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Last Thursday I got together with a couple of friends — the dancer I went to Vegas with in April, and Summer, my teacher (and then boss) from PDX Pole Divas. Someone had the amazing idea to open up another strip club in Portland! What’s that make, 56?

It’s billed as Portland’s newest upscale gentleman’s club. It’s located near Old Town, down on NW Couch and 2nd, close to a bunch of nightclubs and bars, and reminds me of the location of that short-lived place in Austin on 6th Street. The kind of traffic you expect there would be douchebags hitting meat markets and the drunk douchettes they hope to hit on, and our expectations were thoroughly met.

While two of us stood outside waiting for the third, who should we see approaching but this guy? “Don’t recognize me, don’t recognize me, I’m wearing my glasses, don’t recognize me,” I muttered. “Hi, Susan!” “Oh great.”

Either he never read this article or he graciously (?) didn’t mention it. Whew. I guess. It might have been fun to get into it.

We entered when Summer arrived; her vehicle clearly advertises her pole business and she confirmed that this attracts a lot of attention for her. The interior of the bar was pretty nice and very nightclubby. The stage sits a mere six inches off of the ground with poles very close to the corners and table seating rather than a rail around the stage; guess what this means? Nightly meetings twixt stiletto heel and customer body parts. They have got to raise that stage or build a rail around it before someone gets an accidental stripper-induced concussion.

But we really couldn’t see too much, what with some woman’s birthday party in front of us. As we explained to Summer, “When strippers bitch about female customers, this is what they’re talking about.” “I see why!” They were dancing on the floor, smacking their asses, blocking our view, and taking snapshots until one of the dancers on stage sent a bouncer over to ask that they put the camera away. Since, you know, it’s a strip club.

What fun that would be to work around every weekend!

We talked about having some lapdances, but none of the dancers ever came by to ask for one, even though we tipped them all on stage. Boo for lazy strippers! Then we took off to check out Nicolai Street and see some girls we knew there. It was like night and day going from the downtown bar full of clubbers to the northwest one full of blue collar guys and people from the neighborhood restaurants. People were actually paying attention to the stage; and that bar is, if anything, one of those places where the strippers are incidental attractions somewhere between the video poker and the pool table. It’s not upscale, but it’s been around a while and will most certainly outlast Spyce. They’re making a lot of work for themselves with that location.