GenCraft AI’s idea of what this specific blog might be about…
One of the fascinating things about this blog, which I started in May 2010, is that people sometimes pick up on posts from the past and comment on them… and on previous Comments on them.
For example, today there was a Comment about a blog I posted almost ten years ago – in October 2014.
The headline for that particular blog explained what it was about:
WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO WORK IN A CANADIAN STRIP CLUB IN THE 1980s
There have currently been 56 Comments on that blog over the years – all in the public domain.
Today’s Comment was a response to a previous Comment.
This is what it said:
Hi Sherri…I worked as doorman/cashier/DJ at Le Strip from 1982-94.
I was hired by my ex-girlfriend (who danced under the stage name “Black Magic”) as a result of a chance meeting with she and her boyfriend (soon to become husband) outside of McDonald’s in the summer of 1982.
At the time she and her boyfriend had a management agreement with Don Cullen where they would handle the day to day running of the club and she would appear once a month to perform there. At the time she was one of the highest paid strippers in Canada and could command a weekly fee anywhere in Canada that was hard to believe.
I can attest that the “spy story” you mentioned was indeed true and involved one of Le Strip’s DJ’s named Grant Bristow.
Grant became a vital undercover CI for CSIS during a lengthy investigation into the neo-Nazi/extremist far right in the mid-80’s/mid-90’s as a result of a meeting between he and Heritage Front member Max French which occurred at Le Strip.
Grant’s undercover role was exposed by Toronto Sun reporter Bill Dunphy in the mid-90’s and the rest, as they say, was history.
There is a lot more to the backstory that I won’t get into here but I have been giving some thought to writing a memoir about it in the future.
Did you also know that the largest counterfeit money scheme in Canadian history also had its genesis at Le Strip (both in conception and later discovery by authorities)?
But that’s a story for another time.
CSIS is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Obviously I have asked for more details on what sounds like an interesting story.
I can only live in probably over-optimistic hope.
(IN FACT, MORE BACKGROUND WAS FORTHCOMING AND IT WAS POSTED IN THE NEXT DAY’S BLOG HERE…)
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 
Wow John Fleming…can I just say that Gencrafts AI has made a remarkably accurate rendition of “Black Magic” (perhaps a little on the chunky side)?
The only thing it got wrong is the gear she wore on stage was a simple black leather outfit with motorcycle chaps and cat-of-nine tails.
There used to be a life size photo of her wearing that outfit in the front door of Le Strip at street level visible to passersby.
I often wonder what became of it?