Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and
Speaker 2: Jerry's here too. Jerry's being quiet and this is Stuff
Speaker 2: you should Know, the hair metal Ish edition.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we've done a lot of New
Speaker 1: York centric episodes over the years, and I feel like
Speaker 1: we haven't given La their due, a city that I
Speaker 1: know you love dearly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one other city in the world New York.
Speaker 1: In La No, I just La, and especially this episode,
Speaker 1: this Sunset Boulevard. The street there aren't many, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a handful of iconic streets in the world,
Speaker 1: and Sunset Boulevard is one of them because it's just
Speaker 1: been historically packed with I mean, it's not just like
Speaker 1: film stuff. It's music stuff, it's literary stuff, it's comedy stuff,
Speaker 1: all sorts of like iconic cultural staples on Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Right, And it was obviously very well known inside of
Speaker 2: LA for years, but it wasn't until the early twenty
Speaker 2: tens before the rest of the world heard about it,
Speaker 2: thanks to the Aaron Sorkin show Studio sixty on the
Speaker 2: Sunset Strip.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I actually watched that for a little while.
Speaker 2: It was unwatchable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't very good.
Speaker 2: Somebody just breaking out into a moving soliloquy every seven
Speaker 2: minutes is the most unrealistic writing anybody could ever possibly do.
Speaker 3: That's Aaron Sorkin, baby, I know.
Speaker 2: But it only worked for West Wing.
Speaker 1: I didn't much West Wing at all, so I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a lot of Sorkin stuff.
Speaker 2: It really worked for West Wing, but it did not
Speaker 2: work for Studio sixty.
Speaker 3: I do love Sarah Paulson though she was in that.
Speaker 2: Sure, that's great. I felt bad for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did do a little bit.
Speaker 2: What was great is thirty Rock came out at the
Speaker 2: exact same time, and they would make fun of some
Speaker 2: Studio sixties like a plot line.
Speaker 3: Yes, in real time, Yeah, the whole what.
Speaker 2: Was the Janis Joplin story? They had to like rename her, uh,
Speaker 2: have rights to her life story? That was something that
Speaker 2: Sarah Paulson like, got it a gig do playing Janis
Speaker 2: Joplin on Studio sixty. So that's our Studio sixty episode, everybody.
Speaker 3: That's right back to Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yes, we should probably just say all jokes
Speaker 2: aside it's very long street. It's a very historic street,
Speaker 2: and it actually dates back to the eighteenth century, before
Speaker 2: the city of Los Angeles, as we understand, it was around. Instead,
Speaker 2: it originated in the Pueblo de Los Angeles, which was
Speaker 2: the little colony I guess or settlement of just eleven families. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was the seed that germinated into Los Angeles, home
Speaker 2: of Joe Friday.
Speaker 1: That's right in Sunset Boulevard before it became Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 1: like many famous streets, was originally used as something else,
Speaker 1: and in this case, it was a cattle trail from
Speaker 1: that downtown pueblo of Los Angeles all the way to
Speaker 1: the Pacific. So it runs for twenty three miles. You
Speaker 1: hear about, you know, Sunset Boulevard, you probably think of
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip, which is a less than two mile area.
Speaker 1: But Sunset Boulevard there, you know, I used to live
Speaker 1: on the east side and Silver Lake and Sunset Boulevard
Speaker 1: over there is great and a whole other way than
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip.
Speaker 3: How so well, I mean it's.
Speaker 1: Just a cultural seed of you know, great restaurants and
Speaker 1: cafes and music venues, and you know, it was sort
Speaker 1: of the hipster thing back in the day when the
Speaker 1: hipsters were still a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Silverlake. That's there's that Shaggy Dog Mystery with Andrew
Speaker 2: Garfield beneath the Silver Lake. Right.
Speaker 3: Oh, that was pretty hipster. I think I saw that maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's worth watching, especially if you know it's a
Speaker 2: shaggy dog mystery going into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a long way of saying that, it was
Speaker 1: a cattle trail to begin with, and then like a
Speaker 1: lot of things like that, would eventually become a real street.
Speaker 1: It became Sunset Boulevard about one hundred years after that,
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a couple of store origin stories for
Speaker 2: where the name came from. I couldn't see what they
Speaker 2: called it, like the westward side of Sunset Boulevard before
Speaker 2: it was Sunset Boulevard. But I think in eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: seven there was a developer. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: land development going on in the late nineteenth century that
Speaker 2: built up Los Angeles. It was a bunch of different
Speaker 2: little towns, communities that were independent, and then Los Angeles
Speaker 2: kept growing and growing and growing, and it would absorb
Speaker 2: them and they became neighborhoods instead. Well, there was one
Speaker 2: planned town called Sunset, and they planned for Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 2: a different stretch of road to go right through the town,
Speaker 2: and so they apparently came up with the name Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 2: but it was another developer who appropriated it and used
Speaker 2: it for the Sunset Boulevard. After that town of Sunset
Speaker 2: never actually happened. It died on the drafting tape.
Speaker 1: I guess is what you'd say, is that an industry
Speaker 1: jargon it is now? Yeah, And you know, surely you
Speaker 1: can see some some great sunsets because Sunset, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with sort of the Hollywood basin,
Speaker 1: there's a it's very grid like and there's a series
Speaker 1: of east west streets. Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica are some
Speaker 1: of the more famous ones. And it goes downhill, you know,
Speaker 1: from the mountains, the Hollywood Hills. You know, there's the
Speaker 1: literal mountains and hills, but then it's still up kind
Speaker 1: of high and La kind of goes down down, down
Speaker 1: into the basin and Sunset is pretty high on that side.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you can see some great sunsets, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think originally it terminated on the east
Speaker 2: end in Chinatown or what's now Chinatown, And like you said,
Speaker 2: it goes through Silver Lake, it goes through a bunch
Speaker 2: of different neighborhoods, Echo Park, Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills, Hollywood,
Speaker 2: West Hollywood, like all these great neighborhoods I think are
Speaker 2: in part great neighborhoods because it's chicken or the thing
Speaker 2: is Sunset Boulevard great because these these neighborhoods around it
Speaker 2: are great, Or are the neighborhoods great because Sunset Boulevard
Speaker 2: ran through them?
Speaker 1: I think it's a chicken meat egg and they just
Speaker 1: shake hands and agree not to discuss it.
Speaker 2: Let's never speak of this again.
Speaker 1: Some film stuff and we're kind of jumping around between
Speaker 1: things that made it famous, but generally in a timeline.
Speaker 3: But early on it was obviously.
Speaker 1: Hollywood was the birthplace of the film industry. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've said it before. If you've never been there, you
Speaker 1: might think Hollywood is just a euphemism for the film industry.
Speaker 1: It is that, but it is also a real neighborhood
Speaker 1: right in the center of the La Basin there, And
Speaker 1: you know, it was originally just like all the other suburbs,
Speaker 1: like you were talking about, they were dividing it up
Speaker 1: into lots, and I believe in the early nineteen hundreds
Speaker 1: it was a guy named very nineteen hundreds name H. J.
Speaker 3: Whitby, who kind of I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if he wasn't officially incorporated, but he made
Speaker 1: Hollywood like a proper town and a place to live.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think Hollywood or West Hollywood wasn't incorporated until
Speaker 2: like the nineteen eighties, Is that right.
Speaker 3: I think that was probably West Hollywood. Okay, we hope
Speaker 3: as they.
Speaker 2: Say, yeah, everybody knows that thanks to the studio sixty
Speaker 2: so yeah, so Hollywood it was almost out of the
Speaker 2: gate versus the early nineteen hundreds nineteen ten when it
Speaker 2: merged with Los Angeles. The next year, film studio started
Speaker 2: popping up, and they started popping up in a very
Speaker 2: specific area, the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.
Speaker 2: And even still today there's an original studio from that
Speaker 2: area called Sunset Gower Studios and they're still making shows.
Speaker 2: That's where Dexter was filmed, That's where Saved by the Bell,
Speaker 2: the College Years was filmed. That's that's where yet six
Speaker 2: feet under Dexter, the College years. Heroes, A lot of
Speaker 2: really good shows have shot there, and it's an old,
Speaker 2: old timey, original Hollywood studio from like the nineteen teens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never shot there, but I got to as a
Speaker 1: PA got to run an erran there once during while
Speaker 1: Six Feet Under was being shot, so I've got to
Speaker 1: see those sets and it was pretty pretty cool as
Speaker 1: a six Feet Under fan.
Speaker 2: What did you take something to Diddy? Is that what
Speaker 2: it was? No?
Speaker 3: No, No, that was to his actual house.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd disavow that entire delivery, though. Poverty Rose what
Speaker 1: they called Sunset Gower at first because it was pretty
Speaker 1: low budget at the time the things they shot there,
Speaker 1: But in the nineteen thirties they started shooting some like
Speaker 1: really kind of high quality things there, notably the movies
Speaker 1: That Happened One Night and You Can't Take It with You.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then Gower Gulch.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I never knew the history, but there's still
Speaker 1: a strip mall right there called Gower Gulch and it
Speaker 1: has a little Old West theme.
Speaker 3: And that's where I saw Cherio Terry at a Starbucks.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and where there was a hopefully it's still
Speaker 1: a print shop there where you know, you could get
Speaker 1: scripts printed off and bound. Oh yeah, but now I
Speaker 1: know that Gower Gulch is so named because it was
Speaker 1: where all of the Westerns were being filmed, and a
Speaker 1: lot of dudes and like cowboy hats and cowboy boots
Speaker 1: would kind of hang around waiting to be cast there
Speaker 1: at that I guess whatever the stores were at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Hollywood, especially this area where all the studios
Speaker 2: were churning out Westerns left and right through the twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties. So I mean, I'm sure there were other
Speaker 2: extras hanging around, but the ten gallon hat really makes
Speaker 2: you stand out. And if you put a bunch of
Speaker 2: them together, it's going to get a reputation for being
Speaker 2: a cowboy hangout. And they would hang out around the
Speaker 2: Columbia drug Store. Ye Is that still there?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like there's a right Aid and
Speaker 1: that's probably what that was, But I may be wrong,
Speaker 1: but you know, Gower Gulch lives on.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go into that right Aid? And green Point? Yeah?
Speaker 2: In Greenpoint in New York and Brooklyn. I think that
Speaker 2: has like a disco ball still from whatever it was before.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, No, definitely not.
Speaker 2: It is kind of cool. But anyway, this Columbia drug
Speaker 2: store they would have out there because the owners of
Speaker 2: Columbia Drugs are had a telephone and they would let
Speaker 2: the extras use it to call Central Casting to see
Speaker 2: if there were any parts available for them. And there
Speaker 2: was a high profile murder there too, right between a
Speaker 2: couple of cowboys.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: quite a you know, take ten steps and draw kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, but there was a shooter over I
Speaker 1: think they were both seeing the same Philly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently one of them, Blackjack Ward, killed Johnny Tyke.
Speaker 2: He shot him down once and then he told them
Speaker 2: each reason he was shooting him, and every time he did,
Speaker 2: he shot him again until his whole six shooter was empty.
Speaker 2: Like he murdered that guy in broad daylight in front
Speaker 2: of a bunch of people, and he still got off.
Speaker 1: And someone said, boy, cast that dude. That's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that should be out of a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should make a movie about him. Sure.
Speaker 1: Prohibition was when the party scene kind of moved in.
Speaker 1: It was called the County Strip at the time, and
Speaker 1: it was unincorporated still at this point, but it was
Speaker 1: a stretch kind of between where Hollywood was, you know,
Speaker 1: a dry place because of Prohibition, and Beverly Hills is
Speaker 1: kind of where the Sunset Strip ends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well but it keeps going to the Pacific, right that, like,
Speaker 2: doesn't it basically just run out into the ocean. I
Speaker 2: guess the Pacific Highway.
Speaker 3: But that's not the Sunset Strip, the strip strip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that, but yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: from the outset. The Sunset Strip was like mobsters, brothels, gambling, rackets, nightclubs.
Speaker 2: It was huge during Prohibition, and I guess the reason
Speaker 2: why is because it was unincorporated, so the La County
Speaker 2: Sheriff was in charge of overseeing or enforcing laws, and
Speaker 2: I guess they weren't particularly inclined to enforce laws in
Speaker 2: the area. So that's where you went. And that in
Speaker 2: and of itself is like worth mentioning. It's historic. But
Speaker 2: one of the reasons it's so famous or the strip
Speaker 2: became the strip, is because on the other side, like
Speaker 2: you said, there's Beverly Hills, and that's where the stars
Speaker 2: had moved around the same time, So they would come
Speaker 2: into the County Strip and party and then go back
Speaker 2: to Beverly Hills and the fact that there were all
Speaker 2: these world famous movie stars partying there. Yeah, kind of
Speaker 2: really put a stamp on Sunset Strip that stayed forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was eighty four to seventy seven. Sunset had
Speaker 1: four different mobster clubs basically where the you know, mob
Speaker 1: owned and back them. It was at first the Sphinx,
Speaker 1: then the Han Club, then Club what would that be
Speaker 1: so Soco Luff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so SoC Socoloff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's okay, l O E F F. And then
Speaker 1: the Clover Club. And if you're wondering what eighty four
Speaker 1: to seventy seven is now, it's a weed dispensary.
Speaker 2: Oh that's appropriate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it kind of feels right, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'll bet it was a weed dispensary back
Speaker 2: in the thirties too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably so.
Speaker 2: But I'll bet it was some crap weed. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: let yeah, no crap like the kids say today.
Speaker 3: Right, I think it's no cap it'sn't it.
Speaker 2: I think they just don't know what they're saying. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I mentioned Brothels that apparently was a huge foundation
Speaker 2: of Hollywood. So there's Hollywood that people think about as Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and then there was like real Hollywood that the actual
Speaker 2: stars how they actually lived their lives, and it was
Speaker 2: depraved and decadent, as you can imagine during the Golden Era.
Speaker 2: It might have been the most appraved and decadent during
Speaker 2: the Golden Era, depending on what your moral views are,
Speaker 2: and people just went buck wild, and the brothels were
Speaker 2: a huge part of that. They were everywhere along Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: They were in private homes, they were in apartment buildings,
Speaker 2: they were sometimes in commercial spaces, and they even had
Speaker 2: some that imitated or there were lookalikes of stars of
Speaker 2: the day too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one of the plotlines of La Confidential
Speaker 1: if you remember, Oh yeah, it was a brothel where
Speaker 1: and except in that movie they were I think the
Speaker 1: line was like they're cut to look like celebrities, So
Speaker 1: I think they had actual like plast surgery, oh got
Speaker 1: youa yeah, to look like Hollywood stars. And you know,
Speaker 1: the rumors were that the studios were kind of funding
Speaker 1: these to take investors, like foreign investors there and they
Speaker 1: could sleep with a sex worker that looks like Vivian Lee.
Speaker 2: That seems to be a really well founded rumor, Like
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's any actual documentation of it,
Speaker 2: but it seems to be pretty much accepted as fact
Speaker 2: from what I saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe it so.
Speaker 2: And actually, because this is Hollywood and celebrity, I guess
Speaker 2: celebrity worship is just part of it and always has been.
Speaker 2: Whenever some of the Madams would get busted, they would
Speaker 2: become internationally famous as well. There were two that stick out.
Speaker 2: One name was Lee Francis. I think she might have
Speaker 2: originally worked under the other very famous one, the Black
Speaker 2: Widow and Forrester, And by this time the Hollywood movie
Speaker 2: studios were so powerful that both Leif Francis and Forrester
Speaker 2: were busted with client information. One of them had essentially
Speaker 2: like an index card system, the other one at a
Speaker 2: black book, and both of those things disappeared before they
Speaker 2: could ever make it into the evidence locker. And no
Speaker 2: one was arrested in any of the cases, even the
Speaker 2: guys who were caught in the act, because they just
Speaker 2: you just kept people's names out of the paper. It
Speaker 2: just didn't happen in Hollywood. And I think that level
Speaker 2: of protection by the studios just fueled the lifestyle that
Speaker 2: the stars were living because they couldn't get in trouble.
Speaker 2: They could not there were no consequences for what they
Speaker 2: were doing, so people just did anything and everything there
Speaker 2: during that golden age, I guess of the twenties and
Speaker 2: thirties and forties.
Speaker 3: Maybe, yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, because of that, it was sort of
Speaker 1: a you know, as Dave called it, kind of a
Speaker 1: blessing in disguise for the LGTBQ community. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's West Hollywood or we HO again is sort of
Speaker 1: the heart of the LGTB community in central Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: But way before that it was it was where a
Speaker 1: lot of gay bars were, gay clubs, drag clubs.
Speaker 3: I think the first drag shows.
Speaker 1: In the city and probably some of the first in
Speaker 1: the United States, were to Speakeasy in nineteen twenty seven
Speaker 1: called Cafe Loabom. But there were also, you know, all
Speaker 1: kinds of clubs there. It was a very famous one
Speaker 1: called the Trocadero that opened in nineteen thirty four where
Speaker 1: Cafe Lobohm was, and it was opened by a guy
Speaker 1: named Billy Wilkerson who was a publisher of The Hollywood Reporter,
Speaker 1: which I guess used to be news and like gossip
Speaker 1: and stuff. Now it's like a you know, fully sort
Speaker 1: of stand up, legitimate industry rag.
Speaker 2: I know they write about us pretty much constant.
Speaker 3: I think we were in it once.
Speaker 2: Actually we were selected some honor of like I think
Speaker 2: powerful podcasters or something crazy like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we made that list of time or two and
Speaker 1: we were in Variety once too. A couple of you know,
Speaker 1: feathers in our caps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so nice. I'd love to joke those feathers sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well, it's easy to forget when they don't come calling,
Speaker 1: you know, it's true. But he owned Billy Wilkerson owned
Speaker 1: the Trocadero, and it was another one of those things
Speaker 1: where he was like, hey, you come by the Trocadero
Speaker 1: and we're going to make sure that you get in
Speaker 1: the gossip column, you know, because at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: that was kind of good press.
Speaker 2: Yeah. At the same time, the Trocadero was set up
Speaker 2: to cater to stars and celebrities because autograph hounds and
Speaker 2: people who looked a little too hungry or thirsty to
Speaker 2: get in there were shut out of that to protect
Speaker 2: people inside, the celebrities inside, so they could relax and
Speaker 2: not have to worry about I guess being asked for
Speaker 2: their autograph, the worst thing that can possibly happen to you.
Speaker 1: And then the final one we'll mention here before the
Speaker 1: break is a nightclub called Ciro's. It opened in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty and I believe it was also Wilkerson who owned
Speaker 1: that one, and it was notable.
Speaker 3: It was just a very.
Speaker 1: Famous and popular nightclub, and it was it made its
Speaker 1: name because Buggy Seagull would go there a lot, the
Speaker 1: infamous mobster, and when he was in jail on murder trial,
Speaker 1: he got food from Ciro's delivered right there to a
Speaker 1: cell because you could do that at the time.
Speaker 2: Yep, takeout food, can you believe it.
Speaker 1: So we'll take a break now, Yeah, yeah, think a
Speaker 1: right good idea great, and we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about the legendary Chateau Marmont right after this.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We promised talk of the Chateau Marmont. That is a
Speaker 1: very famous hotel built in nineteen twenty nine. It's the
Speaker 1: one that sits right in the hills and kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a castle, a very European inspired luxury hotel,
Speaker 1: and its motto is still if you go to their
Speaker 1: website says always a safe, even always open, and from
Speaker 1: the start it was kind of like what you've been describing.
Speaker 1: It was a place where you could go and party
Speaker 1: hardy and ensure that your name wouldn't be in the
Speaker 1: news because of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they had and I believe still have a
Speaker 2: strict policy among their staff, like you do not talk
Speaker 2: about what you see at the hotel. And the reason
Speaker 2: why is they figured out very early on that if
Speaker 2: you can provide like that level of discretion or privacy,
Speaker 2: you're going to be you're in good Like the word
Speaker 2: of mouth alone is going to keep you in business
Speaker 2: for decades, and clearly that worked out for more than
Speaker 2: a century, almost a century. And then conversely, if the
Speaker 2: staff started gossiping or talking about what they saw or
Speaker 2: started selling their stories to papers or tabloids like the
Speaker 2: Chateau Marmont would have gone out of business in six
Speaker 2: months essentially. So they I don't know how they managed
Speaker 2: to do it to keep people from you know, rumor
Speaker 2: mongering or anything like that, but they seem to have
Speaker 2: quite successfully over the years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was delighted to see today. And for
Speaker 1: a while kind of during the early COVID years, I
Speaker 1: remember it was closed down and it was supposedly going
Speaker 1: to reopen as a sort of like a member's only
Speaker 1: you could buy places or maybe live in them long
Speaker 1: term or something. I can't remember what the plan was,
Speaker 1: and it bummed me out because I'd never had a
Speaker 1: chance to stay there. But I went today and apparently
Speaker 1: it's a hotel again, and I don't know if those
Speaker 1: plans are completely off or what or what happened, but
Speaker 1: looks like you can stay there. I have never stayed there,
Speaker 1: but I have mentioned before I have partied in the
Speaker 1: John Belushi Bungalow like six or seven times, and it's.
Speaker 3: Just a pretty awesome special place. The restaurant there, in
Speaker 3: the bar, you just sort of feel.
Speaker 1: It's not like I go there to, you know, get
Speaker 1: away with doing bad stuff, but it feels insulated when
Speaker 1: you're in there, like this little weird haven.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, like I said, apparently it's still very
Speaker 2: much like that, and it's very tight lipped. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just I mean, that's just such an iconic place
Speaker 2: that almost to me stands apart from Sunset Boulevard. It's
Speaker 2: about as iconic as Sunset Boulevard itself in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, And it was right there at sort of
Speaker 1: that junction where that very famously had the big Marboro
Speaker 1: Man poster ad for oh yeah, forever that thing was up.
Speaker 2: There was one other thing. Dave helped us with us,
Speaker 2: and he turned up a quote from the guy who
Speaker 2: used to run Columbia Pictures, they think in the thirties.
Speaker 2: The name was Harry Cone, and he used to tell
Speaker 2: his actors, if you must get in trouble, do it
Speaker 2: at the Chateau Marmont, Yeah, because nobody's going to find
Speaker 2: out about it. Like that hotel could even keep people's
Speaker 2: names out of the paper. When someone died in their hotel,
Speaker 2: the death would get reported, but the papers would not
Speaker 2: report the person's name. In a lot of cases, it's
Speaker 2: got to be NDAs, I guess. But I mean, this
Speaker 2: is long before there were NDA's, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't know when those came along.
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly they weren't around in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think. I think just the studio has would
Speaker 2: send goose.
Speaker 3: Break your yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Down the street from the Chateau was another very famous
Speaker 1: well eventually hotel was called the Garden of Allah, and you.
Speaker 3: Should look this place up. If you're, you know, someplace
Speaker 3: where you're not driving, and look at pictures of it.
Speaker 3: It was pretty wondrous. I think it was a few
Speaker 3: acres name.
Speaker 1: For its original owner, it was a silent film star
Speaker 1: named Ala Nazimova, and Alah had a lot of money
Speaker 1: and bought a mansion there in nineteen eighteen. And then
Speaker 1: when things it was sort of like, hey, come and party.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like the New York salons at
Speaker 1: the time, like the elite would party there. And I
Speaker 1: think Nazamova was coined the phrase sewing circles as code
Speaker 1: for lesbian and bisexual actresses at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw her described as the sapphik Mother of Hollywood,
Speaker 2: like she is a LGBTQ icon from still today, but
Speaker 2: from this era. And she was really famous and made
Speaker 2: a lot of money. Apparently at one point she was
Speaker 2: making thirteen thousand dollars a week, which is two hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy six thousand dollars a week today, And so
Speaker 2: according to the moral codes of the time, this was
Speaker 2: decadent and depraved, but it was a safe place for
Speaker 2: the stars who were closeted lesbians or closeted bisexual to
Speaker 2: like come and like have affairs or make relationships or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was just a really safe space, and Nazimova was
Speaker 2: the reason why. Like she managed to keep a lid
Speaker 2: on that as well while still like everybody went and
Speaker 2: had fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And you know, it went from a private
Speaker 1: house where she hosted these salons to after the silent
Speaker 1: film era, she didn't make the transition to the talkies
Speaker 1: so well and so it was a little down on
Speaker 1: her luck financially, and remodeled it as a hotel in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven and it became sort of the same
Speaker 1: version of the same thing, but as a hotel.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. And I think as a hotel it
Speaker 2: might have been less of a safe space, but probably
Speaker 2: still carried it on some like from what I understand.
Speaker 2: When it was their house, like it was lesbian central essentially,
Speaker 2: and then once it became a hotel it was much
Speaker 2: more open to I think everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. It's now a strip mall. It was
Speaker 1: demolished fully unfortunately, but you can go look at great
Speaker 1: pictures of it. It was across from the very famous
Speaker 1: Schwabz Pharmacy, which was a lot of things there was
Speaker 1: I think from the movie nineteen fifty one Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 1: the great Billy Wilder movie.
Speaker 2: This is such a good movie.
Speaker 3: No, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: William Holden, as a washed up screenwriter, says, after that,
Speaker 1: I drove down to headquarters. That's the way a lot
Speaker 1: of us think about schwabs, kind of a combination office
Speaker 1: coffee clatch and waiting room, waiting waiting for the gravy train.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what it was.
Speaker 1: It was this weird combo where you could go see
Speaker 1: and be seen and also sit around and wait for
Speaker 1: the phone.
Speaker 2: During Yeah, they had this lunch counter that apparently was
Speaker 2: pretty good because a lot of stars went there. But
Speaker 2: they didn't discriminate. It wasn't like you could be an
Speaker 2: aspiring actor who's getting nowhere and you're sitting there almost
Speaker 2: literally rubbing elbows at this lunch counter with Marlon Brando
Speaker 2: or something like that. Like, it was just people coming
Speaker 2: together from all walks of life. And I thought that
Speaker 2: was pretty cool. But it made it legendary. I mean
Speaker 2: just basically anywhere that stars went on Sunset Boulevard automatically
Speaker 2: became legendary. And now they're all right, aides or Chase.
Speaker 1: Banks and Schwab's Pharmacy is where the famous story about
Speaker 1: Lana Turner being discovered there while skipping school four name
Speaker 1: was Lana Turner. But I think I feel like we
Speaker 1: talked about this that that wasn't true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out, I mean, she was discovered typing
Speaker 2: class at Hollywood High School. But she was discovered at
Speaker 2: the Top Hat malt shop, not at Schwab's, right, And
Speaker 2: I guess Schwabs just filled in for top Hat because
Speaker 2: it was much more famous. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 2: But that same Billy Wilkerson who founded Ceros and the
Speaker 2: Hollywood Reporter, he's apparently the one who discovered her.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's all true, except for the Schwaps part.
Speaker 1: As we move into the sixties is when the Sunset Strip,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly became part of the kind of the
Speaker 1: seated counterculture of Los Angeles. In the nineteen fifties, a
Speaker 1: lot of money went to Vegas when Vegas was first
Speaker 1: opening up. Yeah, and so rents fell lower on the strip.
Speaker 1: So like some grittier nightclubs moved in. And I think
Speaker 1: you found two where Vegas. If you played in Vegas,
Speaker 1: you needed to at least like have a reputation in La.
Speaker 1: So that's why a lot of bands played there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, no, the mob had enough money that they
Speaker 2: could pay you just such a fat contract. That part
Speaker 2: of the contract was you can't go play La because
Speaker 2: we want people to come to Vas, right, So all
Speaker 2: of the entertainers and performers left the Sunset Strip and
Speaker 2: went to Vegas. So the club started having trouble, and
Speaker 2: then they started bringing in black acts. Motown r and
Speaker 2: b Otis Redding very famously played at I can't remember
Speaker 2: what club with Bob Dylan watching him just agog and sadly,
Speaker 2: the sudden appearance of black performers on the Sunset Strip
Speaker 2: actually depressed real estate values even further, and so as
Speaker 2: rock and roll kind of came along, young entrepreneurs who
Speaker 2: wanted to open rock clubs were able to afford these
Speaker 2: spaces along the Sunset Strip, And that's how it went
Speaker 2: from glamorous Frank Sinatra to grungy rock clubs. There was
Speaker 2: a transition, a swing from the R and B artists
Speaker 2: of the time playing the Sunset Strip for a little
Speaker 2: while in between those things.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that makes sense. So then it became more
Speaker 1: rock and roll because that's when the Whiskey of Go
Speaker 1: Go opened in sixty four. Then you have still not
Speaker 1: been to. They just don't have a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that I'm into anymore. It's a lot of still a
Speaker 1: lot of like metal and like metal tribute bands and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But I'm going to make it a
Speaker 1: point just to go at some point, just so i
Speaker 1: can be in that room. But that became sort of
Speaker 1: the epicenter of the counterculture and youth culture and Whiskey
Speaker 1: a Go Go. If you've heard of Go Go dancing,
Speaker 1: it comes from the Whiskey of Go Go, Like literally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a DJ at the Whiskey name Joni Leabine,
Speaker 2: and the DJ booth was in a glass case. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if it's still there or not, but it
Speaker 2: was several tens of feet off of the dance floor
Speaker 2: just over it. And when she was spinning records, she
Speaker 2: would just kind of dance, and she had a certain
Speaker 2: way of dancing, and she would wear very short skirts
Speaker 2: and long white boots and the like. She started the
Speaker 2: go go dancing trend of the sixties single handedly. Essentially
Speaker 2: everybody started kind of mimicking her, and it was all
Speaker 2: at the Whiskey Go Go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you heard the rock band the Doors, the
Speaker 1: rock band without a bass player featuring Jim Morrison and others,
Speaker 1: Raymond Zeric.
Speaker 2: I remember how excited I was in eighth grade when
Speaker 2: that movie came out.
Speaker 3: Oh I was in college. Yeah, I was too.
Speaker 1: That's cool that you were psyched at that age because
Speaker 1: it felt like colleges when everyone got into the Doors
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and that was definitely me
Speaker 1: and the Whiskey certainly featured heavily because they were the
Speaker 1: house band for basically a summer in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: and you know, every one of the day played there.
Speaker 1: It's not a very big venue either. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the capacity is, but it feels like just by
Speaker 1: looking at it, it's probably under a thousand.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I would definitely say that. I mean imagine
Speaker 2: seeing Led Zeppelin or Jimmy Hendrix like in a small
Speaker 2: room like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can't imagine seeing the period much
Speaker 1: less in a small room.
Speaker 2: And then one other thing about the Whiskey Yo Go,
Speaker 2: I think it's probably the greatest club name of all time.
Speaker 2: And I looked up why or where Gogo came from
Speaker 2: and apparently go for a little while was slang for fashionable,
Speaker 2: and it just kind of morphed into go go kind
Speaker 2: of fashionable or cool, right, doubly fashionable, So the whiskey
Speaker 2: of go go was very fashionable.
Speaker 3: I guess a rare in show. Look up, it's a
Speaker 3: capacity of five hundred. So yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's like a stuff you should know show
Speaker 2: in our hometown of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: In the mid sixties is when cruising the strips became
Speaker 1: like a real thing with you know, basically people just
Speaker 1: would get in their cars, get in their convertibles, get
Speaker 1: on their motorcycles, and just drive.
Speaker 3: Up and down the Sunset Strip.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen the movie American Graffiti, even though
Speaker 1: that drive in was filmed on van Ness, because Mel's
Speaker 1: Drive In is a small chain, I think it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the one on the Sunset Strip if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Definitely, that whole La youth culture and car culture
Speaker 2: that produced the Beach Boys and all that, that's when
Speaker 2: it was set right and I think it actually Happy
Speaker 2: Days was essentially spun off of American Graffiti. What's his name,
Speaker 2: Richard Cunningham.
Speaker 3: Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard Baby.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was an American Graffiti, essentially playing Richie Cunningham. Yeah,
Speaker 2: right before Happy Days started.
Speaker 3: So I have ever thought about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one little thing about that. I was looking up
Speaker 2: Mels Drive in an American Graffiti and I ran across
Speaker 2: there was a list of suggested names from the studio
Speaker 2: instead of American Graffiti. And it's even on like Lucasfilm
Speaker 2: Station Area or something like that. One of them was
Speaker 2: Burger City. They considered naming that movie Burger City.
Speaker 3: Wow, we should write a script called Burger City. We
Speaker 3: can get it developed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that'd be great.
Speaker 3: Or good burger That'd be an equally weird name.
Speaker 2: Isn't that Keenan and Kel?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just kidding.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that movie?
Speaker 3: I never saw it was Was it a movie or
Speaker 3: a show?
Speaker 2: It was a movie. It was like the Keenan and
Speaker 2: Kell movie.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, he's the best. Well I don't know
Speaker 1: much about Kell, but Keenan's awesome.
Speaker 3: I love that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: Sixty six was when a club called Pandora's Box. Famously,
Speaker 1: it became the sort of heart of what was known
Speaker 1: as the riote on Sunset Strip. The La Sheriff's Department
Speaker 1: headed first to ten o'clock curfew for teenagers, basically anyone
Speaker 1: under eighteen, and on November twelfth of sixty six is
Speaker 1: when thousands of young teenage hippies protested. They sat down
Speaker 1: in the street in front of Pandora's Box, block traffic
Speaker 1: and it ended pretty violently. Cops came in and Stephen
Speaker 1: Stills wrote the famous protest song for what It's Worth
Speaker 1: because he witnessed that event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just came in with police batons of flying
Speaker 2: cracking heads. It's like LAPD. Will you ever change?
Speaker 3: Maybe? Maybe not.
Speaker 2: The signs are not pointing to a definite yes at
Speaker 2: this point yet.
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking I don't know the song for
Speaker 1: what It's Worth, it's the song you better stop. Hey,
Speaker 1: what's that sound?
Speaker 3: Everybody?
Speaker 1: Look what's going down? You just probably don't remember it
Speaker 1: as having the name for what It's Worth.
Speaker 2: No, because it's one of those those songs that just
Speaker 2: the title just doesn't fit the other part, I think.
Speaker 2: But Buffalo Springfield, Yeah, it's a good song.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 2: Stephen Sills, did you know that? Thanks? Dave?
Speaker 3: Oh did he not put the t in there.
Speaker 2: No, Stephen Sills, I loved.
Speaker 3: It, Crosby Sills, nas and Yown.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean we love Dave here, we love him.
Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about the black
Speaker 1: Cat Tavern because black Cat Tavern was a home of
Speaker 1: one of the first major LGBTQ protestly in the United States,
Speaker 1: certainly a couple of years before Stonewall, even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, two years before Stonewall, you said, right, yeah, And
Speaker 2: I think on New Year's Eve, the cops came in
Speaker 2: the lapd again or the Sheriff's office, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: which one. They started cracking heads. They started just beating
Speaker 2: up the gay patrons there for being gay. They accused
Speaker 2: them of lewd conduct or whatever. I think you turned
Speaker 2: up that two men were caught kissing and that's essentially
Speaker 2: what started the beatings. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean they ended up arresting fourteen people, but those
Speaker 1: two men ended up getting convicted and had to register
Speaker 1: as sex offenders for kissing each other.
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court of the United.
Speaker 1: States refused to hear their appeal, and so they took
Speaker 1: away their liquor license. In May I believe was sixty seven,
Speaker 1: shortly after the protest on February eleventh because of the
Speaker 1: raid on New Year's Eve and.
Speaker 3: They had to shut down.
Speaker 1: I think it reopened as several other gay bars over
Speaker 1: the years until twenty eleven. When it reopened in twenty
Speaker 1: twelve eight as the Black Cat. It was a restaurant.
Speaker 1: This time they paid honor to its roots a by
Speaker 1: naming it that and having kind of the same logo,
Speaker 1: but just the historical significance is on display there with
Speaker 1: photographs and a plaque.
Speaker 3: And this is in the Silver Lake side. This is
Speaker 3: not on the strip.
Speaker 1: And in twenty twenty two it was duplex and a
Speaker 1: very small sort of two sided building Shake Shack opened
Speaker 1: up on the other side in the adjac space and
Speaker 1: apparently dominated with their signage, and everyone got really really
Speaker 1: mad at that, and it didn't last long.
Speaker 3: Shakeshack there is now closed.
Speaker 2: You know. One of the most interesting things I've ever
Speaker 2: seen is a story about Shakesheck, the original one in
Speaker 2: whatever park it's in in New York. Okay, you mean,
Speaker 2: and I were there. We were in line, very long line,
Speaker 2: and the line goes through the park, so there's a
Speaker 2: lot of trees overhead. Oh yeah, I know that this guy.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what park it is. I guess it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. But this guy, who was either one or
Speaker 2: two behind us in line, suddenly was surrounded by bird poop.
Speaker 2: It just formed like a halo around his body, and
Speaker 2: everyone turned around looking for the poop that had surely
Speaker 2: gotten on the guy, and he had nothing on him. Somehow,
Speaker 2: the poop had all magically fallen within inches of his body,
Speaker 2: all around him without actually getting on him, and everyone
Speaker 2: in the line who knew what happened was just like
Speaker 2: that is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: That guy was so happy he was not a lottery ticket. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. Check story.
Speaker 3: I think I've ever heard that. I don't know that
Speaker 3: was the first one either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's the first one. It was just
Speaker 2: in the park.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's over it's like it's near Union Square. I
Speaker 3: don't know what the park is either though.
Speaker 2: And then one other thing about the Black Cat Tavern. It's,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously like people are like this happened, you know,
Speaker 2: before the stonewall rate, it might have even happened before
Speaker 2: the Compton's Cafeteria riot. And the fact that it's compared
Speaker 2: to Stonewall. It makes you think that there was a
Speaker 2: riot involved. It wasn't. It was a dignified, organized protest.
Speaker 2: But it's the first recorded LGBTQ protest in American history.
Speaker 2: That's what that's its big claim to fame.
Speaker 1: Amazing. I feel like that's a great time for a
Speaker 1: break totally. And we'll segue into the seventies right after this.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the seventies, which we just say waded into
Speaker 2: this was where the rock clubs like kind of transitioned
Speaker 2: from hippie rock to all sorts of different stuff proto punk,
Speaker 2: glam rock, eventually hair metal as we'll see. And there
Speaker 2: were three big clubs rock clubs that were around at
Speaker 2: the time. There was the Roxy Theater, Rodney's English Disco,
Speaker 2: and Ghazaries. Those were the three that were like the
Speaker 2: three big rock clubs in the seventies that kind of
Speaker 2: kicked off that transition from what I understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Ghazari's is best known for Van Halen. Baby.
Speaker 3: Van Halen was known for two things in their early
Speaker 3: days before they put a record out.
Speaker 1: It was backyard parties in Pasadena where they lived, and
Speaker 1: being the house band at Kazari's for like years.
Speaker 2: Did you know that Van Halen was from California?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I always thought they were a Dutch band.
Speaker 1: No, I mean Eddie and Alex were Dutch by heritage,
Speaker 1: and I think they were even born there.
Speaker 2: Maybe David lee Roth is in Dutch. No, have you
Speaker 2: ever heard him talk?
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm a distributor about the map right as touch?
Speaker 3: I think you're right. I mean, I'm a big van
Speaker 3: Halen guy.
Speaker 1: So I've studied and read all the books, but there's
Speaker 1: one in particular.
Speaker 3: Oh god, is it called Becoming van Halen.
Speaker 1: It's the most intense, Like, I don't know how this
Speaker 1: guy got this information, but it's the most intense detailing
Speaker 1: of pre record contract.
Speaker 3: Van Halen that I've ever heard of in my life.
Speaker 1: It was incredible how much this guy knew about their
Speaker 1: Pasadena backyard party days.
Speaker 2: Well, since you know so much about van Halen, answer
Speaker 2: this for me. It's a question I actually carry around
Speaker 2: with me. What was the deal with Eddie van Halen
Speaker 2: slamming Michael Anthony is a bad bass player? Like I
Speaker 2: think about upon Michael Anthony's death.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, you mean Eddie van Halen's death Michael Anthony?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, for some reason, Eddie Van Halen came out
Speaker 2: and said that he thought Michael Anthony was a terrible
Speaker 2: bass player.
Speaker 1: Oh, Eddie, you know he's one of the greatest and
Speaker 1: rip for sure, but he could be unkind at times.
Speaker 3: Two people. I think Michael Anthony's one of the.
Speaker 1: Greatest, and he had the voice that kind of helped
Speaker 1: him make Van Halen with those backing vocals. And he's
Speaker 1: still crushing it. Because I went and saw Sammy Hagar
Speaker 1: and Michael Anthony and Vegas played not too long ago
Speaker 1: for the second time in a year.
Speaker 2: Were you the guest of our good friend Aaron Hagar who.
Speaker 3: Listens, No, I wasn't a guest this time. Aaron.
Speaker 1: I was hoping he could meet there and I could
Speaker 1: finally have a chance to meet his pops. But Aaron
Speaker 1: showed up the week after I was there. But Adam Pranica,
Speaker 1: friend of the show of the Greatest Generation podcast, met
Speaker 1: me from LA and we played little golf and saw
Speaker 1: Sammy and just had a great time. It's a really
Speaker 1: good show. Those guys are still killing it. Michael Anthony
Speaker 1: is besides his talents, is known as one of the
Speaker 1: nicest guys in rock and roll nice, which really stinks
Speaker 1: if Eddie said that, because Michael Anthony has always taken
Speaker 1: the high road.
Speaker 2: Oh he did say it. It was a big deal,
Speaker 2: And Sammy Hagar came out and said, I don't know
Speaker 2: what Eddie's talking about. Yeah, basically being any to get
Speaker 2: Michael Anthony's the best bass player I ever worked with,
Speaker 2: So he's whooped in.
Speaker 3: All that band stuff. Just makes me sad fighting like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to circle back to Adam Pranica. Okay,
Speaker 2: for people who aren't familiar with him, I would say,
Speaker 2: go listen to the Greatest Generation podcasts, but if you
Speaker 2: ever get a chance to meet Adam Pranica, you should
Speaker 2: consider yourself hashtag blessed because he is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest human beings you will ever meet in your life, like, legitimately,
Speaker 2: through and through. Just a great dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, He's the Michael Anthony A podcast. He definitely is,
Speaker 1: along with his co host Ben Harrison.
Speaker 2: No, Ben's great too, He's no Adam Pranica, though.
Speaker 1: Ben's gonna like that burn The Roxy opened in seventy three.
Speaker 1: David Geffen, very famous sort of record label owner and
Speaker 1: early on music producer and Lou Adler, legendary producer, opened
Speaker 1: the Roxy, and it.
Speaker 3: Was legendary for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: I mean, the biggest of the big play there in
Speaker 1: this again a small club, but the very first staging
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 3: US of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is when it was just a stage musical
Speaker 1: played at the Roxy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and pee Wee Herman debuted his show what became
Speaker 2: the pe Wee Herman TV Show, his live stage version
Speaker 2: of it that came out first in nineteen eighty one
Speaker 2: at the Roxy. Have you seen that documentary yet?
Speaker 1: I still haven't seen it because he's got on vacation,
Speaker 1: but it's on the list.
Speaker 2: And then Rodney's English Disco. I don't know why. Those
Speaker 2: three words together are hard for me to pronounce, but
Speaker 2: that was Rodney Bingenheimer's club that opened in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: So think about how ahead of the curve he was
Speaker 2: by naming it a disco. There was no disco around yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: He was a legendary DJ at k Rock in LA
Speaker 1: from seventy six to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, he took it's Kroq.
Speaker 1: And was very famous for breaking, Like the list of
Speaker 1: bands that he broke on air is incredible, Like, just look.
Speaker 3: It over sometime.
Speaker 1: I don't have time to go over all of it
Speaker 1: here because we're running long, but it's it's just really impressive.
Speaker 1: And he was a There was a great documentary about
Speaker 1: him called The Mayor of Sunset Strip. He is a
Speaker 1: star in Hollywood Boulevard and it's just like, wow, what
Speaker 1: a guy. And then, very disappointingly, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: Carrie Chrome of The Runaways filed a lawsuit and said
Speaker 1: he sexually assaulted me when I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 2: Man, those poor Runaways they got, I know, just totally
Speaker 2: exploited and just us it up sad, just.
Speaker 1: Young teenage girls. And Kim Falley, their manager, seems like
Speaker 1: a horrible human. Yeah, took part in that assault. And
Speaker 1: then five more women came forward after that, including Jane
Speaker 1: Wheedland of the Go Gos, and said, yeah, Rodney really
Speaker 1: assaulted me too. And there hasn't been a result of
Speaker 1: that lawsuit yet, but it turns out not a good guy.
Speaker 2: Well good for them for standing up to that. Dude.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: We couldn't mention the Sunset Strip without mentioning, especially during
Speaker 2: the era of the seventies, the Continental Hyatt House, which.
Speaker 3: Has stayed there.
Speaker 1: By the way I have I'm almost positive that we
Speaker 1: both stayed as now the and does in one of
Speaker 1: our LA Podcast Festival appearances, I.
Speaker 2: Do not recall that I remember seeing at the SLS.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 3: No, this is and Oz. I mean I definitely stay there.
Speaker 3: I thought you did. But it was the Continental riot House. Yes,
Speaker 3: the Hyatt House.
Speaker 1: Officially, if you've ever read the led Zeppelin book and
Speaker 1: there's that picture of Robert Plant standing on the balcony
Speaker 1: saying I'm a golden God, that that was the Riot House.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Continental. Just as a little aside, that's
Speaker 2: from the original name of the hotel, the Continental, which
Speaker 2: was owned by Gene Autry.
Speaker 3: Oh well know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a weird transition, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally all right.
Speaker 1: As the tour goes forward, we're gonna take a little
Speaker 1: stop here at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset
Speaker 1: opened in seventy two, and it was the people who
Speaker 1: on the whiskey of Go Go that opened the Rainbow,
Speaker 1: and the Rainbow was just a din of debauchery disguised
Speaker 1: as a not too great Italian restaurant, but that was
Speaker 1: where the Hollywood vampires hung out the kind of silly
Speaker 1: looking at it now drinking club founded by Alice Cooper
Speaker 1: as members of which were Keith Moon, Ringo star Mickey
Speaker 1: Dolans and the Debauchers and Great Harry Nilsen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're now kind of a band with Alice
Speaker 2: Cooper and Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: Guitarist Oh jove, Oh geez.
Speaker 3: What's his same? Steven Tyler and the other guy. I'm
Speaker 3: just blanking.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, Johnny Depp is in it. There's like a
Speaker 2: couple other people too. I think one of the dudes
Speaker 2: from Guns and Roses might be in it too.
Speaker 3: Maybe. I don't know if they're any good? Are they?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think they're more a novelty act maybe.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's got Johnny Depp in it.
Speaker 2: Right, right, I think that kind of makes it a
Speaker 2: novelty act as far as musical acts are concerned. Joe Perry,
Speaker 2: Joe Perry, I kept won't say.
Speaker 3: Joe Elliott, but that's a def Leppard.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right, that's the lead singer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One other thing about the Rainbow Bar and Grill. That's
Speaker 2: where John beluci Ate his last meal, Yeah, in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two before he died of a drug overdose at
Speaker 2: the Chateau Marmont. And had he gotten the speedball from Schwabs,
Speaker 2: it would have been a Sunset Boulevard trifecta.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I guess you're right, and then.
Speaker 2: I guess Moving on, Chuck, we can't talk about Sunset
Speaker 2: Boulevard without talking about comedy clubs because it was essentially
Speaker 2: the place where the whole concept of a comedy club
Speaker 2: was born.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks to poly Shor's mom, Mitzi Shore.
Speaker 2: Is is it his mom? Because I looked it up
Speaker 2: and I couldn't find that was it his mom? Really?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's funny because he like he was like
Speaker 1: a kid roaming around those parts.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She. Mitzy Shore opened the Comedy Store in seventy two
Speaker 1: where Zeiros used to be and it was, like you said,
Speaker 1: it was the very first stand up only nightclub in
Speaker 1: the world, which is crazy to think about.
Speaker 2: For sure, and so Mitzi Shore became very famous for
Speaker 2: considering the Comedy Store as a comedy workshop where up
Speaker 2: and comers could work on their material work on their acts,
Speaker 2: and because it was a comedy workshop and not a
Speaker 2: comedy club, she didn't pay them, especially the up and comers.
Speaker 2: There are very few big name acts that would come
Speaker 2: through and she would pay them. But if you were
Speaker 2: working on your stuff, and we're talking like legendary people here,
Speaker 2: we're talking like Jim Carrey, Howie Mendel, Gary Shandling, Andy Kaufman,
Speaker 2: Robin Williams, Michael Keaton for some reason, apparently was a
Speaker 2: stand up. Oh yeah, yeah, I did not know that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's just so serious now, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean he started in comedy movies. You
Speaker 1: can get his early stand up. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I know his comedy movies I've seen.
Speaker 3: No, I mean the stand on you can watch.
Speaker 2: Oh gotcha. So, like, these were people who all had
Speaker 2: their careers launched thanks to the Comedy Store, but they
Speaker 2: were paid an exposure, and eventually they were like, this
Speaker 2: is not worth it. We're going on strike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they went on striking seventy nine, which opened a
Speaker 1: door for another club, The world famous Laugh Factory, opened
Speaker 1: in seventy nine, just a few blocks away by a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old, which is amazing Iranian immigrant also amazing
Speaker 1: named Jamie Masada, and he ended up opening laugh factories
Speaker 1: all over the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was like, how about this, you guys
Speaker 2: come play here and I'll share some of the cover
Speaker 2: charge with you, like I'll actually pay you. And apparently
Speaker 2: the original name of the laugh factory was joke on
Speaker 2: Yolk like egg yoke really, yeah.
Speaker 3: Joke on Yolk. I don't get it. Was there a
Speaker 3: Yolk Street?
Speaker 2: I think he thought that was funny. Oh, okay, Ryan,
Speaker 2: so it's funny.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess he was a better business owner than comedian, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well he was an aspiring comedian. That's why he opened
Speaker 2: that club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, joke on Yolk, get it right.
Speaker 2: So one other thing circling back, Mitzi Shore finally resolved
Speaker 2: to strike after a few weeks by agreeing to pay
Speaker 2: the comedians twenty five dollars a set, which is ay
Speaker 2: whopping one hundred and ten dollars today.
Speaker 3: That's not too bad if you're getting up there, I'm
Speaker 3: doing seven minutes.
Speaker 2: They don't know you can buy like a pack of
Speaker 2: cigarettes with one hundred and ten dollars today.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna move into the eighties, and you
Speaker 1: got to talk about the eighties because you got to
Speaker 1: talk about hair metal, and if you're going to talk
Speaker 1: about hair metal in the Sunset Strip, you got to
Speaker 1: start with Motley Crue.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess they were the ones who like started
Speaker 2: the whole thing on the Sunset Strip. I'm sure you
Speaker 2: knew that because you probably read ten books about Motley Crue.
Speaker 3: No just two, Okay, Yeah, I mean they lived right
Speaker 3: above it.
Speaker 1: They could walk down there and you know, have big
Speaker 1: parties at their a disgusting place that they shared above
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip. But yeah, they were, if not the first,
Speaker 1: one of the first to kind of bring that scene there.
Speaker 1: And you know, Poison La, Guns Faster, pussy Cat, eventually
Speaker 1: Guns n' Roses would start out there in the mid eighties.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Whiskey kind of had a bunch of different lies, from
Speaker 1: hippie stuff to sort of what we would view as
Speaker 1: classic rock to eventually hair metal and now I guess
Speaker 1: hair metal cover bands.
Speaker 2: Right and in between then and now grunge came along
Speaker 2: and killed hair metal, which was a sad day. I
Speaker 2: think you.
Speaker 3: Can still go see those bands. They're around.
Speaker 2: You can see the tribute versions of them and other ones.
Speaker 3: I'm going to see Judas Priest.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: I've never seen them, and I got tickets on a
Speaker 3: whim to go see them this fall.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Judas Priest, I just have one more place
Speaker 2: I want to mention, But Judas Priest has one of
Speaker 2: the cooler documentaries around. It's called Parking Lot or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Have you metal Parking Yes?
Speaker 2: Have you seen it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean it's not just about Judas Priest, It's just
Speaker 1: about Pienelope Sphrus directed that kind of legendary documentary.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, well, I guess I'm the only one who
Speaker 2: saw it, but I love that documentary. It just takes
Speaker 2: place at that Parking Lot before Judas Priest show.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think I even remembered it was Judas Priest.
Speaker 2: I'm almost positive it is Judas Priest.
Speaker 1: It probably is, but yeah, it should really encapsulates that culture.
Speaker 2: That totally does.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last place I wanted to mention was the Beverly
Speaker 2: Hills Hotel. Apparently it was around before there was even
Speaker 2: a Beverly Hills. Yeah, and old Hollywood used to hang
Speaker 2: out there. Blah blah blah. The thing that makes it
Speaker 2: noteworthy to me is, you know, that iconic banana leaf
Speaker 2: wallpaper that you kind of see. It's like, well, that's
Speaker 2: where it debuted or that's where it became big. That
Speaker 2: pattern is called Martinique, and I think it was in
Speaker 2: the mid late forties that this decorator papered the Beverly
Speaker 2: Hills Hotel with that and it just took off from there.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I've never been there, but that's one of those places
Speaker 1: I want to go, like have dinner just to it
Speaker 1: looks kind of like tavern on the Green Stock.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it looks amazing. Actually, their bar looks amazing too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's still got that kind of mid century charm,
Speaker 3: isn't it La style?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I guess that's it for Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there are so many things we couldn't get
Speaker 1: to because we didn't want to do a two parter.
Speaker 1: But if you want to look up stuff on Hollywood
Speaker 1: High School and the Weird Crossroads of the World Shopping
Speaker 1: Center or the Hollywood Palladium, certainly do that because there's
Speaker 1: still a lot more about the Sunset Strip and it's
Speaker 1: you know, you go to LA and you're into touristy stuff,
Speaker 1: you should go check it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, And there's a lot of good writing
Speaker 2: out there. People love writing about the Sunset Strip for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and thanks again to Dave for helping us out with
Speaker 2: this one. Good job Dave. And since I said good
Speaker 2: job Dave, that means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: And this one actually is a listener suggestion. So we
Speaker 1: wanted to shout out say or Delk for Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Man, that's a great name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, not for making their road, but you know,
Speaker 1: for giving this suggestion. Hey, guys, long term listener who
Speaker 1: wants to thank you for keeping me entertainer and work, school,
Speaker 1: travel and pretty much any excuse to have a podcast
Speaker 1: on for the past few years. The reason I write
Speaker 1: is in twenty twenty two you talked about rock paper scissors.
Speaker 1: You didn't think it was possible to play with more
Speaker 1: than two people. You may be interested to know that
Speaker 1: my friends and I used to play three to four
Speaker 1: person games at work as landscapers. In the mornings, we
Speaker 1: were weed eating on the property and we'd come across
Speaker 1: items that only require the work of one person and
Speaker 1: we would play rock paper scissors, and this is how
Speaker 1: you do it. We would simply all throw at once,
Speaker 1: like a normal game and a three person game. If
Speaker 1: anyone beat all the other players, then they would step
Speaker 1: out and the other two would play again. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of like a knockout tournament. If two players beat
Speaker 1: the others on the first game, then the loser lost immediately.
Speaker 1: After many games over the weeks and months, the strategies, alliances,
Speaker 1: and yes, some game theory all made the work quite
Speaker 1: fun and competitive. Love the show all the best to
Speaker 1: you and your families, respectfully. That is Austin from Saint Louis, Missouri.
Speaker 2: Nice work, Austin, you cracked the code finally. Thank you
Speaker 2: for that. Thanks for letting us know too. And if
Speaker 2: you want to be like Austin, right, that's right. If
Speaker 2: you want to be like Austin, then send us an
Speaker 2: email and you can be like Austin. Send it off
Speaker 2: to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.