Chapter 2 written 7-6-22
Lorraine Theater, San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 1977
This was the week Elvis Presley died, August 16, so sad.
I went to Puerto Rico after three years as a minister / community organizer in Williamsburg, B’klyn. I worked day & night – all day at the organizing & all evening my apt was open for religious education – I advertised to all but only people from age 7 to 25 gathered.
It wasn’t boring, I took them on long walks to the cemetery where we prayed the Rosary for Souls, bought them ice cream on the way back, treated them to chicken dinners at various times, took some of the girls by train to Westchester for sightseeing & to Radio City Music Hall. I spent my small earnings on the kids, it was worth it. I loved them as if they were my own. But after three years of working 12 hours a day I was so burned out at 30 I looked 50. My daughter was around eight then & said, “Mom, if you don’t quit, you’ll die.” To save my life I locked my doors after work & took off to far-away areas for basketball, which I’ve always loved, then quit the work & went back to dancing – the Puerto Rico job being the first..
While here I met stars & have pictures with them – Johnny Mathis & Shirley Bassey. I met a distinguished guy who’s name fails me – he took me to their concerts & introduced us back stage. Johnny M I had met before, right within the building where we both had offices, the Sunset-VineTower. My office was obtained by the phony con man, “Putz NutOn” {my name for him, see Part 3} who called himself “Prince Nahton” from India, the son of a Maharajah. He got the offices for free {big fancy ones, too} by conning the Vice President of the bank, a young, honey blonde hair sweetheart. He looked to be 25.
Aside:
{ NutOn could sing, tap dance, do hypnosis tricks, put a pin through his hand & make an ‘instant repair’ – he did shows on this – had newspaper articles – he played classical & boogie woogie on the piano, had more stories than the Brothers Grimm, which he professed to each new person he met, & repeated to ones he already knew again & again. After a year I had heard them all & he stopped repeating {to me}. He could do all this but HAD NO JOB & needed a roof over his head & food. I believe he LIVED at the offices he got for free – because I chatted with him there by phone at all hours of the night – even 3AM. And so, when he got me into his clutches he no longer slept at the office but with me. What a deal he got. He did I must say, con the landlord into giving me this nice apt, one bedroom with a shared porch, for $105. a month. Even in 1969 this was cheap. He USED his profession to survive, which was being a CON MAN.
Why did I give him a chance, when to me he was repulsive? He gave the impression he knew lots about mind-over-matter, metaphysics & hypnosis, using himself as my first guinea pig. I wanted to learn & while living in this place on a shoestring, quit work, {lived off meager savings} & tried all the fanatic programs this guy preached. He was astonished when I actually went four nights & days without food or coffee – sleeping only 1.5 hours a night, & being able to function. He kept preaching about it & I did it, through self hypnosis. But he actually got scared of me at this point, because I also reached the ‘still small Voice’ within, & my Voice guided me. He was no longer in control, he was frightened & awed, & knew the Voice was wiser than he & would take over. Which ‘it’ did – it was the Voice of God within me. And his craziness actually helped to get me there – as I practiced self hypnosis & extreme austerities it was like Jesus going to the mountain or Buddha into the jungle – or all the anchorites, hermits who stayed alone & ate little & saw no one – just prayed. {After he snagged me he stayed away late into the nights, meeting new people & getting them to the office for con job work. This included women – I saw my best lady friend dancer, Yolanda, enter the office just when I was leaving at the time he said I had to – the days were mine there, after 5 they were his – & he’d come ‘home’ after 12AM. So by his absenting himself, me practicing these disciplines, I was ALONE.} I had also become a FRUITARIAN, which he preached, for over a year, eating only raw fruits, nuts – not even greens – & shriveled down to 127 lbs on a 5’7” frame. He could do none of these things he preached, but I could. He had a great big belly. He never did anything but talk, talk, talk, his stock in trade, & with an English accent. One of the reasons I went ‘on the road’ stripping instead of staying a go-go dancer, which paid well, was because I was afraid of him after I escaped– he would find me & do me harm, but on the road he couldn’t reach me. And so, thanks to this circumstance, my life as the ‘Stripper for God’ was enabled.}
Back to Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis had a legit office at the building Putz & I inhabited. I saw him in the parking lot underground & chatted with him, wanting to be friends. But since he was gay, he brushed me off. When I met him in Puerto Rico he didn’t know I was the same person he’d met years ago.
I met a beautiful young male who was a Cuban doctor’s son. He adored me, I have pictures with him – the best looking guy I met while there, but for some strange reason, I did not have sex with him. I had sex with two other guys who were less than he. Something about him pushed me away. He told me an anecdote about how he tried to make it with a girl in his car, & parked in an out of the way place in the jungle. Before he knew it, six guys showed up looking in his windows masturbating. He took off & went to another location, same guys showed up doing the same thing, & he tried again & again & they or someone like them always showed up, thwarted his chance to nail the girl.
During my show there was a whole row of these guys in the front row masturbating while I danced. They were smiling & happy, not embarrassed at all. Must be a cultural habit. But I must say that when I was in the 42nd St. area, in the ‘back room’ theater the Mafia owned, several New Yorkers were also masturbating in the front row. Not as many, however.
During this time I wore contact lenses. Oh, the bane of it. They really hurt – it was before soft contact lenses were invented. My eyesight, for many years, was abysmal & without lenses everything past say ten feet, was blurry. And later it got worse. It started when I was 10, just went down to 20/30, {from loss of my Dad’s love} but by the time I was sixty it was like 20/350.
One day I made the sad mistake of leaving my contact lenses on while I sat on the beach. A few hours later my eye were as puffy as balloons, I had never seen anything like it – I was embarrassed to go on stage {but no one seemed to notice!} I went to the manager & asked him to give me a doctor. The doctor said to only put the lenses in while I was doing the show, then take them out, etc., & my eyes became normal after a while. I believe the sun, the salt air with the lenses, caused the eye irritation, the lenses themselves being irritants.
The San Juan Press: I actually took a cab to the San Juan Press without calling them, & brought along my bikini, suggested they write me up. I put on the bikini & they took fabulous shots. They promised to send me copies to the USA but they did not. This sort of thing happened a lot – they promise to send you the media but they don’t, & that included what Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger did on me {but I got a copy of the show through the help of Our Holy Lady, while saying her rosary in the TV office – explained elsewhere}.
But I never gave up. I prayed & prayed. One day on the subway of NYC there was the editor & his associates, right there in a car. I asked him why they had never sent the copy. He was ashamed, & thereafter, thank Heavens, sent me a copy. It was great. Don’t ever give up on a thing you want, if it’s legit. Keep praying, trusting, believing in God & Her Power will give you it.
One funny thing. I always carried pictures with me to give out to people like cab drivers, restaurant servers & just folks I met. Going by a place with iron bars all around a large yard each day to work from my apt – Several men came running to the bars. I gave them pictures. Later someone told me they were ‘bad men.’ What do you mean bad? I said. They were criminals, it was some sort of holding pen. Maybe I helped cheer them up, even if some didn’t deserve it.
Oh yes I can’t finish this article without the following. At the Lorraine Theater they had a not too small built up dressing room right in the lobby. The man who was the manager of the apt. building was the sweetest guy. He came to see me dance, & I asked if he could sit in my dressing room. Reluctantly, they said OK.
After a few minutes, this sweet very white man pulled out a dick that was the biggest I’d ever seen in my life – It was huge as an elephant, over a foot long & very thick. I was startled & shocked.
But within seconds the workers there opened the door & angrily threw him out. That made me understand that they had some sort of access to seeing what went on in the dressing room. Imagine that. Watching the dancer’s every move in her private space, watching her dress & undress.
I had a spiritual disappointment while there. Walking down the street, in front of a Church, saw a sign that said ‘Theosophy discussion meeting now.’ Eagerly I went inside. There were about 10 people, male & female, discussing God. I asked if I could join. A man there seemed pleased, but an old hag looking 90 years old said I could not join them & gave some convoluted bullshyt reason why. The reason why is you were jealous how I looked, you bitch. Your envy was stronger than your charity. {End Chapter 2}
