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RMH 22: Interview with Scott Berkman

Scott Berkman

If you dine out in Fort Worth then you probably already know Scott. He’s an amazing server at Ellerbe Fine Foods and Waters Restaurant in Fort Worth. His impeccable service and vast knowledge of wine and food will make your dining experience unforgettable. So join us as we get to know a little more about Scott.

Episode Transcription: 

00:09
Welcome back to the show FORTituders. Today is our Father’s Day spectacular special and first filming Did you notice I did the like the queue right there for the video? We are currently we’re currently working on our video capabilities for the show. So, look forward to seeing that and how that looks with our sweet looking face. Who knew that Betamax was still alive and could be filmed in this format? You would not imagine my makeup on my face required to get on the show.

Father’s Day so what are your big plans? Steve Wilson. Love you. Thanks for being a good dad. Jody Payne. Thank you to the deceased George appreciate you being putting me here on this earth. And last but not least the old Bob Dyer. We lost him about a year and a half ago. But yeah, so Bob Dyer.

So yeah, thank you dads out there.

A couple big other news stories before our special guest today. I think we had a new mayor sworn in just recently is that correct? Yes, we did Tuesday evening, along with a host of new city council members and what a what a young and diverse group we have now. So, I think that the new mayor Mattie said it quite articulately, “It’s go time Fort Worth.” I heard that as well. Well, good luck. Mattie. Hope you do a heck of a job where we’re rooting for you. So go do your thing.

Yep. Also on the slat, Juneteenth now is now as of this week a new federal holiday and national federal holiday signed this past Thursday. Well, what make what makes this more relevant than just the incredible news that it is? Fort Worth’s own Opal Lee, 94 year, was at the White House for the signing of this. Opal Lee is an activist, very vocal activist back in 2016. Five years ago, she walked from Fort Worth, Texas to DC which is roughly 1400 miles to bring awareness in this regard. Surely not on a June or July day. Like today? I don’t know the day but regardless, even if it was 71 degrees, still incredible. Yes. As you know, Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of the slaves nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

What’s cool about this bill, it was a necessary thing. There’s also obviously lots of work to do, but this bill was sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats collectively, there was no fighting over this one. It was just like this is its time, and it got done so well. And if you want to know how that relates to us, which all things do come back to us is because I think that there was a movie that was made by one of our interviewees who ran against Betsy Pride or excuse me, against Mattie this last time. Deborah People’s daughter was the one who made a movie about I think it’s called Miss Juneteenth. So good job. We hope to have you on the show soon. I’ve reached out so hope to hear back if you’re not too busy marching, which is incredible feat as a woman her age, but keep it up. Sure. Lastly, on the agenda TCU lost its longtime baseball coach, Jim Schlossnagle, we’re gonna miss saying that name, but he went off to Texas A&M to coach down there, but they hired from within what do they do? whoop, whoop, yeah. Like that. Sorry, sorry, Patrick for the bad week, or McGee, but she did a really good thing they hired from within after announcing a national search and cut and hired assistant, Kirk’s Carlos SAR loss sorrows.

We also reached out to Carlos to come on the show as well, but he’s well loved. He’s a player’s coach. Everyone in town thinks that guy’s fantastically TCU but he is he’s been around a while. He’s been Schlossnagle’s assistant for some time. That’s good. I don’t know him that well, but I know he’s a good guys. I know some of his friends and they think he’s the bee’s knees. So, and now Brinton, the bee’s knees. What an expression so that’s a that’s a Father’s Day expression.

04:04
Yes, it is.

04:04
Now let’s get to our special guest. You’re going to love this guy’s name is Scott Berkman. So get ready to hold on tight. This guy’s this guy’s a trip. He’s a good guy, but he’s got a heck of a storyteller too. So here we go.

04:26
Okay, Brinton. Today we have a very special guests on fortitude. This guy you might say is a friend to Fort Worth. I say that because about everybody in Fort Worth, who dines or goes out knows this guy. He’s a very familiar face. He’s a lovely guy, a wonderful guy. He His name is Scott Berkman. Welcome to the show, Scott. Hello Scott. welcome you. You might know Scott from such places as LR B’s or waters or previously be star Louise. prior life, but there was somewhere before two,

05:03
I opened silver fox when I first got here, I think that’s where I’ve met you before as the first three and a half years and I worked at Easter Louise at the same time. Okay, I gave them a couple of nights and then I worked a few days at least drew

05:16
Yeah, every week

05:17
prior to prior to you prior to being in Fort Worth, though. You were a restauranter in the California and L.

05:23
Yep. Four restaurants in LA. Can you tell them yours? I had gone down to LA the whole Dallas crew that I used to hang out with we just all moved to LA just like single file in the mid 80s and did several TV shows and commercials and made a lot of money really quickly. A lot of partying really quickly

05:53
was a party and better here and that’s or it was dying down here. Start club got ready to LA we go. Yeah, you came to Fort Worth Something must have drawn you’d

06:03
love that was just coming back to family. I’d done I had done enough in LA I had my restaurants for 14 years. And and that was just babysitting. I mean owning for restaurants is it comes down to baby setting 188 employees, you know, every week with the phone calls, I can’t come in tonight. I can’t do that. And I’m just like, oh my god, I can’t do this anymore.

06:32
So what was the most the best excuse for not for that waitstaff not showing up to work or whomever was the best I

06:39
had Italian restaurant so I had a delivery drivers and I had in door dining. And the delivery drivers were all from Brazil. So they partied. And you know when you have you know 300 deliveries and a night at each restaurant, and then I’m down in Long Beach, catering Titanic or on I’m doing the 100 and 50th episode of friends or Hollywood Squares is on backend with Whoopi Goldberg and I would cater that I would be at different places or you know, if I went to the restaurant, the restaurant would get the call. They would call me or paged me back then we had pagers. And it was just it was just a bunch of kids but they’re from Brazil and they party and they go look for girls every night. Yeah, yeah, just like boys. Y’all got to make two or $300 you want to make a delivery to Robert De Niro who lived in Venice or still live there. I don’t know. Or w more or I mean, all the stars lived Sure. Marina Del Rey and Venice where I had one restaurant. And that’s the one restaurant that everybody always called into, like, I just can’t make it tonight. I’m like, Guys, you know? You can’t have it. This is boy back in the day when Morton Downey Jr. was on. Garrett was just getting big and, and he had a delivery like every night. And I’m like, you know, these guys are, you know, $20 tippers or two. A little kid from Brazil. That’s a lot of money’s Yeah, I would sometimes make enough money. And they’re like, I don’t have to work for the rest of the weekend and I made $300.08 you know, the paid the rent that another just gonna go play. So it was a pain in the ass and it became just babysitting. Yeah. So you come home to Fort Worth, for family reasons. Well, it came out well, in 1999 I was up on the roof of the restaurant with an air conditioning guy. And we had swamp coolers actually in Marina Del Rey in Venice. They have those in Lubbock too. Sorry. That’s a shame. Um, but I I was going back down and kind of climbing on the the burglar bars of the back door. I had two back entrances. And the door just slipped. I just remember grabbing for the gutter because I just had a new blacktop asphalt put in my my back driveway. And I just looked down and I saw that I was gonna hit hard. And me being as vain as I am. I know down. I looked down to see how far I had to go. And of course that’s what I impacted but I was trying to roll because I did Baywatch years and years ago and they taught you how to roll around you fall on the sand. It’s hard. Yeah. And they taught me and I I rolled but I kept looking down to see how far I went and I just done. I mentioned earlier the friends 150th episode catering and I had 100/50 show hat from friends and there was only like, you know, 100 of them made, or 200. And that was my prized possession then so that went into my forehead and hairline. And of course, it was stuck in there and there was, there was shit. There was like very matter and gray matter and all kinds of stuff. So, my employees kind of saw me fall and rushed me to the hospital and I fed everybody at the hospital. So they’re like, my place was called Mama’s back then. Mama’s original pizza and pasta. And they were like, Mama’s here, Mama’s here, that went rushing in. It was like, save that hat. Just save that hat. They’re like, there’s brain matter on there. We can’t do that at all. Yeah, it was awful. And that is when I decided I’m gonna just, you know, go home. I was I was down for about a month. And my mom flew out and took care of me. That’s what moms do. And I just decided, you know, I had enough. I was gonna buy a fifth restaurant, and I thought I’d just like, spread too thin. Yeah, I’m Jewish. I kind of go to each restaurant every night and pick up the daily receipts and the deposits and all that. And I’m like, I just can’t do this anymore. And I was just tired. After 14 years, I was tired. That month, probably gave you your down. And it probably gave you that time to just feel like doing

11:36
the phone calls. And I still woke up at three o’clock in the morning. Oh, I forgot to order sweet low, I forgot to use that there’s lemons on the back, third shelf down in the walk end that we need to rotate out. But I just my mind was always going yeah, I was just like, just take a breath, you know, these people. It would have just driven me. Sure. Even more drugs than I did. And everything else. So now I know. Now. So you went to deputy white High School, Dallas, families living in Dallas as a kid you’re born and raised in Dallas. And then my move, my mom moved to Las Vegas in the early 80s. And kind of left me and my brother on our own. He had just started with the Zales Corporation and then later moved to Neiman Marcus and ran precious gems at Neiman Marcus for 17 years. then transferred him here to Fort Worth. So once my brother had started having children in the 80s mom kind of got her shit together and kind of came home to nanny, my brother’s kids, my niece and my nephew. And I thought, you know, I’m just gonna move to Miami. Oh, just another? Yeah, why not? Just relax? Exactly. And I thought, you know what, Scott, just go right in the middle, go home. So I came to Fort Worth. And I thought, you know, I’m three and a half hours anywhere I want to fly, I can go play in New York or go to a splendid weekend in Miami or go back to LA or do whatever I want. I’m right in the middle of the country. And I took off about a year and a kind of semi retired and I thought after about a year and three or four months, I was like, Oh, I can’t do this. Yeah. So I went to Silver Fox, a friend of mine said that there was a restaurant opening. And I thought, well, this is okay, I want to keep my toe in the water. I just don’t want to have to swim. I want to be able to go home and go to sleep. without waking up at three o’clock in the morning thinking, Oh, I forgot this lady’s lemon squeeze on a hot tea or whatever. Used to wake me up and I didn’t have the orders. And I didn’t have the employees calling in. I didn’t have 188 people. Depending on me, I had me I slept at night, I woke up I went to work. I only worked about 20 hours a week I still work about 20 hours a week. And and then I’ll take off if I get really tired. I’ll take off for a month. Next month. Next year. I’m going to be out of the country for three months just to play and to go travel and do what I want to do. We’ll get to that traveling here in just a bit. Want from Silver Fox you go to beast or Louise Beestro work there at the same time did lunches at Bistro and maybe a couple of dinners if I had requests or call parties as we call them in the business. Then each restaurant knew that I was becoming very popular because I’m the guy that would tell you dirty jokes at the table and I was the guy that that knew your kids. I mean they were you were pregnant at one time and I’ve grown with your children. And so it was very popular I suppose. I still am You’re just me. But if I had a call party at one restaurant, I would call or the manager would call the other manager and was like, we really need him tonight. We’ve got the congressman coming in, or we’ve got to whoever used to go into Bistro Louise, we had everybody. So they would say, I would really want Scott, we’ve got a guest in from out of town, and we want them to be entertained. And not just Hello, sir. Sit down. I’m your server, blah, blah, blah. They want fun. Yeah, have fun. Yeah, they want a little dirty joke here and there. And they want they don’t want just somebody with a towel over their arm just saying Yes. How may I serve you? And you know, it’s my pleasure and all that I’m like, yeah, you really don’t want that. It’s, you know, it’s not my favorite thing. It’s like this and, and I know what my people eat. And I’m like, you would like the sauce. You wouldn’t want this you would want, you know, the side. The starch to be different or the protein is too rich for you or whatever. I mean, I know you guys. I’m young. I fed you guys for years. So that’s kind of

16:05
one of the things that endears you to a lot of people in this town is that you take a leap it a little more attention to what your craft in it’s absolutely incredible because you’ve made a long list of friends in this town some pretty highfalutin people if I might add Mayor price, one of them a friend of the show. Who else who is your pills you become friends with

16:26
the blackmun’s are my my other family. All their children, all their house parties way back when Debbie Blackman when she and Greg were still married now it’s Tiffany, love you Tiffany. But there was a time when this woman walked into the store Louise and she was wearing a mink cape, and a denim skirt and cardi a stilettos. Well, who knew cardi a made stilettos and I’m just like, Who is this pitch kind of fabulous. And she had a raspy voice and then she’s like, I there’s something about you I like and I was like, there’s everything about you that I like a match made in heaven. And she was on a regatta and you know everybody the there’s the ship sank that she was on and she you know, people were jumping off of the the raft and getting eaten by sharks. And she made it and I thought she was the most fascinating person and started doing their parties. And in turn, people that went to her parties would come see me at the restaurant and and I would start doing their parties and their families would be starting and and so it’s been kind of fun. It’s so that’s how podcasts work. We’re told Yeah, for sure. The Domino. Yeah. When did lrvs begin for you? lrB. My 11th anniversary was the first of June. So I’ve been there 11 years

17:55
still enjoying it still enjoying the atmosphere love what I do. I love what I do. What do you have to I was gonna wait on this. But now I mean, it’s it’s because you’re talking about so many of the positives of the of this industry. What do you say to all the kids sitting on the couch right now are not coming back to the service industry and working? I mean, what do you What’s your take on that? Turn around

18:15
and bite them in the butt because I we reopened. We closed March 13 like everybody else. And then may 7 right before Mother’s Day last year. We started back up with curbside and things like that. Well, I didn’t do curbside and I I’m older two to three times older than the kids that work at lrB. And I said, you know, whoever’s got kids, whoever’s got a family, whoever’s got a wife, please give these shifts to them. You can make tips on curbside and this that the other. So when they opened the restaurant back up, it was just Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, just for a few hours or a couple of hours actually. And half the tables were out of the restaurant. And I would still get called parties. And I was like, well, I just moved my mother in the my condo. And about 10 years ago, and she’s a little bit older. I’m getting a little bit older, even though I’ve lasted and lived through nine pandemics. You know, if Corona tried to come in my body would just be like, hell, we don’t have a chance. He’s lived through everything. So I finally went back and did call parties. Little by little. And then I would do curbside at waters downtown for john Darnell. On Sundays. Oh, yeah, that was popular. And my customers john by Dale’s restaurant was really long lines. It was like, you know, an hour in the line and it was like three miles down the road and people were waiting for for curbside and my customer would call and say hey, can’t you get us up in the line and I was like, just come to waters. We got the same food. They’d get out. line drive to waters be there for six minutes, get the exact same food and get me fat. I mean, I’m not stupid. I’m still doing this. It’s all about the tips. And I could share that with the people that I was working curbside booth to sure you could. Well, really good. And it was fun for me because then I get people, you know, coming all the way from, you know, South Fort Worth Yeah, yeah, to downtown. And they’d be home in the in less time that they’d still be sitting in line over abon ELLs. So they were like, well, let’s just come to you from now on every Sunday. And I was like, cool.

20:36
in the, in the highlight before the you know, the restful period. What was the craziest night at lrvs? Oh, craziest night, you probably get those call parties where you’re like, I know this is gonna be kind of

20:52
crazy. Yeah, well, we had a buy out for some of my favorite customers that were just in a few weeks ago. And it was just 15 of them and renaming names at this point. That we do have one of those buttons that can bleed. Now I’m not going to name names like that, but but they they drank very fine, very fine wine. And the party was fantastic. And it was just me and them. And like I said I could tell dirty jokes. And people were just people that were guests of theirs just looked at me like where did this guy come for up, they’re just listening to the stories and, and the dirty jokes and the the performance of whatever I do when I go to work. And they’re like, this guy’s Great. So that in turn, gives me more customers and more Cheryl parties to come here. And they’re going to do another party with me. They told me three weeks ago, in a couple of months for his big birthday. Like take I think he turned 60 Yeah, that was that was a big one for narrative down now. Yeah. So

22:01
and I’m going to narrow it down further. Because this may not have been that but best tip of your life and like party of how many?

22:10
The best tip of my life was $2,744 What happened? It was a law firm. And their bill only came out to 7530 something dollars and they had a $10,000 budget and a $10,000 check already pre made to silver foxes of silver fox estates. And yeah 2008

22:39
so there’s a lot to Scott Berkman as we know him here in front of us. Yeah, there’s more than just meets the eye though. We’ve been hearing about this this person that this? I think her name is ginger, her name have you. Have you heard of ginger? Do you know about this person,

22:54
she is my evil twin. She comes out on on vacations, and I am the ground arm of of many trips. And I do go all over the world. I’m going to start going back to work in October. And I will be in Key West and Jamaica and Cayman Islands. And Cozumel. In October and early November. What does ginger do for her profession teachers just kind of fantastic. I mean, it’s all custom costumes and very think very share and JLo. And she’s got a little older now so she doesn’t do exactly what he used to be able to do. So now I’m kind of the grand and the ambassador for the group that I go with which is about 250 to 300 people Wow. In each trip so we take over either half of the cruise line or we will go to a resort and take over the whole resort. And it’s my job to go make people come to see the show because it’s private for us and free for us and our group. But people see the entertainers and they’re like well we want to come to the next show and we’re like okay, well it’s 20 bucks a head and it’s this than the other and bring cash to tip and all this shit in free and it just happened so 1984 when I started this so we

24:34
save in a world all over the world with with ginger all over the world. So traveling white isn’t is not an open no see craziest locale night there. You can just say locale You don’t even have to explain what happened.

24:46
Puerto Vallarta Are they out is some of our Mexico game. Yeah, yeah, Palm Springs where they are to great times and great time. Everywhere Where’s your favorite place you’ve ever been? Cayman Island? came into your mind. Or mme, that’s where your bank account is for all the tips 30,000 money right now. Yeah, we looked at a really bad experience with with money and cash

25:14
Yeah, we just learned before Scott went on air that he got robbed a few days ago in his house by the cleaning possible clean lady.

25:22
No no conduct the probable cleaning lady probably I don’t have other people come into the upstairs part of my house, right? Unless they’re staying over. And that hasn’t happened in a while. We’re getting into that.

25:36
We’re gonna backtrack a little bit. But back in, in the Vegas days, you tend to you know, V, prior to Union u and T here in town, but you you were frequent droves of the Star Club, the Star Club, club, excuse

25:49
me, our club was earlier earlier. Now I’m sorry, it wasn’t. Vegas was earlier, what had happened was in the 70s, Cher was very popular, and I’m this little gay guy. And I’m just like a watsonian chair and I my mom had long dark hair. And I was really confused when I was little. And I thought, well, my mom is in the living room in the kitchen. But I’m in the back of the house in the office watching Sonny and Cher so I’d run down the hallway and and have to look to see how my mom was on TV. And in the kitchen. At the same time I was really confused. So at one point when segregation and busing was happening, and we were being taken out of our our schools, and and shipped to other schools. My mother and father decided I’ll go live with my dad over by northpark Mall. And so I moved in with my dad and former military correct. He was former military but he ran another jewelry company, maybe your jewelry company at the time and and his friends were were like, my godfather was gemelli from gemelli Oldsmobile and Bruce lane who invented the Slurpee. These are my dad’s best friends. So there was always money, and my dad had a white silvercloud Rolls Royce. But he had flown up to Lake texoma where we have a boat every weekend we would go up there. Well this weekend I decided to stay home and share was opening in Las Vegas after the divorce after Sonny and Cher had gone off the air. And that Rolls Royces in the carport. And I thought well I got to go to Dallas Love Field is only you know, six miles away and so I got some cash and I just took the the Rolls Royce to Love Field and by the Southwest Airlines Flight at the counter at the counter because you could do that back then and didn’t have to show ID You didn’t have to do all that you just bought a ticket you got on a plane you went anywhere. Got in a taxi went to Caesar’s Palace mapped out. You know where Circus Maximus was back then this wasn’t the Caesars that we have today. It was just a big w shaped big thing. big hotel with the fountain that evil Knievel had just jumped over before and so it was a smaller place. And then I saw the tickets were like 1750 and 237 50 shoe drinks included. And I was like well, I can’t afford that I don’t have enough money. So I went to law firm in town you would have. So I went poking around Caesars Palace, and I found the kitchen entrance. And then I’ve just walked through the kitchen and all of a sudden there was these red velvet curtains. And I looked inside and it was the Circus Maximus theater. And I thought, Oh, well, I could just sneak in the kitchen and just go pick out by my seat. First one in the center stage. The tables came off of the stage and I was like, Oh, this is fantastic. I’ll be right in front of the stage and she’ll be right there and and

29:31
then I got caught.

29:33
They were starting to let people in to the Circus Maximus theater. And of course there’s security up front and all the hostesses are the waitresses, you know, dressed like I Dream of Jeannie. We’re like what do you This is my table I didn’t know about tables and sections and this that and the other. Back then I was 1312 I don’t know what I was and They were like, Well, you can’t sit here, where are your parents? And I was like, Oh, well, I’m here, you know, by myself, and they relate. So they went back up the stairs and passed all the big red boots that were there, you know, the tufted boots and security was coming down. And there were these two black ladies that were sitting on the side of the stage, the wings of the stage, and they’re like, Hey, boy, boy, come here. And it turned out to be the the aunts of one of the dancers, Demeter, Joe, and we became friends that night, and for 20 years after that, and they pulled me up on stage, and there was an extra chair on the wings of the stage behind the long red velvet curtains. And so I sat on stage that people never saw me again, that were down on the floor waiting tables, because I was covered by these curtains. And, and so I watched the show from side stage. And then a waiter was born, as well. A waiter was born. But a little little gay guy got to go back into Sherry’s dressing room, and with with a dancer and the ants, and Cher came out of her bathroom, and a little pink terry cloth, shower velcroed thing, pull it a wig on, but just beaming and the makeup that she wore was just shiny and everything was just shiny and everything was slow motion and chastity was in the corner. Well now it’s Chazz, potassium was in the corner playing a little white baby grand piano. And so I kind of walked over and sat next to chassis and I’m like, hey, chastity, hi. And we started playing, you know, just playing the piano a little bit. And she was like, Who is this guy? This kid. And her manager comes over and starts talking to me. And she just wanted to make sure because I told him my story that I can my dad’s car and I bought a plane ticket, I came just to see show and he’s like, this is not good. But like I said, back in the day, you just did, you could do things like that. But share wanted to make sure that I was okay, she got my home address, she made sure that her manager Billy Sabbath who just passed recently followed up and made sure that I got home. And that 10 days later, I got this huge package in the mail. And it was, you know, 208 by 10s of share and a tour jacket, and a backpack from back in the day. So every Thanksgiving, me and my dad would go back to Vegas, because Cher always played around Thanksgiving and and we went to red fox and Anne Marie back in the day and and Margaret was there. And this was just the heyday of Vegas. And Cher was there and we could always go backstage. And you know my dad back in the day was not the most PC guy. But he’s I don’t want to go see the Indian saying in and bla bla bla. And finally when he walked back into her dressing room, he was just like I he was Tongue Tied and stand and he is like, I cannot believe that you brought me here. And here we are in her dressing room. And I was like, Oh, just relax. Dad has to share. And so it’s very funny. So we kept in touch and and through my time in LA years later. She would donate things to elton john had a charity. And the AIDS Foundation that I was heavily a part of would would do raffles and silent auctions and things like that. So I would just call Billy service office and say, Hey, I need you know this or that or whatever from share. And she retained something and send it over and it could be auctioned off for a couple of grand and so it was my my give back in my contribution back to. I mean, he was crazy, then, by the time I got to LA

34:35
but I just I made a life long friend. Pretty much. Yeah,

34:41
that’s a great story. Sure. Thank you for sharing. And we’ll be here Brandon. We just give him a mic and let him know. You need your own podcast told you. I got tails today. Oh, yeah. More questions. We’ll let you go, Scott. That you mentioned the start club and there’s a radio talk about Keith Scott

34:57
that what year it was my God. We were all doing So much shit. like dancing, just Yes, yeah, dancing. Yeah, that’s it. Um, but I was there the famous Night of the raid. I remember going, it was very windy night. And I remember the long white curtains just blowing in the breeze and I went in, we were having a good time we went downstairs to the debt was called the dungeon. And we were doing bad things in the bathroom to each other and to ourselves. And this is gonna be our best show ever. There were TVs in the bathroom stalls, I remember that. And there would be six or seven of us in a stall doing, you know what we were doing. And then the raid happened. Although the music stopped, the lights came up, we ran out into the dungeon. And the police were like everybody up against the wall, don’t look at us. And they kind of gave everybody a free pass. By this time they’d moved everybody upstairs to the dance floor was the dungeon part. And then there was backrooms as well. But we were downstairs and they made everybody go up the stairs and face the wall. And they said no questions asked, no matter what you have in your pockets that shouldn’t be in your pockets, ecstasy, cocaine, whatever it was back in the heyday of coke and everybody had little amber bottles. I mean, we didn’t do baggies that was for chassis people. So they were like a class system of drug Exactly. There was there actually was back then. Um, but they said no questions asked whatever you have in your pocket. If your ecstasy was in a baggie or whatever, throw it over your shoulder. If you have a coke or whatever crystal was big back then and and they said just throw it over your shoulder. All you could hear with is Tink Tink Tink Tink Tink Tink Tink Tink 1000 no one in there didn’t reach for there. Oh, hell no, no, nobody. You can go in that place sober. And that’s all you heard for about three minutes. It was it was ear shattering all the amber bottles just. It was crazy. It was actually crazy. And then we all got choked out the front door and I think start club was closed and then reopened. Not long after that, but I kind of it was not the same. Yeah, and, and kids don’t do drugs.

37:35
Alright, so besides what you just described, which may have been the answer this question, what was the best day of your life? I mean, even this year to

37:42
know. Oh, God, I’ve had so many experiences, guys. I mean, honestly, I don’t have a favorite day. I honestly don’t probably when I was a little kid and walked into chairs dressing room was not just arrested. Um, yeah, I mean, some was on your side that day. Yeah, her name is Cher. And I was really lucky. Um, and then I was friends with her for years and years and years. And I mean, I don’t have the sway that I have now. And but I’m, I’m, I’m kind of emulator when I do go on the cruises or we take over a resort or a hotel or whatever, in some faraway land. You know, I can do my part. Yeah. And that was at repulse Dragon Con, you know, not last year, because it was COVID. But the year before that, and everybody knew who gender was. And so it was, it was fun. I mean, all the stars are RuPaul drag race near me too. And I was like, Well, I’m around. I’ll still be around, just like share.

38:50
Well, Scott Berkman, thank you for joining us. Where can people find you?

38:54
Usually Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. And then I go have cocktails around the city. So

39:03
if you don’t know Scott Berkman make a point to go meet him. He’s fascinating, as you probably just heard, but he’s worth knowing he’s a good dude and we everybody loves you in this town. So thank you for the time.

 

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