‘Salad’ Springs Forth From the Fertile Mind of Doug Motel

Welcome to the theatrical schizophrenia of Doug Motel.

“I wanted to give people a mental massage, let them take a break from their own brains for an hour,” says the writer-performer, whose one-man show “Mind Salad” is playing late nights at the Coast Playhouse. In the piece, Motel (an adopted nom de plume) spins into 30 characters, from such real-life figures as local cable host Skip E. Lowe, singer Steve Lawrence and the late comedian Paul Lynde, to a fictional 9-year-old boy and a 6-foot-4 black drag queen.

Motel, 30, who says he fashioned the material from imagination, friends’ stories “and the noise inside my head,” credits the inspirational teachings of Marianne Williamson as a major impetus. Developing the piece in what he calls “the living room circuit,” he spent the past four years touring various versions to a collection of 12-step groups and rehabilitation centers around the state.

Although the play’s characters are an international lot--from Britain, India, Cuba, and all over the United States--Motel is less forthcoming about his own origins. “I don’t like to say where I’m from,” he demurs. “I grew up with people, in my family and my community, who didn’t understand me. The truth is, I was a very odd kid. I dressed like Tom Jones, I was an art prodigy, I was fat. The other kids would tease me, beat me up.”

Motel found an escape route into theater when he was 12, and later quit high school to join a summer stock company. Resettling in New York, his activities included reading the Village Voice on the radio to the blind, and in 1985, the debut of “The Doug Motel Show,” for which the New York Post likened him to Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg. In 1987, he moved to South-Central L.A., where he shares a house with two roommates and a Lab named Baker.

“She’s a gift from the gods,” he says simply. “She gives me unconditional love.”

Stephanie Blake Intends to Put the Tease Back Into Stripping

Stephanie Blake is taking it all off . . . and not for the first time.

“You’ll see ‘T&A;’--real stripping, like it used to be,” says the Texas-born stripper, who’s making her legitimate stage debut in “Melody Jones” (at the Cast Theatre), an adventurous new drama directed by Ron Link and set in a ‘70s New Jersey strip club. “Nowadays, strippers come out and dance one song, take off a piece of clothing,” the actress says scornfully. “The art is gone. So we’re trying to bring that back--the teasing part.”

Blake, who is unmarried and lives in the Valley, comes to the profession naturally; growing up, she toured the Midwest with her stripper mother--who encouraged Blake to start stripping at age 15.

Was it legal? “Of course not,” she says with a laugh. “I lied about my age.” After working as a featured stripper-performer in Las Vegas, she came to Los Angeles 10 years ago and, until this summer, managed the Star Strip on La Cienega.

“I’ve done some acting; I’ve done OK,” she says. “Stripping has led to a lot of opportunities: mostly stripper roles, mistresses, hookers. I never get cast as librarians or mail carriers.”

She swears the typecasting isn’t a problem: “I look at all the out-of-work actors, and I don’t mind. A lot of girls now are doing porno movies to promote their stripping careers. To me, that’s a high price to pay. And one thing has nothing to do with the other. Stripping is not pornography.”

Blake thinks of it more as sexual insinuation--and a showy workout. “I’m known for being kind of an acrobat,” she says proudly. “It’s good to have a gimmick. I used to do one number where I took a bath in a big glass of champagne.” Yet there is a price to pay for the body beautiful: “I have to work out every day of my life. A half-hour on the bicycle, my ‘Buns of Steel’ video, five-pound weights for my arms, the treadmill, the trampoline, a full weight machine. It’s either that or forget the body.”

Life Is Still a Cabaret for ‘Dinosaur’ Comic Sammy Shore

Sammy Shore puts it succinctly: “My skin’s hanging down, but there’s still a kid inside.”

“If you’re over 30 in this town, you’re a dinosaur,” grouses the New York-born comic, who charts his 40-year career in his solo show, “The Warm-Up,” at the Santa Monica Playhouse. “But what am I supposed to do with all the passion, excitement and energy I have to make people laugh? I’m not angry, I’m not bitter. I’m like Rocky, still in there fighting. I’ve had two hip replacements, I just got out of the hospital last week. But I will never stay away from what I do.”

The show debuted in 1991 at the West End Playhouse, followed by a four-month stint last spring at the Melrose Theatre; this fall, he’ll take it to Sacramento, Minneapolis--and next spring, to Off Broadway. In the piece, the father of four charts his 21-year marriage and divorce from Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore, and his relationships with a string of show-biz luminaries, including Elvis Presley, for whom he served as opening act.

The monologue is set in Shore’s apartment, as his character gets ready for a first date, “still kind of afraid to experience a new person, ‘cause he may get rejected.” The comedian wears his openness and vulnerability as a badge of honor: “I don’t think there’s anything in the piece I don’t reveal.” That includes his feelings about the new celebrity of his 24-year-old youngest son, MTV veejay- comedian Pauly Shore, whose own HBO special airs Sunday night.

“Yeah, I was jealous at first,” Shore pere admits. “It was a little hard on me. See, I gave him his first showcase, and he killed . All of a sudden, it was like ‘Comedy Store 2.’ It all happened so fast; I started to get these weird feelings. But now I rave about him everywhere I go--I’m very excited about his success. It’s like Pauly’s carrying the torch, taking it from one generation and going forward. The Shores are still out there doing it.”