Do The Bartman!
Jun. 13th, 2005 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanWhenever I hear EMF's Unbelievable or Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, I always say the same thing.
"This song reminds me of strippers."
I used to work in a strip club. Songs that had the right kind of rhythm and were easy to dance to tended to get really heavy rotation, so in my head those songs themselves have become indelibly linked to the job. I'd have the same reaction to AC/DC's Money Talks but that doesn't get played nearly as often in the clubs where I seem to end up. I think in the last ten years I've heard it once in a bar in London.
And, I shit you not, several songs off The Simpsons album. One of the girls used to use it as a dance track. Now every time I hear Do The Bartman, I get an instant visual of Linda taking her clothes off.
Working in a strip joint was one of those real cultural experiences. The day I was interviewed for the job, I had just gotten back from a pagan festival the night before. The manager asked me seriously if I had any problems with nudity. Visions of hundreds of people dancing bare-assed around a massive bonfire immediately started playing through my head, but all I did was smile and say, "No".
The building itself was really old and subject to a lot of the woes that go along with it. There was a cockroach nest directly under one corner of the bar. We would go for a couple of weeks of being "clean" after each visit by the exterminator, then these tiny tiny roaches would start showing up again. You could see them get larger by the day. I grew very adept at picking up ashtrays and slamming back down on the bar without ever breaking eye contact with the customers.
The dancers were hilarious. Everybody has read about women the women who don't want to be there, who get trapped by the easy money and the lack of any other skills or experience. We had our fair share of those. There were also women I met who very business-minded, often single mothers or students. They were there because the money was good and who had a goal in mind. They came in, did their jobs and left, and although they were friendly, they clearly had other lives outside the club. Then there were the party girls, who just plain loved to dance. Liked the customers, like the job, liked the other dancers and thought it was the greatest hoot in the world that they would be paid so well for something that was so much fun. They were the ones with the big grins on their faces as they worked the pole, who smiled at the guys in perverts' row and waved from the stage whenever somebody they knew came in. The punters loved them right back, and they made money hand over fist.
We had one regular dancer who was a gymnast and a martial artists. Everybody in the place - myself included - stopped what they were doing when she hit the stage. We watched her climb halfway across the ceiling upside down, do backflips off the pole, and in general defy gravity, physics and the limits of human endurance. Naked.
We got the odd headliner who came to the club and had her name put up on the marquee. Most of them were pretty forgettable, but I loved the woman who came out on stage in a gorilla suit and stripped to Guitarzan. As part of her second set she lay on her back with her head away from the audience, and lifted her hips so that her back was facing the punters. Then she slung her knees over her shoulders, and raised her hands from behind her thighs, holding... puppets. She did a puppet show for the guys in perverts' row, while they stared at her quizzically and I pissed myself laughing behind the bar.
Most of the customers were regulars, local guys who dropped after work for a couple of beers on their way home. They would watch the stage or the television in equal amounts, chat with the staff and each other and then head home to their wives. There were always a few musicians who hung out there. They were beautiful young men with long wavy hair and boots made out of exotic hides, who would sit at the bar and eye the dancers, waiting to be approached. They would tell me very seriously that strippers made the best girlfriends for guys in bands, "because they understand life on the road". They would disappear for months at a time, but they always returned when they were single.
There were bikers, of course. Big bear-like men with loud belly laughs. They would come in small clusters, slap their helmets down on the table and yell for what they wanted, telling crude jokes and laughing the entire time. They were generous with their money and their drugs, threw great parties and knew all the dancers by their real names. They called me Spike and treated me with a kind of crude chivalry - more than once a couple of burly leathery men came up to some flathead who was giving me a hard time and gently suggested that he go sit down.
"Flatheads" was what everybody called the students who occasionally showed up. We were a fair distance from the local university, so they weren't regular visitors, but we got the odd group for birthdays and after sporting events. They would all sit in perverts' row, drink copious quantities of alcohol, annoy at the waitstaff, hassle the dancers, start shit with the other customers, make tons of noise, puke all over the stage, pass out in the bathroom, and then leave - usually without leaving a single decent tip. Everybody in the place hated them.
Ladies night happened once a month, although we probably didn't have a big enough clientele base for it - twice a year would have been enough. It was fascinating to watch the huge difference between the men and the women in that environment. Men would generally stop off on their way home from work, have a couple of beers, watch a dancer or watch the TV, chat a bit, and then go home to their wives. It was routine. No big deal.
Women, on the hand, would plan their nights out well in advance. They would dress up. Save up their money. Come out with a group of their friends. They were drinking hard, they had cash to spend, and they wanted to be entertained, dammit. As a result, the male dancers tended to be a lot more like performers than the vast majority of the female dancers. They had to be in good shape, they had to have a routine, and they had to engage the audience. And the women went nuts, screaming, pounding on the tables and pouncing on the men. Security earned every penny of their paycheques on ladies's nights. A number of times I had to request that women please get off the bar already and I'm not asking again!
I left that job when I decided to move back to Toronto. On my last night I got hopelessly drunk as staff and dancers poured shot after shot down my neck. I'm pretty sure there's incriminating evidence somewhere of me draped across a row of half-naked laps.
I've thought about doing it again, but the parts of it that were a pain in the ass make me reconsider. Sore feet, screwy hours, dealing with drunk asshole customers. the amount I drank back in those days. Not to mention all the white powder that went up my nose.
It was good money though. I gotta say I do miss that part.
"This song reminds me of strippers."
I used to work in a strip club. Songs that had the right kind of rhythm and were easy to dance to tended to get really heavy rotation, so in my head those songs themselves have become indelibly linked to the job. I'd have the same reaction to AC/DC's Money Talks but that doesn't get played nearly as often in the clubs where I seem to end up. I think in the last ten years I've heard it once in a bar in London.
And, I shit you not, several songs off The Simpsons album. One of the girls used to use it as a dance track. Now every time I hear Do The Bartman, I get an instant visual of Linda taking her clothes off.
Working in a strip joint was one of those real cultural experiences. The day I was interviewed for the job, I had just gotten back from a pagan festival the night before. The manager asked me seriously if I had any problems with nudity. Visions of hundreds of people dancing bare-assed around a massive bonfire immediately started playing through my head, but all I did was smile and say, "No".
The building itself was really old and subject to a lot of the woes that go along with it. There was a cockroach nest directly under one corner of the bar. We would go for a couple of weeks of being "clean" after each visit by the exterminator, then these tiny tiny roaches would start showing up again. You could see them get larger by the day. I grew very adept at picking up ashtrays and slamming back down on the bar without ever breaking eye contact with the customers.
The dancers were hilarious. Everybody has read about women the women who don't want to be there, who get trapped by the easy money and the lack of any other skills or experience. We had our fair share of those. There were also women I met who very business-minded, often single mothers or students. They were there because the money was good and who had a goal in mind. They came in, did their jobs and left, and although they were friendly, they clearly had other lives outside the club. Then there were the party girls, who just plain loved to dance. Liked the customers, like the job, liked the other dancers and thought it was the greatest hoot in the world that they would be paid so well for something that was so much fun. They were the ones with the big grins on their faces as they worked the pole, who smiled at the guys in perverts' row and waved from the stage whenever somebody they knew came in. The punters loved them right back, and they made money hand over fist.
We had one regular dancer who was a gymnast and a martial artists. Everybody in the place - myself included - stopped what they were doing when she hit the stage. We watched her climb halfway across the ceiling upside down, do backflips off the pole, and in general defy gravity, physics and the limits of human endurance. Naked.
We got the odd headliner who came to the club and had her name put up on the marquee. Most of them were pretty forgettable, but I loved the woman who came out on stage in a gorilla suit and stripped to Guitarzan. As part of her second set she lay on her back with her head away from the audience, and lifted her hips so that her back was facing the punters. Then she slung her knees over her shoulders, and raised her hands from behind her thighs, holding... puppets. She did a puppet show for the guys in perverts' row, while they stared at her quizzically and I pissed myself laughing behind the bar.
Most of the customers were regulars, local guys who dropped after work for a couple of beers on their way home. They would watch the stage or the television in equal amounts, chat with the staff and each other and then head home to their wives. There were always a few musicians who hung out there. They were beautiful young men with long wavy hair and boots made out of exotic hides, who would sit at the bar and eye the dancers, waiting to be approached. They would tell me very seriously that strippers made the best girlfriends for guys in bands, "because they understand life on the road". They would disappear for months at a time, but they always returned when they were single.
There were bikers, of course. Big bear-like men with loud belly laughs. They would come in small clusters, slap their helmets down on the table and yell for what they wanted, telling crude jokes and laughing the entire time. They were generous with their money and their drugs, threw great parties and knew all the dancers by their real names. They called me Spike and treated me with a kind of crude chivalry - more than once a couple of burly leathery men came up to some flathead who was giving me a hard time and gently suggested that he go sit down.
"Flatheads" was what everybody called the students who occasionally showed up. We were a fair distance from the local university, so they weren't regular visitors, but we got the odd group for birthdays and after sporting events. They would all sit in perverts' row, drink copious quantities of alcohol, annoy at the waitstaff, hassle the dancers, start shit with the other customers, make tons of noise, puke all over the stage, pass out in the bathroom, and then leave - usually without leaving a single decent tip. Everybody in the place hated them.
Ladies night happened once a month, although we probably didn't have a big enough clientele base for it - twice a year would have been enough. It was fascinating to watch the huge difference between the men and the women in that environment. Men would generally stop off on their way home from work, have a couple of beers, watch a dancer or watch the TV, chat a bit, and then go home to their wives. It was routine. No big deal.
Women, on the hand, would plan their nights out well in advance. They would dress up. Save up their money. Come out with a group of their friends. They were drinking hard, they had cash to spend, and they wanted to be entertained, dammit. As a result, the male dancers tended to be a lot more like performers than the vast majority of the female dancers. They had to be in good shape, they had to have a routine, and they had to engage the audience. And the women went nuts, screaming, pounding on the tables and pouncing on the men. Security earned every penny of their paycheques on ladies's nights. A number of times I had to request that women please get off the bar already and I'm not asking again!
I left that job when I decided to move back to Toronto. On my last night I got hopelessly drunk as staff and dancers poured shot after shot down my neck. I'm pretty sure there's incriminating evidence somewhere of me draped across a row of half-naked laps.
I've thought about doing it again, but the parts of it that were a pain in the ass make me reconsider. Sore feet, screwy hours, dealing with drunk asshole customers. the amount I drank back in those days. Not to mention all the white powder that went up my nose.
It was good money though. I gotta say I do miss that part.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 10:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 10:38 pm (UTC)I wish the bar I had worked in was like that. Where I worked we were pushed from bar tending, to stripping and so on down the line. I was very young, very alone, and very scared, and they took hideous advantage of that
That said, I grew up fast there
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:05 pm (UTC)I've gone into a few strip joints now where the waitstaff have to wear garters and corsets it really gives me a bad impression of the place.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 06:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 04:17 pm (UTC)I've heard rumours of places that operate like that here. I've been lucky enough never to have encountered one.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 05:29 pm (UTC)Heh. 18 year olds, how naive can they be?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:06 pm (UTC)His succinct answer: "Schwartz's. And there are no bad strip clubs in Montreal."
Roger died shortly after that, so that is a particular fond memory
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:09 pm (UTC)"Sex City"
"Castle of Sex"
"Sex Dungeon"
My favourite is a draw between Sex Village and The Horse-drawn Carriage of Sex.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:42 pm (UTC)that's it. Montreal trip. i call it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:34 pm (UTC)Hey - every job has good and bad points. It's when the good outweighs the bad that it's worth doing - and when the bad outweighs the good, that it's time to look elsewhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:51 pm (UTC)Doood, you gotta write a book. :)
All you need is The Funky Title To Trump All Other Funky Titles, and somebody'll be playing you in the instant-cult-hit movie within the decade, I swear. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 12:07 am (UTC)Heh, I can see that. I really can.
Though I want to have creative control over who plays me. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 12:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-15 12:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 12:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 12:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 02:19 am (UTC)So, Auntie K gonna be able to join the 'coming out' party for Tristan and Crispin when y'all bring them to their first strip club?
*(who needs a bar mitzvah?)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 01:50 am (UTC)Oh, and from hanging around him in those days, I know that other popular strip songs include "Lick it Up" by Kiss and "Kickstart my Heart" by Motley Crue ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 03:50 am (UTC)