HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM BEYOND

Zein on the cover of Arabesque Magazine, early 1990's

In 1999, during the days leading up to The New Millennium, like many people, I began reflecting on life: historical events I had witnessed, personal goals that I had achieved, the things I still wanted to accomplish and all the people in my life, living and dead.

But what seemed to really dominate my thoughts were the many significant relationships I had with family and friends. I was blessed with so much love, nurture and support. I thought of the many special people who were there for me not matter what… friends and relatives who shared their lives with me, gave me affection, support and influenced my creative and artistic endeavors.

One of these special individuals was my friend and belly dance mentor, the late Zein Abdul Al Malik.

Zein was a dancer of prodigious talent. Well over six feet tall and lanky, he had piercing green eyes and performed draped in billowing genie pants and luxurious folkloric garb, wrapped in antique Egyptian Assuit, a traditional mesh fabric that has small strips of silver hammered into it to form designs.  Zein looked imposing and exotic when he danced balancing a huge brass tray with a full tea set and candles upon his regal head.

Zein began his career in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid Seventies, dancing with one of the mothers of contemporary belly dance, Jamilla Salimpour. He went on to live in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, where he resided in one of the royal palaces, thanks to his Saudi prince lover.  Zein lived and breathed Oriental Dance, performing, teaching and doing research.

After we met in 1990, he took me under his wing- me, a beginning baby belly dancer with barely any skills- but somehow he saw my potential and nurtured me. Zein would have me over to his apartment- a wonderful, mysterious enclave of inlaid North African furniture, luxurious plants and relics from the Middle East.

He’d make me fresh mint tea in a silver Moroccan teapot and we’d spend hours together while he showed me steps and technique, discussed belly dance traditions, and watched vintage clips that he’d taped from the television in Saudi Arabia, featuring 1940’s and ‘50’s “Golden Age” Egyptian movies which starred famous dancers like Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, and Tahiya Carioca.

 Zein also helped me select costumes, heartily encouraged my dancing, and got me my very first dance job at Hollywood’s Moun Of Tunis Restaurant, where he worked.  More than two decades later, whenever I am in Los Angeles, I still perform there.

Appropriate music for Middle Eastern dance was hard to find in America back in those days, and Zein made me many Arabic mix tapes- remember, there were no CD’s back then- with the cassettes featuring everything from classic live Om Kalthoum performances to the latest in Egyptian pop and Algerian Rai music.

 Every cassette Zein made me also had a special cover that he thoughtfully put together by hand. Some featured Middle Eastern clip art others photocopy of vintage Turkish cigarette boxes and pictures of famous belly dancers like Nagwa Fouad and Soheir Zaki.

Tragically, Zein died about five years after I met him. By that time, we were close friends and because of his encouragement, we were also gigging together regularly. I was absolutely devastated. I remember speaking-or rather blubbering through a speech- at his memorial, my face wet with flowing tears, but I don’t remember a thing I said.

I thought of him often, so many things reminded me of him. At gigs when I felt pre-show jitters, I would think of the way he used to calm my nerves through his twisted humor right before we both went on. Wrapped in a turban and wearing a brocade galibiya, shimmying to warm up, with an ever-present Marlboro in his mouth, Zein would sense my anxiety, catch my eye, make an exaggerated coquettish gesture then and whisper in a feminine falsetto,

“How’s my hair?”

Somehow, our private joke never got old, and always made me laugh. Whenever he did that, I had a great show, entering the stage with a huge grin on my face. Even though Zein has been departed for years, I always think of him just before I go on.

So…fast forward to New Year’s Eve 1999, at five minutes of midnight. Of course I was at a belly dance gig, in a dressing room, wearing a brand new costume- my first costume for the New Millennium.

The dancer I was working with that evening asked what music I was planning to perform to for my first dance set of the century.

“I don’t know, “ I said, pawing through my CD binder, “I’m so sick of all my music!”

My gig bag was full of the usual belly dance accouterments: stray finger cymbals, perfume, hair accessories, mis-matched sequin armbands, loose aspirin tablets, safety pins.

Suddenly, something fell into my hands, a small plastic case. Though my suitcase was always chaotic, there was a method to my madness, and it was always re-packed before every show. The little plastic box was decidedly an unfamiliar object that I didn’t remember packing. Recognizing what it was in the dim dressing room lighting by the feel of it alone, I wondered how it got there.

“Hey, no way, there’s a cassette in my dance bag!” I cried, kind of amazed.

“You still use cassettes?” the other dancer asked incredulously.

“Well, no, not for years”, I answered, dumbfounded, “I have no idea what it’s doing in here!”

“Well, maybe we can dance to it,” she said, “What is it?”

I glanced at the clock- it was now one minute before midnight.

Thinking we’d better figure our music out, I turned the mystery cassette case over in my hands. The cover featured a black and white drawing of a 1920’s flapper lounging in a champagne glass.

In hand-lettered Art Deco font, it read:

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 LOVE, ZEIN”

As the clock struck midnight and the new century began, I got chills.

#

The story you’ve just read is from my  memoir Showgirl Confidential; My Life Onstage, Backstage And On The Road  published by Punk Hostage Press.

 Get a signed copy of the book here: www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

My forthcoming  memoir,   Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere will be published by Punk Hostage in 2015

 

Photos by Dusti Cunningham & Maharet Hughes

 Find me on online:

www.princessfarhana.com

www.pleasantgehman.com

www.pleasantgehman.blogspot.com

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KISS THE COOK

    How in the  hell did it get to be the middle of  November?

  As of last weekend, I'm done with all my national and international travel, and looking forward to spending The Holidays at home...which means I'm getting ready to cook!  I cook like a fiend, and I love to make fabulous food, but I'm usually not around to be able to, cause I'm on the road dancing. But once I get home- and get into the kitchen- watch out!

 The following recipe an adaptation of  a scrumptious, sweet, savory and very spicy holiday dressing that has been in my family for over half a century. I have been eating it for as long as I can remember, and making it myself for over thirty years.

 My entire family are great cooks; it’s in our blood! My sisters Eddie, Cupcake and I even had a ridiculously popular food blog for a few years called “The Haphazard Gourmet”, which was named after a popular cook book my father, the late author Richard Gehman, wrote in 1966, when I was a  mere tot.

One of the biggest ironies in my life is that though I love to cook, I almost never have the chance to do it. During the holidays, when I am home, I always  cook up a storm, and this dressing is one of the things I love to make. It is extremely work intensive, and has a boatload of ingredients…but I’m tellin’ you, all the labor is worth it! Since it’s so very close to Thanksgiving, and you might  already have your meal plans set, you  maybe  will want to save this to make for Christmas or New Year’s Eve…  or just have a  Thanksgiving “rehearsal”!

Something that this stuffing has taught me over the years, is that if you are great cook and make something this luscious…

 SOMEBODY ELSE WILL OFFER TO CLEAN UP THE KITCHEN FOR YOU!

A little history  on the dressing itself: my father was a famous writer,  a bohemian bon vivant, and an extraordinary cook, who absolutely adored making-and enjoying- extraordinary food. Actually, now that I think about, my father was not unlike Don Draper from "Mad Men"! Anyway, before I was born, he interviewed his friend Morton Thompson, also a very well-known writer and man-about-town, and apparently this stuffing originated with Morton Thompson. I’ve put a link to my father’s article, and the original recipe at the bottom of this post, if you want to look it up.

This Gehman family take on Morton Thompson's recipe makes a ton of dressing, enough to feed an army and last you, your family, friends and neighbors for a few days so you can halve the recipe if you don’t want lots of leftovers… but of course you will want them, cause this dressing is the damn bomb!

Before I go into the exact details, you need to know a couple of the most important parts of the recipe.

The first thing is that there was a reason my father’s book, and our family cooking blog, were both called “The Haphazard Gourmet”. It’s because we improvise freely in the kitchen… swirling around like a tornado in an apron, using crazy ingredients, adding or subtracting them, making do with whatever is around.

Just like improvisation in dancing or acting, it’s fun to improvise in the kitchen. Don’t be scared to cook according to your own taste, and don’t feel lost without specific measurements. I’m  just giving you a guideline… don't be afraid of to making substitutions or adding in some new elements. My own personal version of this is quite different than the original version, but they taste similar and they’re both divine.

The second thing you need to know is that while you are making the dressing, you need to brag loudly, obnoxiously and continuously, or it simply won’t turn out right.

Tell everyone within earshot that you are not only foxy, but also the best cook on earth and they’re blessed just to be in the same house as you, inhaling the same oxygen that you’re breathing.

Tell them they’ll be on their knees kissing your feet- just after they take their first bite! Let them know you are an immortal being with culinary gifts from the heavens above…then let THEM clean up your mess…and thank you profusely the whole time!

Once I was cooking for Thanksgiving with my neighbor, and he had a recipe for dressing he got off the Internet, which he wanted me to make.

“Are you kidding?” I cried, “I never use recipes, I always cook by instinct! You’re gonna love this!”

He regarded me suspiciously, like I was a teenage shoplifter.

“Ok,” he said finally, “But if you fuck this up, I’m going to be really mad.”

“No problem!”, I sniffed indignantly.

The moment he tasted my stuffing, a strange look came over his face… the kind of pie-eyed expression guys get in romantic comedies when they realize they’re in love. He finally shook it off and came back to earth, and exclaimed loudly,

“I will never doubt another word you say, as long as I am alive!”

Then he started cleaning the kitchen.

So: you will need a large frying pan with a cover, couple of small bowls, a couple of large bowls, aluminum foil, and two Pyrex or disposable aluminum baking pans.

INGREDIENTS:

Two boxes bread cubes or stuffing mix, of any type you prefer

Six stalks of celery- take off the strings

Two green peppers

Four large yellow onions

Six to ten fresh garlic cloves (or fresh mashed garlic from a jar)

A handful of loose white mushrooms

Two large apples (red or green, either is fine)

Two large oranges, or a medium sized can of Mandarin oranges

Two cans of sliced or chunk pineapple in plain water- not syrup

One large can sliced water chestnuts

One and a half giant handfuls of walnut halves or walnut pieces ** I have even thrown in pecans, and in some years added pre-made trail mix here as well. Like I said, improvise!

Two large containers of chicken or vegetable stock

Quarter pound stick of butter… if you don’t eat dairy, then eliminate this step, and just use more stock to keep the stuffing moist.

Four or five links of spicy Italian sausages- if you don’t like traditional pork sausage, chicken or turkey sausage is ok… and again, if you are a vegetarian, just eliminate the sausage altogether!

HERBS:

The herbs can be fresh or dried; it’s your call! Fresh is better though.

You’ll need rosemary, oregano, sage, marjoram and thyme… plus three or four large, whole bay leaves, and a small bunch of fresh parsley. The parsley must be fresh. Separate the leaves from the stems, and snip them up with a scissors.

If you’re using dried herbs, use a quite liberal pinch or about a very full teaspoon of each; for fresh herbs, then cut up a few leaves of each. I usually go heavy on the sage and rosemary for a more savory taste. Put these herbs into a bowl, mix them up, and set them aside for now.

SPICES:

I’ll say this again: I don’t measure when I cook, I do it mad scientist style!

 So, for the following spices, you’ll need a few very healthy shakes of each: salt, pepper, all spice, cinnamon, nut meg, curry powder, cumin seed, and cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes, turmeric, and a small chunk of fresh ginger, which you’ve peeled and sliced.

If you’re scared to spice up your food the way I do, then measure out about a quarter teaspoon of each, and put them in another small bowl, making sure they’re mixed up. Set these aside, too.

DIRECTIONS:

Cut up or dice all ingredients- EVERYTHING!

 This is the time consuming, hellish part. I usually dice everything into small, thin pieces, but I have also made late-night, post-dance-gig rushed versions of this dressing where I carelessly chopped the peppers, celery and onions into larger chunks… so, whatever you want to do is fine.

 I cut the parsley with a scissors- and at the same time, if I am using fresh herbs, I cut them, too. If you want, you can also used diced packaged onions, cause crying while cutting onions is the worst, but I usually just weep my way through this part of the process.

Skin the sausages, and either crumble them or cut them into thin pennies, then get ‘em into in a very large frying pan or skillet with a little blop or two of extra-virgin olive oil, and start cooking them. If you are making the veggie version of this stuffing, just eliminate this step and start sautéing the veggies. You want the sausages cooked through, and a little browned. When the sausages are almost done, throw in the diced onions, garlic, peppers and celery, parsley, and a few generous pats of butter and stir. You will need to stir this continuously! Take a few pinches of both the herb mixture and the spice mixture and throw them both in, according to your taste.

Have a glass of wine here if you drink… or if you want to be like my father, make it a scotch.

 Make sure you’ve been bragging to whomever is around! If no one’s at your house yet, send a few texts, tweet about it,  post a pic on Instagram, or update your status on Facebook about the manna from heaven which you are creating. Do it… remember, you need to brag or it won’t turn out right! Then preheat your oven to 350.

When the veggies have almost cooked, throw in the apples, walnuts, mushrooms, oranges, and pineapple, with all the juice from the can. Drain the can of water chestnuts and throw those in too. At this point, you will probably need more of the herbs and spice mixtures- I know I always do! And while you’re at it, just start adding more pats of butter like a crazy person with a death wish! Stir it all up well. Turn down the heat, put a lid on the pan, and keep stirring it occasionally. Take a taste and figure out if you need to add more herbs and spice… I know I would! While you’re at it, throw in some more butter.

Divide your bread cubes up into two large bowls. Prepare according to the package, but use your chicken or vegetable stock instead of water to moisten it up. Mix it well, and then slowly start adding in the big mess of ingredients you’ve got in the frying pan.

When you’ve gotten the entire contents divided into the two big bowls, start mixing it all up. Mix it until you think you’ll get carpal tunnel!

Take a few pats of butter and grease your baking pans, yelling loudly that you’re about to put this divine creation in the oven, and soon everyone’s going to be hearing the angels sing. Divide the well-mixed dressing into the baking pans, then put a few more pats of butter on top, cover them with the foil tightly, and pop ‘em into the oven.

Let them bake about fifteen or twenty minutes, then take the foil off, and let them bake another ten or fifteen minutes so that the top gets browned and crunchy. By this time, you’re going to be beating people out of the kitchen like a lunatic, because the whole house will smell amazing. Have them make you a drink and tell them they need to start cleaning up…cause the gorgeous aroma from the dressing you created just enriched their sad, humdrum lives!

Take the baking pans out of the oven and keep them covered until you serve them. I usually make this the night before, and keep them in the refrigerator until serving, because it allows the flavors and spices to marry. You can heat them up on Thanksgiving Day (or whatever day falls after you make this unearthly creation) and it’ll be even more divine.

Bon Appetite,  Happy Holidays...and remember, the recipe won't turn out right unless you brag!

#

  Get a  signed copy of my  memoir  Showgirl Confidential  here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

A link to a reprint of the original recipe for this dressing…and for an incredible turkey recipe, too is here: “Morton Thompson’s Turkey” by Richard Gehman:

http://www.whats-on.com/dining/magician-kitchen

JUST A CRAZY LITTLE PLACE...MEMORIES OF THE SUGAR SHACK

 Sugar Shack coupon courtesy of Chuck Starr

 When most people think of their teenage years, they remember things like football games or the Senior Prom. Not me. The summer of 1975 was a highlight in my Peak Experience-filled teens.  And nothing is sweeter in my memory than the nights I spent at The Sugar Shack in North Hollywood.  The Shack, as we called it, was a refuge for  “adventurous” teenagers- oh,  wait, I really meant to say Juvenile Delinquents With Very Little Parental Supervision. If you imagine combining the degeneracy of the Weimar Berlin with an episode of Romper Room featuring  Jayne County as the hostess, and  a soundtrack by Suzi Quatro, you’ll get an idea of what an average night at The Sugar Shack was like.

I was Sweet Sixteen and had just moved to LA, a city that was in the throes of a strange musical limbo. The Hollywood club scene was in that  “no man’s land” between the end of Glitter Rock and the beginning of Punk; but let me assure you, there was plenty going on. While the rest of the world was grooving to the boss sounds of the latest Disco hits, there was a crowd of Tinseltown hipsters-although we would’ve abhorred being called that- going to see Toni Basil or The Tubes at The Roxy, Queen or Iggy at The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, or the Cycle Sluts, a theatrical drag queen troupe/ heavy metal band who were in residence at The Whisky A Go-Go. Since many of us were too young to drink legally, we’d prime ourselves for these gigs by scarfing handfuls of Quaaludes- the original Rorer 714 article- which could be purchased in The Rainbow’s  parking lot for a mere buck a pop.

Back then, rock music wasn’t the only thing that was caught in a gray area. My crowd and I were streetwise and sophisticated enough to be experimenting with drugs and sex, but hideously below the legal Age Of Consent. Since it was The Swingin’ Seventies, our nascent sexuality was also one big fat gray area…and it’s not like anyone was keepings tabs, either!  Our adventurous spirit fit in perfectly with the prevalent freewheeling attitude of the time. Mixed with the handfuls of pills we took combined with the Olde English 800 tallboys we guzzled in back alleys, it made any sort of sexual classification totally irrelevant.

We were a crowd of groupies, teenage hustlers, bisexual school girls and fringy sluts out, as the New York Dolls said, “Lookin’ For A Kiss”…or more, if we could get it…and usually, we could. Our favorite hangs were late-night coffee shops where trannie hookers turned tricks in the Ladies Room; places like Arthur J’s on Santa Monica Boulevard or   the two haunts on Hollywood Boulevard: Danielle’s and The Gold Cup which was immortalized in Black Randy’s song “Trouble At The Cup”.  Mostly we hung out at these establishments after hitting Westwood to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the millionth time.  None of these places served liquor, so of course they didn’t card anyone. You could be totally at home in your fishnets, heavy make up and Sally Bowles’ fierce Divinely Decadent attitude. After all, who was gonna to hassle you about your appearance…a stoned drag queen? Rodney’s English Disco had closed and The Masque wasn’t open yet, so these were our haunts…until The Sugar Shack opened.

Located in the depths of LA’s San Fernando Valley on Magnolia and Whitsett, The Sugar Shack was a juice bar where you had to show ID to prove that you were under twenty one…unless of course you were Kim Fowley or Rodney Bingenheimer or a visiting rock star. The place was tiny and wood paneled, with a long bar down the right side as you walked in. There was an upstairs lounge area that had a working fireplace,  clanging pinball machines, and couches were everyone eventually wound up  writhing around   with someone they’d just met.

 Main attraction was the dance floor, which took up at least a third of the club. Racks of colorful lights whirled around overhead, along with a Disco ball, a siren that sounded frequently, and strobe lights.  The notorious Chuck E Starr was the DJ playing Shack faves like Roxy Music’s “Do The Strand”, The Sweet’s “AC/DC” or “Fox On The Run” and   “Planet Queen” by T. Rex. He also favored hits from LA’s “grown up” (read: 21 and over) gay clubs, like The Andrea True Connection’s  “More, More, More” and  “Party Line” and Hot Chocolate’s  “You Sexy Thing”.    Ziggy Stardust look-alike Rick Ferris (aka Rick Bowie) would   jump up and lead an off-handed, infinitely hot Hustle.  Everyone in the whole place was in love with him, whether they’d admit to it or not.  But he big crowd pleaser was anything from The Rocky Horror Show – the entire dance floor would be filled with kids doing  “The Time Warp” in Busby Berkeley precision, and  “Cherry Bomb” by local gals and Shack regulars, The Runaways.  David Bowie was in a class by himself– “Rebel Rebel” and “Golden Years” were heard multiple times a night and no one ever got tired of them- everyone went insane. My late bestie Randy Kaye, (Co-editor of my punk fanzine Lobotomy and later an A&R man for Slash Records) remembers:

“No matter what Bowie song Chuck played, we’d all scream and run to the dance floor!”

 The main thing I remember about the dance floor- aside from making an ass of myself on numerous occasions by literally falling off my silver glitter platforms in a Quaalude stupor- were the mirrored panels that surrounded it on three sides. They were covered in a thick band of kiss marks in every conceivable shade of lip-gloss because everybody would   dance facing the mirrors and   kiss their own reflections. How very Seventies; we might’ve been messed up, but we sure didn’t lack self-esteem!

 

The Runaways

 “The Sugar Shack was a magical place,” sighed Cherie Currie, former Runaways lead singer, who, along with her twin sister Marie were the belles of the ball.

“Everyone would make a circle around Cherie and she’d…like…do her stage moves,” Randy said.

 Jane Wiedlin, who in the days before The  Go-Go’s was a Shack regular, remembers:

“ Me and my friends were all afraid of Cherie!  The Sugar Shack was fun, but it was full of teenagers.  I wanted to meet rock stars, so I liked Rodney’s and The Rainbow more.”

“The Sugar Shack was a great place to sort of…get over Rodney’s, where everyone was fucking three guys a night! ” said my former roommate Ann MacLean, who was in 11^th grade at the time.

“ You’d get there early, get really wasted in the parking lot, then hang out with gay guys and make out with your girlfriends. I remember a lot of chicks wearing those chubby rabbit fur jackets, which I thought were so cool! Money wasn’t important… everyone was running around screaming “GIRRRRL!” and “MISS THING!” and we’d all cram into the girl’s restroom to make out with each other.”

“There were a lot of bisexual girls,” recalls Rodney Bingenheimer, wistfully and with great relish,

 “I brought Roger Meadows-Taylor from Queen there and he loved it! When I brought all of Blondie there, they couldn’t believe what was going on- a club only for teenagers? They thought it was really wild!”

 Drama always ran high at The Sugar Shack. When the beautiful blonde bartender Vicki Ronald became the singer for Kim Fowley’s “punk” project, Venus And The Razorblades, everybody speculated in hushed whispers, wondering if it would cause a rift between her and Cherie.  They not only looked identical, they were best friends.  Date-stealing was common. If you lost sight of your paramour for even a few minutes, it was a safe bet you’d find them entangled with someone else in a parked car on one of the dark residential streets or in the alleys surrounding the place.

“God, I remember getting there really early to drink in the car,” Randy Kaye recalled, “…and then waking up on some side street, not knowing how I got there!”

 My close friend and bon vivant, the late Dennis Crosby (grandson of Bing) recalled:

“Sex in cars… sex on the couches upstairs… sex in the girl’s bathroom…French designer bell-bottom jeans that laced up the front and the back…Tuinals and Southern Comfort…  stumbling outside to puke across the street then going back inside to dance!”

 Because most of us were underage, the good stuff usually happened outside or after hours. The movie Foxes, which featured Cherie Currie, came close to what our secret teenage lives were like back then, but it didn’t quite cut it- outrageous as the film was for the time, it still whitewashed our real life experiences. We were rock n’ rollers adrift in suburbia, dealing with the adult-like harsh realities-and hardcore substance abuse as escapism-when most of us weren’t even old enough to drive! And as for driving: getting to the Shack was a nightmare that involved sneaking out of the house, and either hitch-hiking (which we all did then) or careening across Coldwater Canyon in a car with seven other people who weren’t old enough to drive yet either. 

Eventually, most of us stopped going to The Sugar Shack in favor of  a  gay club in Hollywood called Gino’s II…and then punk rock happened, dividing our crowd into two very distinct factions. Some of us saw it as the Second Coming;  the others preferred dance music, puka shells and feathered hair.

The Sugar Shack’s been closed for decades, but I still can feel the ecstatic sweat of the dance floor when Chuck Starr hit the siren and threw on “Suffragette City”; the enthusiastic and utterly wasted casual sex with someone whose name you didn’t know… and hoping all week long that you’d see them again the next Wednesday night. I remember my red heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses, kept on after dark and miraculously never lost.  I always wore my Carmen Miranda 1940’s style Kork- Eaze wedge platforms and “Drive-In” pants:  Chemin De Fer bell bottom jeans that  zippered all the way  from the front waistband to the back through your crotch so  they’d fall off you in two pieces. It was  such a rush to get out of the house on a warm, jasmine scented summer night…and watching Rick Bowie strutting  around in the strobes  on the dance floor like he owned the place.

I remember a lot about those Sugar Shack nights, and what it was like being a teenager in Los Angeles during the Seventies. To my own amazement, as these memories come flooding back to me in minute detail, I put on “The Timewarp”…and evidently  I didn’t kill too many brain cells  back in the day,  because my body remembered every move as though it  had been imprinted into my DNA.  Dancing in my living room , I take Just A  To The Left and  then  A Step To The Right  with  the sassy  flair I used to show off on the Sugar Shack’s dance floor.

 I’d gaze into the mirror looking myself directly into the eyes, slowly lower my lids, pucker up my Mary Quant Black Cherry glossed lips and   kiss my own reflection, just as the final chords of the song ran out.

#

The   story you've just read is from my forthcoming memoir Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere , which will be published by Punk Hostage Press in early 2015.

 Saturday, September 27  I will be reading from  my book Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage, Backstage, And On The Road  with the women of Punk Hostage Press at Beyond Baroque,  681 Venice  Blvd, LA, 90291  at 7:00pm. Info is here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/345505825625345/

  Get a signed copy of Showgirl Confidential here:  http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm