Oh, yeah, we fucked up by not going to the entertaining Browns-Bengals game today.

Everyone can look forward to hearing some funny songs from me at work next week as I'm gathering material watching VH-1's one hit wonders special. Henry Rollins (is he a no-hit wonder?) commenting on Taco. Rob Sheffield on everyone. He's the perfect fit for this show, being all about the radio single. Looks nothing like his little Rolling Stone caricature, though.

The delicious food I had yesterday totally made up for my unfortunate exposure to Skyline Chili. We had an awesome starch-and-fat breakfast at the Original Pancake House out in the burbs, then a wonderful Italian dinner (I wanted to suck the bolognese off the plate).

Quiet Riot weren't one-hit wonders. What about "Bang Your Head"? Or "Mama We're All Crazy Now"?

I hope the Flaming Lips show up with "She Don't Use Jelly" here. And in a perfect world, "Cut Your Hair" would have been a radio hit. And there must be a ton of Brit bands that had like one hit over here.

You know who should have had a weird one-shot New Wave hit, just so they could be on this show to amuse me? The Fall. That'd be cool.

So I'll be back at work next weekend; I'll update the schedule soon. I'll have about two weeks there until it's time to hit the road. I'm open to your suggestions for really silly songs I should dance to on my last shift at XTC. And silly outfits I should wear.

Hope you all had a nice holiday. Cincinnati is apparently a very porky town, so I bought and cooked a delicious fresh pork tenderloin and made all the sides. It snowed a little, even.

My flight up was awful. I am so pissed at Continental right now; they were doing some code share thing on my flight and supposedly would ferry us to the appropriate gate on time to catch our flight; after being assured we'd make it, four of us missed our flight, which left right on time, and got bumped to one two hours later. Which ended up being seven hours later as weather delays hit. Fuckers.

Last night:

"Hey, I feel like a chili dog.'
"Do you want to go to Skyline? That's the big chili place here."
"They do that weird thing where they serve it on pasta, right?"
"Yeah, but they do Coneys, too."
"All right."

"Hey, look, they have a low-carb bowl. It's three hot dogs, chili, and cheese."
"Mmm. Health food."

"This 'chili' is kind of sweet."
"Yeah, I was looking at one of the Cincinnati recipes and it calls for cinnamon, cocoa."
"This is less spicy than a can of Wolf Brand Chili."
"It's less spicy than a Clark Bar."

Cincinnati chili: free of actual chiles. Whereas my favorite recipe calls for three different kinds and three tablespoons of cayenne pepper. And I'm not even a heat queen.

I ventured out to a couple of clubs yesterday afternoon, figuring I'd hit the one actually in town first, the Deja Vu. "In town" is kind of a stretch; it took me about twenty-five minutes to get there from downtown. I walked in and told the doorgirl I'd like to talk to a manager about working there. She looked at me and said, "Are you comfortable with fully nude?" Oh, god, no. Stripping where I take off my clothes? Say it isn't so. And what the hell kind of question is that to ask a potential hire?

The manager was a little better, though they weren't really friendly here. And you have to do an amateur contest to get hired. And it's an evil Deja Vu--"Dances are $20 and we take $7 of that. There's also a base house rent of $10." So if I do $400 worth of dances, I get to keep--$250. Plus tips come out, too. That's insane. You could leave with only 50% of what you make. I mean, if I leave with $500 every night, it might be acceptable, but if I net $300 and leave with $185, that's ridiculous. I'm ok with handing out about 20%, total, of what I make. The nice thing in Texas is that you pay your house fee, which is usually between $20-$40, tip your DJ and manager, and that's it. So while it might suck to hand out $50 on a slow night, on a really good night you get to keep a much higher percentage of what you make. I clear $200? I leave with $150, having tipped out 25%. I clear $500? I'll tip out more, so say I leave with $425. I'll have only given away 15% of my earnings. At a Deja Vu, it's a lot worse. Clear $200? That's $130, minus, say, $10 house rent and $20 in tips, so take-home is $100, with 50% staying behind. Clear $500? That's $325 you keep, minus $30, which is $295. 40% going to the house. Ridiculous. As the guy was explaining the Vu policies to me, he said, "Bear in mind we're the only club in the area." No, that's not why you take the dancers, it's because that is, across the board, the way Deja Vu does business. And of course, my calculations are based on all of the money coming from dances. They don't take a cut from tips from stage or on top of the dance price. If I work there, I'm sure I'll be telling every customer, "Dances are $20. I get $13 and I have to give the house $7," in hopes of tips. Which is shitty for the customer.

But, fuck, what else is in the area? Well, there's a smaller club, and by smaller I mean the size of my living room, over in Indiana by the casino and--get this--the ski area. Hee. it reminded me of Mary's in Portland, though they had an actual live DJ who happened to be a girl. She said, "Suit her up!" when I walked in. The woman behind the bar, a former dancer, was excesively friendly, poured me a soda, and took out her little yellow legal pad and proceeded to make me a list of the local clubs. This place, Concepts, is tiny. They do their lapdances on benches in an area behind the DJ booth. Benches against the wall, no kidding. And the dancers, upon receiving cash, turn it into the bar and are given a receipt for it. At the end of the night--yup--they get it back minus 20%. Then you tip the DJ 5% and the barmaid. However, dancers get paid an hourly wage here and they get kickbacks on the $8 cokes they want the customers to buy you (why they would do this when $15 gets a lapdance is beyond me). So, 20%? And that's of all tips, stage and everything. I wonder if the dancers hold back cash here? So anyhow, off of $200 you give out 25% (20 to the house, 5 to the DJ), so that's $150 you leave with. Let's add $10 to the bar--$140. Off of $500, it's $365. Marginally better than the Vu--unless you get good tips there.

Oh, the Vu is nude and a juice bar, not even BYOB like Texas. Concepts is liquor--and latex on the nipples. The girls I saw there were really cute, surprisingly so for such a tiny little bar, cuter than the ones I saw at the Vu. And this was at 2 p.m. So maybe it's the place to check out? I'm also going to take a look at a club down in Kentucky before I leave, and decide which one to try first. If they suck, I'll go to Dayton or Columbus.

I don't think I've ever been in a position to root for BYU before. The BCS makes you do weird things. At least the commercials for the Utah schools are amusing. The little promo spots that colleges make, where schools like Iowa tout their cosmopolitan campuses, are one of my favorite things about fall Saturdays. Oh well, it's looking like Dallas again for UT. Or hey, they could go to the Holiday Bowl again. Hey, look, basketball!

And no hockey. Ever. Hmph.

Bono just gave a mini-lapdance to a (female) audience member on SNL. He is very small, Bono. Speaking of U2, it was very funny to see the footage of Bono and the Edge performing at the Clinton library dedication. And another thing, "Vertigo" bothers me. "Catorce" is fourteen. "One, two, three, fourteen"?

Chris Gray over at the Austin Chronicle repeatedly refers to them as the best band ever. Which puzzles me. I think I will ask him for an explanation sometime. I think there are a lot of bands you could make that claim for. I'd make the call for something prosaic like the Velvet Underground, and I think a case could be made for the Beatles. I would travel great distances (were it possible, through time and space) if I could see the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (1992)(though they were great after that) and Sonic Youth (1987-8) (who were my favorite band for years, not so much now). Fuck, I went to London to see the Super Furry Animals (though that was part of a 25th birthday celebration that included seeing the Strokes and Belle and Sebastian, the main point was for me to get to see SFA) and though I love them I'm hesistant to make any calls about their place in the canon (I know what's good, and I know what I like. And as we've established below, they are not the same thing). I like a lot of morally bankrupt music of questionable artistic value. I also like fast food.

Anyhow. I guess Gray has a point, but I think he's crazy. Next time I see him at a show, I'm going to ask him about his love for U2, and just what the hell he's thinking.

Just had a girlfriend over to watch DIG! with me (we like rockumentaries, and discussed how violence makes them better, e.g., Gimme Shelter). I was explaining to her the hotness of Courtney Taylor (even with the briefs, drugs, mohawk, etc, sorry, and yes, I'm sure he's roundly despised in Portland. Doesn't matter, still hot), and when she saw him she said, "You do have a type." I do like them tall and somewhat scruffy with pretty faces. I also like men who I want to be like, hence the appeal of writers and musicians (I don't want to be a musician, I just want to be cool). Finding a hot writer's a lot harder, but definitely worth it.

I am tempted to compare the chances of finding a sexy writer to the chances of finding an intellectually curious stripper, but that would be mean to strippers. But truly, the sexiest men I've been with, the ones I would still want to sleep with (and that's a short, short list) with are either journalists or musicians. One of them I'll be sleeping with again soon, the other two are in other countries.

It was so nice to have a whole Saturday off--well, nearly, since I had to get up and do a few things this morning. But I had a lovely long nap while it rained. I also noticed a really nasty leak along the side of my fireplace. Glad I'm moving out of this craphole in a month.

Feel free to send your OH and KY club knowledge this way; I might do a little research while I'm in Cincy over Thanksgiving. I should have my last work days at XTC posted soon, once I figure out my actual move date. Those of you in Austin who know me and would like me to have some kind of farewell get-together, drop me a line. I'm considering doing something before I head out.

I think it is clear that my once-rigorous taste in music has devolved over the years. I'm still berating myself for missing that Sun City Girls show last weekend. Stupid! There once was a time when that would have been inconceivable.
Yeah, I used to be cool. I got in the car and drove to Atlanta to see Faust when I was a kid; I used to know my shit. I played Jandek on college radio (that's practically a rite of passage, I know). Now I just want to hear pop songs (well, ok, what I think of as pop songs, I guess, not necessarily pop in the sense of "popular" songs). Sometimes I evaluate groups based entirely on how well I think I can shake my ass to their music. What happened? I mean, I dragged the man to see Matthew Shipp, now he giggles at my guilty pleasures. I think my ears have become lazy.

In rememberance of the times when I had taste, or when music was better, depending on how you look at it, I thought about going to see Slint--they're curating All Tomorrow's Parties in February. Tickets are sold out, though, and as the man pointed out, I'm moving very close to Louisville and it's likely they'll play there.

Anyhoo. Yesterday was slow and obnoxious; far too many girls, many of whom got trashed. I had way more fun hanging out at Perfect 10 after work, where I got to visit with some friends, including the notorious Dixie. I was contacted by a journalist looking to interview someone about working bachelor parties, and I knew she'd have the best stories to tell, so I pointed her in Dixie's direction. I can't wait to see how the story turns out.

I had some nice lapdances at P10, too, and was roundly molested by one girl in particular, Aubrey, who I highly recommend. Small breasted strippers try harder, it's the truth. When you're busty, you're used to people being happy looking at your boobs; when you're not, you feel the need to be more, ehm, stimulating, I guess. Oh, damn, I saw a couple of fucked-up boob jobs there (the majority were just normal boob jobs, you know, not remarkable). One girl had totally cock-eyed boobs, one nipple pointing straight forward, one pointing to the ground, ick. Another had a bucketful, far, far too large.

Before leaving work yesterday, I got into an interesting conversation with the husband of one of the dancers at XTC--she's getting into porn, and he was telling me all about it. Yes, I said her husband. I told him I thought it was unique and interesting that he was so supportive, and he said he found it to be so businesslike that he just saw it as work for her. Interesting. I can't relate, but interesting. I wouldn't want the man to watch me lap dance, let alone fuck professionally.

Pizza's here (it's pouring outside and I didn't want to go anywhere for food).

"Unrelatedly" sums it up. You have to be pretty hot to still be hot after appearing onscreen in briefs.

It was so awfully packed Sunday afternoon; they had to open the expansion room around 3:30. Usually doesn't happen until 6 or 7. I was cranky and mean to most customers but I don't think anyone noticed because I was still making money. There was a huge frat group in there. Totally useless to me.

It's amazing how unsexy some strippers are. A number of the women I work worth are hot and sexy, but there are plenty of dancers who are just not sexy. Period. Just don't see how they can turn people on. They don't smile or pout, don't exude any kind of charisma whatsoever, wear unsexy outfits, and dance poorly. There should be a school, mandatory stripper training. You could learn how to become a naughty former cheerleader, a sultry sexpot, a librarian gone bad, a hot suburban mom, or a nymphomaniac. Just don't be that girl who couldn't find anything sexier to wear than a wifebeater and who looks like she's thinking about whether she should add peas to the mac and cheese tonight.

I love dancing to bands where I can fantasize about their singers while I'm dancing. I have on occasion fantasized about people I actually have had sex with at work, too (in the past there have been members in both groups) but that tends to be more distracting than anything. Anyhow, I have long said that the equivalent to a strip club for me is seeing a band I'm really into that happens to have hot guys in it. It turns me on, and I know I can't have sex with them. Ultimately frustrating, but still too fun to resist. And, like some strippers, the appeal of some musicians flies out the window once they open their mouths.

Yesterday was one of those bizarre Saturdays that are better than the preceding Friday. Strange. I guess the cold weather has people frisky. They're having problems balancing the heating system in the club; it's either 60 degrees or 80 out there it seems. Ideal strip club temp I think is about 72. We don't need it too warm, especially me. I get warm with any kind of activity.

A really nice customer who I haven't seen in a long time came in yesterday; I saw him when I was on stage and he came up to tip me, and when I recognized him I was thrilled. Yay! Time to put on the long gown and be seductive. This particular customer prefers a sultry dance rather than the overtly sexual kind, and I like it. I think it's so much sexier.

I watched the Texas-Kansas game for most of the beginning of the shift. How insane. That fucking team, I swear. I want to be able to make plans for bowl season and you just never know what they are going to do.

Right after I'd finished dancing for someone, another guy approached me and asked me to come over to his table, saying that he and his friend were very impressed by my performance. Then, of course, he declines a dance, saying maybe later, and that he would take care of me on stage. Ok, sure, talk to you in a while. Then tips me on stage, acting the big spender, giving me $4. Hee. I went back over to see if he was ready for dances, and he said, "Oh you're so beautiful, blah blah, I just don't know what to say in situations like this." I said, "Well, in situations like this, you generally say, 'Here's some money, take off your clothes.'" Didn't work. Thanks for the compliments, they won't bulk up my garter like all that pesky money.

After work I'd promised my friend that we'd go see Yo La Tengo at La Zona Rosa. Wow, it sounds like we were in Mexico City. It was all right, not great. Reminded me why I haven't listened to their records or seen them play for years. They're just not that exciting to me anymore. They sure did write some great songs, though.

I'd really like to take today off and catch up on some school stuff, but I'd really better go in. I think it'll be pretty busy today and I've got to prepare financially for the move. I want to be able to not work for about three weeks while I'm up there and be able to make all of the endless Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target runs that you have to make when you move. And I have to learn how to write a resume and query letters. Don't be shocked, but when you're a stripper you never have to write a resume. I'm pretty sure I'm going to just take the honest tack. I'm not good at lying, and I don't think I want to work for anyone who would freak out over my employment history, either. Of course, I am lucky. In my chosen (clothed) profession, my breadth of life experience is seen as a plus, not a minus.

Another long break from work; I simply can't work during the week with school and everything else that's going on, so I have only worked the weekend days lately. Usually at XTC if you don't work a Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday they want you to pay $50 to work the weekend. What this amounts to is a higher house fee for the girls who don't work a lot. Personlly, I think I should get a break since I'm a good worker, but all I could talk them down to was a $25 fee. Which isn't too bad at all if I'm working the day shift, where the house fee itself is negligible.

Yesterday morning, at 11 a.m., I was in the dressing room getting ready when another dancer walked in, set her things on the counter, and sighed. "I'm so drunk, y'all." I checked my watch, then looked at her. I guess it was from the night before. Then at 2 or 3 in the afternoon she's having a shot. Crazy. Though I'm sure I can remember times at the Show Palace when I had a shot at 3 p.m., I don't think I did it after walking into work still drunk. I like working sober a lot more; I did it for the majority of my dancing career, then started drinking a lot at work for a couple of years, then I quit drinking completely about two and a half years ago. It's a good thing for me; I have a rampant family history of alcoholism and it's best to nip these things in the bud.

There were people in the club yesterday but they weren't really spending; even one of my good regulars spent about half of what he usually does, which was kind of a bummer. But then he tried to cop a feel, too, so I might not be dancing for him anymore.

I saw a girl giving a dance barefoot yesterday. I love to dance barefoot when I'm doing parties but they are usually in homes or hotel rooms where the carpet actually resembles carpet, not a pummeled mixture of cigarette ashes, spilled beer, and god knows what ground into a few tired fibers. If I kneel on that floor while dancing I have to scrub my knees. I've gotten people's bottlecaps stuck to the bottoms of my shoes before. I'm not walking around barefoot on it. Ick. I was over at Palazio last week and I was impressed at their lovely, clean, new carpet. I'd dance barefoot on that.

Zoe, a six-foot fake-boobie blonde dervish, declared her intention to seek work in Houston. She said she's unable to pay her bills working in Austin and has tried every club in town. I couldn't believe it--I mean, she certainly suits the look of what people want in the sterotypical stripper, and she has a great, bubbly persona at work. I'm making ends meet on like seven or eight days a month at that club. I cannot figure out what's going on with her. Though I wish her luck if she heads to Houston.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the dressing room with Kylie and she was discussing some boyfriend issue. "I'm not angry. I'm just pissed off," she said.

I taped DiG! from the Sundance Channel last week and got around to watching it on Thursday. Great film, though the bands featured in it aren't quite the revolutionaries they've styled themselves to be. The Dandy Warhols make some very good dancing music, though, so I brought some into work yesterday. And I think that Courtney Taylor is smokin' hot--until he shows up with that mohawk. But what a pair of lips!

On other cultural notes, I was too exhausted to see the Sun City Girls last night. Bad me. I hope I can make it to the Yo La Tengo thing tonight, though I haven't voluntarily listened to any of their records from the past five years.