Crazy from the heat

We've had a week of record and near record temperatures in the Northwest. I've managed to add to to the sweltering conditions by having my own personal meltdowns. People are definitely struggling right now. I've been getting lots a request for "help". I try to some compassion but after a while things start to become too much. When you start to cringe everytime the text message chime goes off becuse its going to be another "You're the last person I want to ask but...". Things came to a complete overload when I had a former dancer fall on hard times and end up moving in with me.

I felt like I was getting everybody's problems dumped in my lap. I'm usually a pretty calm and deliberate person, but a broke this time. I went and whacked my MySpace account, twitter account, and deleted a bunch of numbers from phone. I was trying to purge section of my life. Probably not the most healthy approach, but I've got enough of my own stress going on.

I'm transfering all my blogs from my myspace page over to Blogger, grammar errors and all. The dates will be screwed up, but that's not a big deal. I don't write much about current events. I'll try to maintain the same order though.

On a lighter note some local hackers powned a traffic sign with an appropiate message. Its nice the county is warning folks that there are zombie strippers on the loose.

No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy

The title is a very rough translation of an epitaph of an early dictator from the Roman Empire (Sulla). It seems to be an accurate description of the way dancers treat each other. I get to hear arguments from both sides. Dancers either seem to be the best of friends or mortal enemies. The sales environment dancers have to work in helps create the. I’ve never gotten use to the competitive nature of sales I work in. Where I work there is a limited resource for support sales. We only have so many parts and demonstration units to go around. For the most part everybody tries to cooperate, but if situation arises the sales folks have no problem stabbing each other in the back. The mantra is “its better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission”. Sorry man, I had to a chance to make a commission and had the demo.

The dancer’s environment is even worse than what I work in. While the sales folks have to compete over demo resources, their territories and pay structure is very tightly defined. Dancer’s however, have to compete with each other for pretty much everything. This ranges from seats in the dressing room to customers on the floor to the outfits they where. Who they follow on rotation, who goes on stage next to them also can affect the night’s income. Dancers have the ability to affect each other income on many levels. When it comes to money things get very emotional very quickly. There are so many ways for dancers to conflict with each other.

On the flip side, I don’t think anybody but another dancer can really appreciate what a dancer goes through. This is true of a lot of jobs. When I listen to people talk about their jobs, it doesn’t always sink in the level of which their job touches all aspects of life. I’m probably more informed than most folks about the job of a dancer, but I can’t say I truly understand. I think this is even more true when people think the job is morally wrong. Dancer won’t judge another girl purely because she’s dancer. I think this creates a higher level of camaraderie than most jobs.

Because of the higher level of camaraderie I think dancers feel I much more intense level of betrayal when something goes wrong. Hell hath no fury like a women’s scorn, and things go to 11 when it’s a pissed off dancer. In an odd sort of way, its similar to dating somebody you work with (in some cases with dancers they are dating). An intense personal conflict at work is a miserable thing. You have to go to work. You have to pay the bills. You can’t avoid the conflict.

When you add alcohol and pressure of sales conflict almost becomes inevitable. I’ve seen blow ups occur from simple miscommunication. Two dancers had just done a VIP for a big spender. He had tipped them very well. They were sitting at my table when they talking about the amount of the tip. Each girl was talking about a different number, yet neither girl realized it. They were both really happy about getting a tip above and beyond the normal VIP fee. It was an awkward moment for me, I decided that it would better for me to point this out and risk the getting caught in the middle of fight than play dumb. One (or both) of the girls had to be wrong, maybe if they talked about while it was still fresh in their minds nothing would happen. I told them what I heard, and then watched as they looked at each other; one said $200, the other said $300. Both nodded their heads in agreement and changed the subject. I’m not sure what each other heard. Later on when it came to split up the money things went bad. Really Bad. Neither one ever came back to me to ask what I heard. Perhaps they didn’t want to involve me or maybe they didn’t hear me either.

Sometimes I’ve seen dancer form into cliques that support each other work. An example of this is the Dolphin 5. They formed a consortium of sorts. They always worked together and to some degree managed to take control of the club. A few girls got run out of the Dolphin after getting crossed up with one of the girls. Usually the just protected their own interests, but occasionally we’re bullies that chased off girls they didn’t like. They managed to not turn on each other. That was back when money was really good though, I’m not sure how well they’d hold up now with money so tight.

Bloggers, Bloggers, everywhere and not a thought to think

The title to this blog post is misleading and just a little pretentious. I actually spend a lot of time reading other peoples blogs, I've learned a lot about the industry from them. I’ve always wondered what exactly do dancers really think of their customers. Knowing how things work is an absolute compulsion of mine. I’m forever taking things apart to see what makes them tick. By going into engineering I’ve managed to turn a personality defect into a career. Dancer blogs provide a relatively uvarnished look at customers.

I first ran into dancer blogs by accident. I was trying to find the name of club I went to when I lived in Austin Texas. Just googling when I ran across a burlesque show, one of the performers had a web site named “rivercitykitty”. Rivercitykitty is a blog by Susan Wayward about her experiences dancing. From there I realized she worked at D2 from time to time. From her site I was able to find a bunch of different dancer blogs. I’ll always have a fondness for Susan’s blog (and Susan, even if she currently on blogging hiatus), since she the first person to link to mine.
The first thing that stuck me about most dancer blogs is that it provides a forum to bitch about customers that isn’t directly confrontational. One of the reasons I started this blog was to vent my frustrations about the club I hang out at. Dancer blogs tend to be more of an on line diary. This gives them a very personal feel. In an industry that hides much of the humanity in stage names and glam make up, it makes for a striking contrast.

I can completely sympathize with having to deal with a customer that you find completely and utterly revolting. Sitting smiling listening to them talk, all the while I’m thinking about how much I’d like to bash their skull in with a brick. Fortunately for me, most people in my work world have to maintain a level of professional decorum at work, so I’m not subjected to the more primitive aspects of the human condition. I have to deal with egos, giant towering repulsive underserved egos. Unfortunately for me I can’t decide to tell a customer to fuck off when it gets to bad. I have to sit for hours at a never ending business dinner meeting listening to a guy who is either a pathological liar or completely delusional. I’ve had to sit and politely listen to some guy tell me he invented the iPod. Yeah, sure. I get to hear stories about how they used to be Vice President of Nothing in Particular at Microsoft. Ugh.

It’s startling to read about some of the customers that go into clubs. There are some really scary folks with dollar bills. It’s also a little rattling to see some aspects of myself in their behavior. It's pretty eye opening.

It’s also stunning to see some things pulled off by the management at clubs. A of clubs take advantage of the fact most dancers won’t pursue legal action against a club for fear of losing their job. Dancers are customers of the club, they pay to work their. Yet they get treated with contempt by management. This is part of the club world that rarely gets any visibility. I’m not sure how prevalent it is industry. I have no idea how honest most clubs are. I suspect with the bad economy it’s probably getting worse. Dollars at the clubs are getting more scarce, as girls lose their day jobs the number of dancers that are available is rising.

Another of my favorite blogs is ChristianMarie, The laziest Stripper. I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning her blog. It was the first blog that was linked to mine that I didn’t know anything about. When I saw “The other side of the rail” in the blogs list I thought somebody else had already picked that name for their blog. I clicked on the link to what low life scum had taken the name. I was floored when I realized that I was the low life scum. Wow, I’m famous. Not really. I sure her blogs hits spiked of the charts on the day I discovered her blog. I kept clicking on it like it kid with a new toy. Besides being linked to mine, its a really entertaining blog to read

Don't forget to bring your singles to the interview

If you want to see the true character of a person take him to a strip club and get him drunk. One company I worked at the sales group used this as a method to screen people that were being considered. The company had a very proactive method of hiring. Rather than post a want ads and wait, the HR department would maintain a list of folks they would go after and offer jobs to. This would cause problems from time to time, they were raiding their customers and vendors for talent, but the quality of employees they had were pretty high.

Most of the people never knew they were being screened. Either we’d take them out at a trade show or during a business trip. The first thing you’d discovered about them is if they’d even go into the club. The sales group had a relatively wild social life. I’ve never worked at a place where there was so much corporate sponsored debauchery. The desire to go out and party on the corporate dime is hardly an indicator as to good somebody is at their job. The recruit’s job skill usually wasn’t the issue at the time, we already new how got they were from past work experiences.

What we didn’t know is if they played well and got along with others. If they were willing to go hang out at a strip club they odds are they would be comfortable with the job atmosphere at our company. On Monday morning when people returned to work nursing the aftermath what ever excess they indulge in over the weekend, it’s better if to have everybody at least sympathetic. Some people become very uncomfortable around hearing about ‘partying’ or worse yet will become show open contempt for the revelers. Having workers openly judging other workers will rapidly destroy morale. At least if they will walk into a strip club they aren’t openly judgmental.

Seeing how they react to the strip club environment is also telling. A strip club pretty much stomps on the expected “morals’ of polite society. At least for me, it’s hard to not covet thy neighbor’s wife when she is dancing naked in front of me. The normal boundaries of social behavior are not required. Its OK to stare at her boobs, its OK to stare at her boobs while drinking, its OK to stare are boobs while drinking and drooling on yourself. More importantly it’s OK to talk about her boobs. Once the normal behavior boundaries are crossed it’s easier to talk about things that are also outside the lines. You can go into swapping bar stories of assorted strip club adventures. I’ve got a million of those, maybe I should write a blog? (Oops, too late).

You can get the recruit to talk about his experiences. You can learn a lot from those, especially how accountable they are. After they got hammered, fell over and smashed a bunch of the furniture, did they apologize and try to make amends. Or did they start bitching about how stupid to put a table in the middle of the floor and surround it with chairs. What an absolute death trap (True story).

Alcohol is also factor. It lowers inhibitions so people will talk more freely. After a couple drinks no subject is too taboo. What you can’t ask on a job interview is pretty amazing. You can’t ask how old they are (but you can ask when they graduated from High school) you can’t ask if they are married, you can’t ask if they have kids, you can’t ask what religion they are. These laws vary from state to stare and regularly get ignored. I’d really like to see some plaintiff explain to a judge that he was illegally asked about his marriage status while getting a lap dance. I’ve been asked all the questions and happily answered them, lap dance not required. I’m usually more interested in trying to get the job. All these rules go right out the window at a strip club. Catering to the guy by buying him drinks and dances also will begin to tell. We would make him the center of attention and cater to his whims. Is he grateful or dies he turn into a pompous ass? If the recruit drinks himself under the table in first thirty minutes, he has other problems.

Watching how they treat other people after a couple drinks is very telling. If the guy begins to put down all the crack ‘ho bitches working at the club, going off on a misogynist tirade about the evil’s of the women and their wicked ways you probably don’t want on your pay roll. He probably has some issues to sort out. You can also watch how he deals with the dancers. Does this guy have the basic humanity to treat people decently? Dancers will put up with a lot of bullshit if they get paid.

By removing the social norms, liberally adding alcohol you can get to somebody’s true nature at strip club. Curiously they never took me to a strip club when they recruited me (bastards). I suppose they didn’t have to. All they had to do was to go down to the club and check my references. I’m not sure what kind of impression I would have made when we walked into the club and they found out I was on a first name basis with half the dancers.

The other industry icon

Probably the number one icon of the stripper industry is the platform stiletto heel. The number two icon of the industry is probably the iPhone. Compared to the engineers, salesman accounts other folks I work with. A far higher percentage of dancers own iPhone then all those other groups. The company I work for sells components to Apple. In a very small way I get money from dancers every time they buy one. The money flow is still pretty one sided I spend a lot more on dancers than I get, but keep buying those iPhones and iPods anyway.

There are many features that make this a really desirable gadget for dancers. The obvious is that is an excellent music and video player. Music is an integral part of a dancer’s job, having an excellent music player makes some sense. I’m not sure how much some of the DJ’s or clubs have embraced the digital music. Is most of the music now played of a laptop or CD? With the advent of MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking systems the iPhone’s is a great device to maintain contact with their customers and promoting themselves.

A surprising number of dancers buy iPhones to entertain their kids. Perhaps that’s not the primary reason, but it’s definitely a factor. That’s their story at least. I suspect they may just want to be able to watch movies and play games while it’s slow. Nah, it’s probably just for the kids. (ahem)

There are a lot of feature that the iPhone has that aren’t utilized by dancers. One is the count down timers. If you hit the clock icon on the iPhone, one of the features that appear at the bottom is the time. This is a minute timer. I often hear about dancers getting forgotten back in the VIP area. The bouncers will forget or be distracted by something and not get a dancer when the time is up. The count down timer provides a large easy to see display showing remaining time. It even has an alarm that goes off at the end. It’s better to have the bouncer show up incase the customer gets cranky, but it does create a break point to stop the VIP dance. Perhaps a VIP app should be written with preset times built in. It could have a special feature to “accelerate” the time to get rid of obnoxious customers. Have two start buttons that look the same. The top button has a normal time, the bottom button has a faster timer. Jerk customer you want to get rid of faster? We got an app for that.

The more industrious dancers could buy a spread sheet application and log her income and expenses in her phone at the end of the night. I suppose that might be another possible app. A program that logged all the stage fees, income, tip outs and other income/expenses then put them into a form that could be easily imported into a TurboTax or Tax cut.

Actually most smart phones have these features. The G1 and Palm Pre have the same features. One feature the new iPhone 3Gs has is the where am I app. If you lose your iPhone you can log into a web sire and query the location of the phone using the built in GPS. Not that dancers ever lose anything after drinking a little too much.

Outside in

I guess I could consider myself an “insider” at the club I hang out. Many times I know more about what’s going on at the staff than the dancers, its fairly common when something major happens I’ll a get calls and texts from dancers wondering what’s going on. Most dancers will trust me with their purses (much to my dismay). This is stark contrast to when I first started hanging out at the club and was a complete stranger to everybody. I know I get treated different because I’m more sympathetic to dancer issues than most customer, provided they don’t do anything stupid like make me wait, watch their purse, or call me a creepy club regular. I’m also short and fat, but please don’t call me that while you are trying to sell me something.

The first thing that stuck me when I first started hanging out was that all the girls had stage names. From a purely practical point of view, stage names make perfect sense. It both provides a degree of security from crazy stalker guys, and also helps create the stage presence. But the first time a dancer sits down with you and say “Hi, I’m Epiphany” your immediately gut reaction is no its not. Nobody is named Epiphany and if it was you would shorten it to “Pif” or “Fanny” or “Lisa”. It’s an odd contradiction. Here is a girl who is (however falsely) is acting as if she likes me and wants to get to know me better, yet won’t tell me her real name. She’s trying to establish a bond of trust yet won’t reveal something that seems fundamental like a first name.

Eventually I got past that. I began to judge how good I thought their name was. Most of the time you can pick out the girls who selected their name for a particular reason and the other girls who looked at a list and pick the name that sucked the least. Even with that it’s still an odd conversation. Dancer will talk about normal everyday things then suddenly veer away from a subject like its matter of national security. “I had to go in and the get the alignment fixed on my Hon…. Er, um, car”. I have to admit that i'd never consider revealing what kind of car you drive could be a dangerous. Getting followed home by psycho customer is always a major risk. Not only does that put the dancer at risk, it also endangers their family. I don’t care what you do for a living; nobody should have to worry about the security or stability of their family life for a job.

It becomes a potentially problematic when a dancer becomes comfortable enough that they let things slip with out meaning to. The first time a dancer accidentally told me her real name. I suddenly turned and looked at her with a big “Ah Hah!” expression. She immediately became massively defensive. It was weird. I have always been very respectful and polite to her. Yet that reaction set off all her danger instincts. Eventually I developed the rule of three when it came to things like this. Until a dancer mentions something personal three times before I’ll acknowledge it. Until then I’ll simply act like I didn’t notice the fact she just told me where she lives, or hands me her driver’s license (provided she has one) while looking for her lip gloss. As long as I act like its not important most dancers will not feel threatened.

I went along at this level for quite some time. I was “club friends” with the dancers. They were completely relaxed with me at the club, yet I couldn’t tell you the most basic thing about them outside the club. This changed when I became a regular for one of the more elite dancer/queen bee girls. It may sound odd but I used to be intimidated by the really hot girls that everybody went to the rack to see. I assumed that they always had some sort of big roller who was going to pay them tons of money just to sit with them. I always talked to the girls who would approach me. I don’t think a lot of dancers realize that a dancer who will walk up and talk to a lone customer will become much more attractive than the six foot bleach blonde pipe cleaner with massive boobs.

The elite girl actually approached me one slow night. We hit it off and began a friendship that we still maintain (to lesser degree) to this day. The first thing that changed is that she started treating me like another dancer when it came to conversations. It would be funny to watch the reaction of other dancers when the elite girl would start talking about a subject that would normally be considered taboo. I suppose this is the point I became “Harmless Todd”. But once that barrier had been broached, I could be trusted with personal information conversations changed permanently. The elite girls endorsement gave me credibility as club insider and not a crazy customer.

I also discovered the ability to keep my mouth shut about things and not pass along gossip (no matter how desperately I wanted to) actually turned me into a counselor for some girls. I think I provided a safe ear to bend. I wasn’t part of the dressing room drama crowd, but knew enough about the job enough to be an understanding ear. Unfortunately I also get drawn into some dancer conflicts. On rare occasion I’ve even be a go between to get things sorted out. I like being an insider ultimately, I’ve made some very good friends at the club because of it.

Drunk XX chromosomes

So which is worse, a drunk and obnoxious male or female customer? They are both probably really difficult to deal with. From purely anecdotal evidence it seems that really drunk women are much more irritating to deal with. A lot of women seem to think the normal rules of touching don’t apply to them. To be fair men are the same way, but however obnoxious it’s sort of expected behavior from men.

A couple months ago I observed a hammered female customer. It struck me that she was obnoxious as any guy, but it was worse because she was allowed to get away with things that would have gotten a guy kicked out immediately. I first noticed her when she bounced off me while I was standing at the bar. When I turned to look at who had bumped in to me I saw her stagger away. She crashed through the tables ricocheting off customers and solid objects like a pin ball, leaving a trail of knocked over chairs. It was pretty obvious to the casual observer she was tanked.

She was sitting with a mixed group of men and women. They were gathered around a table next to the stage. They were sort of tipping, there were seven people in the group but they’d only put up a dollar or two for each set. They were spending a lot more money on drinks than dancers. Interspersed with the tips were the occasional “Woo Hoo”s screams. Normally these don’t bother me, but when it occurs for no particular reason its get annoying. Getting into the performance is pretty cool, screaming when the dancer checks to make sure her shoe is on OK is just stupid.

Eventually they all got up as a group and sat down at the rack. This pleased the dancers who finally thought they might actually make some money off this group. The first dancer got up and started her set. As she moved around the stage and approached the knot of drunken customers, the girl suddenly reached out to grab the dancer. With Kung Fu Panda like skills the dancer knocked her hand away and began back peddling away. The dancer went around to all the other customers then approached the group again. Sure enough drunk girl’s hand shot out trying to grab the dancer. This time the dancer grabbed her hand and asked drunk girl to stop. The song ended. The dancer collected her tips, taking time to stop and talk to the drunk girl again. I assumed she was trying to make sure that her point was clear. I think she would have needed to bash drunk girls head with a brick to make it sink in.

It was for not. The second set began and as soon as the dancer approached the drunk girl again her hand was out trying to grab the dancer. For the remainder of the set the dancer avoided that section of the rack, always keeping at least three feet away. The set ended and as she got off stage she warned the next dancer. Except to collect tips the next dancer barely approached the drunk girl. If a guys was continually trying to grab a dancer on stage he’d been escorted out instantly. Yet this girl continued trying to grope anything dancer who strayed to close. Eventually drunk girl gave up grabbing a dancer and decided that she would get up and dance along the performer. It was moderately amusing watching drunk girl flounder around like a demented walrus for a little bit. Then it became a nuisance. Eventually her companions decided that she had enough and escorted her out.

During the entire time the bar staff neither intervened or cut her off. I supposed it’s a little different with this girl. From a purely practical point of view most dancers I know could have punched her lights out if she really did go too far. Still most people don’t want to half to resort to fighting just to do their job. If you are looking for a fair and just environment a strip club isn’t the place to go.

Knee problems

A favorite dancer of mine was injured last weekend. Besides being disappointed that I wasn’t able to spend time with her, I was also concerned about her health. Dancers have a job where they can assign a level of pain or injury to a specific dollar value. Granted every girl has good and bad days, but most girls can tell you how much they’ll typically make in a night. More to the point, a dance can tell you how much is probably not going to lose if she doesn’t go in. This problem seems to affect many dancers.

She was suffering from a sore knee. Specifically she would feel a shooting pain in her knee when she put pressure on it while doing floor work. It was enough to make her decide to take the day off and rest her knee. There is an affliction I call engineers disease. Engineers always think they have the right answer to a question. Mostly it’s part of the job. You are constantly solving problems big and small when you are an engineer. After a while you begin to believe you have answers for everything. Regarding technical stuff engineers are right most of the time. Regarding interpersonal, fashion, or subjective things engineers are usually clueless. Engineers have no idea when they right or when they are clueless. They think they are always right.

So naturally I think I can diagnose the injury, which I can because I’m an engineer and we’re always right (ahem). I decided to use the world famous medical diagnoses device Google to make my diagnoses. I started with a fairly general search “dancer knee injuries” and got a lot of result of ballet dancers. Ballet dancer apparently have a lot of problems with stress factures and ACL tears. The symptoms associated with ACL and stress factures really didn’t match the knee injuries. I decided to narrow the search a little to “stripper knee injuries” and didn’t much medical literature. Mostly they were personal accounts of strippers hurting their knee or electricians hurting their knee with wire strippers. I played around with search terms and never really found any thing that seemed authoritative.

There is precious little medical information specific to the strip club industry. By medical information I’m being a little snobby. I narrowed my requirements that they be from a known medical source like the New England Journal of Medicine or a large hospital like Bethesda or OHSU.

I changed my method a little by trying changing the search. It occurred to me that other industries may have similar problems. Carpet layers spend a lot of time working on their knees as well. I typed in carpet layer knee problems and carpet layer knee syndrome popped up. I read a little further and found it is more commonly called Housemaid’s knee. It’s technically pre-patellar bursitis. The bursa behind the knee becomes irritated resulting in shooting pains through the knee. This sounded very similar to knee problem she was having. The only thing that really didn’t match is there is usually (but not always) swelling associated the inflammation. She didn’t mention if there was any swelling.

A little further research into different knee injuries also revealed pinch nerves. This also results in sudden shooting pain. The peroneal nerve runs down the front of the knee. It may get impacted while the dancer smashes her knee into a hardwood floor. The long term treatment for minor versions of each injury is the same, quit doing what makes it hurt. Both used the short term RICE (Rest, ice, compression, elevation) for immediate treatment.

Another thing I discovered is the heels are also terrible on the knees and agrivate the problem. I know this is no surprise to dancers but its still amazing to me how much the effect of heels on the knees is documented. The extended heel forces the dancer to constantly be fallinf forward. Over time this will put excessive pressure on the knee. I always figured that heels would wreck the ankle much before the knee.

Beware of falling turkeys

Exactly what demographic do strip clubs advertise to? People who like to look at naked women? That’s a pretty broad cross section, the vast majority of the male population plus some of the female. The age group ranges from 21 to still breathing. I found an old SFX pdf file from 2002 on my machine, checking the ads out I notice that the basic add format really hasn’t changed. They don’t seem to make much effort to tailor the adds for the audience or the economy.

They ads still follow the boobs and bullet item format. The content hasn’t changed either. Each ad has its name and address, and usually some sort of event. Hot women, cold beer, enough said, seems to be the attitude. Looking at the current issue of Exotic it doesn’t look things have changed much. Strip clubs seem to doggedly stick to the same formula while other industries adapt to what’s going on.

Most other companies have changed their marketing campaign to reflect people’s current concern, getting the most for their money. Most places now have value menus, five dollar foot long sandwiches, buy back policies for new cars and so forth. They are trying very hard to create the perception that you can get more for your money. This concept is fairly alien to strip clubs. A lot of clubs operate on the concept of separating the customer as quickly as possible. In my opinion this isn’t going to work in the current economy. Most people more concerned about where their money is going.

I don’t think a value meal approach will work for a bar. By offering cheaper drinks all you are going to do is cut you profit margins. The only way you can increase your profits by cutting prices is if you sell more stuff. I don’t think the number of drinks would go up. They should offer a drink special though. Just to maintain a presence with the customer. All any club needs to do is get a twitter account. They can send out twitter specials for free. The club really doesn’t need to lower its prices, it just needs to create the illusion that it is.

One of the most difficult things in an economy like this is maintaining market share. People are much more willing to look at new things if they think it will save them money. Twitter adverts will help keep the club in front of them.

It’s hard to argue with success, a lot of clubs have been around for a while and have been very successful. It still strikes me that they don’t very from their current formula. There’s a saying in the high tech industry “If the wind blows hard enough even a turkey can fly”. The wind is awfully calm right now. I suspect most clubs are just going to cut costs to the bone and wait for the economy to turn.

Not in my backyard

They are opening a new Stars Cabaret near where I live. The club finally got the liquor license approved. It was met with the usual complaints for the local residents. The news story on the page had all the usual images, a dancer’s ankles in heels walking around a brightly lit stage, the local politician vowing to fight the club, the religious folks promising to picket this den of evil. What I found really interesting were the comments regarding the club posted below the article. They manage to encapsulate a lot of the myths and misconceptions about strip clubs.

The vile Jezebels will seduce the local husbands
Yeah, right. Of all the places to go where you won’t get laid a strip club to on the top of the list. Most of the girls are already in relationships, they are there to earn money not meet Mr Right or Mr Wrong as the case may be. It’s just the way people will project their preconceived notion a person just because of their profession. If a woman is willing to go up on stage and take her clothes off she must obviously be just one step away from being a hooker. Yet the reality is far different.

The vast majority of dancers I know are single mother are trying to provide for their families. With most other jobs she would be looked on with admiration. Raising kids an s single mother has to be one of these most difficult jobs ever. I was raised by a single mother. I never realized how much energy she had till I was taking care of myself. I come home from work beat. Tired cranky, I barely have enough energy to turn on the TV. I sit flopped on the couch grumbling about the extreme effort its going to take put the one plate and silverware into the dishwasher, or god forbid have to empty it. A single mother will have to come home prepare dinner, perform a mire aid of other tasks to keep the household running and barely running. It one my few real regrets that I was never able to tell my mother how much I know appreciate what she did for me before she passed. Why this same effort should be ignored just because of a profession? It’s almost sacrilege to go into the school for parent teacher conference and then you’re a stripper. Yet it’s the case and the uninformed will bitch about the immoral folks working at the club.

It will attract all the creeps
Yes, it’s well known that all the creeps commute in from some where else to visit strip clubs. They aren’t living down the street or next door to you. Get rid of the strip club and the creeps will go away. Strip clubs primarily have local patronage. Most of people in the club already lived there. Will the sudden presence of club corrupt my values? No, it will just shorten my commute. I didn’t magically see a reader board for a strip club and turn into a dollar bill wielding demon.

I don’t object to what they do, as long as they do it somewhere else.
This is one of those questions that doesn’t have a clear answer. This is the politically correct safe answer. You can object with out objecting, in the 70’s we called this a nimby, short for “Not in my back yard”. The usual concern is that there are children present. Which is in my opinion is a legitimate concern. There are subjects that kids shouldn’t have to deal with until they get older. I don’t think a strip club should be right across the street from a grade school. Most people are afraid that the proximity to s strip club is going to reduce their property value. But this conflicts directly with the legal rights of the club to operate. It’s a legitimate business that pays taxes. They have as much right to exist as the local convenience store, pub, or Starbucks. So where do you draw the line? My best guess is about ½ mile from a school. This is one area where a compromise has to be met.

This can be a very dangerous law. It can be easily abused to make it impossible to operate a business. You can use it to impose your moral values on other people. You can say anything you want as long as there is nobody around to here it. That’s censorship. It’s easy to twist laws to enforce a moral code that’s specific to a religion or belief system. It provides a mechanism for a small minority will be able to impose their will on everybody else. In Egypt they are going to slaughter all the pigs to prevent the spread of swine flu. The vast majority of Muslim’s I know are completely indifferent to pigs. Pigs are not the primary vector for the disease. Most pigs don’t get out and spend much time at the local mall. They aren’t a health threat. But a minority in the Islamic Egyptian government that do find pigs offensive can use the laws to enforce their beliefs.

The location argument is not very applicable to the new Stars location. The club is next to a motel and industrial park, backed up against the freeway. It’s hardly near any schools. Yet the local politicians are vowing to fight it. It’s an easy position for them. They can go on record having fought to save the “moral” purity of the neighborhood, knowing full well that the right to free speech will over ride it. That pesky constitution thing is so annoying.

Operators are standing by

There are more and more articles about how more out of work women are turning to dancing to make ends meet. I wonder if you could put together a stripper starter kit and sell them via infomercial.

Announcing the new Stripper Starter Kit…
Thinking of starting a new profession with flexible hours, good money usually, and huge wardrobe you’ll probably never wear in public then we have just the thing for you, the stripper starter kit. In one package we have all the gear you need to start you on the road to brass poles and financial freedom.

One time offer only…
The package contains the state of the art individualized personal cleaning system. (Baby wipes). Yes, these miracle devices will allow you to clean up at a moments notice. The space age dispenser will travel with you every where. The baby fresh smell will leave you refreshed and only slightly scar the psyche of any customer who is suddenly reminded of Doctor Suess and Baby’s R Us in the middle of a lap dance. Baby wipes are probably the one of the least known secrets of strip clubs. I never knew about the alternate use until a dancer friend was staying with me for a couple days (Room mate issues). She had them out on counter one day when she was packing her stuff up for work. She was single and didn’t have any kids.

But now how much would you pay…
If you order now you will get the latest in dance gear organizer (Large plastic sandwich bags). The organizer quickly sorts your clothes into small bags for easy compact storage. The see thru design makes for quick identification. No more tearing through your bag looking for those fish net stockings. (I just hate it when that happens) The NASA derived sealing system keeps your garments safe and free noxious fumes commonly found in clubs. This was another item that never occurred to me would be useful to a dancer. Again I would have never known except for when my dancer friend raided my kitchen for plastic baggies. “Are you taking a sandwich to work?” I have to admit I thought she was taking other control substances commonly found in plastic bags. “No sandwiches”, she replied, “Panties”. It took me a little bit to wrap my brain around that.

But wait, there's more…
The tip transport and storage safe (tip purse).There are as many of styles of tip purses as there are dancers. Actually, most dancers have multiple purses and tastes that change. Some purses look like bejeweled miniature strong boxes, sort of a tackle box with glitter. I imagine there’ a practical aspect to that. A rigid purse will keep thing from getting crunched. One thing I learned selling cigarettes at a gas station, men generally buy soft packs, women buy hard packs. Women tend to keep the cigarettes in their purse with cell phones, keys, wallets, etc where their very expensive smokes can be easily be smashed. Guys keep cigarettes in coat pockets where the hard pack will poke holes in clothes or gouge any time they put on the garment. Some dancers go for smaller purses, other have big honken’ bags. I’m not sure why they want such a thing. They must be really optomistic about how much money they are going to make. It seems to me it would be a pain to drag the big beast around. It would be a lot harder to lose.

Here’s a gadget, a purse proximity detector. If the purse gets move more than 30 feet from than dancer an alarm goes off. If it goes more than 50 feet a smoke bombs goes off. This way if a purse gets left behind or pick up by an unauthorized individual the dancer will be notified by an ear piercing shriek. If the unauthorized thief continues on the smoke bomb goes off obviously marking the individual. On top of that most people will drop something if it appears to be on fire. The smoke might make the cash smell a little funny but it should still be legal tender.

If you order now, we'll add for free…
All the infomercials will have the free add on item if you order now. For this we’ll add the breath management dispensers. (mints, gum, etc). I always self conscious if a dancer offers me a breath mint. I try pretty hard to maintain personal hygiene. I’ve noticed that breath mints and gum tend to sell out really fast in the vending machine. I also noticed that Rice Crispy treats sell out really fast too. Those things are always gone. I’m not sure what the correlation between Rice Crispy treats and dancers but there is something going on. I’ll have to investigate this in a later blog.

Operators are standing by…

Sight and Sound

These are subjects where the opinions of the dancers will probably be a lot different than mine. I was considering how much of an impact music makes on the stage performance. After the last time I was in the club, I stopped and tried to remember what songs were playing when my favorite dancers were on stage. I couldn’t. A few I could remember what type of music they like to dance to. I could remember some songs but not the dancer.

So how important is the song to the set? In my opinion it’s critical. Can you image how a strip club would do if there were no music? Just an hour glass timer a girl turn over, she’d perform until the sand ran out. The whole concept of a girl wandering around the stage naked with no music seems perverted. Despite what the more conservative objectors might want to acknowledge, there is a great degree of art and performance in stripping. I was able to remember other details. I could remember what the girls were wearing and what the conversations we had. I imagine part of my lack of memory is because that most of the music I hear in a club is not what I normally listen to. I actually prefer this. If given a choice I’d rather hear something completely new. I’ve got iPod stuff full of classic rock. I don’t want to hear the same music I was listening to on the drive over. Plus everybody knows rock music attained perfection in 1974 (*Homer Simpson, from Homerpalooza episode)

When I can associate a song with a particular girl’s performance it’s most likely because of choreography. I first heard the expression “poser’s, prancers, and dancers” from Sasha. Poser’s just go up and stage and walk around strike a pose for each customer. The music really has no relation with her set. Prancers will try to dance a little, but they really don’t move with the song, it’s more like background music. Prancers play music they like to listen too while they dance, rather than dance to the music. Dancers indeed dance to the music. They match their pacing and actions to rhythm of the song. I’m always impressed with this. They could just as easily just prance around the stage and make about the same money. I notice that dancers will always put on the same performance regardless if the rail is packed or just the bar staff is there.

Stages are another area I probably spend too much time thinking about. Probably the biggest debate I see when it comes to stages is whether there should be modesty panels of not. Basically should the stage wall be solid or see through. I think they should be open. The modesty panel train of though is that if guys can’s see the girl’s floor work they be more inclined to go to the rail. My guess is the opposite occurs. If the guy’s in cheapskate mode, sitting just off the stage nursing a beer not being able to see everything isn’t going to bring him to the rail. He’s just going to wait for the girl to stand back up. Hiding the girl doesn’t do her any good. As a customer you never know what will catch your eye. Just being only able to see the top of her head and an ankle will pretty much lose my interest in a hurry.

D2 has had some weird stages. The oddest was nicknamed the “pussy platter” by the dancers. It resembled a poker table more than a stage. Absolutely flat, with a lowered shelf complete with recessed pockets to hold drinks. It was really uncomfortable to sit at. You basically eye level with the dancer’s shins when she was standing in front of you. You had to crank your head back to look at anything else, which isn’t the most flattering angle to look up at girl.

Material Science and Pole dancing

You know you've been a customer too long when you start to think of physics and mechanics when watching a dancer. I've always been this way though, not just at strip clubs. It’s been a compulsion of mine to always need to know how things work. The Dilbert clip on my MySpace profile page is so accurate it’s painful. Fortunately I've been able to take a personality disorder and turn it into a career in engineering. This time I happen to notice that a pole trick was a really nice demonstration of the conservation of angular momentum. She could control the speed at which she spun by changing how much of her body was extended away the pole. She could speed up and slow down at will, much like an ice skater. This was on the really “spinny” pole on the back stage at D2. I bet physics classes would be a lot better attended if they had video clips of strippers for demonstrations.

Another thing that struck me was the amount of force being allied to the skin during some pole tricks. The move consists of the girl wrapping one leg around the pole and hanging upside down with the other leg and both arms extended. I made a quick estimation that she had approximately 18 inches of the pole had contact with the leg. I estimate that 50% of the pole was exposed. Assuming a 2" pole, that would mean she had 28 square inches of skin in contact with the pole. I'd guess she weighed about 125lbs. That means each square inch of skin would have to support 4.5lbs. Ouch, that's a lot of weight to hang off a section of skin that normally doesn't support any weight.

When I mention this to a dancer she pointed out to me that when a girl first starts dancing or returns from taking time off they tend to get bruises on the inside of the leg then after a while they build up some resistance to bruising. I did some investigations on this. Not surprisingly, there isn't a lot of ongoing research on dancer physiology. I really could find much information in general about resistance to bruising. Lots of remedies for helping bruises heal, but nothing with any solid medical data. Just researching the only theory I could come up with is the skin becomes thicker. Skins response to constant pressure or friction is to grow faster. This is how calluses form. Bruises occur when the capillaries directly below the skin are damaged and start to leak; my guess is that the skin becomes thicker over time, providing more padding and protection the capillaries underneath the epidermal layers. The more pole tricks you do the thicker your skin becomes.

Another thing I wanted to research is the cold brass poles are slick, warm brass poles the sticky effect. I've heard this from multiple dancers over the years. I did a fair amount of research into this. I consulted a couple of material properties hand books and spent a lot of time reading about brass on the internet. The property of brass doesn’t change at all over temperature you would encounter inside a building. Brass does have some interesting properties, one of which is it is antimicrobial. It will kill off bacteria, fungus, and other nasty creatures that touch its surface. It takes about seven hours though. The pole will have to still be cleaned between sets. But after the next day the brass pole will have killed off all the microbes after the club closes. Steel poles definitely need to be cleaned. The copper in the brass (brass is an alloy of zinc and copper) will naturally disinfect itself. On thing I discovered is that clubs shouldn’t use Windex to clean the poles. Windex is probably the worse thing you want to clean a brass pole with. Even diluted ammonia will eventually make brass brittle. Having the base of the pole break is probably not a desirable thing while you’re spinning upside down.

Getting back the cold/slick hot/sticky properties, I could not find anything about brass that changes its surface at temperatures you’d find inside climate controlled building. I don’t think the brass its self actually changes. What is probably going on is the skins reaction to temperature. Brass conducts heat very well (I bet you didn’t think you’d be reading a material science report when you log into my blog). When skin feels cold the sweat glands shut down, your hands will dry out. A small amount of moisture on the skin will create a slight suction when it fills in the irregularities of the surface. When the pole warms up, the physical exertion of doing pole work will keep a layer of sweat on the skin. Which help maintain a reliable grip. A quick test would be to breath on your hands next time you are faced with a cold pole. Your breath is really humid and will coat your skin with moisture. This should make your initial grip good, but you’ll probably crash when you change grips. So maybe you should wait unit the pole warms up.

I only go to strip clubs to watch the train wrecks

This post is mostly for the folks who were following my twitter feed (www.twitter.com/pdxstoney) a couple days ago. This is the story behind the series of recent tweets from me. Sometimes you run into dancers who are just completely clueless. The turn over rate for dancers is fairly high, but a couple weeks ago the St Valentines day massacre went down at D2. A bunch of girls were let go. There are a bunch of new dancers now working at the club. I got a call from a long time dancer wondering if I would come in. I got the usual 8ish reply when asked when she was planning to come in. 8ish for her is usually 9, 9:30, or sometimes next Friday.

I wander in around 8:30, the noticed a bunch of girls wandering around in zombie fashion. A couple of minors are trapped on the kiddy pool stages, unable to work the floor. I headed to the back of the club, where it’s a bit quieter. The way the ceiling is built the back side is sheltered from being in the speaker’s direct line of fire. After ordering a drink I spend a little time watching dancers navigate around the room. It strikes me that it must be impossible to quickly move laterally in seven in stilettos. Important safety tip, when pursued by zombies dancer move the tables in a zig zag manner.

A really loud dancer I’ve never seen before is sitting at the table next to me. She’s going on about her finances, and how bad things are. The customer gets up and leaves in mid sentence. She glances over my direction for a second and we make eye contact. Ack. I quickly avert my eyes pull out my cell phone and start to compose a tweet. She plops down next to me without a saying a word. I become very intent on my message. I press send and introduce myself. She smiles and shakes my hand and immediately begins bitching about how nobody is tipping. Glad to meet you too. I quickly realize that my participation in this conversation is not required. She will happily continue her verbal stream of consciousness until I’m rendered unconscious. As long as I twitch, breathe, or show signs of life, she’ll rattle on.

She drones on about all the troubles in her life, late payments, slow nights, and how her car was towed because her driver’s license has been suspended. I’m pretty sure this is point where my last two brain cells died. I think it was a suicide pact. I start to filter her out, “yes dear, yes dear, you don’t say, oh really, that’s interesting”. Then her conversation takes an odd tact. She start going off on how weird it is guys can keep showing at a club and looking at the same women. It’s just completely creepy to her.

Whoa back up there Shamu, I resemble that remark. I suddenly get interested in the conversation. I ask if she had any regulars. She replies no. Imagine that. I point out to her that I’m one of those weird guys that hang out and look at the same women. She appears completely oblivious that she just called me a creep. With a drop dead gorgeous naked girl dancing suggestively three feet away she asks why I show up on a regular basis. “It’s for the scintillating conversation of course” I reply. The verbal onslaught she’s been subjecting me to suddenly abates as she considers this. She cocks her head slightly as if thinking. I realize now the head tilt was to help my comment pass from one ear and out the other. “It’s just creepy” is her reply.

She goes even further and wonders what guys find to interesting about strip clubs in general, she thinks it’s stupid. It’s kind of like gravity. If you jump off a cliff you will fall. If you put naked women on a stage and men will accumulate. Its just way things work. Taking the gravity analogy further you it’s not the fall that kills you it’s the sudden stop at the bottom. This girl shouldn’t be worrying about why guys are coming in any more than she should worry about why gravity works while she hurtles off a cliff. But she should worry about what to do when they inevitably arrive. She doesn’t seem to like me giving her advice. “You don’t know what its like to dance”, she right. But I’ve got a pretty good idea. I’m also a human. Dancer or not, if you bore and insult your customers you’ll probably find yourself not making much money. Guys are stupid, get over it. She seems to agree with this. I ask her wait while I send a tweet to notify the universe that she’s an idiot.

“So do you want a dance?” Splat. The conversation comes to a sudden stop. The dead brain cells collecting at the base of my skull spontaneously burst into flames. No, I don’t want dances. She leaves me. My head hurts. I start to imagine a level of hell from Dante’s Devine comedy, where the stages are burning pits of brimstone, none of the dancers have valid drivers license’s, and the DJ only plays the Bay City Rollers. “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” I try to tweet. Is there one or two “e”s in ye? Apparently the brain cell that had this information is now a smoldering wreck. I go with the wrong number of e’s in ye.

The dancer who originally asks me to come in suddenly appears, some what later than “8ish”. She regales me with all the difficulties of getting ready on time. It’s not that difficult. You figure out when you have to be someplace, then subtract the amount time you need to get ready. If you want me to pay you money to spend time with you, you need to actually arrive when I have time to spend. It’s not that difficult. She does a stage set and then takes off with another customer to do dances. It’s time to leave.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent

One of the things I always consider when writing this blog is trying to maintain the anonymity of some the subject dancers. While I tend to have a fairly softball delivery with my criticisms, they are criticisms none the less. While I always try to be an accurate as possible with my post I will occasionally leave out details or make subtle changes to make it more difficult to figure out who I’m talking about. Dancers are public figures with both safety concerns and an image to maintain.

In my previous post I was griping about some unattractive jewelry. While I had my tongue firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote about wanting a distraction, but it could easily be taken out of context. “Hey Sparkle, I just read on the internet that some guy would rather see a building get blown up than see you dance”. Not exactly what I meant. I am leveling some criticisms about a girl’s attire. When your job is dependent on your looks, you’ll probably be sensitive to comments about them. My job is dependent on my understanding of optics and electronics. I could careless what people think of what I look like, but I’d really upset if they thought I was clueless about my technical skills.

Her jewelry selection was definitely distinctive, but not unique. To make it harder to figure out whom I’m talking about, I’ll usually leave out or change certain details. The easiest thing to change is the day I went in. Most girls are pretty up to date about what girls work when, just by changing the day slightly you can effectively disguise who I’m talking about. It’s a little disingenuous of me but it doesn’t change the point I’m making and hopefully sparing somebody’s feelings.

I also keep in mind that things I write could get back to management and be used to fire a dancer. Susan Wayward recently wrote a blog about this. A dancer had probably gotten fired over something she had written in a blog. After reading her blog I don’t think the blog posting was the only issue that got her fired, more likely she had irritated management to point of getting fired, the blog posting was the last straw.

An unintended side effect is people will think I’m talking about somebody else. I often get messages from people asking for confirmation about who I’m talking about. More often then not, they are wrong. The problem with this is that if it becomes part of the dressing room gossip that Todd was talking about Epiphany when I was talking about Sparkle, it has the same effect. Epiphany doesn’t know I wasn’t talking about her, and if she feels that she’s been slighted it doesn’t matter whether she was the subject or not. The result is the same. A lot of people take their performances seriously. I have to do trainings and presentations. Most of the times I’ll get reviewed and a report of how I did sent back to me. Hung over salesmen are a very nasty audience. I’ve gotten some really viscous comments about what I present.

Many of the blogs I read seem to be an outlet for people to express feeling and issues they can’t normally do. I don’t know a single dancer who wanted to completely tell off a customer and bash his skull in with a brick, but instead bit their lip and smiled. I’m not immune to this either. One of my early blog posting was a relatively lengthy rant about how the club was being operated. I’d like to think my comments were well founded and supported, but it also emotional. At the time nobody read my blog so I had security through obscurity. I don’t have this luxury anymore.

What do you say to a naked lady

It’s always difficult to criticized somebody you don’t know that well, even more so when she is standing in front of you naked on a stage. But sometimes you see something that makes you squirm.

A dancer had a piercing in a delicate area below the belt line. Instead of the usual stud, she actually had a pendant hanging off of it. Sort of like a charm bracelet, complete with charm. I understand this is my own personal opinion, but there are some areas of the female anatomy I don’t want to see anything dangling from. I’m as fond of shiny objects as the next person but it just looks wrong. Generally if there is something I find something unattractive it’s no big deal you can look elsewhere. That’s wasn’t the case this time. The rack was empty except for me and I had the exclusive attention of the dancer. She was insistent on showing me little tricks she could do with her trinket. Lovely. There is only so much eye contact you can maintain with a dancer before it comes really obvious that you are intentionally not looking else where. I was stuck suddenly taking off form the rack is while the dancer is right in front is seriously obnoxious. I can only hope for a breaking news bulletin on the TV. Where’s Al-Qaeda when you need them?

It’s easy to rip somebody on a stage. They are there to entertain you, and if they don’t you can stomp on them. As if some how they are taking something from you. This is probably one of dehumanizing aspects of strip clubs. It’s only three minutes and am I really suffering that much? Strip clubs create the fantasy world that these women are here exclusively for your pleasure, like I’m suddenly the King of Siam. While it’s good to be the king, it doesn’t give you the right to tear somebody up. Some people hide behind the phrase “I’m just brutally honest”, most of the time that strikes me as an excuse to be rude without having to accept the consequences. As if their perception of truth so how makes it ok. There is a person on stage in front of you, not a cliché’ stripper who has heard it all and is imperious to customer comments.
I may only like seeing charm bracelets on a wrist or neck, but that’s only my opinion. I’m sure there are a lot of people who thought it look sexy. I politely stuck out the remainder of the set. She then asked me what charm she should wear next. “Er, maybe something a little less distracting” was my reply. Part of me wanted to explain to her that a charming hanging from there was a bad idea long term. You’d be amazed at the number of middle age women who super glue their ear lobe together to wear pierced ear rings. Over time heavy ear rings will pull apart an ear lobe. Some how I don’t think that’s an area where she wants a big tear, especially since the scar tissue has no nerves. It would simply become numb. If not knowing what to say to a naked lady is my biggest problem, then I’m having a pretty good day.

Watching the watchers

One thing that totally surprised me about dancers is how closely they watch the crowd. Now that I truly understand that the crowd is where they make their money it makes total sense, but it was a shock when it first hit me. I suspect most guys who walk into the club never realize this. When I reached my forties I felt like I had become invisible. Its not that people don’t see you, it’s they don’t really react to you. You just become another face in the crowd. I took that mentality into the club.

After I started hanging out at the Dolphin for a couple weeks I was convinced that except for the one dancer I was buying dances from and the waitress that served me drinks nobody else in the club paid the slightest attention to me. One early Friday evening a dancer that worked that shift stopped by and introduced her self. Then she asked if I had my first screw driver yet. I blinked and sat stunned for a second, then asked her why. “That’s because you never talk to new dancers until you have your first drink”. First I was amazed that she even new what I drank. Before this moment I had never interacted with her slightest except for tipping her while she was on stage. I was even more stunned that she was right, I didn’t like talking to new dancers until I had a drink and had settle in. I never realized this until she pointed it out to me. Unfortunately for her this rattled me enough that I kind of lost interest in getting dances. I found out later that she even new how much I spent on drinks and dances.

The funny part is I do the exact same thing in my job. When I work a trade show I always qualify the customers when they walk into the booth. First thing you always check is the badge. From the badge you can determine if they are another exhibitor or competitor (be polite, but safe to ignore), press or media (grab them the second they walk in and hand them over to PR folks), university students (feign having a heart attack and run away), or a potential customer. When you scan booth floor you can pretty much tell who is what. Your competitors are walking around taking pictures of everything and writing copious notes. The press will either hang out at the reception counter or the main exhibit. Students will have multiple bags of stuff from other booths, trying to grab any piece of literature they can get their hands on and asking to be sent more. To be effective you need to be able to figure out where you need to spend you time. There are lots of people who will happily eat up all your time for their own personal interests, but at the end day you are there to make the company money. Not entertain people who have no potential for any return.

Recently I was sitting at the table when a dancer sat down with me and scanned the crowd: “Little boy, little boy, little boy, creep, loser, little boy, and a couple regulars” then sighed “I hope it picks up later”. Customer qualification is much more difficult job for a dancer than it is for me. I have second chances, as long as I get their contact information and don’t act like a complete ass they can be followed up on and re-engaged. A dancer probably doesn’t get a much second chance. Though, I think if a dancer is polite and doesn’t blow they guy off she won’t burn a bridge and might be able to get dances later.

It’s interesting to see dancers and waitresses trade information. At Dolphin one the men’s bathroom is right by the waitress station at the bar. One night after walking out of the rest room I saw my waitress at the station talking to a dancer. I walked up behind her to place an order for another drink. As I approached I heard her describing a customer to another dancer and why she should go over to talk to him and what to say. As I took another step closer I realized I she was talking about me. I snickered a little when she informed the dancer that “he was totally safe”, the waitress turned bright red when she turned around and saw me.

I have always wondered how I was actually perceived by the dancers. Was I just some loser who came in every week and threw away his money or a knight in shining armor with a 20 dollar bill glued to his forehead or something else entirely? It finally occurred to me you can tell what a dancer thinks of you by how she treats you. The dancers who treat me like a friend most likely think of me like a friend. The dancers who treat me like a customer think of me like a customer. The ones who shriek and throw shot glasses at you probably don’t like you. But she doesn’t work there anymore (and she thought I was somebody else). She didn't really throw the shot glass, but had her arm cocked and ready to launch.

It's the network

One area I’ve seen a change in the industry is the use of social networking. It has begun to change the way things work. It used to be that it the club to had market it self. The dancers had to fiscally live or die by how well the club promoted it’s self. The dancer really didn’t have much of an option. She could only wait until the customer walked in the front door. Even then she had no way of communicating with the customer short of giving out a phone number. Even then she was restricted to contacting them one at a time. With social networking she can now contact multiple customers at once, completely independently of the club.

I think the social networking will provide dancers more control of their job. One major leverage point the clubs have always held over dancers is that she has established a customer base she couldn’t change clubs without losing most of them. It’s impractical to try contact all her regulars separately and let them know what club she’s going too. Not to mention one of the guys will run his drunken mouth and she’ll get fired for trying to take customers to another club. With MySpace or the other networking services she can broadcast where she is working (complete with address) and when. Switching clubs never easy, but this will at least make it more manageable. It used to be a dancer only worked at one club, now it’s becoming more common for dancers to work at several clubs.

Probably the most common social network being used is MySpace. The fact that you are reading this blog is testimony to that. MySpace seems to be fairly ideal for dancers. It provides a lot of services neatly package together. There is a direct messaging (e-mail) for the high maintenance customers. A bulletin system for broadcasting mass messaging is useful. And it’s free. The one thing that irritates me about some of the dancer pages (and many pages in general) is they are a complete mess. They have artwork, music players, poker games, etc, etc plastered all over the place. If the point of your page is to let customers know when and where you are working, make it obvious on your page. People will only work so hard to give you money. I know I tend to be a fan of the less is more philosophy but some of the pages are horrible. I don’t think many users realize that they page will look different with different browsers. Even my simplistic page doesn’t work correctly with Safari.

I have often thought of setting a MySpace page that would basically be a collection of clubs and dancers pages. The point of the page would simplify the task of a customer trying to locate a dancer. It might seem counter productive to put your name next to your competition, but I don’t think it isn’t. If a customer is looking for another dancer, dead ending him at your page isn’t going to stop him from looking. It’s to the dancer advantage to be seen as much as possible. The idea that you can block out competition doesn’t work any more in the age of Google. If somebody once to find something they will. You just frustrate the customer becoming a dead in. The fact that your page is an avenue to other content becomes another feature.

I’m seeing dancers use Twitter more. Twitter is the “mini-blogging” service for mobile phones. The big advantage of twitter is the immediacy. The message shows up on the phone as soon as you send it. You stay in front of the customer and maintain mind share. With MySpace the message is on hold until the use logs in. Your message is bunch up with a bunch of other messages. The only draw back is that the amount of information is very limited, also you risk becoming a nuisance.

Dancers have picked up on using the networking much more effectively than the clubs. The clubs seem to have missing the opportunity to market themselves for virtually no money. They could simply send a daily message via twitter with the drink special. The drink special is trivial, but the fact you can remind the customer everyday that the club is open for business is everything.

There are two dancers I’ve noticed do a terrific job of marketing. Rocket really has created a presence on pretty much every medium and actively updates the content. I get a reminder at least once a day that she is working during the week, and all I do is follow her twitter feed and have her as a MySpace friend. She does a significantly better job of maintaining an internet presence than most of the clubs.

Avalon is another. She uses social networking as well as more stand marketing avenues to promote her dancer wealth program. She promotes herself as a superstripper. She advocates approaching the craft as a business, not a hobby or a job. A lot of dancers would really benefit from following some of her advice. The name drives me nuts. It has nothing to do with the context she uses it. It has to do with the Japanese company I work for. The Japanese use three adjectives to describe all their products: Super, Ultra, and Advanced. The Japanese marketers freely mix and match the adjectives with no particular rhyme of reason. Advanced, Ultra Advanced, Super Advanced, Advanced Ultra, etc, etc. Try and stand up in front of an audience and explain why the Super advance technology is better than advanced super technology with a straight face. I once quipped in a meeting that we won’t be able to introduce any new products because we’ve used up all the possible combinations of adjectives. They didn’t like that. I have this fear I’ll go to read her blog and find out she’s become the Ultrasuperadvanced stripper.

Sugar Frosted Flakes

I always enjoy reading comments about the blog posts. Some are really funny, others point out things I never considered. I never would have guessed the comments that were put up on the Darkness blog post. The post was mostly me reflecting on bad night at the club. From my point of view the dancer’s behavior, while reprehensible, was not unique. I was more upset that I let myself get caught up in my own drama, that ultimately it was my own expectations that were the source of my grief. I didn’t think the dancer’s conduct was really worth spending much more time on. The comments proved otherwise. I not going to specifically reference who wrote what, you can go read them yourself, but I will comment on them.

Does dancing requires zero accountability? I agree with that. (Bare with me Natalia, and put down the knife) Dancers have zero accountability because the fundamental way Dancers get paid is much different than more traditional jobs. The basic agreement I have with my employer is that if I show up for work at an agreed upon time, do my job well, I will get paid. When a dancer shows up for work, on time or not, she owes money. She has to pay stage fees, tip out the bouncers, and tip out the DJ and pay what ever other club fees she might accrue. Just showing up at the club does not guarantee making money. It’s a bit a peculiar situation. The dancer is both a customer and employee of the club at the same time. In practice, she receives a set of services for her money (music, security, access to stages and dressing rooms, etc). She pays the club more money to the club per night that then typical male clientele, yet she gets treated like an employee.

The ultimate threat to a dancer is the same threat to that of a customer, being 86’d. It’s being told to take their money and go else where. The accountability a dancer has to a club is the same as the customer. It’s much different than a typical job, where the accountability is enforced by the threat of loss of all income. Since she receives no money from the club the dancer has zero accountability to club, as compared to traditional employee. Some times dancers are flakes, because customers are flakes. Much like a customer who goes to only one place to eat, dancers can't really evaluate whether they are being treated good or bad until they go work somewhere else.

Because dancers are customers too, there are some less restrictions. There are very few jobs where employees can drink to excess on a regular basis, with little or minimal ramification. How many dancers would be surprised to walk into a dressing room and find the girl sitting next to her drunk off her ass? I’ve seen dancers get sent home for being unable to work, but they have to be hammered to the point of being unable to function. The next day they are back at work. Dancers are also given leeway with scheduling that far exceeds most other jobs. Most guys only see the lack of restrictions, and not the fact the dancer is paying to be there.

What the club sells to a dancer is access to an environment where they can make money. It’s sort of like the soup Nazi from Seinfeld. He can be obnoxious, because he has a product that is desirable. No soup for you, go work somewhere else. Unfortunately dancers will apply this soup Nazi mentality to their customers. The customer is paying the dancer to be there. The customer can turn off the income. I think some dancers lose track of that fact. If they expect customers to continue to come in and spend money on them they have some accountability of being there.

Doesn't add up

In the February 2009 issue of xmag I ran across the Stars Cabaret Beaverton advertisement. I’m feeling particular old and cranky today so I’m going to dispense with my usual niceness. This ad is an absolute train wreck. It’s horrible. When I first brought the Stars ad up (I download the PDF version from the web site, saves the need to explain to visitors why there is Xmag on my coffee table) I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. As part of my job I write press releases and review ads for technical accuracy. I see a fair amount of art work when ads are being developed. I’ve seen some pretty off the wall stuff, but this Stars ad is scary, every time I look at it I still shudder.

The overall effect when you first look at it is the mash up of all sorts of weird fonts and colors. I didn’t recognize the logo when I first saw it. I thought it was “Stabs”. Wow, I want to go there. The logo would look really cool painted on the gas tank of a Harley, but not in an ad. It blends in with the rest of the ad. One of the purposes of having a logo is to create something that people can immediately recognize. The classic example of this is Coca-Cola. You can see that red curved logo from a mile away and you exactly what it is. MacDonald’s is another, all it takes is a yellow M shaped like arches and no other explanation is required to know who the ad is about. If people have to stop and try figure who’s ad it is, they won’t. They’ll flip to next page and forget about it.

There’s stuff crammed all over the page. In one corner there is a blip about a Mardi gras party, with odd colors and font that looks like it was shot out of leaf blower. In another corner in a completely different color scheme is Flesh for Fantasy themed Valentines party. Its in a font that would be more appropriate for Monty Python skit. Worse yet is they mixed the fonts for the valentines event. The latex wall, cupid text is in another font which makes it look like its for a different event. Lost in all this carnage is the bullet item for Lisa Ann. She is apparently a traveling performer. Its in a font and color scheme that gets blown off the page. I didn’t even notice it until I decided to sit down and dissect the ad. For some reason there is a semi submerged lags and rump floating in the background. I’m not quite sure how that fits into the Valentines day/Mardi Gras theme. This ad smacks of “holy crap I’ve got 45 minutes to put it together and e-mail it the publisher”.

The Spyce logo and Stars logo both have extensive line artwork in them. This is usually a bad idea. They don’t scale well. When you start to compress the logo the lines will get too close and the image starts to look like a solid block. The Spyce font is worse than Stars. Seriously, if you didn’t know what the name was would you be able to read it? I can just imagine a drunk guy getting in a cab asking “I want to go to Spruce” and ending up at the Acropolis.

The advertisements for strip clubs seem to follow a boobs and bullet items formula. In the center of the ad will be a picture of a dancer or dancers. Next to the dancer will be her name, usually in a cursive font, I guess to make it look like she actually autographed it. There will be a banner with the clubs logo either on the top or bottom of the page. The address and phone number will be printed on the edge as well. Peppered though out the ad will be assorted bullet items. These include club specials and upcoming events. There usually too many items and just ends up cluttering the space. There are some variations on the theme with different art work and layout but they all will contain those elements.

What should a good ad look like? I really don’t know. Going through the magazine the only ad I see really like is the one for Lucky Devil. First it’s has a burlesque theme to it. The girl appears to be on a 1950’s poster for a show. It’s clean and easy to read. The basic points they want to get across are obvious. You can open page and immediately know that they are having a one year anniversary party and they also have heated smoking patio and ladies night. Plus the ad looks attractive. This would make a cool poster.

Darkness on the edge of town

Darkness on the edge of town. While I’m not a big Bruce Springsteen fan, I’ve always really liked that album title. It also seems to fit my current state of mind. I just reread a blog draft I wrote after coming home from miserable visit to D2. It was a snarling vile thing; full of petty, hurtful views. As I reread it in mornings light its humbling to realize I have that side of myself. I deleted it. Sometimes I can be whiny little bitch.

The balancing act between friend and customer can be difficult. I’ve complained in the past about dancers that sit down and start going off about how terrible their life is. They just lost their license because of a DUII or their hamster needs bypass surgery. Some of its real, other is made up to try to get some sympathy money. When it’s a dancer who I consider a friend I’m concerned. When it’s somebody I don’t know I’ll smile and wish them and their hamster the best.

Things started last Thursday when I got a text from a long time dancer/friend asking me to come in because she needed to talk to me about something. I flinched when I read the message. In the past a message like this is followed with the (insert disaster here) conversation immediately followed by can I borrow money. I wasn’t sure though, this dancer has more integrity than most people I know in and outside the club. When I got there I found out she had had some personal drama she was dealing with and wanted somebody to talk to that was outside of the industry. A gave her my best opinion, but she had already had sorted it out. While she went on stage another long time dancer stopped by. This dancer is truly a sweet and genuine person, but she has many of the cliché stripper bad habits.

She was on the edge of tears. She had just found out a close friend had been diagnosed with cancer. This strikes a chord with me. The dancer didn’t know this, but my mother died from a brain tumor. This is still a very emotional subject for me, watching my mother die was the most horrific experiences of my life. I tried to comfort her as best I could. Not sure what good I did but felt terrible for her. I don’t think it was her intention to talk to about this, but none the less there it is.

The following Tuesday I got a text from the dancer with the sick friend asking me to come in. When I got there around eight it was dead slow. There weren’t that many girls working and even less customers. The volume was at ear splitting levels. One waitress on duty. It was an interesting crowd. There were several younger guys hanging out at a table by the stage, carefully doling out singles to dancers they liked. Further away from the stage was my crowd, middle age men sitting alone for the most part. The tipping at the stage was actually pretty good. I ordered a drink from the waitress, when she came back she didn’t have any change but she was going to get some ones. She hustled off, at this point the music started to get on my nerves. There weren’t many people in the bar; this gives the acoustics a very tinny sound. Hard surfaces reflect high pitch sound very well, soft surfaces tend to absorb them. I suspect a lot of DJs don’t notice this because they’ve already destroyed their high pitch hearing.

The music started to sound like a dentist drill matched to a drum machine. If it wasn’t for the fact I wanted to support the dancer I would have taken off. I ran out of tip money so I began to look for the waitress with my change. She was standing at the waitress station, apparently waiting for the bartender who was no where to be seen. I’m guessing after about four songs everybody had quit tipping. The waitress was still at the station, the bartender was MIA. It occurred to me at that point they club had run out of ones. Nobody had change to tip with. This was a new experience. I’m sure a few dancers are still in the dressing room fuming about those cheap ass customers. Eventually the bartender made it back. The waitress quickly made the rounds with everybody’s change and an apology. It was about 10:15 the dancer with the sick friend still had not made an appearance.

I sent her text wondering where she was. I got a reply saying dinner ran late and was I still there. I’ve been sitting here slowly getting ice picks rammed into my ear drums and you’ve been at dinner. I was instantly upset, really upset. What she did was fairly crummy, one day dumping on somebody then the next blowing him off day. Curious, I just switched from first person to third person in the previous sentence. I’m still upset, far more than I should or have a right to be. Most of my anger was from my own expectations. She had not acted a bit out character. She means well, but she seldom follows through with what she says. I know this. I know this, but I don’t always realize it.

So many folks complain that strip clubs objectify women. It turns them into a commodity. It couldn’t be more opposite for me. A dancer may be the object of my desire, but I don’t desire an object. It’s the human experience that brings me back. Ultimately the experience is what you make of it.

What's in a name

Stage names have always fascinated me. Some dancers have spent a lot of time and effort thinking of a name that matches their stage persona. Other girls probably picked the first name out of the list that sounded good. It’s always an odd experience when you meet somebody who won’t tell you their real name. I understand why the practice is in place, but it still peculiar. I’ve occasionally wonder what it would be like if you extended this practice of assuming a stage name for other professions. Imagine a plumber showing up at your door announcing he is Poseidon, lord of the oceans and fixer of leaky faucets. I suppose if his rates were reasonable and fixed the problem it wouldn’t bother me too much. It would be kind of weird writing a check to a “Poseidon”.

In the engineering world I’m not sure how the naming scheme would work. You really couldn’t pick out locations like dancers. Paris, Milan, London have a certain alluring air to them. Most high tech locations don’t. Hi, I’m “silicon valley” doesn’t really work. Worse yet you could be from IBM and call yourself “Fishkill”. Of all the city names that defy logic Fishkill New York has to be the worse. Did the first settlers come across a river with a bunch of carp floating upside down in the river and decide to stay? It’s what I look for when I’m looking for a new residence. I suppose you could go with some of the research colleges. Oxford has a nice ring to it. MIT doesn’t, everybody would call you mitt. All you’d be doing is explaining your name. Caltech doesn’t do much for me either. Redmond? Nah.

Naming yourself after an iconic figure might work better. Just like dancers name themselves after deities like Venus, Isis, or Athena an engineer might be able to come up with a similar name. Hephaestus, the ruler of the underworld and black smith to the Greek gods sort of fits the bill. He makes cool magic armor. Except it sounds too much like fester. The Roman name “Hades” has a bit of satanic association that might be career limiting result. Thor would be cool, he had a hammer. But he didn’t really build anything. I think he just ran around and smashed things. Leaving wreckage in your wake isn’t desirable for an engineer, unless you build bombs.

Perhaps famous people would work better. There are lots of dancers name Marilyn or Pamela. Von Neumann or Turing are possibilities, except that the names are a little too insider for most people. You don’t want a name where you to constantly explain it. Einstein, Edison, or Tessla all have definite potential. I can hear it now at my next trade show “Taking the stage to answer your questions about start up power sequencing, its Tessla”. Ohm? No, you shouldn’t name yourself after something that sounds like you are talking with your mouth full.

Naming yourself after an emotion just flat doesn’t work. Envy, desire, malice might work for a dancer, but most emotions associated with engineering, or more accurately lack of emotion associated with engineering aren’t very good. Thorough, boring, and tedious just aren’t the first impressions you want to make. Insight, perception, or clever might be ok, but I need to think about more.

Things have little bit more potential. Instead of Sunset, Pearl, or Snow you could name yourself Sparks. Reboot has some cache’. Yeah, I know reboot is a verb and not a thing, but when has proper grammar been a goal of this blog? Blue screen of death is probably not such a good idea for a name either. Caliper might be ok. Chromaticity meter isn’t. Spectrum analyzer? No sounds too much like rectum analyzer. Beaker is both a thing and a character from the Muppet show. There we go. Bunsen Honeydew from the Muppets should be my new name. Bunsen for short, or Honey. Now, all I have to do is to get my new business cards approved by legal.

Clubs

I wonder how well some club would do if there weren’t and stages or dancers. What if they were just a bar? Some would make it, most wouldn’t I imagine. A lot of clubs have no particular reason for existing, without the dancers they are just really loud, expensive bars. Others seem like your regular local neighborhood club, with a stage added. I’m not sure some clubs know what kind of customer they want to attract. Different clubs have very different feels.

When I moved back up from Texas the first club I went to was Stars Cabaret. They had a billboard on highway 217 at the time. I think the tag line on the ad was “A little bit of Vegas here in Portland” or something like that. Stars turned out to be too much like Vegas for me. Every time I walked into the place I felt like they were trying to stuff a shopvac in my wallet. It’s the only place where I constantly had merchandise hawked at me. After hanging around there I ended with collection of garter belts, t-shirts, and other swag of no real value. Some of the stuff was pure crap.

One time they were giving away plastic “football” mugs. These injection molding was so bad you would have cut yourself if you tried to drink out of it. Everybody was abandoning them at the table when they left. It’s a safe bet the mugs arrived in a boxes and left in a dumpster. This was also my first exposure to how Star’s treats their girls. The merchandising scheme was the girls would all be herded up to the stages with the crap swag item of the day. The DJ would pitch if you bought a dance from a girl you’d get to keep the useless, poorly made product of a Malaysian sweat shop. Until I got to know a couple girls I didn’t know that Star’s actually made the girls buy the swag from the club. If the dancer didn’t sell item she had to take it home, whether she liked it or not. One dancer I got to know would walk to my table and pretend to try and sell it to me trinket, then sit down. She’d just send the t-shirts to her brother. It was just the cost of working at Star’s for her. It’s been a while since I’ve been to there, I’m not sure if they still do that.

Star’s is unabashedly a strip club. The flip side of the sales pressure is the fact it’s very efficiently run from a customer perspective. I very rarely had to wait for anything when ordering. The dancers were remarkably punctual for dancers when it came to getting to the stage. When a girl got on the main stage she always had a gown on. It was a business that was there to serve you, for a price. This wasn’t what I look for in a club. I’m much more looking for a place to relax. Star’s is meant to be a strip club from the ground up. At Star’s I felt like if I wasn’t spending money I needed to leave.

Location is probably one of major factors as to clubs success. Several clubs I’ve gone to I’ve only known about because I saw them while I was driving somewhere else. This is changing with the internet. I was looking up different strip club reviews on line when I ran into the Dolphin. Most of the review sites are zagat style with different one star, two star, three star, etc, etc ratings of things. About the only useful information I can ever pull of those is the basic type of club and its address. Curiously, it was one of these sites that had link to the best strip club site I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately it no longer exists. If I remember right it was written by a person who went by the nom de plume of Ook. Instead if the usual “zagat” stuff, it consisted of his first person adventures visiting clubs. He and his trusty steed kumquat would motor off to different clubs. It was the most best, most original stuff I’ve ever seen. It was there I read about the “cetacean on a stick” club.

The Dolphin had a much more relaxed atmosphere. I didn’t feel like I had to throwing dollars on the rack to be there. It’s peculiar, both are places of business but have very different atmospheres. A lot of this has to do with the DJ. The DJ at Stars was constantly mentioning drink specials, pimping the special event where all the entertainers would be one stage at once, the dry to sell you a trinket you do need or want. I’m still finding those damn garter belts when I clean out drawers. The DJ at the Dolphin seemed more interested in actually putting on a show. The atmosphere also carries over to the dancers. The girls were a lot more willing to sit and talk.

At the end of the scale from Star’s is the Nicolai St Clubhouse. This is a local neighborhood bar that just happens to have dancers. You can just picture the guy setting up the club “Yea, I want the pool tables over there, the lottery machines over there, the naked women over there”. The cool thing about this bar is if you want to hang out for an hour or two with out being bothered, there’s no better place.

Dancer etiquette

“Girl’s these days have no respect.” Growled a dancer I was sitting with. She has been dancing longer than most. She was eyeing a new dancer that had managed to upset most of the established girls. The new girl had picked up the habit of asking customers for dances even if another girl was already sitting with him. This is strictly verboten. There are some unwritten rules about dancers interact with each other. I’m going to codify them a little, but I’ll try and take the customer’s perspective.

Courtesy Tip
One of the first rules of etiquette I noticed was dancers would always leave a tip if they pulled a customer off another girls rack. This was back in the days when there was a lot more money to be made. It was pretty common for dancers to get ask for dances as they got off the stage typically they’d tell the customer to wait at the stage while they ran back and got their couch dance apparel. When the dancer came out to get the customer she would always leave a tip on the rack in addition to the customers tip. In my opinion the reason for this is acknowledge that that she wasn’t trying to poach a customer off her rack. The dollar is a trivial, but gives recognition that this wasn’t an intentional act of disrespect. Sort of like when I cut somebody off on the freeway by accident, I’ll shrug my shoulders and sheepishly wave at them. It lets them know that I didn’t mean to cause them grief. I just was suffering from short term stupidity. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a courtesy tip. I suspect most of the current dancers are completely unfamiliar with the practice.

When you are not on stage, you’re not on stage
When a dancer is on stage it’s her opportunity to make money and try and figure out what customers are interested in her. At that moment she should be the center of attention. When a dancer gets off stage she needs to leave. The other dancers shouldn’t wander around the stage distracting the customers. It’s called a stage for a reason. Pulling attention away from the girl on stage doesn’t do anybody any good.

Please leave the stage in a timely fashion
Once a dancer’s set is over she’ll usually go around and pick up tips, thank the customers and ask for dances. Some dancers can turn this process into an all day project. This is frustrating for the customers. Watching a girl stop and talk to a patron for five minutes isn’t particularly interesting. It’s also a good way to lose guys off the rack. Once the spell is broken, guys will start to think about heading home, going to the bathroom, or will just get annoyed waiting for the next girl.

Ask a customer if he’s with another dancer before you sit down
A dancer does not approach a customer if he is already sitting another girl. Don’t expect customers to understand this etiquette. I still see a lot of arguments erupt from this. A girl will get up to talk to the DJ, go to the bathroom, and leave the customer. During which time another dancer shows up. The customer is there looking for attention from a beautiful girl. If a girl walks up to him and ask to sit down he will probably say yes. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus according to one book title. In my opinion Women are from Venus, Guys have the attention span of a gold fish. Dancers shouldn’t project their concept of time on a customer at a strip club. What seems like no big to deal to a dancer may seem like an eternity for a customer. I admit this is a major gripe of mine, but I think it is something a lot of dancers miss. I don’t care what you’re selling. You shouldn’t expect the customer to have the same expectations you do. Customers will only work so hard to give somebody their hard earned money. Don’t expect a guy to tell you another girl is already sitting with him.

Leave the drama in the dressing room
Being in the middle of drama is massively uncomfortable for customers. Hanging out at the club is a mini vacation for me. It’s a complete distraction from work. Getting pulled into a confrontation between two dancers is probably the worse thing that’s happen to me at the club. In most cases I consider at least one, if not both friends. Nobody wins in these confrontations.

Don’t kick the stage to get attention
OK, this really isn’t an etiquette thing, just a mini rant I’m sticking in. One kick to the stage to get attention is good, two kicks is two kicks, three kicks is getting annoying, one more and you’re Francis the talking mule trying to count to four. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_the_Talking_Mule) Kicking the stage like a Clydesdale will only do so much. If the crowd isn’t into it, beating them into submission won’t help.
There’s a lot basic etiquette that should have been learned in kindergarten I won’t try to cover. Things like don’t steal. Clothes, money, playdoh, Etc. it never ceases to amaze me how much theft goes on in the dressing room. Don’t gossip about the girl next to you no matter how big of crack whore she is. With the turn down in the economy there’s more competition for less dollars. It’s easy to preach, but it’s tough to practice when the rents due.