The virtual dressing room

When I first started to use twitter it seemed like an ideal tool for dancers. It effectively let dancers trade directly text messages with customers without having to give out their phone numbers. It also let them broadcast their work schedule. Natalia also pointed out another benefit of twitter, a person can only get so disgusting in 140 characters. While it can't complete defeat a psycho customer, it can at least hobble him. I’ve noticed another use for twitter, the virtual dressing room. Dancers tweet all over the country about how their night is going, problems they are having, things customers have said. Imagine that, twitter being used for social networking.

From my perspective as a customer the tweets are really interesting. There is a side to dancing you don’t get to normally see. One of my favorite tweets was from a dancer who commented “I’m not taking off an $80 bra for a two dollar rack” or something like that. I’d give the proper citation for the tweet if I could find it again. I have to admit how much a particular outfit costs is a question that has never crossed my knuckle dragging mind. Not that this is some sort of great insight into the minds of dancers or customers but it something new. I really believe the more you learn about something the more enjoyable it is. Usually, there are a few foods I could have lived without learning what they are made of.

I have to turn off the little chime on my phone to notify me when a new tweet gets sent. Dancers tend to stay up far later than I do. I got tired of hearing my phone going off at 3am in the morning. Now I get to wake up in the morning and review the tweets from the previous night. I still think twitter is still an excellent way to promote and communicate with customers. Some of the clubs seem to have embraced twitter as well. Stars Bridgeport kind if went in both directions. At first they were advertising different specials, then they went crazy and pretty much turned into spam. I was getting so many tweets I just started to ignore them. Eventually they fell silent. I haven’t seen many tweets recently from Stars Bridgeport.

Some of the images I see on twitter picture web sites range from funny to disgusting. A few images taken at clubs are probably illegal and some of the image comments border on libel. I was kind of shocked that something like this would get posted. A lot of folks don’t really get how quickly a tweet can get forwarded or the fact a tweet is a permanent record. I protect my tweets mostly to avoid the spammers that still try to twitter. Protecting your tweets really doesn’t do much. Once a tweet is sent anybody who receives it can resend it with the originator's handle still intact. Plus any links associated with tweet will get retweeted as well. I don’t think the dancer who sent the original tweet ever thought that her protected tweets would go beyond her followers. I also don’t think it occurred to her that once people were able to view her posted image they would be able to browse all the images she had posted.

There have been a few cases where people have sued for defamation over a tweet. I don’t know if they have been successfully prosecuted. Most have been throw out as frivolous, but it will probably only be a matter of time. Twitter is considered a public forum by the court system.

The Qik

For a new way to get yourself into trouble on the internet I’ve discovered an application that lets you turn your smart phone into a web cam. It’s called Qik. It is absolutely simple to use. You can download the app for free from iTunes or Android Marketplace. You setup an account like twitter. I’ve created an account for me (www.qik.com/pdxstoney). You run the Qik app on you phone which starts the camera and anybody logged into your account page can watch your live feed of your phones camera without any special software. I’ve actually used it at work to help debug problems real time. I can pull out my phone point it at some piece of equipment I’m trying to debug and get advice the support engineer.

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.

Twitter me this, Batman

The following is a completely irreverent rewrite of the rules posted on the Dolphin Clubs MySpace page. It's not meant to be fair or accurate. It's just me poking a little fun at something. You may want to go read the Dolphin blog.

What is the Miss Nude Oregon Contest?
Miss Nude Oregon is the only highest exotic entertainer title in the state. (The previous sentence was cribbed directly from the Dolphin MySpace page blog). This contest is preformed at a greater elevation than any other contest of its type. Should any other contest occur at a greater altitude the contest shall be renamed the Miss Nude Oregon Skydiving Contest, where contestants will have perform a theme set while jumping out of an airplane.

Why do Dolphin girls always seem to win the crown?
The contest is open to all entertainers living in the state of Oregon. Unless they are living in Washington. So, it’s open to all entertainers in Oregon and Washington, The Dolphins girls spend three to four months preparing for the contest which give them a major advantage. The fact that the contest takes place in the Dolphin Clubs, the winner will appear in magazine ads for the Dolphin clubs, or that some of the judges sell alcohol to the Dolphins clubs have nothing to do with the out come.

The Title
The title is owned by somebody else, permission to use the title in any advertising must be obtained by the owner of the title. Fortunately this blog is not an advertisement, but I will freely admit to be willing to fold like a cheap tent and pull the blog should I receive anything that looks like a cease and desist order.

Criteria
The contestant must participate in two of the three events, unless the find it too inconvenient, in which case they only need to show up for the finals. The contestants will be judges on the following criteria on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, unless they perform to Spinal Tap, in which case 11 is allowable. (Any dancer willing to get up and perform to 'big bottom' should win by default):

Theme set performance
Axe throwing (This will come in handy during the tie breaker)
Clog dancing
Elegance
Another vague attribute like elegance that I can't think of right now
Car repair
Sheep shearing

The judges
In order to insure complete fairness the judges will be kidnapped at random from an Amish community and flown in one day prior to the contest. They will blind folded and locked in a room until just before the first contestant takes the stage.

The Ballots
The ballots will be collected and tallied in front of the judges, the event organizers, the title owner and club managers. None of which of any bias or affiliation the Dolphin clubs (oops, was I using my out loud voice?)

A Tie
Should three judges scoring seven categories on a scale one to ten come up with the exact same score for two or more contestants a tie breaker will be invoked. The tie breaker will consist of a cage death match. The cage death match will take place in three segments. The first segment will be the blunt object round. Contestants will be allow to take a single blunt object from their outfit bag, such as a hair flat iron, perfume bottle, hair dryer, vibrator, etc. They will then beat each other senseless for three minutes. Those left standing will progress to the second, sharp object round. They will select between a machete, axe, or bailing hook and resume combat. The third and final round will be the Mossberg Shotgun round. The last dancer standing will be crowned the winner.

The Winner
The winner must be available for shows, signings, radio/TV appearances, Bar Mitzvahs, car washes, photo shoots, shifts where there aren't enough girls, and building maintenance.

Elimination
The contestant can be eliminated for the following reasons:
Disregarding house rules (what rules that happened to be enforced at the time)
Working for another club (did I use my out loud voice again?)
Illegal parking
Jay Walking
Bailing on a bar tab
Failure to pay stage fees

Revoking the crown
Somebody else owns the crown, you don't. Don't mess up, capiche?