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THE SORDID STORY |
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![]() THE FORMATIVE YEARS I was designing and making custom fitted women's clothes, but I really didn't like dealing with women. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to do men's wear yet. Then I started taking modeling lessons, and one day my modeling instructor asked me if I would put some of my evening wear in a drag show. I had my first fashion show at The Escape. Jennifer Fox (drag name) was the star of the show (she won the Miss Gay America title a few years later). I found my calling. I could make dresses for men! I switched over to that exclusively. |
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We'll have to go back a few years to get the full flavor.![]() Through default I started designing and making clothes when I was 16. After looking for a dress to wear to a Black Sabbath concert, I decided I'd have to make one myself if I didn't want to wear something that possibly 100 other girls would be wearing. I bought fabric, made a pattern, and amazingly the dress turned out great although I didn't know what the fuck I was doing (there is a theory that we already know everything and just have to be reminded). Eventually people started asking me to make clothes for them, and that's how I got stuck doing that. |
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MISTRESS MICHELLE My friend Richard introduced me to many smutty things. Richard also introduced me to the Marquis DeSade. "Justine," subtitled; "Good Conduct Well Chastised," was the first DeSade book I read, and still my favorite. But if you're looking for a book on torture, from mild to murderous, you can't beat his "120 Days of Sodom." DeSade had some very interesting ideas. He felt that certain people needed sex to be more intense, needed that extra jolt to get off. I became attracted to this extra jolt theory. Richard took me to my first dirty book store. Also my first quarter booth to view 30 seconds of hard-core sex for a quarter. I remember slipping on the gooey floor (guess what that was). What a filthy place! We went to many dirty book stores and kept seeing this magazine called the "Fetish Times" with assorted bondage scenes on the cover. This was right up our smut alley, and where we first saw Mistress Michelle. |
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![]() By this time I was getting sick of making all that girlie crap and switched over to leather. I started hanging out at a gay leather S&M bar called the INTERCHANGE instead of the sissy bars I'd been going to. The guys who hung out there where mostly a bunch of queens in leather drag, but this took me a while to figure out. There were a few real tough guys there, and plenty of perverts, but mostly sissies in bondage wear. No women were allowed in this bar, but I knew a few bartenders and the owner, and was accepted by many, and tolerated by the rest (for the most part) after a while. I was making many different types of bondage and fetish stuff (cock rings, harnesses, whips, masks etc.) in addition to the regular leather jock straps, pants, chaps with interesting cut outs, and vests. |
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The Romantics did an interview on W4 and Jimmy talked about me wearing all leather clothes and spiked ![]() The City Magazine article came out on April 10, 1980. The following Monday W4 got a shitload of these magazines to be distributed to the air staff, promotion people and office personnel. I knew those magazines were in the control room because my friend Greg St. James was doing the all night shift there and told me that everybody was jacking off to my article (thanks). Midway through that week, the girl across the street came over to tell me that some jerk on W4 in the morning was making some reference to the Romantics red leather suits, but she had only caught the tail end of it. I didn't pay too much attention. She suggested that I get up early in the morning to listen to him, but I worked at night and slept during the day and didn't think that this was worth losing sleep over. The following Monday evening, the neighbor girl came over to tell me that the new morning guy on W4, Howard Stern, had done a live broadcast in front of the station that morning. She was listening to him on her way into work downtown, and she heard him say that he had just met the girl who made the Romantics red leather outfits. Allegedly he went on to say that that was the third girl he had talked to in the past week who claimed to have made those red suits, and he was wondering how many more he was going to meet. I was starting to get pissed off. I would get up early the following morning and have a little talk with this guy. I set the alarm clock for 8:00 A.M. so I could catch this guy at the station. ![]() ![]() The conversation went like this: Howard: Hot line Irene: Is this Howard Stern? Howard: Yeah. Who is this? Irene: This is Irene DeCook you little mealy mouth. Howard: Wait a minute. Why are you talking to me like this? Do I know you? How do you have the Hot line number? Irene: That's none of your business you little maggot! And yeah, you know who I am. Don't pretend that you don't. Howard: No really. I don't know who you are or why you're talking to me like this. Irene: I made the red leather suits for the Romantics, and I'm the only girl who makes their clothes. And I better not hear about you talking about this again. Howard: Okay. Okay. But can I put you on the air? Irene: No. No way. Howard: C'mon, let me put you on the air. Irene: Don't try it Scumbag. Howard: What will you do to me if I do? Irene: I'll come down there and step on your face! Howard told me to hold for a minute and I could hear tape rewinding. ![]() When I called a few days later, he said he had gotten a good response from airing my phone call, and asked me to come to a promo and introduce myself. The promo was Saturday afternoon at a Peaches record store where people were paying $1.06 to pick up a sledge hammer and take a whack at a Toyota. Afterwards, Howard and I met face to face. I was dressed in skin tight black leather, and Howard was a tall, goofy guy with short bushy hair, and a bushy mustache. He said he had an idea, and asked what I thought about Leather Weather. I told him that I didn't know anything about the fucking weather. He said that it didn't matter, that I could just make up the weather. That it was just an excuse to have me on the air, and I could say whatever I wanted, just go on and talk about my life. I was reluctant. I didn't mind making a fool out of myself in front of a few people, but in front of thousands was a different story. He got my number and said he would call the next day to discuss it. . Wh ![]() I did my first Leather Weather dial a date in that 6th week. I was asking for cute, young guys with tight jeans and black leather jackets. The guy I chose claimed to fit the bill, but when we went to pick him up I discovered that he had misrepresented himself. And his mother came out to the limo to take pictures. What the fuck. I had the station limo, driver, and an expense account for the night, so we dumped my date early and picked up some of my friends for the rest of the night. O ![]() ![]() This station was relentless with the promo's, but it got us a lot of recognition. We entered Howard in an Alfred E. Numan Look-alike contest, and in a Dolly Parton Look-alike contest that another station was sponsoring. The other station was really pissed off, but we were on the local news that night. We did a promo at the Waterford Raceway, and I brought my little daughter (she had her very own little black leather outfit and little whip). We did a Burn Your Bra for E.R.A. promo in front of the station and Howard did the whole thing wearing a stupid little white bra. We did the fucking State Fair! We did a promo at Hart Plaza and I brought my pet 7 foot boa constrictor (named Bondage). A neighbor drove me so that I could hold onto him, and on the way home he got away from me and slithered under her back seat. I could not get the fucker out! And the girl who owned the car was not too fond of snakes. My snake ate rats, so after a few days I put a rat in a box in the back seat to try to lure him out. A few days later we could smell the all too familiar aroma of dead rodent. I threw the rat away and pulled the whole seat out. Bondage was a little scared and hungry, but all right otherwise. I quit taking him out in public after that. ![]() Howard was doing dial-a-dates quite often after a while. I was scheduled to do another Leather Weather dial-a-date when we were told that a convicted sex offender had went on the dial-a-date from the previous week. We were told not to do any more until this blew over. I decided to do it anyway and just reject all of the guys. After I interviewed the guys, I said that I couldn't choose because they were a pack of losers and should do us all a big favor and off themselves. One day some guy threw a brick through one of the windows in the double plate glass windows in the control room. He called Howard 10 minutes later to say that he had done it because Howard wouldn't let him talk to me. Getting a little over-excited over nothing. On Friday, January 16, 1981, I went to W4 to do the weather. Everything was the same as usual, but there was a special meeting planned for Sunday. When I turned on the radio Sunday, country music was playing. I fucked around with the radio knob thinking that it must not be in the right spot. It was. I talked to Howard and he asked me if I wanted to do Denim Weather. On Monday, January 19, Howard and I went to the Michigan Rock Awards show. Voting was by industry people only, and we were both nominated for Announcer of the Year. Howard won, I didn't. We left as soon as it was over. We were both a little sad. Howard was off looking for a new job, and I was still doing leather. The economy was really fucked up at this time, but rock bands always had to have their stage clothes. Howard and I talked on the phone a few times, but I wouldn't see him again for 15 years. |
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On to the ARCHDIOCESE (who knew?) |
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