THE REAL MAGIC BEHIND THE LIMELIGHT CLUB

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THIS AND THAT

Bitching By: James Edstrom

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The Famed Limelight Nightclub

You know, it is amazing that these movie companies do these movies and do not even try to speak to the key players.

Today someone posted a comment on Facebook about the Limelight movie and I can only say I am in shock that no one from this movie company, Magnolia Pictures even contacted me.

I was there almost every night. I was in the VIP room with the stars. I watched the stars of today go into the back room for gay sex and I watched as the cocaine flowed right on the table in front of me. I watched certain stars who claim to be straight on there knees in the back sex room behind the VIP area, drugged out and more gay than I ever could be.

What is it with these producers that do not do their research. I took thousands of photos of every star there, every magical party and I supplied all the newspapers and magazines. I am the one that tipped off Musto about the Alig murder ( Though he would never admit that today). I was right there with John Carmen and Fred Rothbell Mista almost every night, and yes I was ripped out of my mind too. I planned every photo op with Claire O'Connor, and many nights I could not make it home and slept there. What a horror it was waking up the next day and walking out the back door and the sunlight ripped me apart.

The Limelight was magical. Peter Gatien's other clubs, like Tunnel or USA were great, but nothing compared to the Limelight.

John Carmen and Claire O'Connor along with the media made the Limelight famous, not Peter Gatien. They came up with every crazy idea to bring the media there and to keep them writing about the club. There were no rules and the more we wrote about the place, the more the public wanted to get in. There may have been thousand of people in the club, but it was our party, it was our magic and it was our time to live.We made Michael Alig famous, but we were the backbone of the party. Alig kept the drag queens flowing, but we kept the press coming in. We kept the Limelight in the newspapers and magazines and we kept the place on TV and this brought in the world. But we were the ones behind the scenes showing the world what we wanted them to see. No matter how wasted we all were, we were all like the magic in the wind. We knew publicity and we knew partying.

Every celebrities visit, no matter how innocent could be a scandal the next day in all the papers. We were that good. It is funny how these movie companies keep going to a few people that were a very small part of the Limelight and consider them experts. They have no idea how things really worked behind the scenes. It's always the same old people, who most of the time never made it past the velvet ropes into the VIP room.

I guess I am just old now, but nothing seems to be as fun. No club these days can compare to The Limelight, Palladium or Studio 54. The city went after the fun and they went after gay sex. Now New York City has no big clubs. The city has no more fun as I knew it. And I wonder why these movie companies don't reach out to the real people who knew what the Limelight was really all about. 

Drugs and Murder. The Limelight was just so much more. Soon we will all be dead and the secrets of the night will never be told.