Episode 163 - Finding Healing, Creativity & Power Through Burlesque with Jo Weldon
My friends! We have a VERY special guest on the velvet chaise today—author, artist, performer, historian, and my personal burlesque mentor and muse, Jo Weldon.
Over 20 years ago, Jo and I met in a dusty Times Square rehearsal studio on a wintry evening in New York City. She changed my life completely by teaching me the art of fan dancing. With big, white, ostrich feather fans soaring over my head and around my body, I floated like a dove on the air of sensual greatness.
Suffice it to say, my life has never been the same since.
In this episode, we delve into gems on:
How burlesque, adornment, and simply walking down the street can all be a literal stage for expressing our unique life force
Preserving the vibrant history of burlesque, and celebrating the trailblazing legends who carved a path of freedom and creativity
Jo's personal journey towards sobriety and how it has reshaped her creative process
Cat prints, rock stars, secret art sketches, and so much more
Jo’s stories of overcoming fears, embodying her own unique spark, and finding true community are beyond inspiring. Let the wit and wonder begin!
LINKS FROM THE SHOW
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00:00
Well, I'm so honored to be here with you. I was reflecting this morning on. I was like a little nervous because I want to sound smart, you know, because it's something I just so deeply respect about you is like your real scholarly investment in the history of striptease and in that intersection of culture and fashion and eroticism. And what I was writing in my journal was that 25-year-old who first met Joe in a Times Square studio when you gave me my first fan dance lesson, like just let her ask the questions. So very, very grateful for your presence today.
JoGuest
00:46
I'm grateful to be here. Thanks for inviting me, yeah.
MaryHost
00:50
And so when we were talking about intentions, you know you said one of your intentions for this time together is to help people have an easier time being in a difficult world. Help people have an easier time being in a difficult world and I love starting there because the many branches of your work have shown me like it's been like a prism of light in the darkness. And when I encounter burlesque or striptease or you know burlesque, hall of fame, or read one of your sub stacks, it's like, oh, there it is, there's the life force, there's aliveness, and you know this is kind of a broad question, but I'm I wonder if you might speak about just what moves you and has moved you throughout this extensive career in stripping and all of its various manifestations.
JoGuest
01:53
Yeah, I mean, I think as a kid I was drawn to the sexier side of glamour and I was thinking not too long ago about how I found these magazines in our basement. And everybody you know when I say that they're imagining Playboy or something like that, but I'm talking about Life magazine was full of stories of, like, real strippers and sex workers and movie characters of strippers and sex workers and sex Strippers are sex workers, but I'm, you know, just broadening that umbrella so that a lot of things fit under it and that was glamour to me and that was glamour to me. And then when I got a little older, you know, I grew up in the 60s and the 60s were, they were wild. They were so tumultuous and violent and passionate and TV shows and it's almost as if, like you'd watch the news and you know, and then and then you'd watch the Avengers or you know, see Catwoman, batman or something like that.
03:15
And I don't think that is a, I don't think that's a coincidence, you know. I think that there's there's a healing element to glamour and there's a healing element to a hint of the erotic. Sometimes there's a healing glamour to full on eroticism, but sometimes it's, you know, more subtle than that and I think you know a lot of times people mistake glamour for a simple appeal. You know to try to be attractive, but it's, it's bigger than that. It's a, a reflection of the light that shines on us. For instance, you know if you're wearing rhinestones, and it doesn't have to be something sparkly.
03:54
It could be a bath towel, but there's an element of sparkle and glow to the person you're observing or to the event you're observing. That feels like just the healing quality of light. And so when I think about glamour which actually means you know to mask, you know a glamour is a spell I think about masks that reflect light and also about a saying that I cannot remember where it comes from, but I heard it from Bette Midler, which is that the masks that we choose reveal more about our inner lives than our bare faces. And there's an element of what we choose to show, or what we think of as a disguise, in the glamour we choose that is very ultimately revealing, that tells a story. So, between the reflection of light and the storytelling and the movement that goes along with it, the implied movement of a party or a dance or something that sparkles, there's a sense of healing, there's a sense of being able to see the light, feel the movement.
05:15
For me, and I think that a lot of people who are drawn to burlesque or other forms of dance that involve an element of sensuality I mean, they all do, but you know what I mean and to costumes and to the sensual fabrics and everything, are looking for that healing element. The element helps us. I don't know live through just watching the news. Watching the news in some cases, you know.
MaryHost
05:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it reminds me of during the great depression, how I was reading in some history book about how big a role burlesque clubs played in alleviating the despair for people of all genders. It wasn't just men going to see women, but that it was like a family affair. To go and receive the healing of that reverie and just that remembrance that there's more to life than this moment.
JoGuest
06:25
Yeah, I mean it wasn't entertainment for children, but it was definitely that sense of being in a theater with the lights and the music and the sparkle and the movement and the bodies and everything. I think that's true. I just bought this piece of outsider art and this artist will not be known to anybody unless they've heard me or the gallery talk about them. But her name was Virginia Ahrens, a-h-r-e-n-s and her she did these drawings in the thirties. So you know she was like a teenager at the beginning of the 30s, in the beginning of the depression. And to these beautiful drawings of very erotic costumes on very beautiful women that looked like burlesque stars and Ziegfeld Follies stars and you you know fashion like Jean Harlow type bodies and makeup and just really beautiful and they're very sexy, they're very body conscious, like they look like some of the things you would have seen, some of the more revealing things you would have seen at the Met Gala in the past couple of years.
07:41
And this was her fantasy life. Her family didn't know about it, she never showed them to anybody and I discovered these in this gallery downtown and when they told me this story I thought about how glamour was what got her through that time and her visions of this, these erotic presentations, these erotic performances in fashion and I it. They're really stunning and it's not that she was a great artist, although she definitely had some skill, like she had a kind of like a a fashion illustrator's level of skill because she's very young, right, but she hid these in sheet music. Nobody ever saw them and 20 years later her family was like we need to share these. So I've got one of them and you know there's definitely references to sex work because there's text on them, little writings about what they mean and some of the names of some of the images, and I think this inner life that she had to hide was very painful for her.
08:46
You know, the story of her life was ultimately painful and at that same exhibition they had an image, a painting by a man who had also hidden his art from his family all his life and he did paintings of himself in what would have been thought of as women's clothing in different decades, going back through the Victorian era, and and that made me think so this keep this quite a journey for me about clients that I saw as a dominatrix, that were trying to express, you know what, what you would call their feminine side and wanted to be dressed up as women and have erotic experiences as women, and how intense their longing was and how deep this need was and how it made them feel submissive and how they would come in, you know, vibrating with this energy, sometimes excitement, sometimes fear, and then leave relaxed, and that was their, you know. And because so many harsh things happen in the world, I think we forget how painful these secrets can be for people. So I took this journey from this, you know, young woman doing these drawings. I felt almost as if she was having the same experience of hiding herself as these men and have been really, really grateful that I've been able to express that side of myself, express, you know, my, my female drag, occasionally male drag, my expression of what I think of as energetic and beautiful.
10:28
You know what I want to give to viewers, to audiences, to students. I really see it in this art. I see it being repressed and I realize I'm spinning a story out of it, but when you look at it you'll see it and it's online. I put it on my sub stack. A little bit about her.
MaryHost
10:52
Yeah, joe has an amazing sub stack called a hort culture.
JoGuest
10:56
And I'm a hort culture.
MaryHost
11:00
And it is. It's like my personal Sunday times. You just write about the most interesting evocative things and I really loved your post last week about Camille 2000's final performance and to me that I mean I just wept during that video, wept during that video, and to me that was such an expression of like showing our light, which isn't always this bright, shiny rhinestone, like sometimes it's the middle finger and flipping up an audience.
JoGuest
11:39
Absolutely.
11:40
She wasn't flipping off the audience, she was flipping off cancer. Yeah, yeah, you know she was flipping off the audience. She was flipping off cancer. Yeah, yeah, she had on the back of her wheelchair she had this big painting of a bunch of hands giving the middle finger and on the back it said fuck cancer, yeah, yeah, but she, she did pass.
11:56
So I think her, her journey is so interesting because you see pictures of her when she's young and she's like this kind of rock and roll which a lot of the legends were like rock and roll women of the fifties and sixties, you know, and these amazing outfits. And then in the like late seventies and early eighties she really moves into that fetish, hardcore, rock and roll, motorcycle vibe. And then for her final performance, which she knew that it was, she decided to go with this very ethereal, angelic portrayal of her inner life and I think that was really. It was really important to me to see her resolve it that way, because she was so scared it was really important to me to see her resolve it that way because she was so scared.
MaryHost
12:48
And you are, I think I've heard you describe yourself as this, but I would certainly describe you as this as a burlesque historian.
JoGuest
12:56
I am, I'm. I'm not the kind of historian who knows every date and you know what city all these things happened in, but I do have a cultural sense of burlesque and I do know a good bit about many, many figures in burlesque.
MaryHost
13:10
Yeah, and what is important to you about keeping that history alive, Like why? Why does that move you so much?
JoGuest
13:21
Because, well, it's interesting.
13:23
Right now, you know, strippers are able to talk on TikTok and the sex workers rights movement is having different reception in the press than it's ever had.
13:33
But it hasn't been like that for very long at all, not at all.
13:38
And I remember as a kid seeing these images of you know the women I'm talking about on, but they were like on napkins and you know cartoons and stuff like that, and they were kind of nameless, so most of them had been famous like 10 years before I saw these images and then nobody knew their names and you would just see this and I was in awe of their boldness and their art and their glamour and their you know, knowing how incredibly oppressed they were women were at that time, and seeing them make this glamour out of adversity, I think I saw something really aspirational in terms of being a survivor. Like you know, they didn't most of them, almost none of them got rich. They found a way to be in the world and they found a world to be in and I could see that in those images. And so, you know, when I went to work in strip joints, it was because I had run out of a lot of other options and the remaining options were extremely unappealing described the adult entertainment industry as a safe place.
15:00
It was a safe place for the part of me that made me both physically and socially endangered everywhere else being queer, being outwardly sexual, just all of those things that were getting me into physical trouble elsewhere.
15:13
But I would never say that a strip joint is a completely non-homophobic or non-sexist environment. But so was high school and I couldn't be myself there safely. In the strip joint I had degrees of safety that it to be who I was that I didn't have anywhere else, and I think I was relating to my elders and I wanted to know their history and in particular there were like a few costume ladies that came in to sell us costumes. Like they would travel around from club to club in the dressing room selling us stuff, because you know, there was no Fashion Nova, there was no Yandy, there were actually no pleasers, and they would come and sell us these things. And some of them were burlesque performers, you know, 10 or 15 years before. One of them was a Las Vegas showgirl and so they were. Really. They had a lot of character, they were really dazzling. A lot of them did not like us because they didn't like the whole spandex and recorded music thing.
16:15
But, they had great stories. I just put up with them having contempt for me because I love their stories so much. I was like, yeah, it doesn't matter what you think of me, give me the juice, give me the story. And so I've always pursued that history and I wanted to connect to them. When I very first met Dixie Evans at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, I was I couldn't believe I was meeting a burlesque star from the 1950s. I couldn't believe it. And then I met Jenny Lee or I didn't meet Jenny Lee.
16:51
I heard about Jenny Lee from Dixie because Jenny Lee started that whole museum and that whole reunion. That's now one of the centers of part of the. It's a center of a part of the burlesque world, right? So you know Jenny Lee was an activist and a nudist and you know she protested, she formed a union or tried to form a union that became a league because they were I don't think they were formally unionized and they started their own museum. We're not going to wait for other people to honor and appreciate us. We're going to tell them we're an important part of your culture, we're an important influence, we're right, we're all up in your art and politics and we're going to let you know influence we're right, we're all up in your art and politics and we're gonna let you know.
17:39
Hey, they did it. Yeah, they were trying to build us. They had a striptease school, they were trying to build a retirement center, which hasn't it's always on the on the table. That hasn't happened yet, because that's a big project wow, yeah, god that I know, I can't think we're upstate. I was like you know, there's all these big old places upstate. Right, people want to retire, maybe to New York, you know. Yeah, I don't think I'll be the one that does that, but I do love the idea.
MaryHost
18:11
Yeah, that's amazing. I just watched this movie. It was a Maggie Smith movie and it was about a retirement home for musicians and it was kind of a cheesy little romantic comedy but I was like God, I want to retire there. You know have opera salons every single night.
JoGuest
18:32
Oh my God, we'd be stripping for each other all the time, right, oh my God.
MaryHost
18:35
Oh my God, we'd be stripping for each other all the time, right? Oh my God, I mean, that makes me really look forward to retirement, are you and I'll? I'll edit this part out, so no pressure, but are you okay to talk about sobriety?
JoGuest
18:49
I'm sober as well, oh yeah.
MaryHost
18:50
Okay, I know that you're sober and you have long-term sobriety and how do you feel like sobriety has impacted your career, your creativity? Because I think, you know, when I started doing burlesque I was drinking a lot and I wouldn't ever like go on stage drunk but it was such a part of the culture for me to like be at the slipper room and, you know, have a drink and be backstage and whatever, and it was just so delicious. And when I got sober there was a part of me that was like oh God, am I going to lose access to that part of myself that could be on stage and that you know loves glamor and sensuality and you know it's been my experience that I have greater access to that side of myself. But I'm curious, just anything that you feel moved to share about your own journey with that.
JoGuest
19:52
I feel like I do have greater access, but I definitely went through a period where I thought I wasn't fun anymore.
19:58
Then I realized people weren't having fun around me when I was drinking Because I was a monster drunk. I associated drinking with glamour and I think that that you know by design of the liquor companies. But also it does soften the edges and I had some edges to soften. But once I got on the other side of softening my edges, once I got drunker than that, I became the edge. People needed to get away from me. I was really bad. I was really violent and bad and upset and I had some trauma.
20:32
I was working through that. We don't really have time to get into it. But the one of the good things about it is that I was working in bars so my alcoholism was accelerated. So I got to quit drinking on the early side. I hit bottom on the early side and also I will say the first time I quit drinking I didn't have anybody saying, oh gee, I never thought you had a problem Like everybody. Time I quit drinking I didn't have anybody saying, oh gee, I never thought you had a problem Like everybody. Like, this is overdue. And maybe one person that I used to do cocaine with was like oh, you used to be more fun and I'm like God, that's really a horrible thing to say.
21:11
I love you and that's a terrible thing to say, but I think overall at first like so, okay, I'm going to get graphic. I used to like to get drunk and get laid. I loved it. I loved it. I love that abandon and there's a certain level of like I could tolerate more roughness, which I loved visually and sort of the story that I would tell him. And I love to be rough, to be treated roughly, not to be abused, like everything was negotiated and talked about, but loved it. And then when I stopped drinking, you know I had really come into my sexual self drunk and I had to retrain myself sexually and it took a little while, but then I started having the best orgasms of my life. Yeah, I was like, oh my God, I've been missing out. So that was interesting. And then, as far as like being glamorous and having fun, you know, no matter what liquid the ice is in, it sparkles, it doesn't matter. I do tell people I would like a cocktail glass, please, mm-hmm. And I love the current wave of mocktails, me too.
MaryHost
22:30
Gosh, they've really come a long way.
JoGuest
22:32
Yeah, and I used to bartend sober, which was really fun. Yeah, but I don't have the physical stamina now to beend sober, which was really fun, yeah, but I don't have the physical stamina now to be a bartender. But I wrote a book of cocktail recipes as a fundraising reward for my friend, cora Harrington, the lingerie addict, and I included a whole panel of mocktails. That was really fun and she had it illustrated. It was really cool. Oh, that sounds amazing.
MaryHost
23:02
Yeah it was fun.
23:04
I remember once seeing World Famous Bob celebrate their sobriety birthday on Instagram and said and this was when I was very newly sober they said in their Instagram post you know, this is my I think it was something like 20 year sobriety birthday and I always thought I wouldn't be fun anymore.
23:23
But I think sobriety is the most punk rock thing a person can do and I was like, yeah, and that was so inspiring, like, yeah, and this isn't a sobriety podcastening into like claiming my powers of glamour and joy and like extraversion, you know, because I mean I grew up so wildly Catholic and there's a lot of glamour in Catholicism now that I reflect on it, you know like that side really drew me in. But one of the things that was so healing about burlesque for me was I remember the first show I ever saw was at the slipper room. I think it was even one of your student showcases. I felt like I was at some kind of holy temple that was like the lost city of Atlantis, where bodies were revered and where things like thigh jiggle or, you know, breasts that are like too small quote, unquote, according to the culture, or too big according to the culture like the full spectrum of the human body wasn't just not hidden, but it was like celebrated with glitter and sequins and kind of forget why.
25:10
I started talking about this.
25:11
Oh yes, but like for me I was, so I mean I could not even wear short sleeves in the summer.
25:19
I remember one time walking through the city and it was like nearly a hundred degrees and I was wearing a cardigan sweater over a tank top and I just couldn't take off my sweater.
25:31
Like I felt like if I did like the world would crumble. And finally I reached a breaking point, thinking that it would be like a Hindenburg kind of running away, you know, if I showed my body and like I just remember being shocked that like nothing happened and nobody even looked my way and nobody even cared, you know. And so I wonder, you know, because I imagine there are folks who listen to this podcast who might feel like they have this spark in them of wanting to be on the burlesque stage or even wanting like for me, even going to a burlesque show was a huge risk, like took a lot of courage for me at that time. And I remember I used to go to Fantasy World all the time on Greenwich after I started performing and just felt like I was suddenly in Disney World of this whole world that I thought I would never, ever be able to access because I could not even cross that threshold of that shop.
26:40
That was the most amazing store, oh so good, so good the outfits I got in those little plastic wrappers.
JoGuest
26:49
I love those. I love I mean I have a whole thing about celebrating like the you know leg Avenue final in a bag. I was like we really need to celebrate those things, not be snobby about them, like not just as a gateway drug to something more sophisticated, but for that moment of joy. Yeah, joy is more important than anything else. This is not that easy to come by.
MaryHost
27:15
Totally.
JoGuest
27:17
I mean, I say I have a joyous life, but I didn't know.
MaryHost
27:21
And I wonder if a person is feeling that spark of desire but also feeling a wall of obstacle, of like that's not for me or that's, you know whatever labels the culture puts on it, Like, is there anything that you might say to that person to encourage them to explore, Like what might be a starting step or a starting word?
JoGuest
27:49
Well, I think it starts a lot with, you know, we have resources right now that are really amazing, and I think I always encourage people who are like oh, I can't do burlesque, I'm too shy, I'm too old, I'm too big, I'm too this, I'm too that. And you know, I keep encouraging people to. You know, in the burlesque handbook I talk about Flickr, but now we have, you know, instagram and TikTok, and I think you can follow people who look like you, that are doing what you want, because the tendency is like, oh, I'll follow the person who, if they must be doing it right, because they're unattainable, I'm like well, what if the right way to do it there's also a right way to do it that's attainable, right? What if there's more than one right way? What if?
MaryHost
28:35
the right way, isn't it? There's also a right way to do it that's attainable, right, what?
JoGuest
28:37
if there's more than one right way? What if the right way isn't that what you're thinking is the hardest or the most unlike what you are, you know, like I'm, I'm in my 60s, right? I'm kind of hitting my peak glamour, I think, even though I wear more sneakers than I ever have in my life because the feats have gone. But you know so I follow a lot of older glamorous people because I intend to, you know, lean into being an older glamorous person. If I wanted to lean into being an older farm person, I would follow farm people. But when I see people who are successful at it and I see the support that they get in comments and things like that, it doesn't have to be somebody with a million followers, it could be somebody with like 20 followers, right, and then remember this. So you will see negative comments, which, interestingly, is nothing compared to the number of negative comments you will see on a Kardashian post.
29:35
But but you know, we have a tendency to think that any insult we've ever gotten, or any insult we see someone get from somebody, is the most likely to be true, right? If it's harsh, it must be true. If you're afraid of it and it happens, it must be true, like what's unpleasant is necessarily deeper, which is not true. But we all remember insults more than compliments, and the reason for that is not because we're neurotic and not because society is out to get us, but because we have this vestigial adrenaline rush. You know what I'm saying, that was the best way to phrase it, but we have this physical reaction in our bodies to someone that we perceive as a danger, someone who says oh my God, you're way too old to wear that. They're not on your side. They will probably say as many bad things as they can right, they're not for you. You have to remember who that person is, but instead you remember the comment that's just your body looking out for you, and sometimes you just have to say body. Thank you for alerting me to how how very much that person is not on my side.
30:50
I would like to now seek the people that are. Look for the people who are for you, not against you, and that is the answer. Look for the are for you, not against you, and that is the answer. Look for the people who are for you, not against you, because what are you afraid of? You're afraid of how you'll be perceived. There are people out there dying to see you do the thing you want to do.
31:08
Your audience is hungering for you right now and it may be an audience of two of your friends talking about it at lunch. It doesn't have to be, you know, an audience in a nightclub or theater. It doesn't have to be anything. It just has to be you living that part of yourself to the fullest. And there's a saying about like, and it's a saying I learned in A about hanging on to your fears and hanging on to things you think you need to do and hanging on to anger. And it's like let go or be dragged. Figure out whatever that fear is and let go of it or be dragged by it Like it's. It's keeping you back.
MaryHost
31:52
I remember friends who I was really encouraging to wear hats. I feel like this happens a lot with my friends where I just love wearing hats. To me it takes the most yoga pants centric outfit and turns it into like instant glamour fest. You know. But a friend was like, oh no, I can't like it. You know and I appreciate how you're saying like it could be an audience of two and it doesn't have to be getting on stage you know, to Egyptian fantasy.
32:25
Like it could be as simple as wearing a hat to the golf club which you can be your own audience.
JoGuest
32:32
you can look in the mirror and love yourself and, you know, get recordings of applause and then, you know, walk out into your living room to applause Like it's all.
MaryHost
32:45
nothing is real very first pebble on my own journey of self-love and sensuality, which was this VHS tape called the Art of Exotic Dancing for Everyday Women. Do you remember that?
JoGuest
33:04
Yep, I do.
MaryHost
33:06
And there was an exercise where you walk to yourself in the mirror, holding eye contact, and then you walk back, like with your back to the wall. You know you walk backwards, like with your back to the wall. You know you walk backwards. And it was the first time in my life, I ever looked at my reflection with something other than disdain and it just sparked that memory when you were talking about, you know, an audience of one.
JoGuest
33:32
Yeah, and I have to say you know, when I'm teaching tassel twirling, it's the one time we get topless in the classes, because I usually most people the mirror mostly naked and smiling and laughing and experiencing joy as they meet their own eyes in the mirror. While this is happening and that's you know, when you talk about whether or not something is empowering, it's like have you ever done that before? You know you may not be breaking the glass ceiling, you may not be able, you may not be getting the government to pay for childcare, but you're allowing yourself to live more fully in a world that threatens you about that a lot, and I think that walking toward the mirror, holding eye contact with yourself, just looking at yourself and allowing yourself to feel pleasure when you do, is incredibly liberating.
MaryHost
34:48
Yeah.
JoGuest
34:49
Flirt with yourself.
MaryHost
34:50
Yeah, and is you know the word boldness? Like you used that word earlier and I love that word and that is such a thread that I feel like weaves through burlesque striptease, like all these intersections and you are wearing, is it leopard?
JoGuest
35:09
it is a form of leopard. It's kind of a fantasy leopard print okay, I am wearing.
MaryHost
35:15
Is this snow leopard?
JoGuest
35:17
that is kind of snow leopard. Yeah, yeah, most of these are stylized, but yes, I would call that a snow leopard.
MaryHost
35:23
Yes, so Joe wrote an entire book on the history of leopard print and big cat prints in fashion as a symbol, well, just in general, but also as a symbol of power and feminine dominance and expression. And I it's one of like it's one of the memories I feel like on my deathbed I will be so proud of is that I was living in Nashville at the time and I flew to New York just to go to your book signing.
JoGuest
35:52
And.
MaryHost
35:52
I bought this little velvet fascinator, little leopard velvet fascinator, and that show was so great and it was just one of those adventures where it's like this was an investment in my joy. You know and I love, just like you know, the, the niche aspects that you have teased out of fashion and and I wonder you know if you might just give a little quip on big cat prints, yeah, so the book is called Fierce the History of Leopard Print and, of course, every history is a history.
JoGuest
36:31
There is no D history. I'm really looking at the influence in the fashion system that most of us are in now. So how did leopard print become a thing there? And I realized that a lot of people were identifying with the power of the animal. And it's not just a cultural reference, it's a natural reference and there's the, you know, in my opinion, it's that people aren't saying that they're a predator, but they're saying they're not prey, they're claiming their space.
37:06
And leopards are really amazing creatures, you know they're associated with like Dionysus and that has to do with their nocturnal and people have their parties and sexy times at night but also an incredibly strong animal, really powerful and a very versatile animal that lives in all these different environments and survives all these incredible odds and is one of the most beautiful, glamorous. And is one of the most beautiful, glamorous. They're considered a charismatic animal by zoos. They you know, cheetahs and leopards attract people. So I think that people are really identifying with that natural aspect and there's a lot of prints that you could wear that identify with nature. Florals have power. You know, zebra print has power, but that's not a predator, it's not an apex animal, but everything has its own power. But leopard print is one of the few things that you can see a person wearing, and it's almost like they're wearing their own familiar, they're assuming or aspiring to the characteristics of one of the most powerful, adaptable and revered animals in the entire animal kingdom. I call them the original influencer. Yeah, and what is you know?
38:52
When I think of leopard print, I usually associate that with a woman who isn't afraid to express some aspect of her being, a sexual being, and that is really common. And I think that's because of the connection to nature, because it's actually like the animal is not clothed, it's naked. So in a way it's a state of you know, a state of nudity, if you will. But I think it has a lot to do with two things. One is that nocturnal aspect, which is erotic, and the erotic is often embodied as female in our culture. If you were to talk to the ancient Greeks you might have a different, but even they had the leopard in their eroticism.
39:26
And I think there's also because I think cats kind of became associated with women as they became domesticated, right, there's a whole history of cats being worshipped and everything. But I'm just going to talk about this european concept of the domesticated cat, which was associated with the kitchen where they kept them to get the mice. So when you see the crone, the witch, she's got the domestic cat, the cauldron in which she's supposed to provide food for the family and the broom, which was she's supposed to be maintaining cleanliness and order and using those to create chaos and order and bend things to her will. Right, but cats I think that's where cats might have come to be more associated with the feminine, because all leopard, leopards, every gender, have the same pattern on them. There's a bunch of different kinds of leopards of every gender have the same pattern on them. There's a bunch of different kinds of leopards, but you know what I mean within a species and I think that that association and and the european, a tendency to associate the erotic with the feminine, the modern european I should say, is a part of why leopard print came to have that association.
40:41
I think it's sort of coming out of that. I think it's becoming more, a little more mainstream, and there's, there's, you know, I talk about this one group of women in Japan who are like they're aunties and they're purveyors of etiquette and their you know, powerful elder women and they wear leopard print and it's associated with them. They wear other cat prints as well, but it it's associated with them in a very positive way, like these are your, these are your bold, outgoing, adventurous aunties and they have wisdom to share. Wow, that's so cool, isn't that great, really amazing. And then you know there's a, there's some great studies on leopard print that either just predated my publication Like there was a whole exhibition that I didn't get to see before my book came out but I was able to mention it.
41:36
It just, it's a joyous, playful, natural print. Yeah, it has, yeah, it has all kinds of power. Yeah, you know, historically it's been associated with power. You know, in Africa it's been associated with the most powerful, the most masculine, interestingly people in cultures. Yeah, yeah, so that's a. That's a totally different association.
MaryHost
42:03
It does have a masculinity to it, like I've always felt that way about leopard print, is that, even though there is this association with you know, this prowling feline, you know there is like this strength and this dominance to it and it's, it's almost like it's incredibly beautiful but it's not there to please or be pretty, exactly.
JoGuest
42:29
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's just there to stand out and it's interesting. You know it evolved in nature to help the cats blend in, right, and I love it when I do a leopard print event and people come out dressed in leopard print. Or you know, people may come and they're not wearing leopard print, but they'll tell me about their mother or aunt or someone who is wearing leopard and they have.
42:56
You know, they have an old coat or an old dress or something of theirs and it's really touching and I think it's just. It's funny because, you know, I live in the East Village and there's no shortage of people walking around in interesting clothes. But if I go out and I'm wearing a leopard dress and leopard shoes and carrying a leopard bag and maybe wearing a leopard hat, Every person I walked by had smiles or flinches, which is really funny. Like what is that old lady doing? I'm like I'm having the time of my life and also I get, but so many people will go rawr when I walk by. Wow, no matter how common leopard print becomes, it still has that impact. Like these people will see me walk by and they'll, you know, talk to me like I'm a cat. Yeah, that's so entertaining and I love it. I love it.
MaryHost
43:52
It arouses the instinct.
JoGuest
43:55
Yeah, and they're just and they're having fun. You know they're commenting. They're not commenting out of a desire to bother me. They're. They're appreciating that I'm having a good time.
MaryHost
44:08
Well, and that's something about just all the threads of your work that I think is so beautiful. It's like it's all so fun. You know it's all so fun. And something that you wrote and this will be my last question, unless there's anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to be asked, but something you wrote that made me laugh so hard on Instagram once was you did like a little like ask me a question and someone asked you what would you tell you know your 20 year old self or something, and you said fuck more rock stars.
JoGuest
44:49
I know I really should have.
MaryHost
44:54
And I wonder, like that self that was looking at Life Magazine and felt so pulled in by and felt, you know, like you said, like in high school, like felt separate and othered, I wonder, is there anything that she might say to you and the woman that you've become in the career that you've created?
JoGuest
45:19
Boy, I mean I don't know Say ask the question again. I'm sorry.
MaryHost
45:24
Yeah, yeah, like I think about my younger self, who envisioned a life as a teacher or a nurse, because those were the paths for a woman when I was coming up. And when I think about her and just the conformity of the life that I imagined for myself and the career that I have now and the work that I've created, it's like she would be like wow, and like really excited and proud. And I'm wondering if just anything emerges for you when you reflect on just the life you've built and the career you've had.
JoGuest
46:02
Well, most of my joy now is because I moved to New York which I was kind of afraid to do and I had a lot of help.
46:14
I had a lot of support from friends Steve Trimbole, who's gone now, my friend Judith, who pushed me to write, and I had a lot of help. I had a lot of support from friends Steve Trimbole, who's gone now, my friend Judith, who pushed me to write, and you know I had a lot going on. I had a lot of support, but I I didn't publish a book until I was 47.
MaryHost
46:30
And.
JoGuest
46:30
I started plotting to publish a book when I was, you know, in high school, and I don't really know what. You know, if I was, if I knew then what I was now, I think I had to go through it to get to where I am now. And you know, when I was young, especially when I was partying, there were all these people that were like you're going to die young. I'm like, well, that's the idea, you know, and I, but I sort of outlived a lot of my. I outlived a lot of living in my trauma.
47:03
I outlived a lot of needing to be unique, which is a big sobriety thing, right when you can't be the piece of shit at the center of the universe. You know, if you want to feel better and you can't be the most interesting person in the room, if you want to feel better and you can't be the most interesting person in the room, if you want to feel better, you've got to just be a person among people. And if, if you had told me then, because of the people that were around me, you know, one day you're going to be a person among your people and it will be the best thing that's ever happened to you, I don't think I would have believed it, and I think I would have thought that my people would agree with me on more things.
47:45
They don't agree with me on everything. They don't. They don't, but yeah, just, you're going to find your people. Yeah, which I did not expect. But you can't find your people until you be as you, as you can be Otherwise. Otherwise, you keep attracting people who keep you trapped in, whatever it is you feel trapped in.
MaryHost
48:06
I love that. That like risk of exposure. It is dangerous.
JoGuest
48:12
I think it's okay to tell people that it is dangerous. You just have to decide, you know do I want to live in this state forever or do I want to take that risk?
MaryHost
48:25
Yeah, it's like there's danger either way.
JoGuest
48:30
But it's, I would say for me it's been way more satisfying, whatever I went through to get there, to find my people and also to find myself Like I love to be alone. I used to not be able to stand being alone. I made my own skin crawl, and if you had ever told me that I would enjoy myself. That seems so implausible, but I'm really grateful for it now.
MaryHost
48:56
Yeah but I'm really grateful for it. Now, yeah, oh, thank you so much for this conversation and for just making that choice to take that risk of exposure and to be let's see. I want to find the right words here. Let me just pause to like. It's like that paradox of like being in devotion to this authentic spark within yourself, which also requires humility, and you know you've impacted my life so, so deeply with the way that you model that and the lives of so many people, and so thank you so much for being here and for inspiring everyone on this episode.
JoGuest
49:52
Well, thank you for being inspiring and for encouraging me and just you know, being one of my people.
MaryHost
50:00
Thank you, and you are currently or no, your show is not currently running, is that right?
JoGuest
50:06
It'll be running again in the spring. Right now I'm trying to finish some writing that I set aside while I was working on the show, because the show came out of the writing that I was doing before but I didn't polish. You know, I'm thinking about doing some of it on the sub stack, where I sort of talk through a chapter or something and see how people respond.
MaryHost
50:30
We'll see. Yeah, I got that update in my Sunday times. What I said, I got that update in my Sunday Times sub stack this morning.
50:40
Yeah, yeah, if you want to know more about G strings and you know I'm there- Yep, yes, so you can go to schoolofburlesquecom to learn more about Joe's classes and just the whole lineage of teachers that have expanded through over the years and amazing variety of classes. You can also check out her books the Burlesque Handbook and Fierce, a History of Leopard Print, and all new kinds of creations that are percolating. Like her one woman show, show her writing and definitely check out her sub stack.
JoGuest
51:21
Yeah, and my personal website is joeweldoncom. Okay, update all my stuff.
MaryHost
51:29
Thank you, Joe. Appreciate your magic.
JoGuest
51:32
I appreciate yours.
MaryHost
