Hall 'O Weenies

Halloween's approaching, and it reminds me of Halloweens spent with my father at his Goodwill shows. Pop's band would perform for the mentally disabled population of our home town at their annual party in the Goodwill housing. He'd do it free of charge, but, in truth, he was paid with something  other than good karma. We got a video.

Some people are a little shocked when I tell this story. Like there is something disrespectful about being entertained by retarded people. Yeah I said it. The fact is that my family has always been very involved in their communities, all aspects- the elderly, the homeless, the handicapped, and whoever else may need a hand. It's not surprising to find a silent, unrelated, Lithuanian, straight-off-the-boat import sitting in the corner of my grandmother's house at holiday gatherings. We're good people in the grand scheme of things. We just happen to be good people who look for a good laugh in the face of the challenging and often unfunny. My cousin, for example, is a middle school special ed teacher and I'll be damned if her stories of unabashed behavior from pubescent, mentally ill teenagers she tells aren't hysterical. She deserves to be funny with all that she does and cleans up for such little pay!

Anyway, I'm done defending my father's behavior. Moving right along.

Like I was saying: Pop would videotape "the show" at the Goodwill downtown, and to our personal, later-viewing delight his camera would catch a lot of entertaining moments from the ecstatic, mentally challenged audience members. In one classic moment an older gentleman dressed in a vampire costume straight out of a CVS was invited up by my father so he could live his dream and play a triangle to his favorite Elvis Presley song. With a vacant look in his eye, the man swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet, monotonously rapping on the instrument while repeating "hound dog, time, hound dog, time" subsequently adding a shiny coat of saliva to the microphone Pop set him up with. It was possibly the best day of the man's life, and we got a good giggle. Situation win-win!

So what does this have to do with the strip club? The costumes, for one. In the middle of the show, during a musical break, a psychologically sound woman took over the stage to announce the winners of the costume contest. She then went on to call up large groups to collect paper certificates. In the end, every Goodwill resident managed to win due to the general lack of creativity and the organizers' determination to include everyone. True, strip club owners and managers don't care about whether people's feelings are hurt, but the whole lack of creativity part along with the contestants' inability to control their behavior entirely- eerily familiar!

"And the winner of the funniest costume..... ALL THE CLOWNS!" And after the chaos eased, "Winner of the scariest costume... ALL THE GHOSTS!!!" I even remember one of the categories requested that all those dressed as a Disney character should pass by the stage. 

Replace the clowns, ghosts, and Disney characters with cops, nurses, and dominatrix and you've got yourself a stripper's Halloween party.

I Can't Believe I'm Such a Bitter Bitch

From T-Pain's 'I Can't Believe It':

"I could put you in a log cabin

somewhere in Aspen

Girl aint nothin' to the Pain

It aint trickin' if I got it- what you askin' for

Put you in a mansion

somewhere in WiscAnsin

Like I said it aint nothin' to the Pain

We could change our last name, what's happenin'

Cause you look so goooooooood

Tell me why you wanna work here

put you on the front page of King magazine, 

but you gone get yourself hurt here

Ay baby, I brought you in the back just to have a conversation

I really think you need some ventalation

lets talk about yoooooooou and meeeeeeee.

(CHORUS)

Ooh I can't believe it

Ooh, ooh she all on me (on me)

Man, man I think she want me (want me)

No I can't leave her lonely, naaaaaaaaaw

You don't understand, she make the people say yeah, yeah, yeah

She hit the main stage, she make the people say yeah, yeah, yeah"

Wait. He took her to a back room and can't believe she's all over him? He doesn't want to leave her lonely? This girl is good. She definitely got that champagne room renewed for another hour. Isn't this the same rapper whose last single was called I'm in Love with a Stripper? Well, I hate to be the one to finally break it to you, Mr. Pain, but I think you're the one who's gonna get hurt here. And YOU'RE the kind of idiot that's got her wanting to work there. Why would she move to WiscAnsan and relinquish her power, and how the hell did I miss this guy when writing my last entry on pleasure and PAIN? It is painful to listen to these lyrics, but it kinda sorta sounds okay. It's catchy?

It seems clear to me that we're to the point now, in this crazy world, where comedians either have the best or the worst job; I'm still unsure which. Obviously there's a lot to make fun of, but it's so bad that commentary isn't always necessary- or possible. This shit is so dumb that all you need to do is point at it and make a face. What more can you really say? And it's not just the media. Yes, music, TV, even books are dumbed down more than ever- it's all certainly becoming dangerously unintelligent- but, whether it's because life is imitating art or art life, one can simply walk down the street and see the same kind of lechery and wickedness that's on TV. It's real. 

I'm not just talking about hip hop anymore.

From the streets all the way to the corporate penthouses, our priorities are screwed up. Men have a false sense of what they deserve and women are feeding the belief with a false sense of what's important. The strip club is a microcosm of the real world! Greed is good and honest people are a dying breed- these near extinct individuals barely appreciated. They're looked down upon!!

Case and point- I used to hang out with a ridiculously rich, elderly man and his mistress. I know, I'm not proud. To give myself some some credit, 'hang out' is a poor choice of words. What happened was occasionally I would fold to the invitations of a certain billionaire and his much younger girlfriend when they dangled tickets to events I could never obtain on my own. It wasn't exactly painful to be around them, it was just awkward. They were nice. Front row seats, however, didn't mask the fact that we were a suspicious crew of which I was uncomfortable to be a part of. If I was looking from the outside, I'd laugh at me. I also would assumed we were both sleeping with the old man (and then I guiltily remember a lecture from my old man about the importance of my reputation). Ugh. Still I went along at times, seduced by a lifestyle that I've come to grips with only being able to dream about since I will not sleep with an old man until I, too, am old. 

Still, even though I'm blatantly open about this boundary and she was kind, every time I hung out with The Mistress I was subjected to her rants about my poor choice in men. These vampires of youth were always trying to pull me in! Think like them! It took all my energy to stand my ground- refusing to meet with The Billionaire's friends outright only to be besieged in a sneak attack of wealthy, unattractive suitors once I fell into the expensive dinner trap the next time I saw her. Damn I'm such a sucker for free food. I know, I know, your other young 'friend' is now a working model with a billboard in Times Square paid for by a gentleman you set her up with, blah, blah, blah. Good for her! It's just not for me. Would you pass the black truffle canapes? Do you think he'll put me in a car back to Brooklyn after we're done or should I get going and get on the train before it's too late?

Of course my old school values only made me more desirable to these people who always get what they want, and so I was invited to other places in spite of my refusal to go along with the program. And the cringeworthy moments followed, as I deserved. Once we attended a rap concert, fifth row center, when I was embarrassed by The Billionaire's attempts to be acknowledged by the performer while he was on stage. I wish it was in vain, but apparently we were there specifically because of some business deal between the two, some investment in this rapper that the smitten, old man had agreed to. And so The Billionaire texted the musician from the floor of Madison Square Garden to prove their connection, even going so far as to show me the rapper's responses. "Wow! He knows you! Congratulations?" ...and he just noticed me with you. Awesome. It was so lame. 

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." -Oscar Wilde

Apparently the uncool old money types are not the only ones falling victim to the illusions of our modern world. T-Pain sounds like just as big a loser as The Billionaire. Let me remind you: crooning towards the end of the above quoted song T-Pain says, "She hit the main stage, she make the people say yeah." We sing praise to stripping in our pop music. 'Pop' as in 'Popular', the most popular in the world. For those of you that didn't realize...

Who's fault is it? Dirty old men? And there it is, my tell, what I think may be my biggest obstacle in the way of my happy ending: the temptations of the testicles... or is it the teasing of the trimmed and taught? I dunno. I blame somebody. Something's wrong. While I'm busy reading books, drawing pictures and going to museums in Brooklyn, just across the bridge women are spending their time and money (and other people's money) on perfecting the way they look. As if growing up subjected to the illusionary methods of the media- airbrushing, lighting, makeup, etc.- wasn't enough, today's women are aiding and abetting those same illusions into the real world. Now everybody's jaded and I can't compete! Or, rather, I don't wanna play. The more aesthetically beautiful women become, the more the entire natural dynamic of the world is tangled and confused. Closer and closer to physical perfection, farther from mental stability, more capable of toying with the minds of men they used to not be able to attract with their God-given traits, love is in a state of anarchy; men don't even know what it is or how to recognize it! Too busy looking for the kind of beauty that has haunted them since the first porno they watched at ten, men may be the biggest victims... after me.

Look at Janet Jackson and her ugly, short beau Jermaine Dupri. The first reaction of most is something like, "What the hell is she doing?", but consider what I'm saying. What does Janet really look like? What's under all that work and money? Maybe they're, somehow, a cute couple in a normal world. Maybe he's out of HER league. Will we ever know? 

Mom was right. Life really isn't fair. 

So what will happen to me in this skewed life? While the 'others' tan on exotic beaches, vacations paid for by pathetically hopeful men, I'm stuck working night shifts and holding tight to my values, refusing free trips even with the promise of a separate room because, well, it just seems WRONG. While 'they' are peeled and pulled to perfection, I decide to keep my spots, scars, and crooked teeth (from a ski accident and a great story, by the way). My 'worth' drops and yet my mind expands. How does that work? The more I learn, the fewer options I have in men. Sometimes I wish for my ignorance back! It's like the more I know the more intimidating I am- "overly opinionated", "bitchy", "bossy". While the secretly kept women buy the perfect haircut, designer clothes and shoes and handbags, perfume, lotions, sprays, makeup and surgery, I opt for a wardrobe from Target and a trip to visit old friends across country- quality experiences and time spent. They get free dinners from high class restaurants, doggy bags and all, while I eat the cheapest food I can find until my body screams from MSG poisoning and I'm forced to detox or shop for expensive organic food and follow recipes alone. Hmmmm. I suppose I could have the unwanted peach fuzz on my lower back lasered off- all the unsightly hair on my entire body even- make myself as smooth as an Asian baby because that's what men want, but I'd rather take an exotic vacation or go back to school. Electrolysis can wait for now. Who really wants a landing strip when they're ninety anyway? The bush could come back!

Aren't I doing what I'm supposed to do? Will I be rewarded? In the end, the highly maintained woman wins something I don't, because she is mysterious along with physically perfect. She is hard to get, busy hiding her secrets from the regular guy she's dating- the one more on her level. He is intrigued. I am too real, too obvious, too game-free because I DON'T WANNA PLAY!

Is it obvious I'm bitter?

I won't even get started on the article I just read about a new Reality TV College. I'll just point it out and make a face. Do people pay to "learn" how to be on REALITY TELEVISION now? I give up...

Ho-ing Pains

From Paulo Coelho's novel Eleven Minutes:

"'You experienced pain yesterday and you discovered that it led to pleasure. You experienced it today and found peace. That's why I'm telling you: don't get used to it, because it's very easy to become habituated; it's a very powerful drug. It's in our daily lives, in our hidden suffering, in the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the destruction of our dreams. Pain is frightening when it shows its real face, but it's seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or self-denial. Or cowardice. However much we may reject it, we human beings always find a way of being with pain, of flirting with it and making it part of our lives.'

'I don't believe that. No one wants to suffer'

'If you think you can live without suffering, that's a great step forward, but don't imagine that other people will understand you. True, no one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they feel justified, pure, deserving of the respect of their children, husbands, neighbors, God...  ... Does a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy? No, he goes in order to die for his country. Does a wife want to show her husband how happy she is? No, she wants him to see how devoted she is, how she suffers in order to make him happy."

I wanna copy more! I dunno- maybe it's because I'm detoxing and on this whole personal journey of extremes, but I got into this book. It was sexy and smart! Maybe it's just because I'm not having sex... Anyway! Coehlo is a smart dude and he wrote a book about an intelligent prostitute. It came to me right on time. Not to give it away, but the ending was quite Pretty Woman-ish and so I wouldn't say it was exactly realistic. Still, all in all, it was a good read.

It got me thinking about the relationship between pain and pleasure, this passage especially. Of course there are the obvious cliches: 'No pain, no gain', or 'Pain before pleasure'. The peculiarities of nature. Like tickling. What's the deal with tickling? It's extremely annoying, it hurts, and yet we laugh; the sounds of pleasure cause more tickling. It's not fun for the tickled. And what about how sex in its most rapturing and physically gratifying moments can look and sound agonizing? What does it mean? There are also the famous quotes to consider when approaching this subject, like Aristotle's, "The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain." I even Wikipedia searched Freud's Pleasure Principle concept and was surprised to read that it is something we are expected to mature out of- the desire to achieve pleasure above all other responsibilities. Around what age does this kick in for males? 

Side note- if it's true that too much of a good thing is bad, is too much of a bad thing eventually good? From what I can tell from watching a lot of successful Family Guy jokes, sometimes this is true.

On that note and the others I wonder, how can the sex industry be created and succeed off the backs (or on the backs, I should say- snicker, snicker) of pained, damaged women? Even without my obvious and repetitive assumption sneaking in to the argument that strippers have all been sexually abused, isn't it weird to think that these women are pained just being in a stripclub? They all hate it! None of them really want to hang out with these men, and yet those same bored women put on a smile and make men happier than they've ever been. Later the strippers leave happily paid and the men sulk home miserable. Is that a win-win situation or a lose-lose? I mean what's worse, the psychological impoverishment and financial desperation behind stripper motivation or the affection-starved, reality-ignorance of their gluttonous customers? Can we really blame the guy who's 4'3'', the burn victim or excessively sweaty nerd for wanting to be hugged by a chick way out of their league? What about the regular dude who worked his ass off to become filthy rich? Everybody needs to eat and be loved, so who's wrong? Is anybody? Perhaps the strippers and their clients are really peas in a pod... 

Which reminds me, a professor of psychology once pointed out that life is not linear and so when two things are considered to be on opposite sides of a spectrum they are instead more likely right next to each other in a three dimensional world. It's not that deep- connect the ends of a line and you've got yourself a circle is all. It was a better analogy in person with the hand gestures, I suppose.

Keeping with the theme- then this other book, Sue Miller's While I Was Gone, added to the discussion in my brain about pain and pleasure. And since I'm already on a roll with the copyright infringement, I'll close with part of a sermon from a character, Daniel, a minister who recently helped to comfort children after the passing of their young mother:

"But pain may be a gift to us. To us, and to that child. Remember, after all, that pain is one of the ways we register in memory the things that vanish, that are taken away. We fix them in our minds forever by yearning, by pain, by crying out. Pain, the pain that seems unbearable at the time, is memory's first imprinting step, the cornerstone of the temple we erect inside us in memory of the dead. Pain is part of memory, and memory is a God-given gift."

From the Strip Club Archives...

Here are a few more excerpts from old diaries of mine:

*One of the managers (who is supposed to be in a monogamous relationship with one of the waitresses) brought in a young blond Texan who he's obviously gaga over. Being the impartial employee that I am, I was chosen to train the new girl behind the bar. Professional behavior aside, what a ditz this chick is! And blatant ditziness provokes unabashed question and answer time.

Now I know better than anybody that if a girl is a real flake, you can figure her out right away, and so I filled my down time at work by asking this new girl "Missy" questions about herself that she was too slow not to answer. Turns out she was fired from another strip club for being caught in the bathroom with a customer AND she's not even yet 21. Still, she was hired as a bartender.

CUT TO A COUPLE MONTHS LATER

Missy is sneaking in on my good shifts.  It's nothing crazy, but it's obvious and extremely unfair. She's not a good bartender. She comes in on her nights off and gets drunk. She's got nothing interesting to say. She's not, in my opinion, much hotter than other girls in the club... However, she is definitely easy. The barbacks and bussers have told me that she doesn't wear underwear and shows them- plus they see her sitting provocatively in front of customers. A waitress reports that she walked into a private room and caught her fooling around with a waiter, and that's not the first time I've heard such a rumor. I wouldn't really care but my schedule is being arranged not only so Missy has shifts she doesn't deserve but also so she and the manager's girlfriend never work together...

IN THE END

Missy was suspended and then fired after everyone had their turn with her. The manager that hired her told me all proud of himself for personally doing it. Yeah, way to go. Now I'm stuck filling in twice as many shifts while you look for your next victim.

*The owner gave the female service staff Christmas cards (he's Jewish) that said 'HO-HO-HO!' on the outside, and nobody noticed the irony. I bet he was giggling with every signature.

*One of the funny waitresses tells a story about having the age-old conversation with a stripper: What are your plans with all this money you're making? Apparently this girl told the waitress and a manager that she was going to med school to which she was then asked, 'What kind of medicine are you going to study?'  She answered in the high-pitched, baby voice that is so common among these girls, 'I'M GONNA BE A DOCTOR!' And that was it. She couldn't elaborate any more.

*The manager asked me again today why my boobs look so big. I am premenstrual, but I kept it simple and just told him to fuck off. The worst part is that being a bitch only turns him on more.

*One of the Skankees..er...I mean Yankees, comes in regularly with his wife. Recently they both took a liking to one of the waitresses (who continually came to my bar while serving them to gush about how much of a fan she was and how excited she was that they were talking to her). Perhaps it was the way she was throwing herself at the couple, but whatever. The waitress, "Sandy", was eventually asked to accompany the athlete, his wife, and a stripper into a private room and she was ecstatic. 

When Sandy returned from the hour she was glowing, relaying to me that all she had to do was eat out the wife and so 'of course' she did. She wanted to! Then, when Sandy and Mrs. Skankee were finished, the ball player asked Sandy to do the same for the stripper. Sandy refused because, she said to me later, "Gross!  I don't know where that girl's been!"

*Whether it be insecurity, jealousy, trust issues, competition or all of the above, I'd say most strippers have a hard time making friends with other females. However, I have noticed that when a man comes in and picks two random girls to either dance simultaneously for him or go into a room together with him, all obvious cattiness goes out the window (even when there's a bad history). A couple minutes of bumping boobs, looking at each other seductively for the benefit of that man (or way more behind closed doors), and finally the exchange of money and all is well. Until those two dancers are pinned against each other for some new (financial) issue in the future, they act as if they are best buds; I think they all really wish they were.

*Of course nobody's perfect- even with all the money in the world. There are a number of girls who dance with one arm always above their head for the sole purpose of making straight an uneven boob job. It takes a trained eye to notice these things... or rather a bored eye connected to a brain that's got nothing else to do other than pick apart what going on around it, a slick mouth to ask questions, and the absence of the all-distracting penis organ (i.e. Me). I've also seen a dancer with a harelip and one that's cross-eyed. Fortunately they're bodies are hot and their illusionary skills are keen enough to have hidden these imperfections during the audition. Well done, ladies. Keep makin' that money and you'll be perfect in no time!

*My barback was upset the other day about the fact that one of the hot waitresses was always getting drunk while at work, but was never reprimanded. He was frustrated because the rules were strictly enforced against him and his Hispanic coworkers. I told him that one day the world was going to change and all the non-white, ugly, broke, struggling people would rule the world. He told me that when that happens he'll still be nice to me. It was the sweetest thing anyone had said to me in a while.

Are You Not Entertained??

You would think that with all my big money talk and the excuse of cash to explain such a debauched job, I'd quickly have my computer up and running again- but it's worse than I thought. It seems the more I continue to help men cheat on their wives over their lunch breaks, the worse my karma gets; the most recent backlash of my behavior is the absolute breakdown of my new laptop. Warrantee you ask? Well I may be in a bad place right now, but I'm not an idiot. Of course I had a warrantee, and of course Karma found a way around that.

But I'm not here to vent about THAT...

I was tempted to go in and adjust the dates to create a number of entrees from the past few weeks as if I never stopped, but that just seems lame and deceiving. While I may protect myself somewhat with name changes, unfortunately I'm not lying about this stuff- so why lie about the frequency of my blogging? Instead I'm going to give you some short, succinct, entertaining stories from my older strip club day diaries. Here goes, in no particular order:

*I used to work where one of the strippers was a well-known porn star. She never told me or any of the other female service workers outright, but it wasn't a secret in the club. Every time she made a new DVD she would bring in multiple copies and hand them out to the male staff- even the guys in the kitchen. The last one they showed me had something to do with 'triple penetration'. It took me a minute, but I got it.

*One of the best impressions of an entertainer I've seen during Stripper Charades (a game the staff played when it was slow where we imitated the dancers), was by a waitress who acted out the routine of a girl with extra long hair. The give-away move was when she pretended to catch the ends of her hair between her butt cheeks and then run her hands through the strands after. We all wondered how sanitary it was for her to swing her locks around as she danced in the dining room after this signature move. Did she ever get a dingleberry on someone's steak?

*I knew a shot girl who used to be a stripper. Rather than take her clothes off and grind on the clients, she decided to sit on their laps, press her barely covered breasts in their faces and poor alcohol down their throats. She legally changed her name to Moet Productions.

*A couple years ago there was an older dancer who decided she could confide in me and started telling me about how depressed she was about getting old. It got to the point where she would come to the bar and start crying and calling herself ugly pretty regularly. That was a pain in the ass to deal with when I was busy. Damn my conscious! 

*Once a stripper told me that her regular hustle was to tell the clients that if they take her to a room she'll give them a blow job. Then, once they're in there and everything is paid, she plays it off like she's too scared she'll get caught.  However, she admitted to 'finishing' the 'big customers'... and by 'big' I mean rich, of course.

*I always wondered why if there is supposedly no touching during the lap dances, how come we had a regular customer who was blind?