Magical Realism

TW: violence
Note: this is fictional


That sound. What was it? A box fan? The blades of a helicopter? She was disoriented.
The dust. The taste of the dust was in her mouth in her nose. Angrily, she inhaled and exhaled heavily. Spat on the ground. The drive had been long. There was muttering between them, The Men, indiscernible to her.
Have I slept? She thought.
Have I eaten?
Who cares, was her final thought then.

They slipped another of those dissolving pills into a bottle. Blue. It was blue. Against the neutral landscape surrounding her, all the darkness, the blue stood out, glistening in a beam of light. She collapsed. Her jean shorts were soiled, and her knees buckled. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her neck could no longer support the head. One of The Men knelt next to her, plugging her nose and opening her mouth, and emptying the contents of the bottle. She sputtered, and lost consciousness again.

Time and space was nebulous now, devoid of meaning at this point. The differentiation between captor and liberator, something that would be stark to others, was one she couldn't make anymore. These men, with their faces covered, didn't stir fear in her. She'd lost everyone. The first one to go was herself. Being in this dusty ass basement with these strangers... nothing mattered. She found solace in her numbness and indifference, because of course the lack of feeling was better than the alternative. She vowed to never feel again. She would become one of them. They already had her uniform waiting.

Give You the World if it Was Mine

I’m still coming back to myself. 
A lot of spiritual teachers will say that the deeper you go, there’s always new depths, and that’s true.
The last.... while has been nothing short of transformative.




I’m still not ready to lay it out brick by brick, because I eventually plan to write a book, but I’m getting my feet wet. Did you know an abortion attempt can fail? Did you know you have to do it again then? 
Remember when I fell in love and almost moved across the country because we “were going to get married and have kids” mere months ago? I would have been moving there in less than two months.
Me too.

A lot more has happened between then and now, but the termination is the freshest. Let’s just say 2 (two) rounds of pills in one weekend was... ummm... a lot. A hormonal Aries Moon during an Aries Moon AND Mars transit??? (To those who have no idea wtf I’m talking about let me just use one word: explosive.)
Like I said, I’m coming back to myself. And not “Feministripper,” me, ME at my core and who I am and what that looks like. Shifts. Big shifts. Gratitude, always.



I think I’m gonna fly to my favorite city next month. I need to be loved on by my people there. I need to smell its smells, feel its magic. My future home. 

I’m letting this blank canvas on my easel speak to me. I’m feeling called to do a surrealist piece centered around hydrotherapy, and maybe expand it to a series of pieces around archaic medical treatments that are now considered barbaric (and absolutely are.) 
The creative life force that’s always been in me but has been dormant for years has finally woken back up. I’m excited beyond words. It’s go time.






“Oooohh, what a life.” -Sade

Burnout

Jeff. His name was Jeff, and I was sitting on his lap and it was maybe five hours ago. He had glasses, and when I asked where he was from, I noted that it's quite a distance from the club. "Yeah, I take the bus. It's about two hours each way. I do it everyday." To work at a pizza place. I was horrified. This dude takes the fucking BUS in insane Minnesota weather to work at a pizza place in a suburb so far away it takes four hours out of his daily existence just to get there and back. I imagined him last winter, the "polar vortex" winter, freezing his ass off making multiple transfers and standing outside in -45 degree wind chill. I was halted, and felt something I usually don't feel this strongly (or sometimes ever,) for customers, this thing called "human empathy." I looked in his face and he was genuinely proud of his job ("I'm the cook!") and he was earnest and sweet and a fucking nerd. I wondered what he was doing there, at my strip club on a Monday night, alone. He wasn't old, 24 maybe. Did he need me? Us? Someone to pretend they care, and smile when he makes jokes? He didn't shudder with pleasure at the simple touch of my fingertips on his arm, like some customers have. I asked him for a second dance, and The Feelings drained away when he said no, when on Mondays dances are only 10 dollars instead of 20. The Feelings returned when he tipped me $5. I wondered how much he made, thanked him, and walked away.

I stormed down the flight of stairs, flung open the curtain, and marched up to their table. My last customers of the night. The one who had visible cocaine in his nostril and a gigantic wad of cash. Hundreds.

"Is this ten dollars?"

"Count it out." I handed him 10 one dollar bills gingerly, fuming. "Count. It. Out." I tapped my acrylic nail on the table with each word for emphasis. 

"Wait, come ba-" he slurred to my back as I walked away. 

Flash forward hours later, after Jeff the Nerdy Pizza Cook to closing time. I was called back downstairs to give this motherfucker his change he (I thought) had forgotten about, and didn't care about at the time. I had already stepped down from my 7" stilettos in the dressing room. I was removing my stripper jewlery that I put on piece by piece nightly, like "pieces of flair" in Office Space. It was time to call this, like all Mondays I've ever worked, a failure and go home. But no. Not yet. My manager was mad too, not even subtle with the notion that I was scheming, and cheating this lowlife out of his tengoddamndollars. 

There's a point in your life when you've been dancing so long that parts of your body that start to wear down in old age are doing so before you hit 30. My body is betraying me. My joints ache, the bruises on my knees never go away, and my back kills. I fall asleep on an ice pack when I can. At least once a week, I make less than $150 (like tonight,) and that is completely unacceptable. I care not for protestations of "but lots of people make that in a paycheck/week/whateverthefuck imaginary amount of time." Those people aren't getting on their literal knees, naked or nearly naked, dancing in a room full of people, and made to remain there onstage, even if no one gives them one measly dollar, multiple times a night. Those people aren't sitting on laps of men who aren't paying them, because that's where you sit where I work when you're still just in the "asking/negotiating" phase of getting a lap dance. "You girls make SO much money!" an extremely wealthy club regular told me tonight, knowing full well that at that moment, I had $60. I reminded him that not only are we not paid hourly, I still had to pay for the house fee, valet, and tip out. "Yeah, but you girls make a TON of money." I wonder where this money is, that money he must think I had stashed away, in addition to the pitiful $60 in my garter belt after midnight. Incredible.

I'm very ready to be done.

I find myself far angrier at my demographic working at an "upscale" topless bar than I ever was at some of the more blue collar nude clubs I've worked at before. These white men who wear cashmere sweaters in winter, boat shoes in the summer, and suits year-round. I hate them. Sometimes it consumes me. Trust fund twentysomethings with various vague titles like "financial manager." Yeah OK, breh. Whatever.

The bachelor parties who vomit on the carpet. The dudes that put the money in their mouth like an animal doing a trick in the circus, expecting me to take it with mine. Men with the million yard stare of someone blacked out, and completely incoherent. If I'm lucky and they're not too handsy, this moment is usually when it's easiest to take advantage of them. And I never feel bad. If you're a man and walked into a place where women make a living off of you and your arousal, and then proceeded to get so drunk you can hardly walk, those things were your choice and doings, not mine. I never, ever feel bad when I imagine their shock in the morning, looking at their bank accounts or credit card receipts. I feel great, actually.

Of course I'll remember fondly times laughing in various dressing rooms until I was doubled over, abs aching. I'll remember the North Dakota farm boy named Jimmy who adored everything about me, and told me he wished he could take me home to "ma." I will remember the many nights spent sleeping in other strippers' beds or on their couches, and the bonds I formed with them. I can't forget the regular I've met across years and three clubs who is morbidly obese, smells strongly of urine, and tells me about his suicidal ideations. His name is Charlie. I'll also remember the countless men who've used my body on a stage as target practice with crumpled ones. I don't tolerate that. I'll remember the man who bit my breast when I was 19 so hard that it left a mark that stayed for days. I hold on to all of these stories, good and bad, amassed over eight years and eight clubs that bob to the surface unexpectedly, like debris in the ocean of my mind. 

Tic Douloureux

The electric kettle is going, and even my cat looks tired.
"Get the water as hot as you can," my dad said.
Soaking a washcloth in hot water and draping it across your face is one of my father's remedies for congestion.
He was a Special Forces medic in Vietnam, so that fact, coupled with my unyielding admiration for him as a human being, makes his medical advice hold more weight in my book, even if it's simple or folksy.
I'm breathing clearly now, thanks to the Sudafed, the kind you have to show your drivers license to obtain, the good stuff; but the pain in the left side of my face is drumming, constant, and overpowering my fatigue, that for once is coming at the right time.
I massage my face, I drape the towel, I ice it, nothing works.
I'm watching a show on Netflix, "House of Cards."
I read a tweet from a stripper in Philly that it'll really get you in your money-making, take-no-prisoners zone.
I still can't figure out how this show could be advantageous for me at work.
I need to watch "Wolf of Wall Street" again, be reminded of how to be a ruthless salesperson.
I don't know if I'm burning out, not adjusting well to the new club, or simply not handling the fact that I just went through January, the hardest month of the year for sales.
I'm in a slump. This has been a brutally cold, snow-filled month.
I want out. I want out of dancing, and out of this state.
My face hurts so much, it's distracting. When the pain goes into my teeth, it reminds me, terrifies me. It reminds me of when I had trigeminal neuralgia, a rare nerve disorder that I learned from Wikipedia is nicknamed "the suicide disease" because it's so excruciating lots of people kill themselves before they find relief. It went undiagnosed for months and months, getting worse and worse. That time in my life, screaming on my studio apartment floor downtown, screaming until I passed out, fantasizing about knocking my teeth out with a hammer because maybe that would fix it, made me realize I could definitely deliver a child without drugs. Famous last words, right? But no for real, that shit fucking sucked. The neurologist who finally figured out my problem gave me Dilaudid and Klonopin. I knew Dilaudid was serious shit, because that's what was being administered to my brother through a drip when he was dying of cancer. The Klonopin was so I didn't have seizures.
That was a messy time, a blurry time.
I think the most often times one has conversations they remember, or conversations that lead to kisses they don't forget, is on the floor.
I've lived through a lot of things. Much more than I will list here.
My cat Amadeus is sleeping next to my leg while my "Cold Season" Yogi brand tea cools in the other room. He was sleeping on my belly earlier. I'm convinced he knows I don't feel well.
Amadeus is a big cat, and he whines all the time, because he used to have a backyard with woods to run and play and hunt in. Now he's just stuck in this apartment, and can't go outside. I wish he knew how much I empathize with his plight.
I have wanderlust as well.
I hope to return to being an ESL teacher in another country this fall, but this time I'll bring one pair of stripper shoes with me, because I didn't last time, and I missed it.
Dancing, the lifestyle, the money, the women, the stories, the friendships, the betrayals, everything I've learned, it's all with me and it will stay with me always.

These Days

I drive up, hand my keys to the confused-looking valet, heft my giant bag over my shoulder.  I have no makeup on, and my car is a more or less a POS.  "I'm Nico, I'm still new, I've worked here two times."  I'm continually testing out the new name on my tongue, and I've actually worked at this establishment briefly before, but I digress.  I breeze through the door, so happy to be there, convinced I will make money.  It's the place I've been hearing the money is at for the last 6-9 months.  There's a home basketball game and the stadium is kitty-corner.  It's a Saturday night.  The front is held open for me by another valet.  I'm delighted by the gesture.  I say "hi" to the guy who re-hired me with a genuine chipper tone to my voice.  I walk farther into the club, smile and wave at Cage Matt* (he works in a part of the office they call "the cage," you talk to him through a little hole like at the movies and he orders food for you and sells you thongs.)  He's a delightful man with a Southern accent and he's extremely charming without being flirtatious.  I adored him immediately.  I walk up the long staircase to the dressing room, telling myself over and over "this is your home now," because it's been a rough departure from the club I've been at for the last year.

My heart ached to leave my former club, but I wasn't making much money anymore, my rights and freedoms were being flagrantly shat upon (see prior blog entry) so I chucked up the deuces and tried not to miss my friends too much.  But I did.  So I came back on the Thursday night prior to this story.  I was overjoyed when I got in the dressing room I knew so well, jumping around and hugging my girls.  I spent an entire hour between my stage sets just catching up.  One girl in particular was back from Florida after being gone almost a year.  I wanted to hear all about it. 

Something was amiss.  As I checked the bulletin board backstage, I noticed two troubling notes. 

Note #1 claimed the crowd preferred modern and/or classic rock, and hip-hop and rap (you know, the music that's written usually ABOUT strip clubs and strip club culture?) was almost completely banned.  This was already almost the case when I left, but it hadn't been finalized in writing.  This was a crock, shrouded in the racism on the part of the family that owns the club.  I was told by the DJ once, "They don't want to attract 'that kind of clientele,'" when I asked for something like Missy Elliott.  I almost exclusively worked night shift, and the patrons weren't the day shift variety: old and/or blue collar rock fans.  Night shift crowd repeatedly had asked me personally for more rap and hip hop.  Therefore, their argument that "we need to play what the customer wants" was fallacious entirely.  The night of my return, I had a customer actually ask my coworker, "Could you guys please play something one of you wants to hear so I can finally see someone smile?"  Girls were turned down for dances because the customers disliked the music that much.  Also, as I mentioned in my previous blog, creative freedoms like being able to choose your own music are extremely important.  I simply cannot and will not twerk with a smile to "Pornstar Dancing" or whatever that godawful Nickelback song is called. In "real life," I alternate between college station indie music and rap and hip hop of all eras and varieties.  Rap is for stripping.  The dirtier, the better.  I want to hear the voice through the speakers talking about stripper poles and pussies, or something pretty close to it.  I want the voice through the speakers to be talking about sex acts as I do tricks with my butt, and in an ideal scenario, people throw money at it.

Note #2 was far worse.  It was basically written panhandling, authored by the club owner, a manager, and a dancer.  It was asking us dancers to help fund two bouncers' trips to Vegas. Yes. You read that correctly.  The argument was that the one had just left the company after many years of loyal service (this is true, and I am grateful;) and that the other hadn't taken a vacation in four years.  Oh really?  So.... the fact that you somehow apparently worked constantly for four years, salaried, with tips from us  nightly on top.... but can't afford a trip is somehow our problem?  When airfare right now is less than 200 bucks? My head is spinning from the logic.  It mentioned that their airfare and hotel had already been paid for, and that there was a donation envelope at the bar.  Was I reading this correctly?!?! You want me, the person who is not only rubbing my body on gross strangers for your establishment but tipping you both nightly to throw you some extra spending money?! I absolutely adore those men, and realize it wasn't written by them, but FUCK. THAT.  I made a manager aware of this blog today, and so if by chance either of these two men reads this, please know that you both meant a lot to me, and I used to love and value the club to a degree you probably never knew. I *loved* it there.

The nail in the coffin wasn't reading those notes, or making $80 that night.  It was the text from my former manager trying to get girls to work, and opened with "Happy Popsicle Day!" This text was asking girls to come in on the day during the "polar vortex" that the temp, with wind chill, was -50 degrees where I live.  New club, and all other clubs, were closed that day because OF COURSE.  Because exposed skin can freeze in 5 minutes or less in those temperatures.  FROZEN. FLESH, YOU GUYS.  After I saw online that they were running a no-cover special for customers that day, but weren't cutting deals for dancers (well actually, the owner was graciously offering a "BOGO"- pay for day or night shift and work the other one free. How nice of them!!! Just wonderful.)  Goodbye.  We are done here.

I'm starting to settle in more to the new place, reuniting with strippers from years and clubs past.  I'm getting along with the staff, especially the nice kitchen guy who saves me soup at the end of the night.  It's just so MFing taxing to be on my feet in the shoes, never taking them off, giving semi-hover dances (basically a continuous squat;) meandering through the large, multileveled club in my 7" stilettos. There's also no pole there, which I miss very much.  I've been wearing a back brace ice pack thing that a physical therapist gave my mom.  It looks like one of those belt things that guys whose necks are wider than their heads wear when they're lifting an absurd amount of weight. I'm starting to look forward to retirement this fall, even though it scares and saddens me to say that.

Final note: I hope the squid ink-based shampoo and conditioner the stripper/contortionist/hair stylist I've reunited with got me from her special store works the magic she promises, because right now my $170 cut/color is looking a little momish or even Hannah Horvath circa mental breakdown, and we can't have that now, can we?

*name has been changed

"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House" - Audre Lorde

I am seething with rage.

I'm listening to that Justin Bieber song that's been slowed down 800% so I can remain at least relatively calm, because inside I am screaming.  Here, it sounds like mermaids underwater: http://www.avclub.com/articles/justin-bieber-is-amazing-when-hes-slowed-do,97218/

I thought I worked at a club that for only the second time in my 7 years in this industry actually gave one fuck about its dancers.  They don't.  It's money.  Profit.  Off us.  Point blank.

How disappointing.

The owners of my club had the AUDACITY tonight to tell me the reason to stay off the ledge of the tip rail was because THE GRANITE IS CRACKING.  (The stage itself is recessed, like a pool, and the ledge is about 8" higher.)
I dance on a stage made of granite.  I wear knee pads covered with thick, long leg warmers and socks, hoping customers don't notice.  It's embarrassing.

No, don't tell me to stay off that edge because it's closer to the customers and gives ample opportunity to be sexually assaulted (as if the risk isn't already there,) STAY OFF THE LEDGE BECAUSE THE SURFACE YOU'RE DANCING ON IS CRACKING.

DON'T STAY OFF BECAUSE YOUR KNEES ARE PROBABLY DISINTEGRATING FROM CRAWLING ON SOMETHING AS HARD AS CONCRETE. STAY OFF BECAUSE.... STAY OFF BECAUSE....

WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU.


My club has 2 stages and on weekend nights (they count Thursday as a weekend night too, because... why not?!) they run both.  You do your stage set on the "low stage" first, and then the "high stage." This means if there aren't a lot of girls working, you're doing a 3 song set, followed by a 3 song set. ON MOTHERFUCKING GRANITE. 6 songs= roughly 18 minutes. Multiple times a night. Sure, you can ease the burden by doing some pole tricks, but our ceilings are so low, most girls can touch the ceiling in their heels.  This isn't super conducive to lots of pole work.  A lot of work is done on the floor of the stage.


Dancer friends of mine and I have fantasized, in vain, for years, about opening our own club and running it right:

• The best decor (lots of red velvet, in my humble opinion,)
• A good stage set up with a surface that is as least taxing on the body as possible
• 2 poles: one spinning, one stationary
• High ceilings
• No house fee or "rent"- just a mandatory tip out to the DJ and bouncers
• The bouncers are there to protect you solely, and nothing else.  They will be heavily vetted and easily fired for a misstep.
• VIP area run by women
• Actually, the entire staff would be women, except for the door and floor guys
• Cameras everywhere, including the dressing room (it makes theft a non-issue)
• Good music: Nickelback and anything similar to that is banned. Stripper butt rock is banned.  Motley Cruë, you're not invited to this party.  (I might make a few certain exceptions to this rule, but you will never once hear "Cherry Pie." Not happening.)

Luckily, some of these stipulations already exist where I work, and play a large role in why I stay.  I'm just so exasperated that it's like twisting an arm to get an owner and/or manager to actually GIVE A FUCK about their girls. HI HELLO NEWSFLASH: WE ARE THE SOLE REASON THE ESTABLISHMENT EXISTS.  At my fantasy club described above, the dancers would be on a pedestal, not thought of as more income for the club (by way of house fees and taking a cut of VIP dance prices.)  They could be let go easily, for things like fighting or consistently creating drama.  Or hooking.

I think of prostitutes as public servants.  They do some of the hardest emotional labor there is.  I love them.  But stay out of my club, undercutting other dancers.  If prostitution was legal (as it should be,) I would have no problem running a brothel.  

If a strip club ("gentlemen's" would be nowhere in the title;) like I described existed, women would be running, driving, flying from all over the country to work there.  

Where I work comes up with the most idiotic, harebrained schemes to "get people in the door."  Today, for example, we hosted a meet-and-greet send off for some terrible no-name local act as they prepare to go to Germany to open for Papa Roach. Who. Even. Cares.  I complained about it to a bouncer who is also some kind of manager and he said "there's 25 more people in the building that wouldn't otherwise be here." Me: "But they're not spending. They're not getting dances." Him: "So what? That's on you girls to make that happen." Fuck. You.

The reality of the situation was: none of us started making money until these coked out idiots ("I just wanna do a line off your pussy") and their broke-ass groupies left.  They even tried to hustle US their merchandise.  To add further insult to injury, the club forced us to have one out of our three song sets be something by them. Taking away a creative freedom like that is a big fucking deal to me.  I don't know how to dance to bullshit, generic modern rock.  Maybe that shows I'm not a good stripper, that I can't just plaster on the smile and shake it even though the music makes my ears bleed and my soul cry. I don't care.  Don't tell me I am REQUIRED to dance to something for the entire time these douchenozzles are in the building.
Strip club: "Independent contractor? What? No, you're gonna be signed on as that so that you pay us, not the other way around.  But we'll damn well treat you like employees, and you'll do as we say."

Every other time my work has come up with ideas that they swear up and down will result in piles of money for all, it's pretty much the opposite.  A car show, a "lip lock contest," none of that shit made my wallet any fatter.  At all.  In fact, on days where there's some promotional BS 9 times out of 10 I made less than I normally would, and so did everyone else.

I feel trapped, because the conditions at all the other clubs in the area are exponentially worse.  Do I choose the shit sandwich or the shit burrito? Like, what do I even do?  Leaving the industry isn't an option right now because my rent and bills are too high to support it any other way.  Also, I love what I do, and until I go back to teaching ESL in another country, this is what I'm doing.  This is my life.  And it should be better, nationwide, for all of us.

I want to look into the business model of The Lusty Lady.  The country's only dancer owned and operated cooperative strip club and peep show went under a few months ago, after being open for decades.  I never got a chance to visit. RIP.

What my friend affectionately called "Bieber Rós" has just ended, and I'm still pretty angry, but I do feel a little better.

The Eraser

My biggest fear these day is that I'm just as lonely as they are.
But instead of the strip club as my reprieve, no, my solution to my loneliness, the strip club is my cause.  It's isolating working when your peers socialize: nights and weekends.
Upon further thought, I'm realizing there's no possible way I could be as lonely as some of the customers, and it's insulting to their plight to even insinuate it.
Their loneliness is raw like a stench.
The way their work-hardened or age-weathered hands fumble to hold your hand, even for the briefest moment during a dance.
The way they blatantly put their face into your hair and deeply inhale your scent.
These men are starved for female attention.
Most of the time it grosses me out, or makes me sad, but only for a moment.

This is the perfect segue into something that's been on my mind for a long time now, and a big part of why I don't write.  I brought this up with my two best stripper friends on the car ride home after Saturday night's shift, and they confirmed it happens to them, too.  I'm going to call this "thing" a defense mechanism.  Much like from Men in Black, our brains wipe themselves clean after pretty much every interaction.  As I put it, "It's like, 'BOOP! That didn't just happen!'" Oh that guy I just danced for that smelled like urine, diesel and whiskey, but still had the gall to ask me out for dinner?  Nope, didn't happen.

Notable things happen every night, but I forget.  The mechanism gets in the way.

The next night, I set out to fight the mechanism.
It wasn't difficult at a certain point.
There I was, resting my back on the pole and sliding down in front of my audience, one leg already going into the air before I was seated, and the other leg came up.
I looked beyond the men, and up to the TV screen.
Where I work somewhat resembles a sports bar, in that there are flat-screen TVs littering the place, playing everything from golf to UFC.
Tonight it was UFC.
There I am, about to engage in my stage routine, the careful balance I've struck between '50s "I'm really such a lady" coquettishness and straight-up twerking.
I can't stop visibly cringing and wincing as I look beyond the tip rail and see a man's bloodied face spraying blood all over the mat.  It was the most blood I have ever seen in a fight.  His face and bald head were literally COVERED in blood.
This grotesque mashup of extreme violence and selling sex appeal is something I want to be as far away as possible from, and I wanted to ask after I got off stage that they change the channel, but it would fall on deaf ears, as I'm sure almost no one would understand my distress.

Writing this now reminds me of why I can't work at Hooters.  I'm very specific about the kinds of environments I prefer to sell the idea of sex with me in.  Hooters to me is the apex of patriarchy.  Sexed up women serving you food (as they should, being women and all, wink wink;) while you sit back and watch the game.  Vomit.  I began my unexpected "career" dancing at a very traumatizing establishment that mandated a lot of my behavior, and as a bonus, served an all-night free hot dog buffet!!!!! (The consumption of said hot dogs by dancers was strictly forbidden.)  I work now in a place that's jokingly been referred to as the "place where strippers go to retire."  Fuck yeah.  So down with that.  Women run the VIP, the bar, and the full-time DJ is a woman.  Generally, I give my current place of employment a round of applause.  Let's kick our 6-8" stilettos up, and fucking sell (the idea of) sex the way we want to.  No face punching allowed.