I'm off to Alaska on a hot tip about a club up there. Got the news on Friday and I'm leaving today, hopefully to rake in serious Christmas cash (and a happy Chanukkah to my Jewish friends and lovers). I think I'll even get to see the Aurora Borealis tonight when my flight lands.

More details forthcoming . . .

At the Mary's Christmas party last Sunday one of my coworkers asked if I'd like to head out to Bend for a few days of work at a higher elevation. Here we are in our hotel room, and I think I have found the perfect travel companion as we both sit quietly on our laptops. We went thrift shopping yesterday, and I got some hot stretchy jeans, a jewelry box, and a free copy of Bucky Fuller's Critical Path from the "Free Book With Purchase" bookshelf.

The club is nice and the staff is insanely sweet to us. I think they rely to a great extent on traveling dancers, since the pool of talent in a town this size isn't enough for much turnover. The other dancers have been nice enough, too, which is surprising. But then I guess constant new girls is a way of life for them. We provide intel on Portland clubs for them, too. There's also a pair of dancers up here from Northern California, so I guess they win for longest drive.

Last night I asked a guy for a dance at the bar:
"How much do you charge for a dance here?"
"They're $20."
"Do you charge for sex here, too?"
"No, that's free."

I have been propositioned pretty much constantly, which is funny, as the staff told us to tell them if guys propositioned us. If I did that, I would be talking to them after every other dance. I wonder what they would do? "Sir, please don't solicit the dancers. I know their whole purpose is to convince you you're incredibly hot and they'd suck your dick right through your pants, and I know they take off their panties and bend over for money, but what about that makes you think they'd have sex for money?"

As I've said before, they wouldn't ask if no one ever said yes, and I'm not really shocked or offended by it, but shit, I'm running out of smartass deflections here. Some of the ones I use are:

"Oh, honey, I wouldn't charge you for sex! I'd want to do it for fun!"
"If I were going to do that, I'd do that, and not be dancing my ass off in 6" heels all night."
"(Pout, bat eyes) What makes you think I'm that kind of girl?"
"I tried that once, and the guy turned out to be a psycho! It was so scary, I thought I'd die! I stay in the club now."

My favorite is when the Mexican/Salvadoran guys ask, and you tell them no, and they say, "Why?" like you need to give a reason for not having sex with them for money.

But, you know, as long as they spend some money before they ask, I don't really care. They can keep looking, right?

I'll be back in Portland on Saturday and then heading down to Texas for Christmas break until New Year's. Perhaps I'll be checking out the new club in Austin. I hear it's super classy. Too bad it's in the same shitty neighborhood as XTC.

A couple of weeks ago I was working on a particularly dead night at the Dolphin II when a customer gave me a $3 tip in a very creative and amusing way:





This is the first time I have ever had money used to spell something on my rack. In the future I would like to suggest spelling a Bible verse or a quote from the Farmer's Almanac. Or spelling "WOW" with Benjamins.

"There's a fine line between entertaining and gross" was the response I got after telling these two stories from work tonight:

First, two girls asked me to dance for them while their boyfriends watched. As I was wiggling around the two of them, I said (in jest, mind you), "It would be totally hot if you two started making out with each other while I was dancing for you." Let me mention that these were two attractive women in their twenties. Who decided my suggestion was a great idea and immediately started kissing each other. Go me! One said "I can see their boners from over here."

Secondly, a fortyish woman asked me to dance for her and her date, a guy in his sixties. As we are walking back to the dance area she whispers in my ear, "This is my john -- he's paying my rent tonight so he'll take good care of you." Uh, what? That's right, he's her john . . . or else they were a married couple acting out a fantasy hardcore. Watching her rub his dick through his pants was not nearly as much fun as watching the two hot girls kiss, plus I had to state the obvious and tell her to cut it out (and oh, by the way, put your titty back in your tank top).

A fine line indeed.

Oh, and the older couple asked me to dance for them while I was on stage, and after I got off and took them to the dance area (after having them leave a tip for the upcoming dancer) the next dancer threw a hissy fit about me stealing customers off the rack. This harridan was still talking about it after closing, bitching and talking shit in the dressing room even after I walked over, explained the situation, and "apologized." Stageside etiquette in Portland is generally: Don't talk to customers at the rack during a dancer's set and especially don't take them off then. If you're taking them for a dance immediately after your set it's considered polite to leave a tip for the next dancer. I could give a shit if girls talk to guys at the rack or not, honestly, but when in Rome strip as the Romans do.

And the shocker is apparently this ranting bitch was trying to get her coke dealer up in the club and managed to annoy the club staff to the point of them making faces as she passed by . . . so I'm guessing she won't be around all that long. Pbbbt.

I had one especially fun customer at the beginning of the night who was just a total pleasure and a sweet stage tipper to boot; fun to talk to and a doll. So of course there's not too much to say about him besides "Thanks!" And I may have met my mechanic! That in itself is thrilling; more so if he agrees to barter with me. Lapdances for tuneups, you bet.

I also gave out my prize for #1 most obscure band mentioned to me by a customer -- we were talking about music, I mentioned the Dead C, he asked me if I'd heard of Merzbow -- not once ever have I had a customer mention an extreme Japanese noise act to me ever. That was fucking cool, and Tim, you win the prize. I do not think that you will be beaten unless I meet a Jandek fan at work someday.

If that happened I think my brain would hurt a lot. Though it would hurt far less if it happened at Mary's. If I'm gonna have a conversation about Jandek in a strip club, that's gonna be where it happens.

It was a lovely stripper Thanksgiving last night. Here's my personal miracle: I met two guys from India who had resided in Houston. Those two demographics are not, in the most general terms, the happiest with Portland levels of contact, to put it politely. But these two were just completely lovely customers.

The owner's son turned 18 yesterday and spent a couple of hours in the DJ booth and being shown around the club and given free dances by a couple of girls. He's still in highschool. I bet all the boys want to hang out at his house.

The owner's friends were also in the club, and this means -- Arabic music! And lots of it, since they'll tip us $20-$100 on stage for dancing to it and god knows what to the DJ for playing it. I swear there was a good solid 10 songs of it before he threw in some hip-hop for balance.

The turkey dinner was even decent, and several club regulars stopped in; all in all, a lovely stripclub holiday.

I might be a fool, but I'm going to work in a little bit -- who knows what the last six hours of Thanksgiving might be? I'm saving my holiday celebrating for Christmas this year.

It was perfect, rainy, dark, cold Portland Thanksgiving weather today and I enjoyed very much sitting around and sewing and watching Gosford Park (I'd Netflixed it a week or two ago; great timing. RIP Robert Altman).

So, let's see what Thanksgiving night brings down at the club.

A friend from Austin was in town over the weekend and we went to Mary's so she could have a great Portland strip club experience. It was Saturday and the club was full, but we found a few seats and settled in with our stacks of bills to enjoy the lovely Satori, Viva, and Poison. Before she came to town, I'd emailed her articles about and by the Mary's dancers, telling her, "I love this club; the dancers have stacks of press clips."

I haven't hung out in a club where I work for a long, long time; not since 2000, probably. It's kind of appalling, some of the stuff you hear when you're not working. And hilarious. There were some broke, drunk rockers behind us who kept imitating Borat, talking about how the dancers needed to take off their clothes faster, and gloating over the fact that "We paid two dollars (the cover charge that's only applied on weekends) to see the naked bitches!" They weren't tipping, by the way. At all.

And then there were the guys sitting at the bar when I went to get change, staring at Satori with rapt attention. "She moves her boobs," one said. "Yeah. That's cool." responded his friend. It is pretty cool. She can move them a whole, whole lot just by flexing.

Oh, we also saw a fight, the only one I've ever seen there. Not sure what happened but it seemed like it took a really, really long time to break it up. Viva had just ascended the stage steps and quickly backed down them before coming back up when it was clear they were heading towards the door. We're troupers, you know?