Showgirl Confidential:
The Tantalizing And Very Talented
Pleasant Gehman
Tells All!
Interview By: Ginger Coyote
I have known the fabulous Pleasant Gehman since grade school at The Mabuhay Gardens.... Pleasant's all- star trailer -trash novelty band Honk If Yer Horny and White Trash Debutantes have played quite a few shows together... I have been a long time fan of the ultra fabulous Ms. Gehman. I recently got a chance to ask Pleasant some questions about her new book "Showgirl Confidential" and reminisce about life.. Enjoy the interview
Punk Globe:
Congratulations on your new book "Showgirl Confidential." And thank you for taking the time to do this interview Pleasant. How long did it take you to write the book?
Pleasant Gehman:
Thank you so much for having me, Ginger! This is my first book in thirteen years- "Escape From Houdini Mountain" was published in 2000. A little after "Houdini" came out, I decided to make dancing my primary focus… I'd been dancing since 1990, but I figured if I hadn't killed all my brain cells from the 1970's and 1980's, then my brain might outlast my hips and feet- and I really wanted to concentrate on performing and teaching and traveling. I wrote this book on and off for about five years- mostly on the road, in hotel rooms and airports…which is apropos, because this book is mostly touring stories, from rock and roll, belly dance and burlesque. I've been on the road non-stop since the early ‘80's.
Punk Globe:
Were you in a quandary about choosing the right title for the book or did you just know that "Showgirl Confidential" was magic?
Pleasant Gehman:
I just knew that had to be the title- because that's what I am, a showgirl!
Punk Globe:
You are the Ultimate Showgirl!!!! The book chronicles a thirty year career span. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to decide which adventure to re-tell. How did you decide what was just right for this book?
Pleasant Gehman:
I worked on it for flow, I wanted to make the stories make sense together and have an equal balance between punk, dancing and just crazy adventures. And yeah, you're right...so many stories, so little time! So many stories, so few pages!
Punk Globe:
You could easily do an anthology with all your fun escapades... In this book every chapter reveals something new about you and your life.. .However, you always maintain that wicked sense of humor. Was that ever difficult to do.
Pleasant Gehman:
It's my personality! You have to be able to laugh at life because it's so bizarre sometimes. Iris is one of my oldest, dearest friends as well as being my publisher, and we've both always been able to laugh about all the crazy stuff that happens to us… And we've had really wild lives, and lots of adventures together. We've had so many insane experiences- really bad ones along with the funny, silly stuff- that I think laughing about things is sort of like a survival mechanism for both of us. And it also insures that we both will never run out of things to write about! I haven't even started to delve into fiction writing cause my real life is so wacky, it's like, "Why bother?"
Punk Globe:
One of my favorite chapters in the book is "Them." The year is 1985, you were living at Disgraceland and your band The Screamin' Sirens was going full steam.. And of course vibrators were a main topic of conversation . Tell us about that?
Pleasant Gehman:
That's one of my favorite stories in the book, too. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but it is centered around vibrators- and the debauchery that went on at Disgraceland, which was Hollywood's most infamous punk rock crash pad, when all three room mates- Iris Berry, Siren's bassist Laura Bennett and I discovered sex with B.O.B- aka Battery Operated Boyfriends.
Punk Globe:
Dildo's are a girls best friend!!! Did you have a diary that you used a reference for Showgirl Confidential?
Pleasant Gehman:
Yes, I've been keeping a diary non-stop since I turned 13…in 1972. But people have always told me I have an amazing memory. And I do, i am blessed that way. My memory is crazy and exacting and especially when I'm having an intense experience, I remember all sorts of details, almost like my brain is taking a film of what's going on.
Punk Globe:
Tell us about your friendship with Margaret Cho and your involvement with Belly Dancing?
Pleasant Gehman:
I first met Margaret in 2005, when she came to my belly dance classes in LA. She got very serious about it really quickly, and was doing great very soon after she started. It was obvious she practiced a at at home! Nobody in the classes knew she was Margaret Cho, they just thought she was a quiet Asian chick that stood in the back and had a really strong shimmy! We became friends, and she asked me to open for her in LA at The Wiltern Theater, and in San Diego. Soon after that, she came to a burlesque workshop I was teaching, and she loved it so much, she was in the middle of the class waving a boa yelling "I LOVE STRIPPING!" at the top of her lungs! Then in 2006, she started her show "The Sensuous Woman", which was a burlesque and variety show. She did comedy and burlesque, and I did belly dance and burlesque, that cast was full of talent- dancer and comedian Selene Luna, who was in the Velvet Hammer Burlesque with me, Ryan Heffington, an incredible dancer and choreographer, and hilarious trans comedian Ian Harvie. We did I "The Sensuous Woman" once a month at El Cid in LA and each show's proceeds went to a different charity. We started touring, going up to San Francisco once or twice a month, and then in 2007 the whole cast went to Chicago for a week and to New York for three months of Off Broadway at The Zipper Theater.

I adore Margaret- she is just as hilarious offstage, as she is onstage too! And she is so amazing to work with. Non-stop creativity, and very, very giving in every way. She's really smart and creative ( obviously) and she's into crazy, weird ass stuff. Like almost every conversation we have involves Sasquatch, UFO's, seances,conspiracy theories or horrible plastic surgery disasters or something like that. in addition to her enthusiasm for grossness and her wicked sense of humor she's so focused and driven that she's absolutely great at whatever she does. She's learning to play accordion now, and I'm expecting her to pop up in a Mariachi or Polka band soon!

As for belly dancing, as soon as I started in 1990, it just took over my life immediately, and I did a complete 360 degree turn. I quit my job, went to Egypt to study and buy costumes, and never looked back!
Punk Globe:
Speaking of Accordions, I introduced Judy Tenuta to Margaret in the mid 90's in San Francisco... Did you tour a lot as Princess Farhana?
Pleasant Gehman:
I'm still touring. In 2013 alone, I've done a tour of Australia, and appeared and taught in Turkey, the UK, Canada, Hawaii and all over the American mainland. I have one last trip coming up this year and then I'll be in LA for The Holidays. I've been on the road teaching & performing belly dance & burlesque all over the world constantly since about 2003.
Punk Globe:
That is incredible!! Tell us about the name Farhana.. Is it an Arabic name ?
Pleasant Gehman:
Yes, It's Arabic- loosely translated into English, it means "pleasant or happy girl". No one at the Arab clubs I was working in during the 1990's could pronounce my name, so I took on "Farhana" and then people started calling me Princess Farhana cause I always wore crowns and tiaras.
Punk Globe:
Steve Balderson wrote the forward for your book. Tell us about your relationship with him?
Pleasant Gehman:
I love Steve, we're like soul mates. Like Margaret, he is ridiculously talented and calm and giving in work situations, and tons of fun when he's not working. Steve's film sets are the most well-run and the most fun of any I've ever been on, and as a director, he is a visionary. He maps out every film far in advance, and draw story boards and makes music mixes that he shares with the cast and crew so we can all see his unique vision the way he does. As a director, he loves to go with improvisation from the cast, and is really open to everyone's ideas. The casts he collects together for each movie always click- everyone gets along incredibly well, and it doesn't even matter that we're filming long hours because the air is like, electric with creativity.
Punk Globe:
How many films of his films have you worked on?
Pleasant Gehman:
I've been in every film of his except for "Watch Out". In his first movie, "Pep Squad", I didn't act in it, but I have a song on the soundtrack, and he took me to the Cannes Film Festival when "Pep Squad" showed there… man, I could write a whole book about that trip along, it was insane! Actually, in "Escape From Houdini Mountain, there's a story about that trip called "Wine Me, Dine Me, Soixante –Neuf Me".
Punk Globe:
You were so funny in Stuck. Jane Wiedlin told me that Stuck was filmed in Georgia.. How did the locals react to the film crew?
Pleasant Gehman:
Thank you! I loved playing "Dutch" in "Stuck!", that might've been my favorite role ever… I always wanted to be a cop-killing hooker on Death Row! Before the shoot, Steve sent us all our prison uniforms so we cold wear them and feel comfortable in them… and I was in my house wearing the uniform, and sharpened up a toothbrush into a prison shank, that's how into it I was. Mink Stole and I had lots of phone calls about how we'd interact as cell-mates, and what our cell would look like, who'd have the top bunk or whatever.

Everyone in Macon, Georgia loved us…and we loved them right back! Macon, It was a total blast! The people are amazing, and they were so kind and welcoming to the cast and crew of "Stuck!" … they were a lot of fun, they threw us a bunch of crazy parties. In Macon, everyone is obsessed with a murderess from the 1950's whose name was Anjette Donavan Lyles. She poisoned her husbands, boyfriends and allegedly, her own daughter with arsenic. She was into voodoo, too… and pretty soon the whole cast of "Stuck" got totally obsessed with her as well. We even changed a line in the movie to include the name Anjette instead of the name it was supposed to be.

Also, I have to confess that I stole a pad of paper from The Bibb County Penitentiary in Macon when we were filming there! It had the prison's logo on it, I couldn't help myself! Who steals from a jail? I DO!
Pleasant Gehman:
I think it's a toss-up between "Stuck!" and "Firecracker"- I can't decide, they were both totally peak experiences. The set of "The Casserole Club was totally insane, it was like a 24-hour party, that was the most fun to film. Actually, I adore that movie, too!
Punk Globe:
Tell us about other films you have done?
Pleasant Gehman:
The first film I was ever in was when I was nine, and I've done quite a lot since then.. Right after my family moved to LA in 1975, when I was 16, I got a part in Roger Corman's "Hollywood Boulevard", as a "wet nubile"- me and about six other girls got sprayed with a firehose across tight white t-shirts in the "movie within-the movie", and I was in another Corman film, a women's prison movie, coincidentally, called "Vendetta" in the mid-1980's. The Screaming Sirens played "Love Slave" during a rape and retribution scene which landed the female lead in prison. In 1988 I co-wote the film "The Running Kind" with director Max Tash, which came out on MGM in 1988. It was filmed all over Hollywood, at Raji's, Club Lingerie, The Zero Zero, and even Disgraceland! After that, I did a bunch of music videos, then the skateboarding movie "Thrashin' " which became a cult film, and "Shadow Hours" which was filmed in an abandoned mental hospital in East LA- that was a scary set, it shot at night, we explored the hospital when we weren't on camera and they still had all the old electro-shock machines down in the basement.

I've also been in a ton of movies dancing as opposed to acting- feature films and documentaries, including two documentaries on The Velvet Hammer Burlesque, and the documentary Steve Balderson made on my dance career, "Underbelly: A Year In The Life Of Princess Farhana", which came out in 2008. It's available for purchase on Amazon or you can get it on Netflicks. You can see me belly dancing on an Episode of "The Nanny" called "Not Without My Nanny"- it still shows on TV. I choreographed the sword belly dancing sequence in "Charlie Wilson's War", starring Tom Hanks And Julia Roberts.
Pleasant Gehman:
Iris and I literally met in the gutter in Hollywood! It was in 1982 and we were both supposed to be doing a poetry reading, but we wound up splitting a bottle of wine and never made it into the reading! We started hanging out immediately, then she moved into Disgraceland and it was all over, we were partners in crime- and literature- for life!
Punk Globe:
After doing this book. Do you have any desires to do a reunion show with The Screamin' Sirens?
Pleasant Gehman:
I ALWAYS would love to do that… the problem is scheduling. All of the Sirens are so busy, going on tours, working in the studio, making CD's and playing on other people's music…. And I have my dance career, which books up really far in advance. I just saw Rosie Flores in Austin, Texas. I did a reading at The Continental Club, and she introduced me… We hung out after the show and laughed hysterically for hours! Actually, the Sirens used to play there a lot with bands like Poison 13 and The Hickoids in the 1980's- I realized that this might've been my first trip to Austin were I was mostly sober. Austin and The Sirens were a wild combination, I tell you!
Punk Globe:
Maybe a short tour?
Pleasant Gehman:
That would be awesome! I wish… Sirens- are ya reading this? Let's do it!
Punk Globe:
Any plans for a follow-up for Showgirl Confidential?
Pleasant Gehman:
Yes, as a matter of fact! The manuscript for "Showgirl" was so big that iris and I decided to split it in two, so the follow up "Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere" will be out in Summer 2014. The title actually came from a bumper sticker someone slapped on the back of the Siren's van in Austin, in an alley behind a gig.
Punk Globe:
What a great title for the follow up book.... Pleasant do you have any Internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?
Pleasant Gehman:
Here's my most of my web stuff:
My blog is www.pleasantgehman.blogspot.com and
www.princessfarhana.blogspot.com
My Princess Farhana website is www.princessfarhana.com
Facebook is: www.facebook.com/pleasantgehmanfans and
www.facebook.com/princess.farhana
Twitter is: www.twitter.com/pleasantgehman1 and
www.twitter.com/princessfarhana

And if you wanna hear how cray-cray Margaret and I are together, listen to her "Monsters Of Talk" podcast with her co-host Jimmy Short, and this interview we did together: https://soundcloud.com/margaretcho/ep-46-guest-pleasant-gehman

Also, you can buy "Showgirl Confidential" on Amazon, but if you'd like an autographed copy, get it here- and make sure to tell me who to sign it to! http://www.princessfarhana.com/book_showgirl.htm
Punk Globe:
Can you describe yourself in three words?
Pleasant Gehman:
On my Twitter profile it says Hollywood Bon Vivant, Former Hot Mess…so both of those are three-word descriptions that fit!
Punk Globe:
What does the rest of 2013 hold in store for you?
Pleasant Gehman:
I have dance gigs booked up through the end of the year, and I'll be doing two more readings in LA: Thurs. Nov. 14 at Stories Books And Café in Echo Park, and December 8 at Chevalier's Books in Larchmont Village. On December 10, my friend DeVilla and I putting on "Jingle Belles Holiday Extravaganza in association with Punk Hostage Press on December 10 at Skinny's Lounge, in North Hollywood, my favorite club in LA. It's a burlesque and belly dance show, with Jack Grisham from TSOL as the emcee- all proceeds go to LAFD's "Spark Of Love" program for needy kids during the holidays...so if you come, bring an unwrapped toy suitable for ages 3-12!

Also, this November and December, Iris Berry and I are putting the finishing touches on our up-coming "Disgraceland" book which will be out on Punk Hostage Press in January 2014.
Punk Globe:
Any last words for Punk Globe readers?
Pleasant Gehman:
Don't let anyone tell you that what you want to do creatively and artistically is impossible…dream big and then take little steps every day to make your dreams come true. Nurture your creativity. HAVE FUN!!!!! That is so important... and remember…you only live once, so make the most of it! Punk Globe would like to thank Pleasant for a great interview.... Go to see her read and most importantly buy her book...