5
Honeysuckle Divine

The Golden 33 did very well through the fall of 1974, but my father knew it was time to push the envelope to capitalize on the club’s early success.

A few of the dancers were developing fan bases, such as Ginger, who was skinny and lithe and who had perfected a particularly popular dance to the extended version of “Free Bird.”

To cash in on the growing following of Ginger and the other girls, my father and Tommy Rizzo increased weekend cover charges. Tommy also hired a Baltimore booking agent with a track record for bringing in crowds. Stripper acts like Silver Sunshine—known for her theatrical performance, complete with flower props and skimpy attire to match, to Eric Clapton’s “Let It Grow”—was hired for $200 to $300 a week. Baltimore was becoming known for its wild strip clubs and the talent was ripe to bring to Philadelphia.

But the act Tommy wanted most was Honeysuckle Divine.

While setting up the club one evening, Tommy pitched the idea to my father.

“Honeysuckle Divine is incredible. She performed once at the Locust Street Cinema. She’s expensive, but she’s dynamite. She has a comedy act that features . . . um . . . well, how do I say this? She does some amazing things with her pussy.”

“I think I’ve heard of her,” my father said. “But what kind of things?”

“Well, here’s one of her promotional photos.”

In the photo, Honeysuckle was shown spreading peanut butter on her vagina. She was plain-faced and older looking (meaning in her mid-thirties) and her body was soft and flabby. She had straggly blonde hair and didn’t look like any of the other girls featured at the Golden 33.

“She’s not very attractive,” my father said flatly.

“Yeah, but her show is something people want to see,” Tommy insisted. “She’s got this bit where she smokes cigarettes with her pussy. She asks audience members for a light, then makes crude jokes like, ‘After sex, your pussy deserves a cigarette, too.’ It’s raunchy, what’s happening between her legs.”

“Holy shit,” my father said, laughing heartily.

“She’s the real deal, my friend. A little strange, maybe. She does other things like blowing out candles with her pussy and shooting Ping-Pong balls out of it. So, what do you think?”

“Well, she certainly isn’t sexy. But she is attention-grabbing. No one is doing anything like this in Philly. Let’s do it.”

Tommy laughed and clapped my father on the shoulder. “I knew you’d get it! I even got something else to sweeten the deal. Al Goldstein at Screw Magazine needs a venue to film Honeysuckle for his Screw on Screen film. I told the agent we could do it here. It’ll be great publicity.”

My father didn’t object to this, so Tommy hired Honeysuckle Divine for a string of shows in December 1974, and he agreed that the Screw on Screen crew could film in the club for a few days before the live event.

*

When Honeysuckle Divine arrived in town that December, she stopped by the club and strolled casually through the door. Her patchwork cap and denim vest with matching bell-bottom jeans looked comfortable, not sexy, as if she wasn’t at all interested in making an impression.

“Nice to see you again, Tommy,” Honeysuckle said, greeting him with a hug.

“Great to see you, too. Welcome to the Golden 33.”

She looked around the place, nodding approvingly. “Shit, Tommy, you did a lot of great work redoing the place. And I almost forgot about the stained glass in the ceiling.” She was looking straight up and smiling widely under the green light from the windows. “Maybe it’s a sign from God that I’m meant to be here. I feel right at home, like I’m in church.”

Honeysuckle—whose real name was Betty Jane Allsup—was from Washington, DC and before becoming a famous provocateur, she had been a nun-in-training at the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart in Yardley, Pennsylvania. (So yes, though it’s hard to believe, she was sincere in praising God.) Her strict Catholic upbringing had made it easy for her to start down the path as a nun. But in the end, she believed everyone has her calling and she had realized that a life of celibacy, with no freedom of expressing herself, was ultimately not for her.

She did, however, believe that her act was divinely inspired, though she’d also gained inspiration from a Screw Magazine article about a French performer, Le Pétomane. In the late 1800s, Le Pétomane had created a stage act around the amazing things he could do with his anus, such as passing gas on cue and blowing out candles. He had appeared at the Moulin Rouge in 1892 and he had performed for princes, kings, and dignitaries. So, as far as Honeysuckle was concerned, she was following in the footsteps of history as well as God’s plan for her life.

Even though Tommy knew all about this, he was always taken aback by Honeysuckle’s religious references. Still, he kept the conversation going.

“Yeah . . .” he stuttered. “The new set-up is working out well. Anyways, the film crew is setting up. Feel free to get acquainted with them. And I know how particular you are about your props, so I’ll let you figure out where you’d like to store them backstage. If you need help, let me know. “

“Thanks, Tommy,” Honeysuckle said, smiling serenely. Then she held up a Screw Magazine T-shirt. “Look at this, I’m going to wear it for the filming.”

Tommy nodded. “Clever.”

“You bet. Think we’ll have a big crowd for the opening?”

“Absolutely. I advertised and all the customers have been talking about it. But I should tell you, I’m hearing rumors about cops possibly trying to bust the show. News people are calling, too.”

Honeysuckle laughed dismissively. “That’s ridiculous, Tommy. I’m not afraid. God is on our side.”

Honeysuckle got to work with the Screw on Screen crew. She was serious about her craft, offering solid direction for camera set-up and walking through every step of her act before shooting. And she was the consummate professional; she was always on time, never took drugs, and never got involved with troubled men. Honeysuckle understood that her vagina and her act were a small business and she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her business’s success.

The filming went well but, because of the rumors that the cops might try to bust the show, my father opted not to attend Honeysuckle’s opening night. Her pending appearance had made the local evening news several times. Tommy was interviewed on camera, where he proudly took credit for featuring Honeysuckle Divine at the Golden 33.

All the publicity worked. On opening night, the club was packed and there was a line snaking around the block for the next show later that evening. They planned to run the show four or five times, clearing out the club every forty-five minutes to set up for the next performance.

Honeysuckle began her first act. She walked out on stage in bizarre fashion by sticking out her tongue and awkwardly leaning against a side rail to grab her breasts. She was wearing crotch-less stockings, and nothing else. Then she lifted up her leg and highlighted the real star of the show with her forefinger for everyone to see. “Hello, Philadelphia!” she called out. “You know, people ask how I got the idea for such a dirty show and I just tell ’em it was divine intervention. I sneezed while I was fucking this guy and he was like, ‘Ohhhh that feels good.’ So it gave me the idea for this act!”

Honeysuckle pulled a cart onto the stage—the kind of cart my Grandma Maria might have used for shopping at the Ninth Street market. Honeysuckle’s cart contained various paraphernalia: Ping-Pong balls in individual plastic bags, peanut butter and jelly, cream cheese, Jergens lotion, and a mop.

She started her shtick by taking the mop and inserting its handle into her vagina to simulate sex. “Oh, I just love doing housework,” she said, eliciting laughs from the audience. Then she showcased her unusually strong vaginal muscles by mopping the floor of the stage. “To all you guys out there who might wonder why your wives are so tired at the end of the day, this is probably why.”

Honeysuckle then spread a plastic tablecloth at the edge of the stage and opened her legs in preparation for the Ping-Pong ball routine. “I always like to play a good game of Ping-Pong after I clean house. Who wants to play?” She inserted a ball into her vagina while lying on her side and lifting her leg, her knee touching her ear. “Hey, you over there! Catch!” Honeysuckle pointed her crotch in the direction of a spectator and launched the ball.

With incredible arc, accuracy, and distance, the ball sailed through the air and hit the bewildered man in the face.

After that, she got the crowd participating in a game: she asked them to guess which ball she could launch the farthest and most accurately, based on a location selected by an audience member. There was also a trick she did shooting multiple balls in quick succession, like a machine gun.

“Now, is anyone hungry?” she asked coyly.

A few eager Chinese tourists seated in the front row enthusiastically raised their hands.

“Well,” Honeysuckle said, “let me make you a peanut butter sandwich.”

She inserted peanut butter in her vagina with her fingers, like a tampon, and then it pulled back out. Honeysuckle took a plastic knife and spread it on bread. She offered the sandwich to her Chinese fans and one of them happily ate it.

“Now that’s what I call eating some pussy!” Honeysuckle exclaimed happily.

The crowd collectively gasped and cheered.

The grand finale of her show was her Jergens lotion routine. She poured about half a bottle of lotion into her vagina, then squirted it high in the air as she pretended to orgasm.

The audience was enraptured. It was odd, funny, and disgusting . . . and everyone loved it. After she took her final bow, Honeysuckle was cheered with a hearty standing ovation. She autographed Ping-Pong balls as she was leaving the stage, like a football player who had just won the big game.

But exiting the stage, she was immediately confronted by a police officer. The man flashed a badge and placed her under arrest for open lewdness.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tommy said angrily, running up to Honeysuckle and the officer.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Tommy Rizzo. I own this place”

“Just the guy I’m looking for,” the cop said. “You’re under arrest for conspiracy of open lewdness.”

“You’re full of shit!” Tommy screamed, drawing the attention of the departing crowd, all of whom started to boo and hiss at the officer.

*

Honeysuckle and Tommy were arrested on obscenity and the public lewdness charges, and Honeysuckle’s remaining shows were canceled. This was the beginning of a court battle for Honeysuckle, Tommy, and my father that would drag out for two years. During the proceedings, exhibits of Ping-Pong balls would be presented in court and ultimately they—my father, Tommy, and Honeysuckle—were found guilty on all charges brought against them. They appealed the decision.

While on appeal, Honeysuckle’s ACLU lawyer, Joel Molofsky, and the Golden 33’s lawyer, Michael Seidman, who was a local expert on obscenity cases, secured an injunction for Honeysuckle to continue performing at the Golden 33. Until her act could be deemed “obscene” by the courts, Honeysuckle needed to earn a living. While in town for shows, she worshipped every morning at St. John’s the Evangelist Catholic Church, where she prayed to win this case and for the strength to forgive those who railed against her.

Because of the all the publicity generated from the arrest, Tommy and my father were able to charge double the normal cover rate whenever Honeysuckle performed at the Golden 33. They even started running afternoon shows. She was more popular than ever and people came back multiple times, dragging their friends along and sharing with them valuable lessons, such as sitting in the back row to avoid squirting lotion and errant Ping-Pong balls.

My father appreciated Honeysuckle Divine’s unique genius—how she had turned her body into a business—and he said she was the most memorable part of owning the Golden 33.

Finally, after much legal wrangling, the case against Honeysuckle Divine and the Golden 33 was dismissed and all charges were dropped on June 22, 1976. Her act was declared “not obscene” because she didn’t actually perform sex acts on stage. She was just guilty of being disgusting.