Season 2 · Episode 5
Boy Bar beauty · Mugler supermodel · door legend
Released 5 Sep 2022 · 1:17:43
Every name, club, book, song, night and look from the interview - 151 references and 375 mentions in this episode. James's old neighbour from Avenue B - and the night he threw up on her shoe at Numbers. Connie remembers the city lit up like a Versace dress from the D train, Madonna in Jellybean's booth at the Funhouse, and the Mr. Blackwell dress that made David Glamamore her friend. Matthew Kasten pushes her onto the Boy Bar stage; International Chrysis tells her to come and talk when she's ready, and hands her April Ashley's book. Then Tracey Africa's story, Steven Meisel spotting her at the Patricia Field ball, Mr. Pearl's red bugle-bead cowgirl look for Mugler - first meant for Naomi - and how she became New York's toughest door, from Jojo's VIP room at the Limelight to Le Bain. Wow!
A bright orange high-neck top, long dark hair, long silvery nails
At home with Moroccan-style glass lanterns and full bookshelves
Long legs and arms
At 17 at Boy Bar: all arms and legs, about ten feet tall, as James remembers
Where Connie found her tribe - first as a 17-year-old 'fawn', then as a Boy Bar beauty on its stage
Heard as “Boibar / Boy Bar / Boy bar / Boybar”
Drag queen and designer 'Mr. David': they side-eyed each other at the Antique Boutique until a Mr. Blackwell dress made them friends; he took Connie to Boy Bar and made every outfit on the Boy Bar floor. He is writing Connie's biography, she says
FashionMr. David originals
Heard as “David / Glamour Moore / Glamourmore / Glenmur Moore”
The city across the bridge that always seemed like a secret world to a kid from Brooklyn
Matthew Kasten, the hairdresser behind the Boy Bar shows: after their first talk he shouted from the closing train doors that Connie would be in them - then pushed her on stage
FashionBoy Bar hair
Heard as “Kasden / Kazen / Matthew”
The guest: Boy Bar beauty, performer, artist, fashion illustrator, Mugler supermodel, trans rights activist and New York's toughest door. First performed as Gold, then Exeet Fleming. Links to her Night Fever episode
FashionMugler supermodel
Heard as “Connie / Exec Fleming / Exeet / Gold Fleming”
Shannon won the first, Perfidia the second, Zaldy the third; Connie never won it - 'everybody's Miss Boy Bar', says James
Heard as “Miss Boibar / Miss Boy Bar / Miss Boy bar / Miss Boybar”
Connie's early mentor: a Boy Bar judge whose rehearsal was 'a complete lesson'; she told Connie to come and talk when she was ready, gave her April Ashley's book and prepared her for the world as a trans woman
Heard as “Crisis / International Crisis / crisis”
The Black trans model on the Clairol box in the 70s; as Connie tells it she was outed twice and went to Paris, where she was a fit model for Givenchy. Connie interviewed her for a Montreal gallery show
Heard as “Tracy / Tracy Africa”
Roommate and nightlife figure: Connie's first door in 1990 was with him, she says
Heard as “Eric / Eric Conrad”
At 17 at Boy Bar: all arms and legs, about ten feet tall, as James remembers
FashionLong legs and arms
Heard as “Fawn / baby gazelle / fawn”
Where Tracey Africa started again - and where Connie walked for Mugler
Where Connie grew up - the city was right within reach, and so far away
James's roommate who drove them to Bloomingdale's the day they saw Garbo
Heard as “Cece”
Matthew's Thursday shows: shared wigs and outfits, Mr. David sewing in the basement, Connie painting backdrops; the rules - no wonky shoes, no wonky hair
FashionBoy Bar code: no wonky shoes, no wonky hair
Heard as “rehearsal / shows here”
The first Miss Boy Bar; with Matthew a master hairdresser who also did make-up for the shows
FashionBoy Bar hair and make-up
Heard as “Shannon”
Came to Boy Bar two or three years in, Connie thinks
Heard as “Guy / Miss Guy”
James remembers them spotting her at the Bloomingdale's perfume counter; Connie remembers only the smell of the perfume
Heard as “Garbler / Garbo”
Co-host; once fell asleep while Eric Conrad told him a story - Eric came to the door to check he was okay
Heard as “Fenton”
One of the clubs James and Connie ran between - later the space of Be Yourself
Heard as “Area smelling / been to area / from area / old area space”
The big hit around the time Madonna was in the Funhouse booth, as Connie and James recall
Heard as “Holiday”
The third Miss Boy Bar, Connie says - shaped by Perfidia. Links to his Night Fever episode
Heard as “Saldi / Salty / Zaldi”
Connie was working at her store when her modelling took off
Heard as “Pat Fields / Patricia Field”
Mugler's red bugle-beaded cowgirl look, made by Mr. Pearl, that Connie stomped down the runway - one of the looks of the 1990s, says James
FashionMugler red beaded cowgirl
Heard as “cowboy look / cowgirl / red bugle / red cowboy outfit”
Connie's former roommate on Avenue B; she helped bead the red bugle-bead cowgirl look
FashionBugle-bead beading
Heard as “Mr. Pearl / Pearl”
After the clubs, James ate chicken salad under its waterfall - he and Connie sat there for hours
Host; reads from his diaries about their nights at Area, Limelight and Robots - and confesses he once threw up on Connie's shoe at Numbers
Heard as “James / Jason James”
Co-host; remembers loving Boy Bar when it had just opened
Heard as “Barbado / Randy”
Likewise; Connie did fashion shows there and her first VIP-room door for Jojo
Heard as “Limelight / limelight”
Where James and Connie were neighbours - waving from their windows - and where she lived with Mr. Pearl
His label on a floral 50s party dress at the Antique Boutique made Connie and David answer in unison - and become friends
FashionFloral fifties party dress
Had his salon upstairs before Boy Bar; legend has it, Connie says, Jane Fonda got her Klute cut there and Shampoo's hairdresser was based on him
FashionThe Klute haircut
Boy Bar beauty; she introduced Connie to Tracey Africa
Heard as “DeAndre / Princess Deandra”
Moved to New York from LA; won the second Miss Boy Bar, found Zaldy and lived across the hall from James on Thompson Street
Heard as “Perfidia / Prophetia / Prophidia”
With Kevin McHugh found Connie a room; later had her do the door for his VIP room at a Limelight party
Heard as “Jojo”
The red cowgirl look was first hers, Connie says, but she couldn't make the fittings
Heard as “Naomi”
'Sticky Vicki', another of the Avenue B roommates
Heard as “Sticky Vicki / Vicki / Vicki Bartlett”
Connie first shot with him in New York, then in the New Mexico desert, where her Moschino cowboy hat won her the red cowgirl look
Heard as “Manfred / Mogla / Muglaire”
Connie was doing Danny Tenaglia's door at Be Yourself; after 9/11 freelance pay went from 30 to 90 days, she says
Heard as “9-11”
Connie on the people lost; Fenton on the research it drove
Heard as “AIDS / eighths. crisis”
In the Funhouse DJ booth, as Connie remembers - everybody had thought she was Black until they saw the blonde hair
Jane Fonda's haircut for it came from Paul McGregor's salon, the legend goes
Heard as “clute”
Where Perfidia came from - and where the APLA show was
Heard as “LA”
Another roommate of Connie's
Heard as “Chicklet / Chiclet”
Her boyfriend lived upstairs on Thompson Street; Connie walked in her ball for Mugler
Heard as “Suzanne”
Mark Benecke's door
Heard as “Junior 54 / Studio 54”
A judge at the Patricia Field ball; months later he had Jimmy Paul find Connie for an Alaïa shoot
Heard as “Stephen / Stephen Meisel”
The ball where Steven Meisel, a judge, first saw Connie
Heard as “Field's ball / Patricia Field ball”
Connie loves her; James wants to put them together - she refuses to be stealth
Heard as “T.S. Madison / TS Madison”
Among the seven or eight Mugler shows Connie did: a ball, Susanne's second one
Heard as “Suzanne Ball / light ball”
James wore her perfume every night for two years - people hated it
FashionPaloma Picasso perfume
Heard as “Paloma”
James jokes he'd be the wrecking ball in any room; Connie says a lot changed in nightlife after him
Heard as “Michael Alec / Michael Eilig”
The story goes that Connie let nobody into her party - folklore, Connie says, it wasn't her
Heard as “Donatella”
The task force and the quality-of-life campaign: the policing of the clubs after Alig, as James and Connie remember
Heard as “quality of life / task force”
Fenton and James on his task force and quality-of-life push against the clubs
Heard as “Giuliani”
Likewise
Heard as “Blondie / blondie”
After-hours club where James threw up on Connie's shoe
Heard as “numbers”
James: guests from places like Michigan always knew they had to get to New York to find their tribe
From the D train over the bridge the city was lit up 'like a Versace dress'
From the D train the city was lit up 'like a Versace dress', Connie says
FashionVersace dress
Spinning at the Funhouse when Connie, about 17, heard Madonna was in the booth with him
Heard as “jelly bean”
Connie's first club, at about 17 - like a Paradise Garage but heavy Brooklyn Italian, with Jellybean spinning
Heard as “fun house”
Likewise
The Broadway shop where Connie got a job - and met David
Heard as “antique boutique”
Legend has it, Connie says, she got her Klute haircut at Paul McGregor's salon above Boy Bar
FashionThe Klute shag
Its lead was based on Paul McGregor, Connie says
Heard as “shampoo is based”
David is writing it, Connie says
Heard as “biography”
The storyline behind her first name, Gold: a plain girl took off her glasses - 'Silver, you're beautiful' - and silver was too white
Heard as “all my children”
Boy Bar beauty, as James lists them
Boy Bar beauty
James lived across the hall from Perfidia and Chrysis - a stairwell of bugle beads, feathers and sequins day and night
The stairwell between Perfidia, Chrysis and Susanne's boyfriend, as James remembers it
FashionBugle beads, feathers, sequins
Heard as “bugle beads and feathers”
Connie first took International Chrysis for a glamorous downtown woman like Chi Chi Valenti (heard as 'Petichi Balenti')
Heard as “Petichi Balenti”
Likewise - another woman of the scene Connie thought Chrysis might be
James recalls Popism describing a young queen who stopped the town - Chrysis
James recalls it telling of a 15-year-old queen everyone turned to look at - Chrysis
Heard as “Popism”
The trans model whose book Chrysis gave Connie - proof, Chrysis said, that she too could model in Paris or uptown
The book Chrysis gave Connie
Heard as “April Ashley's book”
Tracey Africa's house
Connie says two of the women Chrysis named were his muses
Heard as “Salvador Dali”
Where the man who outed Tracey Africa knew her from, as Connie tells it
Tracey Africa was in one of its ads, Connie says - or Ultra Sheen's
Heard as “Fashion fair”
James asks if he gave Connie her first job as a model
Connie did fashion shows for La Copia (as heard) before her first big shoot
Heard as “La Copia”
Hairstylist Meisel sent to find 'that girl' from the Field ball
Meisel's shoot of his clothes was Connie's first big shoot, she says - after he'd hated pictures of boys in them
Heard as “Azanina Liaba”
Where Connie walked in fashion shows
Mr. Pearl made him gorgeous things from bolts of fabric, Connie remembers
Heard as “Lee Bowery”
Connie's Moschino cowboy hat from Japan won her the red cowgirl look
FashionMoschino cowboy hat
Heard as “Mosquino”
Where Connie's Moschino cowboy hat came from, as heard
Heard as “in Japan”
Before Connie there was Teri Toye, she says - trans models worked until someone outed them
Heard as “Terry Toy”
By his administration, Connie says, laws were changing for gay and trans people
Heard as “Obama administration”
A sign of change under Obama, Connie says
Heard as “don't ask, don't tell”
Connie: society wants trans women on a stage or on a corner - not checking groceries at Kroger (heard as 'Croakers')
Heard as “Croakers”
Its pictures resurfaced on Tumblr
Heard as “Muguer years”
Mugler's show in LA that inspired George Michael's Too Funky, Connie says
Heard as “APLA”
A Garbo sighting was like seeing her, says James
Heard as “Jackie O”
James calls Connie the sternest door since him at Studio 54
Heard as “Mark Bennicky”
Folklore, Connie says: she never kept everyone out of Donatella's party
Heard as “party for Donatella”
James places the hard times for nightlife after 'the whole Angel and Peter Gatien stuff'
Heard as “Peter Gation”
Likewise
Heard as “Angel”
Fenton: Giuliani made the city into the town he grew up in
Connie was doing his door at Be Yourself when 9/11 happened
Heard as “Danny Teneglia”
Danny Tenaglia's Be Yourself ran here, in the old Area space; it reopened after 9/11 with a benefit for the local firehouse
Heard as “old area space”
Danny Tenaglia's party; Connie was on the door
Be Yourself closed for a while after 9/11 - it was too close to Canal Street
Part of the line of New York nightlife Connie traces from the speakeasies
Heard as “electric circus”
The historic club James names
Where Connie works now, at The Standard
The artist community isn't gathered there anymore, Connie says
Heard as “village”
James mentions a film she made about her own journey
At the forefront of AIDS research in the 80s, Fenton says - science that later helped with COVID
Heard as “Fauci”
Connie sends her love at the end
Heard as “Rue”
At home with Moroccan-style glass lanterns and full bookshelves
FashionA bright orange high-neck top, long dark hair, long silvery nails
His home library
FashionA black satin pussy-bow blouse, chunky black glasses with long beaded chains
A room with patterned curtains and bookshelves
FashionA white T-shirt with thin orange stripes, red-rimmed glasses
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