Fishing tourists are like strippers; on any given night half of them are complaining about how bad it is out on the water, how there's no fish, how the commercial fishermen must be catching them all, while the other half are telling stories about throwing back monsters over 50 inches long to enter some statewide competition and bringing home 48 pound King salmon.

Likewise, half the dancers are talking about how there are too many dancers, how slow the season is, how dirty the other girls are and that's why they can't make money. The other half are smiling and stuffing Franklins and Grants into their purses (and a stupid amount of Hamiltons, because the idiot who stocks our ATM uses $10s because "that's what all my other machines use." Dumbass. The other machines might be in convenience stores where people need to take out $10 at a time, but here the customers complain about only being able to get out $200 at a pop).

Two of my friends who are excellent saleswomen and seductive dancers have been accused of getting fingered in the dance room, which is so not happening with these girls. I know, I've done double dances with them and watched many others as we dance across from each other. I even was accused of illegal activity during a double dance, which makes me think our simulation is so good it looks like the real thing. Pssht. This is what happens when other dancers think you're making more than you should; you must be dirty!

In reality, dancers who transgress the club standard of contact aren't the ones who make the most. It's the ones who can sell the best, who can overcome objections, who can emphasize the value of the experience for the customer. I mean, you have to back it up with the product, but it all starts with making the sale. And it's the customers who demand the least who are the best spenders, the guys who are happy to sit back and enjoy themselves. It holds true 99% of the time; the relaxed, fun customer is the big tipper, and the grabby, loud one is cheap.

Thursday we were ferociously packed and I worked my ass off and had my second best night of the year, following closely behind the night before the Final Four championship game in Atlanta. It was fabulous. On Friday, one of my traveling stripper friends and I went out on the river fishing and were so tired we fell asleep at 10 p.m., waking at 1 a.m. to, well, sleep more. Yesterday I had an amazing massage but we made it in so late there really wasn't a lot to do. By 3 a.m. I had had it with the irritating, overly drunk crowd, and was starting to get bitchy with the customers.

Here's an example of how not to make a sale. I'd gotten off stage, where there were exactly two guys at the rack. the two in the audience were clapping but not tipping. I approach customer number one, a middle-aged guy. Small talk ensued, then I asked if he was ready to go to VIP. "No, a girl asked me already."
"Oh, so you've already had some dances?"
"No. I told her no, too."
" . . . ok. So now you can say two girls asked you already." I walk off. One customer remains, and only my moral obligation to see the night to its bitter end makes me approach a 23-year-old in shorts and a baseball cap.

"Hey, you were clapping, you liked my show, huh?"
"Yeah, you did a great job!"
"Why didn't you come visit me up there [bad stripper! you never, ever start whining to the customers. I need to go home!]? Was it the part where I took off my clothes?"
"No, uh, I don't know, I was just watching."
"[For free!] Oh. OK. [Well, I'll ask, he'll say no, I can go home.] Do you wanna go in the back for a dance?[Don't say "Do you wanna dance"! It's so grating!]"
"Yeah. let's do that."
"[Surprise]"

And we were back there for five songs. I actually thanked him for being there, being cool, and spending money, in almost those exact words, such was my surprise and gratitude at ending a shitty night on a good note.

Today is Sunday, traditionally the stripper's night off, but last week we came in on Monday and some customers complained to us that "the C-team was here. Where were you?" Not the B-team, they went straight to the C-team. So again with that moral obligation to make sure the customer has access to a quality product.

I keep forgetting to mention this, but it was so funny to me. I was dancing on stage and this is a club where we can pick whatever music we like, so I was playing "Evil" by Interpol. A guy at the rack says, in all seriousness, "I think this is the weirdest song I've ever heard." I would like Interpol to know that they are extremely weird to fishermen from the western U.S.

What three strippers read during the day while working in Alaska:

Boomsday, Christopher Buckley
Rant, Chuck Pahlahniuk
The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseni
Possible Side Effects, Augusten Burorughs
The Panama Hat Trail, Tom Miller

I spent a nice week in a tidy vacation rental apartment with two friends from Philly. It only lacked internet access and a functioning dishwasher. We ran it and the dishes were still filthy, and the detergent was still stuck in the dispenser, and I thought I was really clever when I turned on the water which had been shut off under the sink. Until I came home and found water all over the floor. The landlady hadn't mentioned it was broken.

We witnessed a police chase, too! I was sitting on the deck when I saw a guy running through the backyard, which was odd, as the rental was neighbored by a church on one side and nothing at all on the other. It was off a dirt road, as well. Then I see two cop cars pull into the parking lot next door, and two cops in bulletproof vests pull their guns and begin running through the woods after the guy. He turned out to be attempting to evade a DUI arrest as we gathered after watching the sobriety test and seeing a bottle of Jim Beam pulled from his car. Look, we took a photo:





We also saw some pretty Alaska scenery.





The arrival of the alpha strippers from Philadelphia upset the club ecosystem and their ability to sell rapidly upset some of the locals who began bitching so much that an impromptu dancer meeting was called in the locker room at 1:30 a.m. one night. "Now, we have one month to make our money here," the manager said. "And there's a lot of dirty hustling going on. I know you all need to make your money but do it right. and the rest of you need to stop getting pissed off about other girls making money."

"Yeah, there's no 'team' in 'stripper'," injects one of the locals, a big girl who manages to make her money.

The second week in July the money started out great, went to mediocre, and finished badly, so I was happy to take five days to go to San Francisco for a break. There are no quick trips from Alaska unless your final destination is Seattle, because most flights leaving ANC are redeyes. This means rush hour, and the longest lines for security, are at 11 p.m. Lots of boxes of frozen fish being checked.

And of course as soon as I get home from SF, Jim Mitchell dies, and I won't get to attend what will surely be an insane wake at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Street Theater.

Also, the money was apparently great beginning with the third night I was gone. Still was last night, too. A man from Washington state crossed himself while I was dancing for him. Later another dancer tells me earlier in the night she did two dances for him and at the end he said, "You didn't make me come. I'm not paying you." Another man from Washington is very, very, drunk and tips me $20 to give him a peck on the cheek in front of his friend when we return from the dance area. The friend is impressed. A guy from Wyoming tips well and is a darling, extending his dance session three times.

We have all discovered some interesting geographical patterns to customer quality. Cuatomers from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana are almost all good spenders, respectful, and fun. They drink a lot but rarely to the point of asshattery. Customers from Washington who go to Seattle clubs are jerks, as are customers from Texas who go to Houston clubs, and customers from Minnesota who go to Minneapolis clubs. New Yorkers and Angelenos are a mixed bag. So our conversations are like this:


"So where are you from?"

"Well, I live in Caspar, Wyoming,"

Stripper hears: "I make a shitload of money in oil and gas and work my ass off, so when I'm out I spend a ton of it too! My momma also raised me right."

Stripper says: "That's so cool! I've heard great things about you guys."


"I'm from Houston/Seattle/Minneapolis."

"Uh-huh. Do you ever go to the clubs there?"

a) "Oh hell yeah, they're great.

Stripper hears: "You can get a $40 blowjob!"

Stripper says: "OhheyIhavetogoIthinkI'monstagenext."

b) "No, I don't really get a chance to go to these kinds of places often."

Stripper hears: "I don't know anything about $40 blowjobs but I'll pay that to see some nice boobies."

Stripper says: "Really? Well cool, this will be a treat!"

We're off again in a bit. It's 10:11 and still nice and bright out.