Confidential, Thursday, December 19, 1996

With the action turning from sleazy to downright sordid, it's starting to feel like a girl's just not safe in clubland these days. (Have you heard about promotor Michael Alig stuffing a body into a box and dumping it in the Hudson?) So I’ve change my course for a while from Webster Hall and Coney Island High to Burger King and McDonald's. My favorite? The fries at McDonald's. They may clog up my arteries but they’re a whole lot healthier than getting stuffed into a box and dumped into a river on Manhattan’s west bank.

If you're not hip to the whole Alig affair, the short of it is that he's been arrested, along with buddy Robert Riggs, for the murder of drug dealer Angel Melendez. The Alig investigation has been going on for the better part of a year now. Along the way, Alig managed to provide Federal agents with plenty of info on the Limelight's Peter Gatien, which pretty much explains why the club was raided last summer. It's amazing how all the pieces start to fit together eventually.

Well, there’s only so much cow meat you can take so last Thursday I decided to book from McD’s and head over to check out the Ozone Art Gallery where I had been invited to attend the All Nude exhibition. The scene was pretty cool, helped along by the free WIT beer and some interesting art, including works by guitarist Vernon Reid (of Living Color). My favorite piece was a picture of this bitch with a slot machine engraved on her side. You can pump money into us, boys, but it’s anybody’s guess whether you’ll hit paydirt.

Chatted for a while with Pat Clay, the set designer from Rent, until I had my fill of the high culture and headed to more familiar grounds, namely Webster Hall. I’d been feeling a cold coming on for a while so when I got there I crushed up some penicillin and vitamin C and snorted it. It was a bit rough on the nostrils, but it’s a lot better for you than what some people put up their noses. It’s also a lot healthier than getting stuffed into a box and thrown in a river.

The usual entourage was at Webster and I was promptly filled in on all the latest grist. My friend Ken has recruited himself as bartender in some biker bar downtown; my buddy Sandra’s tired of dried-up rock stars with no money so she’s seeing a businessman with plenty of cash; Tanya, the fetish store salesgirl, is still chasing the 19-year-old boy downstairs without much success; John, the male stripper, just got permanently deported from England for having too much money (a problem I’d like to have); and Meryle just got a brand new set of breast implants that are rumored to measure somewhere in the low-to-mid forties. Va-voom ...

Anyway, right now the bartender’s pissed at me because I keep asking to borrow his pen. "Don’t they provide you with pens back at the shop?" he asked. "You gotta be kiddin’," I responded. "You obviously don’t know where I work. Want some penicillin?" He declined. Some people just don’t know what’s good for them. But Didi does. A quick shot of JD to ward off any germs lurking in the general tracheal vicinity. Bottom’s up ... see ya in ’97!

Confidential, Wednesday, November 20, 1996

Well folks, the Rock & Roll Dating Game is back in full swing at Coney Island High. Is this a good thing or not, don’t ask me. All I know is that somehow I got corralled into being a contestant last night when I ventured into Coney. Moments after I unwittingly walked into the bar, the Sisters Grimm grabbed me and assigned me this hapless task.

"Who’s the eligible bachelor?" I asked.

"Don Hill" [proprietor of the namesake bar at Spring and Greenwich], answered Grim #1.

"But I know Don, doesn’t that disqualify me?"

Obviously not. An hour later I found myself onstage. I was Contestant #2, sandwiched between two girls dressed in jeans and T-shirts who both looked sort of like they had taken a wrong turn in Seattle and somehow wound up on St. Mark’s Place. On my right, Contestant #1 was the shy mousy type whose answers didn’t really matter since they weren’t really audible. On my left, Contestant #3 spoke as if she were reading from a script (I-like-to-go-to-the-movies).

Fortunately, owing to selective amnesia, I recall very little else of the actual interrogation. I do remember being asked what we would do if Don and I were together on a Tuesday night at three in the morning. I gave the only logical response:

"We would get drunk and go shopping."

Needless to say, I wasn’t chosen. I think Don recognized my voice, which would explain why he kept calling me "Didi" instead of "Contestant # 2" like he was supposed to. Not that I minded not being chosen -- Don looks a little too much like Tom Petty for my taste anyway. And besides, I have a boyfriend.

Speaking of Iggy, his once and future soulmate Debbie Harry may just be poised to make something of a resurgence. The latest grist on the gossip mill has it that Blondie, that legendary fixture of the New Wave, is gearing up for a reunion. According to Debbie, the band recently convened to discuss the possibility of a tour, etc. So far, however, no formal announcement has been made.

As a final note, Slash is due in town on December 5th, when he will be bringing his "Blues Ball" to Tramps on 21st Street. (Also appearing: Guitar Guys From Hell.) To date, Slash’s foray into the blues has not received the best of press. British journalist Lloyd Bradly described him as playing "the kind of blues licks that most guitarists shrug off as soon as they get to page two of the manual." But I say, the Slash-meister played some great stuff in G&R so lets give the boy a little break, OK?

See that, Didi Delicious has a heart as big as the East River itself (as if you didn’t know). Anyway, gotta run (and have my fun). Till next time, this is Contestant #2 signing off ... Ciao.

Confidential, Thurdsay, October 31, 1996

Well boys and girls, the chilly winds of October have been whipping their way through Clubland NYC as of late. Met Peter Crowley the other day outside the Contintental. Peter was the manager of the original Max's Kansas City and is looking to reopen the club. What was the original Max's like? Dont ask me, it was way, way before my time.

Anyway, Peter says he's having trouble with the Heir Guiliani administration (as Peter is fond of calling the mayor), and then there's the money issue -- coming up with the big bucks is presenting somewhat of a problem. For you and me both, Peter ...

Speaking of opening and reopening clubs, how about one that does it all in the course of one day. The Coney Island High fiasco has been recently playing itself out much to the amusement or dismay of many people, depending on who you are and what you got at stake.

For those who need a little background, Coney is basically the rock & roll hub of St. Marks Place. Over the past couple of years, it has hosted shows by international and local acts from Iggy Pop and the Ramones to D Generation and Shove It.

Anyway, in what basically amounts to a partner dispute, part-owner Toby Whitney shut the club down on October 14th and tried to have another part-owner, Jesse Malin of D Generation, arrested for trespassing when Jesse tried to enter his own club. Whitney then began mapping out future plans for the club, which included firing the entire staff.

Less than a day later, after some local protests and the beginning of some legal action, Whitney decided to sell his share to the club's other partners and Coney Island reopened. Word has it that Jesse Malin will stay on as creative director. Other emloyees and partners from local bands such as the Creeps, Stitches and Killer Kowalski will also retain their positions.

Hey, did I tell you I was going as a motorcycle for Halloween? That's right -- with headlights on my arms and a G-string on my tail. So excuse me while I slip into costume. See you in November!

Confidential, Thurdsay, September 19, 1996

The Living Daylights invited me to their show at Webster tonight, said I was on the list with unlimited guests. Great, I’ll just drag as many wankers with me as I can, I thought, as I boarded a train downtown.

Ran into a little problem on the way. One of the city’s endless army of homeless begged me for change so I gave her a fist-full. Ten minutes later I realized I had about nine bucks worth of subway tokens mixed in with the coins. I had only one word to say and they don’t like to print it in Yahoo! Oh, well...

Wound up downtown at 10:15, too early for the zombies to be out yet, so I headed to Coney to see some of the early show. Unfortunately, I caught very little of the music because I bumped into Lynne, the Prozac Queen, who assaulted my ears with several tongues of depression. No men, no money, blah-blah-blah -- thank God for the Upjohn company.

Next to us, a couple of rastas were rolling a spliff the size of a small baseball bat. Seconds later, Smokey the Bears’s worst nightmare was taking place in our small corner of the world. First-hand or second-hand, there was no escaping the smoke, so why fight it? Soon a thought began to roll through my brain:

"Time to party!"

Relief from Lynne soon arrived in the form of my friend Suzi Boozi who came up to me sporting her new fluorescent pink hairdo. It looked fabulous, glowing in the dark like a neon sign. (Actually, everything was glowing the dark at this point.) I complimented Suzi on her day-glo success, shared a beer with her and took off for Continental.

A friend of mine, a platinum-blonde go-go dancer, was tending bar. She spilled her guts out about how she’d just blown an audition for the Broadway musical Rent. I responded by encouraging her to keep going. She responded by encouraging me to keep drinking -- and she set up plenty of free shots of Absolute to make it possible. Forty or fifty shots later, she said something like, "Oh, Didi, you’re so great. I hope we can talk more in the future." I knocked one down and said, "Absolutely!"

Finally, I made it to Webster Hall to see the Living Daylights. Walked into a room where Lisa Kennedy from MTV was doing some filming. She saw me and screamed, "DANCERS ARE IN THE OTHER ROOM!"

Lisa was wearing an extraordinarily unattractive granny dress for the occasion and together with her Shirley Temple hairdo, she looked like she had just pulled in on the last flight from Mars. I figured she had enough problems of her own and decided not to retort. Sooner or later, she’d have to come across a mirror and that’ll be punishment enough for a lifetime.

I left Lisa and her menstrual cramps behind and finally went to see the band. The Living Daylights played some damn good power pop. They included a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s, "Dreams," and somehow managed to make it work, even though Mac is not necessarily my cup of tea. After the set, I met some fellow who gave me his own private fashion show, voguing up and down some imaginary runway. I asked, "Why all this for me?" He said, "Because you’re gorgeous." Perfect. I planted one on his check and left him behind with a pair of cherry-red lipstick marks that’ll probably take a week to wash off.

Figured, I’d end the night on a high note and made my great escape from Webster about right then. Thought I saw the homeless woman selling subway tokens on the corner of 14th Street as my taxi whizzed by, but I couldn’t say for sure. Anyway, till next time, this is Didi Delicious saying Ciao, see you around in clubland sometime soon.