Things I Think At A Strip Club, Part 2

Rob Fox12 years ago

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the Palazio Men’s Club in Austin, Texas with a couple of fraternity brothers. Despite living in Austin for over a year now, this was actually my first local strip club experience. As is the case every other time I enter a strip club drunk and enthusiastic (though how could you enter a strip club any other way), my mind was racing. So many sights! So many sounds! So many tits! This DJ is a douche!

The following are some thoughts and observations from my lovely evening at the Palazio Men’s Club.

Strippers Are The Worst Liars

When we got there the place was packed, and the only open table was where a guy had just finished getting a dance. He was gone, but the stripper was still there, redressing herself only to undress again, like a slutty Sisyphus. I immediately sat down and laid claim to the table and naturally the stripper strikes up a conversation with me. It was the only thing natural about her, if ya catch my drift…

(*elbow nudge*)

Eh! EH! …Fake tits.

So the first thing she tells me is her name, which she says is Sara or something, which of course is bullshit. It’s bullshit not only because it’s absolutely not her real name, but also because that’s a stupid stripper alias. Sara? Who gives a shit about that name? If she was trying to go for the whole girl next-door thing it was really clashing with the gothic rose garden tattooed across half her back, and the fact that she was taking clothes off for money.

I offered Sara ten dollars if she would change her name to Chandelier, she declined. I don’t think she understood how her job worked. Sara then started talking about how she is a huge nerd who spends all her free time playing X-Box Live. LIES.

I assume that she was just trying to be relatable to me, and thought I looked like a nerd who would be turned on by a girl who’s into X-Box. Apparently in her eyes wearing khakis and an oxford makes you a nerd. FUCK YOU SARA I LOOK COOL!

Her opinion made sense to me though, because I assume her vision of masculinity involves lots of Tap Out and Affliction. Coincidentally, I later spotted some guy there wearing a flatbill that had the chemical composition of testosterone stitched out across it, with the word “TESTOSTERONE” stitched beneath it in some sort of jagged, extreme, all-caps font. It was the most impressive meathead accessory I’ve ever seen. You can’t even call that a hat, that’s a Douche Crown.

So Sara tried to play the nerd card because she thought I looked like a nerd, which was funny, because even though I don’t own an X-Box, she sounded like she had no idea what she was talking about.

I wondered how far these girls go to relate to customers, and why she went to all that trouble talking about X-Box when she could have just changed her name to Chandelier for ten easy dollars.

All this conversation wasn’t something I was used to. In East St. Louis, where my only other cognizant strip club memories have occurred, if they try to relate, it’s usually about sports. Though that might have something to do with the fact that 70% of East St. Louis strip club patrons are wearing some sort sports related clothing. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some establishments on the East Side that, if you walked in with a normal shirt on, would force you to wear a Marshall Faulk jersey like upscale restaurants do with blazers. Mostly though, the girls on the East Side just dance (and give backroom BJs). Real pros over there.

These Austin strippers were a lot more affable, to the point where if someone walked in wearing a t-shirt that read, “I <3 Gardening and Murder” I think they’d at least make an attempt to relate. “Oh you like gardening and murder? Crazy! I just strangled a family of squirrels that got into my tomato plant the other day. There’s nothing like seeing the light leave their eyes. Or a fresh tomato! Want a dance?”

Mexican Dudes Take Their Lap Dances Seriously

Not to stereotype, but every Mexican guy at this strip club was disturbingly into his dance. Like, “making sex faces” into it. Seeing some guy’s eyes rolling into the back of his head with pleasure while you’re taking a sip of beer and casually scanning the room is an unpleasant image, and a hard one to scrub from your brain. I recommend immediately ordering Rumplemintz.

Maybe it’s because I’m a 12-year-old at heart (that’s probably it), or maybe it’s because I have zero respect for anything in a strip club, but whenever I get a dance I have to hold back laughter. Dances are sort of one of the funniest things ever.

How can you do anything but smile at a strip club? That is of course unless you’re a stripper, in which case you might be dead inside, totally understandable. Strip clubs are infinitely more hilarious than they are erotic, and the seriousness of those Mexican guys creeped me the fuck out.

The old white guys there are creepy too, don’t get me wrong, but they still have a tinge of shame on their faces. They know they’re perverts. They know their ex-wife is having a nice seafood dinner with a banker while they sit there letting a community college dropout rub her glittered, spray-tanned body all over their pleated slacks.

I don’t really care who I share a strip club with, because there are going to be creeps of all creeds and colors depending on where you go, but if I had to choose, I’d really like to go to a strip club full of Japanese businessmen. They are the Holy Grail of observable perverts. That’s on the bucket list.