The Pantheon of Stripper Gods

I often see dancers start there shift by tweeting an appeal for success to the Stripper Gods. There is even a prayer for strippers to recite.

As always, I’ll notice something odd. Strippers are polytheistic. Not one god but multiple gods. Which made me wonder, who are these gods? After a minimal Google search I couldn’t find any information. So I decided to make up my own. For reference I pulled out my old copy of Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia 2^nd edition (+1 to your geek cred with an additional 10% experience points if you know what I’m referring to) and went to work.

I’m not really good at names so just kind of winged these. Fortunately my blog traffic is pretty much zero so I’m not at risk of boring very many people. Since strippers are only strippers if there is somebody to strip for I decided to make an even split between male and females in my stripper deity pantheon. I know woman go to strip clubs to, but that just over thinking things.

The Stripper Gods

Tiptania

Tiptania is the patron Queen of all the stripper gods. She watches over strippers of the world. She rewards strippers who smile on stage and point their toes while doing pole tricks. She punishes strippers who poach other dancer’s customers or uses skin lotion before going on stage and doing pole work. She also works late and doesn’t want to hear any prayers before noon. Text messages are preferred. Her symbols are the brass pole and clear platform heel.

I based the name on Titania, the fairy queen from Shakespeare’s A Misummers Night’s Dream. I figure somebody has to be in charge. I thought of the name Titstania, but that kind of sounds like a low budget burlesque performer from the 50’s.  I’d love any thoughts for better names

Beware the wrath of Tiptania. She'll unleash the frog pestilence on you. May all you tips be folded up like frogs.

Newbia

Is the guardian god of all baby strippers. She makes sure they make money even though walk like drunken storks in their heels and dance like they are being electrocuted on stage. Her favorite prayer is “O god please don’t let me kick over anybodies drink during my set”. She punishes baby strippers who think they know everything after working for four weeks and rewards those who actually listen to older dancers who give good advice. Her symbols are granny panties and a Victoria’s secret bra with the label still sticking out.

Lunapsycho

Is the berserker god of strippers. She is jealous and vindictive. There are songs only she can dancer too and pole tricks only she can do, because she invented them of course. Rational thought is not necessary for Lunapyscho. She prefers to scream and bully her way situations. She’s pretty much bat shit crazy. Regardless of her behavior, she’ll only get a two week suspension and will be back at work as a god in the same club. Her symbols are the broken mirror and a bottle of Xanax.

There is actually a god named Luna in the Roman pantheon. She was the divine representation of the moon and was associated with crazy behavior. Her name was the source of the words lunatic and lunacy.

Now for the dark side of the pantheon.

Douchethulu

Douchethulu is the patron of terrible customers. He exists to steal dancer’s time while insulting them. He always wants to know what your real name is. He is occasional used by Tiptania to punish evil dancers by wrecking their tips and turning a shift into a soul crushing experience. He has two lackey’s to help him, Sweatpants bonerman and Bad breath BO stick creepy old guy with sticky hands. You can’t appease Douchethulu with lap dances, cause you know, he doesn’t have to pay for things like that. His symbol is the half empty can beer that he never seems to finish until he leaves.

The name Douchethulu sounds better than it looks on page. I tried to concatenate douche and Cthulhu into one name but it ended up looking more like touché’ hulu than anything else.

Beezleboss

Beezleboss inspires owners and managers to come up with new and stupid rules. Impromptu ridiculous and mostly illegal fines are his favorite ways to mess with strippers. Strangely Beezleboss never deals directly with strippers. He prefers to post new rules on 8½ by 11 sheets of paper taped up in the dressing room rather than actually talking to them.  His symbols are the 8½ by 11 paper and the crayon he uses to write with.

Abandon all hope, Beezleboss was here

DJ AsmodeusNickelback

AsmodeusNickelback is the fickle god of strip club DJ’s. He is temperamental and will lash out at the smallest slight. He must always be tithed minimum tipped out, more if you had a really good night. If slighted he will never play any song you like on stage and skip you on rotation. DJ AsmodeusNickelback loves the sound of his own voice and will turn up the microphone to 11 to drown everything else at the club and the monster truck rally two miles away. You can always get back into AsmodeusNickelback’s good graces by tipping and complementing his DJ skills. His symbols are the microphone and the borrowed CD he never got around to ripping.

I think I got my weirdness out of my system for a little bit. I actually have a couple of more posts to put up. I’ll try to up my posts to more than once a year.

Music Matters

There are things I understand and there are things I get. By ‘get’ I’m mean I really get all the subtleties and implications of a concept. I understand wearing open toed six inch plastic platform heals is difficult. Do I truly really get the amount of difficulty? No, I don’t. The idea that my toe nails need to be presentable is completely alien idea to me. I have ten toes. I see them every morning when I put my socks on. Could I pick them out of police line up? Probably not. I genuinely don’t care what my toe nails look like. Nor do I feel the need to be able to pick them out of a police lineup, since I’m attached to them. If there ever is the case I have been separated from my toes, I probably don’t want to see them again. Do I understand why dancers need to get pedicures yes, do I really get it? No.

I think this is the level of understanding most dancers have toward music. The problem with music is everybody has different taste. What I like, what the person next to me likes, what the people at the bar likes are most likely different. This is really true for customers, since the age range a customers can be extreme. Customers can be anything from twenty one to ninety one. Dancers get that most of the customers probably don’t listen to the music they pick for their set, but they don’t understand the true effect.

I will tip more for a dancer who plays a song I like. I will not tip a dancer who picks a song I hate. I’m generally pretty neutral toward the music being played. It falls into a kind of necessary evil to me. I understand that what I listen too is now classic, or Jurassic rock. I don’t like rap. Rap to me is just beat poetry, without the beat and without the poetry. If I ruled the world Dubstep should be expunged from the human experience. Unfortunately for me (and fortunate for everybody else) I don’t rule the world so Dubstep exists. When I go to strip club I expect to hear music I don’t like. It is a treat to actually hear music I like.

However, I pay for privilege to be at the club and I’m going to control to the best of my ability where my money goes. I listen to dancers talk about how they like to dance to a particular song. The song makes them feel sexy and they feel like they put on a better show and make more money. I personally don’t believe this. I’ve watched dancers perform to songs they like and songs they hate. The actual difference is pretty negligible if they tried to dance. Some dancers just stop and glare at the DJ if they don’t like the song. Stopping in the middle of song is the problem, not the song. Stopping will also affect her money. If I want to watch women standing still and do nothing I’ll buy a magazine.

I recently watched a dancer perform to “Bridge of sighs” by Robin Trower. She made at least eighty dollars for her set. This was during an early evening weekday shift when most girls were making ten dollars total per set. The money can mostly from the three middle aged customers. The mid shift at a club seems to be the Rogaine shift. It seems like that's the time most of the customers are my age. Speaking from experience middle age guys come in earlier because they don’t like to stay up late. The dancer was playing music that customers at the time liked. This is smart. Play to the crowd. They are where you are going to make your money.

I’ve also seen dancers play music to punish a crowd. I’ve heard hard core rap played at ear splitting levels because the dancer was having a bad night. She wasn’t making any money. Apparently it didn’t occur to her that playing music the crowd doesn’t like will affect her money. Again, I’m paying for the privilege to be there. Why do I want to pay to listen to music I hate?

You are not sexier if you are playing music I hate. Would you think a male stripper was sexy if he had Foghat or Rush blasting through the speakers at ear drum rupturing levels? I actually like Rush, even though Geddy Lee is probably one the most annoying singers ever. If you could teach squirrels to sing they would sound like Geddy Lee. I understand this, I get this. Just because you like music doesn’t mean everybody else does. Don’t expect people to pay to listen music they don’t like.

101 uses for old stripper shoes, #21

Hot Wheels launching ramp

That awkward moment

Customers have awkward moments too:

That awkward moment

1.         When you realize you’re drooling in the middle of a lap dance
2.         When you ask a dancer to get off of you
3.         When you realize what that tattoo actually is
4.     .    When you realize you’re covered in glitter
5.      .  Your leg falls asleep during a lap dance
6.         When you see the dancers lips move but you can’t hear a word she’s saying over the music
7.         When you realize the dancer has passed out in the middle of a lap dance
8.         When you realize she is as dumb as the rest of the dancers say she is

What's your real name and why should I care?

One question that consistently irritates dancers is ”what’s your real name?” I constantly see assorted twitter feeds gripes about customers asking what their real name is. One dancer even made 'What's your real name'  her twitter handle (https://twitter.com/nakedinatx). I think that when you are in the industry it becomes so common that it seems perfectly normal.  But if you’re not in the industry it’s really weird. While I can’t speak for the entire customer community, I think I can explain the interest.

Outside of the strip club world, where else do you deal with people face to face that won’t tell you their name? Pretty much nowhere else does this occur. Everywhere else people will at least give you their first name. Not only will a dancer not give you her real name, she’ll give you a really odd name.  Where else will somebody sit down next and introduce themselves “Hi, my name is Skittles”, or Calico, or Peanut, or Viagra, or Sinful. Really, I’m supposed to just pass a name like that off as an everyday occurrence? In the stripper world this is no big deal, but outside the club, it’s really odd.

When some dancer sits down and introduces herself with I always want to answer back “wow, your parents sure had a sense of humor”.  I know there are very good reasons for using a stage name, but how would you react if the person fixing your car introduced them as Gizmo, and wouldn’t give you their real name. You are completing a cash transaction with somebody that won’t tell you who they are.  Except for drug dealers (exotic pharmacist?) who else does this? Would you buy something from a person who refused to identify themselves? Strip club customers are asked to.

I’ve made light of the stage name concept in other posts. I used to be really fascinated by dancers versus their real names. I even kept a list of names to see if I could find a pattern between the two (I couldn’t). However, Facebook has kind of removed that mystery. I have a ridiculously small number of friends. Most people’s pets have more Facebook friends than I do. I really don’t care actually. But Facebook seems to care. It helpfully posts ‘people you may know’ every time I log in.  Most of the time it’s a dancer. Once you become friends with one dancer you are one or two steps away from a hundred other dancers. It’s sort of six degrees of Kevin Bacon Facebook stripper style. I’ve learned a ton of dancer’s real names from Facebook. The name novelty has worn off.

Seriously I don’t think most dancers realize how easy it is to locate them on Facebook once you have one dancer friend.  Not only that they don’t setup their privacy features at all. If you’re a dancer setup your Facebook privacy, it will save you a lot of grief in the future.

Is it a big deal that a dancer won’t tell you her real name? No, it isn’t.  But it is really unique to the industry. I know musicians and actors use fake names, but I don’t typically meet them in person when I buy their product.  Other sex workers use fake names too, but I don’t interact with them. It may be annoying as hell, but I think dancers will be asked that question as long as there are strip clubs.

A regular guy

I spend a lot of time following dancer blogs and twitter feeds. I’m always curious about what dancers think of their customers (me). After reading a post about making a regular when I began wondering what attracts me to certain dancers and becoming their regular customer. So here are the things that will hook me or send me running for the exit.

80% of success is just showing up

Probably the biggest thing for me is just simply being at the club when I am. I lived by a regular schedule. Because of work and other commitments I have to at certain places at certain times. You give me a time and day and I can tell you where I will probably be. Consequently I pretty much show up at the club at the same time on the same days. Unfortunately keeping a regular schedule is anathema to a lot of dancers. One of the major perks of a dancer’s job is the supremely flexible schedule. I understand this, so it goes a long way with me when a dancer can be there when I am.

There is also a more pragmatic reason for being there when I’m there. If I don’t spend money on you, I’ll spend it on somebody else. I’m there to relax and have fun and you have a lot more fun at a strip club if you spend money. I’m only going to work so hard to pay somebody my money.

A graceful exit

Most dancers I know are always happy to see you and greet you with a big hug. They’re interested in everything you say. Dancers always tell you they love to do dances. Then they bolt like they are on fire the instant they get their money. Nothing says “thank god that’s over” like taking the money and running. I appreciate that they are there to make money, not make friends, but minimize the mercenary mentality. Just follow through with the illusion that you like me a little further. Hanging out for an extra a few minutes and wishing me good night will go a lot further than just then a dance and dash.

Sometimes life sucks, get over it

Everybody has bad days and it’s nice to be able to complain about it. I swear some dancers are permanently pissed off. The club sucks, the management sucks, the other dancers suck, life sucks. The girl is a black hole for happy. A positive upbeat person is always so much better to be around. If I want to be depressed I can watch the 5 o’clock news. It’s a lot cheaper.

You’re not that awesome and I’m not that stupid

There is a difference between being a prospect and a customer. A prospect hasn’t completely decided on buying, they’re still may change their mind. A customer has already made the decision to buy, so you don’t have to do as much. Sadly a lot of dancers take this approach. When you first meet them they are happy, polite, and prompt. After a few weeks they are apathetic, surly, and going to do things at their own god damn pace. I’m still paying for the privilege of your presence. Just because I’ve committed to spend money on you doesn’t mean you can quit working.

Don’t disappear into the dressing room for twenty minutes and tell me you just changed your outfit. You’re a stripper, getting in and out of clothes in a blink of an eye is part of the job. You went in back, smoked a cigarette, made a phone call, talked to the girl next to you about eye-liner, and checked your text messages. Then come you out and ask me “was I gone long?”. Stupid with big boobs is still stupid. Check your Mickey Mouse watch, if Mickey’s hands have gone from scratching his head to scratching is balls you’ve been gone to long, and if he’s scratching his ass I’ve probably left the building. If you’ve ever gone to buy shoes and had the jerk sales person disappear into the back room for seemly an hour you know exactly how I feel about you. The only difference is that in a strip club there are a dozen other girls waiting to replace you. In case you haven’t noticed this is a major peeve of mine.

Regulars are more work and potentially more problems. But it’s also as close as a dancer is going to get to guaranteed money, and if you get a good regular it’s easy money. I'm not asking that much. 

The Friendster

I often find myself in position of being a “friendster” to most of the dancers I know. I’m both a friend and a customer at the same time. While this is generally a good thing to me, it does have some odd things about it. For technically curious friendster.com was actually one of the first semi-successful social networking sites, proceeding both myspace and Facebook. It also failed fairly quickly and is currently a kind of weird gaming network site out of Kuala Lumpur.

The best thing about a being a friendster is the fact the dancer trusts you. You don’t have to worry about the dancer ordering dinner and $20 drink every time the waitress walks up. For the most part it’s much less stressful for the dancer. She doesn’t have to worry about being on guard as much. I don’t think any dancer completely relaxes at work. I never completely relax at my job. I definitely have the most fun with dancers I’ve built up credibility with.

There are some down sides to this situation. There are times when I turn down an invitation from a dancer, I feel like I’m blowing off a friend. To some degree I am, but I’m also turning down a business transaction. Some dancers will take advantage of this and play on my emotions. They are having a bad day/week/month and they really need me to come in to make things go better. I used to bite on this and turn into the strip club Sit Galahad and head off to save a dancer from a bad night. I don’t do this any more. I’m paying for the privilege of her company. It can get really expensive and irritating quickly.

Like most long term business relationships, it’s a mixture of both friendship and money. My job is like this as well. I have customers I like and enjoy dealing with regardless of the professional issues. There are also customers I find utterly revolting or inane but I have to paint on smile and pretend to enjoy their conversation when I’d rather drive a spike into skull.

I know it’s in the dancer’s best interest to pretend she likes me. I wonder if she is secretly rolling her eyes at my jokes, or mentally plotting different ways kill me as a way to get through the conversation. Most dancers are much better at feigning interest than I am at figuring it out so I’ll just stay fat, dumb, and happy.

As enlighten as I’d like to think I am being friends with dancers outside the club is still a little awkward at times. One time I fixed a computer monitor for a dancer’s parents. I figured I was just going to drop it off at her place on my way home from work. Instead I ended driving over to her parent’s house and hooked up the monitor for them. It was really odd meeting her parents. Her parents knew she stripped. While they weren’t thrilled with her job they were supportive of her. They also knew I was one her customers from the club.

If they were uncomfortable with me they never showed it. I could never shake the fact that I used to pay their daughter to take her clothes off. The entire time there they warm and gracious to me the entire time I was there. They just treated me like I was one of the family. Some strippers come from screwed up families, but not all of them. I don’t think I’ve met nicer down to earth people than her parents

Most of my friendships with dancers outside the club never last. I suppose this isn’t any different than job. There have been people I’ve worked with over the years that I’ve become good friends with, yet over time we lose track of each other. When you work with somebody the job becomes a common point of interest. When they go somewhere else you lose that. Not immediately at first, but after a while things change some much that they no longer interested.

With the dancer the common point of interest is the club. When she quits working at the club you lose the point of interest. The social awkwardness of strip clubs makes things that much more difficult. A lot of dancers want to break completely from the stripper world. They don’t want to explain they know me from when they worked as a stripper. There is a social bias against the strip club world. Life is hard enough without having to contend with that as well. 

Hitting the Gym

The next time I’m heading to a strip club I’m going to tell them that I’m “Going to the gym”. From a purely pedantic point of view it’s an accurate statement. The etymological source of the word gym is the Greek word “gymnos” (γυμνός). Gymnos means naked in ancient Greek. The Greek term “gymnazo “ (γυμνάζω) which means “to train naked” is derived from gymnos. The Greeks felt that athletics are best done naked. Gymnazo eventually got Latinized into gymnasium by the Romans.

Gymnasium made it into the English language eventually, though the naked part got dropped and gymnasium just meant a place far athletic training. Still the only place I know of where people train naked (or train to be naked) is a strip club. Maybe somebody should name a club the Gymnazo. It can’t be any worse than Pitiful Princess. So, see you at the gym.

And the winner is..

The winner is Naomi from Stars Bridgeport!

So can dancers judge the value of stack of ones just by looking at it? Sort of. Granted this test didn’t result in a very big data sample. I think the only thing I conclusively proved is that ignoring a blog for a couple months will drop your traffic to zero. I only got three guesses on the blog. It’s a bit of an ego hit when giving away money doesn’t really bump site traffic. At least at the club I was able to get quite a few dancers to give me a verbal estimate.

I intentionally tried to make things difficult. There were no objects to reference the height of the stack to (except the bills them selves) and I did not compress the bills. I don’t think most dancers keep there bills like this. They probably have them bundled up and stashed. However, and expert is an expert and they should be able to handle the tough situations with the easy one.

Every initial estimate I got was much higher than the actual value. The average value of the guesses was $202 dollars. The actual value of the stack was $124. The dancers missed the value by an average of $78. The highest guess was $290, the lowest was $161. I don’t think dancers are overly optimistic, I think it was a case of the bills being stacked in an atypical fashion.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that 72% of the dancers said they needed to actually hold the stack to really be accurate. This may be my next test, I’ll bundle a setup of bills to see if how much more accurate the guesses become.

Something interesting I noticed is that when dancers didn’t just guess, but began to evaluate different aspects of the stack they became much more accurate. Typically they started high, but when they began to puzzle it out the estimate would drop. Only two dancers made an attempt to determine the actual height of the stack by comparing it the length of the bill.

The winning guess was very accurate though, within 5%, I’m curious to she how came up with this number. I suspect it wasn’t a quick guess.

So can most dancers just look at a stack of singles and determine the value? Not really. With a little more information they probably can be very accurate. My next test will be a bundle they’ll be able to handle. I’ll also get estimates from non-dancers as well, to see if dancers are more accurate.

Some things never change

There are eternal battles; Cats vs. Dogs, Ninjas vs. Pirates, Coke vs. Pepsi, and Strippers vs. Managers. I had a chance to ease drop on an all dancer meeting at a local club. I wasn't invited of course, but the meeting went much longer planned. The meeting that was supposed to start promptly at 2pm, started more toward 3ish, and was still going long after club's opening time.

When I walked in Sunday all the lights were on and the dancers were gathered around a stage, being lectured to by a manager. It’s always really odd to see the club under normal lighting. The perception of size is completely changed. The normally dark interior walls appear much closer in the light making it almost claustrophobic. The dancers all look really different too, specifically they look much shorter. Normally you only see dancers when they are in six inch or higher heels. Suddenly they’ve all shrunk, like walking into a stripper hobbit hole.

Once I figured out what was going on, I scuttled off to the video poker machines to occupy myself and listen in to the meeting. It reminded me of some of the horrible meetings I’ve been stuck in, where some manager feels the need to lecture you on a bunch of issues you know better than he does. The manager was going on an on about dancer breaking rules to the dancers that don’t beak the rules because the dancers that break the rules tend not to show up on Sundays for meeting about not breaking the rules.

The rules in question were the rules that managers always seems to go on about. The dancers looked simultaneously tired, bored, and annoyed. After listening to the manager for a little bit I was bored, tired and annoyed too. After thinking about the meeting for a couple days I decided I would weigh in on these eternal conflicts, to give an outside point of view.

Bitch #1 Make it to stage on time

When a dancer hears her should drop everything and race for the stage like she’s being paged by St Peter at the pearly gates, at least that’s manager seem to suggest. For the most part, I’ve got agree with the manager on this one. As a customer it sucks sitting staring at an empty stage. It’s surprising how fast it become uncomfortable. I start to think about getting up and going to the bathroom, or getting a new drink, or heading home to catch the Big Bang Theory reruns. If the club is reasonably crowded it’s to the dancer advantage to make it to the stage on time. The rack is going to empty out pretty quickly if people are left waiting too long, Every customer that leaves is money walking away from the stage.

However when the club is empty the manager needs lighten up. If all the customers are sitting at the bar or hiding out at tables it really doesn’t matter if the dancer zooms up to the stage. There’s no point to breaking an ankle for four bucks and frankly, the customers have already left the stage before the last song ended. Yet the manager seem’s to ignore this fact. You should train dogs if you want absolute obedience. 

Bitch #2 Show up with your hair and make up done

Honestly, this should be rephrased be ready to start when your shift begins. I can understand this one. I’ve personally ranted about dancer’s cliché lack of promptness on multiple posts. A lot of dancers roll in a couple minutes before their shift starts, report in, then spend the next two hours getting ready. Whether they arrive two hours early and get ready or get ready at home really doesn’t make a difference. You’re either ready or your not. I’ve noticed that a speed at which a dancer gets ready is directly proportional to the amount of money being tipped on stage. People are much more prompted when there’s money to be made at the time. However it isn’t fair to the dancers that did get ready on time for the others to shift on time when it’s slow.

Bitch #3 Let the DJ know when you’re doing dances

This one seems straight forward but tends to be much more difficult in practice. The strip club is probably the worse place for communication short of combat. You have loud music, lights, and alcohol. I’ve watched DJs and dancers talk to each other and carry on completely different conversations. Then walk off not realizing that other had no clue what the other person said. “I’m going to being doing three songs in the VIP” from the dancers turns into “I’m going to be free after this song” for the DJ, which turns into argument when the DJ calls her to stage in the middle of her dances.

Sometimes the situation prevents the dancer from being able to communicate with the DJ. We customers can be a pretty flakey bunch. Once a dancer finally gets a customer to agree to do dances she needs to get him back to the champagne room before he can change his mind. Trying to track down the DJ or get his attention can be impossible. This is one situation where the manager needs to be able to figure what’s going on when conflict occurs..Just blaming the dancers isn't right thing to do.

Bitch #4 Always order the expensive drinks

This is one rule that does more harm than good. Sure, short term it might boost bar sales but it pisses of the customers. In my opinion its too the dancers advantage to order cheap drinks. Every dollar the bar takes is one less dollar she can get. Dances cost $20 bucks. If cost of the drinks is $21 for top shelf, instead of $17 the extra four bucks just cost the dancer $20 bucks. Once I break a twenty that's one less dance I can buy. It also makes guys more difficult to dance for. If the dancers isn't going to respect me, why should I respect her? 

Bitch #5 We’re not the dirtiest club in town, so clean up the dances.

This rule usually lasts for a couple weeks before things go back to where they were. I’m glad I didn’t hear this rant or I probably would have been kicked out of the club. The manager used such a flawed argument to make his point I probably wouldn’t have been keep my mouth shut. The manager claimed that when he started in the industry fifteen years ago girls were making $700 or more a night doing air dances and none of this extra stuff was needed. He also claimed that back then girls were lining up to work at this club and they should feel lucky to be here.

Apparently the manager lives in a time warp and has missed the fact the world has changed in the past fifteen years. Fifteen years ago the economy was starting the dot com boom. The clubs were much more crowded fifteen years ago. People had a lot more money to spend. Back then I used to take off from clubs at 8pm because they got so crowded there was no place to sit. Now I could probably park my car next to the stage at 8pm and there still would be room for everybody. Apparently the manager hasn’t noticed that things have slowed down a little since then. 

He also neglects to mention that all the clubs were doing air dances in Portland at the time. This led to my own misadventure the first time a dancer sat down in my lap in Texas. Now if a club tried to enforce that everybody will just head down the road to next club. All the dancers I know don’t want to get groped of $20 by some random guys off the street. But that’s the current environment right now and a lot of dancers are going to do what they need to pay their bills.

He also mentions that there were dancers waiting to work for the club. This implies that they were limiting the number of dancers that could work there. This is a noticeable change from the current policy of letting any dancer with a pulse and stage fees show up and work, regardless of how many girls are already there. You get 30 dancers chasing 10 customers and the rules are going to become optional pretty fast.

Arguments like this just make everything worse. Dancers will just look at the manager like he’s an idiot and ignore him. You have no credibility when ignore reality. I don’t mind working for jerks if they are will to deal with the facts. Somebody who makes up an imaginary world to work in is impossible to deal with. I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to strip club management lunacy. 

The once and future heel

A lot of professions have shoes specific to job. There is everything from steel toed boots to anti-static sneakers. Stripping has its own custom foot wear too. What’s different about stripper platforms is that they don’t make any changes to the shoe to accommodate functionality. It’s definitely form over function in the stripper shoe world.

I’m not sure if this is a sign I’ve been hanging out in strip clubs too long or I’ve been an engineer too long, but I’ve actually experimented with trying to improve stripper shoes from a functionality point of view.  

The first thing I noticed is that the vamp does double duty in a high heel. It both retains the top of the foot to prevent you from stepping out of the shoe when you walk and it also bears a fair amount of the person’s weight as well. The angle of the insole pretty much wants to force foot off the front of the shoe. The vamp captures the front of the foot and the person’s weight is applied to the out edges of the foot, something that normally doesn’t occur when the foot is flat. If you look at the picture of the clear heel you actually see skin being crushed flat against the plastic on the outside of the little toe. The hard plastic also tends to focus all the weight on small points of the foot..

My initial idea was modify the vamp. The does double duty, it has to capture the foot and support the weight and look good. The problem is that most shoes are purely made for looks. The hard plastic may look cool, but you’re pretty much cramming your foot into a clear sausage extruder. The plastic isn’t going to give so the foot is forced into an unnatural shape to fit the vamp. I’ve seen dancers that used hair dryers to soften the plastic to fit the foot better, but this will weaken the plastic and the shoe will probably break a lot sooner. Breaking in shoes usually means crunching your foot into a new shape.

My thought was to create two separate pieces for the vamp. There would be an internal band that would be purely functional and an out piece that would be for looks. The advantage of separating the two pieces is you can different materials for each piece. You could use a more compliant material like elastic on the internal vamp. This would prevent the weight from being focused on a single point. The outer piece would be purely decorative. It could also be replaceable. Since it doesn’t have to be attached securely you could have multiple out straps to change the look of the shoe or to customize them.

I made a fixture that matched the basic shape of the insole and experimented with how tight and large an elastic band would have to be to effective. I quickly ran into a problem with elastic. In order to keep the foot from slipping the elastic had to be so tight it was very uncomfortable. Instead of an extruder the shoe became vice. Their might be some softer, more compliant polymers or other materals that would work better but that is out of my field of expertise.

One thing I was able to get work fairly well was to create a replaceable insole. Like any work shoe stripper heels can definitely stink after a while. I got my hands on a pair of old clear heels and went to work. I carved a pocket into insole of the shoe that would hold an aftermarket gel insert. Added a little Velcro on the bottom of the insert to keep it in place. It actually ended up working really well. You ended up with shoe that you could pull the insole out and either wash or replace it. I'm sure somebody has probably done this already, but I haven't seen it yet.

I think the real future is going to be printable shoes. 3D printers are actually becoming very affordable. I’m seeing a lot more examples of those that have been created with 3D printers.

3D Printed Shoes

I was thinking of creating a software package that would literally let you print a pair of shoes. More importantly the software would let you modify to the size and shape of the shoe. You could make the shoe wider and narrower to match your foot exactly. You could also add you own designs and logos to your shoes.

I’m not sure where the 3D technology is as far as strength and colors go. Most printers now can only do one or two primary colors. The shoes in the picture above and the black accents airbrushed on. But I imagine its only a matter of time before it becomes practical. Maybe I should create a kickstarter profile to develop a custom shoe making software.

Dancer Maladies

Here are some imaginary afflictions I see dancers getting from time to time. They are kind of silly, but I don't feel very serious right now.




Poleo
this is a dancer affliction where she exhibits extreme reluctance to move more than arms length from the pole the entire set. The dancer shows an aversion to approaching any customers. She will maintain physical contact with the pole at all times. This affliction is most commonly seen in baby strippers, but will occasionally be observed in more experienced dancers. It must be terrifying the first time on stage for a dancer. There really isn't any way to practice stripping, she get thrown to the wolves, literally. Have you noticed the expressions some guys have around the stage? Predatory would be the most accurate description of their looks. Most dancers get better and start to engage customers around the rail. Some dancers will exhibit Poleo when nobody is tipping. They'll just lean against the pole and glare at the crowd. I can't blame them, why give it away for free.

Recommended treatment: Money. Once the dancer learns that she’ll make more money engaging the customers she’ll release her death grip on the pole. Also dancers tend to glare less when they are being tipped.


Stripper Munchausen By Proxy Syndrome
This is where the dancer need for money results more and more outlandish stories being told to customers in hopes of greater financial rewards through sympathy. Stripper Munchausen by Proxy is sometimes shortened to the term Stripper BS. Seriously, I'd like to record some of these stories. I wonder if she is playing a game to see how ridiculous of a story she can get away with. I really hate it when a dancer I've know calls me up because I'm her 'only hope'. She should have called Obi-wan Kenobi instead. I already pay good money for the pleasure of your company. Please don't expect me to pay for your bad judgement. The sad part is when I hear what's really going on from other dancers. The real reason for your cash short fall is you had to post bail to spring your deadbeat boyfriend, not your cat needs triple bypass surgery.

One dancer gave me a long sad story about how she spent her last pennies buying food for her cat instead of paying her phone bill. Now her cell was going to be turned off and if that happened she wouldn't be able to schedule, which means she wouldn't be able to work, which would get her evicted and she and her well fed cat would have to beg for money at a freeway off ramp. Then in the same breath she told me how happy she was with the results the tooth whiteners strips she just bought were giving her. Whitening strips or phone bill? Either you have the worst decision making skills ever, or you're dumb as a box of rocks, or you are trolling a line of BS hoping some poor schmuck bites to save you the effort of actually having to work. Probably a combination off all three.

Recommended treatment: None. The condition can be mitigated some by the application of extreme amounts of sarcasm when the stories start.



Clydesdale Tourette's syndrome
This syndrome presents itself in the form of the dancer obnoxiously clicking her heels together on stage like a draft horse trying to count to three. Sometimes the dancer will kick the stage or slam the pole up and down in its fittings. Ladies I'll let you in on a little secret about guys. We will always notice a naked woman on a stage. Always. Do you really think that we suddenly look up and wonder where you suddenly came from? Holy shit, a naked girl in seven inch heels standing in the middle of the stage, where did she come from? At a strip club no less, wow, who would have thought. Yes, the guys are ignoring you for all wrong reasons, but we know you are there. I know the purpose of clacking your heels is point out that the guys aren't tipping and hopefully shame them into doing right thing. Doing it too much is one of the few things a dancer can do to insure that I won't tip. Also, don't slam a spinning pole up and down it wrecks the bearings. Do this too much and girls who do a lot of pole tricks will begin to plot your death. Your car will explode when you go to drive home one night.

Recommended treatment: High explosives and detonator packed into her heels.


Dancer Zombification
This syndrome presents with  the dancer being so distracted on stage she appears to have no brain function. Zombification’s primary difference Poleo is in the fact the dancer is simply going through the motions, she is simply working through a well practiced routine being completely indifferent to the customers. This is one of the few things I can empathize with dancers. I done presentations at a some trade shows where I don’t see the crowd. I just mechanically plod through the presentation like I’m talking to myself. I can imagine a dancer doing the same thing. She walk’s up the stage, the exact same guys are there from the last time she was up. She know’s how much she’s going to get tipped, the guys reaction, and what mindless comments the DJ will make. Of course, the primary cause of Zombie dancers is Zombie customers. There probably is nothing worse than customers who just sit motionless at the stage.

Recommended treatment: Ethanol taken orally, stat.

My own misconceptions

You see the world through the prism of your past experiences.  How I’ve come to view dancers has changed dramatically since I first started hanging out in strip clubs. I’ve probably changed more than I realize. It’s difficult to really see yourself, everybody has blind spots. I’d probably shock myself if I could go back and time and interview me after my first time visiting a strip club. I recently reread some of my older personal journal posts that reflected some of my early misconceptions. I don’t keep a formal journal, but I often write about things. The process of writing forces me to look at things differently. It’s harder to lie to myself when I’m writing. I’ll usually delete the entry after I’m done writing it, but I’ve kept a few of them in my personal files. Here are a few of the misconceptions I’ve hard about dancers over the years that I saw in those early posts.

Strippers are stupid

Obviously nobody would get up on stage and take their clothes off in front of a bunch of drunken strangers if they had a real education. Right? Wrong. Of all my misconceptions this was the one that was dispelled the quickest. I tend to listen a lot more than I talk. It didn’t take long to realize a lot of dancers are very, very smart, in both scholastic and practical ways. I think a lot of folks can’t get past their preconceptions of dancers. They want to believe dancers are dumb. I’m not sure if it’s to build them selves up or to reinforce their stereotype. I’ve experienced intellectual prejudice. I worked as a gas station attendant while in college. People assume if you’re filling up cars to make a living you are probably just slightly smarter than the gas pump you’re standing next too.  People can be really condescending. I was told a few times “What do you know? You work at a gas station”.  And they were sober. I can’t imagine what drunken insanity dancers deal with.

Strippers are heartless

I used to assume all dancers had utter disdain for their customers. Customers were just walking wallets to be harvested. This may be true for some dancers, but not for a lot of them. I think it’s easier for me as a customer to feel this way as well. If I say or do something rude to a dancer it can just write it off as “it doesn’t matter, she only wanted my money”. For either dancer or customer point of view it can be pretty dehumanizing. When I fainted at a strip club and ended up in the emergency room I was really surprised to find out a dancer had spent her Saturday night in the waiting room to see if I was OK. That really floored me. I never expected a dancer to do that. I figured once I was rolled out the back door they’d go back to business as usual. I don’t go into clubs assuming that every dancer is going to be my friend. But I don’t expect them to all be heartless vultures either.

Strippers have no ambition

A girl becomes a stripper because she doesn’t want anything better for herself. The logic of that sentence is hopelessly twisted and flawed. I’m not sure why I even had that idea. This is mostly me imposing my own social preconceptions on somebody else. I’ve met dancers will all sorts of different levels of ambition. Some are the cliché dancer who only works enough to cover her next set of bills to other dancers who accomplish more things a month than I do in a year. It makes me tired just following them on twitter. This is true in any profession. I know engineers who only do enough to keep from getting fired, others who are trying to reinvent the world. It’s people not the profession that make the difference.

Strippers have no morality

Again this is me projecting my Iron Age witch burning puritan Anglo-Saxon ethics I was raised with on somebody else. I was raised in a society where public nudity is bad. Playboy was a “dirty” magazine, kept hidden behind special racks at the store. You had to be 17 to see an R rated movie. Taking your clothes off for money was not what moral people did. This fallacy really faded quickly when I came to grips with the fact there wouldn’t be strippers without strip club customers (me). The fundamental hypocrisy of that idea is painful. Am I that blind to my own imperfections? I’m as integral to the strip club world as the strippers. Without guys spending money dancers are just broke naked women standing alone on a stage. Talk about throwing stones in glass houses. The larger issues is exactly what about stripping is bad?

Most of this post stems from conversations I had with a spokes model at a CES show a few years ago. She was hired to present the products I was supporting at our booth. We were staying at the same hotel and had the same schedule. We hit it off and I sort of became her older brother. She was strikingly beautiful. And she was constantly hit on by conventioneers, I mean constantly. I calculated she was propositioned once every fifteen minutes. When I was around it at least slowed guys down some. 

One day at lunch she was telling me about her trip to a strip club one night. It was the usual stranger in a strange land kind of experience. She just couldn’t believe a woman could do that for money. We got into a lengthy discussion about how her job compares to stripping. I’m pretty sure I changed her opinion of dancers for the better. I at least convinced her that not all dancers are train wrecks.

Her (and my) misconceptions are really are just really different as aspects of a larger one. The misconception stripping is bad and if somebody is doing it they must have failed somewhere. This is just patently false. If you described a typical a person as in young, self employed, making enough money to comfortable you’d probably be impressed. Most people that age are struggling to make ends meet and probably still living with their parents. You add the word “stripper” to that same description and everything changes yet nothing has changed. They are still the same person.

I’ve think there are four categories dancers fall into when it comes to why they are dancing. Obviously they are dancing to make money but they’re larger situation is much different. Most girls are dancing not because they are morally bankrupt its their situation that determines it. This is a breakdown as I perceive it. Most dancers don’t fit exactly into a category but they generally fall into one.

The Professional Stripper

This is what she does for a living. She isn’t going to school or waiting for something better to come along. She is happy to strip for a living. Most professional strippers I know are college educated. She chose to do this as a living.

The Lifestyle Stripper

This dancer loves everything about stripping except stripping. It would be a great job except for the customers, the sleazy management, and other strippers. They like the money and the huge flexibility the job gives them. The like working in a bar, the late nights, and their friends they work with. However, they really don’t like the stripping itself. It’s just a necessary evil they have to put with to get the other perks. Stripping isn’t the perfect job but it is close enough to keep doing.

The Best Option Stripper

The girls dance because it’s their best option at the moment. The job provides enough income and flexibility to accomplish what they want in life like going to school or raising their kids. Most would quit stripping in a heartbeat if they could find another job with that let them accomplish the same things. Unfortunately most of society doesn’t see stripping as a best option.

The Only Option Stripper

These are the train wreck girls who strip because it’s they only thing they can do. Whether its drugs or personal problems they can’t function at most jobs. One perk about stripping (at least in Portland) is it’s virtually impossible to get fired. Even if you do get ‘fired’ you can go work at another club down the road. These are the cliché strippers you typically see in the media. They make for entertaining reading. Sadly, they end up representing what most people think strippers are like even though they are, in my opinion, the smallest percentage of dancers.

I think most folks would find this odd, but I’ve probably grown as a person from hanging out at a strip club. I’ve had to confront some of my deep seated biases about other people. We all have blind spots when it comes to ourselves. I hope I always have the desire and courage to try and find mine.

Customer Support

I try to avoid making general assumptions, but generally speaking, dancers are way more open and honest about their sexuality then most other women I know. Conversations I couldn’t imagine having with my female co-workers wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow with dancers. Add some alcohol and you can get some really interesting phone calls.

It’s not uncommon for me to get text messages at 3am from dancers. They are just getting off work and most of their friends are still up. I’ve turned off the text chime on phone so I can sleep. They can text away all they want. I’ll read them in the morning when I get up. I rarely get phone calls, when I do it’s usually a butt call. If a dancer calls me, I’ll just let it go to voice mail. I’ll check the voice mail with the text messages in the morning.

So I didn’t answer the phone late one night in February. I didn’t pick up when it rang again five minutes later. When it rang a third time I picked up. If somebody is going to call me three times its probably important. Caller ID helps too, there are a lot of folks I’d just turn the phone off if they called me in the morning. My initial thought was she was stuck some place and needed a ride. I was wrong. Here is the conversation as best as I can remember it. I’m sure I got minor details wrong here and there, but the gist is of the conversation is correct.

Me: Hello
Her: I need your help!
Me: err, umm, What?
Her: I need you help.
Me: What’s wrong?
Her: My vibrator is broken.
Me: What?
Her: My vibrator is broken
Me: Are you serious?
Her: Yes, I’m serious
Me; You’ve got to be kidding. Is it like stuck some place or something?
Her: No, don’t be an ass.
(About this time I notice she’s slurring her words)
Me: Are you drunk?
Her: Doesn’t matter, can you help me?
Me: Just buy a new one
Her: I don’t want a new one, I want this one.
Me: What? You’re hammered.
Her: This one is special
Me: Special? That’s seriously stupid. Just buy the same model
Her: No, I’ve had this vibrator longer than most of my boyfriends
Me: Is this something to be proud of?
Her: You’re being an ass. I want it fixed, can you help me?
Me: Now?
Her; No, not now it’s late
Me: No shit, why did you call me then?
Her: I need to know, can you fix it?
Me: The vibrator?
Her: Yes the vibrator. What do you think I’m fucking talking about, I thought you were smart?
Me: Not at 3am.
Her: So can you fix it?
Me: Maybe, depends on what’s wrong. What does it do?
Her: Nothing
Me: Does the on/off switch feel normal.
Her: It doesn’t have a switch, it has a dial
Me: OK, so does the dial feel normal?
Her: Yeah, I guess. I don’t know
Me: Does it make any noise when you turn it on?
Her: Nothing
Me: It’s just dead then?
Her: Yeah
Me: I dunno, I might be able to fix it, depends on what failed. If the motor burned out you’re screwed. If the dial or a battery contact broke I can probably fix it.
Her: Batteries…………Oh, shit
Me: You’ve got to be kidding…. (call ends) …You didn’t replace the batteries?

I don’t think she remembered much of the call when she sobered up. Next time I talked to here she acted as if the call never occurred  For the technically curious this wasn't Savannah from the Good Vibrations post. I guess I can go to work as customer support for a sex toy company if I ever lose my job. It’s always good to have a back up career.

Your roommate might be a stripper

Every job has its peculiar skills and . Stripping is no different. Here are somethings I noticed that are associated with that job. Your roommate might be a stripper if


1) 10:30am is ungodly early in the morning, don’t dare call her.
2) She calls at 1am to just chat
3) Her nails are neatly manicured and her palms have callouses from pole work
(Did you just look at your hands?)
4) Within one week her manicure is completely wrecked
5) She knows where every restaurant is that will be open at 3:30am
6) She pays for a $70 item all in ones (cliche’ I know, but true)
7) Tennis shoes and flats are uncomfortable, but six inch heels aren’t
8) Glitter
9) She has $200 of MAC cosmetics in a $10 Target purse
10) She has friends with odd names like Ecstasy, Venus, and Chardonnay
11) The volume on her phone is turned up so loud you can hear her conversation better than she can
12) She buys more baby wipes than the Octomom
13) She can spot another dancer a mile away
14) She has a wheelie bag full of panties, lingerie, and platform heels in the trunk of her car.
15) She can fix shoes with crazy glue, safety pins, and scotch tape
16) She can look at a stack of one dollar bills and estimate its value with 99% accuracy or better
17) The sight of an open bottle of body lotion raises her blood pressure 50 points (if she does pole work)
18) She knows which nail polish and clothing will glow under black light
19) Arriving on time before 2pm is cause for high fives, fist bumps, and other celebrations.
20) You find dollar bills in floating in the washing machine when you do your laundry

It's like dog years

A perfectly valid unit of time in a strip club is a song. It’s pretty common to hear things like “there’s time. I don’t go up for six songs” or “gotta hurry, I’ve only got two songs”. Typically a song is between three and four minutes long. The length of the song is set by the DJ who usually ends the song at the appropriate time. I’ve measured the average length of the songs occasionally, using the handy lap counter feature on my iPod nano. During the day the songs run will run from 4 to 5 minutes, at night the songs are 3 minutes. You actually get more time for your money if you go into a club during the day. For this post I’ll assume the song length is three minutes.

I’ll forever be frustrated by dancers who take off into the dressing room for a couple songs and leave me waiting for what feels like an eternity. I think dancers lose track of the fact two songs for her and two songs for me are two different things. Two songs equal six minutes of time. If a dancer works a six hour shift (360 minutes) those two songs will represent roughly 1.67% of the total time she spends in the club. If I spend one hour in the club (60 minutes) those two songs will represent 10% of the total time I will spend there. It’s kind of like dog years. Those two songs will feel six times longer to me than her.

If I wait four songs the numbers get worse. That’s 3.34% for her and 20% of my time. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a strip club that could survive without the live entertainment. The drinks are horribly overpriced, the music is too loud and not what I like. The furniture is miserable and lighting is bad. Once you hang out at a club the novelty fades quickly. The novelty at some club’s fades the second you walk in the door. It can really miserable waiting for a dancer in a club.

Actually making customers wait is a passive aggressive way some dancers deal with customers. They are happy at the thought the customer is stuck waiting for them. When your job requires you to interact with customers on a personal level this will happen. You wouldn’t be a human if the dick heads didn’t get you down. But don’t take it out on the good customers. If you drive away the good customers you’ll be stuck with the dick heads.

Character Counts

I follow a lot of dancers on twitter. It’s interesting to see real time reactions to situations then hear or read about them later. If funny at times to see dancers and customer complain about the same basic thing but from complete different points of view. One of these complaining points recently is about false promises. A dancer unleashed a rather vehement series of tweets about some jerk customer who flashed a bunch of cash, but didn’t spend in penny on her. This reminded me of a few customer rants where they complained about dancers who promised a lot more than they delivered.

There is certain expectations when you go into a strip club. The first is that the entertainers will take their clothes off and customers will tip them. From there the options continue, there will probably be tables dances, lap dances, etc etc. Dancer or anybody else selling something you approach each customer trying to figure out how much can you make versus how much its going to cost you. How much for how much. In my work world it’s usually time and travel. There are customers in any business that are so difficult to deal with. They require so much attention and buy so little they aren’t worth the time.

If you think there is going to be a big payoff you are much more likely to hang in there longer. It’s the sales paradox, how much time and money are you willing to spend in order to make the sale? This makes the dancer vulnerable to manipulation. If some guy is flashing money and looks like he going to spend it she'll invest her time on him. From the customer side if the dancer acts like she'll do more he just spends more is pretty much the same deal. A false promise of a big payout to get a short term take away.

Some times it just a power trip on the customers part. They just like manipulating the dancer. It's actually pretty pathetic. If you think waving a bunch of money so you can slam some dancer, telling her too bad she's not worth it, the you should probably be spending your money on therapy, not strippers. Dancer’s who promise customers anything just to get their money isn’t any better. It’s deception in both cases.

It’s all to easy to forget that there is a person on the other side of the transaction. I’m not a walking wallet. Treat me like one and go somewhere else. Recently a dancer I’ve never met before sat down with me. With ten minutes she told me that we were going to be “best friends” and we should make plans for dinner. Yeah, right. You’ve known me for 600 seconds, I’m old enough to be your father, and you want to got out to dinner together. I’m not really buying this and I’m really not buying any dances from you.

Dancer FA

One of the colloquialisms at my work is 'FA'. FA is the acronym for failure analysis. This is where a customer will send in their dead unit and we’ll try to determine why it failed. I do most of these except for the high profile and really obscure problems. In the spirit of looking for simple things blog about i'll apply my meager skills to why dancers fail to get dances, more specifically why the dancer failed to get dances from me. I probably don’t represent the typical customer but I probably have pretty typical reactions to a dancers sales pitch.

Ask for the Dance

The number one reason why I did not buy dances from a girl is she never asked me. Ask for the dance, ask for the dance, and ask for the dance. When you wait for the customer to ask you are putting your fate in his hands. If I’m on the fence about whether to buy dances I’ll probably stay there. I’m not trying to be difficult but it’s my money you want me to spend. I’d rather get dances from somebody interested in selling them. The longer she waits the more likely I’m not going to buy dances. Occupy Wall Street, not my bar tab. Walking away absolutely guarantees that you won’t get dances. It doesn’t matter if he asked you to sit with him or you ask to sit. It doesn’t matter what you are selling dances, mutual funds or diamonds always ask for the dance. Ask for the sale.

It's about me

There are some subjects that will instantly shut down any desire for a dance. The most abhorrent to me is listening about how attractive somebody else is. I’m an unremarkable man with an unremarkable job that drives an unremarkable car to an unremarkable home. There are 168 hours in a week. I’m reminded constantly for the other 166 hours that I’m not an object of desire. I don’t want to hear it when I’m in a strip club and I sure as hell don’t want to pay for the privilege. I’m not asking to hear false platitudes about how handsome I am. Like asking for the sale, this isn’t something particular to stripping. If I were to go into one of my accounts and tell them how cool their competitor’s product was I wouldn’t live to see the end of the week. You are always tap dancing around the customer’s ego in sales. It might feel good to whack some guy’s ego but it’s not going to make you any money.

The customer is not your enemy

The last thing is don’t hate your customer. It always surprises me how often a dancer will plop down next to me with a thinly veiled expression of malice on her face. She’ll plow through a couple minutes of small talk through clinched teeth. Then snarl out some sort of snarky remark when I don’t buy dances from her. I didn’t force you to sit with me. If you’ve already resigned yourself to failing then nothing is going to stop you. Anybody who has sold anything has wanted to strangle their customer. There probably isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t want to beat some idiot engineer to death was his iPhone 4S. Siri, please contact the coroner I’m going to kill this idiot. I like to think myself as a relatively low maintenance customer but I know a few of my dancer friends have wanted to break a chair over my head.

Don't push yourself to far

One of those signs you’ve been hanging around at a strip club too long is when you’re asked to help educate new dancers. There is a piece of advice I always give out but I doubt ever gets followed. As soon as they can they should save two months of living expenses. I know this is a lot easier said than done, but dancing is very taxing both physically and mentally. Having a cushion to take a break can make all the difference. The pressure to make money can be overwhelming when your back is against the wall. This invariably leads to bad decisions.

The Stripper stomp

I ran into this blog post about the dangers of wearing high heel shoes. There was nothing really new in the article. Just the usual news flash “Heels are bad!” Like this is some sort great revelation. But what really struck me was one sentence in the article describing a woman’s gait after wearing heels for some time:

"the scientists found that heel wearers moved with shorter, more forceful strides than the control group"

They had shorter, more forceful strides. I nick named this gait the stripper stomp. I have had various dancers living in my extra bedroom from time to time. Two girls long term, most others short term, only a couple weeks. Compared to non-dancers they seemed to pound the ground when they walked.

I think I may lived out a couple of Captain Save’ a ho’ fantasy’s, the dream of having your favorite dancer show at your door step for you to rescue them from their terrible situation. The reality is quite different. It actually sucks. People don’t show up with all their worldly possessions crammed into their car because they are in a good place. Things have gone terribly wrong in their life. Nothing romantic is going to come of it. There will just a bunch of money, personal, and probably drug problems for you to help deal with.

The first stranded dancer was very petite. She weighed 115 lbs, soaking wet. I know she weighed that much because she complained about being too fat all the time. A buck fifteen too fat? Maybe if you’re four feet tall. Honestly my hair was fatter than her. Maybe that’s why I’m going bald: gravity. The first time she went rushing by me I thought she was mad about something. Despite her bare feet she shook the furniture. When I asked her what was wrong she looked at me like I was crazy. She was just walking she assured me.

The other dancers had the same walking traits. They all looked elfin petite, they all sounded like sasquatch when they walked. I had originally thought they were so noisy when they walked because they were half deaf. They just didn’t hear how loud their foot steps were. One long time dancer friend of mine has 80% hearing loss in one ear. Dancing definitely takes it toll on the body over time.

It’s always interesting when you see some sort of research confirm or at least correlate with your observations. Maybe I can get a research grant to investigate it further.

Déjà vu all over again

Sometime things happen that really remind me that Dancers are also sales folk and they go through the same things I do. When you are dealing with all sorts of people in slightly chaotic environment its easy to lose track of things.

I had spent the afternoon visiting a one of our vendors at work and had gotten stuck in a traffic jam on my way home. Rather than spend quality time with ten thousand of my closest friends on the freeway I bailed off the freeway and took side streets to my favorite club to wait for traffic to die down. I was at the club at an unusual time for me (early afternoon). I grabbed a drink and sat down near the stage. The club was pretty empty, the dancers outnumber the customers.

A couple songs went by when a dancer I've never met before sat down next to me. We quickly went through the standard strip club introduction conversation:

Her: What's your name?

Me: Todd

Her: Hi Todd, I'm Epiphany (not her real name)

Me: Nice to meet you

Her: So do you live around here?

Me: yeah, just a couple mile s down the road.

Her: So what do you do for a living?

Me I'm an Engineer.

Her: Wow, that's really interesting. What brings you here today?

Me: Waiting for traffic to die down.

Her: Yeah, that's what everybody says. Would you like to get some dances?

Me: No, I'm going to play hard to get. I think I'll wait and see if I know anybody.

Her: OK, I'll stop by later in case you change your mind.

She walked back to the bar. A short time later a dancer I did know showed up and spent some time with her. After getting some dances from her I went back to my table to spend the rest of my ones and take off.

Epiphany stopped my table again. I assumed she was going to ask for dances again. Instead the following conversation occurred:

Her: What's your name?

Me: Todd

Her: Hi Todd, I'm Epiphany (not her real name)

Me: Nice to meet you

Her: So do you live around here?

Me: yeah, just a couple mile s down the road.

Her: So what do you do for a living?

Me I'm an Engineer.

Her: Wow, that's really interesting. What brings you here today?

Me: Waiting for traffic to die down.

Her: Yeah, that's what everybody says. Would you like to get some dances?

Me: No, I'm going to play hard to get.

We went through the almost exact same conversation. She gave me funny a look when I told her about playing 'hard to get'. I think it set in she had already sat down with me earlier As near as I can tell she had forgotten she had already talked to me until I said that. I've been on the other side of that conversation. After working a trade show for four days you quit looking at the people. You go through the exact conversation so many time you almost don't realize what you are saying. I imagine after several straight days at work most dancers are suffering from charming fatigue. It's tough to be polite and upbeat for an entire shift. Especially when you get a customer you want to strangle.

Of course this doesn't make me feel very good. I'd like to think I'd make a big enough impression that she'd remember me 40 minutes later.