San Francisco, You're History! :
A Chronicle of the Politicians, Proselytizers, Paramours, and Performers Who
Helped Create California's
Wildest City
by
J. Kingston Pierce
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $11.96
You Save: $2.99 (20%)
Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours.
Paperback - 304 pages (June 1995)
Sasquatch Books; ISBN: 157061007X ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.60 x 5.98 x 9.06
 












other comments on Lisa's murder

Fadil



 The Gilded Serpent Presents...
The North Beach Memories of
Shamira

Interviewed with Amina at Amina's house

Shamira/Marsha's Job at Finnochio's

Finnochio's , a local transvestite cabaret show popular with tourists, called Amina asking for a female impersonator to do a bellydance show during the week that another performer had off. Amina was known in the area as a teacher of Bellydance. Amina had a plan, this was too good a job to pass up. She wasn't tall enough to pass as a man, so she enlisted Marsha. Marsha had just started her professional career. Marsha talked with Mrs. Finnochio on the phone, she was a really great lady. "We won't tell anyone what we are will we!" Marsha met all kinds of men there. Cross-dressers, Transvestites, transsexuals, young , old, business men in the day, gay or straight.


Laura, one of the performers and Finnochio's, would come to the Bagdad to pick up men. She was a master of make-up. Musicians would laugh when she used the women's bathroom.

Finnochio's was very professional about their format. Cards in the dressing rooms stating exactly when you would go on. Finale parade at end. The only other woman in show was the Mistress of Ceremonies.

In the dressing room, the corner was full of foam where the performers would go after they dressed to stuff there bras and behinds. Behind the scene the other performers knew she was a woman. It didn't matter to them, it kept the audience guessing.

All acts were short, 5-7 min. Many varieties of acts- singers, dancers, John Compton did his tray act, like a vaudeville variety show, with an old type flavor.

Ann

An example of a typical audience reaction to Marsha's show would be: a male audience member-"that was a beautiful man!", his wife then hits man saying "That was no man!"

At Finnochio's a dancer made $100 a night, across the street you only made $20.

Ann Barden danced for $17.50-- undercutting other people. She later became a Moony. (The cult of Sun Mung Moon)

Another Murder-Marsha's friend Lisa

Lisa Miller was a dancer at the Bagdad and a single mother. She lived in Park Merced. Her daughter Kristen was her whole life. Amina's kid's, Cathy and Susu used to babysit for her. She met a Turkish guy, Hassan Ogen, who was a friend of Jalal's. She wouldn't go out with him at first, but he won her heart by buying presents for her daughter.

They had a stormy relationship. She decided to move to San Diego and work for her brother. Hassan followed her there, they still didn't get along. He began stalking her. Rumor says he burned down the club she was working in. She lost many costumes. She had him arrested , but never really got much protection from the police. He would break into her house and go through her things.

Marsha and her boyfriend Craig went down there and had her buy bars for her windows. The night he was released from jail. Marsha sent Lisa and Kristen to her mother's house, while Marsha and Craig stayed at her house. He never showed up. Marsha tried to bring her home back to San Francisco. Marsha finally left with Craig.

Marsha then received a phone call from Lisa's brother's office that Lisa had been shot. Lisa routinely took her employees to coffee at a local cafe every morning. Hassan knew this. He met her in the parking lot, walked up to her window and shot her. He then shot himself. Lisa died 2 hours later. Hassan survived his injury.

Kristen went to live with her dad, Lisa's ex-husband. Nobody heard about her again. They held a memorial for Lisa at the Noe Valley Ministry. The police investigated. Hassan did go to jail. Nobody knows what happened to him since.

A couple of years ago Amina and Marsha put up an altar for Lisa and all their Bagdad friends who died at New College in S.F.