Note: A while ago, I mentioned I was writing a book of funny personal essays. It's been difficult finding time to work on the book while still writing humor columns for this website. Sometimes while writing a column, I realize that the topic will be funny and lengthy enough to be included in the book. Then I have to write a whole new column for the site. That's what happened with today's column, hence the delay in posting.
But rather than start work on a new column for today, I decided instead to keep working on the essay, and then just post an excerpt. So the following is a very brief version of an essay I may or may not include in my book. It's very unpolished, and I have yet to go through it and add more jokes and descriptions, but it's at least a true story that's amusing to read.
I'm a rare breed of man, different from most. I'm one of the only men on earth who doesn't like strip clubs.
There's few things less enticing to me than a club full of in-person telemarketers trying to sell me pretend sex. Fake, blue-ballsy sex with the grinding and the rubbing and the trouble walking afterwards. Oy.
Don't get me wrong, I like women. It's just that being pressured by a money-hungry woman who laughs hysterically at your every word and purposely swings her hair into your face for sensual effect is slightly annoying when you're trying to drink a $9 beer.
When I was in college four years ago, there was a strip club my friends and I went to, but we only went because it was free. It was called "The Lamplighter", and it was the perfect strip club. There was no cover charge, the drink minimum wasn't enforced, and lap dances weren't pushed on customers. Of course, the dancers were uglier than Clint Howard in a brightly lit room, and there was no DJ, so the strippers had to put a quarter in the jukebox to get a song for each dance, but it was a fine place to sit, relax, and enjoy the naked bodies of women horribly addicted to crystal meth.
Once in a while a pregnant women would strip, usually while in her third trimester. But I swear, those were the only failings of the place.
Larger cities like Los Angeles don't have such twisted, backwater places. It's all about professional standards and big money here. Los Angeles strippers are addicted to shopping rather than drugs, which makes them even more terrifying. Okay, so most of them are probably addicted to meth as well, but shopping addicts are still scarier. Drug addicts will eventually die of an overdose and not be a bother anymore. Women addicted to money aren't so considerate.
So last night a friend suggested going to a strip club called "Bare Elegance". There was an amateur contest, and the action was expected to be hot and/or comical. As I mulled over the idea, I imagined a girl falling off a stripper pole and knocking herself unconscious. Hilarious. This was an opportunity not to be missed.
We had barely pulled into the parking lot before our wallets were tapped. Five dollars to park. Ten dollars to get in. Six dollars for a drink. If I had wanted a three minute lap dance, it would have cost thirty dollars. That's $51 just so I can smell like cheap perfume. For that kind of scratch, I could have gotten wasted at the the free strip club back home. Or better yet, I could have gone to a real bar in town, gotten wasted, and brought home a real girl for real, non-pretend sex.
But I agreed to go along with it, so I held my complaints and sipped my watered-down cola (L.A. nude clubs don't serve liquor). Within a few minutes, a very tall black woman, roughly the build of Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, sat down next to me and began rubbing my leg. It was the first time I've sat next to a scantily clad woman and been afraid that she was going to eat me.
She asked if I was there for the contest. Hoping to get rid of her, I said yes, and claimed that a female co-worker was in it. I was here to give her support, and that's all, I said. The ploy worked, and the Amazonian girl moved on to other men.
It wasn't long before another stripper, blonde-haired and large-chested, approached me. I'd only been in the club five minutes, and this was the second time I had been pressured for a lap dance. It occurred to me that amateur night is probably a difficult night for the professional strippers to make money, so they really have to hassle the patrons to get their attention. It was a bad night for a man who didn't want to be bothered.
The new stripper sat on my lap and smiled at me as she jiggled her chest. She spoke in a fake British accent that reminded me of a fourth grader trying to recite Shakespeare.
"Where are you from?" I asked, eager to see if her geography research was as poor as her accent.
"I am from Europe," she said. "It's not every day you get European girl, Paul."
"Where in Europe?" I asked.
"I know a place where we can go and be private, Paul," she said, completely ignoring my question.
"That's an interesting accent," I said. "What city did you grow up in?"
She kept avoiding the question. I found it odd that someone would lie about being from Europe and then not be able to list a single city from the region when asked. Just say you're from London! Say Amsterdam! Honestly, it's not that difficult. It's not . . . Shakespeare.
After fluffing her hair into my face and drink a few more times, she moved on. I sighed and shook my head. Neither of the strippers were very cute. A European accent, fake or real, is only attractive if the girl's face doesn't look like it's been run over by one of London's double-decker buses.
The amateur dance contest began, and I watched happily as clumsy women tried to slide around the poles on stage. Most of them quickly realized they weren't very good at it, and spent the rest of their session walking awkwardly around the stage, embarrassed and not really sure what to do. It was like American Idol or The Gong Show, but with more nudity and humiliation.
I was just starting to enjoy myself when a third stripper sat next to me Her name was Scarlett, and she was much better looking than the others. Blonde and gorgeous, her stripper name was obviously chosen because of her slight resemblance to actress Scarlett Johansson.
As I quickly found out, Scarlett was also much smarter than the other strippers. Rather than ask for a lap dance right away, she sat back and asked a lot of questions, listening intently to my answers. As she heard more of my sarcastic, snarky answers, she changed her own personality to match mine. It was quite ingenious.
She was almost better at bitterness than I was, which is quite a feat. I admired her as she spoke frankly about all the "stupid little bitches" who were stealing attention from the real strippers that night. She criticized every amateur dancer in the placing, pointing out their small guts or other flawed features.
"Sorry, I'm just picky about people," she said.
I chuckled, thinking how 99 percent of her customers were probably overweight old men who couldn't look in a mirror for fear of breaking it. I was starting to enjoy the conversation when she said something that gave me a jolt.
"So I heard your co-worker is in the contest. Which one is she?" asked Scarlett.
The first stripper had apparently spread word around the club that I was there to support a friend, and probably wouldn't be interested in lap dances. Scarlett didn't seem to care, and worse yet, she was calling my bluff.
"The blonde-haired one," I said, smiling at the genius of my vague description.
"Oh yeah, that one," she said. "The tall girl with the wavy hair. She's cute."
My eyes widened. It suddenly occurred to me that unlike in midwestern states, where caucasians are plentiful, many Los Angeles women are of mixed ethnicity, and therefore have darker hair. Or at least the locals interested in an amateur stripper contest. There was only one blonde girl in the entire contest, and I had unknowingly announced her as my close personal friend to every stripper in the club.
"She's sitting over there by the stage. We should go say hi," said Scarlett.
"No! No reason for that!" I said rather loudly, claiming I didn't want to make her nervous. I quickly tried to change the subject, but Scarlett only wanted to talk about my supposed co-worker, who she was now referring to as my girlfriend.
"So where do you and your little girlfriend work?" she asked.
"We're just friends," I stammered. "We work at a . . . clothing store?"
"Where is it?" Scarlett asked.
"Downtown," I said, completely unaware that downtown Los Angeles is actually a somewhat small area.
"Really? Oh my God, I live downtown! Which one is it?" asked Scarlett.
I smiled uncomfortably and said "The Buckle", the only clothing store chain that came to mind. There was no such store in downtown L.A.
"I've never heard of that one," said Scarlett. "What are the crossroads for it?"
"Hey look, I think my co-worker's on stage!" I said, pointing to a short Asian girl who was dancing.
Scarlett gave me a puzzled look. I explained that I thought my blonde-haired "friend" was about to go on stage. Luckily, I was right. The blonde-haired girl was stumbling in her high heels toward the dressing room. Whew.
I caught another break when Scarlett left to pursue other men in the club. I breathed a sigh of relief. My cover hadn't been blown. Why was I so concerned about lying to a stripper? They lie to their patrons all the time. Even their names are fake, so why was I so concerned about being found out? I would never see any of these women again in my life, yet I was intent on keeping the lie intact.
To my horror, Scarlett returned and sat next to me right about the same time that the blonde-haired amateur finished dancing. She collected her dollars and clothing, and a few minutes later walked out of the dressing room towards the bar, much to the delight of Scarlett.
"Here she comes!" said Scarlett.
"Uh huh," I said.
I didn't get so much as a look from the blonde girl as she walked by. A few minutes later, she passed us again. She glanced at us both, but showed with no sign of recognition on her face. Scarlett looked at me. I looked back at her. Scarlett raised her eyebrow. I smiled pathetically and shrugged my shoulders. She sighed angrily, stood up, and walked away.
"God," she said, rolling eyes.
I couldn't help but smile. Here I was, just some normal guy hanging out with a friend at a strip club, and I not only managed to waste nearly two hours of a stripper's time, but I also managed to completely piss her off, and would probably piss off the other strippers when Scarlett told them about the loser who claimed to know a girl in the contest.
That's a pretty good accomplishment, especially for a guy who hates strip clubs. Twenty-one dollars for three hours of nude women who you can lie to without consequences? Maybe I don't hate strip clubs so much after all.
