Stuff You Should Know - Sunset Blvd: One Famous Road

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs,
Starting point is 00:00:31 book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are telling our scientists today, we have disdain for your expertise. And then you have China as an exception saying, actually, we're going to invest a trillion dollars in new
Starting point is 00:00:56 science. You heard that right. While the US is slashing science budgets, China is doubling down. This means here in the United States, less innovation, fewer breakthroughs, and falling behind on the global stage. This week on Dope Labs, Chelsea Clinton breaks down what these cuts really mean. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:01:17 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 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? Yeah. 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. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a great way to start a conversation. 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,
Starting point is 00:01:46 a city that I know you love dearly. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the one other city in the world, New York and 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
Starting point is 00:02:08 I mean, it's not just like film stuff. It's music stuff. It's Literary stuff. It's comedy stuff All sorts of like culture iconic cultural staples on Sunset Boulevard Right and it was obviously very well known inside of LA for years, but it wasn't until the early 2010s before the rest of the world heard about it, thanks to the Aaron Sorkin show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Oh yeah. I actually watched that for a little while. It was unwatchable.
Starting point is 00:02:39 Yeah, it wasn't very good. Somebody just breaking out into a moving soliloquy every seven minutes is the most unrealistic writing anybody could ever possibly do. That's Aaron Sorkin, baby. I know, but it only worked for West Wing. I didn't watch West Wing at all, so I haven't seen a lot of Sorkin stuff. It really worked for West Wing,
Starting point is 00:02:57 but it did not work for Studio 60. I do love Sarah Paulson, though, when she was in that. Sure, yeah. I felt bad for her. Yeah, I did too a little bit. What was great is 30 Rock came out at the exact same time and they would make fun of some of Studio 60's plot lines. In real time?
Starting point is 00:03:16 Yeah, the whole, what was the Janis Joplin story? They had to like rename her. Oh, I don't remember. Because they didn't have rights to her life story. That was something that Sarah Paulson, like, got a gig due playing Janis Joplin on Studio 60. That's funny. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:32 So that's our Studio 60 episode, everybody. That's right. Back to Sunset Boulevard. Yeah. So yes, we should probably just say, all jokes aside, it's a very long street. It's a very historic street. And it actually dates back to the 18th century, before the city of Los Angeles,
Starting point is 00:03:49 as we understand it was around. Instead, it originated in the Pueblo de Los Angeles, which was the little colony, I guess, or settlement of just 11 families, that was the seed that germinated into Los Angeles, home of Joe Friday. That's right. In Sunset Boulevard, before it became Sunset Boulevard, like many famous streets was originally
Starting point is 00:04:15 used as something else. 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 23 miles. You hear about, you know, Sunset Boulevard. You probably think of the Sunset Strip, which is a less than two mile area. But Sunset Boulevard, there, you know, I used to live on the east side in Silver Lake, and Sunset Boulevard over there is great in a whole other way than the Sunset Strip. How so? Well, I mean, it's just a cultural seed
Starting point is 00:04:46 of great restaurants and cafes and music venues. And it was sort of the hipster thing back in the day when hipsters were still a thing. Yeah, Silverlake, there's that Shaggy Dog mystery with Andrew Garfield beneath the Silverlake, right? Oh. That was pretty hipster. I think I saw that, maybe?
Starting point is 00:05:06 Yeah, it's worth watching, especially if you know it's a shaggy dog mystery going into it. Yeah, but 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 100 years
Starting point is 00:05:22 after that, I believe. Yeah, so there's a couple of 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 1887, there was a developer. There was a lot of land development going on
Starting point is 00:05:40 of like 19th century that built up Los Angeles. There was a bunch of different 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.
Starting point is 00:06:02 And so they apparently came up with the name Sunset Boulevard, 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 table, I guess is what you'd say. Is that an industry jargon? It is now. Yeah, and surely you can see some great sunsets because Sunset, if you're not familiar
Starting point is 00:06:26 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, or some of the more famous ones. And it goes downhill from the mountains, the Hollywood hills, the literal mountains and hills, but then it's still up kinda high
Starting point is 00:06:45 and LA kinda goes down, down, down into the basin and sunset is pretty high on that side. So yeah, you can see some great sunsets, I'm sure. Yeah, and I think originally 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,
Starting point is 00:07:06 Hollywood, West Hollywood. Like all these great neighborhoods, I think are in part great neighborhoods because it's a chicken or the egg thing. Is Sunset Boulevard great because these neighborhoods around it are great or are the neighborhoods great because Sunset Boulevard ran through them?
Starting point is 00:07:25 I think it's a chicken meat egg and they just shake hands and agree not to discuss it. Let's never speak of this again. Some film stuff and we're kind of jumping around between things that made it famous but generally in a timeline. But early on it was obviously Hollywood was the birthplace of the film industry and you
Starting point is 00:07:45 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 base in 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 1900s, there was a guy named, very 1900s name, H.J. Whitley, who kind of, I don't know if he, it wasn't officially incorporated, but he made Hollywood like a proper town and a place to live. Yeah, I think Hollywood or West Hollywood wasn't incorporated until like the 1980s.
Starting point is 00:08:22 Is that right? I think that was probably West Hollywood. Okay. WeHo, as they say. Yeah, everybody knows that thanks to Studio 60. Um, so yeah, so Hollywood, it was almost out of the gate. This was the early 1900s, 1910, when it merged with Los Angeles. The next year, film studios started popping up,
Starting point is 00:08:44 and they started popping up in a very specific area, the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. 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 of the College Years was filmed. Six feet under?
Starting point is 00:09:04 That's where, yeah, six feet The College Years was filmed. Six Feet Under? That's where, yeah, Six Feet Under, Dexter, The College Years, Heroes. A lot of really good shows have shot there and it's an old, old timey, original Hollywood studio from like the 19-teens. Yeah, I never shot there but I got to, as a PA, got to run an errand there once during, while Six Feet Under was being shot
Starting point is 00:09:24 so I got to see those sets and it was pretty, pretty cool as a Six Feet Under fan. What, did you take something to Diddy? Is that what it was? No, no, no, that was to his actual house. Gotcha. Yeah, I disavow that entire delivery though. Poverty Row is what they called Sunset Gower at first
Starting point is 00:09:42 because it was pretty low-budget at the time, the things they shot there, but in the 1930s, they started shooting some really high-quality things there, notably the movies that happened one night and you can't take it with you. Yeah. And then Gower Gulch, I'm glad I never knew the history, but there's still a strip mall right there
Starting point is 00:10:01 called Gower Gulch and it has a little old west theme. And that's where I saw Sherry O'Terry at a Starbucks. Oh yeah. And where there was a, hopefully still a print shop there where 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
Starting point is 00:10:22 and a lot of dudes in 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. Yeah, because Hollywood, especially this area where all the studios were turning out Westerns left and right through the 20s and 30s. So I mean, I'm sure there were other extras hanging around, but the 10 gallon hat really makes you stand out. And if you put a bunch of them together, it's gonna get a reputation for being a cowboy hangout.
Starting point is 00:10:48 And they would hang out around the Columbia drugstore. Is that still there? I don't know. I mean, I feel like there's a Rite Aid and that's probably what that was, but I may be wrong, but you know, Gower Gulch lives on. Did you ever go into that Rite Aid in Greenpoint?
Starting point is 00:11:04 Yeah, in Greenpoint in New York, in Brooklyn? I don't think so. That has like a disco ball still from whatever it was before? Oh, cool. No, definitely not. Yeah, it is kind of cool. But anyway, this Columbia Drugstore, they would hang out there because the owners of Columbia Drugstore had a telephone and they would let the extras use it to call central casting
Starting point is 00:11:22 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? Yeah, I mean I don't know if it was quite a, you know, take 10 steps and draw kind of thing. Yeah. But there was a shooter over, I think they were both seeing the same filly.
Starting point is 00:11:40 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. And someone said, boy, cast that dude.
Starting point is 00:11:59 That's incredible. Yeah, I know. That should be out of a movie. Yeah, they should make a movie about him, for sure. 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
Starting point is 00:12:18 where Hollywood was a dry place because of prohibition, and Beverly Hills is kind of where the Sunset Strip ends. Yeah well but it keeps going to the Pacific right? That like doesn't it basically just run out into the ocean? Or I guess the Pacific Highway? But that's not the Sunset Strip. Oh the Strip Strip. 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.
Starting point is 00:12:48 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 I guess they weren't particularly inclined to enforce laws in that 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 to Beverly Hills and the fact that there were all these
Starting point is 00:13:22 World famous movie stars partying there kind of really put a stamp on Sunset Strip that stayed forever. Yeah, that was 84, 77 Sunset had four different mobster clubs basically, where the mob owned and backed them. It was at first the Spanx, then the Han Club, then Club, what would that be, Sokolov? Yeah, I think so.
Starting point is 00:13:44 Sokolov? So, I think so. Sokoluf? Sokoluf, yeah. S-O-K-O-L-O-E-F-F. And then the Clover Club, and if you're wondering what 8477 is now, it's a weed dispensary. Oh, that's appropriate. Yeah, like it kinda feels right, doesn't it?
Starting point is 00:14:00 Yeah, because I'll bet it was a weed dispensary back in the 30s too. Yeah, probably so. But I'll bet it was a weed dispensary back in the 30s too. Yeah, probably so. But I'll bet it was some crap weed. Yeah. So yeah, no crap like the kids say today. Right, I think it's no cap, isn't it? I think they just don't know what they're saying.
Starting point is 00:14:17 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 live their lives. And it was depraved and decadent, as you can imagine, during the Golden Era. It might have been the most depraved and decadent
Starting point is 00:14:41 during the Golden Era, depending on what your moral views are. And people just went buck wild, 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 some that imitated, or there were lookalikes of stars of the day too. Yeah, that was one of the plot lines of L.A. Confidential, if you remember. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:08 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 plastic surgery. Oh, gotcha, yeah. To look like Hollywood stars. And, you know, the rumors were that the studios were kind of funding these to take investors,
Starting point is 00:15:24 like foreign investors there, and they could sleep with a sex worker that looks like Vivian Lee. you know, the rumors were that the studios were kind of funding these to take investors, like foreign investors there, and they could sleep with a sex worker that looks like Vivian Lee. 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. Yeah, I believe it. So and actually, because this is Hollywood and celebrity, I guess celebrity worship is just part of it,
Starting point is 00:15:46 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's name was Lee Frances. I think she might've originally worked under the other very famous one, The Black Widow and Forrester. And by this time, the Hollywood movie studios were so powerful that both Leeow and Forrester, and by this time, the Hollywood movie studios were so powerful that both Lee Francis and Forrester
Starting point is 00:16:09 were busted with client information. One of them had essentially like an index card system, the other one had a black book, and both of those things disappeared before they could ever make it into the evidence locker, and no 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
Starting point is 00:16:32 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. 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,
Starting point is 00:16:53 of the 20s and 30s and 40s maybe. Yeah, and because of that, it was sort of a, as Dave called it, kind of a blessing in disguise for the LGTBQ community. And that's West Hollywood, or WeHo again, is sort of the heart of the LGTB community and Central Los Angeles. But way before that, it was where a lot of gay bars were,
Starting point is 00:17:16 gay clubs, drag clubs. I think the first drag shows in the city and probably some of the first in the United States were at a speakeasy in 1927 called Cafe La Boheme But there are also you know all kinds of clubs there was a very famous one called the Trocadero that opened in 1934 where Cafe La Boheme was and it was open by a guy named Billy Wilkerson Who was a publisher of the Hollywood Reporter which I guess used to be News and like gossip and stuff now Now it's like a fully sort of stand-up, legitimate industry rag.
Starting point is 00:17:52 I know they write about us pretty much constantly. I think we were in it once, actually. We were selected for some honor of like, I think, powerful podcasters or something crazy like that. Yeah, we made that list a time or two. And we were in variety once, too, a couple of feathers in our that. Yeah, we made that list a time or two. And we were in variety once too, a couple of feathers in our caps. Yeah, so nice.
Starting point is 00:18:09 I love to stroke those feathers sometimes. Well, it's easy to forget when they don't come calling, you know? That'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 gonna make sure that you get in the gossip column,
Starting point is 00:18:26 because at the time, that was kind of good press. 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 their autograph,
Starting point is 00:18:51 the worst thing that can possibly happen to you. And then the final one we'll mention here before the break is a nightclub called Ciro's. It opened in 1940 and I believe it was also Wilkerson who owned that one and it was notable, It was just a very famous and popular nightclub, but it was It made its name because Bugsy Seagull would go there a lot the infamous mobster and when he was in jail On murder trial he got food from heroes delivered right there to a cell because you could do that at the time. Yeah Take out food. Can you believe it?
Starting point is 00:19:27 So we'll take a break now, yeah? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Great, and we'll come back and talk about the legendary Chateau Marmont right after this. ["Great Shoes"] Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from
Starting point is 00:20:03 Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or
Starting point is 00:20:41 wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be a hot, considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny is you do this weird math, like if you're a woman dating men, nobody wants to talk to you about your sexuality.
Starting point is 00:21:03 They just want to either say, like, you're a prude or a slut, you know, if you date too much, they criticize you. If you don't date, you must be frigid, whatever. And then the thing that gets added when you're actually more fluid with your sexuality is the swing goes to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, okay.
Starting point is 00:21:23 And you know, I sort of looked around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front of you off camera, but hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are telling our scientists today, we have disdain for your expertise.
Starting point is 00:21:48 And then you have China as an exception saying, actually, we're going to invest a trillion dollars in new science. Yeah, you heard that right. While the U.S. is cutting billions from science and public health, China is making historic investments. That means here in the U.S., fewer breakthroughs, slower medical advances, and a serious risk of falling behind globally. I don't think anything about that is efficient. I think that it is actually profoundly inefficient. And she would know.
Starting point is 00:22:13 Chelsea Clinton is using her expertise in public health to break down what these cuts really mean and why protecting science isn't just smart policy. It's a necessity. This week on Dope Labs, we're putting it all under the microscope with Chelsea Clinton, diving into what's at stake for science, medicine, and our future. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. We promised a talk at the Chateau Marmont. That is a very famous hotel built in 1929. It's the one that sits right in the hills and kind of looks like a castle, a very European-inspired
Starting point is 00:23:02 luxury hotel. And its motto is still, if you go to their website, says always a safe haven, always open. And from the start, it was kind of like what you've been describing. It was a place where you could go and party hearty and ensure that your name wouldn't be in the news because of it. 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
Starting point is 00:23:34 that if you can provide like that level of discretion or privacy, you're going to be, you're in good. Like the word 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,
Starting point is 00:23:58 like the Chateau Marmont would have gone out of business in six months essentially. So they, I don't know how they managed 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. 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
Starting point is 00:24:19 and it was supposedly gonna reopen as a, sort of like a members-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 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 Bel Bungalow like six or seven times.
Starting point is 00:24:46 And it's just a pretty awesome special place. The restaurant there and the bar, you just sort of feel, 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. Yeah, I mean, like I said, apparently, it's still very much like that and very tight-lipped. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:05 Yeah, it's just, I mean, that's just such an iconic place that it almost to me stands apart from Sunset Boulevard. It's about as iconic as Sunset Boulevard itself, in my opinion. Yeah, agreed. And it was right there at sort of that junction where they very famously had the big Marlboro Man poster ad for forever. That thing was up. There was one other thing. Dave helped us with this, and he turned up a quote from the guy who used to run Columbia Pictures,
Starting point is 00:25:33 I think in the 30s. His name was Harry Cohn. 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. The death would get reported, but the papers would not report the person's name in a lot of cases. This has got to be NDAs.
Starting point is 00:25:57 I guess, but I mean this is long before there were NDAs, you know? I don't know when those came along. I mean certainly they weren't around in the 1930s, I wouldn't think. I think just the studio heads would send goons to break your legs. Well, break your legs, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:11 Down the street from the Chateau was another very famous, well, eventually, a hotel, it was called the Garden of Allah, and you should look this place up if you're someplace where you're not driving and look at pictures of it. It was pretty wondrous. I think it was a few acres, named for its original owner.
Starting point is 00:26:27 It was a silent film star named Ala Nazimova. And Ala had a lot of money and bought a mansion there in 1918, 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 Nazimova was, coined the phrase, sewing circles,
Starting point is 00:26:48 as code for lesbian and bisexual actresses at the time. Yeah, I saw her described as the sapphic 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 $13,000 a week, which is $276,000 a week today. And so, according to the moral codes of the time,
Starting point is 00:27:16 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 the reason why. Like, she managed to, like, keep a lid on that as well, while still, like, everybody went and had fun.
Starting point is 00:27:41 Yeah, totally. And, you know, it went from a private house where she hosted these salons to after the silent film era, like everybody went and had fun. 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 1927. And it became sort of the same version of the same thing, but as a hotel.
Starting point is 00:28:01 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 her house, like it was lesbian central essentially and then once it became a hotel it was much more open to I think everybody. 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 Schwab's Pharmacy, which was a lot of things. There was, I think, from the movie 1951 Sunset Boulevard, the great Billy Wilder movie. That is such a good movie.
Starting point is 00:28:41 Oh, it's unbelievable. 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 Schwab's. Kind of a combination office, coffee, clutch, and waiting room. Waiting, waiting for the gravy train. Yeah. And that's what it was.
Starting point is 00:28:56 It was this weird combo where you could go scene and be seen and also sit around and wait for the phone to ring. 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
Starting point is 00:29:11 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 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 Rite-Aids or Chase Banks.
Starting point is 00:29:35 And Schwab's Pharmacy is where the famous story about Lana Turner being discovered there while skipping school before her name was Lana Turner. But I think, I feel like we talked about this, that that wasn't true. Yeah, it turns out, I mean, she was discovered skipping typing class at Hollywood High School, but she was discovered at the Top Hat Malt Shop, not at Schwab's. Right. And I guess Schwab's just filled in for Top Hat because it was much more famous, maybe. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:30:00 Yeah, probably. But that same Billy Wilkerson who founded C. Rose and the Hollywood Reporter. He's apparently the one who discovered her. Oh Yeah, that's right. It's all true except for the Schwab's part as we move into the 60s is when the Sunset Strip, you know particularly Became part of the kind of the seated counterculture of Los Angeles. Mm-hmm In the 1950s a lot of money went to Vegas when Vegas was first opening up.
Starting point is 00:30:28 And so rents fell lower on the strip. So like some grittier nightclubs moved in. And I think you found too 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. Yeah, well, no, the mob had enough money that they could pay you just such a fat contract
Starting point is 00:30:46 that part of the contract was you can't go play L.A. Oh, you couldn't play, okay. 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 Axe, Motown, R&B, Otis Redding very famously played at, I can't remember what club, with Bob Dylan watching him, just a gog. And sadly, the sudden appearance
Starting point is 00:31:16 of Black performers on the Sunset Strip actually depressed real estate values even further. And so as 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, you know, glamorous Frank Sinatra to grungy rock clubs. There was a transition, a swing, from the R&B artists of the time playing the Sunset Strip for a little while
Starting point is 00:31:46 in between those things. Oh, okay, that makes sense. So then it became more rock and roll because that's when the Whiskey a Go Go opened in 64, a venue I have still not been to. They just don't have a lot of stuff that I'm into anymore. It's still a lot of metal and metal tribute bands and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:32:06 But I'm gonna make it a point just to go at some point just so I can be in that room. But that became sort of the epicenter of the counterculture and youth culture. Right. And Whiskey a Go Go, if you've heard of Go Go dancing, it comes from the Whiskey a Go Go, like literally. Yeah, there was a DJ at the Whiskey named Jon Labine, 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.
Starting point is 00:32:33 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 she started the go-go dancing trend of the 60s single-handedly essentially. Everybody started kind of mimicking her and it was all at the Whiskey Go-Go. Yeah, if you've heard of the rock band The Doors, the rock band without a bass player featuring Jim Morrison and others, Ray Manzarek.
Starting point is 00:33:04 I remember how excited I was in eighth grade when that movie came out. Oh, I was a freshman in college. Yeah, I was too. That's cool that you were psyched at that age because it felt like college is 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 1966. And every one of the day played there.
Starting point is 00:33:28 And it's not a very big venue either. I don't know what the capacity is. But it feels like just by looking at it, it's probably under 1,000. Oh, yeah, I would definitely say that. I mean, imagine seeing Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix in a small room like that. Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine seeing them, period, much less
Starting point is 00:33:44 in a small room. And then one, I mean, I can't imagine seeing them, period, much less in a small room. And then one other thing about the Whiskey of Go-Go, I think it's probably the greatest club name of all time. And I looked up why, or where Go-Go came from, and apparently Go for a little while was slang for fashionable, and it just kind of morphed into Go-Go. That's super fashionable.
Starting point is 00:34:03 That meant kind of fashionable or cool. Right, doubly fashionable. So the whiskey at Go-Go was very fashionable, I guess. A rare in-show lookup, it's a capacity of 500, so yeah. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yeah, that's like a stuff-you-should-know show in our hometown of Atlanta. Wow.
Starting point is 00:34:23 In the mid-60s 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 up and down the Sunset Strip if you've ever seen the movie American Graffiti. Even though that drive-in was filmed in 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. Yeah, definitely. That whole LA youth culture and car culture
Starting point is 00:34:54 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? Ritchie Cunningham. Ritchie Cunningham. Ron Howard, baby. Yes, he was an American Graffiti,
Starting point is 00:35:10 essentially playing Ritchie Cunningham. Yeah. Right before Happy Days started, so... I never thought about that, yeah. One little thing about that, I was looking up Mel's Drive in an American Graffiti, and I ran across, uh, there was a list of suggested names from the studio instead of American Graffiti.
Starting point is 00:35:29 And it's even on like Lucasfilm Stationery or something like that. One of them was Burger City. They considered naming that movie Burger City. Wow, we should write a script called Burger City so we can get it developed. Yeah, I think that'd be great. Or Good Burger, that'd be an equally weird name.
Starting point is 00:35:47 Isn't that Kenan and Kel? Yeah, I was just kidding. Have you ever seen that movie? I never saw it, was it a movie or a show? It was a movie, it was like the Kenan and Kel movie. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, he's the best. Well, I don't know much about Kel, but Kenan's awesome.
Starting point is 00:36:02 I love that guy. Yeah, I agree. 66 was when a club called Pandora's Box famously became the sort of heart of what was known as the ride on Sunset Strip. The LA Sheriff's Department headed first a 10 o'clock curfew for teenagers basically, anyone under 18. And on November 12th of 66 is when thousands of young teenage hippies protested. They sat down in the street in front of Pandora's Box, blocked 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. Yeah, they just came in with police batons, a fly in, cracking heads. It's like LAPD, will you ever change? Hmm, maybe, maybe not.
Starting point is 00:36:53 The signs are not pointing to a definite yes at this point yet. And if you're thinking, I don't know this song for what it's worth, it's the song, you better stop, hey, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down. You just probably don't remember it as having the name for what it's worth. No, because it's one of those songs that just,
Starting point is 00:37:11 the title just doesn't fit the other part, I think. Buffalo Springfield. Yeah, it's a good song. Love it. Stephen Sills, did you see that? Thanks, Dave. Oh, did he not put the T in there? No, Stephen Sills, I loved it.
Starting point is 00:37:29 Crosby Sills. Nass and Yown. Oh man, we love Dave here, we love him. So we should talk a little bit about the Black Cat Tavern because Black Cat Tavern was home of one of the first major LGBTQ protest in the United States, certainly a couple of years before Stonewall even. Yeah, two years before Stonewall, you said, right?
Starting point is 00:37:52 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 what started the beatings.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, they ended up arresting 14 people, but those two men ended up getting convicted and had to register as sex offenders for kissing each other. The Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear their appeal. And so they took away their liquor license in May, I believe, of 67, shortly after the protest on February 11th because of the raid on New Year's Eve. And they had to shut down.
Starting point is 00:38:40 And I think it reopened to several other gay bars over the years until 2011 when it reopened in 2012 as a right-aid 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 and This is in the Silver Lake side is not on the strip and in 2022 It was a duplex in a very small, sort of two-sided building. Shake Shack opened up on the other side
Starting point is 00:39:09 in the adjacent space and apparently dominated with their signage. And everyone got really, really mad at that. And it didn't last long. Shake Shack there is now closed. You know, one of the most interesting things I've ever seen is a story about Shake Shack, the original one in whatever park it's in in New York.
Starting point is 00:39:27 Okay. You, me 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 one. This guy, I'm not sure what park it is, I guess it doesn't matter,
Starting point is 00:39:37 but this guy who was either one or two behind us in line, suddenly was surrounded by bird poop. It just formed like a halo around his body. And everyone like 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, all around him, without actually getting on him.
Starting point is 00:40:01 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 covered in a ticket. Yeah, go buy a lottery ticket. Yeah, exactly. That's amazing. It's my Shake Shack story.
Starting point is 00:40:14 I don't think I've ever heard that. I didn't know that was the first one either. Yeah, I think it's the first one. It was just in the park. Yeah, it's near Union Square. I don't know what the park is either though. 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
Starting point is 00:40:31 Stonewall raid 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. That's what, that's its big claim to fame. Amazing. I feel like that's a great time for a break. Totally.
Starting point is 00:40:56 And we'll segue into the 70s right after this. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.
Starting point is 00:41:42 I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:42:12 This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be a hot, considered a hot lesbian. Quite an honor. You know what's funny is you do this weird math like if you're a woman dating men, nobody wants to talk to you about your sexuality. They just want to either say like you're a prude or a slut, you know, if you date too much they criticize you if you don't date you must be frigid, whatever. And then the thing that gets added when you're actually more fluid with your sexuality is the swing goes to you better identify exactly who you are
Starting point is 00:42:46 so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, okay. And you know, I sort of looked around and was like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? You know, maybe not in front of you off camera, but hi, I've always been here. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are telling our scientists today, we have disdain for your expertise. And then you have China as an exception saying, actually, we're going to invest a trillion dollars in new science.
Starting point is 00:43:19 Yeah, you heard that right. While the US is cutting billions from science and public health, China is making historic investments. That means here in the U.S., fewer breakthroughs, slower medical advances, and a serious risk of falling behind globally. I don't think anything about that is efficient. I think that it is actually profoundly inefficient. As she would know, Chelsea Clinton is using her expertise in public health to break down what these cuts really mean and why protecting science isn't just smart policy, it's a necessity. This week on Dope Labs we're putting it all under the microscope with Chelsea Clinton diving into what's at stake for science, medicine, and our
Starting point is 00:43:57 future. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ho! Ho! [♪ Music playing. Rock music playing. [♪ Music playing. Rock music playing. Okay, so the 70s, which we just segue 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 the time. There was the Roxy Theater, Rodney's English Disco, and Guzzari's.
Starting point is 00:44:45 Those were the three that were like the three big rock clubs in the 70s that kind of kicked off that transition from what I understand. Yeah, and Guzzari'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. It was playing backyard parties in Pasadena where they lived and being the house band at
Starting point is 00:45:07 Ghazaris for like years. Did you know that Van Halen was from California? Yeah. I did. I always thought they were a Dutch band. No, I mean Eddie and Alex were Dutch by heritage and I think they were even born there maybe. David Lee Roth isn't Dutch? No. Have you ever heard him talk? Sure. Huh. I'm a distributor, boba da bop. Right, that's Dutch. I think you're right.
Starting point is 00:45:32 I mean, I'm a big Van Halen guy, so I've studied and read all the books, but there's one in particular. Oh God, is it called Becoming Van Halen? 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 Van Halen that I've ever heard of in my life. It was incredible how much this guy knew about their Pasadena backyard party
Starting point is 00:45:57 days. 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 as a bad bass player? Like, I think about upon Michael Anthony's death. Oh, well, you mean Eddie Van Halen's death? No, Michael Anthony's. Michael Anthony's. Oh, okay. Well, for some reason, Eddie Van Halen came out and said that he thought Michael Anthony was a terrible bass player.
Starting point is 00:46:22 Oh, Eddie, you know, he's one of the greatest in RIP for sure, but he could be unkind at times to people. I think Michael Anthony is one of the 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 in Vegas, played not too long ago for the second time in a year.
Starting point is 00:46:41 Were you the guest of our good friend Aaron Hagar, who listens to this show? No, I wasn't a guest this time. Aaron, 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,
Starting point is 00:46:56 met me from LA and we played a 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 nicest guys in rock and roll. Nice. Which really stinks if Eddie said that,
Starting point is 00:47:12 because Michael Anthony has always taken the high road. 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. He's basically being an idiot. Michael Anthony's the best bass player I ever worked with. So he swooped in.
Starting point is 00:47:27 All that band stuff just makes me sad, fighting like that. Yeah. I'd like to circle back to Adam Pranica. OK. For people who aren't familiar with him, I would say go listen to the Greatest Generation podcast. But if you ever get a chance to meet Adam Pranica, you should consider yourself hashtag blessed.
Starting point is 00:47:44 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. Yeah, agreed. He's the Michael Anthony of podcasting. He definitely is, man. Along with his co-host Ben Harrison. No, Ben's great too.
Starting point is 00:48:00 He's no Adam Pranica though. Ben's gonna like that burn. The Roxy opened in 73. David Geffen, very famous sort of record label owner and early on music producer, and Lou Adler, legendary producer, opened The Roxy. And it was legendary for a lot of reasons. I mean, the biggest of the big played there, and again, a small club.
Starting point is 00:48:22 But the very first staging in the US of the Rocky Horror Picture Show yeah this is when it was just a stage musical played at the Roxy. Yeah and Pee Wee Herman debuted his show what became the Pee Wee Herman TV show his live stage version of it that came out first in 1981 at the Roxy. Have you seen that documentary yet? Still haven't seen it because we're on vacation, but it's on the list. And then Rodney's English Disco, I don't know why those three words together
Starting point is 00:48:50 are hard for me to pronounce, but that was Rodney Bingenheimer's club that opened in 1972. So think about how ahead of the curve he was by naming it a disco. There was no disco around yet. Yeah, that's a good point. He was a legendary DJ at K-Rock in LA from 76 to 2017.
Starting point is 00:49:08 I'm sorry, Chuck, it's KROQ. And was very famous for breaking, like, the list of bands that he broke on air is incredible. Like, just look it over some time. I don't have time to go over all of it here because we're running long but it's just really impressive and he was a there was a great documentary about him called the mayor of Sunset Strip. He has a star on Hollywood Boulevard and it's just like wow what a guy and then very disappointingly a couple of years ago Carrie Crome of the Runaways filed a lawsuit and said he sexually assaulted me when I was 13 years old. Man, those poor runaways, they got just totally exploited and just used up.
Starting point is 00:49:50 They were just young teenage girls and Kim Fowley, their manager, seems like a horrible human, took part in that assault. And then five more women came forward after that, including Jane Weedland of the Go-Go's and said, yeah, Rodney sexually assaulted me too. And there hasn't been a result of that lawsuit yet, but turns out not a good guy. Well, good for them for standing up to that dude. Totally.
Starting point is 00:50:13 We couldn't mention the Sunset Strip without mentioning, especially during the era of the 70s, the Continental Hyatt House, which has- You stayed there, by the way. I have? I'm almost positive that we both stayed, as now the Andaz, in one of our LA podcast festival appearances. I do not recall that. I remember seeing it at the SLS. Is that what you're talking about? No, this is the Andaz. I mean, I definitely stayed there. I thought you did, but it was the Continental Riot House.
Starting point is 00:50:41 It was the Hyatt House, 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 was the Hyatt House. 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. Oh, wow. Didn't know that.
Starting point is 00:51:04 Yeah, it's kind of a weird transition, right? Yeah, totally. All right, as the tour goes forward, we're gonna take a little stop here at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset. Opened in 72, and it was the people who owned the Whisky a Go Go that opened the Rainbow, and the Rainbow was just a den of debauchery
Starting point is 00:51:20 disguised as a not-too-great Italian restaurant. But that was where the Hollywood vampires hung out, the kind of silly, looking at it now, drinking club, founded by Alice Cooper, as members of which were Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Mickey Dolenz, and the debaucherists and great Harry Nilsson. Yeah, they're now kind of a band with Alice Cooper
Starting point is 00:51:42 and Aerosmith guitarist... Oh, uh, Joe... Oh, geez, what's his name? Steven Tyler and the other guy. I'm just blanking. Well, anyway, Johnny Depp is in it. There's like a couple other people too. I think one of the dudes from Guns N' Roses might be in it too.
Starting point is 00:52:01 Uh, maybe. I don't know if they're any good, are they? I don't know. I think they're more a novelty act. Ha ha ha ha. Uh, maybe. I mean, you know, it's got Johnny Depp in it. Right. Right. I think that kind of makes it a novelty act as far as musical acts
Starting point is 00:52:18 are concerned. Joe Perry! I kept wanting to say Joe Elliott, but that's, uh, Def Leppard. Oh yeah, that's right. That's the lead singer. One other thing about the Rainbow Bar and Grill, that's where John Belushi ate his last meal in 1982 before he died of a drug overdose
Starting point is 00:52:35 at the Chateau Marmont. And had he gotten the speed ball from Schwab's, it would have been a Sunset Boulevard trifecta. Oh yeah. I guess you're right. Uh, and then 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.
Starting point is 00:52:57 Yeah. Thanks to Polly Shore's mom, Mitzi Shore. Is, is it his mom? Cause I looked it up and I couldn't find that. Was it his mom? Really? Oh yeah. That's funny because he like, he was like a kid roaming around those parts.
Starting point is 00:53:08 That's awesome. Yeah, Mitzi Shore opened the Comedy Store in 72, where T. Rose used to be. And it was, like you said, it was the very first stand-up only nightclub in the world. Mm-hmm. Which is crazy to think about. For sure.
Starting point is 00:53:23 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.
Starting point is 00:53:41 But if you were working on your stuff, and we're talking like legendary people here, we're talking like Jim Carrey, Howie Mandel, Gary Shandling, Andy Kaufman, Robin Williams, Michael Keaton for some reason, apparently was a standup. Oh yeah, yeah. I did not know that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:57 He's just so serious now, you know? Yeah, but I mean, he started in comedy movies and you can get his early standup, it's kind of fun. Yeah, no, I know his comedy movies. I've seen them. No, I mean the standup. Dung Ho. You can watch. Oh, gotcha.
Starting point is 00:54:11 So, like, these were people who all had their careers launched thanks to the Comedy Store, but they were paid in exposure, and eventually they were like, this is not worth it, we're going on strike. Yeah, they went on strike in 79, which opened a door for another club. The world famous Laugh Factory opened in 79, just a few blocks away by a 16 year old, which is amazing.
Starting point is 00:54:35 Iranian immigrant, also amazing, named Jamie Masada, and he ended up opening Laugh Factories all over the country. 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. Apparently the original name of the Laugh Factory
Starting point is 00:54:51 was Joke on Yolk, like egg yolk. Really? Yeah. Joke on Yolk, I don't get it. Was there a Yolk Street? I think he thought that was funny. Oh, okay. It rhymes, so it's funny. Well, I guess he was a better business owner than comedian. Right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:08 Well, he was an aspiring comedian, that's why he opened that club. Yeah, choke on yoke, get it? Right. So, one other thing circling back, Mitzi Shor finally resolved the strike after a few weeks by agreeing to pay the comedians $25 a set, which is a whopping $110 today. That's not too bad if you're getting up there
Starting point is 00:55:27 and doing seven minutes. They don't know, you can buy like a pack of cigarettes with $110 today. All right, we're gonna move into the 80s and you gotta talk about the 80s because you gotta talk about hair metal and if you're gonna talk about hair metal in the Sunset Strip, you gotta start with Motley Crue.
Starting point is 00:55:43 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 Crew. No just two. Okay. Yeah I mean they lived right above it. They could walk down there and you know have big parties at their disgusting place that they shared above the Sunset Strip. 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 Pussycat, eventually Guns N' Roses would start out there
Starting point is 00:56:12 in the mid-80s, but yeah, the whiskey kind of had a bunch of different lives 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. Yeah, right. And in between then and now, grunge came along and killed hair metal,
Starting point is 00:56:32 which was a sad day, I think. You can still go see those bands, they're around. You can see the tribute versions of them. And other ones, I'm going to see Judas Priest a little bit. Oh, nice. I've never seen them and I got tickets on a whim to go see them this fall. Speaking of Judas Priest, I just have one more place I want to mention, but Judas Priest has one of the cooler
Starting point is 00:56:52 documentaries around, it's called Parking Lot or something like that. Have you met a parking lot? Yes, have you seen it? Yeah, I mean, it's not just about Judas Priest, it's just about Fenelphi Sphyrus directed that, kind of a legendary documentary. Right, okay, well, I guess I'm's not just about Judas Priest, it's just about Fenelphi Spheeris directed that legendary documentary. Right, okay.
Starting point is 00:57:07 Well, I guess I'm the only one who saw it, but I love that documentary. It just takes place at the parking lot before a Judas Priest show. I don't think I even remembered it was Judas Priest. I'm almost positive it is Judas Priest. It probably is, but yeah, it really encapsulates that culture at the time. It totally does. Yeah. The last place I wanted to mention
Starting point is 00:57:26 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 kind of old?
Starting point is 00:57:43 That's where it debuted or that's where it became big that pattern is called Martinique and I think it was in the mid late 40s that this decorator papered the Beverly Hills Hotel with that and it just took off from there. Wow I've never been there but that's one of those places I want to go like have dinner just to it was kind of like Tavern on the Green style. Yeah it looks amazing actually. Their bar looks amazing too. Yeah it's still got that kind of mid-century charm doesn't it? LA style.
Starting point is 00:58:10 Yeah. I guess that's it for Sunset Boulevard. Yeah I mean there's 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
Starting point is 00:58:33 and you're into touristy stuff, you should go check it out. 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.
Starting point is 00:58:53 And this one actually is a listener suggestion, so we wanted to shout out Sayer Delk for Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, that's a great name. Yeah, I mean not for making the road, but you know, for giving the suggestion. Hey guys, long-term listener who wants to thank you for keeping me entertained during work school travel and pretty much any excuse to have a podcast on for the past few years. The reason I write is in 2022, 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 my friends and I used to play three to four person games at work as landscapers.
Starting point is 00:59:27 In the mornings we were weed eating on the property and we'd come across items that only required 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 in 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 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.
Starting point is 00:59:58 Love the show. All the best to you and your families. Respectfully, that is Austin from St. Louis, Missouri. 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 stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Just like great shoes, great books take you places.
Starting point is 01:00:43 Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts where we dive into the stories that shape us
Starting point is 01:01:02 on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 01:01:21 We are telling our scientists today we have disdain for your expertise. And then you have China as an exception saying actually we're going to invest a trillion dollars in new science. You heard that right. While the US is slashing science budgets, China is doubling down. This means here in the United States, less innovation, fewer breakthroughs and falling behind on the global stage.
Starting point is 01:01:41 This week on Dope Labs, Chelsea Clinton breaks down what these cuts really mean. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show, Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why open AI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer.
Starting point is 01:02:14 Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts.

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