Out on SE Foster, under a neon "Cocktails" sign, there's a tiny little club that has come up with one of the better Sunday night draws in Portland: People lubricated by cheap drinks get on stage and sing karaoke while strippers fuck with you. A skinny blonde dude wailed on "Rock Lobster" and stripped to his shorts, two butch ladies dueted on "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and the dancers themselves did a most excellent "Pussy Control." This is Stripparaoke at Devil's Point.


It was so contagious that totally sober me couldn't resist and sang Franz Ferdinand's "The Fallen" while two dancers named Berlin and Jules pulled my shirt off, molested me, and humped each other on stage. I felt like it was my birthday. I was also in the company of Portland leading stripper/rock/literary light and fellow Mary's dancer Viva Las Vegas, her brother, and Mr. Wayward, who were all sitting at the front of the stage with cameraphones out so there's proof of all this.

Oh, you want to know about Alaska? Let me sum it up thusly:

200 lb stripper
Schizophrenic stripper who's been at the club for 30 years who the manager hasn't the heart to fire since she would surely be institutionalized
Lots of military dudes
Several gals who hook on the side
Newly hired doorguy attempts to sexually assault dancers in dancer dorm
One army dude who told me killing people made him hard
One army dude who wanted to talk about poetry
Miners, pipeline guys abounded
How do black people wind up in Alaska?
It's very cold and very dark in Fairbanks in December
But the money is good, the people were nice to me
And I like Alaska a lot