OOC thread - A 1930's Harlem Cabaret

[Apollo Wilde]

New York - 1930’s.

The Depression has the States in a stranglehold. Hoovervilles dot the country. The Second World War is a whisper in Stalin and Hitler’s rise to power, ages away. All around are the destitute reminders of the American Dream….

But.

There is a little place in New York, where the coloreds and the whites both go to forget their money troubles - and often get more into their own-, where they go to dance amid smoking ballrooms to Ellington, Armstrong, Waller. Where if the price is right - you could go home with some company.

The age of Jazz, the Age of Mobsters….

The place is Harlem.

Far away from the dazzling lights of the Cotton Club, there is a struggling little cabaret, run by a old -but young- Madame - Madame Rose. Any girl you want, she has. You could say she was the first to disobey the Jim Crow law for the benefit from others. You want a white girl? She can arrange it for you. You want a black girl? She can do that too. Under those large arms, liberally perfumed with her namesake’s scent, she will take in any poor “chile” struggling to make ends meet.

Under the dull red lights, Madame Rose struggles to have her girls as cultured as any other - they sing, they dance, and avoid the streets. Oh yes, Madame Rose’s girls are of a special order…And usually seen on the arm of the most important men of the area. At least….that’s how things were back in the twenties.

But if you still want a good show with some company afterwards, look up Madame Rose, classiest Negro in all of Harlem.
_____________________________________________________________

All right, now that the background is set up, here’s what I’m looking for:

This RP is set in the late 1930’s - so mentioning WWII would be seriously….out of place.

People who particularly like history are welcomed with open arms. If you have something to add [ for instance, having a character read a newly published work by Hughes ] that fits within the time period, go for it.

I am also looking for a certain amount of girls to play Rose’s ‘Harem’. Most cabarets had a fixed amount of girls of about 10 or 12.

- I’m looking for NINE more girls to fill in

* And I need DIVERSE girls. Just because this is set in Harlem doesn't mean that all the girls in the cabaret are black. What would be ideal is an even number of white and an even number of blacks.

-A few guys to play as the ‘fixed’ Johns. The regulars to the cabaret. If I could get people playing mobsters, or other historically relevant figures, it would be most excellent.

I’m sorry if this sounds a bit preachy, but I really think this could be a good RP with some limits set on it, so it doesn’t dissolve into a big….mass of sex and no storyline. I chose the time period so there COULD be a good SL in addition to the sex.

I’m thinking about getting it started next week, depending on how many replies I get to this. If there are any questions, feel free to PM, IM, or E-mail me.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Count me in, AW. What a fantastic premise.

 

[KisstheSky]

I love history, I just changed my major to History in fact. So I'd love to get in on this.

 

[Armphid]

I like the idea, no doubt. Makes me think of the old pulps, although with a naughty twist. I'm a history buff too, though I may have to read up on the Depression era again.

I'd like to play one of he aforementioned fixed "johns." Right at the moment, I'm thinking of an Irishman with a charming brogue, wild luck, and a penchant for crime. Not a mobster but knoes plenty of them, more of a freelance criminal and gambler. I'll post a more fleshed out idea later, if you think the base premise is good.

Let me know, either way.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Sorry that this is a bit late in coming, but thank you all for your responses! This is my first thread and I'm sort of nervous about everything. Rather silly, but still.

Hopefully, we'll get a few more people invovled...if they haven't all been scared away. Oi.

Also, on a bit on a side note: I thought it might be cute to have the girls working under flower 'stage' names. Like Madame Rose's Flower Garden. All hail camp.

-AW

 

[KisstheSky]

I think thats a really cute idea

 

[Merelan]

Was wondering if you still had room?

Love the setting, what a wild idea.

 

[stalwartone]

Sounds like fun. I'd love to join up as one of the johns, a foreign noble "slumming", perhaps?

 

[Apollo Wilde]

To allow more organized crime invovlement, I have the RP set in1930 during Prohibition.

Although the real era for mobsters is the 1920s [ and in Chicago, if you want St. Valentine's Day massacre and Al Capone ], there was still quite a bit of activity going on with the bootlegging of liqour.

The cabaret's been twisted into a cabaret/speak easy.

Whee.

-AW

 

[Xenocide_613]

All that jazz...

How bout Madam Rose has a house band. There's gotta be jazz in a cabaret. I'll be the bass player, white and from upstate NY. Your average WASP.

Glad to be here, by the way

 

[Armphid]

Okay, the updated, rethought, and revised character. With inspiration from Paul Simon, Shane MacGowan, and our own Apollo Wilde.

Name: Fionn Inis Keats
Age: 20
Ht: 6' 6"
Wt: 230 lbs.
Hair: black, cut fairly short and usually slicked back.
Eyes: Sky blue
Physical Description: A tower of a man with broad shoulders and a solid laborer's build, Fionn walks and moves with a proud upright posture that makes him seem taller still. His black hair is well trimmed, and he usually keeps it slicked back underneath a 30's style workman's cap. He keeps his face clean shaven, and it has a rugged handsomeness that has escaped his fights so far. His nose has been broken once, though it has given him a fierce look that somehow adds to his appearance than taking away. His eyes are blue and usually a light color, though they grow darker and stormy if he is angry, sad, or upset. He dresses in common workman's clothes during the day (servicable boots, plain pants with suspenders, a long sleeved white shirt), though he often returns to his apartment and changes into his one good suit after his last delivery so he doesn't look too out of place at Madame Rose's.

Fionn's father Gavin was one of the many Irish that came to America in the early 1900's seeking an escape fromthe poverty and troubles of Ireland. While he didn't find exactly what he was looking for, he found a home in the wooded ridges of western Pennsylvania, in a small coal mine town called Indiana. When his eldest son was born, Gavin wanted to make sure the boy never forgot the land his fathers had come from, and so named him after a great hero of Iriish myth.

Fionn grew quickly, always being bigger and stronger than the other children around. He learned from his father to hunt and fish, to sing and play the old songs, to fight and survive, to never forget a kindness or a slight. He also learned to hate the mines. They broke men, and the damn company never paid enough for the work and blood the men put into them. His mother Bevin taught him to think, to appreciate music other than drinking songs, and that there was more to life than surviving. Fionn left home the day his father told him it was time for him to start in the mines, and though he writes home and remembers it fondly, he knows he's never going back.

On the road, he came across a bar where men could bet on fights. He didn't trust himself to pick a winner...unless it was himself. He picked up a few scars that day, but he also won $100. One of the bartenders said that boxers could make good money up in New York City, and with a vision of a future guaranteed by dozens of knock-outs, Fionn travelled north to find a trainer and become a champ.

That was two years ago, and it hasn't worked out the way he hoped. He still lives in a cheap apartment in Harlem, and the only fights he's been in are a few amateur matches and scuffles over his deliveries. Shortly after arriving in NYC, his size and strength caught the attention of Donal Boland, a member of the Irish mob who was very involved in the lucrative business of bootlegging. Donal needed a stooge to take the heat for a recent action against a rival gang and figured the giant Fionn for the prefect idiot. A week after "hiring" him to do deliveries, the rival gang made thier move, only to come away with broken bones and severely damaged egos. Donal now uses Fionn to do a lot of his deliveries, particularily to Harlem, since he himself has a distaste for all those Negros.

Fionn's fallen far in his own moral sights, he has a weakness for both liqour and ladies, though the ladies take precedence in the defiance of Irish traditon. Madame Rose's cabaret is one of his last deliveries each day, and his secretly one of his favorite places. The girls there are incredible, and since he gets a discount in price for making sure that the Flower Garden gets the delivery, and a few extra bottles of the best stuff, it's more than worth it. The musical training his mother had given him has started to draw him to jazz, and he keeps a few instruments (harmonica, tin whistle, and an old trumpet) in his apartment that he plays when alone and feeling down.

Fionn's size and the occasional dealt out beating have given him a reputation as a dangerous man. He doesn't mind this as it makes work easier, but is quite gentle with women or anyone he comes to trust. He's very low on the criminal ladder, but he's one of the few willing to go into Harlem, and there's money to be made, so he knows many more influential mobsters that his position and outsider status would normally allow. The local Irish regard him as an oddity. He's a fine lad, but mixing and even living with the Negros? Must be cracked.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Finally...my own char. Woo.

Irene Four-Killer Hawthorne

Stage name: Jasmine
Age: 20
Height: 5’4
Hair color: Black [ slightly wavy ]
Eye color: Dark brown
Star sign: Leo

Build: She could be called rather slender - the waif of the lingering twenties…But...her hips are too big. She’s somewhat embarrassed by that fact, but leaves it up to Madame to console her on not being Clara Boone’s body double.

Born and raised in Virginia, Irene dreamed of being in pictures and the gleaming lights of the city. The youngest daughter in a family of fourteen, Irene spent the earlier part of her life working with her sharecropper parents. Barely making the ends meet, Irene only went to school until fifth grade, then had to return home to help with her family. In school, she was fond of writing and reading, but disappointed with the limited material granted to her…in addition to her father’s disapproval. He would constantly tell her that there was no place in the world for a learned colored, and she had best learn that.

But, the little star-gazer was not to be discouraged. Telling her grand dreams and ambitions to her brothers and sisters in her mother’s old moccasins and feathers in her black hair, she painted the pretty picture of being in a picture show, and not no cheap one, either! A real picture show, and she would wear rouge and lipstick and everything. Being as close knit as children tend to be - they all believed her.

Growing disenchanted with the life of plucking tobacco and avoiding the advances of would-be suitors, she decided to get a better job as a maid when she was about fourteen. The product of a Native American mother and African-American father, Irene soon found out that her brown-red skin and straight hair would open more doors to her in white society than they would in the colored. She was teased something awful about her hair and skin at school, and because of it….she just never really cared for colored boys since. The white ones always seemed to be so respectable….

As the years went by and her earnings went to her family, she continually heard one word over and over again, a veritable “Nigger Heaven”, a place were coloreds could sing and dance and write…Harlem. Determined to go “up Nawth” and make a name for herself.

After a few more years of scheming, she shoved all of her worldly possessions into a battered old carpet bag, put on her best shoes, and was on the train to Harlem, with promises to make it big and make enough money to get her parents something real nice. Her mother, as she kissed her child goodbye, gave her a small fetish, delicately beaded with a single falcon feather attached. Although Irene tried to comprehend the things her mother had told her about her ‘hidden’ family, it just….never quite sunk in. But, to her mother’s wishes, she hasn’t removed the fetish, and refuses to.

Stepping out into the bright lights of Harlem, she was amazed at all it had to offer her….but…why was making it big so hard? She could read, she could write - she was decent looking! But yet, no one wanted to hire her. Distraught and soon running out of money, she approached the kindly Madame Rose for a job. She could do anything, but she was really good at cooking and cleaning, she added in hopefully. She really needed a job. And she didn’t even mind working with crackers! Really! Actually, she would prefer working with crackers. Not that coloreds were bad, but they just didn’t seem to take a shine to her on account of the name and hair and skin.

Madame Rose evaluated the young girl, [ her hair was still recovering from a barber’s attempt to bob her black mane ] and recruited her for her Garden…But added that she should add her father’s name to her mother’s Native American one. You know, not to scare the customers off if someone asked.

It took a while for Irene to get used to….being in her underwear in front of men, but she began to consider it her finest acting job. She loves to dance, and has been known to do the Charleston for hours. Still a little country, she’s friendly with everyone, and eager to tell them of her grand plans.

Whenever she’s not at the cabaret, you can bet she’s at the picture show - she has a soft spot for cartoons. Especially that Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse.

 

[stalwartone]

Character: Sammy Luchese - Short, wiry, olive skinned, hair slicked to the sides, dark eyes. Clothing tends to be slightly out of date suits, a touch threadbare.

History- A man with ties to a minor family in the organized crime world, Sammy is a grifter who has spent most of his adult life running from his past mistakes. He's tried his hand at several lines of semi-legitimate work, but never succeeded. He's wanted by the law enforcement agencies in Boston and Chicago, as well as the Marinello family for a minor infraction with one of their "vig" men. (He managed to run a bag switch with the collection men, and made off with two day's worth of numbers payments.) While the family doesn't want him dead, he certainly doesn't want them to destroy his legs, and the time he's spent in jail before has convinced him not to return.
He's come to New York with an idea in mind. He wants to start a theater production company with the intention of either running a successful musical, or running off with the investments, whichever seems the most likely. Having noted the reactions of men in the movie theaters to exotic looking women, he's looking for potential starlets with looks and stage presence, either to make a name for them, or to fool his investors.
In reality a confidence man with a sense of self preservation, Sammy has little interest in conflict. He has some flash money to play with, a good story, and a pistol squirrelled in his coat pocket. (He's actually a lousy shot, but he doesn't intend to use it to inflict harm, just to intimidate.)

 

[Xenocide_613]

Name: James Allen Matan
Age:32
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 195
Appearance: brown hair, blue eyes. Slim, slightly muscular, but nothing to brag about.

Personality: Jimmy is easygoing and sarcastic. His love of the bottle is surpassed only by his love of music. His life consists of playing, drinking, sleeping, and sex. Not nescisarily in that order.

History: Jimmy was born in Latham, NY, a small town outside of Albany. His father was a textile mill foreman and his mother a housewife. They wern't rich, but they were fairly well off. Jimmy was the only child in the family. At 6, he started piano lessons and took to it. At 10, he picked up the Bass. By the time he was in highschool, he could play anything, be it Bach or Jelly Roll Morton. Jimmy decided music was his life at after he went to NYC to see Joe "King" Oliver's New Orleans Jass Band (Not a misspell, btw.) Jimmy made a living as a working as a backup bassist in the studio and a house pianist in various bars in NY, but eventually found his way to Madam Rose, who needed a bandleader. Jimmy was more than happy to accept.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Just a head's up -

I'm going to try and start this tuesday. When I make the new thread, I'll make sure to put the name in here. I mean, obviously, but still.

Did that make any sense?

-AW

 

[Merelan]

Makes as much sense as anything ever does in our crazy world.

I have a question, and tell me to butt out if I cross a line.

Are we goign to have a Madame Rose???? Just curious.

I was thinking of playing an older "lady". One who has been around a bit. Not really a mother type, but maybe someone who has been and done it so can advise at times.
Maybe her assistant? Still a worker, has her regulars. She was once a leading member of the Mob gals but he was killed and now she scratches a living as she can. using her bed skills and her knowledge of the way "family" life works.

I am just writing off the cuff here, you all seem so knowledgable of the time period.

Otherwise can play whatever you need.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Actually, I was going to RP Madame Rose in addition to Irene, but if you want to RP her, then please, be my guest!

I don't see any problem with the character you've created - as for myself, I wasn't quite sure how active I wanted Madame Rose to be. All I had was the rough idea in my mind that she was basically "retired", and just really living off of the profits that the girls made, in addition to taking care of them and the like. I suppose it would have helped to have written out a profile for her as well.

I should do that, actually.

-AW

 

[Rhovan]

::steeples fingers:: Fantabulous idea!

If'n another man is needed, I've an idea. He wouldn't exactly be one of the 'fixed' johns, but he is a college drop out that brews the alcohol in the basement. He keeps the place 'wet,' and is generally well liked if not a bit nerdy. He is officially on the take of the local mob boss, but has a 'wash my back, and I'll wash yours,' with the ladies in the speak easy.

Of course this is assuming that the speak easy is on good terms with the local mob as opposed to at ends with it.

If this sounds good to you, I'll write his skinny little ass up and toss him on here later tonight. If it's not, well then I'll come up with something else.

Rho

 

[Apollo Wilde]

All righty then - the RP has been offically started! The name of it, for lack of a better one, is this:

A 1930's Harlem Cabaret IC thread
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182075

-AW

 

[Rhovan]

My idea...

Otto Weiss. A young athletic man of the era. Tall, blonde hair and blue eyes, an atheletes trim build. He was a posterboy for an Aryian. He had even toyed with the notion of Facisim, but he wasn't rich enough for politcal views any longer.

He used to live the high life. He was rich, he had all of his ducks in a row, he was going to Harvard. His father was a stock broker, his mother was the perfect housewife. Demure, unobtrusive, quiet, clean. Father was Mother's everything. So when the stock market fell, and the family fortune dried up -- Father made his exit through a window, thirty stories up. Mother was never the same. She fell apart...her world had left. She soon found herself in a sanitarium as a ward of the state.

Otto was alone in Boston. He had a grand total of five dollars in his pocket -- shiny dollar coins. Otto was going to be a doctor, but then fate intervined. He couldn't afford Boston anymore, and so found more affordable place to stay. Harlem. It seemed the only non-racists around were the poor, and even some of them held grudges. Otto wasn't popular with the blacks, he was german after all. But Otto had an uneasy alliance with them. He tended their ills, they helped him as much as they could. Be it supplies for Otto's 'clinic,' or just food, Otto was more than happy to accept it. Otto was forced to intergrate due to not having enough money to afford segregation. He delt, and quietly seethed, just like everyone else did.

But Otto was generally liked. He ran a 'clinic,' as it were, from his apartment. It was mostly a table, a clean needle and thread, and several clean sheets. He could sew stiches, he could set a bone, and he could wrap a sprain, but anything else was generally beyond his equipment. He could also tell when a patient needed real medical care, which didn't usually help those around him.

Otto had just heard about the Flower Garden Cabaret, and he certainly needed to unwind.

 

[Merelan]

Damn , you all are awesome!!!! Just was reading the thread.

I guess I have to bow out, though would love to work for Ms. Rose, but only have time for a post a day or so. It would cause flow problems the way you write.

But I shall be watching!!!

 

[spreadnready]

My name is Belle.

I'm 19, and my family is experiencing severe financial difficulties.
My father has sold my services to the Madam. I'm a virgin, without any prior experience.

 

[Armphid]

Hey guys,

I got to say that the thread is going great so far. I'm having a blast. Just so eveyone knows, I won't be posting anything Friday or Saturday as I will be very far from anything remembling an internet connection. Happy Independence Day & have a great weekend!