The Blackbook

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Seven habits of highly effective strip club patrons

And then there’s me, Patron yes, highly effective, er, no. I have noticed some habits I picked up while talking to dancers. My goal is always trying to make the girl feel at ease. As a new customer I’m guilty to proven innocent. There are some definite things that will put a dancer on edge. Oh, there aren’t seven habits here either.

Where you put your hands is critical. This may seem so obvious, that you’re probably going "DUH", but it’s actually a lot more subtle. For the obvious "DUH" reason, I’ve noticed that dancers always follow where your hands are. Recently I was getting a dance, keeping my hands in the 10 and 2 o’clock position. One of my hands slipped slightly. Much to my amazement the dancer noticed it. Some dancers are almost hypersensitive. I always try to keep my hands visible, and this may sound a little strange, keep the palms of my palms turned away from the dancer. Your hands communicate what you are thinking. An obvious example of this is to walk up to a dancer with hands in front of you, palms turned to you like you’re a Cardiologist going into surgery and she’ll look at you your crazy. Walk up to her with hands turned toward her like you are going to grope her and you will probably get a chair broken over your head. The may be an over simplified example, but your hand will indicate intent. I will always pull my hand away if I brush up against the dancer. It respects her boundaries,

I try to be very careful when I’m talking to a dancer. Don’t assume that you are the smartest person at the table when a dancer sits down. I’m always amazed at the guys who decide they are going to do clinical analysis as to why she is working as a stripper. Ultimately they come across as a judgmental Neanderthal idiot, I can only imagine they must sound like "Why for you have nekkid job? Conan not know why, school should you go". (Actually that kind of sounds like a Cro-Magnon Yoda). The Star’s TV add with the cavemen is probably more telling than it initially appears.

I worked as a gas station attendant when I was in college. A lot of people would talk to me like I was an idiot because I worked gas station. I hated that. Worse yet, they would tell me the biggest pack of lies, assuming that I wasn’t smart enough to see through. Its probably one of the few things I can empathize with dancers.

Anything that could be taken for trying to find out personal information I’ll avoid. I don’t ask what’s you real name, where did you go to school, what kind of car you drive, where did you go to school, etc. Virtually every dancer I know has been stalked or pestered by a crazy customer. I have a tactic I use when a dancer reveals more about herself than she planned to. As she becomes more comfortable with you she might let some things slip out (especially if she drinks).When a dancers lets something slip, I play stupid (something that comes naturally) I act like I didn’t notice. I wait for dancer to mention a subject three times before I assume that she doesn’t care that I know.


Now I’ll get to some of more odd habits. One dancer once told me she hated when a customer counted out the money after buying some dances. After that I always separate out the money before I get dances. When I pay for the dances I just hand the bills to her all at once.


Basic hygiene goes a long way as well. I’ve actually be complimented because I smelt clean. I guess that showering thing really works.

She said, She said

I'm friends with a couple different clique's of dancers and some of the bar staff. It's always interesting when some sort of drama goes down in the club I'll get to hear multiple sides of a story. Recently a local sports celebrity came in and created reasonably large uproar. Big enough to warrant an article in the sports section of the newspaper.


I was in the club the following Sunday when I first heard about it. It was a fairly vitriolic second hand account of the event. According to this version the celeb came in with his normal entourage, which also included a couple of girls (Ho' bags was the exact term used in the dancer's retelling). The celeb and company then proceeded to take over the back stage. They had their girls "audition" for the club on the back stage. The girls proceeded to pretty much put on a risqué show (risqué for strip club!) which pretty much took everybody attention from the other stages, leaving those dancers high and dry (no tips). While the "audition" was going on the back stage another girl who was a friend of the dancer on the main decided to jump on the stage and do a two girl show as well. Partly was to help her friend, partly to make a point to management to either enforce the rules or not. The manager proceeded to ask the defiant dancer to get off the main stage, and was ignored by the performers. Eventually the defiant dancer got off and headed back into dressing room. One of the auditioning dancers broke a glass on stage during their performance. Then they proceeded to do some floor work, which resulted in assorted lacerations and blood on the stage. This upset the other dancers. Most dancers aren't real excited in perform on stage that looks like a crime scene. At to that the possibility of assorted blood born contagions. The auditioning girls then headed into the dressing room to clean up, generally infuriating the regular girls.

A couple days later I was talking to another dancer who was there and got a somewhat different spin. The same basic series of event happen but she made it sound like it was much more like a actual audition, and that it was only shifted to back stage at the request of the celeb. She made no mention of blood, broken glass, or any other hazmat issues. She also implied that most of the furor was from the girl on the main, who was really upset over getting upstaged by a couple of outside girls. The defiant dancer was totally wrong to ignore the manager. She also added that a reporter from the local news paper was there.
Today I got a third take on the event which matched the blood soaked, ho' bag version. Added now was the fact that the auditioning girls never filled out any wavers or tax documentation and the defiant dancer was fired. Of course getting fired at the Dolphin means you can't work their next week. I think the only way a dancer could ever get fired is to steal something from the owner. I'm sure committing a homicide would only result in a suspension (as long as no club property was damaged).

The truth is probably some where in between. The ho' bag versions are second hand, the girl who gave me the first hand account is not the most accurate reporter. She was tipped really well by the celeb, which would definitely color her version. I also know the girl who was upstaged on the main, I can definitely see her getting really mad about that and start a fur ball.

A little research on the internet and you can find also sort of events that occur when this celeb shows up at a strip club. This concerns me a little, since a couple of these event resulted in gun fire. I really don't like the idea of anybody carrying firearms in a strip club. Combining guns, alcohol, money, and naked women will definitely end up in a confrontation somewhere. It's actually amazing how quickly news of this spread across the blogosphere. In the grand scheme of things this is fairly minor event. I really doubt reporter was there. From what I can gather off the blogs the paper found out about this through a ticked off dancer/bar staff.

Poachers and Stalkers

When the club gets really slow there are a couple of tactics some girls use that put me on edge. I usually talk to the same girls, and for the most part I get left alone by the rest. When dollars are scarce, the normal etiquette falls by the way side. Normally I can deflect things, but sometimes I can't. Other times it just blows up.

Stalkers
Stalkers wait for the first possible moment that acceptable dancer etiquette allows and dive at the first opportunity like a blitzing linebacker. Typically if a dancer is sitting with a customer, the other girls will leave that customer alone until she's done. Stalkers do everything but walk up and talk the customer. The first thing they do is what I call the "drive by". They will walk by your table slowly, repeatedly, trying to make eye contact with you. They'll walk behind and brush up against you. I've had girls literally sit a table facing where I was sitting, like they are waiting for a starting gun at a track meet. Normally attention like this is a very rare and desirable thing for me. The strip club environment is far from normal. Dancers can be very territorial, in broader scheme sales people tend to be very territorial. It can be hard enough to make a sale, its get harder when you have somebody trying to get at the same dollars you are. In a purely competitive point of view they are your enemy.

I've watched a lot of confrontations start like this. Some dancers will intentionally take their time just to irritate the stalker. Other will just sit and get angry at the thought of somebody else trying to get at their dollars. Even if the dollars are still residing in my wallet. About I'll I can really do is be a loyal customer and ignore or blow off the stalker. This won't really put off the stalker, but it makes the regular girl lest agitated if she's confident that she's secure. If also interesting to watch dancers work in pairs trying guard a customer. I have been literally tag teamed by two dancers just be sure I wasn't left unattended and open to a stalker. Sometimes it can be entertaining, mostly it's a pain. I hang out at clubs to relax and have fun, not get caught up in turf war. I odd part is in the scheme of things I really not that big of tipper. There are a lot of other customers that spend way more money than me. About the only thing I have is that I'm about as painless as customers get. I suppose when the pool gets small enough I become a big fish.

Poachers
Poachers simply ignore etiquette and will walk up at the first unattended moment and hustle you hard for a dance. Typically if you are a known regular of dancer, most will leave you alone until she stops by. Poachers will instantly be at your table, with the "Hi (honey/good looking/handsome/insert false platitude here), how are you doing, hey lets go do some dances? All usually come back with my usually reply "I'll have to play hard to get, I'm waiting for so and so". Most of the time they'll come back with "I haven't seen her here tonight. I don't think she's coming in" counter. When a dancer (or any sales person) is obviously lying to make a sale it's a bad situation. By this time a most of the other dancers have noticed that the poacher is at work. The gossipy dancers will immediately report this to the regular girl. From my point of view this is where things end for me. Once the poachers figures out there's no money to be made the head else where. However, things will get finished off back in the dressing room. I was watching one poacher at work with a different customer. This guy was a pretty big fish, from what I was told he'd drop between $1000 and $1500 bucks when he'd come in. This is money worth fighting over for a lot of dancers. About five minutes after the poacher went back into the dressing room the DJ announced "All bouncers to the dressing room, all bouncers to the dressing room". A major dancer fur ball was going down.

So far, So bad

It occurred to me that in quest to develop the remote control latch for clothing I might be able to adapt a small speaker. The small profile speakers out of a laptop really don't develop that much force during normal operation. I tried progressively larger current pulses to see how far I could push it. The 1 watt (continuous operation) speaker I was playing with got all the way to 7 watt before it made a bad sizzling sound, followed by a bad smell. Even at 6 watts it doesn't really generate that much mechanical oomph. I think need to figure out what kind of clasp I can use. From there I can sort out how much force I need to generate to pop it off by remote control.

Dancer Outfit R&D

I've been kicking around different ideas for an "accidental stripper" outfit. Susan Wayward had the idea of an outfit that could be "removed" via remote control. I guess it would be routine that would have assorted clothing items popping off at different moments.


That put my bent little mind in overdrive think about how to pull something like this off. My idea was to go get a remote control car and adapt the servos. My first concern with this approach is what to do with the antenna. I suppose you could play it up, sort of my favorite Martian meets Bettie Page. Maybe not. The antenna would have to be integrated into the bottoms, probably some sort of belt. Actually a belt would work pretty well for hiding the electronics. One of the difficult parts of this is hiding the actuators. With servo idea I figure a set of pins connected to cables would be the best approach. When you press the remote control the motors would start and pull the pins that held the outfit together. The pins would be hidden in a figure eight loop. The overall draw back with this is bulkiness of the gears and servos. There is also the issue of cabling. Since its clothing it has to be stretch and flex. The cables would have to have enough slack to allow normal movement. Doable, but making it reliable could be very difficult. Another problem is I'm stuck with the electronics that come with the RC car. I think the micro RC cars would work pretty well. I'll need to do more research on that.

Susan had a really good idea of using magnets. I haven't quite figured an approach to this. It's possible to use electromagnets to switch on and off. But these tend to be pretty high power devices. A big ass battery pack would be impractical. You'd probably be put in the situation of having to recharge your bra everything you used the outfit. Maybe that's not such a problem. This isn't exactly a daily use item. Of course then I have to sort out a charging systems that wouldn't start a fire, this tends to upset the management. Not to mention the person wearing it. The biggest problem I see with the magnets is a creating a solid enough bond to keep the outfit together. It would kind of defeat the purpose having the outfit fall off every time you moved. To deal with the power issue it's possible to use regular magnets and pulse the electromagnets to repel them. You can store up energy to fire a large pulse to pop off the clasp. That doesn't take much battery. You always run into safety issues when you start to store up power. Nothing says sexy like an "I've just been tasered" muscle spasm.


Another idea I had would be to use hidden buttons instead of remote control. Basically the dancer would press a button that would delay a certain amount of time, and then pop off. Ideally in her routine she could set the trigger inconspicuously, so it would appear the wardrobe malfunction was unexpected.

I located some small and fairly powerful magnets (yes my place looks like somebody blew up a Radio Shack). I'm going to try some experiments at work tomorrow to see how much power it takes to repel these magnets. Then maybe a stop by a hobby to shop for some RC goodies. More later.

A customer rant, a long rant

A customer rant, a long rant


For some peculiar reason this morning I feel like writing. It's the forth day of my vacation. I always go through a general malaise when I start a long vacation. Work can be very intense. With some people there are no small problems, generally when I go into work there's a voice mail or e-mail about some sort emergency. If we don't fix it now the moon will fly out of orbit. One of sales manager literally sends every message with the "urgent" flag set. It's reached the point that I'll actually read the e-mails that aren't flag first, just because I'm curious as to what issue is so mundane that it doesn't rate an urgent flag. Without this constant assault on my sanity I tend to lethargic. It takes a couple days for my system to acclimate and become me to become motivated again.

I've given up on the Dolphin(s) finally. A lot of the people who work there I consider friends, but I can't take that place any more. As far as a place to hang out it just simply sucks. I expect the drinks to be expensive, but they've reached the point of being ridiculous. I like Maker's Mark whiskey. A fifth is about $30 dollars. A fifth equals roughly 23 ounces. One ounce equals a typical amount in one drink. One drink is $7.50. I doubt the club pays shelf price for a fifth, but I'll assume worse case. In material costs a single drink of makers mark cost ($30/23 drinks) $1.30. Granted there are a lot of costs above and beyond the cost of the whiskey. There's the operating cost of the building, payroll, insurance, inventory, etc, but a markup of 570%? That makes the oil companies look like charity organizations.

I think this is more symptomatic of the overall business model is beginning to break down. The overall amount of drink sales have declined dramatically. I know this because I talk to the waitresses. They don't sell near as much as they used to. From time to time they have big days, but some days they sell less than $100 for a six hour shift. The drink prices all by themselves aren't problem, you don't go to strip club for cheap drinks. But this is absolute indicator of a much larger problem, they are driving away customers. As sales volume decline, prices go up to compensate.

The employee compensation structure of the club is starting fail. It's a tip based system. With less customers, less tips. Not only that the more expensive drinks takes away the amount of money the customer has to tip. If you raise prices the customers aren't going to magically come in with more money. There is less money for tipping, on top of that with a smaller number of drinks being served the opportunity for getting tip also declines. The staff doesn't make the same money as they used to.

Money makes a big difference when it comes to employee moral. I walked in to the club recently as sat a table with no table cloth. It was simply a big particle board circle of exposed wood. It's lovely décor for Home Depot, pathetic for club. The staff doesn't care. Why should they? Strip clubs typically have high turn over. It can be a tough place to work. Lots of drunk groping ass holes you have to serve, psycho dancers, late hours, etc. If you make enough money, its worth dealing with. If you don't make enough it starts to take a toll, a big toll. The staff at the club is an unmotivated group. I've nick named a couple sections of the club the alcohol free zones. They are a little bit out of the path waitresses normally walk. If you sit at these tables you won't get served on a regular basis. When I finished a drink I'll start counting the number sets that go by until I get served. Last time I sat there four sets went by before I got waited on. Each set is two songs. Each song is about three and half minutes, seven minutes per set. It took twenty eight minutes to get served, worse yet the club was empty. There I am sitting in the middle of a sea of empty tables, starting at an empty glass, not tipping the dancers because I don't have any change. The staff doesn't care. Why should they? The waitress is sitting around because there is no money to be made. There's almost nobody there, and the ones that are aren't tipping.

The dancers are complaining that there aren't enough bouncers. They're getting mauled on the couches. The bouncers are tied up at closing so the have to wait to get escorted to there cars. When the idea was floated about hiring another bouncer, the current ones blew up at the thought of their tips being cut. The dancers aren't making as much, consequently they are tipping out as much.

When there is no money everything starts to break down. That's about as simple as it gets. Why is the money not coming in? The easy answer is the economy is down, but if that was the case why were the Dolphins doing so much better when it first opened? After 9/11 the high tech economy in the Portland area absolutely tanked far worse than it is now. The economy doesn't help, but it's not reason. I've seen this happen before with other businesses, the Dolphin now operates in spite of its customers, not because of its customers.

A glaring example of this. One night the music volume was up to absolutely ear splitting levels (more of this issue later) and a customer at the main stage was covering his ear and grimacing. It was loud enough there that it physically hurt to sit at the stage. The DJ noticed the customer cover his ears. His reaction, he yells on the PA "If it's too fucking loud for you then go some fucking place else". Guess what? The customers went some where else. The volume is up that high because that's what the DJ wants. The customers are an annoyance. If you ask the DJ he'll probably tell you is that loud because "they" want it that loud. The question is who are they?

Who wants to listen to rap or heavy metal are ear splitting levels? Mostly 21 to 25 year olds. There isn't a lot of money there, these are guys just starting there careers. They aren't likely to spend hundreds of dollars at a club. One of the at former Dolphin One bartenders coined a phrase for this crowd: Little boy, no money night.

The ridiculous part of this is that there is no reason for the music to be this loud. People walk in the door, not to hear the DJ, not to buy really expensive drinks, not for the menu. The come there to look at naked women. Everything else is secondary to that. If you don't believe it's too loud, just walk in around 7pm one night and look at where everybody is sitting. The customers are all sitting away from the main stage around the perimeter of the floor space. Why? All the speakers are pointed directly at the main stage. It's really uncomfortable to sit near the main stage for any length of time. After a while you move to where the volume is more tolerable.

I work for a sales and marketing group of a very large electronic corporation. Our home office is in Portland. When the field sales people come in for the regional offices they always want to go for some corporate sponsored debauchery. We almost always end up at Stars. Two times I've talked them into going to Dolphin Two. Both times we stayed less than 45 minutes. It was so uncomfortable loud they wanted to leave instantly. They won't even consider going to the Dolphin any more. It's a pretty safe assumption that a lot of people walking through the door for the first time have the same reaction. They aren't coming back.

I don't think the volume will ever change. The club has a PA system better suited for building about four times it size. Even if they do turn it down, they won't stick with it. They've been driving away customers for years. If they turn it down, they customer won't all magically come back in week, month, or a year. After a while the "in business in spite of the customers" attitude will kick in and things will creep back.

If you took out the stages out and just had a DJ booth and table. That bar would be a ghost town. I think this is why this irritates me so much. The Dolphin used to a club I like to hang out at. It was pretty laid back. Now it's just turned into a miserable place to be.

Time to move on I guess. It's sad, I have a lot of people there I consider real friends. Unfortunately I doubt I'll keep up with them now. There life style is much different than mine. It's frustrating, it like having your favorite TV show canceled. I wonder what Star's is like now?