(Note: There are some errors on the following blog posting. While I'll leave the original comments in I'll note the errors. My apologies for the mistakes. My goal of the blog was to comment on the buzz and rumors around the contest. Please read Natalia's comments for more detailed corrections. Sorry again, Todd)
I have a little different perspective of the Miss Nude Oregon contest. I don't really to attend the actual events. They are way too loud and crowded. Part of my jobs is to build exhibits for trade show. While I really don't care too much who wins I really like the planning and ideas dancers come up with for the contest. I'm going to depart from my normal policy of mentioning names, since everybody already knows who is involved.
On your mark, get set…
Early on in the contest there were three front runners most people were talking about. Nadya was name I heard the most. She is a statuesque blond, who probably has the most stunning physical presence of any contestants. Autumn was also mentioned. She is both athletic and graceful. She has always been one of my favorite dancers to watch. She has one skill that most dancers don't have. A typical dancer has a repertoire moves they use on stage. You can see them pause and decide which move use during the set. Autumn could go from move to move with seamless elegance. Jewel was the third. She is also very athletic and is rather daring in some of her performance moves.
When you are in a race the best view is always from the front
After the first preliminaries Nadya quickly became the odds on favorite. She generated all of the buzz. What she managed to do was make her performance the main event of the evening. In a public contest, this is critical. People tend to get caught in the flow. This is where perception becomes reality. Two years ago I did a trade show where the company I worked for introduced a 108" LCD TV. This thing was completely impractical as an actual product. You needed a forklift to move it, it ran off three phase 220V, and it cost more than a Lexus LS460. Worse yet, the actual picture quality was OK, but not really all that impressive. But it was one big, bright media magnet. Everybody wanted to see it. Nadya had this in spades. I've never seen her perform, but I thought about heading to D1 to see what everybody was talking about. Most of the conversations were about who would get second and third.
Iceberg dead ahead
At the semi finals Nadya showed up wearing a sash with "Nadya Miss Nude Oregon 2008" printed on it. (Correction: Should read: Nadya for Miss Nude Oregon 2008)I think his is where she lost the contest. The sash, the tiara, and trophy are all symbols people expect to be awarded to the winner. Not purchased by a contestant. This instantly alienated a lot of people. Being the front runner was definitely a drawback here. When you are in the spot light, everything gets amplified. Especially your mistakes. The buzz went from she should win to what an ego. It also creates another problem with credibility. I don't believe the contest is overtly rigged. It's pretty much a lock that a Dolphin dancer is going to win it, but I doubt there is a back room conspiracy to pick which Dolphin girl will win in advance. If a dancer shows up at a prelim with the victory sash it's like printing her name on the trophy and putting on the bar two week before the contest. It looks more than a little suspicious when a contestant arrives with their own prizes.
To be completely candid this is a popularity contest. And it's not how popular you are with the crowd, it's how popular you are with the judges. If you want to win this contest you need to find out what is important to them. Putting them in a position where they might look bad will kill you every time. From what I've been told, Nadya didn't much of a theme associated with her performance. (Correction: Please read the following comments for a more accurate review of her performance)This again puts the judges in a position of looking like they are false. If you've already won why put in the effort on a theme.
Life goes on
I think if she had shown a little humility Nadya would have won this hands down. It doesn't take that much to tick people off. Maybe next time they can have the stripper boxing going on at the same time as the MNO contest. That would get the some good matches going. It would be easier on the fixtures at least. Mirrors are expensive.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
If I ruled the world
It's really easy to sit back and criticize something. I've taken some shots at the club management. I'd like to think they are well founded criticisms, I but I know damn well things happen for reason. Things that look stupid to me may make sense if I knew all of the details. What would I change if I were in charge?
Let people wear their baseball caps backwards
Just recently I watched a bouncer politely ask a customer to turn his baseball cap around. It made me think (always a risky thing) not to long ago I was at a trade show, I spent forty five minutes in a conversation about improved OLED readability in high ambient light condition when applied to cockpit avionics with the addition of circular polarization. Which is a complicated way of saying can you see the stupid thing in daylight. This astonishingly dry conversation was with five other engineers and physicists. Two of which we're wearing their baseball caps backwards. At 46 I was the youngest person there. This weekend I was watching a cartoon in which bugs bunny was wearing his baseball cap backwards. Middle aged techno-geeks are wearing baseball caps backwards, Saturday morning cartoon characters wear their baseball caps backwards. Why can't people wear their baseball caps backwards at the Dolphin? Maybe in the 1990's wearing your backwards was edgy and gangsta'. Now it's completely and utterly main stream. Am I really that concerned about how I wear a baseball cap? No, frankly my fat, shiny head looks equally bad with or without any dressing. But this does reflect the "in business in spite of your customers" attitude. When a bouncer walks to up to customer and asks him to turn his cap around, all they are doing is making a customer feel uncomfortable. He's is doing something wrong. Pretty much every where else nobody will even give you a second look. It makes the place look completely out of touch.
No drum solo's in the bathroom
There are some things that I don't want to be seen doing and I'm pretty sure 100% of the population of the earth doesn't want to see me do. I don't want to have an audience when I take a piss. I really don't want musical accompaniment either. Give me a break. I've been to clubs where they've had attendants. These are usually really big clubs, with bathrooms big enough that the attendant has his own section. It’s supposed to add a bit of class, instead it's just ridiculous. D1 is worse. I'm not sure if they still have one but last time I was there they had an attendant. Standing, taking a piss into a stainless steel trough next to a stall with no door, four feet away from a guy who wants you to tip him is not an elegant situation. It just pegs the needle on the creepy meter.
Couches
Replace those god awful things. These couches have gone from pathetic to safety hazards. Seriously, I watched dancer kneel on the couch, only to have a leg disappear up to her waste into the couch. If would have been funny if she hadn't cut her knee badly in the process. Most dancers have to stuff the seams of the couches in order to make the useable. They have to scramble around and grab assorted parts to make it work. It looks like some sort of man vs. wild thing and discovery channel. They don't have to new couches, or nice couches. Just couches without pit traps and punji sticks. Maybe they can it into event where they smash the old couch to pieces on stage. Then take the proceeds from the show to buy new couches. Dancers with sledgehammers. Now there's a scary yet entertaining thought. Now that could a theme for the MNO contest. A little performance art of smashing a couch, lighting it on fire, then throw the flaming pieces at the fog machine.
Speaking of fog machines
This is a piece of show equipment that is hated by a surprisingly large number of people. It's probably the combination of cigarette smoke, crowds, and no ventilation that makes it bad. But everyone seems to blame the fog machine. I have seen DJs in the past use the machine like they are trying to flea bomb the building. Fortunately, it seems to be broken or empty most of the time.
Let people wear their baseball caps backwards
Just recently I watched a bouncer politely ask a customer to turn his baseball cap around. It made me think (always a risky thing) not to long ago I was at a trade show, I spent forty five minutes in a conversation about improved OLED readability in high ambient light condition when applied to cockpit avionics with the addition of circular polarization. Which is a complicated way of saying can you see the stupid thing in daylight. This astonishingly dry conversation was with five other engineers and physicists. Two of which we're wearing their baseball caps backwards. At 46 I was the youngest person there. This weekend I was watching a cartoon in which bugs bunny was wearing his baseball cap backwards. Middle aged techno-geeks are wearing baseball caps backwards, Saturday morning cartoon characters wear their baseball caps backwards. Why can't people wear their baseball caps backwards at the Dolphin? Maybe in the 1990's wearing your backwards was edgy and gangsta'. Now it's completely and utterly main stream. Am I really that concerned about how I wear a baseball cap? No, frankly my fat, shiny head looks equally bad with or without any dressing. But this does reflect the "in business in spite of your customers" attitude. When a bouncer walks to up to customer and asks him to turn his cap around, all they are doing is making a customer feel uncomfortable. He's is doing something wrong. Pretty much every where else nobody will even give you a second look. It makes the place look completely out of touch.
No drum solo's in the bathroom
There are some things that I don't want to be seen doing and I'm pretty sure 100% of the population of the earth doesn't want to see me do. I don't want to have an audience when I take a piss. I really don't want musical accompaniment either. Give me a break. I've been to clubs where they've had attendants. These are usually really big clubs, with bathrooms big enough that the attendant has his own section. It’s supposed to add a bit of class, instead it's just ridiculous. D1 is worse. I'm not sure if they still have one but last time I was there they had an attendant. Standing, taking a piss into a stainless steel trough next to a stall with no door, four feet away from a guy who wants you to tip him is not an elegant situation. It just pegs the needle on the creepy meter.
Couches
Replace those god awful things. These couches have gone from pathetic to safety hazards. Seriously, I watched dancer kneel on the couch, only to have a leg disappear up to her waste into the couch. If would have been funny if she hadn't cut her knee badly in the process. Most dancers have to stuff the seams of the couches in order to make the useable. They have to scramble around and grab assorted parts to make it work. It looks like some sort of man vs. wild thing and discovery channel. They don't have to new couches, or nice couches. Just couches without pit traps and punji sticks. Maybe they can it into event where they smash the old couch to pieces on stage. Then take the proceeds from the show to buy new couches. Dancers with sledgehammers. Now there's a scary yet entertaining thought. Now that could a theme for the MNO contest. A little performance art of smashing a couch, lighting it on fire, then throw the flaming pieces at the fog machine.
Speaking of fog machines
This is a piece of show equipment that is hated by a surprisingly large number of people. It's probably the combination of cigarette smoke, crowds, and no ventilation that makes it bad. But everyone seems to blame the fog machine. I have seen DJs in the past use the machine like they are trying to flea bomb the building. Fortunately, it seems to be broken or empty most of the time.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Sometimes there are no good answers
I had some drama in life this past couple days. This is a bit different blog than normal, this has nothing to do with the club. It does have to do with a former dancer. This event has me a bit unsettled. I'm not a confrontational person. I try not to make decisions based on intuition. I had to do both today. While I often write about these things, this will be the first time I blog about it. Something about the writing process forces me to look at things without the veil of my prejudices.
I'll be vague about the person and some of the events. What ever I feel about the other person, she has the right to her privacy. The other person is a former dancer. I've been friends with her for a while, nothing romantic. She's been falling on hard times recently. No job, messed up family life. I've been helping her out from time to time. As of late the amount of "help" she needs has been increasing. Sometimes she does massively selfish things. Sometimes she shows bad judgment, which is a polite way of saying she does stupid things. Things like driving with a suspended license, driving drunk with a suspended license. I helped her out with the consequences of that. I don't owe her anything. I can't help but be irritated at the thought of paying out for somebody else's screw up. Even without the screw ups the situation is wearing on me. I can't keep paying out forever, but I can't turn my back on somebody I care about.
I met her before work on Thursday to help out with money for rent. I know she has other bills mounting. I can't solve all her problems. I headed off to work where things took a turn for the worse. I had left my cell in my car when I got to work. It was raining and I decided to leave it there. I began to feel progressively sicker as the day wore on. I had a couple of projects that had to be done sick or not. I muddled through that and finished everything around 2:30. I decided to go home early, when I got to my car and check my phone I had a voice mail and some text messages. I check my voice mail, it was the ex-dancer telling me she had just got into a fight at a bar and was going to be arrested. Something broke in me, I just lost all compassion at that moment. I've been unemployed and struggling for money, it's stressful, it's depressing. But it's not an excuse. I checked my text messages. The message was from her friend, telling me she would pay the ex-dancers bail ($550) but only if I would pay her back that night. No, I'm not doing that. Cell phone bills I'll help, rent I'll help, food I'll help. Bail? No. I sent her friend a rather terse reply:
No, I will not pay this. I've paid enough for her mistakes. Please do not contact me any more.
I figured that was the end of it. Nope. I got a reply back telling me that the fight wasn't the ex-dancer fault. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't buy this. I've run into people looking for a fight in a bar. Sometimes you have to back down. It's not worth the grief. Getting into a fight that bad enough to have the police called is not going to do any good. I sent back a pissed reply:
I don't care. I've done enough. I'm not doing any more.
I don't think I can be any more succinct then that. I assumed that the other person would catch the hint that I'm not going to pay anything. Instead I got another reply saying again that it wasn't the ex-dancers fault and that I should help her out. Now I was upset, who the fuck is this person telling me I need to pony up half a grand+. I've already gone above and beyond helping this girl out. This was too much. I deleted the message. I then got a message telling me that she wasn't mad at me, and I should really help. What the hell? This is not making sense. Why was this person badgering me and why the hell would I care if she was or wasn't mad at me? I ignored it, choked down some aspirin and l tried to take a nap. I got three more text messages asking me "one last time" for help. I deleted them.
Something struck me, I checked the times of the text messages (they were still in the deleted folder on my phone). The call came in at 12:40, the first text message arrived at 1:30. This was starting to smell. How did her friend know that the bail was $550? How did she know less than an hour after the first call? I wasn't aware the city had installed a drive through window for quick perp processing. I know cops will sometimes let people make a quick call before the take somebody into custody. But multiple calls? And where the bail amount come from? Then it occurred to me that the ex-dancer and the friend were probably the same person. This was some grand scheme to see if she could get more money out of me. The text messages make no sense from a complete stranger, but from the ex-dancer they do. I don't think she planned on me getting pissed .She had to try and salvage the situation. What the fuck, this was too much. I couldn't prove it was a complete fabrication, but this whole thing just seemed completely absurd.
At 10pm I get a call from the ex-dancer. Apparently she didn't need bail money, or she would still be in jail. I didn't take the call. I didn't want to hear the lies. I turned the phone off and went to sleep. The next morning I got up and was getting ready for work when I had a knock at the front door. At 6:50 in the morning I was confronted by the ex-dancer. She was upset by those terrible text messages. This is insane. Those weren't nice messages, but it didn't equal this. I didn't care if she didn't like the messages, I wasn't going to feel guilty. I wanted to confront her about how this whole thing smelled of bullshit, but it would have led to more lies. I didn't have time. I didn't have the patients. I told her to go away, that I didn't want to talk any more. She elevated it to "are we through?" "is it over?". Yes, it's over. I don't deserve to be lied to. I don't deserve to be manipulated.
I hate this. I just ended a friendship with somebody that needed my help. Do I know for sure that this was a scam? No. This will bother me. I could spend the next couple days calling county clerks to see if there is any record of the incident. But why should I invest any more time in this. Or am I just looking for some moral high ground for my decision? I suppose friendships normally don't dissolve when everything is going great. I'm tired. I didn't put her in this situation. I did more than anybody else to help her out. I don't feel any better after writing this. I'm tired. Two text messages, thirty words and a friendship ends. Why do people make things so difficult?
I'll be vague about the person and some of the events. What ever I feel about the other person, she has the right to her privacy. The other person is a former dancer. I've been friends with her for a while, nothing romantic. She's been falling on hard times recently. No job, messed up family life. I've been helping her out from time to time. As of late the amount of "help" she needs has been increasing. Sometimes she does massively selfish things. Sometimes she shows bad judgment, which is a polite way of saying she does stupid things. Things like driving with a suspended license, driving drunk with a suspended license. I helped her out with the consequences of that. I don't owe her anything. I can't help but be irritated at the thought of paying out for somebody else's screw up. Even without the screw ups the situation is wearing on me. I can't keep paying out forever, but I can't turn my back on somebody I care about.
I met her before work on Thursday to help out with money for rent. I know she has other bills mounting. I can't solve all her problems. I headed off to work where things took a turn for the worse. I had left my cell in my car when I got to work. It was raining and I decided to leave it there. I began to feel progressively sicker as the day wore on. I had a couple of projects that had to be done sick or not. I muddled through that and finished everything around 2:30. I decided to go home early, when I got to my car and check my phone I had a voice mail and some text messages. I check my voice mail, it was the ex-dancer telling me she had just got into a fight at a bar and was going to be arrested. Something broke in me, I just lost all compassion at that moment. I've been unemployed and struggling for money, it's stressful, it's depressing. But it's not an excuse. I checked my text messages. The message was from her friend, telling me she would pay the ex-dancers bail ($550) but only if I would pay her back that night. No, I'm not doing that. Cell phone bills I'll help, rent I'll help, food I'll help. Bail? No. I sent her friend a rather terse reply:
No, I will not pay this. I've paid enough for her mistakes. Please do not contact me any more.
I figured that was the end of it. Nope. I got a reply back telling me that the fight wasn't the ex-dancer fault. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't buy this. I've run into people looking for a fight in a bar. Sometimes you have to back down. It's not worth the grief. Getting into a fight that bad enough to have the police called is not going to do any good. I sent back a pissed reply:
I don't care. I've done enough. I'm not doing any more.
I don't think I can be any more succinct then that. I assumed that the other person would catch the hint that I'm not going to pay anything. Instead I got another reply saying again that it wasn't the ex-dancers fault and that I should help her out. Now I was upset, who the fuck is this person telling me I need to pony up half a grand+. I've already gone above and beyond helping this girl out. This was too much. I deleted the message. I then got a message telling me that she wasn't mad at me, and I should really help. What the hell? This is not making sense. Why was this person badgering me and why the hell would I care if she was or wasn't mad at me? I ignored it, choked down some aspirin and l tried to take a nap. I got three more text messages asking me "one last time" for help. I deleted them.
Something struck me, I checked the times of the text messages (they were still in the deleted folder on my phone). The call came in at 12:40, the first text message arrived at 1:30. This was starting to smell. How did her friend know that the bail was $550? How did she know less than an hour after the first call? I wasn't aware the city had installed a drive through window for quick perp processing. I know cops will sometimes let people make a quick call before the take somebody into custody. But multiple calls? And where the bail amount come from? Then it occurred to me that the ex-dancer and the friend were probably the same person. This was some grand scheme to see if she could get more money out of me. The text messages make no sense from a complete stranger, but from the ex-dancer they do. I don't think she planned on me getting pissed .She had to try and salvage the situation. What the fuck, this was too much. I couldn't prove it was a complete fabrication, but this whole thing just seemed completely absurd.
At 10pm I get a call from the ex-dancer. Apparently she didn't need bail money, or she would still be in jail. I didn't take the call. I didn't want to hear the lies. I turned the phone off and went to sleep. The next morning I got up and was getting ready for work when I had a knock at the front door. At 6:50 in the morning I was confronted by the ex-dancer. She was upset by those terrible text messages. This is insane. Those weren't nice messages, but it didn't equal this. I didn't care if she didn't like the messages, I wasn't going to feel guilty. I wanted to confront her about how this whole thing smelled of bullshit, but it would have led to more lies. I didn't have time. I didn't have the patients. I told her to go away, that I didn't want to talk any more. She elevated it to "are we through?" "is it over?". Yes, it's over. I don't deserve to be lied to. I don't deserve to be manipulated.
I hate this. I just ended a friendship with somebody that needed my help. Do I know for sure that this was a scam? No. This will bother me. I could spend the next couple days calling county clerks to see if there is any record of the incident. But why should I invest any more time in this. Or am I just looking for some moral high ground for my decision? I suppose friendships normally don't dissolve when everything is going great. I'm tired. I didn't put her in this situation. I did more than anybody else to help her out. I don't feel any better after writing this. I'm tired. Two text messages, thirty words and a friendship ends. Why do people make things so difficult?
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