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RECESSION SEX WORKERS #12: Miss Marty, Mother of Strippers

Antonia Crane — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:03:30 +0000

New Orleans has a textured and macabre history when it comes to the sex industry, particularly regarding house moms–that hybrid of manager, referee and babysitter. One story involves a double murder-suicide, love triangle between two house moms who worked at Scarlet’s in July of 2005. Patricia Tipton and Julie Carreras ended an eight-year relationship and had words with their lover, stripper Lark Bennett, and it ended in their deaths by gunshot wounds fired during the fight in Carreras’ home.

But, house moms are not out for blood. Like strippers, they survive on tips that they accumulate from dancers for the items and care they provide the girls backstage. House moms are hired by strip clubs to enforce the club’s rules about the dress code, schedule and conduct. They’re entrusted with a dancer’s cash, secrets and belongings. The house mom at Penthouse Club on Bourbon Street, Marty Morgan, has the ability to ensure a dancer’s place on the schedule or promptly get her removed from it. She’s the seated goddess Demeter, with her crock pot cheese dip and homemade watermelon soup. Her desk is an encyclopedia of all things stripper-related and her meatloaf is beyond amazing. She’s the eyes and eyelash glue behind the scenes, and she cares deeply for the women in her midst.

After Katrina, people not only lost their homes, pets and families, but their careers as well. Marty Morgan is an ex-Olympic athlete and personal trainer who owned a gym that was destroyed by the storm. After Katrina, she started over.

I spoke with Marty in her apartment in Algier’s Point, a historic enclave perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River, which is linked to the city by a ferry line. It’s been the temporary home of Lucinda Williams and William Burroughs and is known for its immaculately maintained 150 year-old houses and quaint festivals. It’s also the place where eleven black people were shot three days after Katrina by a self-appointed, all white militia. They could have helped the refugees with food and water, since Algier’s Point was dry and unscathed because its levees held. Instead, they stockpiled shotguns and blocked roads with lumber for the ultimate neighborhood watch.

I interviewed Marty while she gave me a soothing footbath in ionized salt. Attached to the plastic tubs were wristbands that transmitted the vibes necessary to detox my entire body through my feet. We watched the water turn rust red, as if a brick had dissolved in hot water.

***

The Rumpus: Where did you grow up and what was it like?

Marty Morgan: I grew up in Farmington, New Mexico. I’m an identical twin out of five kids. I was close with my parents, but they both passed away.

Dad was a salesman and disc jockey and outgoing businessman. I had an at-home Mom who worked for the city and won an award for not missing one day of work in forty years. She died of lymphoma cancer at 5:00pm, the end of her workday.

I came to Baton Rouge to work for Dale Carnegie Company of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I took the course where you learn about your fears. Dying is the biggest fear, talking in public is the second biggest. The course was about conquering those fears. I worked for that guy for five years. I also played racquetball, where I met my husband, and we married a year later. This was 1982. We lived in Lafayette. Mal had three kids from a previous marriage; his oldest was eight. It was an insta-family and we had a honeymoon baby. My oldest daughter, Malin, was born in November of 1983.

Rumpus: What jobs have you had in the past; and how did you end up becoming a house mom in a strip club on Bourbon Street?

Morgan: I started working for the largest fitness company in Louisiana Elmwood fitness as a personal trainer and consultant. I loved working with people. I loved being athletic and training people to be more fit. I swam competitively in high school and college, and made it to the 1972 Olympics in the backstroke and breaststroke. I tried to qualify for diving but missed it by tenths of a second. Being at the trials in Cincinnati was the high point in my life. I opened a private gym with a friend. We had our private clientele on La Barre Road. He owned all the Mardis Gras shops. We had that gym for six years. I would also go to people’s homes to train them privately.

My daughter, Malin, had rented an apartment, and she was doing the traveling and dancing thing when she was seventeen at Penthouse. She was helping support our household expenses. I worried every damn night. She worked and went to school. I called the club looking for her one night and they couldn’t find her. The next day she told me, “They don’t know my real name.” My ex-husband was traveling off-shore. He paid child support and helped get the kids into private school, but she was contributing to the household by dancing at the club. After Katrina, when I finally moved back in August 2007, Malin told me they were looking for a house mom at Penthouse, so I applied.

Rumpus: Tell me about how you left New Orleans when Katrina hit.

Morgan: We were going to New Mexico to a funeral. My father-in-law died on a Wednesday and my father died eight hours later. We buried my father in-law as Katrina was moving through the Gulf. We already had booked flights out of New Orleans, and we didn’t realize the strength of the storm. We ended up taking the last flight out that day, and the flight crew came with us. There were thousands of people at the airport hoping to get out. We were at the funeral home, and we’ve always had storms that were no big deal. To have all my kids with me was a blessing; they were all safe. The kids got texts about how bad the storm was. Windows were broken; but we were out of the flood zone in Algier’s Point. Our three cats survived. I worked for Intel and did a computer job while in New Mexico; and after the storm they interviewed us on TV and we felt like celebrities. Two years after Katrina, I came back to New Orleans. Before that, I would fly back on weekends and rebuild our house. That included driving a U-haul with three or four refrigerators and counter tops, things that you couldn’t get at Home Depot; so I redid the house and flew back to New Mexico to work my four days at Intel.

Rumpus: What does the house mom job entail, and how do you feel about the sex industry?

Morgan: Mostly, it’s about financial and emotional counseling and telling dancers to “Get rid of that boyfriend.” I have to maintain a clean area in the locker room and kitchen. I supply tampons, hairspray, deodorant, perfume, eyelashes, makeup, sewing kit, phone chargers, Q-tips, cigarettes, gum, mints, bobby pins, mouth wash, rubber bands, baby wipes, soda, water, scissors, brushes, curling irons, aspirin, Bepto Bismal, Gas-Ex, Midol and anything else you can imagine. I count their money. Actually, I’m the only house mom the girls allow to count their money. I check the girls in, meaning write their names on the schedule, supply lockers and listen to their problems. One girl wanted to talk for two hours because she had to have an operation on her ovaries. I’m behind the scenes, so whatever goes on out on the floor I’m away from it. My goal is to make sure there’s a happy place for the girls working here. I think the job of stripping is hard, and shouldering rejection erodes their self-esteem. If I can help them improve their self-esteem, I try. I make sure they always have a healthy meal available to them. I think of these girls as my daughters; and they do the toughest job in the world, because it’s a constant bashing of self-esteem. But what they don’t understand is those people rejecting them don’t matter.

Rumpus: What is the most disconcerting thing you’ve witnessed while working on Bourbon Street as house mom?

Morgan: Recently, one girl said, “You’ve got to help me, I’ve got to get out of this situation.” She had a pimp who was beating her. She left to get her luggage and shoes out of her car and her pimp kidnapped her, beat her, and took her to Baton Rouge. The next day, she came back and asked for help again.

One of the cocktail waitresses called a cop friend, and another girl drove in from two hours away to pick her up. The barback gave her money for airfare to go home. The dancers all surrounded her. They would do whatever was needed to get her away from that guy. They snuck her out of NOLA and on a flight to Kentucky. It was disturbing, but all of the girls and the barback helped her become the thing she wanted to be. That girl is now a Marine.

Rumpus: I’ve never had a pimp. Why do dancers have pimps? It’s something I’ve never understood. The clubs have their own security. Please explain.

Morgan: Pimps are in and out all the time and they’re dumb parasites. It’s a fear factor. The pimp befriends a vulnerable dancer like a boyfriend. First he becomes her best friend in the world. He manipulates the girl to give him her money for security. The pimps drive nice cars. If he does a boob job for her in Miami, he charges her 100% interest. The girls that have pimps act like it’s a sorority, and amongst the girls and their pimps they keep secrets. When the boyfriend routine wears off, they threaten to take away all of the things the pimp bought with her money. These girls act scared, like they are always looking over their shoulder. Probably, the attraction to a pimp stems from loneliness. I think it’s a daddy thing and a bad boy attraction thing. I know girls who have gotten away safely. Two of them are still back in the club working without pimps now.

Rumpus: How has the recession affected you and your ability to support yourself as a house mom? Do you think stripping is a trap? How can a stripper transition out of dancing and earn a normal living again? How will you?

Morgan: We are a tourist town and there’s a lot of traffic, so we weren’t hit as bad as other cities; but there’s more growth for New Orleans to do.

Before the recession, the girls would make an exorbitant amount of money. The way they spent money was big time. I’ve noticed a huge change as far as what the clientele expects for their money and how clients are reluctant to part with their cash. There’s desperation among the girls. They have to make rent instead of wanting to dance. It takes the fun out of dancing for them. I remember one dancer making 2000 bucks on her first night, and she would be so angry and mean when she didn’t make anything close to that amount. Their lives will never be normal regarding money and earning again, and I want to help them with that. I think stripping is a trap because you’ll never make that kind of fast money. It’s so hard to get away from.

There are girls that want to stop because they found Mr. Perfect. They’re back six months later. If they would invest their money and get some kind of cushion, they could buy a rental property and then step into something different that’s lucrative. One problem is, even on a bad night, they’re making more than most people make in a week, so it’s hard to completely leave the job.

I’m laughing at your last question because I’m as bad as a stripper. Why would I do something else, when I can make more cash in three days than others make in a 40-hour week? My plan is to transition into managing my rental properties and running a bed and breakfast for strippers so they have a place to stay and work.

Rumpus: Do you suffer the same stigma as the adult performers because of your association with strippers?

Morgan: People look at me strangely if I tell them what I do. I usually don’t tell them. I tell them I’m a director of entertainment, or I own a candy store. I like my job and I’ll do it indefinitely. I always associate with strippers in and out of the club, so that’s an eyebrow raiser but I don’t care. My bed and breakfast is designed for dancers to stay and rent while they’re working here. I’m running a bed and breakfast for women who dance as strippers and anyone can see that. I don’t hide that.

Rumpus: How have you helped the girls improve their relationship to money and plan for the future?

Morgan: I talk to girls about investing their money, and I concocted a plan: to show them by example that it can be done. Since January 5^th I started collecting five-dollar bills. The theory is that dancers can have $40K a year just in fives if they hold onto them. Now my stack is up to seven thousand and I’m just a house Mom. I make a fraction of the money they make. I tell them they can do it too.

Rumpus: It’s now mid-November. How much have you saved in 5’s?

Morgan: By November I had $9,300 so I bought a 2006 car at a garage sale with 15,000 miles. It’s been ten years since I’ve bought a car. I will have over 10K by the year’s end, entirely in five-dollar bills from tips.

Rumpus: How do you feel about both of your daughters being strippers? Do you hope they will do something different with their lives? Do you want them to get out of the business? Why or why not?

Morgan: It used to terrify me when she started dancing because of the stigma you mentioned. After I learned what goes on in the club, I worried a lot less. I would like to see both of my girls save their money and invest it so they don’t buy shoes with the cash. I want them to save and be smart with it. I would like to see them get out of the business before it makes them tired or worn out and before they hate it. One of my daughters is pursuing her pilot’s license. The other one is in college doing her elementary education to be a teacher. I would talk her out of that before I’d talk her out of stripping, because the education system in New Orleans is awful.

Rumpus: What’s hard about your job? What’s great about it? Will you do next?

Morgan: The hours are hard. I work from 5p.m.-7a.m. or 9 a.m. so it is long hours. It’s a hard job. Lately, the girls are more frustrated. You can see it; they have flare-ups and say things they would never say before, because the money is harder. Out of 30 girls, three will be drunk and out of control, so I have to deal with them. I tell them when they’re losing their pretty, which is code for “Stop drinking, or you’re going home.”

The hard part is I don’t know what to say. I encourage them to try to think about other lifestyles, and I suggest going back to school. One stripper already started an assistant company for businessmen from out of town. She rents cars for them and arranges all of their appointments and dinners. The nice thing about this job is I can continue construction four days a week because I only work three nights a week. It’s a good cash flow. My fee that the girls are charged is ten dollars per head. What I’ll do next is just run my own stripper orphanage.

Rumpus: Will you adopt me?

Morgan: Didn’t I already?

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Photos by Romy Suskin.

The Rumpus Sex Blog.

More from Antonia Crane’s Recessions Sex Workers series.

RECESSION SEX WORKERS #11: Angela Eve’s Bohemian Hustle

Antonia Crane — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:02:25 +0000

Angela Eve and I work together at a topless joint on Bourbon Street. We spoke in the locker room while she brushed her hair and I applied gloppy eyelash glue.

Angela Eve’s the hardest working stripper at Rick’s. She lures convention goers and Saints fans from their seats with the ease of a seasoned pro and marches them into the $60 dance area all night long. I’ve watched her convince customers to spring for the exorbitant VIP dances where dancers can score up to $800 an hour in a private room the size of a bathtub with beaded curtains. Angela-Eve’s focused and tenacious, which makes a good dancer a top moneymaker. She wasn’t lowered by butterflies onto some magic carpet ride life. She works hard and doesn’t give up, which makes her stand out. The other thing that makes her unique at Rick’s is her lack of spandex. She’s corseted, double bra’d and ruffle-backed. She favors platform boots instead of the six-inch Lucite pole-grabbers and she’s got muscles on her arms from her aerialist workouts. She’s a classic freckled beauty in a vintage Betty Page ‘do, with a silk flower above one ear, and she’s got a frank way about her. We talked about what it was like stripping during Katrina and its aftermath, her photo documentary project with her partner Anastasios Ketsios and her burlesque troupe. When I called her from LA to continue our discussion, Angela Eve was back in Chicago, out of breath from chasing her landlord across town with very late rent. This seemed odd, considering her champion hustling skills. Where did the money go? Like most dancers, she’s busy funding her real labors of love where the money is not: burlesque and photography.

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The Rumpus: Where did you grow up and what was it like? What were some significant early sexual experiences and the attitude about sex in your family?

Angela Eve: I grew up in a town an hour north of Chicago called Gurnee/Waukegan just south of the Wisconsin border. It was new suburban subdivisions life in a small town. It was fun and a total drag at the same time. I never felt I totally fit in. In 6^th grade we moved from Waukegan a community that was once up and coming but the economy changed and the area was becoming a more low-income urbanized area. My parents were CPAs and Realtors and wanted to move to a more white-collar suburbanized situation to fit into their life style. I was always looking for something else, even as a young girl. Once we moved I quickly adapted a new cutting edge style and attitude of alternative/rock/punk (or so I thought, more like suburbanite trying for something different) to stick out and feel noticed.

The years from 6^th grade through high school were volatile I was rebelling and my father was a white collar alcoholic (great DAD but lost his way for a bit). My parents were going back and forth on divorce but at 15 my father was hit with an ultimatum from my mother to go to rehab or we were leaving. He went to rehab and has been sober ever since, but before that you never knew what shit was gonna go down. After my Dad became sober toward the end of high school I was going to extra curricular classes at the art institute of Chicago in the city and trying to adapt to new sober life with the family. It was kind of weird for me and that’s when I started exploring making and selling jewelry and starting my gypsy life in the summer.

My father was never abusive towards us he was always very loving and actually way more nurturing then my mother but just like to get trashed and go on binges and could be unreliable. Sometimes I didn’t blame him cause my mother would turn into super bitch and I hated her most of these years. My mother is a strong woman and she needed to be stern during those years and had good reason to try and keep the balance, but when your a kid you don’t get that and I could see is my mom making my life a pain in the ass. Our family was the usual suburban household in my opinion: family plans getting screwed up, fighting, yelling and parents separating-Your usual mid-western world.

Sex was never a topic that I really remember being an issue except when my mother started to bust me in Junior high with my older boyfriend. When they were separated my dad would stay with us at the house he would go out drinking on the weekends and my grandmother would watch my sister and me. It was always easy to sneak-out and hook-up with my crew, party and mess around with my boyfriends.

My first experience with sex was in Junior high at age 13, but I had started foreplay when I was in grade school as early as 7/8 if I remember correctly with neighbor girls and boys. We would play innocent games and explore each other’s bodies to see what felt good and what was going on. I was always up for exploring and a bit deviant. I never had actual sex until I was 12/13 and of course it was with high school guy that lived up the street and I felt obligated to have sex with him cause he was older and pressuring me. I worked very hard to have an older and more cutting edge look more then my peers. I wanted to be accepted by older guys. At the time my parents were separated so it was easy to sneak out and party. I was living large as a 7^th grader hanging at high school barn parties and have older boy friends with motorcycles.

I would regularly sneak my boyfriend into my room to have sex when my mother wasn’t living with us. One night my mother came home to check-up on us, and my grandmother was there, but clueless. Well, my mother had a sixth sense to her and she just knew I was up to something so she came home unexpected and found him in my bed. He ran out the house with no drawers on my mother smacked me hard and I was grounded for a month. Eventually in high school I told my mother I wanted to go on birth control and she was cool with it. Sex was an experiment. I did what I felt was expected of me in my position with the older guys I went out with. I foolishly used pull-out method when I was young, dumb trusting my older and (I thought) smarter partners word that it was a full proof method. I eventually smartened up took matters into my own hands and progressed to condoms. I didn’t hate sex but I didn’t really know how to enjoy it either. I didn’t know what good sex was until I meet my first long-term boyfriend when I was 15, he was 17 and we then went out for about 6-7 years.

Rumpus: When and why did you start dancing? Did Burlesque come first or stripping?

Eve: I started dancing after touring for years selling my Jewelry I designed on music tours. I needed a way to make a cash living that would help supplement some of my income that I was making touring. My touring cash started to slow down and I went through a nasty break-up with my boyfriend and Biz partner. I need a way I could make some quick cash but allowed me freedom and time to help keep my biz going while things where slowing down and my partner left me with mountains of debt. Dancing seemed to make the most amount of sense. Shortly after that within a year of dancing I created a Domme style vaudeville street show for Ozzfest tour and from that the burlesque developed out of it. This was 20002-2005. So Burlesque came first and then the stripping followed.

Rumpus: Do you think being a Burlesque performer gives you an edge over other dancers? How in the world did you learn how to hustle and can you teach me your skills?

Eve: I think burlesque gave me stage presence and my style adopted from burlesque has given me a look that is different from the norm in clubs and that seems to give me a edge and a easy gateway to hustle. As far as learning to hustle I learned that years and years ago when I started to touring and living on the road at a young age. In that life you either sink deep or swim fast and if you don’t learn to hustle quick you’re stuck and broke in some fucked up place. Working the floor is just like going to a Grateful Dead lot or working an open festival grounds hand swinging jewelry, pipes, drugs or whatever for that matter. Before I became a professional vendor with a nice stylish booth and show with a groovy contract on music tours, I would renegade and hand swing all sorts of stuff from town to town out of my van with a jackass boyfriend. In so many different situations: Like I said the Dead/Phish lot, the beach and hotels at spring break, NASCAR, other sorts of Rock and music shows in parking lots, the streets of San Fran and LA to the market in Nawlins and then all the way up to NYC. You name it I’ve probably have been there trying to hustle my handmade Jewelry/art. What I’ve learned? You have to move quick be charming fast, read your customer quickly and figure out what they want so you can get to the next costumer with-out slowing down or getting busted. Time is money and you have a window of time before you have to pick-up and go to the next show or duck out. It’s the same thing as you hit the floor at a strip club except the clientele is a bit different, but everything else applies.

Rumpus: What was it like stripping and taking photos in NOLA during Katrina?

Eve:I Went to NOLA during Katrina initially with my boyfriend Anastasios Ketsios and our photography assistant Justin Sandberg and latter Amy Terri joined on our second trip to help do animal rescue. Initially I wanted check on all of my friends who were living there and me and Tasso wanted to shoot the real story of what was going on. We realized the press was only on Canal Street and they didn’t know what was really going on in other areas of the city. The first trip we made organically turned into a 3 and a half year mission to tell the story that we felt needed to be heard.

The National Guard was there to patrol the streets not help us but I found my friends and we brought supplies for people. Everything was running out like water. They evacuated the convention center first, which was the first thing I photographed. We had our van with supplies people had donated like food, water, blankets and dog food. We drove people to drop off points and gave them information.

The thing you heard that no one talks about when they talk about Katrina were animals crying and howling. I couldn’t take the sounds of their suffering. I said to my crew, “We got to get these animals out. They’re dying.”

It was Day 8 of Katrina and we were in the upper 9th and Marigny area. We broke into a house with tools and there was an old dog. We coaxed him out of the house and picked him up, put him in the van and took him to a make shift shelter a local started for the abandoned dogs. It took 3 months to figure out whose dog he was. It turned out that dog belonged to a 70- year old man. I found the man through his caretaker online. The dog was so happy to see her. It was a great moment. Me and Tasso went back to his house in 2006 when we were doing a fallow- up shooting session and he was in tears when we introduced ourselves to him and he knew who we were.

During Katrina, stripping was intense. I was dancing next to women who were making money to fix their houses that were destroyed by the floods and they didn’t have insurance. Dancing was profitable and busy but dancing is a means to support myself and my other projects. During Katrina, it was a means at the time to keep my post Katrina project afloat. The website to the project is http://www.homethiswas.com.

I would work at the clubs at night and then go to the 9^th ward and shoot all day. It was very moving to be there. The thing is it was like being in a war zone and I felt conflicted. I was building my career out of other people’s suffering or maybe just documenting their suffering, but it was all around me and I couldn’t avoid it so I documented it. It was strange and moving to be there.

I found a dead body outside of Decatur and Elysian Fields and a lot of murders happened.

Rumpus: What did you do about the dead body? How did you feel about it?

Eve: I didn’t feel anything. We had to move on. Now when I think about it, and see the photos I’m sad. That was someone’s son. Someone’s husband or boyfriend or Dad. But in survival mode, you can’t feel stuff like that. You’ve got to keep moving. It was every man for himself.

Rumpus: How many clubs have you worked in altogether?

Eve: Club Eden, Visions, Ricks (and this is just a funny fact but I’ve had the record for the most amount of lap dances at Visions and Ricks in the history of the club, don’t know if that’s still true of Visions, but it is for Rick’s). At Visions they used to give out sweat suits.

Rumpus: What keeps you coming to New Orleans to dance when you live in Chicago?

Eve: I always knew if I went to New Orleans to work, I would be provided for. I don’t know how I knew that but I always figured something out and found friends and jobs.

The atmosphere in New Orleans is magical. It’s so my city–where I belong–but I can’t get everything I need right there now, but it teaches me a lot. I hang out too long and too late then it’s time to leave and go home. New Orleans has good and evil and you have to be prepared for both. I was mugged twice in one day when I came to sell jewelry and photograph cemeteries. At some point, you have to laugh about that.

Rumpus: You mentioned that you’re close to your parents. Do they know what you do for money and how do they respond to your decision?

Eve: I have a very close relationship with both my parents and they are still together to this day. That was a very hard time on them but they stuck through it and they are very supportive of what I do. They have always been great people and my parents both know that I dance for a living. They always knew I was a burlesque performer but it took a few years to get them to be open to exotic dancing as a viable source of income.

I never fully disclosed that info, but once the economy dropped and they lost a lot and were humbled is when I felt they were open to accept an untraditional source of income. Once the corporate, suburban, white-collar world crumbled around them they were open to accept the alternative world’s way of dealing with money.

Rumpus: You travel from Chicago to NOLA frequently to dance. I also travel from LA-NOLA because it’s worth it to me financially. Do you feel torn between cities or do you think you’ll settle either here or in Chicago?

Eve: I always feel torn and it is a huge pain in the ass but also a great time as well. I’m used to this kind of transition I’ve lived it most of my life and I’ll always be traveling in some sort of way but I do get burnt out.

Rumpus: Why don’t you dance in Chicago? Do you do animal rescue in Chicago?

Eve: I know to many people in the industry, as in clubs, bars and producing. I like to keep my burlesque productions and dancing separate and respect the privacy that I have with my boyfriend. Also, the clientele in Chicago blows.

Rumpus: Has the recession affected your ability to support yourself dancing?

Eve: It has made it harder that’s for sure! The money was great during and right after Katrina and it’s still better than Chicago, but I’ve noticed a slump. The fact is, I leave my state to work here, so it’s still worth it to me. There’s not as much throw-away money in clubs like there was even a few years ago and people hold back a bit more.

Rumpus: Tell me about your Burlesque troupe in Chicago.

Eve: I’ve developed the show and my solo reputation over many and I’ve reached national/international status. It’s a twist on traditional burlesque with avant-garde elements. My solo show is a mix of traditional, aerial skills and avant-garde theatre edge and I build my sets and costumes with my production team “image collective.” My reputation is at a top level in Chicago and has been voted by Chicago Magazine and The Chicago reader in the top 3 shows in burlesque. It’s also a huge pain in my ass and I’ve included more info in my bio about the shows if anyone would like to know more.

Rumpus: You’ve spoken about the bohemian movement being alive and well in NOLA. Can you say more about that and the fact that you feel wanted and accepted more in NOLA than other places as an adult entertainer?

Eve: I‘ve traveled a lot and throughout my life and always go back to Nawlins. I know I can get what I need in New Orleans at many different points in my life. I always feel accepted there. The artists, musicians, dancers that flourish there and live there really want to be there. There is no real industry for moving up in the national scale of fame and fortune in your chosen craft. People that create there and live have to be supported by their peers and the community to survive financially and creatively. Sure everyone makes money off of tourism. You gotta get the community to support you and that’s what I Love. It’s a very sheltered city from the rest of the country and that also why I think there is a lot of acceptance there. I’m certain that there is some sort of magical energy flowing in that town considering that it’s technically under water. Over the years so many strange encounters with energy there has taught me a lot. I’ve learned so many Lessons of life and I’m sure when I’m old I’ll settle there. I’ve had some of the best things and the worst happen to me there. To survive in that city you gotta accept that and roll with it I feel you can’t let the extreme energy eat you up and spit you out cause it will. Staying balanced in the city that is consistently unbalanced but balanced at the same time is a true art. That’s why bohemian culture truly survives there having extremes like that on a day to day basis creates true discoveries in the simplest to the most extreme experiences, for me that’s a true bohemian life. So many cities these days are way to structured and have to many restrictions to have this vibe. It’s the closest place I’ve ever consistently have gone to over my life that is the similar energy and community that would organically come out living on the road and touring with the type of community I did for so many years.

Rumpus: Do you want to stop dancing and just do your Burlesque troop? Where do you see your life in 5-10 years?

Eve: I’d love to just do burlesque, but it’s unrealistic. There is no money in Burlesque shows! The future. I don’t know really but I’d like to stop dancing in clubs and hopefully have a successful burlesque fashion line and not living in Chicago but the west coast with a successful touring show creating cool art and getting recognized for it. I’d like a family and a kid somewhere in the mix.

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