Fractured Fashion Flickers

Well, this has been a pretty action-packed week at Viva Rebecca. Anybody who thinks that making clothes is for pussies has another think coming, because a lot of it's pretty physical, more physical than banging on a stupid guitar like a fucking chimp. This is a brief summary of what's happened in the past few days:

(Mon): Spent the better part of the day tearing apart a plus-sized astronaut suit for a private client. By plus-sized I mean that the client is 400+ pounds, so this isn't Buzz Aldrin territory we're talking about. All of the components have to be super-sized and accuracy is absolutely crucial. Working in tandem with that is Rebecca's space alien outfit for the upcoming Barbie convention, which utilizes mixed media of leather, vinyl and multi-colored sequins.

(Tues): Went to The Sword and The Stone in Burbank (http://www.swordandstone.com)to do a fitting for three gigantic statues, two male and one female. All three statues are at least ten feet tall and have to be measured on a ladder and then draped with pattern paper and after, muslin. A lot of crawling around and climbing involved. I left my church goin' clothes at home!

(Wed): Got my two pair of pants in the mail from GuyLook (http://www.guylook.com) from South Korea, a great menswear mail order house. One pair was a wonderful checkered thing, and the other pair was a cool green biker jeans. Lucky I fit perfectly in them as the sizes are very Asian (largest size is a 33 waist). Bless you, YMCA.

Girls are calling Rebecca up for a job trying to replace me. Uh, yeah you can replace me when you can sew, serge, baste any kind of fabric, unpick microscopically tiny seams, draft patterns, trace and cut every kind of material including fur, shop for fabric in the Garment District in less than two hours and still shut the fuck up about your boyfriend problems, bitches.

(Thrs): Went swatching for leather at United Leather in downtown Los Angeles (http://www.unitedleather.com), probably the closest thing LA has to SH Frank in San Francisco, a veritable endless cove of leather, suede and even furs. Love the textured leather and the prices were reasonable.

The phone's ringing off the hook from production companies requesting our services, so thankfully business is picking up again. What a nightmare year 2012 was.

(Fri): Los Angeles Magazine ran a feature on Julie Newmar's top 10 favorite places in LA and listed Viva Rebecca, us on it. Here's the link: (http://www.lamag.com/laculture/mylatoz/2013/06/19/my-la-to-z-julie-newmar?fb_action_ids=10151749475153628&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582). And I still managed to find time to make a t-shirt dress for Rebecca and put the finishing touches to my upcoming crime novel - for release in August, 2013 (hopefully).

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Lately I've been going crazy over Jo Ghost shoes, whose men's shoes are beautifully designed and use only the best and most exotic leathers money can buy. Their shoes are colorful without being too fruity (i.e. Miami Vice) and the designs are some of the most imaginative this side of John Fluevog.

The 1788 Inglese Multi-Color is a terrific boot using three different shades of leather with a lace-up front. I also like the Antik Submarine shoe which uses a colored stingray pebbled finish, and there's also the 1838 with its endless rows of eyelets and laces, looking just like roller skate shoes without the plate and wheels.

So why don't I own more Jo Ghost shoes? Well, Jo Ghost, based in Italy, on average sell their shoes for at least $400, much too much rich for my blood. Yeah, you need gold blood to afford these babies. But if you have gold blood run don't walk to get your Jo Ghosts, more commonly found at Haute Footwear (http://www.hautefootwear.com/catalog). They can also be found at Dellamoda (http://www.dellamoda.com).

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Finally got my hands on the S/S 2013 Another Man Magazine, the best men's fashion magazine on the planet, esp. since Homme Essential went Hollywood and preppy in the past year. If you liked The Face Magazine from the Eighties then you'll like this also a lot. There is so much rock & roll style in this fash mag that you'll think you're looking at the hippest rock magazine ever.

Although the cover shows Arctic Monkeys lead singer Alex Turner on the cover there's hipper people to be found inside, like a feature on Nick Cave's sartorial style from his days as grub monster in The Birthday Party to his 3-piece suit look in The Bad Seeds. There's also a photo shoot with Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream and a sneak preview to Richard Hell's upcoming memoirs. I also liked the piece that matched eerily similar quotes on style from Johnny Thunders and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Very cool!

If you like your models either Quadrophenia-style with purple and pink hair or the decadent Seventies Keith Richards beehive boy look, every page just explodes with rock energy, with fashions that include a great Hermes leather t-shirt, Lanvin bondage pants, Jeffery West rocker boots and old Ralph Lauren even has a few rocker threads to show off in here. Another Man is published bi-annually and if you don't mind coughing up $15 an issue it'll sit on your hipster coffee table proudly.

Top illustration: Elvis by Donfeld, from the book "Hollywood Sketchbook".

High Heeled Wheels

John Fluevog Shoes are known for their offbeat designs and bizarro Hobbit mushroom shoes, but the most exciting development in Fluevog’s designs is the return of the platform shoe, i.e. high heels for men. I reported in an earlier blog (“The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”) about the Fluevog Perry boot with its blue snakeskin design and 3-inch heels.

It was followed up by the Prince George (pictured down below), Fluevog going even more extreme with a 4-inch heel, and boy is it solid. To date I jumped off a stage with them on, drove my Prius through downtown Los Angeles on a Friday night with them and neither I nor the shoes were damaged.

Egged on, no doubt by robust sales Fluevog followed up these classics with a newer design, the unisex Swordfish Edwardian boot. The Fluevog press release describes it as thus: “An iconic Fluevog line from the 80s, popularized by its distinctive pointed toe shape, The Swordfish has been re-imagined by John into this killer boot. Using tough, aged Texas leathers, tunite soles, instep zippers, straps and buckles, it's no wonder The Swordfish are cherished and collected by Fluevogers everywhere. The Edwardian also includes a 3.5" leather-wrapped Cuban heel that brings the Fluevog flair way over-the-top”. As far as I’m concerned it can never go too way over the top, but then again I’m a graduate of Rodney’s English Disco, Class of 1973.

Coincidentally, last week BBC News ran a piece online called “Why Did Men Stop Wearing High Heels?” The article, written by William Kremer submits the revelation that high heels were originally designed for men in Persia as a form of riding footwear.

"When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively," said Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Ontario. “A wave of interest in all things Persian passed through Western Europe. Persian style shoes were enthusiastically adopted by aristocrats, who sought to give their appearance a virile, masculine edge that only heeled shoes could supply. As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes - and the high heel was born”.

The most notorious wearer of high heels at the time was Louis XIV of France, who was a wee 5’4” and sported 4-inch heels to enhance his physical stature. The article also states that his soles were always red, yup, just like Christian Laboutin’s signature look!

By the 17th Century women in Europe were adopting men’s style into their fashions, and you guessed it, high heels made the transfer. During the Enlightenment men renounced luxurious trappings like excessive jewelry and looking more, well punk rock so their heels got shorter for utilitarian reasons.

According to the article high heels were phased out of society not just by men but also by women, as well, and didn’t make a fashion comeback until, believe it or not, French porno produced in the early 20th Century. Some of this sounds kind of far-fetched, but the truth is always stranger than fiction. And nothing could possibly stand in the way between me and my new high-heeled Fluevogs!

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The fetish club scene has suffered two significant losses in the past few months: that of John Napier,lead singer of Ethyl Meatplow, and James Stone, of the Fetish Ball, which not only hosted leather & rubber fashion shows but also hosted bands like The Cramps and The Specimen, as well.

John Napier’s death was announced on November 11, 2012(11/11, how weird)from a drug overdose. I remember seeing Ethyl Meatplow performing at The Fuck Club and John being the best thing about the show. He had all the most important elements to being a great performer: he was dynamic, funny and always surprising to watch on stage. Plus he did a better version of “Close To You” than The Carpenters, so there.

I also remember John as being a gracious and funny guy. We had dinner together on Santa Monica Boulevard (where else?) and had a lot of laughs. There was none of this bullshit band rivalry or jealousy being served at all, so I have nothing but friendly memories of him, and offer my sincere condolences to his family and friends.

James Stone sadly passed on January 23, 2013, from bladder cancer. His well-deserved notoriety was from promoting all those great Fetish Balls usually held at Parkview Plaza and sometimes at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Fetish Ball, for people who haven’t gone, is a sort of fetish fair where leather and rubber goods (read as S&M or B&D) were sold by vendors like us and fetish fashion shows and actual goth-glam-trash bands played. James always got us a good spot to sell our corsets, bustiers, bracelets, chokers and extras to all those kinky kids.

We later did a lot of cool business with him when he was a buyer at The Pleasure Chest, the sex store on Santa Monica Boulevard (where else?). He was always pretty down-to-earth and easy to work with, not to mention generous with his contacts for us, a class act all the way. While I’m not given to making sweeping statements like the Golden Era of Hollywood Punk Fetish is over, the lights on the seedy streets of Santa Monica Boulevard and evil Silver Lake will be a lot less bright and glittery than they used to be, and these real gone geezers will be terribly missed.

The Rubber and Leather T Chronicles

When you’re discussing fashion you don’t hear the word “mystery” come up very often, but if there was any way to describe my sense of style in the mid-Seventies it was pretty mysterious. I was the kid in high school who wore a leather jacket and jeans on Monday, suit and tie on Tuesday, and just to confound my teachers and classmates wear an industrial shop apron the next. And we didn’t have a shop class in my school!

While my dress sense came off a little confused, it was more eclectic than anything, a teenager’s refusal to be categorized and filed away in the social index of teen cliques.

It was 1976 and the era of glam rock was slowly fading away, my elephant flares and fluorescent six-inch heeled platforms losing their spark. I was looking for something different, and it came in the form of the new phenomenon coming from the United Kingdom: Punk Rock.

I saw exciting pictures of The Sex Pistols and their wild fashions, featuring ripped t-shirts held together by safety pins, tartan bondage pants with buckled straps, and those three-inch soled brothel creepers (again with the elevated footwear!). Since my twentieth birthday was approaching my father asked me what I wanted for a gift, and I asked for a plane ticket to London. After all, it was Bicentennial Summer in America, so what better way to celebrate than to visit our forefathers?

I read that The Sex Pistols had their clothes supplied from a boutique called “Sex” on King’s Row in Chelsea. I made it one of my first destinations for cool rock wear, something to replace my now-archaic Gary Glitter togs.

The “Sex” staff looked pretty wild but so classically British (i.e. very polite) like Jordan, who was great. She introduced me to the head designer and co-owner of the shop, Vivienne Westwood. Ms. Westwood was a very small, delicate woman with short, white hair spiked up high dressed in black leather trousers. She was one of the nicest and friendliest ladies I’ve ever met; for all her punk appearance she was absolutely charming and easygoing, no attitude whatsoever.

I spun around in circles in Malcolm (Maclaren) and Vivienne’s shop looking for something I could wear which would stand out anywhere, especially back home in America. Decisions, decisions!

Would it be the “Cambridge Rapist” t-shirt? No, not my style. Would it be the one with the two gay porn cowboys in a clutch? No, nyet, nope. One last look before I give up, and there it was: the most amazing thing I saw in “SEX”: a black leather t-shirt.

The black leather t-shirt was made of cowhide, not lamb or pig skin, and had thick metal zippers on both sides to help slide the thing on. Jordan recommended I put baby powder inside the shirt to make it even to slide in. One try and I knew I found my Vivienne Westwood original.

In addition to the leather t-shirt I also bought a great silver rubber t-shirt, also awesome, and both sporting the immortal pink label with “SEX” written in big black letters. What becomes a legend most? Clothes like these.

I wore these shirts at the two Sex Pistols shows I attended (the leather at an all-nighter at Islington Screen On The Green and the rubber at The 100 Club). I met Malcolm and tried to get him interested in a band I knew from LA, but he politely declined. They were called The Motels, so I think things worked out well for them, anyway. I also saw Vivienne, who remembered me and noted my new acquisition from her store.

Those days were about so much more than just punk rock: I look back on that summer of leaving my teenage years and entering adulthood with my leather “SEX” original. Thanks, Vivienne. By the way, I still have the shirt and I also now design my own rock clothes, all fabrics, leather a specialty.

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High Heel Realness: Recently I drove to Lucha Va Voom from the wilds of Hollywood to Downtown LA on a Friday night, the only catch being that I wore my new Fluevog Prince George boots that sport 4-inch heels! It was a little scary, not just because traffic was so heavy but that I never drove in heels before. It was a real acid test, but I learned a lot from the experience.

When driving in high heels your heel is already in an elevated position with the sole of your foot bearing down on the accelerator. Just as you walk slowly and carefully in heels you should also be delicate in the application of your sole on the gas pedal. In other words, don't stomp it unless you want to get killed!

The foot should never stray too far away between the accelerator and the brake pedals, because once you get lost it's going to be a bitch getting that grand funk boot back in position. God forbid it could even get caught between both pedals, in which case you need to decide what kind of flowers do you want over your grave, roses or tulips?

Driving in heels should be approached as some kind of fine art, attempted with sensitivity and finesse, and even getting in touch with your feminine side.

No Excess Baggage

One of the cool benefits of working with Rebecca is the opportunity to create new things on the side. The focus this past month was on bags, different variations on them. This month alone we made four bags, and shown here are three of them.

Pictured above is a cargo bag, based on the All-Saints bag only enlarged and expanded for more items for loading. Actually, this bag is big enough to bear a load for a weekend’s trip anywhere. It’s made of crocodile-embossed cowhide leather, shown here dyed red. The same bag was made with dark blue dyed leather. Two interior pockets were sewn in for easy access to wallets, passports and cell phones.

Pictured above is a small accessories pouch for my iPhone. I use it to keep my phone charger, iHome music speaker and other things phone-related. It’s made of pleather (leatherette) from a pair of pants that a client left at our studio. The letters on the material was some sort of word jumble that looks like “SEX”.

Pictured below is a tote bag made of a fake reptile-textured cowhide with leopard spots. Again, two interior pockets were installed for easy access to the usual necessities of life. It’s based on a leather tote bag made by Ralph Lauren. This one really turns heads!

After a background of making wallets, purses and bags for Retail Slut, Tasty and Patricia Fields it’s cool to move up to fabricating large bags, almost suitcase-size and working on a larger scale. I’ve always enjoyed creating new things I can wear or use and fabricating these items and watching Rebecca and I use them has been pretty damn exciting.

Belts, Boots, Gloves Love

One of the most overlooked yet crucial parts of a wardrobe are the accessories…belts, boots, gloves, etc. I actually learned to love my accessories and buy them regularly. In fact, I bought a cool glam rock scarf today. Here’s a few stores I recommend for your major men’s accessory purchases:

Silver Connection (8308 Wilshire Blvd): Stuff I bought at Silver Connection: a styley King’s crown ring, a bear trap ring (good for weddings), and a cool Batman belt buckle, all in silver. And that’s just for the guys. There’s tons of items for girls, some of it’s goth, some of it’s hippie, some emo, even Southwest cowgirl stuff. Go and see Randy – he’ll hook you up and a great guy to do business with. At the Wilshire & San Vicente strip mall. He gives strip malls a touch of class.

Cools Clothing Store (110 Japanese Village Mall): I hope I’m not being racist when I say that any t-shirt store in Little Tokyo would automatically have anime graphics all over them, so imagine the double-take I made when I saw Rat Fink and Lucky 13 images instead blazing through the shop window. Here in the heart of Little Tokyo is a rockin’ little Lowbrow art shop, mostly girly clothes but sulky-pout emo boys might find skinny-minnie wearables here, too.
Cools is run by Masato Miura, who doesn’t bill himself on his business card as Store Manager but as “Mechanic”. Wotta card. He sells Tattoo art t-shirts, nutty beanies, cigarette cases, cute earrings all dragged out in the Kustom Kar Kommando style. I wish he didn’t play reggae music – how about some Guitar Wolf, bro?
With Christmas around the corner hit up Masato’s wicked garagey gift shop. I’ll be there buying the t-shirt that says “My Girlfriend Can Totally Beat Up Your Girlfriend”.

Zappos (Henderson, Nevada): For the first time ever I got a boner just by reading a packing slip…it was from Zappos. The slip said, “Your order was picked, packed and shipped by Cheryl and Amber”. Oooh Baby! Tell Daddy all about it! I ordered a gorgeous pair of brown leather boots with a side zipper (Brutini). The boots were so fresh they smelled like steak! Either the boot maker cooked the leather (medium well-done) before he sewed them or Cheryl and Amber tore into some prime rib before they picked, packed and shipped my boots.
Zappos, keep selling those kool, kewl, kool boots at great prices and send more sexy packing slips, please!

Ross Dress For Less (7060 W. Sunset Blvd): Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste. But when I run out of wealth and I run out of taste I go to Ross Dress For Less. There are some genuine finds here, you can get closeouts on designer stuff like DKNY boy panties and Calvin Klein belts. My wife bought those great Andy Warhol canvas tote bags (Campbell Soup Can and the Banana Velvet Underground LP cover) that came out a few years ago to cash in on the Edie Sedgwick flop movie (“Factory Girl”). They also have the Elvis, Jackie O and wild sunflower Warhol designs.
You can also get great markdowns on picture frames and kitchenware. Just make sure you stay away from the shirts and pants, guys, because they’re as irregular as a 90-year old man.

Leatherup.com (955 Venice Blvd): I love leather! Leather looks better on me than it does on a cow! And what better place to order your leather needs than through one of my favorite mail-order places, but Leatherup.com?
They sell biker vests, sexy leather chaps, biker caps, kid gloves, and best of all, leather boots. I ordered a killer pair of engineer boots for under $75 and got it within three working days with a 10% discount coupon included for my next order. Leatherup.com is like the hottest party girl: cheap, fast and eager to accommodate.

Maya Jewelry (7452 Melrose Ave): One of the oldest O.G. Melrose stores, Maya has a tasty assortment of tribal items from Africa, India, Central America, Peru, China, Japan, Thailand (i.e. if you saw Steve-O and Chris Party Boy from “Wildboyz” rompin’ around naked in that country it’s here) sexy jewelry like hoop earrings, toe rings and more for the ladies, studly sunglasses of every style imaginable for the studly guys out there, and some of the most colorful tribal masks, bracelets, rings and necklaces. I love Maya. My one-stop sun virgin sacrificial shop.

Run, Little Mouse

If you’ve got a halfway decent attention span and can wait two weeks-plus to obtain your stuff, then the internet is your ideal shopping center. Everything’s cheaper and in better quality than the goods you’ll find in stores, because they haven’t been manhandled to death by annoying browsers. So without further ado, here’s a list of some of my favorite places to shop:

Leatherup.com : A great place to buy biker boots (see pictured), leather trousers, chaps, vests, gloves, and even hats. The prices are dirt cheap as leather goods go, and the folks at Leatherup send a 15% off coupon for your next order.

Tripadvisor.com : Tourists review hotels and cut through the hype so you get the real skinny on where the best hotels are. I like it when they post photographs of their favorite rooms and hotel features, like the swimming pools.

Goodreads.com : A mySpace-styled website where bookworms review their favorite books, and no book is too lowbrow for review. Pam Anderson bios are reviewed with the same fervor as a Shakespeare collection, cookbooks are cool, graphic novels, little kids books, teen vampire operas, etc. Started by Otis Chandler of the LA Times Chandlers, this website’s a winner all the way.

Rivithead.com : The best of the Hot Topic-styled websites where cool shoes and rocker clothes can be bought. The prices are not only the lowest I’ve seen, but goods are delivered in three working days at no extra charge (if you live in SoCal). I’ve bought many of my rocker shoes there.

Cooks.com : If you’re looking for a recipe to cook anything, you’ll find it here. This site’s pretty great, I’ve learned how to cook a lot of great dishes thanks to cooks.com. Members of the site contribute their own recipes, and the forums are pretty cool. The only recipe that didn’t work out was some bizarre compote I probably messed up, anyway. Corn starch???

bcdb.com : Big Cartoon Database, sort of the iMDB of cartoons. Every cartoon show ever made is listed, although some of the information is kinda sketchy, it still remains a good resource for finding out that cartoon show you have trouble remembering after all these years.

VitaMaker.com : Not to be confused with VitaPal.com, Supplements-To-Go.com or VitaDigest.com, these companies all sell hard-to-find vitamins and assorted supplements at extremely low prices. I buy several bottles of my favorite supplements at a shot and save a fortune. The price differences between a lot of these companies is pretty slim, so you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Abe.com : Before you get price gouged to death for a book by eBay, come here. They have rare books at excellent prices and are listed by the various bookstores that sell them. I’ve found quite a few rare pulp crime novels here that are out of print. This is a great site for those impossible to find books.

Creepy Classics.com : Every horror, science fiction, lucha libre, film noir, and Baby Boomer cartoon show ever released on DVD can be found here. When you run out of DVDs to buy for your trash culture friends go here and feast on the inexhaustible selection available.

Well, the list of stores you can run to on your little mouse is infinite: Newegg for computer stuff, Lush for sweet soaps, Diviniti for men’s and women’s jewelry and rings, Travelocity for travel, etc. Informational sites are even more out there, like my beloved Yelp, GaragePunk Hideout, Urban Dictionary, Edmunds (for car reviews), Find A Grave (directory of celebrity burial grounds), Home Theater Forum, eHow for instructions on EVERYTHING, Flickr, You Tube, DVD Help for advice on burning DVDs, and my favorite, the Downtown Skylines site. It’s funny reading everyone on the forum complaining about Los Angeles’ puny, underdeveloped skyline. So get on your little mouse and run, baby, run.

While The City Sleeps

Sometimes you have to put your money where your big mouth is. Rebecca and I were making cool fetish clothes while guzzling black coffee, listening to the Bad Brains, Minor Threat and slopping on so much barge cement that the fumes would drive stylists out of our workroom/apartment in a horrified frenzy. Corporate America was equally horrified by my looks and wouldn't hire me on a dare - until the blessed Northridge earthquake - so I became Rebecca's sexy dude assistant.

Our money making line was fetish-related outfits made of leather or vinyl. We made bustiers, spiked corsets, chokers, hot pants, bracelets, cat o' nine tails, harnesses, even thongs. We sold to Japan, New York City (Patricia Field of "Sex and The City" fame), Georgia, Texas, the great Midwest, Canada, even the movies: our chokers were used in "Batman Forever", worn by Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazur. Several boutiques on Melrose carried our clothes and accessories. We were way out there!

One store that carried our clothes was called the Tasty Store, run by Phil Rubin, a hipster Phil Silvers who looked and talked like Sgt. Bilko himself. One day he called Rebecca, and said-
"Becky, you guys make the kinkiest clothes for my store. Tonight The Chateau is having a big Fetish Fest and we got a table to sell our stuff there. Let's go and make lots of money!"
We couldn't just go in flannel and sell kinky clothes - we had to dress for the occasion. Rebecca wore a cool pink vinyl outfit and I wore Black vinyl pants, a purple vest and a fishnet top, with a leather top hat and burglar mask. I looked wicked.

A name like the Chateau recalls images of an old castle somewhere, but in fact it was a run-down warehouse in the middle of the industrial section in the Valley. Yeah, no drawbridge or moat. We walked into a tired looking office wrapped up in formica and cheap carpeting and looked into the small offices, ahem, "dungeons" as we walked by. I saw old men that looked like Tim Conway licking the boots of some goth-damaged dominatrix.

We set up our table in the loading dock, er, "torture playground" in the back of the building. laying out our cartoony-looking fetish goods, we sat back as S&M fans male and female examined our sinister stock.
Some beer-gut slave would stroke a bracelet and then ask Rebecca if he could have a "session" with her. Before he could finish his question she would blurt out a hasty "No". Session = some slave pays a master to kick him while he licks her boots. I told Rebecca to take the money. They would nervously glance at me as I quietly seethed in my leather top hat and burglar mask.
"Doesn't he say anything?" they would meekly inquire.
"No", answered Phil, "He's too evil to speak!"
The slave would quickly slunk away.

Some chipper old timer with the most dapper looks came up to our table with a cheap pet store choker on. He wore bifocals and a well-trimmed mustache. He wore the ugliest t-shirt of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark with the inscription "Yes, Mistress" scrawled in cheap crayon over it. In cultured tones, he said, "Hello! You look like musicians. You know, I'm a songwriter, I write my very own songs and plan on making a record called 'Yes, Mistress'. My t-shirt will be the album cover".
Oh my god.
"Would you like to hear one of my compositions?"
"Sure, why not?" asked Rebecca. I couldn't answer, remember, because I was too evil to speak.
"I call this one 'How Much Is That Slave In The Window?'" he very proudly announced.
"How much is that slave in the window?
The most submissive slave in the cage,
He loves his dear mistress - a black widow,
He craves every drop of her rage".
He sang this tune in the highest voice, like a small choir boy castrati with the most syrupy tone I've ever heard. The only punishment experienced at the Chateau was trying not to laugh at him.
"Wow, that's really cool!" said Rebecca, as she lifted up the fifth of bourbon we had smuggled in.
"Oh, my!" he twittered. "Would you like to hear another one?"
"No thanks", said Phil coldly,"The contest is about to begin".

Indeed it was. There was a Master and Slave contest and it looked like a dog discipline class. The fattest women I've ever seen squeezed into the tightest leather thongs, cellulite stretching over, under, sideways, down pulling leashes attached to necks or muzzles or even tiny male peepees, the men as slaves with heads shaved and flabby on all fours like dogs. The contest had the doms making their slaves heel, beg, roll over and other tricks Fido takes for granted. We really had to grab our smuggled bottle and hit the sauce during this event!

By the end of the night we made a small chunk of change, no bonanza because S&M creeps are notoriously cheap, but we ate like real people for a week. Then the Northridge Earthquake hit and I got hired by the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority and made office money, no boots and gloves from Monday through Friday.