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The Salmon Awards

Spawning was the perfect metaphor for Les Nickelettes. We were always hatching new ideas, and continually giving birth to new members who embraced our off-the-wall sensibilities. The dauntless annual swim upstream of the salmon also seemed to match our struggle up the raging river of show biz – always going against the current. When we decided to produce our own “Oscar-like” show it felt natural to adopt these two metaphors, and so, The Salmon Awards were born. As I describe in Anarchy in High Heels, we started out thinking we would spoof the awards by giving ourselves trophies. But that was too self-indulgent. We hit on the idea of rewarding the people behind the scenes that made our zany escapades possible. So, we bought second-hand trophies, decorated them with glitter, sequins, and feathers, and passed them out at a faux award ceremony to producers, journalists, set designers, costumers, graphic designers, composers, and back stage crew who helped us during our swim upstream. But in the book many details about this annual event had to be cut out.

In a 1977 Berkeley Barb article titled, “Salmon Eggs”, Nickelette member Ellin Stein wrote this insight into the annual event: 

If the Salmon Awards sounds like an intensely in-group cult phenomenon, it is. But the audience is as much a participant in the event as the winners or performers. The Nickelettes are not only a women’s group, they are a feminine group. That is, their creativity springs very much from the feminine principle. Thus, instead of being only an object piece to be judged and evaluated by the audience, Nickelette shows are also a process which depends on the rapport created between audience and performer. The audience must be prepared to give something rather than just watch passively.

Or, put another way, by outsider Sandra Rider, Call Board, 1978:

The need to placate the audience with psycho-social messages and droll comic patter is absent. And it is that same disregard for audience approval which made me a friend of the Nickelettes. It was refreshing to see performers unconfined by substance, form, theme, or for that matter, talent. Their primary message remains: ‘Who cares! Have a good time!’ 

Like Sandra Rider suggests, The Salmon Awards got a reputation in the underground counterculture that it was a rollicking party not to be missed. After swimming upstream all year, these girls were ready to SPAWN! But it was also a performance-art kind of event where the recipients of the awards were moved, touched, and/or truly honored. Jan Edwards, one of our costumers commented: “It was the first and only awards I’ve ever received in my life for anything.”

Of course, Les Nickelettes always kicked off the show with the signature song and dance routine: “Come to the Salmon Awards”: 

What good is sitting at home on your ass

Playing with yourself all day

Go play with someone else just once

Come to the Salmon Awards

…The Nicks have been around for about 10 years

And lots of times it’s been only doubts and fears,

But mostly all this weirdness gets us high.

Though there are times we hate each other,

The audience is filled with zombies,

The critics think we stink,

And we wonder why?

Through are hands the money isn’t flowing

In spite of that, something keeps us crowing.

Are we just building swimming pools in the sky?

Or were our friends right from the start,

Could it be that this is art?

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb

Virtue is its own reward.

You’ve been wasting time my friends

Life isn’t worth a dime my friends

‘Till you’ve won a Salmon Award.

The audience reacted with raucous shouts of “Spawn!”

Over the years, interspersed between the presentation of awards, Les Nickelettes brought in well-known, and up-and-coming acts from our counterculture tribe to perform at the event.  Paul Krassner (publisher of the satirical rag The Realist) performed his stand-up comedy routine, The Fabulous Frambesi Sisters (Nickelette Priscilla and her gay friend in drag) did a parody of ‘40s female duets, Sharon McNight debuted her cabaret chanteuse act. Scrumbly Koldwyn (from The Cockettes) brought his new group The Distractions who were a huge hit with their eclectic eight-part harmony and twisted take on reality, not to mention a bit featuring Nickelette Jane Huether singing Stormy Weather in French); Ral Pheno (sometimes described as a Godfather of punk rock) pounded out on his guitar the demented tune I’m On the Ward Again from his Greatest Fits record; and Leila the Snake (Jane Dornacker) disguised as an demented bag lady sang Getting Rid of Your Baby, an irreverent satire on the sappy Paul Anka top 40 hit of the time, Having My Baby. There was also comedienne Carrie Snow, Duck’s Breath Mystery Theatre, and Sando Counts (aerialist from The Pickle Family Circus) who stole one show with a tightrope act that featured enlisting volunteers from the audience to anchor both ends of his huge rope. Later in the show Sando did a brilliant performance of a couple dancing a waltz to classical music. Except it wasn’t a couple, it was Sando in a masked suit and a cleverly devised marionette that was attached to Sando in a way that looked like a live dance partner.

We gave names to the awards that both parodied and described the intended recipient. Some of my favorites: The Tanya Hearst Memorial Journalist Award, The Louis B. Mayer Mogul Award, The Rocketfeller Space Cadet Achievement in Corporate Leadership Award, The Pat Nixon “Good Taste is Timeless” Award, The Larry Flynt Achievement in Publishing Award. And, The Martyr of the Year Award, which went to the Nickelette who whined loudest about how much she suffered for her art. I recall I won three times.

The annual Salmon Award event was our biggest fundraiser of each year. Once we got non-profit status (1976), we were able to augment ticket receipts with revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages. Members of the board of directors took on bartender duties, and hawked to thirsty patrons a potent concoction of vodka, rum, with just a dash of fruit punch, we dubbed: “Jungle Juice.”  The sign above the bar, featuring a fish merrily jumping up river, guaranteed that downing multiple glasses would lead to spectacular spawning. Revelers responded by emptying the punch bowl. For us, the additional revenue spawned deposits into the Nickelette coffer – all for the preservation of the species.

The audience came to participate in the annual Salmon Awards not just watch passively. And although it was a Les Nickelettes inside joke, the audience got to feel they were in on it.

The array of awards before the ceremony. An award recipient (in disguise).

STORIES LEFT OUT

Denise LarsonLeave a comment

Ms. Hysterical Contest – 1975

Les Nickelettes at the Mabuhay Gardens 1975

In the 1950s and 1960s the annual Miss America Pageant was huge. Young girls all over America tuned in to see who would become the fairest of them all. We were told this was the highest achievement any woman could hope for, the ultimate honor; to be declared the prettiest, the most talented, the sexiest woman in a swimsuit in all of America. I tuned in every year to raptly listen to Bert Parks sing; 

            There she is, Miss America

            There she is, your ideal

And I dreamed that someday I could be up on that stage being crowned the most beautiful woman in America. “An American fairytale came true,” crowed Bert

The second-wave feminists of the late ‘60s blew the whistle on this deceptive dream and called it out as sexist and racist. In 1969, outside the pageant venue in Atlantic City, women libbers protested by throwing false eyelashes, bras, girdles, and curlers into a trashcan. They wanted to set it on fire but the police said they didn’t have a permit. Still, the myth persisted that these wild women burned their bras in protest. The establishment was aghast. How could these women criticize something as American as apple pie? This was the spark for my feminist awakening. 

And it provided a rich parody for Les Nickelettes. In our debut at the Mabuhay Gardens in 1975 we introduced “The Semi-Annual, Bi-Weekly Ms. Hysterical Contest”.

Our version features host Bert Farts introducing the Ms. Hysterical contestants: Ms. Stake, Ms. Conception, Ms. Information, Ms. Behave, Ms. Begotten, Ms. Understood, and the outgoing Ms. Hysterical— Ms. Laid. I played Ms. Stake and performed a talent culled from a cartoon of Jules Feiffer: Dance to Spring.

Bert Farts (one of our troupe in male drag) presides over the talent portion of the contest. “Ms. Stake’s talent is interpretive dance,” announces Bert to the audience.

“My Dance to Life is a poetic interpretation of life itself, Bert,” says Ms. Stake breathlessly as she launches into her piece:   

Life is a never-ending stream of consciousness. 

            …Up the mountains, down the valleys, up the mountains, 

down the valleys, up the mountains, down the valleys, 

until finally, ta da . . . death!” 

She ends by falling dramatically prone and lifeless on the stage floor.

“Very poignant, Ms. Stake,” remarks Bert. “Next, is Ms. Conception, who will sing a song.”

“Thank you, Bert,” says Ms. Conception. “My song is called ‘The Birth Control Blues’”

I tried the pill they said it was the way, 

Take a pill at breakfast and you can screw all day

But the pill made me fat, and gave me blood clots, too

So I got me a diaphragm, guess that’s the safest thing yet

But oh, it’s slimy, and easy to forget

‘Cuz when I see you, honey, you know I sure get wet

“Very slick, Ms. Conception,” comments Bert. “Next up, is Ms. Behave from No No Nevada.” 

Ms. Behave plasters a smile on her face as she sings (to the tune of “Has Anybody Seen my Gal?):

I’m 5’ 2”

Eyes of brown

Horniest woman there is around

Does anybody need Ms. Behave? 

Could she blow?  Could she suck?  

Could she, could she, could she fuck? 

The music speeds up and Ms. Behave grabs a jumping rope and sticks a kazoo in her mouth and proceeds to jump rope while simultaneously playing the kazoo.

“Multi-talented to say the least,” observes Bert. “Now we have Ms. Understood who is proud to have no ambition.”

“This is dedicated to Ritchie Valens,” Ms. Understood tells the audience. “Too fast to live and too young to die!” (To the tune of “Java Jive”):

Give me cocaine and give me speed 

And give me lots of that old evil weed

Uppers and downers they give me a thrill

 Pop a, pop a, pop a, pop a pill.   

“Very interesting Miss Understood,” says Bert. “Maybe we can meet in the alley behind the theater after the show? Now, let’s welcome Miss Information from Washington, D.C. Exactly what do you do?”

“I’m reluctant to scatter dirt after it’s all been neatly swept under the rug but I just had to leak those damning documents. I wrote this little song after Watergate. (To the tune of the Rolling Stones “It’s Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)”:

If I should dig down deep in my file

Spill it all over the stage

Would it satisfy you, would it slide on by you

Would you think the girl’s insane, she’s insane 

I know it’s only espionage but I like it. 

I know it’s only sabotage but I like it, like it, yes I do …

“Sounds like a CIA plot, Ms. Information,” comments Bert.

“Thank you, Bert. And, by the way, I read your file, and I will not reveal that nasty incident in Morocco in 1955.”

“Okay, Miss know-it-all.” Bert says dismissively. “Get out of here!” 

“And Finally, we have Ms. Begotten, as the wrangler cowgirl Farfa Knout: “This contest is fixed, it’s rigged,” puffs Ms. Begotten. “And I have as much chance of winning as a fart does in a windstorm in hell. Anyway, here is my song”:  

I’m an old cow turd from a grand old turd

And I don’t give a damn 

If I smell like spam

Bert puts his arm around Ms. Begotten. “Shit fire, you’re a real down home gal, Farfa.”   “Now let’s bring out the reigning Ms. Hysterical, Ms. Laid, who will relinquish her crown tonight.”

“Don’t count on it, Bert,” replies Ms. Laid.

“Tell the audience” continues Bert, “How does it feels to be the most glamorous girl in America.”

“My greatest thrill was servicing America’s military men,” answers Ms. Laid as she launches into her song (tune of “Man o’ War”): 

When he advances, can’t keep him back

So systematic is his attack

All my resistance bound to crack. . .

His bayonet makes me cry for aid

Oh, how he handles his hand grenade

He’s my man ‘o war 

“You’re the real deal, Ms. Laid!” says Bert. “Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the musical chair competition to choose the new Ms. Hysterical.”

            We never plan in advance who will win, so the game is for real. The contestants push, shove, elbow each other in the face, pull chairs out from one another, and any other trick that will win them the coveted seat in the last chair. After the winner is announced Ms. Laid refuses to relinquish the crown, and runs offstage with Bert hot on her heels, “Give me that crown, you bitch!” 

The left-behind contestants decide to reject the contest. When a battered Bert returns with the crown no one wants it. “But every girl in America wants to be Ms. Hysterical,” says a shaken Bert.

“No they don’t!” yell the contestants. Bert withers, then suddenly, straightens, and strips off his suit to reveal a silver lame swimsuit underneath, and shoves the crown on his head.

Les Nickelettes made fun of this “beauty meat market” in 1975, but none of us foresaw the dwindling influence and dramatic shifts that would occur within the pageant in the years and decades to come.