The Fat Lip

It started off as a bad day, and things mostly progressed from there. The small things can really pile up. The power went out and I slept in due to an alarm clock that requires power to sustain life. On my way to run my errands, I received a flat tire for my effort. After a $15 patch job on my tire, I received a chip out of my windshield from a passing Tractor-trailer (and his heat seeking pebble). In the mall parking lot, I received a dent in my diver side door from someone driving a rather large white vehicle (I assumed it was an SUV).

The washing machine in my laundry room didn’t work and it cost me $1.50 to find that out. I washed my uniform in the sink and tossed it in the dryer. An hour later, I realized that the dryer I chose worked, but didn’t dry anything. It cost me $1.75 to find that out. I would later improvise and use my fan as a makeshift dryer. On my way to work, my cassette tape got jammed in my car’s tape player.

I arrived at work at my designated time (7pm) and I found the club to be quite busy for that time of night. I was assigned to the door checking ID. I would stand at the door for a good three hours, checking ID, kicking out minors, skimming money off minors, and talking to Tracy, the regular beer girl.

As I stood, poised against the wall, comfortable, content, talking about a fascinating topic with Tracey, the call goes out on the radio “Get your ass to the booths, major shit going down”, I ran to the back of the club to find one of the dancers freaking out, crying, yelling, swinging her arms. The girl was in complete shock. There was a terrible stench in the air and as I pushed the girl out of the way, I found an intoxicated customer lying on the floor.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, the guy had too much to drink and he threw up on the floor, on the chair, and yes, on the dancer. I hauled the guy up and started dragging him out of the booth just as a barrage of slaps came from the dancer. In an effort to keep moving, I cleared the girl out of the way with one hand and kept hold of the drunk with my other. In an attempt to launch one last assault on the drunk, the girl lashed out and I bore the brunt of the assault, including a sharp elbow in the face. After the assault, the dancer retreated to the dressing room. By this time, the cavalry had arrived in the form of the Brick Shithouse (Chris). Chris just took a look at my sorry state and started laughing at me.

I dragged the drunk to the door and radioed Chris to see how much the guy owed to the dancer. The reply was “40 bucks” so I reached into the guy’s pocket, retrieved $40, called the guy a cab, and then gave him the boot.

By this time, I had a bloody nose from the elbow and puke on my uniform. I radioed Chris to start the mop up and his reply was “Fuck that man, you find the mess, you clean it up”. Just my fucking luck. A good hour of mopping later, I closed the booth down, changed my shirt, and cleaned up my face. I had a fat lip.

My damsel in distress calmed down and took a shower. She later found me and apologized for her actions. How could I blame the girl? I know if I were in the same situation, I would try to kick the dumb fuck’s ass. I did, however, receive a generous tip for my actions.

I apologize that I don’t remember the dancer’s name; most of the girls who worked at my club went my “Michelle, Stacey, Stephanie or Tracey”. Just too many girls to remember.

Screw That

JP calls me while I’m fixing to go out for a night on the town.

*ring ring*

“Tavis?”

“Yeah?”

“Where the hell are you? You were scheduled to be here at 7pm”

“Fuck that, I’m on for tomorrow night, tonight is my night off”

“Not according to the schedule, did you even bother to look at it?”

“Yeah I did, I looked at it last night before I left, Thursday, 7pm”

“Well that was changed today, so get your ass in here”

“Hey look, if you wanna change the times and dates, that’s fine with me. If you don’t bother to tell the people about the changes, not my fucking problem”

“So you’re not coming in?”

“Did you bother to call me and let me know my shift was changed before hand?”

“No”

“No, G’night JP”

*click*

JP called an hour later to let me know that he got Chris to cover my shift.

It Takes Guts

Many people don’t understand the effort that goes into exotic dancing. Peoples’ general impression is that exotic dancing is a dirty, degrading and sexist profession. They may be right, however, that’s what makes it so interesting. Try going to your local sin bin, and just watch the girls as they make their rounds. It takes endless energy and guts to approach complete strangers and solicit for a private dance. Has anyone ever considered the toll that rejection may take on a girl’s self-esteem and self-confidence? No!

I witnessed the emotion every night, and on a few occasions, I saw girls completely breakdown. Some people are just not cut out for this type of trade. As I got to know the regular girls, each of them would reveal a little of their fears, hopes, dreams, and problems. It was very interesting to hear their angel on things.

To be an exotic dancer, you need nerves of steel. Retail sales and exotic dancing are the same in many ways. You offer a product, if the customer takes the product, then all is well. If a customer rejects the product, offer a rebuttal. If the customer will not take the bait, smile, and move on to the next customer. As with sales, there are good nights, okay nights, and dead nights. I did observe that the older veterans (Stephanie and Stacey) never seemed to have bad nights, because they knew how to push, and how to sell while the younger girls would be sitting around and complaining about how slow it is and how cheap everyone is.

Blair Stryker

Every so often, my club would book a special feature for an entire week. On this memorable occasion, I shall talk about the wondrous skills of Blair Stryker.

I bounced three times that week and my usual duties consisted of (besides wiping down the pole every few sets) carrying Blair’s box of goodies to and from the stage, fetching her complementary drinks, retrieving her discarded g-string after every set, mopping whipped cream off the stage, and seeing to every one of her little desires. For most of the night, I was nothing more than an errand boy.

Blair’s fire show was most impressive. Equipped with two ignited batons, Blair amazed the crowd with acts of physical strength and endurance, not to mention, her love of fire. Blair’s routine was impressive and she had several instances where she spit fire at the crowd and even lit her chest on fire for a few short moments.

After her act, all customers were panting like rabbit dogs as they waited to meet, greet and get an autograph of this woman.

For those three days of work, Blair didn’t tip me out squat, yet she did entertain the employees with her road stories. The club was full for most of the week, so I made my money nonetheless.

The House Special

As a little advertising technique, my club had a little expose called the House Special. The House Special consisted of all the dancers going up on stage and being introduced to the crowd. The patron who yelled the loudest would get a free lap dance. The hook was, once a guy had a lap dance, he would usually go to the private booths to have a few more dances. The House Special was a huge motivational tool.

Before the House Special, I was responsible to round up all the girls and herd them towards the stage. I also helped to escort each dancer up and down the stairs leading to the stage. You can imagine that girls walking in 6-inch heels need allot of help walking up and down stairs. While the free dances were engaged, I kept a close eye the patron’s hands and defended against any frisky business (from the dancers, or the customers).

Every DJ I encountered at that club was on a total power trip when it came to the schedule. Everything was set to happen at a certain time. If something didn’t happen at a certain time, there was hell to pay. One universal truth is, it’s impossible to have a strip joint run like a battleship. You must consider that girls are talking, drinking and dancing with clients. There are girls on stage, girls in the dressing room, girls snorting coke in the washroom, and girls smoking joints in the parking lot. Fuck the schedule.

Gathering all the girls in one area was a pain in the ass. If the house special were due to begin (Usually at 9pm, 11pm, and 12:30am) I would go around the club and notify each girl about how much time they had to get backstage. This extra effort usually worked (hence the word USUALLY).

The Grind

It was my first week on the job and I pulled all the crap shifts as per I was the rookie. I was the "new kid" and I was treated as such. For the first month, I was forced to do all the low life degrading tasks that others refused to do. If a drunk hurled in the bathroom, it was I who held the mop. If someone dropped a glass or ashtray, it was I who swept it up. If a call went out over the radios, I had to go. The dancers tried to drop bullshit tasks on me in hopes that I wouldn’t catch on, but I did.

After closing, I completed most of the closing tasks such as being the asshole to kick everyone out after closing (I hated people like that when I was drinking), taking out the trash, cleaning the bar, sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning out the tampon bin in the woman’s washroom (nasty), and all that horrible shit. I was always nominated to buy rounds for the staff after hours and my tip money was nonexistent after that point.

On a good note, all the girls were tipping me out at the end of the night because I was the new guy. The girls were always good like that.

I was more like an apprentice if anything else, and I had to pay my dues. I was okay with that, but I was getting pissed off about all the bullshit.

Wages & Tips

Payment of wages would be undertaken every two weeks. I would make a lousy seven dollars an hour, yet the atmosphere (ahem…girls) was well worth it. I later realized that my job was more like a waitress or a hustler. My wages were consisted mostly of tips. The tips from that place were wonderful.

The tips came from 4 different areas, and they are as follows:

1. 20% of total tips from The Bar
2. 20% of total tips from The Waitresses (huge money maker)
3. 20% of the tips from The DJ (DJ’s always lied about his end)

The dancers also tipped out at the end of the night, and I later found that a good portion of your night was spent keeping them happy. You would carry their luggage, bring them drinks, hail cabs, bounce somebody they didn’t like, and feed management a line when they went AWOL for a few minutes. At any given time, there were 10-15 dancers working and I would later be on the payroll for 4 to 5 of them each night.

At the end of the night, all the doormen would toss their earnings into a box, and the tips were equally dished out to those who were working. Fewer doormen equaled more money. Obviously you would not own up to that extra $20 in your shirt pocket. Sundays turned out to be my biggest earner because I was the only one scheduled on Sundays, and I would clear $200-$400 on my own.

The best tip I ever received was when one of our regular girls (Stephanie) had a guy drop $2000 on her for private dances. Later that night, I helped Stephanie move a couch out of her apartment and she tipped me $200 and told me that I “was a good guy”.

The first Night (Part 2)

I met the new guys, shot the shit a little as the regular bouncers stood around the bar cracking jokes. We were then notified about something that caused two guys to walk out on the spot. This night, the night I was to learn the ropes, was Amateur Male Dancer Night. Shit. I was under the impression I would be swimming in perky breasts, but now I am forced to watch swinging sausage. Shit.

Roger, the head bouncer, gave us a little pep talk before the doors were opened. He told us to keep our eyes open “because horny woman with a few drinks in them are more troublesome than a full biker gang”. We were also told to keep our eyes on the private booths stationed at the back and make sure nobody used them.

Me and the other new guy would work rotating shifts at the door, the stairs leading to the private booths, the stage, and the bar. All in all, we would stay in each position for 15 minutes at a time, then rotate. Communication was made through two-way radios that each of the “meat heads” had. From what I learned over the next several months, these two-way radios were worthless and only transferred static and not communication.

The doors opened and the girls filled in. I checked ID at the door, confiscated a few fake ID’s that girls were passing off. I made my rounds, met up with a few girls from my college course that got in using borrowed ID’s., yet were underage.

I strategically placed myself behind pillars for the whole night so I could block out the male dancer on stage, but keep a good eye on the crowd. A few girls needed to be escorted out, a few more needed to be kicked out, but the regular bouncers did that job. I had to take a few cameras from girls and destroy the film. I got a drink poured over my head for my efforts. Girls like to take pictures of everything. Pictures of everything are against house rules.

On one pass by the private booths, I noticed a few shadows looming in a corner. I found a guy making out with some girl, so I grabbed the guy using the meat hook maneuver, and tossed him out of the booth. Shortly after, I would realize that the guy happened to be my manger. JP was steamed, but then he laughed because I was doing what I was told to do. The smiled at me and politely told me to fuck off. I did just that.

At the end of the night, I earned $40 in tips from girls who just handed me money. Just before closing, Shrek (the brick shit house) told me about the Staff Special. He said that during ladies night, each male staff had to find himself a girl and go up on stage and dance. The last staff on stage had to buy a round for everyone. I guess this was a ploy for the new guy (me) to be exploited; yet I was the first one on stage, and Roger had to pitch in for the round that was over $100.

After closing, Roger asked me where I had worked before. I fed him a line of bullshit about bars back home and Roger notified me that he liked me, that I had good instincts, and I was hired.

That was my first night at work.