A Night In Bourbon Street

Basin Street is the street where the elite all meet.                                                                                        Not anymore they don’t. A curvy barmaid is my source of reference. We were seated at a long bar in a noisy, boozy joint on Bourbon Street. It was August 1963. I was in  New Orleans with friends Tony Jones and Murray Paddick. Earlier, we had walked the pulsating streets of the French Quarter, seeking jazz music and a cooling drink or two. It was a steamy, humid summer night. We had made a couple of dry runs past various Bourbon Street bars featuring jazz music  and strip parlours. However there were huge queues outside places advertising such luminaries as clarinettist, Pete Fountain and trumpeter, Al Hirt. Even less luminary jazz musicians  had crowds outside, waiting to get into their venues. So, it is not surprising that in order to quench our thirst, we entered a neon lit bar that boasted as the star attraction a Miss Fifi La Rue, Paris’ Sweetheart. There were no crowds waiting to get in.

We ordered some cold beers.  After a brief chat about the sad demise of “Basin street” with the bar girl, who said she had never heard of it, we settled back as the lights dimmed and the show began. It was a long bar, mirrored at the back. Where a normal bar would stock its booze, this one had a mirrors and a narrow runway. In other words the performers came out and entertained at eyeball level with the patrons. The mirrors gave us cold cash patrons a bird’s eye view...and then some.

 Fifi, the sweetheart of Paris , was not the first act to come out. What came out was old enough to be Fifi’s mother, make that grandmother. The bumps and grinds came out in time to a very scratchy recording of Stormy Weather. By the second chorus, some of the barflies began to express their displeasure at a strip that was mostly tease

Finally, the needle jumped the last scratch at the same time as the lady was making her exit. One man clapped, twice. A couple of drunks jeered. The lady prefaced her exit with a very unladylike sign. At this the two drunks applauded enthusiastically.

After some conversation and few more beers, the lights dimmed once again. Fifi was on her way. Out she came in red, whit and blue shorts, top coat and top hat. The music started. Fifi made her way along the bar, removing some of her accessories as she did so. The drunks yelled. She smiled sweetly at them. As the record player scratched to a halt, Fifi grabbed a hand microphone and, in what we were expected to believe was French accented English, greeted the bar with, “Hi, Y’all. This here’s goin’ to be a swell evenin. Sure glad you all could make it here, this evenin’.

Oh yes, Fifi was French alright. Just like the Tower of Pisa!

The rage of Paris was about twenty years old with a youthful, but experienced figure. After a couple more typical French ballads  like “Bill Bailey” and “Don’t fence me “, Fifi once more strutted along the bar. This time though she was throwing her body into the music, throwing various items of clothing to the floor and making very flirty passes at the drunks, of whom there were many.

At last, she was left wearing just a G-string and black mesh stockings. The rest was Fifi’s  pure, creamy complexion. Unlike the other strippers, though, Fifi did not finish her act with a climactic unveiling. To her that was  just the beginning. The music started again. Fifi shook, shimmied, bumped, vibrated, gyrated, contorted and cavorted for the next twenty minutes. She finished up dancing on the bar  wearing only her New Orleans tan.

Sweat bubbles on her chest began flowing southwards. It was obvious that Fifi was tiring. So were we. As Fifi  started up another bracket of “French Favourites”, dressed only in her birthday suit, we left the bar and made for the exit. As we left, a bleary eyed connoisseur of fine French dancing yelled at the inexhaustible Fifi, "Take it off! Take it off!"                                                                                                                                                                       Well, we had to laugh. Whatever else Fifi had to take off could only be removed by drastic surgery.

Ah, yes. New Orleans, the land of dreams.

NOTE: I travelled overseas with  friends between 1962 and 1964. While I was travelling I kept a journal. In all, I wrote over 86 000 words about my three year long adventure.                                    Strange as it may sound, I have not read that journal, in full, since it was written nearly sixty years ago.                                                                                                                                                               I have certainly glimpsed through it occasionally, usually after I came upon it when I was looking for something else.  That's what happened last week.I glimpsed through it and came upon the Bourbon Street story above.                                                                                                                                                                     Maybe I'll do some more glimpsing in the days to come.

 

 

The intriguing story of Madame Brussels.

Sad to learn that Madame Brussels, that quirky upstairs restaurant at the top end of Melbourne's Bourke Street is closing its doors.  Covid restrictions have affected its daily patronage and the people who opened the restaurant about sixteen years ago have decided to it close down. My wife, Lesley, and I enjoyed dining at Madame Brussels a few years ago. We were cruising on the Queen Mary 2 from Fremantle to Sydney. When we called in to Melbourne to meet  some friends they took us to Madame Brussels for lunch.  

 Madame Brussels had a rather risqué menu and an interesting drinks list. They serve jugs  of  many of the most popular cocktails. A Jug of Pimm’s seemed to be the drink of choice. The young people serving on the tables all wore sporting attire.  Our charming young waitress, wore tennis attire and the muscular hunk who brought us the Pimms wore a Richmond football club jumper and black footy shorts. Its advertising brochure promotes the place as Kooky, Kitsch and lots of fun. The inside lounge is fitted out with old world chairs and lounges while the outside deck sits between the tree tops of Bourke Street.  

I was keen to find out more about the lady after whom the place was named so I did some internet surfing. Madame Brussels was actually a notorious brothel madam of the late 19th Century. Her well-appointed brothels were situated in Lonsdale Streets, close to Melbourne’s Parliament House and the political and legal fraternity, from whence came many of her clients.                                                                                                                                                                        In fact, her brothels were referred to as Gentlemen’s Clubs and attracted the city’s political, judicial and police elite. It was said that her business thrived because of the formidable support she had from people in high places. Very high places.

Madame Brussels was born Caroline Lohman in Prussia in 1851. She travelled to England and married George Hodgson, a member of a noble family. He  was not favourably regarded by some family members. That was probably the reason that the couple soon sailed from the UK  to Melbourne, where George became a policeman.                                                                                                                                                                              In those goldrush days,Victoria needed policemen and was recruiting enthusiastically to bolster its police force. The one condition was that upon graduation newly appointed constables had to serve in a rural area. George became a policeman and was appointed to Mansfield in Ned Kelly country near Beechworth in northern Victoria. He went there on his own.  His wife, the 21 year old Caroline, stayed in Melbourne.

Living alone in Melbourne, the young Caroline had limited choices. She decided to think big. By 1874,  the 24 year old Caroline was known as Madame Brussels, and successfully running a number of brothels, which she continued to do until 1907. 

Why brothels? It was a matter of the choices available to her. She was a young woman in a strange land, with little financial support. She had very restricted job prospects, especially, with her poorly paid policeman husband living so far away from home. Perhaps, running a brothel was by far the best paying job open to a woman in those days.                                                               

 The respectable alternatives were teaching, nursing, secretarial work or even lower paid jobs in workshops or domestic service. It turned out that Caroline was quite skilled at running a brothel, or two, and they proved to be very successful and highly profitable.

Almost twenty years later,  in 1893, husband, George, died of TB. Caroline, who had placed him in a nursing home during his illness, arranged his funeral and wrote a loving death notice in the newspapers about the sad loss of her beloved husband. In the notice she also pointed out that George was connected to the British aristocracy. She continued to put notices in the paper on each anniversary of his death.

In 1895, two years after George  died, she married a much younger man, Jacob Pohl. She was then aged about 44 and Jacob about 30. However, the following year, young Jacob mysteriously disappeared in South Africa when the couple were en-route to visit family in Germany. They were re-united in 1898, when Jacob just as mysteriously showed up once again, only to divorce in 1907 on the grounds of his desertion. Definitely some very funny family business going on there.

In her later years, Madame Brussels was vigorously attacked by members of the moral and righteous community as “an accursed procuress”. She was taken to court in 1907. However, she won the sympathy of the court as a benevolent old lady (she was 56), reciting eloquently how she had been wronged.                                                                                                                                                       

No doubt she felt quite comfortable defending herself in the witness box in that Melbourne court house. After all, the Judge, Senior Council, several distinguished jurors and some members of the press gallery were all members of her Gentlemen's Clubs. She was acquitted, but closed her business down that same year and died of diabetes and pancreatitis a year later, in 1908, aged 57 years.

 In a coincidental connection with her first husband’s stint at Mansfield, where the legendary Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly and his family were well known, her lawyer in the 1907 court case was David Gaunson. In 1880, as a member of the Victorian parliament, Gaunson had been one of the leading lights at the large public rallies to have Kelly’s death sentence overturned.                                                                                                                                                                         Surely, someday, someone will write a novel or make a film about the remarkable Caroline Hodgson, nee Lohman who, as Madame Brussels, rose to wealth and power in Marvellous Melbourne in the second half of the 19th Century. If I was the Casting Director I would be trying to sign up Scarlett Johannsen or Charlize Theron in the starring role.

 It is sad that this saucy, kooky, kitsch and 'lots of fun' cafe is closing down. Hopefully, some courageous, enterprising restaurateur will take it on and keep  Madame Brussels saucily serving customers in upper Bourke Street. Hopefully too, an enterprising author and talented film maker will make fuller and more permanent records of the very colourful and intriguing Madame Brussels.

 

The killing of the innocents.

 

About two weeks ago I read a chilling story in the West Australian, informing that some babies survive the abortion termination process and are born alive. Even more chilling, the report went on to to say that these abortion surviving babies, "were allowed to die”.

The story said that about thirty such babies were allowed to die in Western Australia over the last few years.

In Victoria, in one year, thirty abortion surviving babies were born alive, which was about 30% of the total number of abortions in Victoria that year. They were allowed to die.

I was horrified. I immediately thought of the impact this situation must have on the doctors and nurses present who must allow these babies to die.

As I read that story, I felt sure it would produce many letters to the West's Editor protesting that living babies would be allowed to die.

However, after a week or two, not one letter was published to comment on this sad situation.

So, I wrote a letter to the West's editor asking just how are these babies allowed to die?

It was not published.

Can we know how these babies are allowed to die?

Do they starve to death, yelling and crying out for sustenance?

Do the die of exposure? Do they die of asphyxiation? Do they die of a needle that is given to stop their cries; a needle that also kills them? Do they die of studied and deliberate neglect?

I am well aware of the heroic efforts made by doctors and nurses to save the lives of babies born prematurely to mothers who want to keep their babies. Surely, many of these babies would have thrived in a similar way if they had not "been allowed to die."

I am sure that there are many childless couples who would be very happy to adopt these living, abortion surviving babies. To lovingly care for them, to protect them and nurture them into adulthood.

I wondered was mine the only unpublished letter to the West Australian newspaper about abortion surviving babies being "allowed to die"?

Or is it a topic that the newspaper does not want to talk about?

Mine was a short letter. In that week The West published longer letters about The Eagles, The Dockers, even the Widgiemooltha Marbles Club...but no letters about babies being allowed to die. No doubt, it is a matter of editorial prioritities.

Have we become such an uncaring society that we are content to let helpless babies die, unremarked, out of sight, out of mind?

At the end of World War 2 in Europe, the allied armies were horrified to find the gas chambers and death camps operated by the Nazi's to kill Jews, Gypsies, the maimed, the infirm and mentally ill and anyone else that the Nazi's did not like.

General Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, quickly ordered that people from surrounding villages be taken to the death camps and shown the piles of dead bodies. He did that because the locals all said that they did not know what was happening in these camps.

He showed them the mass graves. He wanted them to see the  horror to  make sure that nobody could ever again say that it did not happen or that they did not know what had happened.

History has passed a terrible judgement on the Nazi's inhumanity to man.

Well, we all now know what is happening now! Babies that survive the abortion termination process and are born alive are are being "allowed to die.'

How will future generations judge us?

Be Prepared.

BE PREPARED

It was Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Boy scouts, who suggested  “Be prepared” be the motto that young scouts should live by. I was in the scouts for a while when I was a boy and “Be prepared” seemed like good advice to me. Still does.

Not being prepared often leads to miserable outcomes. In general, most people prepare for life’s varied situations. They have life insurance, house insurance, car insurance. They make sure their car is safe with good brakes, sound tyres and functional steering. When going on a trip they usually prepare checklists of things to be done before the trip and things to be taken on the trip.

These are all fairly common preparations. However, in recent years  some people cause me increasing angst by being totally unprepared in certain life situation. It is a Pet Peeve of mine. I would have said it is a Pet Hate of mine but hate is a very strong word. Not only that, a few weeks ago, I was with two friends, one of whom asked, “What’s your pet hate?” Before I could say that I did not have a pet my other friend said, “Brutus, my Doberman, absolutely hates cats.”

When I was a boy I often read the English Women’s Mirror, to which my Aunty was a subscriber. I read it because it had a comic section devoted to The Phantom. This was a few years before the Phantom later appeared in comics at our local news agents. The other reason I read the English Women’s Mirror was they had a regular section where they asked a film star or other celebrity a series of questions about their life. One regular question, usually asked last, was, “What is your pet aversion?” Well I was only about 10 years old at the time. I knew what a pet was but had no inkling of what an aversion was.          After a while I figured it out.

Obviously, my friend was not asking us what our pets hated but  what  makes us annoyed. Well, when we finally got his point, I unloaded with my personal source of annoyance.                                                My Pet Aversion.

I get annoyed  at check outs in Super Markets when the customer in front of me carefully watches the Check Out worker scan each item. Finally, the Check Out worker scans the last item, hits the cash register button and then tells the customer how much they need to pay. Now, if it was me, I would immediately hand over my cash or place my bank card in the credit card reading machine.

However, what usually happens is that, having been told how much they owe, the customer then reaches down and fishes around inside a shopping bag. Eventually they pull out a smaller bag or wallet and poke around a bit more until they locate their cash or card. Only then do they proceed with the payment process.

They are Not Prepared. They knew as soon as they started placing items on the mobile check out bench that they would need to produce cash or card to finalise the shopping transaction. I wait with the cash or card in hand, but not these people. Only after every item has been scanned do they start searching around for what they need to complete the deal. They are not prepared!

Risking the wrath of the militaristic Feminazis Army I must say that in almost every case these unprepaired offenders are women. Men tend to have  cash or card in  hand as they wait for the bill. Women tend to wait until they know how much it is going to cost before they start rummaging around looking for cash or card.

It is he same at the service station. You pull in and wait patiently behind another vehicle. The owner gets out, moves to the rear of the car, takes off the petrol tank cap and then puts the fuel hose in the vehicle. After a few minutes the  hose is removed and the petrol tank cap replaced. This is when they should proceed smartly to the service station pay station and hand over their cash or card. But No! The unprepaired person then walks around the car, back to the driver’s side door, opens it up and rummages around looking for their cash or card. Having finally located their cash or card  they should  then smartly proceed to the pay station. No! Often they do not. After walking a few metres away from their car towards the pay station they stop and then backtrack, either to check how much petrol they took on board or to check the number of the bowser they used.

Quite often, having paid their petrol bill, these unprepaired people walk slowly back to their car, unmoved by the lengthy line up of waiting cars. Only after they are comfortably seated in their vehicle do they then start they start looking around for their car keys.

I know it is a First World problem but these unprepaired people are very frustrating.