... hey, give my best to Dean ... Sammy too ... yea, okay ... I'll get it for you ... consider it done".

This went on for years. It was part of Vic's showmanship. He was old fashioned that way. Right out of the 40's. I really learned from being around him, how to push my art career in the media. Thank you for that too Vic. I've said it in a lot in interviews, throughout my career. Painting with "One Million Volts!" is pure Big Al's.

For his fiftieth birthday party for instance, Vic had Walter call all over San Francisco ordering major flower arrangements: horseshoe wreathes, bedecked Champagne bottles and other outrageous displays, then had them delivered to a party at a local nightclub, each card signed by a different member of the Rat Pack, to him, all for the newspapers, to push the club.

Vic never missed a chance.

One afternoon I was cutting up fruit and overheard Johnny, the co-owner lecturing Vic through the office door. In an agitated whine Buffa pleaded, "No Vic, this is serious. I'm beginning to think you're actually going psycho on us here. I mean it Vic, sometimes I think, you actually think YOU are Alphonse Capone! Vic please, you cannot spend club money like this! You're breaking our balls. Vic, Vic, Vic, 'Big Al' is the front for this club. And it's ours Vic. If your mind is going, see a doctor. I'm serious. Get pills. I don't know. Listen to me, this is Johnny, right? I'm with you. We got a good thing goin' here, but believe me, I know, we are losing it because high-rollin' can't happen every night. Once a month, twice. Not every night Vic. Look at these bills ... look! Four hundred for Vanessi's breakfast! Four hundred! You can't do this every night Vic! It's killing this club!"

Johnny was right. Vic overacted Capone sometimes, around midnight. It would have been hard not to, really. With everybody bowing to him, Vic's already considerable ego didn't stand a chance. As both doorman and bar-boy I had a perfect view of the man as he sat on his favorite stool at the end of the bar, engaged every night, like an elk hunter stalking bartenders in the act of stealing from the cash registers.

One bartender named Bobby B. drove Falgiano out of his olive tree.

Vic never caught him.

Walter finally fired Bobby and took over the club, after winning a 7/8's oz shot contest. Anyway, after a fifth of vodka: believe me, Vic changing into Big Al was better than Lon Chaney into werewolf. Vic's face would seem to actually morph at times. I'm not kidding. It was scary. There were times as a club flunky you didn't dare go near him unless you had a real good reason. I mean you expected a stigmata scar to appear on Vic's cheek. And when he was ON, Vic's "Big Al" voice put Tony Soprano to shame. I mean it could crack hazel nuts.

"... yea, yea, lissen, dems guys got no fockin' class, that's all ... no fockin' class ..." It was amazing.

Mentioned earlier, Big Al's was next to the Condor.

To open her act Carol Doda, America's undisputed First Lady of Topless Dancing, descended from the ceiling while dancing on top of a full sized grand piano. The massive,  instrument was lowered by cables attached to a powerful motor hidden in the crawl space above the ceiling of the club.

Doda's dressing room was small, at the head of a flight of stairs not far from the top of the piano. Ready to perform, she would crawl on her hands and knees through a short carpeted tunnel, there to crouch on the actual top of the piano. As it came down then, Carol came through the ceiling, into the club, sometimes with Hommy Stewart, the famous tuxedo-dwarf dancing between her legs --- the piano descended slowly until a player in the band could reach it and join in the pounding rock and roll band, even before it came to a full rest on the floor, pure mini-Vegas.

In 1991 Walter bought the Condor and remodeled it into a sports-bistro. We were talking on the phone one night when he invited me to meet him there. Remodeling was well under way, with sheet-rock everywhere, ripped up carpet, etc. Walter walked me there from the El Matador, just the two of us, curious as to whether I might replace the huge back-bar mirrors with reverse glass space paintings. Something cool to do as old bar-buds. We talked about it for awhile. I dissuaded him because I thought the carved antique bar looked best with ordinary mirrors. I can really be a dumb-ass sometimes. Yes, I actually passed on having a major display of my work in a world famous spot for millions of people to see over the coming years. Let's say, I fell into a black arthole.

What Walter intended for the place was a sports-bar, combination museum of the topless. He would have hundreds of framed photos and articles starting with the paddywagon arrests and the topless trial, then on through the whole era to the present. There would be a mock up of Carol Doda's dressing room and of course the "infamous" grand piano, or so it had become. That night in the dusty club the piano was down from the ceiling, mounded over with hunks of ripped up carpet.

"So that's it, huh?"

"That's it Dave, the very one. I mean, there sits a piece of San Francisco history, if you catch my drift. Did I ever tell you the true story of what really happened that night when my friend Jimmy the Beard, rest in peace, got killed on that piano?"

After the heyday of the topless, when Carol Doda had moved on to a punk rock band and a 900 phone number, the piano was still being used. I remembered a Chronicle story, some bizarre "accidental death" that was the talk of the town for awhile. I was living in Marin County by then. The news story offered no details however. Here then follows the true story, from the man himself, Mr. Walter Pastore:

"Dave ... Dave ... okay, the joint's closed, four in the morning, and my friend Jimmy The Beard ... great guy ... so The Beard has this cocktail waitress up on the top of the piano and they're both completely nude right? Except he's wearing cowboy boots, go figure. So evidently, she's on her back with her legs spread and The Beard is going down on her, and this is the amazing part ... I mean, later, the guys from the fire department figured the toe of  Beard's boot must have hit the switch. So the piano starts up slow, and they're out of their brains, so they don't notice ... and Dave, when it gets to the ceiling it shoves the Beard's face into her pussy so hard he can't breathe and Jimmy got smothered to death right there".

At this point in Walter's story, we paused, you know, like men pause now and again ... even, as I pause now, to take a break break from writing this.

There.

I remember the demolished Condor that night, me stomping around the room kicking drywall here and there, making sure I got the first part of the story right, especially, that my hollow choking laughter hadn't covered any important details.

"And get this Dave, the reason why she was saved was because Jimmy was so big, I mean his head and shoulders --- this guy tried out for the Dallas Cowboys once, --- anyway, his shoulders left her just enough breathing space to survive. And the motor didn't have a clutch see, so it just kept pulling until it burned out, and then she was stuck up there with Jimmy's face like that, for hours until the janitor came in the morning and called the police. They called the fire department, then the fire guys couldn't get the motor to release, so they had to use a chain-saw and cut a hole in the ceiling to get her out".

And now you know: the rest of the gory ...

I say, let's hear it for these people.

Jimmy the Beard! He may not have made the Dallas Cowboys, but that man died with his boots on, and there's something to be said for that.

And how about a really cool talk show, for her. This is America.

A few years down the road when the novelty of topless dancing blunted, so to speak, until actually deflecting cash flow, the clubs upped the ante, introducing, yes: The Bottomless.

Crotch magnet ... no doubt about it.

Well, one and a half.

Local ordinance plus California law read, "no pubic hair could be displayed in public".

At first the dancers simply shaved.

Then to cover their also illegal "cracks," the girls used the cutout heels from nylon stockings stretched over --- from mons to must, so to speak --- and applied with surgical body cement. For a final touch they would spatula liberal amounts of theatrical body makeup over the stocking heel, and viola ... a Barbie only Ken could love. Talk about kinky. Stocking heels had a tendency to peel after twenty minutes or so, sometimes falling to the floor.

Then came the "merkin" ... rumored to be named for the fur bag that hangs on the front of a Scotsman's kilt. I asked an actual Scottish piper one day on the street in front of Macy's, if "Merkin" was indeed, the correct term. All I know is, he pointed to his and said: "Sporran," then spelled it for me while I made a note. I don't think he liked me. Well, I told him why I wondered about his "Merkin," and couldn't crack him, and, this guy was wearing a dress. At any rate, bottomless dancers began buying furry cloth at a theatrical supply store called Lew Serbin's on Powell Street, and cutting, "merkins" --- now called "bush wigs" --- triangles of fuzzy cloth. Then when vice cops complained Big Al took them over to the dancer with a flashlight and said "see, it's only a costume".

It worked. Cops loved checking merkins.

After bush wigs became common ... say, three weeks, the dancers simply let their pubic hair grow out and discarded them. Who knew?

I'll always be a native San Franciscan, in humor at least.

"The Hawk" was a black shoplifter nicknamed for the freezing Chicago wind that blew him West. He often made a daily appearance at Big Al's, offering fresh-stolen retail goods. The man was a walking appliance store, gift shop, men's clothing outlet, plus a regular jewelry emporium. Like a character actor from an old a "B" movie, Hawk might have a dozen watches up his arms along with portable radio under his voluminous overcoat, even up to three new suits he'd just boosted, one over the other. The Hawk would show three inches of a coat sleeve and say, "good serge today from Macy's ... your size forty short, three hundred dollar suit, fifty right now ...".

Guys put in orders. You'd hear, "hey Hawk, how much for a Brooks-double, banker stripe, tomorrow, this time ... I gotta wedding this Sunday ... it's gotta be right though, no time for fitting ..."

The Hawk rarely stayed if Vic was there. Vic would look out of the office, then using the cigar clinched in his teeth as the pointer, growl, "not today Halk ...," and Hawk would glide out the door. After Hawk left we'd always laugh. You couldn't help it, because the whole thing was just so totally off the wall. Guys ordering suits that way. Hawk carried a tape measure.

There was a Chinese fellow named Travis Yick who worked at the club for many years. Travis was built like an oak barrel, strong, with thick legs, arms, neck, and head --- especially thick in the head, just the sort of friend to help you move a refrigerator. Actually, I helped Travis Yick move a refrigerator once, and he put me on the bottom, all by myself, on a narrow staircase, as a joke, and it almost killed me, and I never helped him again. Anyway, Travis was the main club handyman, as you now know, with a rather nasty sense of humor to go with his imposing body. I met him on my first day, while bending over an ice machine in the back room, filling buckets, when Travis grabbed my hips and gave me a couple of bonobos on my Norwegian nubbins. I wheeled to punch, yelling, and Travis took it bad, saying, "it was only a joke okay ... a joke," pretending like he might actually fight me. He was intolerable at times.

One late afternoon, I was in before opening, setting up the bar, while the club's resident snake charmer, a dancer with a set of tits ready for a new National Park, was sitting at the bar before the club opened. Tara was street dressed, enjoying a rather focused conversation with her indigo snake, encouraging the reptile in fact, to flick her lips and tongue with it's tongue, one of her many topless serpent moves guaranteed to get the rubes hot enough to buy another round of drinks. Later Tara performed with macaw parrots and even a chimpanzee. I'll spare you, for money.

Tara's indigo snake, was a thick bodied animal at least eight feet long, wrapped around her in several directions. Okay, probably, "Strangers In The Night" was kicking in. We always played red quarters in the afternoon. Travis was standing against a wall, as usual, transfixed by Tara's snake when ever she kissed it ... when, crash, bang, boom, in flew Hawk like a twister off the Great Lakes. Travis glanced at me whispering, "watch this," then slipped behind Hawk, putting the man in a quick full-Nelson, and actually pulling his feet off the floor.

Then Travis started "walking" the crazed shoplifter toward Tara.

"Look at that SNAKE there Hawk".

And Hawk started screaming, "Snakes, no, no! I hate's them mofokin' snakes!"

Tara yelled, "Don't mess with my ACT Travis!"

Travis ignored her, inching the howling Hawk closer.

"See Hawk, I'm going to ram that snake down your throat and pull it out your ass!"

Tara screamed: "Stop it!!! Stop it!!! Stop it!!!"

Travis flashed a lurid grin toward me, then turned Hawk toward the front door, (both feet flailing like a Roadrunner cartoon), then dropped the mad thief, who took off across the carpet, and through the doors, screaming like, well, a Hawk. You could still hear him half a block away. Travis wouldn't let me laugh until we couldn't hear him screeching anymore. And guilty laughter it was. Except Tara, who was still shouting, "I'm a professional Travis ... NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, mess with a professional's ACT ...".

Travis laughed a booger out of his nose, not an easy achievement for an Asian. Especially him. Because Travis loved nothing more than holding "inscrutable" faces, (exactly like the politically incorrect word we're not supposed to use in the same sentence with the word Asian). Travis was like Andy Kaufman that way. For instance, he loved betting guys they couldn't crack him, then standing motionless in the club, displaying unmoving eyes, in some freaky world of his own, while they tried to stare down ... what? ... the eyes of ...?... a psychopath? ... a Chinese warrior mask? ... a Chinese standup comic with extremely DRY humor?

Travis was a guy you never wanted to engage in a conversation about anything (even the job you were doing together at the moment) because he loved and lived for twisted mind-games no matter how much you trusted him not to. He loved twisted mind games almost more than knocking people out cold. And the man was tough in black and white, bouncing for the club on New Year's night. You never wanted to get rolled over by an inscrutable barrel of Travis.

Later that night I was working a shift as doorman when The Hawk flew up fast and landed with a sawed-off shotgun sticking out from under one wing, saying, "Stand aside David, it's the Chine-mofoker I'm blowing up tonight!" ... and headed straight for the curtains.

Believe me, I stood aside.

There was a small alcove just inside the door with a cigarette machine where Travis hung out. The Hawk stood Travis against the machine, shotgun rammed into his chest, then proceeded to torment him --- in what can only be described as a worst-case inscrutable scenario. I watched, peeking through the curtains so I could write about it later. I was a wannabeatnik, remember.

Okay, students, what would you have done? We had no cell phones. "Midnight Hour," pounded from the band. I couldn't slam Hawk in the head with the ax-handle over the door, or he might shoot Travis. Time stopped, awareness focused, I could hear Hawk over the music, screeching: "OK you Chine mo'foker. Now you see what the Hawk can do!," then moving the muzzle to Travis' crotch, prodding again and again. "The Hawk'll blow yo' mo'fokin' balls off mofoker. Nobody mess with Hawk! Noooo ... body!" And Travis didn't crack for about forty long seconds. I'll hand him that. Even when Hawk lowered his blaster to his balls, while I nearly cracked a tooth, along with half the bar, frozen like ice, Travis held. Nobody breathed. Then Travis just BROKE, like a dinner plate on tile, begging for his life in such a piteous way the Illinois twister seemed satisfied with public humiliation and blew the joint instead of Travis, vortexing curses behind him.

A half hour later the two beat cops showed for their nightly tripple-pops, (3 ozs. of vodka before directing traffic ... ha!) gulped quickly in a dark corner. I told them what happened. One cop said, "Which way did Hawk go?"

"Toward Broadway!"

Leaving soon, they said, "... toward Broadway huh ...?"

I nodded.

"Seen him since?"

"Nope ..."

They turned of course, and walked straight away from Broadway as fast as they could go.

In the 60's it was still possible to pull off what, in those days were called "publicity stunts" and the press never failed to show up. Reporters knew it was b.s. but they didn't care because there was always something in it for them. Good write-ups got GOOD treatment at the bar, with showgirls hanging on their shoulders like philodendron plants needing water.

The club manager, Tom Yates, pulled off some great stunts for Vic, and I helped him. One morning we sent Batwoman's bra aloft on a huge helium balloon from the Coit Tower parking lot.

Batwoman indeed. The late Gina Valentina, a topless dancer with an ego as overly inflated as her breasts, living every moment --- of every single day, well, as Gina put it, "I'm a STAHHHH!"

What Gina was, was a New Gold Rush woman, sporting a pair of the first silicone jobs, injections (not implants) in those days. Valentina would fly to LA every two weeks, then come running back through the doors of Big Al's pulling up her sweater for us flunkeys, begging, "What do you think!?" Not a good question to ask a flunky. We always told Gina one looked bigger, sending her running to the ladies room mirrors, you could hear her muffled cries from the back of the club: " ... da left? ... da right?"

It was mean.

The street was mean.

In those days, no dancers had tits like these. This was the beginning. Silicone injections were new, untested. One girl ended up with the nickname CB, for "Cereal Bowls," after her's hardened into something resembling casting-stone. CB still danced, but her boobs looked like they were bolted to her ribcage. When she raised her arms over her head, her cereal bowls stayed behind, a gruesome parody of the whole scene.

The Coit Tower stunt evolved around the movie, "Once a Thief", starring Alain Delon, Van Heflin and Ann Margaret. Some scenes for the film had been shot in Big Al's, in 1965 I think. When the premiere was about to happen, the publicity idea for the Club was to have Gina, in complete Batwoman get-up, run across Coit Tower the parking lot with her back to news cameras, then spread her batwings to the city, breaking a thread, thus releasing the balloon, which would pull off her bra, along with two tickets to the premiere, plus one free night at Big Al's, the guest of Alphonse Capone himself.

Vic was there in an impeccable white double-breasted, with black shirt, white tie, white fedora, gigantic cigar, an actor from the film at his side --- perhaps Alain Delon, I can't remember. The San Francisco press turned out big. Every TV station and newspaper. Gina Valentina ran across Coit Tower parking lot, thrust her batwings into the sky, and off sailed her Bat-Bra with the tickets dangling in the wind. Ta da!

This had to be Tom Yates' all time BEST silly stunt. Well, except the, St. Paddy's Day Snake Race, when Tara was alleged to have given her black snake some pinky mice on uppers, and Blacky shot off like an arrow from a Gary Larson crossbow and the judges said the critter was drugged and Tara screamed, "Fuck you, I'm a professional. I would never harm my ACT!" ... and took "home" the Gold Dragon Trophy with ruby-jewel-eyes, and it took three days for Blacky to coil up again, and the front-page Chronicle said: Drugged Snake? Annual Paddy's Race Controversy, and Tara said, "...any publicity is good publicity David".

For our Bat-Bra flight, at least four TV stations covered it, plus all print press in town, so there were news-film (pre-video) cameras, plus still photographers and reporters, actually following Gina Valentina's boulder-holder into the sky, as if it were some NASA launch, with Big Al, The Leader Of The Mob, THERE, in all his glory, with a limo and a movie star. It was great.

And talk about the mob, by this time, a rather large one of tourists had gathered, having the time of their trip to San Francisco, snapping pictures and trying to figure it all out.

Gina's costume was good. A wild bat-mask, with matching bat-winged cape, including four foot stick extensions, one held in each hand to make the cape come alive with wide flying motions. Now, as Gina's Bat-Bra flew off into the clouds, Gina instantly sensed that balloon getting more attention than her balloons, so she turned toward the tourists and started flashing out of her cape, children included. Tom Yates, sensing the immediate future, buried his face in his hands whispering, "Oh god Gina ... no ..." Then Gina thrust her tits as far out of her bat-cape as a Super Girl can thrust, (which is quite far actually), and yelled, "there! ... get your eyes filled! Ain't cha-all's-neva seen a pair of classy tits before?"

Man, I miss Gina. I miss them all.

Johnny Buffa, the co-owner was a handsome man in his late fifties with salt and pepper grey hair and the features of a television soap star. He worked hard to undo Big Al's excesses and keep the club together. Buffa had his own personal problems, quite different than Al's, but just as stress inducing. Johnny had an Angus ranch all set up for his dream retirement when he opened the club with Vic to enjoy "one last fling" before retiring.

Johnny's last fling had wings.

One day I heard Gina screeching through the office door, "I want dat swetta Chonny! It's a beautiful alpaca and I'm the starhhhhh of the show, so if I don't get it right now, I'm tellin' your wife about da baby!"

"Jesus Gina ... give me a break here. You're making me old. You don't get it Gina. I can't keep buyin' you everything you see, every day. We're running a business here. I'm not Johnny Gold Pockets Gina. I'm retiring soon. You are suck...ing me dry Gina. How does it feel to kill an old man by suck...ing him to death Gina. Because that is what you are doing to me. Out and out blackmail. Over an alpaca! ... what I can't believe is --- I'm buying it."

"Because you love me Chonny, but if I have-ta, I will tell your wife about da baby!"

"Don't talk that way! How much?"

"Less-en-a-hunerd. And it's so beautiful Chonny, you'll love it on me. I'll bring yous da change."

"No, don't 'brings-me-da-change' Gina. Yous 'keeps da change'... for dinner, because I'm not taking you to dinner tonight. Just stay away from me for the rest of the day ... and night. Don't come near me in the club tonight."

Leaving, Gina said, "... well, I know you love my new tits."

A few minutes later Johnny scuttled out of his office sidewise, like a rock crab leaving for the Golden Gate Bridge.

Glimpsing me at the bar cutting limes, he joined me awhile, just the two of us. Gina's perfume lingered, the bookkeeper in back couldn't hear us. Buffa wanted no drink. The man looked into my eyes with defeated shoulders and said, "David, I know you heard that, so take it from an old man to a young one ... never let a broad get something on you like Gina's got on me. Never. Because she's right you know --- I love her new tits".

I've never forgotten Buffa walking away that day, toward the back of the club because he stopped halfway, turned around, and called, "David ... listen to Johnny Buffa here and don't ever forget what I just told you because it might save your life. There's an old saying, 'it's a wise man who can learn from another's mistake'. You're young David: the truth, almost any guy who has worked his whole life for retirement, with absolutely everything to lose, and nothing to gain but agony and pain, will actually give up his entire dream, for the right set of mammary glands ...".

Tom Yates approached me one day with an idea for a bottomless dance to be called, "The Psychedelic Naked Dance of Love," sort of an mob variation on what Timothy Leary had in mind when he said, Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out --- only Big Al's idea would be more like: Drop in, Drink a lot of expensive drinks, then get yourself Kicked Out, especially if you're the chump who actually found Batwoman's Bat-Bra in Berkeley, with an invitation to a "Free Night" at Big Al's. That poor sucker never knew what hit him. Well, he got drunk and pissed everybody off, because he forgot, or didn't care, to tip the bartender and offer to buy Big Al a drink. A "Free Night At Big Al's" didn't include NOT tipping and offering the BOSS a drink. I'm half Norwegian, so I'm guessing, but not tipping in an Italian joint, would be like whizzing on a Erik the Red's fur-leggins. My ancestors didn't do that or I wouldn't be here.

Hey, it was a month later, the guy was a idiot, and the movie tanked, so we mugged him and told him to get lost.

A thousand stories stalk the naked city.

LSD was getting a lot of press and light shows were big at rock concerts. Tom's idea was to install seven slide projectors around the club all focused on a single nude dancer, his girlfriend, Tanya. Not Tara, that's the snake charmer, remember? Ha! Instead of using slides however, Yates mounted small motors from the hobby shop on the side of each projector. The motors drove clear plastic disks that moved continuously through the projection slots. Tom gave the disks to me, and I took them to my studio (a ten by ten hotel room) and did psychedelic paintings on the wheels. I mean, I took Sandoz direct from Switzerland, then I used transparent inks and watercolors, and a pocket comb to make wavy lines through blobs and any other smudges I could dream up. I worked on the wheels intensely, for hours, trying to make them look like a liquid light show, without liquid.

What a mess. I ended up with liquid light all over the walls, up my elbows, face, Levis, pillow cases, doorknobs, towels. My other contribution to the dance was a movie screen that could be lowered from the top of the stage by motor. We got a large piece of white plastic for the screen about ten feet square, then cut it in strips about six inches wide, allowing Tanya to snake through the curtain. Every night my friend Mike Kelly would leave his post at the door to take up a microphone handed to him from the stage, then whispering over drum rolls and cymbal pops, like a midway talker with asthma:

"And now ... ladies and gentlemen ...
... Big Al ... the LEADER of the MOB ... is proud ...
... to present: TANYA! ...
... and her ... Psych - e - delic ... !
Na-keeeiiiid ... !
Dance ...
Of ...
Lovvvvvvvvvaaaaa ... !"

Tanya danced alone. Her costume was a wire ring around her neck, onto which were clipped about dozen or so knee-length scarves, easily removed. The scarves were various fluorescent neon colors under black-light. Each scarf was weighted with a lead fishing sinker on one end, so Tanya could toss them, one at a time, over the audience for later collection. One night, way before America's Funniest Home Videos, Tanya hit a drunk between the eyes and he went over backwards, chair and all, out like a heart attack.

When she got down to the last scarf Tanya pulled it between her boobs, and legs, flossing the mossing so to speak, then: cue the bartender with a: Doggie Wag Wag SIGNAL. Sometimes he'd miss it, and she'd yell,"Hey Bobby ... okay!" There were two switches behind the bar by the main cash register, one for the projectors and one for the screen. When Tanya wagged, the serrated curtain would descend, and as she threw the final scarf into the teeth of some bum in the audience, she'd dance "into" the screen as the seven projectors came on all at once, causing Tanya to become a rather ghostlike apparition, flooded in "psychedelic" color and no pubic hair.

For two long minutes or so, then: blackout.

Act.

After the first night the painted plastic wheels warped and everything I'd painted on them melted, crackled, peeled and bubbled into gore from the projector bulb. And forever after, a year at least, Tanya appeared to be covered with elephant skin, soggy warts, bulging boils, hairy cancerous tumors and open running abscesses.

Talk about psychedelic.

The drunks never seemed to notice. Well, except for William Burroughs. He liked it. For old Bill, we renamed the dance, "Tanya --- and Her ... Psychedelic Naked Dance Of Lunch".

On opening night of Tanya's show, Howard Hesseman came by to see it. He was then acting with the legendary improv group, The Committee, just around the corner. As I said before, one of my jobs at the club was making collages of cutout photos of the dancers for the window boxes outside. In those days all bare nipples on outdoor display photos were covered with metallic red stars. Always red. Always metallic. Howard loved the displays and whenever I made new ones, he was always first in line to get the old ones, for decorating his cottage on Telegraph Hill. I quizzed him leaving the show, "so Howard, what do you think of Tanya and Her Psychedelic Naked Dance of Love?"

Droll to fault, Hesseman answered, "You know, I understood everything Tanya was doing ... until ... the plastic toilet paper came down".

Big Al's dancer "Baby Jane" Dunn. This photo is from an old
window box display, hence the red stars. Actually,
sometimes a Vice cop would come in and make me
cover even better than this, saying "no brown" could
show. Ha! Talk about innocent days of yore.

When the Warren Beatty movie, Bonnie and Clyde came out, "Big Al's" followed with,"Bonnie and Clyde's Naked Dance of Love," in which --- I kid you not: --- a guy and a gal dressed as mobster and moll, ---(a.) ripped each other's breakaway costumes off, ---(b.) pretended to shoot each other with toy tommy guns, (the drummer loved that), --- (c.) then, ah ... sort of died together in mortal agony?, ---(d.) woke up in Heaven together, (band members blew on little warbling bird whistles with water inside for that part) ---(e.) fell in love all over again ---(f.) simulated humping ...until, ah yes, the act ended when: ---(g.) "Clyde" worked ---(h.) "Bonnie" into a backbend over the foot of the stage while, ---(i.) "Bonnie" hyperventilated a series of moan-groaning orgasm squeels --- (j.) directly into the crotches of the people sitting at the front tables ... and ---(k.) blackout.

Nobody clapped.

Coming from small town San Luis Obispo, I would not have thought it possible, but things soon spiraled to an even lower ring of Dante.

A new dancer billed: "Sparkling Burgundy," let it all squirt out, so to speak. If soldiers or sailors made the mistake of sitting at a front table she would tease them for a glass of beer --- Ms. Burgundy just loved Marines --- then perform her ever popular Tijuana Pilsner routine.

You may want to skip the end.

That is, after rubbing the glass around, like you do, "Ms. Burgundy" would --- with what can only be described as gifted gumption --- manage to insert the wide mouth of that full pilsner glass inside herself, standing up, a feat of considerable dexterity, not to mention cold courage --- then, with her poor old one-eyed mother at home needing medicine and food, this "exploited" woman would actually squat slowly, with every guy in the club scrunching his face into a mask of, "oh god NO, please, no!," then finally roll back onto her shoulders and zonk the entire contents, don't look ma, no hands! Talk about a Schlitz.

Skip this next part.

No, really, skip it.

Because, Ms. B. would yank the empty glass out of her twat with a phenomenal, "phonnnk!," then get up and proceed to dance her infamous kootch off. Finale ... drum roll please ... blast that foam back into the glass like a chemical fire extinguisher, and hand it back to the same moron she got it from to begin with, while his buddies cheered him past the last stop sign on the road of lost men.

Walter and I would peek through our fingers yelling, "NO!"

It was the end of an era.

Everybody got the clap.

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