The fight in a Toronto strip club which led on to much, much more (Part 1 of 3)
Back in March, in a follow-up to a piece I posted ten years before (in 2014) I posted a new 4-part blog which started out about a Toronto strip club called Le Strip and then veered into totally true and unexpected tales of Canadian spies, neo-Nazis, do…
Back in March, in a follow-up to a piece I posted ten years before (in 2014) I posted a new 4-part blog which started out about a Toronto strip club called Le Strip and then veered into totally true and unexpected tales of Canadian spies, neo-Nazis, double-crosses, counterfeiting, 1980s terrorism, US white supremacists, South African secret agents and much else.
All this came from the far-from quiet memories of Dave Hughes, who worked at Le Strip.
The extraordinary man who ran the Le Strip club was future Canadian cultural icon Don Cullen. He had been a performer. He appeared in a production of Beyond the Fringe which was performed more than 800 times in Canada and the US.
A Toronto Star feature on him in 2022 began: "He was the man behind the Bohemian Embassy, the Toronto coffeehouse that helped launch the careers of numerous famous Canadians, including musicians Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Sylvia Tyson, writer Margaret Atwood and poet Gwendolyn MacEwen. But Don Cullen was more than just a supporter of the arts. The multi-talented writer, actor, comedian and producer was a mainstay of CBC radio and television for more than three decades, a co-founder of the Leacock Festival of Humour and co-host of the Winnipeg Folk Festival."
The current Wikipedia entry on him begins: "Donald Austin Cullen (January 18, 1933 – June 26, 2022) was a Canadian actor, comedian, writer, and proprietor of the Bohemian Embassy coffeehouse, which he operated, off and on, in various Toronto locations from 1960 to the early 1990s. He was a prolific performer on radio, stage, and television, including as a featured player on Wayne and Shuster's CBC television broadcasts, for 25 years."
Wikipedia later mentions in passing: "In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, he also owned Le Strip, a burlesque house on Toronto's Yonge Street. He initially had a half-interest in the club, investing to help a friend, and later owned it outright."
Dave Hughes fills in the Le Strip gaps in the story below, in his own words... with enlightening insights into both Don's and his own life...
I knew Don very well from about 1983 until 2004.
In 1983/84 I had a chance encounter with my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend while I was working as an armored car guard picking up money from McDonald's Restaurant at 239 Yonge Street in Toronto, which was directly underneath and beside Le Strip's burlesque theater.
My 'ex' had become a top-billed exotic dancer in Canada, working under the stage name 'Black Magic' and was a business partner with Don running, managing and performing at Le Strip.
The club was located on the 2nd floor at 237A Yonge Street and had started in the 1960s as a 'burlesque theater', but it offered something no other strip club in Toronto could… total nudity!
There was a loophole in the City of Toronto's bylaw forbidding total nudity in any establishment that sold alcohol. Financially, no strip bar could stay in business if they did not serve booze. The proprietors of establishments which featured exotic dancers AND alcohol had to ensure performers wore "G-strings and pasties" while on stage. The rationale behind this bylaw was that, obviously, without total nudity there would be no sin in the city.
However, the virtuous Burghers of Toronto didn't count on the ingenuity of market forces and human nature.
Le Strip got around the total nudity prohibition and flourished for decades by offering intimate glimpses of female anatomy to young and old alike… as long as they practiced sobriety while in the hallowed halls of what Don Cullen often referred to as "the blessed church of the vertical smiling academy".
Later, in his book of memories and poems The Bohemian Embassy, Don was to write: "It is not that I am totally against alcohol. It is just that certain kinds of entertainment are better served without booze."
The intimate 'theater' setting could hold approximately 120 patrons cloistered around the T-shaped stage and had a candy and pop vending machine… but no alcohol was served… Only total nudity...on tap... serving up 6 different performances lasting 15 minutes at one and one half hour intervals.
Eventually, in the early 1990s, table dancing was permitted as a result of a court decision which overturned a section of Canada's criminal code which dealt with morality issues.
Accepting the offer of employment at Le Strip as a doorman, I began working a few nights a week mostly on weekends. In due course, I was introduced to Don and he knew me at first as Black Magic's former boyfriend.
Working as a 'doorman' in an establishment that didn't serve alcohol was an exercise in oxymorism… People who haven't been drinking are generally pretty quiet and well-behaved.
Once the girls were on stage, all eyes and minds were focused on one thing and one thing only!
Occasionally young boys, on a dare from their friends, would scramble up the long, red carpeted and very worn staircase trying to fling open the doors to catch a peek of what they had never seen in the flesh… before escaping back to the safety of the street.
On only one occasion can I recall getting into a scuffle with unruly patrons at the door.
One weekend evening a group of young CAF (Canadian Armed Foces) reservists led by their aggressive officer charged up the stairs and tried to force their way into the club without paying. Luckily we had a video monitor in the DJ's booth and Jim Roberts (Don's nephew who was manning the DJ station) notified me in time enough to lock the door.
The reservists, fired up from alcohol and no doubt in their minds on a rescue mission to save the damsels in distress forced into bondage by the barbarians who ran the club, pounded on the door and demanded entry.
911 calls from Le Strip were never answered in a timely manner… unless it was life or death. We were pretty much on our own while running the club.
And so, we were forced to open the doors to the mob for the commotion they were creating was interfering with the show and, as we all know, "The show must go on!"
There we stood… Don's nephew Jim, standing 5'8" weighing in at 140lbs and me, 5'9" weighing 185lbs…
In front of us raged a half dozen of Canada's finest, fit, inebriated young men led by their 6' tall, blond haired, blue eyed officer who weighed in at 230lbs...
The reason I knew his weight was, as they rushed us at the top of the landing, I quickly realized (due to my previous police and military experience) that he, being their leader, had to be controlled first.
I had been a police officer in York Regional Police from 1975 to 1978 and a soldier in the Rhodesian Army from 1979 to 1980 where I had experienced first hand the peak of the Rhodesian Bush War before the country became the new independent nation of Zimbabwe in May 1980 and I was discharged and returned to Canada.
In addition, I had started training at Toronto Newsboys' Gym as a fighter under the tutelage of Black Magic's boyfriend Doug, who was a Canadian kickboxing and martial arts champion.
The size difference was not in my favor and I immediately connected with a 'jab-cross' combination which did not stop my charging opponent for one second.
However, I noticed the young soldier was startled by the blows, so I closed in tightly with him and we grappled at the top of the landing with a long flight of stairs leading to the street behind my adversary.
Seizing the initiative, I bent low, wrapped my arms around his knees and - in a textbook BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) takedown technique - lifted him up in the air.
Feet in the air, he flailed wildly and I slammed him down on the stairs on his back and rode him like a toboggan down the flight and out into the street below.
I'll never forget his wide-eyed look of confusion and incredulity as we thundered down the stairwell with me on top of him while he absorbed the force of each and every step while I was holding him in a lapel choke!
Yonge Street's pedestrians looked on with astonishment as we burst open the street level door…
I got off my ride and immediately went back up the stairs to help Jim, who was alone with the other half dozen or so ruffians.
When I reached the 2nd level, the junior ranks' enthusiasm for battle had waned and, with a little shoving and pushing, they went down the stairwell and left with their leader.
Jim and I went back to work to finish the show with a wary eye on the monitor in case the rabble came back for a second round.
Later in the evening, as we finished our shift and counted out the day's receipts and made up the next days float, Jim looked at me wide-eyed and said:
"I can't believe it... You picked that guy up and threw him down the stairs!"
Jim must have told the tale of the night's events to Don and later Don would often mention it in conversation with myself and others involved with the business of Le Strip.
However, every good thing must come to an end and, with financial pressure mounting, Don decided to do away with the 'doorman's' position… He felt that many would-be patrons were put off by the sight of a large, intimidating bouncer at the door and this would hurt the business.
The old hands who were working at Le Strip were aghast. Ronnie Rogde and Ron Hedland (the well known Toronto jazz musician who was tragically murdered in November 1998) were very vocal in the chorus of condemnation against the idea.
They were joined by DJ's Brad and his brother Grant Bristow - the same Grant Bristow who was to become the epicenter of a very long and extensive infiltration as a CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) spy into the Neo-Nazi underworld in Canada during the mid-80s/90s. (Detailed in a previous blog.)
I was in no position to argue and the offer was made that I could learn the cashier's position at the front door if I wanted to continue working at Le Strip.
It was an offer I could not refuse because, by this time, I was long into a relationship with Pam and our four children needed food, clothing and a roof over their heads...
(...TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW WHEN DON CULLEN 'SAVES' DAVE FROM CHRISTIANITY...)
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