Season 6 · Episode 7
Palladium door legend · artist · 80s It girl
Released 30 Sep 2026 · 1:05:05 as a podcast
Every name, club, book, song, night and look from the interview - 128 references and 324 mentions in this episode. James opens with his diary from the weeks before the Palladium opened, then Sally takes us to the door on opening night, when the crowd rolled under the gates. She tells of the Sally look - Napoleon hats, long wigs and sparkly tights - an art scholarship at SVA with Keith and Kenny, Edit deAk taking her to her first club, dancing on Pizza a Go Go's rickety balcony with Dean Johnson, her lip-sync Jesus Christ Superstar at Danceteria, the club crowd on Oprah, saying no to Letterman, and grinding old masters' pigments by hand. Wow!
Short dark hair, tortoiseshell glasses, a black turtleneck and small gold earrings
Her lamplit room: a framed black-and-white church photograph, books (Doubt, Katachi, Wagashi), a glass terrarium of shells and bones, a brass cylinder lamp - and her little dog
Napoleon hat, long wig, sparkly tights, crop jacket, platforms
Big Napoleon hats, long wigs, sparkly tights, little crop jackets and platforms - Sally later realised she looked like a Japanese anime character
The guest: artist, Palladium door legend, columnist and one of downtown's 80s It girls. Links to her Night Fever episode
FashionThe Sally Randall look (see Mood)
Heard as “Sally / Sally Rack / Sally Randall”
Sally worked the door from opening night - the riot outside, the gates, the task force
Heard as “Palladium / palladium”
Sally was born there, came back at 16 and never left - New York sucks you back into its vortex
Heard as “New York / New York City”
Had James, Sally and friends on her show in Chicago - which, Sally says, ended up on The Worst of Oprah
Heard as “Open. / Oprah”
Host; opens by reading his diary entries from the weeks around the Palladium opening
Heard as “James / james”
Crowds rolled under the gates; the task force made the door let everyone in. James got in unscathed; Sally guided a lost homeless woman back out
Heard as “opening night / opening night of Palladium / opening of the Palladium / the opening happens”
At Danceteria the night James's diary describes, at the Palladium opening and (Sally thinks) in her Jesus Christ Superstar; James believes he has the only tape of their Oprah show
Heard as “Michael Muskin / Michael Mustow / Musto”
East Village label that became closely tied to Sally's look; James remembers outfits held back for her
FashionOutfits saved for Sally
Heard as “La Copia / Lecopia / Lecopoe”
Sally turned down his show after the Palladium - only three others ever had, Cher among them, she was told
Heard as “Letterman”
Co-host
Heard as “Barbado / Randy”
East Village designers who were the first to give Sally pieces to wear
FashionGave Sally her first pieces
Heard as “Alejandro / Alejandro and Pedro / Pedro and Alejandro”
Worked the Palladium door with Sally and became one of her closest friends; played Pontius Pilate in her Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Harry / Howie / Howie Montaugh / Maury Murontoch”
Where Sally went to school; the cutest town, James says - and now Marc Jacobs lives there
Heard as “Ryan / Rye”
Danced with Sally on Pizza a Go Go's rickety balcony; played Herod in her Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Big Johnson / Dean Johnson”
One of old New York's first Dutch families - Sally's ancestors
Heard as “Skirmahorns / Skirmer Horns / Skirmerhorn / skirmishorns”
Co-host
Heard as “Fenton / Fincent”
Art at the Palladium; Sally's classmate at the School of Visual Arts
Heard as “Kenny / Kenny Starf”
Art at the Palladium; at SVA when Sally was, she remembers
Heard as “Keith / Keith Harring”
Sally's full scholarship; Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring were there too
Heard as “SVA / School of Visual Arts”
Organised the Oprah appearance; her answer about reading their press made the audience boo
Heard as “Elizabeth / Elizabeth Saltzman”
Sally knew him before he ever had a camera; they threw St. Patrick's Day parties together
Heard as “Patrick / Patrick McMullen”
Did Letterman before Sally was asked; on Night Fever, James says, she loved every second of being an It girl
Heard as “Diane”
James helped him get ready for his show at Danceteria, blowing up balloons
Heard as “Andy Anderson”
Andy Anderson's show, and Sally's lip-sync Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Danseteria / Dansetyri / Janseteria”
A judge at Andy Anderson's Danceteria show, and on the Oprah show with James and Sally
Heard as “Benjamin Lew / Benjamin Liu / Benjamin Lou”
Made the Palladium open its gates and let everyone in on opening night, as Sally tells it
Heard as “task force”
Talked about the Sally look with James on another episode; did the door too
Heard as “Lincoln”
Sally was a Mudd Club girl and did events there
Heard as “Mud Club / mud club / mud girl”
Art critic and Sally's art-criticism teacher at SVA; Sally became her assistant and Edit took her to her first club
Heard as “Edit / Edit Day Across”
Sally's first club job; she and Dean Johnson danced on a balcony held up by two thin iron rods
Heard as “Pizza / Pizza Ago Go / pizza go-go”
James, Sally and friends taped Oprah in Chicago; the audience booed when Elizabeth said they read their press, and it ended up on The Worst of Oprah, Sally says
Heard as “Oprah show / did Oprah / on Oprah”
On the Oprah show; played God from a giant rocking chair in Sally's Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Anita / Anita Sargo / Anita Sarko”
On the Oprah show, and an apostle in Sally's Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Beauregard”
Ran a full page on Sally's Superstar - which brought the lawyers' letter; and where the It crowd looked for their mentions
Heard as “Daily News / daily news”
Filmed everybody - except Sally, who says he never even said hello; she's only in one clip, on Avenue A
Heard as “Nelson”
Showed Sally's paintings at his Los Angeles gallery
Heard as “Hatrick / Patrick Fox / Patrick, sure”
Sally saw an Artnet piece about new work that looked like a giant Cornell, by someone who'd never heard of him
Heard as “Joseph Cornell / Joseph Poneau”
At the Palladium opening; James lent him a jacket that never came back
Heard as “Michael Schmidt / Michael Schmitch”
Big Napoleon hats, long wigs, sparkly tights, little crop jackets and platforms - Sally later realised she looked like a Japanese anime character
FashionNapoleon hat, long wig, sparkly tights, crop jacket, platforms
Heard as “Napoleon hats / big hats”
Sally's first apartment, at 16
Sally never planned to be a fifteen-minutes kind of person
Heard as “Andy Warhol / warhold”
Where the Berlin after-hours club was, as Sally remembers
Heard as “Chase Bank building / Houston and Bu”
The video shoot that was Sally's first time inside a club
Heard as “Too Many Creeps / too many creeps”
Ran Pizza a Go Go and hired Sally for one-off jobs, as she remembers it
Heard as “Dito Bruno / Vita”
The show the club crowd went on - still local in the Midwest then, James remembers
Heard as “Oprah show / Worst of Open”
A cowboy hat with dirty blonde hair - 'cowpunk'
FashionCowboy hat, dirty blonde hair
Heard as “cow punch / cowboy hat”
Sally's lip-sync drag opera: Haoui as Pilate, Dean Johnson as Herod, Joey Arias as the executioner, Anita Sarko as God - and James in the audience handing out daisies
Heard as “Jesus Christ Superstar / lip sync drag queen opera”
Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera, lip-synced by Sally's downtown cast
Heard as “Haysana / Hosanna”
Had a much darker It-girl experience, as James recalls from her episode
His lawyers sent Sally a cease and desist letter after her lip-sync Jesus Christ Superstar, she says
Heard as “Andrew Lloyd Weber”
Sally had a nightlife column there; she suggested James write a sample column to take it over - his first try at writing
Fenton and Randy's band - Sally pictures them playing; she'd like a book called The Pop Tarts Grow Up
Heard as “Pop Tarts”
Told Sally at a Saturday Night Live after-party that Sally had encouraged her to sing
Heard as “Keir”
Sally Randall of Randall's Island, as the papers had it
Heard as “Randall Island”
A sequinned rainbow graffiti jacket - shrunk to handkerchief size for Seth Green in Party Monster, then lent to Michael Schmidt and never returned
FashionRainbow sequin graffiti jacket
Heard as “graffiti jacket / sequin rainbow”
Played James in Party Monster - James's jacket was altered to fit him
Fenton and Randy's company
James blew up balloons; Linda, Musto and Benjamin Liu judged; everyone ended singing We Are the World
Heard as “his show at Dans”
James and Sally jumped on stage and sang it at Danceteria
Heard as “we are the world”
Until the Palladium, James says, Area was the club - all about bringing art back into nightlife
Ran a piece before the Palladium opened saying no one would be able to get in, as James's diary has it
Heard as “Vogue”
At the Palladium opening, in James's diary
Heard as “Clancy”
At the Palladium opening, in James's diary
James wore her gown to the Palladium opening
FashionJames's Norma Kamali gown (see Mood)
All the Pyramid people were at the Palladium opening
Heard as “pyramid people”
James's opening-night look: a Norma Kamali gown and high heels
FashionNorma Kamali gown, high heels
Heard as “Norma Kamali gown”
With Ian Schrager, set out to make the Palladium the club of the 80s - and to make it art
Steve Rubell's partner in the Palladium
Heard as “Ian Schraeger”
Art at the Palladium
Heard as “Basquiat”
Part of the Palladium's art-and-design line-up, as James remembers it
Heard as “Andre Putnam”
Pedro and Alejandro's shop was around 7th and the Bowery, James thinks
The family moved there for a healthier life - the best part of her childhood, Sally says
Where her aunt and uncle had moved to do business; its turmoil hit the family's money, she says
One of the art schools that offered Sally a full scholarship
Heard as “RISD”
Offered Sally a scholarship
The first club Sally ever went to at club hours, in the Chase Bank building on Houston and Broadway, she remembers
Heard as “Berlin”
Edit deAk brought Sally to be in the Bush Tetras video - her first time in a club
Heard as “video for too many creeps”
When the Club Kids did his show, James says, he refused to speak to them afterwards
James says Donahue refused to speak to them afterwards - a first in 26 years
Heard as “club kids did Phil Donahue”
James handed out daisies during Hosanna at the Superstar show
FashionDaisies
Heard as “daisies”
A headpiece that made him about seven feet tall
FashionTowering headpiece
Heard as “headpiece”
The executioner in Sally's Jesus Christ Superstar
Heard as “Joe Arias”
A giant rocking chair built for her, to play God
FashionGiant rocking chair
Heard as “rocking chair”
Where Nelson Sullivan caught Sally on film
Where Nelson Sullivan filmed Sally getting on a biker boyfriend's motorbike
Heard as “English biker boys”
James wonders if the Superstar photos ran there
An old friend of Sally's from the Warhol years
Deee-Lite played it; Sally went to the after-party
At the Manursing Island Club, two weeks after the taping
Heard as “50th high school reunion”
Old New York royalty - Sally's family were Schermerhorns too
Heard as “Carolyn Skirmerhorn”
Patrick Fox's gallery showed Sally's paintings there
Described how pigments were made - Sally's guide when she reground historical pigments
Heard as “Pliny”
Sally kept throwing them with Patrick into 1987
Heard as “St. Patrick's Day party”
Ran the article Sally cites about art referencing work it doesn't know
Heard as “Art Net”
Mentioned when the talk turns to ageism
What Sally wears now - you wouldn't catch her dead in those 80s colours
FashionSally in Yamamoto today
Heard as “Yamamoto”
Sally's Gaultier pieces are the clothes that survived
FashionSally's surviving Gaultier
Heard as “Gautier”
Fenton and Randy's film - James's jacket was shrunk to fit Seth Green
Heard as “Party Monster”
James thought of giving his jacket to its punk exhibition
Heard as “Metropolitan Museum”
The Met's punk exhibition James thought his jacket belonged in
Heard as “punk exhibit”
Where Sally remembers seeing Downtown Dukes and Divas
Heard as “limelight”
Where Sally remembers seeing the Pop Tarts, at the Limelight
Heard as “downtown Dukes”
Her lamplit room: a framed black-and-white church photograph, books (Doubt, Katachi, Wagashi), a glass terrarium of shells and bones, a brass cylinder lamp - and her little dog
FashionShort dark hair, tortoiseshell glasses, a black turtleneck and small gold earrings
His home library of packed bookshelves, with a toy robot and a Buster Crabbe poster
FashionBlue-grey tortoiseshell glasses, a sheer black top over a black turtleneck and a chunky blue-grey chain necklace
His room with 70s sunflower wallpaper, striped velvet curtains and bookshelves
FashionA pale blue zip hoodie with white trim over a navy striped T-shirt, multicoloured glasses
Pale green curtains, an air purifier and framed posters
FashionA black cap, black glasses and a black track jacket with white stripes over a striped polo
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