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| Ecdysiasts and some male friends at the Admiral Pub - 22 August 2026 |
Tonight I
had the distinct pleasure of going to en ecdysiast (look it up) reunion at the
Admiral Pub in Burnaby that was formerly called the North Burnaby Inn. Premier
Glen Clark had debacle associated with involving having someone work on his
deck.
There is
another interesting story of a handsome Vancouver poet Michael Turner selling a
local version of the Brooklyn Bridge to the man who ran the pub, Tony Ricci. I
wrote about that here.
While I am
about to be 84, for some of the dancers there last night I had a hard time
recognizing. While younger that I am they were not spring chickens.
Present was
the most important Gary Taylor who was singly responsible for generating what
became an extremely active (famous around the world) exotic dancer activity in
Vancouver. Sometime in the late 70s he opened a pub on Granville Street called
The Castle. He served very good hamburgers and beer while the men indulging
could watch women taking it all off. The city deemed this pornographic and
closed it down. Taylor went to the British Columbia Supreme Court and won. The
rest is history.
The event
was well organized by dancer Belinda Jocelyn. She ever arranged for an area
that had boards with pictures of dancers in their prime and some posters from
the joints that gave them the well paying work.
In my view
these dancers were superb and although I never did drink beer, I thought that
soda water and, women taking their clothes off, was a perfect combination.
Best of all
some situations are far better this century that in the last one. I went home
and had Rosemary been around she would not have complained about me smelling of
cigarette smoke.
