The Most Disgusting Customer I Can Recall

It's possible that I may have blocked out worse, but this is the story of the grossest, most destructive, unwell person I can recall. What the hell- 'ere goes...

It was a few years ago. Dude walked in early- like 6 PM and went straight to a private room. I knew he had real money right away because he was wearing everything that went against the dress code- shorts (bright orange shorts at that), sneakers, and a t-shirt; he was smoking a cigarette as he walked through the main floor; and he was being escorted politely by a host and a security guard. You would've thought he was famous, except most famous people wouldn't have been allowed in dressed like that... except, maybe, Rodman. Anyway, we all knew how to spot the big fish and he was an obvious spender and we were right.

Although it seemed somewhat tame in the beginning as far as spending goes-early bird, bought an hour and a couple girls, got a bottle, whatever, cool- he exceeded everyone's debauchery expectations by far. Not only was he there until after closing, signing his bill to stay through past 4 AM, at one point he was doing something that made his corner of the club smell like straight feces. And I've smelled some shit in the club. With all the laxative-laden coke and bowel-loosening ecstasy in these places, the smell of diarrhea wafting from the restroom is not exactly uncommon (it keeps the girls skinny!) But this was something else, and it was coming from the room, not the toilet. It required a good air freshener spray every quarter hour! Now on that topic, I can't even tell you how the noxious fumes were unleashed, and I'm glad for that. I believe the waitress either stayed clear around this time or she spared us an explanation. We're all better off, I'm sure.

What the waitress did see in the room was bad enough but, like an adult cartoon, it was comically witnessed in strange, brief flashes from her personal light, because the customer managed to remove all the bulbs (the already dim bulbs) from the light sockets to make the room pitch black. Going in there was a challenge just to clear glasses and refresh ice. Maybe it was a blessing. Even with the lights out, the server would come out with stories about sudden scenes of fucking and coke sniffing as her flashlight scanned the room like a searchlight beam passing over an orgy. She even saw them snorting cocaine out of an ashtray filled with old cigarettes! She told us the white powder was mixed with the ashes and they were too high to even notice.

At the end of the night the waitress had to psych herself up to get the bill paid. He had already propositioned her, as they all normally do, and she had refused. It was inevitable that he would do it again before signing off on any gratuity. Do I give you money for being a waitress, or do we work something out now for a little extra, hmmmmm? She wasn't down with any of that, so it was going to be a bit intimidating. Some of these guys are known to get mad at the rejection and not tip at all. The room was still black, but with the help of the flashlight the waitress and customer found each other. She later told us she handed him the check presenter and as he took it she flashed the light on the open book only to see the bill being held by one of his hands and directly under that his penis being caressed by the other. "How much for you to give me a blow job?" He asked her without even pausing his masturbating. She politely declined and he conceded, signing the bill with an extra thousand dollars added for her and then frolicked back naked to the strippers. We all left before he did.

That's why I like to stay behind the bar. 

Ode to My Removable Shower Head

I'm much more relaxed now. I owe you less complaining about my moral dilemmas and more shallow nonsense. Why else come to a blog about a strip club, right? How about some Hollywood hearsay? We all love it...

Puffy came in a while back. His buddies mostly stayed at the bar downstairs while he spent time with some girls in a private room. When it was time to leave, which was not long after he arrived there if I recall, he took the check, crossed out the amount presented, wrote in a number that was about half the bill, and signed it without adding a tip. The management later just charged him the normal price- that club's owner, an original bad boy, don't play that. Outside I heard he asked one of the strippers who was taking a break on the curb (ironic) if she'd give him head. Supposedly she said no, and he pulled out very pissed off.

Little dude from Jaws- Richard Dreyfuss (man, he's small)- was nice enough when he came in, but I found it sort of creepy how he and his wife would have a long dinner surveying the girls before ultimately choosing one to take into a room together. I guess I should give him credit for bringing his wife at all... NAH

Dennis Rodman used to come in a lot- surprise, surprise. I could tell from VIP that he had arrived when the DJ started to play consecutive Pearl Jam songs. He could then usually be seen on the main stage dancing with the girl who was in the middle of a set, or some random girl he brought with him. He had far too much power for a guy who never bought rooms and asked for one thousand dollars in singles as soon as he walked through the door. He got off on throwing them at people and watching them grovel. Some girls were too good to bend over and pick any up off the floor, but the barbacks would do it for them. I picked them up. He was usually quite sloppy while tipping like that at the bar and if you kept sweeping the piles up they would amount to a decent gratuity considering he didn't ask for much and would do it consistently. It was especially good for me when they finally denied him the stacks of ones and gave him fives. I cleaned up once because of that.  It was the only time you saw me on my knees in that club- cursing him out under my breath while smiling and scooping. I'll never forget that time because it was such a slow night I actually stayed in a room with him, his minion of a "friend" and a couple dancers while the two men bragged to us about Dennis' awesomeness. We kept the door open (that was the deal since he didn't pay for the time) and I ran in and out to fetch drinks in hopes that he'd drop more fives on the floor each time. He did.

Jacob the Jeweler was a regular up to his arrest. He's a jerk. He never tipped and he just walked around with a stuck up attitude that stood out from even the general stuck up attitude of the club clientele. While going through his legal woes in the very beginning I heard that his friend had an altercation with one of the security guards and was ultimately thrown down a flight of stairs. They threatened to file charges against the club, but I haven't heard anything of it since. Too many 'suits' in his closet already I suppose- or maybe they settled out of court. I dunno.

I saw David Blain, the magician, not too long ago. It was uneventful.

I know an America's Next Top Model runner up who strips.

The Skankees I've already written about- that's worth a trip to my archives if you haven't read it.

BLADDDOWWWWWWW!  (That's the sound of spots being blown up). I'll try to think of more for later.

Making Love in the Club, The Truth

Anya's Theory of Relativity states that if you do something naughty in the presence of people who are doing something even worse, it doesn't feel so wrong. It's why company we keep is so important that it's made many a cliche status- birds of a feather.

The regular ol' nine-to-five may just now be opening up to the acceptance of romance in the workplace as people spend more and more of their time in the office, but the counterculture of the service industry never had boundaries written into their company policy handbook. When getting people intoxicated is actually a job responsibility, keeping sex out of it is too much to ask. Add getting naked to that as well. Basically, as I've probably mentioned before, there's lots of hooking up in the club. But love in the club? Never seen it. Has there been a restaurant or club reality show yet? I'd be surprised if the sensationalism-seeking producers of Hollywood hadn't already come with one.

If you're paying attention to what's considered today's popular culture, you already know that sex has become an American national pastime. It's true in other places as well, but since we own the media and spread our ideas all over the world, I think we're a major catalyst in the creation of the Recreational Sex League. The League is made up of bed-hoppers who are openly indiscriminate- because according to the world of new music videos, movies and television it's the way of the future. If she's a whore and she's okay, then the fact that I have sex now and again with only a couple must not be a big deal. Ugh.

Of course there are other bad behaviors that go hand in hand with this. Drugs play a huge role- alcohol included. It's easier to abuse alcohol when people around you are snorting cocaine and popping pills of ecstasy. Lying is a common theme as well. Not only are people in these atmospheres lying about the way they look, how much money they make, how promiscuous they are, or what they do for fun- they lie about everything. After working in a strip club off and on for years and claiming people from there as my friends, I actually can count the number of people I trust from there on my one hand. Half a hand, maybe. Lying just comes with the territory. Two girls I thought I could trust at one point now hate each other and call the other a liar. Who to believe? How about nobody? Whether it's big or small, people lie for all different reasons: to keep up a false appearance- hide a lover or a habit, to avoid responsibility, to hide money, to maliciously start trouble out of jealousy or boredom, etc. etc. etc. Hell, most of us are hiding the job all together and keeping the public us a separate entity. We lie about our names! It's impossible to keep up with or predict. I've witnessed lies between people who claim to be best friends just to cancel plans because the liar didn't feel like hanging out. It becomes second nature, impulsive. If it's a cold cold world, the tittie bar is Antarctica.

This environment has caused me great depression as I simultaneously try to hold on to my values. I've gone running from it before, only to come back with my tail between my legs needing money. What's a good girl to do? Grocho Marx said, "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made". Funny, but I hope that's not true, although it certainly seems to be. And even if things aren't always what they seem, does it really matter what things really are? I've tried to do the right thing, and I'm not sure that it's paid off. Caring can be very painful while selfishness looks very fulfilling and easy. Where is the genuine happiness I'm entitled to for NOT being a liar? Where are the men who have seen this side of people, but have the willpower and desire to go against it? Do I need to lie about where I've been to find an honest man?

Of course, I could be lying about who I am right now... 

VD

Valentine's Day has come and gone again. Ugh. An old friend who I worked with at my first strip club job sent me a text that said, 'Happy VD, I'm burning for you'. Clever. She's been working as a manager-slash-bartender in a regular ol' bar in the city for the past few years, but with times as hard as they are she's now looking for shifts back in a gentlemen's club. Unfortunately even though many of our old colleagues from years ago (the 'dedicated' male service workers, go figure) have now penetrated the upper echelon of today's clubs, she's had no luck getting back in. Everyone wants a job in the vice industries. Wall Street brokers are even sending resumes to managers for jobs in an attempt to get back some of the money they 'invested' in the clubs before the economy crashed.

Ha ha! I said gentlemen's club. I can't help but want to change up the vocabulary so as not to repeat 'strip club' often, but 'gentlemen's club' is such a euphemism! What a crock. And the 'hosts' are not pimps, the 'lap dances' not over-the-pants frictional jack-offs, 'dancers' not strippers... or hookers. We're even told to never use the word 'cheap', but 'inexpensive' instead. I need to snap out of the gentlemen's club vernacular- NUDIE BAR! SEX SHOW! BROTHEL! NIPPLE DERBIE!!!! Yeah, I looked that last one up. What the hell is a nipple derbie anyway?

Anyway. In the name of St. Valentine, the patron of lovers, let me at least mention those patrons who might be occasionally considered gentlemen. Still, my pseudonym allows me to skip the euphemizing and get straight to the point: the dumb, the dwarfed, the obese, the disturbingly ugly, the crippled- these are the guys who are excused. They are also the ones you're more likely to see on Valentine's Day because they really can't get it on their own. The rest are not gentlemen. They are liars, cheaters, and overindulgent- brokers, lawyers, CEOs, actors and trust fund babies. Those guys spend Valentine's Day with their girlfriends.

Happy VD! I'm itching to make some money.

Perkies

There are so many different perks to consider in the business, budump-bump. Perks in the added bonus sense of the word, I mean. The bathroom guy once had the best answer when a customer asked him, "What's the best thing about this job?" He told him, "I can take a piss whenever I want." It was right on cue, I'm sure. I have my own jokish answers to common questions as well. You might even consider that its own perk: to have jokes memorized as a job requirement; it aids in my popularity, no doubt. The hosts and the managers laugh about service punctuality and free upgrades gained from the power of their business cards. They can get a cellphone fixed and delivered back to them at work in the same day. Buy the deliverer a drink if need be, but the new connect is usually ecstatic just to be in the club- especially on company time. I'm sure the hot girls checking coats and taking admission fees, and the security dudes at the door can get a food delivery stat, maybe even free, although I'm never there to see it. And when assigned indoors, the security guards are ultimately getting paid to look at naked girls. Fights just don't break out like in regular clubs, so the need to actually secure is somewhat rare.

Stories are a perk for me, and others. That chick that wrote Juno in her off-stripping time signed on for a series with Steven Spielberg. I WISH! Well... I don't wish that everyone I know find out that I work in a strip club and accept it, but I'd take a deal with Steven Spielberg as a result of having so much extra creative time, transparency aside. What else? Hair and makeup is a perk in a couple ways. That place is a wealth of beauty tricks and illusions, the dressing room its classroom and the club its research lab. It's a free lesson if you want it, or beauty is an all-too-easily-available option to just pay for and have applied to you. Take it from a girl with a big 'ol head of hair, having a hair stylist on site and ready to tame your mane for twenty bucks is a fringe benefit.  That leads me back to cash. Cash in hand, especially these days, now that's big. And, of course, the job can be a lot of fun (although that fact is more dangerous than a bonus).                                                                                                                                                                          

Strippers, its worth mentioning, are exempt from this topic except to mention that the downfalls of their job far outweigh the perks (as is true for every position, in my honest opinion). Let's just assume they have all of the above mentioned plus some. 

Ho Ho Ho

It was a very Christ-less Christmas in the club- as is to be expected. Lights and holly were hanging from railings (holly, not Holly... although that may have happened on a night I wasn't there). A lit tree stood proudly above the main stage from a balcony. And, ironically, nutcrackers stood at attention in random places. I haven't been back to work yet, since before the holiday, but yesterday's start to Kwanzaa's got me wondering whether or not any of the African American strippers will now be out for the week. At the end of one of my shifts last week I heard a white dancer announce to the dressing room that she was leaving and hoped everyone had a great "Christmas and Hanukkah," and then after a short pause, "And Kwanzaa!" Then, right on drunken, late-night, dressing room cue, a black girl jokingly and loudly rang back, "Yeah you better wish me a happy Kwanzaa, bitch!" Everyone laughed and went about their business. Just another day in the office.

Halloween Flashback of a Flash Dancer...

I'm surprised I failed to mention my favorite stripper Halloween costume in my Halloween entry. "Callie" was one of those funny, smart dancers with a plan to save money, invest it and then get out, which she successfully did- a rare exception. Today she's in school without debt and owns New York City real estate. It was she who dressed as a conjoined twin, and it was classic.

Complete with a cloth diaper, an oversized bib to just cover both breasts between each dance, a pacifier, bonnet, and stripper heels- the coup de grace, of course, was a small baby doll she strapped to the side of her head.  The stiff piece of plastic was the sad, deficient, disposable, conjoined twin, blinking with each dip and lean of her lap dances. She told me her friends said she wouldn't make money dressed like that, but she did.  There's always a demand for the witty stripper because the supply is low.