The Broad's Side

People tend to draw a very hard line when it comes to strip clubs. Some women get all bent out of shape and consider it cheating if their significant other looks at naked women. I personally don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I don’t think it’s a big deal if a dude makes the occasional journey to the ‘gentleman’s club’ with his buddies for a bachelor party, birthday or even a random Tuesday night. With that being said, there’s clearly an issue if your husband is known as ‘creepy boner guy’ and is a lunch rush regular at the ‘Jiggly Room.’ As with everything else in life, there are tiers in the world of strip clubs. All titty bars are not created equal. For most people, if you work hard and apply yourself, you have the opportunity to advance. You can climb that metaphorical corporate ladder, if you will. When your profession of choice is exotic dancer, chances are that you begin your career at the top. In this world, it’s more of a ‘non-corporate slide’, maybe even a water slide. Sure there are rare instances where you can advance yourself with a brand new boob job or something to that effect. But, realistically if you’re the small breasted naked girl in the room, your enhancement fund is probably getting pirated by ‘Chesty Galore’ and the likes. If you’re one of the lucky few that actually gets a shot in one of the elite clubs like the ‘Dollhouse’ in Ft Lauderdale or ‘Scores’, you have struck stripper gold. You are primed to be on a dating reality show or play a beautiful corpse on an episode of CSI Miami. This is also your window to marry a professional athlete, musician or possibly even Kelsey Grammar.

Make no mistake; there are none of these elite strip clubs in Cleveland. The best we have to offer here is ‘Christie’s Cabaret’, which used to be named ‘Tiffany’s’. Unfortunately, the exquisite jewelry company famous for those blue boxes took exception to the name being used to identify stripper’s boxes. I’m pretty sure there were some legal proceedings to solidify the name swap. Professional athletes would be more inclined to spend their cash here than at any of the million other nudie bars in town, and one or more members of ‘Bones Thugs N Harmony’ have definitely been arrested there. There’s even a loosely choreographed routine to ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’. No, I’m not saying it was choreographed by a slut…it’s just not very creative or really any good at all. I think it’s supposed to be a real crowd pleaser. It’s the moment when the dudes are supposed to pick out their favorite girl like some kind of prized cattle. The place appears to be relatively clean, although I wouldn’t want to see what kind of fluids one of those crime scene black lights detected. If you’re an attractive college girl attempting to piss off your father, this type of place is right up your alley. The good news is that there’s a cover charge to keep out the riff-raff and they don’t allow men to wear muscle shirts aka ‘wife beaters’. In my opinion, there should be a worldwide ban on that. The key is to make your money and get out before you end up sliding down the ranks a little further.

You definitely do NOT want to find yourself at one of these mid-tier joints. This is the K-mart cart attendant equivalent in the world of strippers. You will be wishing you had followed up on that cosmetology course or married that guy from Color Me Bad during your all too brief stint at Scores in the early 90’s. There are inevitably two or three douchebags at the bar motherfucking their decision to wear that white Hanes tank top. “Why God…Whyyyy??” If there’s a karaoke night which overshadows the fact that your naked ass is parading around, that should tell you it’s time to hang em up. If management has substituted the stripper pole with a ‘Sit N Spin’ to be more cost effective, you know your career is about to end. The homeless guy in the bar for warmth doesn’t even bother to ask you for change because he knows you’re gonna need it.

The bottom of the food chain is where the true entertainment is. One particular example that comes to mind is a place called the ‘Lido Lounge’. The word lido often describes what one might consider vacation- like settings. It’s defined as an open-air swimming pool or a part of a beach used by the public for swimming and sunbathing IE: The lido deck on a cruise ship. Sounds heavenly, right? Well, this particular establishment fortunately is not near water. There would be far more suicides by drowning if that were the case. I’ve affectionately referred to it as the place ‘where strippers go to die’. Remember the version of Lola from Copacabana, thirty years after Rico put a cap in Tony’s ass? That’s what you get at the Lido Lounge. Every town has a strip club like this. The marquee outside says something like ‘Neked Girls’ and there’s a guard dog tethered to a bar stool. The 50 year old ‘girls’ have boobs that resemble old cornhole bags, and there’s a few thirty year old cesarean scars floating around. What the hell? Did they use chainsaws for these operations back then? The matriarch of the club wheels herself around on a Rascal scooter with coin slot where you can deposit change because this is how the scooter is powered. If you don’t pay up…she’s not leaving. Tip wisely, my friend. She’ll sit there in her glittered thong and chain smoke all night, just waiting for sweet death. You’ll never see any fancy Motley Crue based choreography here. The jukebox likely has Dean Martin and Mel Torme selections. This kind of place is always crawling with people that work third shift. They’re all there for the breakfast lap dance. Have you ever seen the people they lock inside Target at night to stock the dog food aisle? I assure you, Target would like to keep it that way.

Everybody has a story, and sometimes we need to dig a little deeper to get to the bottom of it. Who knows what chain-smoking Candi from the Lido Lounge has in her vault. I’d like to think her career didn’t start with simultaneously smoking three filter-less Marlboros through three different orifices. Wouldn’t it be great if she learned that touring with the Rolling Stones three tiers ago when she was a hot piece of ass? In my vivid imagination, Candi is ‘Lola’ to Mick Jagger’s ‘Tony’… except he’s not dead. Or is he? Hmmm…