New York Club Kids, Then and Now, Remember Nelson Sullivan
On a recent balmy fall evening, nightlife aficionados gathered in the intimate screening room at the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca for a double feature screening of two documentaries created by World of Wonder, the legendary, award-winning producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Party Monster is the documentary about Michael Alig, the enfant terrible of the ’90s club kid scene who went to prison for the grisly murder of Angel Melendez. The doc was later made into a feature film.
Nelson Sullivan’s World of Wonder is the story of the pioneering videographer, who documented the downtown club and gay scenes of ’80s NYC before his untimely death in 1989. Decades before social media and cell phones turned us all into cultural anthropologists, Nelson, with his bulky analog video camera, was turning downtown habitués like RuPaul, Lahoma, Michael Musto and Trade into multimedia stars.
The downtown doc double feature was followed by a panel discussion with World of Wonder’s Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, club legend/author James St James and It-Girl/PAPER nightlife reporter Linux. The panel was moderated by PAPER’s own Director of Special Projects, Mickey Boardman.
Mickey Boardman: Fenton used to have a column in PAPER back in the day.
Fenton Bailey: Yeah, it was called “Planet Pop.”
Mickey: We’re all connected. And when I used to answer the phones at PAPER in 1993, I remember we shot RuPaul for the cover and you guys were very hands on. You would call up one day and say, “We just want to make sure the eyeballs are retouched.” Literally, that is an exact quote, and we retouched those eyeballs.
Fenton: He looked good.
Mickey: I want to start with you James because at the end of Party Monster, you were saying Michael was evil. I would like to say I always thought Michael Alig was horrible. [Laughs] Always, always. James was my club kid of choice. I remember seeing the two of them together and being so excited and thinking, God, Michael is so horrible. James is fun and positive. So now what do you think about that, James?
James St. James: Well, [Party Monster] is hard for me to watch. It’s something that I don’t like going back to. It’s sort of a necessary evil, but in the years since his death, so many things keep coming out. It’s like the story never ends. I sort of feel like I thought he was horrible then, but he’s worse now. I can’t reconcile the friend that I thought he was with the person I’ve discovered.
Fenton: What about that psychic?
James: I went to a psychic last week and he said to me, “Do you know somebody named Michael?” and I said, “Yes.” I don’t think the psychic knew James St. James, I don’t think he knew anything. And he said, “Michael is here and he’s tapping me on the shoulder and he is being really annoying. And he wants you to know that everything you said to him, he understood even if he pretended that he didn’t and that he understood the gravity of what happened. Even if he never let on, he understood.” And it kind of makes sense when you see him joking at the very end of Party Monster about convicted murderers not getting the VCR in prison. I do think that it was masking a lot of pain. I do think he understood it, but his way of coping was very unsettling.
Mickey: Now, Linux, you seemed to be delighted during the movie about Michael. Tell me your thoughts about looking at it as someone who was probably not born when he was in his heyday.
Linux: I was born in 1995. I’m just gonna get my fangirl moment out. I remember I was in eighth grade, and hated my life. I was a faggot, was a tranny. Didn’t know what I was. I was in Wisconsin, Dad beat me all day long. And I saw Nelson Sullivan’s videos, I think it’s the 5 Ninth Avenue project on YouTube.
Mickey: That’s a whole other story, 5 Ninth Avenue. That’s the crazy house Nelson lived at in Meatpacking along with people like RuPaul, Lahoma, Lady Bunny.
Linux: Those videos, I literally was like, “Oh my God. There’s a whole world for me and people like me.” And then I learned about Party Monster and you, James, and how you’re a writer. I’m a writer now. I’m so… I love you, I’m gonna cry. So I moved here and so many other people moved here because of you and because of Nelson. So thank you for that and thank you to PAPER and everyone for documenting all of this. I should not be here, but I am because of you and you.
James: That’s the story of all of us. I mean, I came to New York because of Diane Brill.
Mickey: I love it. Fenton and Randy, what was it like working with Michael? Since we’re saying he was not Mother Theresa, was it a challenge working with him?
Fenton: I remember meeting Michael. We were DJing downstairs at Congo Bills and Michael would come up and say, “Uh, could you play ‘Heart of Glass’?” And he stuck his hand down my pants.
Mickey: And the rest is history,
Fenton: But Randy and I were together then, so I was like, “No thank you, Michael.”
Randy Barbato: So he stuck his hands down my pants.
Fenton: There was a sort of push-pull thing. He was really charming and beguiling, and then could flip. [He] could turn on you.
Randy: We did meet Michael before he was doing drugs and we did like him very much. He would come over to our house, and we would have meals and he would ask us all these questions. He was constantly collecting information about the nightclub scene. Truly when we started Party Monster, the documentary, it was before the murder. We were pitching the show as a club kid documentary and we didn’t get the financing until the murder.
James: I remember when you were filming at my apartment, the scene where he comes out of the blue and says, “I murdered Angel,” that’s when you knew, We have a documentary.
Mickey: I have to say, so many of the people surrounding Michael are all the nicest, sweetest people. I don’t know if opposites attract or what.
James: He could be charming, there’s no way around it. And in those early years, he didn’t do drugs.
Linux: Just drinking?
Fenton: He wouldn’t drink, he’d pretend to drink.
James: And he would fall down and pretend he was drunk, but that was just a schtick.
Mickey: The moment in the film that I felt was Michael’s greatest triumph were the outlaw parties. Can you tell us about those?
James: Before Michael was doing outlaw parties, there was a man named Vito Bruno who started the outlaw parties. This was in the ’80s and I remember Vito was just fantastic. He’s still around, he is wonderful. But he had a reputation of being sort of scary. And I remember Michael and I went to him saying, “Mr. Bruno, will you break our kneecaps if we do an outlaw party?” And he gave us his blessing to do them. That’s how Michael started doing them, they were fantastic. The first one was, I think there was a McDonald’s and a Burger King and a donut shop in the subway. I do remember, though, they would be 25 minutes tops and then the cops would come.
Mickey: Switching gears, let’s talk about Nelson. Linux mentioned 5 Ninth Avenue, which has always been a mythic place. It’s a place where Larry Tee, RuPaul and Bunny lived. All these southern people who came up to New York lived at that one magical place at the same time. The Meatpacking District you saw in Nelson’s videos was like a vast wasteland of trans prostitutes, who we called tranny prostitutes at the time. And married Dominican dudes looking for trans prostitutes. And meat carcasses. And people pooping in doorways.
Linux: Wait, there was actually butcher meat? We’re sucking dick behind a truck next to butcher meat. Giant cow carcasses.
James: The first time I met Nelson, he had that house and it was a standalone house in the middle of a cobblestone square. And the house was four stories and ramshackle.
Mickey: It was like a hillbilly shack in the middle of Meatpacking
James: You’d walk up and you would think that the stairs were gonna collapse. The floorboards would jump up and down as you walked, but it was filled with art and tchotchkes and you always felt so at home. Michael Musto would take me all the time.
Randy: Tons of people coming in and out
James: All the time, in and out. And then after he passed away on July 4th–
Mickey: 1988–
James: Larry Tee and Lahoma and RuPaul and Bunny were all staying there. So they just continued on and it just became this legendary house.
Fenton: Nelson was prescient. I think he foresaw so much of what has happened and who we are and where we live. And the whole idea of being on camera all the time. Nelson never questioned, of course you should be on camera. He was always out with that camera. Nelson, as he filmed and filmed and filmed, got better and better. You’d go to a party and there’s this camera going, that was Nelson. But Laurie [Weltz] absolutely edited the sequences together and gave them a continuity because Nelson was an everything everywhere, all at once kind of person. And even though he quit his job to work on his cable show, I wonder if he would’ve been able to wrestle all that stuff.
Randy: He was so generous and loving, truly this incredible spirit. We think of Nelson and Tammy Faye as our guiding lights of World of Wonder. He inspired us.
Mickey: Michael Musto mentioned to me the same quote, “I don’t always know what to think about my life, but at times I know it’s interesting and exciting and I want to share it all with you,” which I think is so sweet.
Linux: Alright, I have a question. Did they think it was weird that he always had his camera at parties? Were they like, “Girl, I’m doing a bump of k, leave me alone.” Or was it like, “What’s this machine?” Or was it, “Am I gonna be famous?” Like, what’s going on?
James: It was a little bit of both because, you know, we were always tap dancing for the photographers or whatever paparazzi was around. But often when Nelson came around with that bright light, I remember running from it and saying, “No Nelson, not tonight!” People were like, “Girl, put this camera down.”
Mickey: It was also interesting that Albert [Crudo] said it’s only a matter of time before drag queens would become accepted. That was so psychic or just randomly true.
James: Well, there was a buildup going in 1992 when there was a big drag explosion. Linda Simpson talks about it a lot in her books and shows. Then, of course, these nuts came along and the rest is history.
Fenton: Ru always communicated this clear sense: I am a star. It was sort of a given thing, you know?
James: Even back in Atlanta, Ru would xerox her face and say, “RuPaul is God, RuPaul is everything,” and stick it all over town. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy because she is everything.
Linux: So I have a long line of questions.
Mickey: Lightning round. Let’s hear it for Linux’s outfit, by the way.
Linux: I need to know how much everyone was getting paid at these clubs?
James: I did the door for one hundred dollars a night.
Linux: How much was Michael leaving with on a successful night?
James: He was doing okay.
Linux: Like a thousand?
James: More than that. Peter Gatien was paying for the 38th Street Loft, so Michael didn’t have any rent.
Linux: My next question: Susanne Bartsch, what’s the tea? I love her, that’s my mother. But was there competition? She said no.
James: No, no. They were in separate spheres.
Linux: I love it. Now promoters all hate each other.
James: I think Michael was probably jealous of Susanne, but I don’t think Susanne was of him.
Linux: Okay. Did you do G or just drink?
James: I’ve never done G
Linux: Period. What’s Rohypnol?
James: Oh God, oh God.
Linux: I love this. She’s a serious journalist. I need to know these things. Were there dark rooms at these parties to fuck? Or you fucked on the dance floor or the bathroom?
James: There were dark rooms at the Limelight, but the club kids were not allowed in.
Linux: Because like clown shit?
James: I remember in the ’80s going to jerk-off clubs with Michael Musto, and we’d walk in and they’d say “Michael and James, out,” because we would be in Tutu’s and they were like, “No.”
Linux: Were you and Michael actually known as the duo that you currently are? Were you besties, like, “Let’s get ready right now and go to the party together”? Or were you just stuck with him because you wrote this book about him and he murdered someone? Was that your best friend, your sis?
James: We lived in the same building for a few years.
Mickey: Did you ever hook up?
James: No, no. I have seen that man naked too many times.
Linux: Project X Magazine. I need to know about that magazine, so tell me the whole story.
Mickey: It was amazing.
James: It was the club kid version of Details.
Mickey: And did Julie Jewels start it?
James: Michael and Julie started it, and Peter Gatien and Rudolph [Piper] funded it. I think they still own the rights to it because we wanted to do something at some point. It was fun while it lasted.
Linux: Okay, “Two of Hearts,” the song. There’s my favorite video of you and Michael Musto in a basement somewhere and you’re speaking [the lyrics] “Two of Hearts.”
James: It would’ve been a huge song at the time and we talked about it all the time.
Mickey: He still talks about Stacey Q.
James: Michael and I were always singing as I’m sure you’re [motions to Mickey] always singing with him everywhere you go. So that was that.
Mickey: That completes Linux’s Speed Round. Audience members, do we have any questions?
Do you think that that moment was a flash in the pan? I moved here with Linux 11 years ago now. We had our club kid moment, we all kind of banded together. I remember one time Linux showed up with the surfboard, Linux Surfs. We were all in these crazy looks. It kind of turned and fashion became more streamlined. Do you think we’ll see another resurgence, maybe just a bit tweaked?
James: After Angel’s death, I felt like the club scene was on a downslide for a bit, but then it always bounces back. And a couple years later, it was even more fabulous. With social media, it seems more inclusive now and more people are able to participate even if you’re in Oklahoma or wherever. You get to see what’s going on and feel a part of it. So I think it comes back, it always comes back.
Fenton: So much of what happened was a flash in the pan, but that implies that it ended. I think it actually iterated out into the culture. We were all playing with media and creating this sort of micro verse, which in itself was perhaps to some extent a replication of the Factory and what Warhol was doing there. I think it’s just continued to iterate out. So I wouldn’t say it’s a flash in the sense that it was something that happened and it’s over. The legacy of Nelson and the club kids is huge, culturally. Lady Gaga–
Randy: Social media adopted so much of the language of the club kids because that all happened prior to the explosion of social media.
James: You guys know where it’s 1985 and you do a photoshoot, and then walk away and think that’s the end of it. And then 30 years later, it’s on Instagram and you’re like, How is it back again?
Linux: I want to say also, James St. James’ Transformations invented a generation. Us bitches, we’re all 18, 17, 16. We’re like, “How do I get on that show?” Put me on, I want to do your makeup and just be fucked up and talk to you. We’ll do a special.
Fenton: 96 episodes. James, you’re committed.
Linux: No, there was a whole new generation. It was it Domonique [Echeverria], Ryan Burke–
James: It was a lot of fun to do because it was a way for me to get into the new kids’ heads. To explore their closets, to see what it was that made them tick. But I didn’t have to go to the club. They would come to me and I would get to just learn all about them. I loved that.
Mickey: Round of applause. Thank you to PAPER, World of Wonder and the Roxy Hotel.
Linux: This is my dream, thank you for doing this.
Mickey: This is the Make-A-Wish Foundation for Linux.
Photos courtesy of World of Wonder
On a recent balmy fall evening, nightlife aficionados gathered in the intimate screening room at the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca for a double feature screening of two documentaries created by World of Wonder, the legendary, award-winning producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Party Monster is the documentary about Michael Alig, the enfant terrible of the ’90s…