Sunset Blvd: One Famous Road

Sunset Blvd is a long road, but is most known for the 1.7 mile stretch called The Sunset Strip. But it's much more than that.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and
Jerry's here too. Jerry's being quiet and this is Stuff
you should Know, the hair metal Ish edition.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I mean, you know, we've done a lot of New
York centric episodes over the years, and I feel like
we haven't given La their due, a city that I
know you love dearly.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, the one other city in the world New York.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
In La No, I just La, and especially this episode,
this Sunset Boulevard. The street there aren't many, you know.
I mean, there's a handful of iconic streets in the world,
and Sunset Boulevard is one of them because it's just
been historically packed with I mean, it's not just like
film stuff. It's music stuff, it's literary stuff, it's comedy stuff,

(01:00):
all sorts of like iconic cultural staples on Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Right, And it was obviously very well known inside of
LA for years, but it wasn't until the early twenty
tens before the rest of the world heard about it,
thanks to the Aaron Sorkin show Studio sixty on the
Sunset Strip.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Oh yeah, I actually watched that for a little while.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
It was unwatchable.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, it wasn't very good.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Somebody just breaking out into a moving soliloquy every seven
minutes is the most unrealistic writing anybody could ever possibly do.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
That's Aaron Sorkin, baby, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
But it only worked for West Wing.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I didn't much West Wing at all, so I haven't
seen a lot of Sorkin stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
It really worked for West Wing, but it did not
work for Studio sixty.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
I do love Sarah Paulson though she was in that.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Sure, that's great. I felt bad for.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, I did do a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
What was great is thirty Rock came out at the
exact same time, and they would make fun of some
Studio sixties like a plot line.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes, in real time, Yeah, the whole what.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Was the Janis Joplin story? They had to like rename her, uh,
have rights to her life story? That was something that
Sarah Paulson like, got it a gig do playing Janis
Joplin on Studio sixty. So that's our Studio sixty episode, everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
That's right back to Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, so yes, we should probably just say all jokes
aside it's very long street. It's a very historic street,
and it actually dates back to the eighteenth century, before
the city of Los Angeles, as we understand, it was around. Instead,
it originated in the Pueblo de Los Angeles, which was

(02:42):
the little colony I guess or settlement of just eleven families. Yeah,
that was the seed that germinated into Los Angeles, home
of Joe Friday.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
That's right in Sunset Boulevard before it became Sunset Boulevard,
like many famous streets, was originally used as something else,
and in this case, it was a cattle trail from
that downtown pueblo of Los Angeles all the way to
the Pacific. So it runs for twenty three miles. You
hear about, you know, Sunset Boulevard, you probably think of
the Sunset Strip, which is a less than two mile area.

(03:15):
But Sunset Boulevard there, you know, I used to live
on the east side and Silver Lake and Sunset Boulevard
over there is great and a whole other way than
the Sunset Strip.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
How so well, I mean it's.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Just a cultural seed of you know, great restaurants and
cafes and music venues, and you know, it was sort
of the hipster thing back in the day when the
hipsters were still a thing.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, Silverlake. That's there's that Shaggy Dog Mystery with Andrew
Garfield beneath the Silver Lake. Right.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Oh, that was pretty hipster. I think I saw that maybe.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, it's worth watching, especially if you know it's a
shaggy dog mystery going into it.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, but a long way of saying that, it was
a cattle trail to begin with, and then like a
lot of things like that, would eventually become a real street.
It became Sunset Boulevard about one hundred years after that,
I believe.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, so there's a couple of store origin stories for
where the name came from. I couldn't see what they
called it, like the westward side of Sunset Boulevard before
it was Sunset Boulevard. But I think in eighteen eighty
seven there was a developer. There was a lot of
land development going on in the late nineteenth century that
built up Los Angeles. It was a bunch of different

(04:28):
little towns, communities that were independent, and then Los Angeles
kept growing and growing and growing, and it would absorb
them and they became neighborhoods instead. Well, there was one
planned town called Sunset, and they planned for Sunset Boulevard,
a different stretch of road to go right through the town,
and so they apparently came up with the name Sunset Boulevard,

(04:49):
but it was another developer who appropriated it and used
it for the Sunset Boulevard. After that town of Sunset
never actually happened. It died on the drafting tape.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
I guess is what you'd say, is that an industry
jargon it is now? Yeah, And you know, surely you
can see some some great sunsets because Sunset, you know,
if you're not familiar with sort of the Hollywood basin,
there's a it's very grid like and there's a series
of east west streets. Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica are some
of the more famous ones. And it goes downhill, you know,

(05:22):
from the mountains, the Hollywood Hills. You know, there's the
literal mountains and hills, but then it's still up kind
of high and La kind of goes down down, down
into the basin and Sunset is pretty high on that side.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
So yeah, you can see some great sunsets, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, And I think originally it terminated on the east
end in Chinatown or what's now Chinatown, And like you said,
it goes through Silver Lake, it goes through a bunch
of different neighborhoods, Echo Park, Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills, Hollywood,
West Hollywood, like all these great neighborhoods I think are
in part great neighborhoods because it's chicken or the thing

(06:00):
is Sunset Boulevard great because these these neighborhoods around it
are great, Or are the neighborhoods great because Sunset Boulevard
ran through them?

Speaker 1 (06:09):
I think it's a chicken meat egg and they just
shake hands and agree not to discuss it.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Let's never speak of this again.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Some film stuff and we're kind of jumping around between
things that made it famous, but generally in a timeline.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
But early on it was obviously.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Hollywood was the birthplace of the film industry. And you know,
we've said it before. If you've never been there, you
might think Hollywood is just a euphemism for the film industry.
It is that, but it is also a real neighborhood
right in the center of the La Basin there, And
you know, it was originally just like all the other suburbs,
like you were talking about, they were dividing it up
into lots, and I believe in the early nineteen hundreds

(06:49):
it was a guy named very nineteen hundreds name H. J.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Whitby, who kind of I.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Don't know if he wasn't officially incorporated, but he made
Hollywood like a proper town and a place to live.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah. I think Hollywood or West Hollywood wasn't incorporated until
like the nineteen eighties, Is that right.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I think that was probably West Hollywood. Okay, we hope
as they.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Say, yeah, everybody knows that thanks to the studio sixty
so yeah, so Hollywood it was almost out of the
gate versus the early nineteen hundreds nineteen ten when it
merged with Los Angeles. The next year, film studio started
popping up, and they started popping up in a very
specific area, the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.

(07:34):
And even still today there's an original studio from that
area called Sunset Gower Studios and they're still making shows.
That's where Dexter was filmed, That's where Saved by the Bell,
the College Years was filmed. That's that's where yet six
feet under Dexter, the College years. Heroes, A lot of

(07:55):
really good shows have shot there, and it's an old,
old timey, original Hollywood studio from like the nineteen teens.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
I never shot there, but I got to as a
PA got to run an erran there once during while
Six Feet Under was being shot, so I've got to
see those sets and it was pretty pretty cool as
a six Feet Under fan.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
What did you take something to Diddy? Is that what
it was? No?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
No, No, that was to his actual house.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Good.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, I'd disavow that entire delivery, though. Poverty Rose what
they called Sunset Gower at first because it was pretty
low budget at the time the things they shot there,
But in the nineteen thirties they started shooting some like
really kind of high quality things there, notably the movies
That Happened One Night and You Can't Take It with You.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, and then Gower Gulch.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm glad I never knew the history, but there's still
a strip mall right there called Gower Gulch and it
has a little Old West theme.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
And that's where I saw Cherio Terry at a Starbucks.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Oh yeah, and where there was a hopefully it's still
a print shop there where you know, you could get
scripts printed off and bound. Oh yeah, but now I
know that Gower Gulch is so named because it was
where all of the Westerns were being filmed, and a
lot of dudes and like cowboy hats and cowboy boots
would kind of hang around waiting to be cast there
at that I guess whatever the stores were at the time.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, because Hollywood, especially this area where all the studios
were churning out Westerns left and right through the twenties
and thirties. So I mean, I'm sure there were other
extras hanging around, but the ten gallon hat really makes
you stand out. And if you put a bunch of
them together, it's going to get a reputation for being
a cowboy hangout. And they would hang out around the
Columbia drug Store. Ye Is that still there?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
I mean I feel like there's a right Aid and
that's probably what that was, But I may be wrong,
but you know, Gower Gulch lives on.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Did you ever go into that right Aid? And green Point? Yeah?
In Greenpoint in New York and Brooklyn. I think that
has like a disco ball still from whatever it was before.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh cool, No, definitely not.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It is kind of cool. But anyway, this Columbia drug
store they would have out there because the owners of
Columbia Drugs are had a telephone and they would let
the extras use it to call Central Casting to see
if there were any parts available for them. And there
was a high profile murder there too, right between a
couple of cowboys.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Uh yeah, I mean I don't know if it was
quite a you know, take ten steps and draw kind
of thing. Yeah, but there was a shooter over I
think they were both seeing the same Philly.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, and apparently one of them, Blackjack Ward, killed Johnny Tyke.
He shot him down once and then he told them
each reason he was shooting him, and every time he did,
he shot him again until his whole six shooter was empty.
Like he murdered that guy in broad daylight in front
of a bunch of people, and he still got off.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
And someone said, boy, cast that dude. That's incredible. Yeah,
that should be out of a movie.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, they should make a movie about him. Sure.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Prohibition was when the party scene kind of moved in.
It was called the County Strip at the time, and
it was unincorporated still at this point, but it was
a stretch kind of between where Hollywood was, you know,
a dry place because of Prohibition, and Beverly Hills is
kind of where the Sunset Strip ends.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, well but it keeps going to the Pacific, right that, like,
doesn't it basically just run out into the ocean. I
guess the Pacific Highway.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
But that's not the Sunset Strip, the strip strip.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that, but yeah, I guess
from the outset. The Sunset Strip was like mobsters, brothels, gambling, rackets, nightclubs.
It was huge during Prohibition, and I guess the reason
why is because it was unincorporated, so the La County
Sheriff was in charge of overseeing or enforcing laws, and

(11:41):
I guess they weren't particularly inclined to enforce laws in
the area. So that's where you went. And that in
and of itself is like worth mentioning. It's historic. But
one of the reasons it's so famous or the strip
became the strip, is because on the other side, like
you said, there's Beverly Hills, and that's where the stars
had moved around the same time, So they would come
into the County Strip and party and then go back

(12:04):
to Beverly Hills and the fact that there were all
these world famous movie stars partying there. Yeah, kind of
really put a stamp on Sunset Strip that stayed forever.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, there was eighty four to seventy seven. Sunset had
four different mobster clubs basically where the you know, mob
owned and back them. It was at first the Sphinx,
then the Han Club, then Club what would that be
so Soco Luff.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I think so SoC Socoloff.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, that's okay, l O E F F. And then
the Clover Club. And if you're wondering what eighty four
to seventy seven is now, it's a weed dispensary.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Oh that's appropriate.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, it kind of feels right, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, because I'll bet it was a weed dispensary back
in the thirties too.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, probably so.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
But I'll bet it was some crap weed. Yeah, so
let yeah, no crap like the kids say today.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Right, I think it's no cap it'sn't it.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
I think they just don't know what they're saying. Okay,
So I mentioned Brothels that apparently was a huge foundation
of Hollywood. So there's Hollywood that people think about as Hollywood,
and then there was like real Hollywood that the actual
stars how they actually lived their lives, and it was
depraved and decadent, as you can imagine during the Golden Era.

(13:22):
It might have been the most appraved and decadent during
the Golden Era, depending on what your moral views are,
and people just went buck wild, and the brothels were
a huge part of that. They were everywhere along Sunset Boulevard.
They were in private homes, they were in apartment buildings,
they were sometimes in commercial spaces, and they even had

(13:42):
some that imitated or there were lookalikes of stars of
the day too.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, that was one of the plotlines of La Confidential
if you remember, Oh yeah, it was a brothel where
and except in that movie they were I think the
line was like they're cut to look like celebrities, So
I think they had actual like plast surgery, oh got
youa yeah, to look like Hollywood stars. And you know,
the rumors were that the studios were kind of funding
these to take investors, like foreign investors there and they

(14:10):
could sleep with a sex worker that looks like Vivian Lee.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
That seems to be a really well founded rumor, Like
I don't know that there's any actual documentation of it,
but it seems to be pretty much accepted as fact
from what I saw.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, I believe it so.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
And actually, because this is Hollywood and celebrity, I guess
celebrity worship is just part of it and always has been.
Whenever some of the Madams would get busted, they would
become internationally famous as well. There were two that stick out.
One name was Lee Francis. I think she might have
originally worked under the other very famous one, the Black

(14:44):
Widow and Forrester, And by this time the Hollywood movie
studios were so powerful that both Leif Francis and Forrester
were busted with client information. One of them had essentially
like an index card system, the other one at a
black book, and both of those things disappeared before they
could ever make it into the evidence locker. And no

(15:08):
one was arrested in any of the cases, even the
guys who were caught in the act, because they just
you just kept people's names out of the paper. It
just didn't happen in Hollywood. And I think that level
of protection by the studios just fueled the lifestyle that
the stars were living because they couldn't get in trouble.

(15:29):
They could not there were no consequences for what they
were doing, so people just did anything and everything there
during that golden age, I guess of the twenties and
thirties and forties.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Maybe, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And you know, because of that, it was sort of
a you know, as Dave called it, kind of a
blessing in disguise for the LGTBQ community. And you know,
that's West Hollywood or we HO again is sort of
the heart of the LGTB community in central Los Angeles.
But way before that it was it was where a
lot of gay bars were, gay clubs, drag clubs.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
I think the first drag shows.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
In the city and probably some of the first in
the United States, were to Speakeasy in nineteen twenty seven
called Cafe Loabom. But there were also, you know, all
kinds of clubs there. It was a very famous one
called the Trocadero that opened in nineteen thirty four where
Cafe Lobohm was, and it was opened by a guy
named Billy Wilkerson who was a publisher of The Hollywood Reporter,

(16:27):
which I guess used to be news and like gossip
and stuff. Now it's like a you know, fully sort
of stand up, legitimate industry rag.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I know they write about us pretty much constant.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
I think we were in it once.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Actually we were selected some honor of like I think
powerful podcasters or something crazy like that.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, we made that list of time or two and
we were in Variety once too. A couple of you know,
feathers in our caps.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, so nice. I'd love to joke those feathers sometimes.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Well, it's easy to forget when they don't come calling,
you know, it's true. But he owned Billy Wilkerson owned
the Trocadero, and it was another one of those things
where he was like, hey, you come by the Trocadero
and we're going to make sure that you get in
the gossip column, you know, because at the time, you know,
that was kind of good press.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah. At the same time, the Trocadero was set up
to cater to stars and celebrities because autograph hounds and
people who looked a little too hungry or thirsty to
get in there were shut out of that to protect
people inside, the celebrities inside, so they could relax and
not have to worry about I guess being asked for

(17:34):
their autograph, the worst thing that can possibly happen to you.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
And then the final one we'll mention here before the
break is a nightclub called Ciro's. It opened in nineteen
forty and I believe it was also Wilkerson who owned
that one, and it was notable.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
It was just a very.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Famous and popular nightclub, and it was it made its
name because Buggy Seagull would go there a lot, the
infamous mobster, and when he was in jail on murder trial,
he got food from Ciro's delivered right there to a
cell because you could do that at the time.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yep, takeout food, can you believe it.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
So we'll take a break now, Yeah, yeah, think a
right good idea great, and we'll come back and talk
about the legendary Chateau Marmont right after this.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
We promised talk of the Chateau Marmont. That is a
very famous hotel built in nineteen twenty nine. It's the
one that sits right in the hills and kind of
looks like a castle, a very European inspired luxury hotel,
and its motto is still if you go to their
website says always a safe, even always open, and from

(19:02):
the start it was kind of like what you've been describing.
It was a place where you could go and party
hardy and ensure that your name wouldn't be in the
news because of it.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, Like they had and I believe still have a
strict policy among their staff, like you do not talk
about what you see at the hotel. And the reason
why is they figured out very early on that if
you can provide like that level of discretion or privacy,
you're going to be you're in good Like the word

(19:33):
of mouth alone is going to keep you in business
for decades, and clearly that worked out for more than
a century, almost a century. And then conversely, if the
staff started gossiping or talking about what they saw or
started selling their stories to papers or tabloids like the
Chateau Marmont would have gone out of business in six
months essentially. So they I don't know how they managed

(19:54):
to do it to keep people from you know, rumor
mongering or anything like that, but they seem to have
quite successfully over the years.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and I was delighted to see today. And for
a while kind of during the early COVID years, I
remember it was closed down and it was supposedly going
to reopen as a sort of like a member's only
you could buy places or maybe live in them long
term or something. I can't remember what the plan was,
and it bummed me out because I'd never had a
chance to stay there. But I went today and apparently

(20:23):
it's a hotel again, and I don't know if those
plans are completely off or what or what happened, but
looks like you can stay there. I have never stayed there,
but I have mentioned before I have partied in the
John Belushi Bungalow like six or seven times, and it's.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Just a pretty awesome special place. The restaurant there, in
the bar, you just sort of feel.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
It's not like I go there to, you know, get
away with doing bad stuff, but it feels insulated when
you're in there, like this little weird haven.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah. I mean, like I said, apparently it's still very
much like that, and it's very tight lipped. Yeah. Yeah,
it's just I mean, that's just such an iconic place
that almost to me stands apart from Sunset Boulevard. It's
about as iconic as Sunset Boulevard itself in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, agreed, And it was right there at sort of
that junction where that very famously had the big Marboro
Man poster ad for oh yeah, forever that thing was up.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
There was one other thing. Dave helped us with us,
and he turned up a quote from the guy who
used to run Columbia Pictures, they think in the thirties.
The name was Harry Cone, and he used to tell
his actors, if you must get in trouble, do it
at the Chateau Marmont, Yeah, because nobody's going to find
out about it. Like that hotel could even keep people's
names out of the paper. When someone died in their hotel,

(21:41):
the death would get reported, but the papers would not
report the person's name. In a lot of cases, it's
got to be NDAs, I guess. But I mean, this
is long before there were NDA's, you know.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
I don't know when those came along.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
I mean, certainly they weren't around in the nineteen thirties.
I wouldn't think. I think just the studio has would
send goose.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Break your yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Down the street from the Chateau was another very famous
well eventually hotel was called the Garden of Allah, and you.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Should look this place up. If you're, you know, someplace
where you're not driving, and look at pictures of it.
It was pretty wondrous. I think it was a few
acres name.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
For its original owner, it was a silent film star
named Ala Nazimova, and Alah had a lot of money
and bought a mansion there in nineteen eighteen. And then
when things it was sort of like, hey, come and party.
It was sort of like the New York salons at
the time, like the elite would party there. And I
think Nazamova was coined the phrase sewing circles as code

(22:39):
for lesbian and bisexual actresses at the time.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, I saw her described as the sapphik Mother of Hollywood,
like she is a LGBTQ icon from still today, but
from this era. And she was really famous and made
a lot of money. Apparently at one point she was
making thirteen thousand dollars a week, which is two hundred
and seventy six thousand dollars a week today, And so

(23:04):
according to the moral codes of the time, this was
decadent and depraved, but it was a safe place for
the stars who were closeted lesbians or closeted bisexual to
like come and like have affairs or make relationships or whatever.
It was just a really safe space, and Nazimova was

(23:25):
the reason why. Like she managed to keep a lid
on that as well while still like everybody went and
had fun.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, totally. And you know, it went from a private
house where she hosted these salons to after the silent
film era, she didn't make the transition to the talkies
so well and so it was a little down on
her luck financially, and remodeled it as a hotel in
nineteen twenty seven and it became sort of the same
version of the same thing, but as a hotel.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah for sure. And I think as a hotel it
might have been less of a safe space, but probably
still carried it on some like from what I understand.
When it was their house, like it was lesbian central essentially,
and then once it became a hotel it was much
more open to I think everybody.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, for sure. It's now a strip mall. It was
demolished fully unfortunately, but you can go look at great
pictures of it. It was across from the very famous
Schwabz Pharmacy, which was a lot of things there was
I think from the movie nineteen fifty one Sunset Boulevard,
the great Billy Wilder movie.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
This is such a good movie.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
No, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
William Holden, as a washed up screenwriter, says, after that,
I drove down to headquarters. That's the way a lot
of us think about schwabs, kind of a combination office
coffee clatch and waiting room, waiting waiting for the gravy train.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, and that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
It was this weird combo where you could go see
and be seen and also sit around and wait for
the phone.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
During Yeah, they had this lunch counter that apparently was
pretty good because a lot of stars went there. But
they didn't discriminate. It wasn't like you could be an
aspiring actor who's getting nowhere and you're sitting there almost
literally rubbing elbows at this lunch counter with Marlon Brando
or something like that. Like, it was just people coming
together from all walks of life. And I thought that

(25:14):
was pretty cool. But it made it legendary. I mean
just basically anywhere that stars went on Sunset Boulevard automatically
became legendary. And now they're all right, aides or Chase.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Banks and Schwab's Pharmacy is where the famous story about
Lana Turner being discovered there while skipping school four name
was Lana Turner. But I think I feel like we
talked about this that that wasn't true.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, it turns out, I mean, she was discovered typing
class at Hollywood High School. But she was discovered at
the Top Hat malt shop, not at Schwab's, right, And
I guess Schwabs just filled in for top Hat because
it was much more famous. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, probably,
But that same Billy Wilkerson who founded Ceros and the
Hollywood Reporter, he's apparently the one who discovered her.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's all true, except for the Schwaps part.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
As we move into the sixties is when the Sunset Strip,
you know, particularly became part of the kind of the
seated counterculture of Los Angeles. In the nineteen fifties, a
lot of money went to Vegas when Vegas was first
opening up. Yeah, and so rents fell lower on the strip.
So like some grittier nightclubs moved in. And I think

(26:24):
you found two where Vegas. If you played in Vegas,
you needed to at least like have a reputation in La.
So that's why a lot of bands played there.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah. Well, no, the mob had enough money that they
could pay you just such a fat contract. That part
of the contract was you can't go play La because
we want people to come to Vas, right, So all
of the entertainers and performers left the Sunset Strip and
went to Vegas. So the club started having trouble, and
then they started bringing in black acts. Motown r and

(26:53):
b Otis Redding very famously played at I can't remember
what club with Bob Dylan watching him just agog and sadly,
the sudden appearance of black performers on the Sunset Strip
actually depressed real estate values even further, and so as

(27:15):
rock and roll kind of came along, young entrepreneurs who
wanted to open rock clubs were able to afford these
spaces along the Sunset Strip, And that's how it went
from glamorous Frank Sinatra to grungy rock clubs. There was
a transition, a swing from the R and B artists
of the time playing the Sunset Strip for a little

(27:36):
while in between those things.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Oh okay, that makes sense. So then it became more
rock and roll because that's when the Whiskey of Go
Go opened in sixty four. Then you have still not
been to. They just don't have a lot of stuff
that I'm into anymore. It's a lot of still a
lot of like metal and like metal tribute bands and
stuff like that. But I'm going to make it a
point just to go at some point, just so i

(27:59):
can be in that room. But that became sort of
the epicenter of the counterculture and youth culture and Whiskey
a Go Go. If you've heard of Go Go dancing,
it comes from the Whiskey of Go Go, Like literally.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, there was a DJ at the Whiskey name Joni Leabine,
and the DJ booth was in a glass case. I'm
not sure if it's still there or not, but it
was several tens of feet off of the dance floor
just over it. And when she was spinning records, she
would just kind of dance, and she had a certain
way of dancing, and she would wear very short skirts
and long white boots and the like. She started the

(28:34):
go go dancing trend of the sixties single handedly. Essentially
everybody started kind of mimicking her, and it was all
at the Whiskey Go Go.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, if you heard the rock band the Doors, the
rock band without a bass player featuring Jim Morrison and others,
Raymond Zeric.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I remember how excited I was in eighth grade when
that movie came out.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Oh I was in college. Yeah, I was too.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
That's cool that you were psyched at that age because
it felt like colleges when everyone got into the Doors
for a couple of years, and that was definitely me
and the Whiskey certainly featured heavily because they were the
house band for basically a summer in nineteen sixty six,
and you know, every one of the day played there.
It's not a very big venue either. I don't know

(29:20):
what the capacity is, but it feels like just by
looking at it, it's probably under a thousand.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Oh yeah, I would definitely say that. I mean imagine
seeing Led Zeppelin or Jimmy Hendrix like in a small
room like that.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, I mean I can't imagine seeing the period much
less in a small room.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
And then one other thing about the Whiskey Yo Go,
I think it's probably the greatest club name of all time.
And I looked up why or where Gogo came from
and apparently go for a little while was slang for fashionable,
and it just kind of morphed into go go kind
of fashionable or cool, right, doubly fashionable, So the whiskey

(29:56):
of go go was very fashionable.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
I guess a rare in show. Look up, it's a
capacity of five hundred. So yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Wow. Yeah, that's like a stuff you should know show
in our hometown of Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
In the mid sixties is when cruising the strips became
like a real thing with you know, basically people just
would get in their cars, get in their convertibles, get
on their motorcycles, and just drive.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Up and down the Sunset Strip.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
If you've ever seen the movie American Graffiti, even though
that drive in was filmed on van Ness, because Mel's
Drive In is a small chain, I think it was
supposed to be the one on the Sunset Strip if
I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah. Definitely, that whole La youth culture and car culture
that produced the Beach Boys and all that, that's when
it was set right and I think it actually Happy
Days was essentially spun off of American Graffiti. What's his name,
Richard Cunningham.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard Baby.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yes, he was an American Graffiti, essentially playing Richie Cunningham. Yeah,
right before Happy Days started.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
So I have ever thought about that?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, one little thing about that. I was looking up
Mels Drive in an American Graffiti and I ran across
there was a list of suggested names from the studio
instead of American Graffiti. And it's even on like Lucasfilm
Station Area or something like that. One of them was
Burger City. They considered naming that movie Burger City.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Wow, we should write a script called Burger City. We
can get it developed.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, I think that'd be great.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Or good burger That'd be an equally weird name.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Isn't that Keenan and Kel?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, I was just kidding.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Have you ever seen that movie?

Speaker 3 (31:42):
I never saw it was Was it a movie or
a show?

Speaker 2 (31:44):
It was a movie. It was like the Keenan and
Kell movie.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Okay, yeah, yeah, he's the best. Well I don't know
much about Kell, but Keenan's awesome.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
I love that guy.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Sixty six was when a club called Pandora's Box. Famously,
it became the sort of heart of what was known
as the riote on Sunset Strip. The La Sheriff's Department
headed first to ten o'clock curfew for teenagers, basically anyone
under eighteen, and on November twelfth of sixty six is
when thousands of young teenage hippies protested. They sat down

(32:19):
in the street in front of Pandora's Box, block traffic
and it ended pretty violently. Cops came in and Stephen
Stills wrote the famous protest song for what It's Worth
because he witnessed that event.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, they just came in with police batons of flying
cracking heads. It's like LAPD. Will you ever change?

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Maybe? Maybe not.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
The signs are not pointing to a definite yes at
this point yet.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
And if you're thinking I don't know the song for
what It's Worth, it's the song you better stop. Hey,
what's that sound?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Everybody?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Look what's going down? You just probably don't remember it
as having the name for what It's Worth.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
No, because it's one of those those songs that just
the title just doesn't fit the other part, I think.
But Buffalo Springfield, Yeah, it's a good song.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Stephen Sills, did you know that? Thanks? Dave?

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Oh did he not put the t in there.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
No, Stephen Sills, I loved.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
It, Crosby Sills, nas and Yown.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Oh, I mean we love Dave here, we love him.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
So we should talk a little bit about the black
Cat Tavern because black Cat Tavern was a home of
one of the first major LGBTQ protestly in the United States,
certainly a couple of years before Stonewall, even.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, two years before Stonewall, you said, right, yeah, And
I think on New Year's Eve, the cops came in
the lapd again or the Sheriff's office, I'm not sure
which one. They started cracking heads. They started just beating
up the gay patrons there for being gay. They accused
them of lewd conduct or whatever. I think you turned
up that two men were caught kissing and that's essentially

(34:02):
what started the beatings. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:05):
I mean they ended up arresting fourteen people, but those
two men ended up getting convicted and had to register
as sex offenders for kissing each other.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
The Supreme Court of the United.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
States refused to hear their appeal, and so they took
away their liquor license. In May I believe was sixty seven,
shortly after the protest on February eleventh because of the
raid on New Year's Eve and.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
They had to shut down.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
I think it reopened as several other gay bars over
the years until twenty eleven. When it reopened in twenty
twelve eight as the Black Cat. It was a restaurant.
This time they paid honor to its roots a by
naming it that and having kind of the same logo,
but just the historical significance is on display there with
photographs and a plaque.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
And this is in the Silver Lake side. This is
not on the strip.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
And in twenty twenty two it was duplex and a
very small sort of two sided building Shake Shack opened
up on the other side in the adjac space and
apparently dominated with their signage, and everyone got really really
mad at that, and it didn't last long.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Shakeshack there is now closed.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know. One of the most interesting things I've ever
seen is a story about Shakesheck, the original one in
whatever park it's in in New York. Okay, you mean,
and I were there. We were in line, very long line,
and the line goes through the park, so there's a
lot of trees overhead. Oh yeah, I know that this guy.
I'm not sure what park it is. I guess it
doesn't matter. But this guy, who was either one or

(35:28):
two behind us in line, suddenly was surrounded by bird poop.
It just formed like a halo around his body, and
everyone turned around looking for the poop that had surely
gotten on the guy, and he had nothing on him. Somehow,
the poop had all magically fallen within inches of his body,

(35:49):
all around him without actually getting on him, and everyone
in the line who knew what happened was just like
that is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
That guy was so happy he was not a lottery ticket. Yeah, exactly,
that's amazing. Check story.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
I think I've ever heard that. I don't know that
was the first one either.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, I think it's the first one. It was just
in the park.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, it's over it's like it's near Union Square. I
don't know what the park is either though.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
And then one other thing about the Black Cat Tavern. It's,
you know, obviously like people are like this happened, you know,
before the stonewall rate, it might have even happened before
the Compton's Cafeteria riot. And the fact that it's compared
to Stonewall. It makes you think that there was a
riot involved. It wasn't. It was a dignified, organized protest.
But it's the first recorded LGBTQ protest in American history.

(36:40):
That's what that's its big claim to fame.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Amazing. I feel like that's a great time for a
break totally. And we'll segue into the seventies right after this.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Okay, So the seventies, which we just say waded into
this was where the rock clubs like kind of transitioned
from hippie rock to all sorts of different stuff proto punk,
glam rock, eventually hair metal as we'll see. And there
were three big clubs rock clubs that were around at

(37:34):
the time. There was the Roxy Theater, Rodney's English Disco,
and Ghazaries. Those were the three that were like the
three big rock clubs in the seventies that kind of
kicked off that transition from what I understand.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Yeah, and Ghazari's is best known for Van Halen. Baby.
Van Halen was known for two things in their early
days before they put a record out.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
It was backyard parties in Pasadena where they lived, and
being the house band at Kazari's for like years.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Did you know that Van Halen was from California?

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I always thought they were a Dutch band.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
No, I mean Eddie and Alex were Dutch by heritage,
and I think they were even born there.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Maybe David lee Roth is in Dutch. No, have you
ever heard him talk?

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Sure, I'm a distributor about the map right as touch?
I think you're right. I mean, I'm a big van
Halen guy.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
So I've studied and read all the books, but there's
one in particular.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Oh god, is it called Becoming van Halen.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
It's the most intense, Like, I don't know how this
guy got this information, but it's the most intense detailing
of pre record contract.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Van Halen that I've ever heard of in my life.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
It was incredible how much this guy knew about their
Pasadena backyard party days.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well, since you know so much about van Halen, answer
this for me. It's a question I actually carry around
with me. What was the deal with Eddie van Halen
slamming Michael Anthony is a bad bass player? Like I
think about upon Michael Anthony's death.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Oh, well, you mean Eddie van Halen's death Michael Anthony?

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Okay, well, for some reason, Eddie Van Halen came out
and said that he thought Michael Anthony was a terrible
bass player.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Oh, Eddie, you know he's one of the greatest and
rip for sure, but he could be unkind at times.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Two people. I think Michael Anthony's one of the.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Greatest, and he had the voice that kind of helped
him make Van Halen with those backing vocals. And he's
still crushing it. Because I went and saw Sammy Hagar
and Michael Anthony and Vegas played not too long ago
for the second time in a year.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Were you the guest of our good friend Aaron Hagar who.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Listens, No, I wasn't a guest this time. Aaron.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
I was hoping he could meet there and I could
finally have a chance to meet his pops. But Aaron
showed up the week after I was there. But Adam Pranica,
friend of the show of the Greatest Generation podcast, met
me from LA and we played little golf and saw
Sammy and just had a great time. It's a really
good show. Those guys are still killing it. Michael Anthony
is besides his talents, is known as one of the

(40:04):
nicest guys in rock and roll nice, which really stinks
if Eddie said that, because Michael Anthony has always taken
the high road.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh he did say it. It was a big deal,
And Sammy Hagar came out and said, I don't know
what Eddie's talking about. Yeah, basically being any to get
Michael Anthony's the best bass player I ever worked with,
So he's whooped in.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
All that band stuff. Just makes me sad fighting like that.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, I'd like to circle back to Adam Pranica. Okay,
for people who aren't familiar with him, I would say,
go listen to the Greatest Generation podcasts, but if you
ever get a chance to meet Adam Pranica, you should
consider yourself hashtag blessed because he is one of the
greatest human beings you will ever meet in your life, like, legitimately,
through and through. Just a great dude.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, agreed, He's the Michael Anthony A podcast. He definitely is,
along with his co host Ben Harrison.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
No, Ben's great too, He's no Adam Pranica, though.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Ben's gonna like that burn The Roxy opened in seventy three.
David Geffen, very famous sort of record label owner and
early on music producer and Lou Adler, legendary producer, opened
the Roxy, and it.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Was legendary for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
I mean, the biggest of the big play there in
this again a small club, but the very first staging
in the.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
US of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, this is when it was just a stage musical
played at the Roxy.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah, and pee Wee Herman debuted his show what became
the pe Wee Herman TV Show, his live stage version
of it that came out first in nineteen eighty one
at the Roxy. Have you seen that documentary yet?

Speaker 1 (41:39):
I still haven't seen it because he's got on vacation,
but it's on the list.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
And then Rodney's English Disco. I don't know why. Those
three words together are hard for me to pronounce, but
that was Rodney Bingenheimer's club that opened in nineteen seventy two.
So think about how ahead of the curve he was
by naming it a disco. There was no disco around yet.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
He was a legendary DJ at k Rock in LA
from seventy six to twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
I'm sorry, he took it's Kroq.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
And was very famous for breaking, Like the list of
bands that he broke on air is incredible, Like, just look.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
It over sometime.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
I don't have time to go over all of it
here because we're running long, but it's it's just really impressive.
And he was a There was a great documentary about
him called The Mayor of Sunset Strip. He is a
star in Hollywood Boulevard and it's just like, wow, what
a guy. And then, very disappointingly, a couple of years ago,
Carrie Chrome of The Runaways filed a lawsuit and said

(42:39):
he sexually assaulted me when I was thirteen years old.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Man, those poor Runaways they got, I know, just totally
exploited and just us it up sad, just.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Young teenage girls. And Kim Falley, their manager, seems like
a horrible human. Yeah, took part in that assault. And
then five more women came forward after that, including Jane
Wheedland of the Go Gos, and said, yeah, Rodney really
assaulted me too. And there hasn't been a result of
that lawsuit yet, but it turns out not a good guy.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Well good for them for standing up to that. Dude.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
We couldn't mention the Sunset Strip without mentioning, especially during
the era of the seventies, the Continental Hyatt House, which.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
Has stayed there.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
By the way I have I'm almost positive that we
both stayed as now the and does in one of
our LA Podcast Festival appearances, I.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Do not recall that I remember seeing at the SLS.
Is that what you're talking about?

Speaker 3 (43:32):
No, this is and Oz. I mean I definitely stay there.
I thought you did. But it was the Continental riot House. Yes,
the Hyatt House.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Officially, if you've ever read the led Zeppelin book and
there's that picture of Robert Plant standing on the balcony
saying I'm a golden God, that that was the Riot House.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, and the Continental. Just as a little aside, that's
from the original name of the hotel, the Continental, which
was owned by Gene Autry.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Oh well know that.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah, it's kind of a weird transition, right.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yeah, totally all right.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
As the tour goes forward, we're gonna take a little
stop here at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset
opened in seventy two, and it was the people who
on the whiskey of Go Go that opened the Rainbow,
and the Rainbow was just a din of debauchery disguised
as a not too great Italian restaurant, but that was
where the Hollywood vampires hung out the kind of silly

(44:24):
looking at it now drinking club founded by Alice Cooper
as members of which were Keith Moon, Ringo star Mickey
Dolans and the Debauchers and Great Harry Nilsen.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, and they're now kind of a band with Alice
Cooper and Aerosmith.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Guitarist Oh jove, Oh geez.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
What's his same? Steven Tyler and the other guy. I'm
just blanking.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Well, anyway, Johnny Depp is in it. There's like a
couple other people too. I think one of the dudes
from Guns and Roses might be in it too.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Maybe. I don't know if they're any good? Are they?

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I don't know. I think they're more a novelty act maybe.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
I mean, you know, it's got Johnny Depp in it.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Right, right, I think that kind of makes it a
novelty act as far as musical acts are concerned. Joe Perry,
Joe Perry, I kept won't say.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Joe Elliott, but that's a def Leppard.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Oh yeah, that's right, that's the lead singer.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
One other thing about the Rainbow Bar and Grill. That's
where John beluci Ate his last meal, Yeah, in nineteen
eighty two before he died of a drug overdose at
the Chateau Marmont. And had he gotten the speedball from Schwabs,
it would have been a Sunset Boulevard trifecta.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Oh yeah, I guess you're right, and then.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
I guess Moving on, Chuck, we can't talk about Sunset
Boulevard without talking about comedy clubs because it was essentially
the place where the whole concept of a comedy club
was born.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, thanks to poly Shor's mom, Mitzi Shore.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Is is it his mom? Because I looked it up
and I couldn't find that was it his mom? Really?

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Oh yeah, that's funny because he like he was like
a kid roaming around those parts.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
She. Mitzy Shore opened the Comedy Store in seventy two
where Zeiros used to be and it was, like you said,
it was the very first stand up only nightclub in
the world, which is crazy to think about.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
For sure, and so Mitzi Shore became very famous for
considering the Comedy Store as a comedy workshop where up
and comers could work on their material work on their acts,
and because it was a comedy workshop and not a
comedy club, she didn't pay them, especially the up and comers.
There are very few big name acts that would come
through and she would pay them. But if you were

(46:40):
working on your stuff, and we're talking like legendary people here,
we're talking like Jim Carrey, Howie Mendel, Gary Shandling, Andy Kaufman,
Robin Williams, Michael Keaton for some reason, apparently was a
stand up. Oh yeah, yeah, I did not know that. Yeah,
he's just so serious now, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Yeah, but I mean he started in comedy movies. You
can get his early stand up. It's kind of fun.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, No, I know his comedy movies I've seen.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
No, I mean the stand on you can watch.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Oh gotcha. So, like, these were people who all had
their careers launched thanks to the Comedy Store, but they
were paid an exposure, and eventually they were like, this
is not worth it. We're going on strike.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, they went on striking seventy nine, which opened a
door for another club, The world famous Laugh Factory, opened
in seventy nine, just a few blocks away by a
sixteen year old, which is amazing Iranian immigrant also amazing
named Jamie Masada, and he ended up opening laugh factories
all over the country.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and he was like, how about this, you guys
come play here and I'll share some of the cover
charge with you, like I'll actually pay you. And apparently
the original name of the laugh factory was joke on
Yolk like egg yoke really, yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Joke on Yolk. I don't get it. Was there a
Yolk Street?

Speaker 2 (47:57):
I think he thought that was funny. Oh, okay, Ryan,
so it's funny.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Well, I guess he was a better business owner than comedian, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Well he was an aspiring comedian. That's why he opened
that club.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah, joke on Yolk, get it right.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
So one other thing circling back, Mitzi Shore finally resolved
to strike after a few weeks by agreeing to pay
the comedians twenty five dollars a set, which is ay
whopping one hundred and ten dollars today.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
That's not too bad if you're getting up there, I'm
doing seven minutes.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
They don't know you can buy like a pack of
cigarettes with one hundred and ten dollars today.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
All right, we're gonna move into the eighties, and you
got to talk about the eighties because you got to
talk about hair metal, and if you're going to talk
about hair metal in the Sunset Strip, you got to
start with Motley Crue.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah. I guess they were the ones who like started
the whole thing on the Sunset Strip. I'm sure you
knew that because you probably read ten books about Motley Crue.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
No just two, Okay, Yeah, I mean they lived right
above it.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
They could walk down there and you know, have big
parties at their a disgusting place that they shared above
the Sunset Strip. But yeah, they were, if not the first,
one of the first to kind of bring that scene there.
And you know, Poison La, Guns Faster, pussy Cat, eventually
Guns n' Roses would start out there in the mid eighties.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
But yeah, the.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Whiskey kind of had a bunch of different lies, from
hippie stuff to sort of what we would view as
classic rock to eventually hair metal and now I guess
hair metal cover bands.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Right and in between then and now grunge came along
and killed hair metal, which was a sad day. I
think you.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Can still go see those bands. They're around.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
You can see the tribute versions of them and other ones.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
I'm going to see Judas Priest.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
I've never seen them, and I got tickets on a
whim to go see them this fall.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Speaking of Judas Priest, I just have one more place
I want to mention, But Judas Priest has one of
the cooler documentaries around. It's called Parking Lot or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Have you metal Parking Yes?

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Have you seen it?

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (49:56):
I mean it's not just about Judas Priest, It's just
about Pienelope Sphrus directed that kind of legendary documentary.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Right, Okay, well, I guess I'm the only one who
saw it, but I love that documentary. It just takes
place at that Parking Lot before Judas Priest show.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Oh, I don't think I even remembered it was Judas Priest.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
I'm almost positive it is Judas Priest.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
It probably is, but yeah, it should really encapsulates that culture.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
That totally does.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
The last place I wanted to mention was the Beverly
Hills Hotel. Apparently it was around before there was even
a Beverly Hills. Yeah, and old Hollywood used to hang
out there. Blah blah blah. The thing that makes it
noteworthy to me is, you know, that iconic banana leaf
wallpaper that you kind of see. It's like, well, that's
where it debuted or that's where it became big. That

(50:42):
pattern is called Martinique, and I think it was in
the mid late forties that this decorator papered the Beverly
Hills Hotel with that and it just took off from there.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
I've never been there, but that's one of those places
I want to go, like have dinner just to it
looks kind of like tavern on the Green Stock.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Well, yeah, it looks amazing. Actually, their bar looks amazing too.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
Yeah. It's still got that kind of mid century charm,
isn't it La style?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah? I guess that's it for Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I mean there are so many things we couldn't get
to because we didn't want to do a two parter.
But if you want to look up stuff on Hollywood
High School and the Weird Crossroads of the World Shopping
Center or the Hollywood Palladium, certainly do that because there's
still a lot more about the Sunset Strip and it's
you know, you go to LA and you're into touristy stuff,

(51:32):
you should go check it out.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Yeah, for sure, And there's a lot of good writing
out there. People love writing about the Sunset Strip for sure. Yeah,
and thanks again to Dave for helping us out with
this one. Good job Dave. And since I said good
job Dave, that means it's time for listener mail.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
And this one actually is a listener suggestion. So we
wanted to shout out say or Delk for Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Man, that's a great name.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, I mean, not for making their road, but you know,
for giving this suggestion. Hey, guys, long term listener who
wants to thank you for keeping me entertainer and work, school,
travel and pretty much any excuse to have a podcast
on for the past few years. The reason I write
is in twenty twenty two you talked about rock paper scissors.
You didn't think it was possible to play with more
than two people. You may be interested to know that

(52:20):
my friends and I used to play three to four
person games at work as landscapers. In the mornings, we
were weed eating on the property and we'd come across
items that only require the work of one person and
we would play rock paper scissors, and this is how
you do it. We would simply all throw at once,
like a normal game and a three person game. If
anyone beat all the other players, then they would step
out and the other two would play again. So it's

(52:41):
sort of like a knockout tournament. If two players beat
the others on the first game, then the loser lost immediately.
After many games over the weeks and months, the strategies, alliances,
and yes, some game theory all made the work quite
fun and competitive. Love the show all the best to
you and your families, respectfully. That is Austin from Saint Louis, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Nice work, Austin, you cracked the code finally. Thank you
for that. Thanks for letting us know too. And if
you want to be like Austin, right, that's right. If
you want to be like Austin, then send us an
email and you can be like Austin. Send it off
to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.