Enter the Gates of Decadence: July 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Orlando-area strip-club owners now a family divided

Damn...

Here's some bullshit goin' on in FL about 2 brothers in the strip club biz fightin' over "the empire."

Read about it (courtesy of Adultfyi.com) below:

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Orlando-area strip-club owners now a family divided

Orlando- Brothers Jim and Charlie Veigle worked together for 25 years building Rachel's, a chain of three high-class strip clubs in Florida.

They fought off anti-porn activists, government regulators, even prosecutors who arrested Jim on racketeering charges and tried to close the clubs.

Through it all, they stood side by side and survived.

Not anymore. Today, they are enemies. They have sued each other at least six times in the past two years, each accusing the other of cheating on deal after deal.

It's not clear how much money is at stake. Most of the court records are sealed, but details should come flooding out this week. Their trial reconvenes today in Orlando. It promises to be a public airing of a very bitter dispute. The brothers are fighting over real estate, auto leases, a garbage-hauling company, even cemetery plots, where, 20 years ago, they had wanted to be buried near each other.

"It's a personal, family matter. It's hurtful," said Jim, 63. "I don't want to talk about it."

Charlie, always the brother with the lower profile, would not discuss the falling-out.

"They used to be very, very, very, very close," said Mike Pinter, former owner of Club Juana, a legendary strip club that was a half-mile from Rachel's North in Casselberry, the first of the three Rachel's clubs opened by the Veigles. "I feel bad for them. They're both nice guys."

At the height of their popularity and notoriety, the Rachel's clubs had a reputation for high-class adult entertainment. They had gorgeous dancers and a high-roller clientele that included businessmen, conventioneers and celebrities, such as Orlando Magic forward Horace Grant. Limousines dropped off and picked up patrons.

In recent years, the brothers' relationship frayed, court documents show.

"In or about 2006, I began to notice Jim Veigle was mismanaging the funds coming into some of our jointly owned corporations and mishandling money from our jointly owned rental properties," according to an affidavit filed by Charlie, 61, of Lake Mary.

Charlie asked for financial records but didn't get what he wanted, so he hired a lawyer to untangle their businesses, according to his affidavit.

Then began the string of lawsuits.

In April 2007, Charlie sued Jim. Within a month, Jim sued Charlie -- twice. He has since filed three more suits against Charlie, two of them last month.

Jim accuses Charlie of withholding profits from business deals, failing to kick in his share of startup costs and shirking family business obligations.

The brothers are not fighting over who owns the three Rachel's clubs. Jim now owns and runs the one in Casselberry; he bought Charlie's share in 2006. The brothers sold the other two Rachel's, one in south Orange County and the other in Palm Beach, to outsiders about that same time.

Charlie has opened a new club -- Lions Den Cabaret & Steakhouse -- in Pompano Beach, and that's where he spends much of his time. It's not clear how well the Rachel's clubs are doing now. But in 2000, when the vice squad raided the Casselberry and south Orange clubs and arrested three dozen employees on drug, money-laundering and sex charges, they were extraordinarily profitable.

Jim, who was charged with racketeering, made $224,000 a month as his share from all three clubs, according to court records. Prosecutors later dropped the charge.

His brother, who was never arrested, likely will be one of the first witnesses at this week's trial.

Last week, Jim was in court -- Charlie was not -- in a dispute over taking a sworn statement from their older brother, Tom Veigle, who lives in Georgia. Jim wanted it done; Charlie did not. Circuit Judge Frederick Lauten said yes to the deposition.

He is the judge who must unravel it all. There will be no jury.

BOX: SIBLING SAGA

Jim and Charlie Veigle, brothers and longtime business partners, are engaged in a bitter fight over property and money. A sampling:

*Jim accuses Charlie of cheating him of $410,000 in profits from the sale of Rachel's in West Palm Beach in 2006, which made a $4.6 million profit.

*Jim accuses Charlie of failing to pay his share of the startup costs and equipment leases at a Katrina debris-removal company they formed.

*Charlie accuses Jim of falsely claiming he owns two-thirds -- when it's really one-half -- of 436 Investments Inc., a family enterprise.

*Jim accuses Charlie of threatening to sell for a profit 16 family-burial plots at a Winter Park cemetery. The brothers bought the plots in 1987 so that they and other family members could be buried together.

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Once again, Damn...

It's a shame when $$$ breaks up a family.

I hope this doesn't end up like The Mitchell Brothers in San Fran...

Hustler Closing LFP Studios!!

I'll b damned!

Now I KNOW porn is hurtin' in this fucked-up economy if Larry Flynt's Hustler has closed down it's LFP Studios!

Kaylin: Hustler June 2007

Is there $$$ 2 b made ANYWHERE in this country?!

A Pensive Flynt

"I thought pussy was recession-proof!"

Damn, Larry! @ least your casino in LA is still makin' $$$...

Ordinance will require $3,000 annual fee and background checks for 'sexually-oriented businesses'

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Stripper, 80, still taking her clothes off...

I just HAD 2 post this bit-o-news 4 the blog when a pal-o-mine pointed it out 2 me.

It's about an "ol' skool" stripper called Tempest Storm who used 2 "shake dat ass" back in "the good ol' days" & how SHE'S STILL STRIPPIN' @ 80 YRS OF AGE!

Tempest Storm back in the day

They don't make'em like THAT anymore!

Tempest Storm 2day

Read this incredible story (couresty of CNN, no less) below:

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Stripper, 80, still taking her clothes off

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Tempest Storm is fuming. Her fingers tremble with frustration. They are aged, knotted by arthritis and speckled with purple spots under paper skin.

Tempest Storm at the Burlesque Hall of Fame's annual All-Star Burlesque Weekend in Las Vegas.

But the manicure of orange polish is flawless and new, and matches her signature tousled mane.

She brushes orange curls out of her face as she explains how she's been slighted.

She is the headliner, you know. She is a star. She is classy.

"I don't just get up there and rip my clothes off," she says.

Indeed, the 80-year-old burlesque queen takes her clothes off very slowly.

More than 50 years ago she was dubbed the "Girl with the Fabulous Front" and told by famous men she had the "Best Two Props in Hollywood."

Since then, Storm saw the art that made her famous on the brink of extinction. Her contemporaries -- Blaze Starr, Bettie Page, Lili St. Cyr -- have died or hung up the pasties.

But not Storm. She kept performing. Las Vegas, Reno, Palm Springs, Miami, Carnegie Hall.

Her act is a time capsule. She knows nothing of poles. She would never put her derriere in some man's face. Her prop of choice is a boa, perhaps the occasional divan.

It takes four numbers, she says adamantly, four numbers to get it all off. To do it classy.

But the producers of tonight's show, just kids, they want her to go faster. She gets just seven minutes.

"I did seven minutes when I started," she says.

They gave her trouble last year, too. They even cut her music before she finished.

There may not be a next time for this show, she says. The threat lasts just minutes.

"No, no. I'm not ready to hang up my G-string, yet. I've got too many fans that would be disappointed."

Dated Elvis, other celebrities

Stardom and fandom feature prominently in Tempest Storm's life -- and in her neat, two-bedroom Las Vegas apartment.

Visitors are greeted by photos of a young Elvis, her favorite rock 'n' roller and, she says, a former lover.

He met her after her show in Las Vegas and fiddled with her skirt as he introduced himself. The relationship ended about a year later because Elvis' manager didn't approve of him dating a stripper, she says.

But she could not change who she was. Stripping already had made her famous.

It put her in the room with Hollywood's heavyweights. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Mickey Rooney, Nat King Cole.

She dated some, just danced for others. The evidence is framed and displayed on tables and the living room wall.

That's Storm and Vic Damone. Storm teaching Walter Cronkite to dance. Storm and her fourth and last husband, Herb Jefferies, a star of black cowboy films who swept her off her feet in 1957 when such unions were instant scandals. They divorced in 1970.

"When I look at this picture I say, 'What the hell happened between this gorgeous couple?"' she says.

The moment is brief.

Storm is rarely wistful. She has no doubt she still is what she once was. Although she performs just handful of times a year, she would do more, if asked. She chides those who think age takes a toll on sex appeal.

"Ridiculous," she says.

There are just as many recent photos in the room: Storm and her daughter, a nurse in Indiana. Storm and her fiance, who died a few years ago. Storm and a beaming older gentlemen, just a fan who approached her for a photograph.

In others, the petite beauty with the long lashes and glamorous hair is alone, out of focus, in full makeup and smiling wide. In one, she is perched on her living room couch in a red hat and low-cut black suit.

"I took that picture of myself," she says proudly. "I have a self-timer. I took these, too."

Sharecropper's daughter fled abuse

"That stage saved me," she says as she leaves a sound check hours before the night's performance.

She had been expecting a much smaller space and she is relieved. She's a "walker," she explains. She needs room to move.

It is a direct and once-racy style, the signature work of Lillian Hunt, the choreographer at the Follies Theater in Los Angeles where Storm became a star.

She was Annie Blanche Banks then. The 22-year-old sharecropper's daughter had fled sexual abuse, two loveless marriages and poverty in small-town Georgia, she says.

She was working as a cocktail waitress but wanted to be a showgirl. First, she needed her teeth fixed.

"Do you think my bust is too big for this business?" she asked Hunt at her audition.

Hunt put her in the chorus line, told her not to gain a pound and called a dentist.

In Storm's telling, she didn't stay long in the background. She got a new name. ("I really don't feel like a Sunny Day.") She took to the spotlight quickly. Then and now, she blossomed to the chorus of hoots and cheers.

The trick is having a warm presence, an inviting smile, she says.

When she takes the stage, she lets her mind float back to "Georgie." She imagines herself as a little girl, in her best dress, running down the road to meet her daddy coming home from work.

"I feel that I am that little girl dressed up out there. I got a picture in my whole mind of it. I can see that little girl," she says.

On stage, the image is frozen there.

But it's not the end of the story Storm tells. If she plays out the memory, the little girl is stopped in her tracks as an aunt blurts out a truth that pains her today.

"That's not your real father."

Doesn't smoke or drink, gets religion on TV

On Sundays, Storm tunes in to a televangelist who tells her anyone can overcome odds. It's the only religion she's ever taken to.

She believes this is the lesson of her life. Be a survivor. Never stop doing what you love, it makes you who you are.

"If you want to get old, you'll get old," she says.

There have been men who disappointed her, financial strain, brain surgery.

After it all, she sits on her couch and exercises in front of the television on a small stationary bike. She doesn't smoke or drink or eat much.

"I'm just blessed, I think. And I know when to push myself away from the table."

If some might see all this as chasing after lost youth, she says she cares little. Younger dancers tell her she is an inspiration to them, and she has no reason not to believe them.

"I feel good about myself. And I enjoy it," she says. "I have fun when I'm onstage, and the audience loves it. Nobody ever said it's time to give it up. Why stop?"

Cheers and whistles

Indeed, no one is dreaming of telling Tempest Storm to give up stripping when she slithers onto the casino nightclub stage for her seven minutes.

"Something in the way she moves ..." pipes through the speakers. Her live drummer, the Ringo Starr on loan from the Beatles tribute show on the Strip, picks up the beat.

The burlesque queen emerges stage right. A slinky purple gown hangs off her shoulders. A rhinestone necklace envelops her decolletage. The snakelike boa pours into her hands.

For a few seconds, her face flashes her nerves.

And then she hears the cheers.

When she performs, Storm smiles, leans back and walks on her heels, leading with her pelvis. Her hands float back and forth as if in water, until they fall below her hips and sweep up in tandem with a full frontal thrust.

More cheers. Whistles.

The boa disappears stage right.

The next number picks up the tempo, letting Storm cock a hip on the down beats. She loses the gloves and steps off stage to put on the negligee. It's gone almost as quickly as it came.

And with two flicks of her orange fingernails, the dress goes, too.

Two-finger whistle. Hollers. Applause.

Staring up at the 80-year-old woman in fishnets, a sheer rhinestone bra and a G-string, a young woman turns to a young man and declares:

"I want to look like that when I'm her age."

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More pix of Tempest back in the day:

Sexy is as Sexy Does!