Shit Guys Say to Strippers

Someone made the inevitable “Shit People Say to Strippers” video, but it left me unfulfilled. I’m starting a list to update later.

“If we go to the champagne room, what can we DO?”

“Go talk to my friend, he’s the one with all the money.”

“Do you get along with the other girls?”

“I’ll give you $500 to meet me after work.”

“You weren’t very friendly during that lap dance”

“Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah……..”

“Come back in 45 minutes, my direct deposit hits at 9:00.”

“I’m not used to clubs like this. The clubs are sooooo much more liberal in —–”

“No offense, but I’m here to see —–”

“So are you in school? You must have an exit strategy….”

“Do you know where I can find (fill-in-the-blank-drug)?”

“Lemme take you to dinner!”

“Let’s hang out when you get off.”

“I’m not really a strip club guy.”

“I’m not really a lap dance guy.”

“Why should I pay to be teased?”

“Tell me your real name.”

“So, do you have kids?”

“You don’t belong here. You’re different than these other girls.”

“Are you interested in webcam modeling? Here’s my business card.”

“Are you interested in Heroin, you should try it!”

“My marriage is deteriorating, but it’s cause my wife —–.”

“You’re like my muse.”

“My friends dragged me here.”

“Let’s take this outside the club. $200 to meet me at Days Inn Queens.”

“We’re talking business, can you come back in a little bit?”

“So are you into girls?”

“Are you into swinger couples? We are.”

“Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah.” (Tranlsation-”I’m lonely as fuck!.”)

The Cutting Room Floor

I’m a little upset I’ve permanently deleted a huge chunk of posts. I have my reasons, as I’m sure you can imagine. Privacy is now a myth and hiding behind a pseudonym is an illusion, rather delusion, of anonymity.

I’ve never minded saying the things others were afraid to. I’ve also never minded confessing my shortcomings and misdeeds, to the point people joke I should be Catholic. I always want to purge my emotional baggage, but like a bulimic’s coughed up lunch, once the purge is complete, flushing the evidence away is sometimes the best option.

I’m on an advocate kick and feeling very determined to speak up for misunderstood people from many walks of life, not just strippers and other sex workers. But how much am I willing to risk or sacrifice personally?

An alcoholic with an unspecified mental health disorder at my part time office job keeps nagging me about why I take interest in destigmatizing addiction and mental illness. He won’t just accept I have inclinations to call BS on the status quo, he’s trying to pry my personal story out and see just how close to home the causes are for me. As much as I want him to mind his business, I’m guilty of inviting his nosy behavior. He nonchalantly mentioned he doesn’t drink and I had to be the nosy investigative journalist type and ask why, which opened the floodgates of his over-sharing and interrogating.

This blog had a tragic comedy tone before and now I try and just keep it light. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

 

Almost Back in the Straddle Again

February 1, one-way flight to New Orleans. Two month 1 BR sublet in a great area at just $775/m including utilities. Bourbon St. beckons. If I want to stick around until Jazz Fest in late April/early May I’ll have to find another sublet, but either way I’m pumped to get the hell out of freezing cold New England for the rest of Winter.

I’m going to hit Babe’s Cabaret first since they are likely to welcome me back, but I’m also hoping to switch clubs or pull double duty. Barely Legal, Penthouse, Rick’s and Hustler are on my to-do list, but Scores is not, because I hear it sucks in New Orleans compared to New York. Last time, I noticed this one girl-on-girl show club that was downright depressing. They had a bed on the stage and all the girls were sitting there looking bored like it was a brothel lacking guys to choose from the line-up.

I worked at an on-again, off-again office job this week, and was amused when someone pointed out a secret “champagne room.” I think all the Veuve is left over from Christmas gifts; God forbid they gave the excess to us lowly part timers!

The Winter blues hit me like a brick this year, particularly around the Holidays, so the fact a long-term New Orleans getaway is on the horizon has really elevated my mood. I’ve been feeling pretty damn frisky and successfully seduced a guy from the office yesterday. We had good vibes and our eyes on each other from the get-go. The flirting was obvious and I knew it wouldn’t be the biggest challenge. But there was one slight obstacle….a girlfriend. I’m so used to cheating men, I couldn’t care less. I tried to impress him with my new pole and had a total blooper. Oops. Fail.

I played on my pole for a solid hour or two the other night and was sore the next day. I haven’t been working out enough lately and I’ve been eating junk, so I’m very eager to get back to dancing for hours on end and, once again, having a job where exercise is integrated, unlike the cubicle week I just had.

I feel like sharing the below video for a couple reasons: it’s very sexy, but super easy and safe, save for a couple shoulder mounts that would take practice for a newbie. There is a disconnect in the “pole fitness” world between the exercise aspect and the sexiness factor. The place I’ve been going is great, but they get too preoccupied with the acrobatics, and not the sexiness. On the other hand, different pole studios are downright silly with their boa feathers and frumpy hapless end users. I think it’s lame to teach lap dancing, but I admit I’m still too scared to pull the handstand flip over type of moves some girls do. Plus I think it’s tacky to flip over so your pussy’s in a guy’s face, that’s just asking to be violated….or tipped….or both.

 

Minute 1:37, 3:07, 3:37, 4:00

Youtube videos of actual strippers doing their thang at clubs are hard to come by. I’m sure the occasional asshole sneaks some stuff on there, but most Youtube searches yield pole exercise studios for civilian women and pole competition athletes, who have different priorities and ways of moving than strippers stripping.

Finding this video of highly skilled tandem feature dancers at work is kinda the next best thing.

Gotta love the stomping and clomping of the two dancers at 3:30. The whole clonk your heels loud as ya can move is a plea for tips, not to mention a much-needed physical break between insane pole tricks!

Of the well-known pole competitors, I’m diggin’ Alethea Austin. Since I’m obsessed with Animal Magnetism by Scorpions as a stripping jam, I stumbled on this number.

I’m planning lots of Winter travel to strip in New Orleans and elsewhere. I’ll keep you posted. If only I could get rid of my apartment early….all $1,900 a month of it, despite a scam fire escape and kitchen lights that never ever work because the electricity is probably from the ’50s.

 

Picture Proof

Getting all pumped to gown it at Penthouse, but ended up wearing lingerie and short dresses to Babe’s Cabaret. Gotta love the rhinestone choker and earrings, though. It’s stripper accessorizing I’ve missed.

I had toe issues thanks to letting my feet drag along the grooved stage floor doing back hook spins at quadruple+ speed thanks to the spinning pole.

N’Awlins Stripping Report

I bumped into a stripping hurdle; I didn’t bring a second form of ID such as a social security card or birth certificate. Things are so informal in NYC I forgot to anticipate how other cities operate and even if I’d renewed my passport, as I keep postponing, I may have forgotten to bring it since my flight was domestic.

Thanks to the wonders of social media, a girl on Twitter was helping with leads for me to work at Penthouse, i.e. manager on duty’s names and encouraging the back-up option of being shot girl, which would slide without a second ID. That didn’t work out and Penthouse actually pulled the whole “we’re not hiring cause so many extra girls are working this busy seasonal time” line. A strip club “not hiring” is a first for me and hopefully not just a “you’re not hot enough” line.

I wandered to Rick’s right after PHC and had the issue with ID’s. I had asked Barely Legal the day before, and was told it’d be an issue, but one the manager may let slide if I talked with him.

I asked a random door guy from a nondescript looking club if I had any chance at working anywhere, and he said “why don’t you come inside and talk to _____.” I ended up getting auditioned (which felt like a mere formality) and worked right away at a place called Babe’s Cabaret. Their apostrophe is a heart.

Saturday night was a drag for me with cheap loser bachelor parties and young LSU/Florida Gators fans (one stole tips off the stage!) but it served as a reminder Saturday nights are not my style. While I did notice several girls vanish into champagne rooms at length, I didn’t know how to filter through all the broke student spam to find those client gems.

Babe’s is a decent spot; it doesn’t look so great from the outside, but the manager’s are super nice and supportive, many of the girls are friendly, as are the bar and waitstaff, and the interior is clean and classy, though nothing to write home about; certainly no fancy chandeliers.

I worked last night and plan to work tonight. Last night I made double Saturday’s earnings. I was the same way as NYC, where I’d always work Sunday shifts other girls wouldn’t, allowing myself to reap the benefits of less competition and, what I consider, quality over quantity of customers. Dances were far easier to sell last night without pulling teeth and I was on stage every four to five sets, where there’s decent money. I made $22 off each lap dance with one big tipper, but no VIP rooms.

We’ll see about tonight, but I’m reminded that my style is far more “rely on smaller, respectful crowds and less mayhem coupled with fewer girls working.” I heard about a doctor’s convention, but don’t see much evidence of it yet.

If anyone can benefit from this information, I find Babe’s a great gem on Bourbon St. It’s a clean (literally and figuratively) club with great managers and a friendly environment where most girls make a point to be nice when not busy hustling. They have VIP room hostesses who help seal the deal and no house mom (ie one less person to tip out). Their house fee is tiny and they waive it on bad nights. Tip-out totaled $25. Guys weren’t offering me drinks, but I loved that since I’m on the wagon and also because you can move on from them if they don’t get dances without waiting for a drink and feeling obligated to sip it for a bit out of appreciation etiquette.

So far, I’ve found it a perfect middle ground between the super trashy Bourbon clubs with fat girls standing on the street to recruit, and the franchise clubs that stick to their guns on the ID rule (ie Hustler, Penthouse and Rick’s) I met a girl from Scores while getting an air brush tan to cover pole bruises, but I heard Scores here sucks, so I didn’t even try.

Little Darlings and Temptations are the main culprits of icky clubs recruiting from the street. I’m not too shy about my body and I know you can’t hide under dark lighting all the time, but I wouldn’t want to stand on the street being photographed by every passerby who isn’t even a potential spender.

The Full Monty

I’m not comfortable with full nudity at strip clubs. At least not for stage sets, versus a private room. NYC and Connecticut are mainly topless only save a couple places, but Massachusetts is all nude everywhere. I’ve danced a total of 1.5 songs all nude in my life; Golden Banana amateur night. After having a “oops I’m rusty at stripping” fail at getting my tight dress over my heels (shoulda pulled it over my head!)

It’s one thing to gather tips like this….

But it’s another thing to go through this motion, within 2″ of a guy, with your vag out, for a few singles.

Just not within my comfort zone. Plus I don’t have one of those perfect razor-burn/ingrown free vaginas with a clit piercing charm, not the kind that would win a vagina beauty pageant! Certain clubs have the tip “rail” but other clubs, like Scruples in Bridgeport, CT (where my Russian pimp driver brought me) have stages where you basically end up giving customers semi-lap dances for $1 bills chump change. Like strewing your heels across his shoulders and other teasing contact that is giving too much for too little (a necessary evil at a club frequented by broke day laborers where you can expect occasional sub-$200 nights like a waitress)

If you haven’t heard of, or don’t remember, the 1998 movie, The Full Monty, you’d damn well better check it out. It’s about unemployed male factory workers deciding to promote and put on a male strip show, going “The Full Monty.”

The movie is full of quirky British humor; a hapless redhead fails at committing suicide in a funny way, a husband looks at his wife leaning over and realizes how round-bottomed and unsexy she is, the leader of the pack tries a rookie strip tease for his son, helicoptering his leather jacket over his head as loose change flies out (oops)

The same actor who brilliantly played a manic depressive in Michael Clayton goes the Full Monty and takes a comedic break, as does the thin blonde guy from Snatch and Trainspotting, always the villain, who plays the sex trafficking crime boss in Human Trafficking.

Although your sentimental trafficking movie focuses predictably on pretty, white Eastern Europeans (and a white victim in Asia) I still love you, Mira Sorvino, because Romy and Michelle will be one of my favorite comedies and soundtracks indefinitely. And your Dad is fucking awesome, FUCK YOU PAY ME!

Just FYI, Tits and Sass has a ton of posts addressing Pretty Woman lately. My take is simple enough: the movie disproportionately represents the stories of prostitutes. It’s a script, a work of fiction, yet it’s the point of reference for every civilian. Check out recent TitsandSass posts for more thorough analysis.

Fantastic Voyage

This video is amazing, just like DJ Hennessy’s other Vageant Vid.

Something tells me Club Rouge in Portland will have quite the turnout for next year’s contest, I know I’m hoping to be there (as a spectator, not contestant!)

Only one criticism of the video editing. Girls don’t suddenly end up in a horizontal up n’ down pole split at minute 3:18, the art of going down into a split alongside the pole (THEN bouncing a bit) is a never-fail, when-in-doubt/out-of-ideas kind of stripper move.

Amateur Night at Golden Banana off Glorious Route 1

I’m giving amateur night at the Golden Banana club another shot tonight. For those of y’all who don’t know, it’s off route 1, which runs North of Boston and is a priceless museum of tacky white trash shit. Whenever I come back from Europe and take Route 1, I feel like Furio in the Sopranos when he arrives in New Jersey after leaving beautiful Italy (though I will say, the one time I went to Naples, there was an excess of desperate furniture outlets and Madonna on the half shell lawn decor).

This is the Tobin Bridge that you must take to get up Route 1 from Boston. The view coming into the city at night is amazing and even if I lose amateur night and walk with 4 lap dances plus $30 in stage tip MINUS house fee like last time, the view will be worth it.

Tonight at Golden Banana will be my second time ever stripping full nudity. I hate that shit. It makes me feel so overexposed and vulnerable, plus my pussy’s a hot mess. Since starting my non-working scam laser removal (at SleekMedSpa I might add), I miss the smoothness of waxing.

If you want a good laugh, peep Kat’s review of an Oregon strip club’s “Vagina Beauty Pageant.”My pussy is in no shape to win that kinda gig. Don’t believe me? Peep my blood stained Agent Provocateur $150 panties.

Read more of Kat’s stories here, she got a Maxim shout-out as the smartest stripper blogger of the bunch and her writing is consistently hilarious.

I need to get my hustle on and drum up a little entourage for the Golden Banana tonight. Last time I announced I was doing it on my blog, I ended up with time wasters yakking my face off who not only didn’t spend much, but left before judging, which left me hearing crickets and losing the $300-$700 in prize money, as well as my ego.

Do you think dressing as Roller Girl or Ginger Spice will improve my chances of converting people whose votes haven’t been bought? It’s a long-standing dream of mine to work a good pole in roller skates, the added difficulty should win some people over.

Must Watch Movie….If Only For the Cliches…..

I recently mentioned how customers at Gallagher’s in Queens creeped me out when I’d introduce myself as “Bella.”

“Oh like Twilight, my daughter loves Bella!” hmmm….where does your daughter think you are right now, speaking of which?

I used that name briefly because the club had a “Melissa” and they weren’t down with the confusion having a “Marisa” would cause. Like it mattered so much, we had 1-2 stage sets all night, unlike Scandals where we had 15 minutes per hour at the same quarter hour each time.

There was a really sexy Salma Hayek lookalike at Private Eyes named Bella who LIVED in the champagne rooms; you never saw that chick on stage or even working the floor, lucky broad. I figured I could channel her aura by exporting the name to Queens. Didn’t go so well, though. I felt silly introducing myself that way. It doesn’t roll of the tongue like Belle, the French version.

Anyhow, I just stumbled on this random-ass movie I overlooked with James Gandolfini and the chick who plays Bella in Twilight, AS A STRIPPER. Whoa now. Why am I not hearing outrage from parents a la Miley Cyrus being in proximity to a stripper pole once and having some exposed skin on her thin back covered by longass hair?

So here is the summary of the movie, it’s painfully cliche, which is why I MUST watch it:

Welcome to the Rileys is an emotional journey that takes us through grief, self-reinvention and healing. The Rileys have been struggling in their marriage since losing their teenage daughter eight years prior. Once a happily married and loving couple, Lois (Melissa Leo) and Doug (James Gandolfini) have grown distant. Lois has become agoraphobic and won’t leave the house while Doug tries to stay away, finding their home depressing.

Looking to get away, Doug goes on a business trip to New Orleans. He meets Mallory (Kristen Stewart), a teenage runaway. Despite her unsettling demeanor, Doug immediately recognizes an innocence in Mallory. He realizes she is in desperate need of paternal guidance, something he has been longing to provide. The opportunity to care and protect Mallory supplants the void Doug’s marriage has left in his heart, and brings new meaning to his life. Doug decides to sell his business and stay in New Orleans to give Mallory the attention and help she can’t bring herself to ask for.

And here is a painfully awkward scene from the strip club. This actress doesn’t have me convinced, not sure she is mastering the transition from innocent teen angst to raw teen runaway willing to give BJ’s. Either way, the plot feeds the “savior” cliche to the max and operates on the assumption she needs saving while he needs to save.

For the record, clubs can be major ripoffs when it comes to not giving the dancer all the money earned in VIP, but $60 out of $250? Eek, that seems a TAD off from reality. Private Eyes gave only $200 on $600 per hour the guy paid, so a whopping 1/3, but more often than not, you got multiple champagne rooms or multiple hours with one guy. Scandals gave the girls the majority of $300/$500, but shit was not innocent and glorified there like it most definitely was at Private Eyes.