It was on West 25th Street, near Clark Ave. in case anyone is familiar with the area.
This kind of makes me miss my dancing days, not because of the skanky club thing, just the talking about it…hmmm. Sometimes I think about just going in on a Saturday night and dancing, but I know it won’t be the same. /reminiscing.
I didn’t think I had a story to tell about bad strip clubs until I started reading others stories.
As I’m reading I’m thinking, “Oh, that’s like that time when…” I’ve seen just about everything above, with the exception of the “Pube Fairy” in HideoHo’s post (thankfully).
As I remember these things I realized that every single one of them took place in different clubs in Paterson, New Jersey.
The moral of the story? Don’t go to strip clubs in Paterson, New Jersey.
Learn from my mistakes, please. Someone has to.
Pennsylvania, for some reason, seems to specialize in the skankiest holes imaginable. Back when I still lived there (which means as recently as three months ago, I guess) I’d occasionally check out one joint or another, and have been in maybe 10 or 12 places, all across the state. Always seemed about the same: $15 cover, run by bikers, dancers were thirtyish, tattooed, stringy-haired and sagging in unfortunate places. Even the ones that weren’t dives, such as Cheerleaders in Philly and Club Risque in Bristol, were offputting due to the fact that the dancers would incessantly buttonhole every single customer for tips.
One of my best friends currently works as a dancer in Houston, and that’s a whole 'nother ball game. Of course, one can still find some fairly crappy dives here, if one is so inclined.
“WTF is that dog doing in here?..OH!..uh?..EEK”
the Banana Bar in Amsterdam…a MUST visit if ever in Holland.
" plnnr, where was the Goldrush and how long ago was that? I know most of 14th Street north of the Mall like the back of my hand and I’ve never heard of the place."
I don’t remember what the address was, but it was in 1982. I’m trying to recall the name of another club that was near there, but the name escapes me - “Butterfly” or something like that sticks in my mind but I could be wrong.
Allow me to tell this one backwards.
The moral of the story: Even the worst strip clubs can become the best strip clubs.
I have been to quite a few strip clubs around the country. Generally, the best have been in Vegas and Texas, and the worst in SoCal and the Midwest.
But living quite a while in Atlanta has spoiled me. We have some pretty damn good clubs here. But not all of them.
Back in the mid-eighties, while I was a student at Georgia Tech, I learned of a “tradition”, which was visiting one particular club (the word club is not really accurate). The place was located in a rough part of town, notorious for drugs and prostitutes. The club was located on the ground floor of a hotel that was probably built in the '20s, and wasn’t properly maintained. I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the rooms were rented by the hour.
The place was dank and dirty. It had a reputation for the being the sleaziest place in town. For a Tech student, it was rite of passage, though.
From my first visit, I remember two dancers (I was little drunk at the time). The first was a large (250 lb?) white woman that was probably close to 50 years old. She had an enormous chest, and it may well have been natural. She had two demonstrable skills. First, she would take a full can of Budweiser, place it atop one breast, and then drink the entire can without touching it again with her hands. Once it was empty, she would move the can to between her breasts and crush it.
The other dancer was named Blondie. Blondie was a black woman, probably close to 40 years old, with bleached blond hair.
My favorite Blondie story happend on a later visit, probably around 1990. I was with a bachelor party group, and we had already hit the best clubs in town. We decided to finish our night at this dive. When Blondie made it on stage, she circled around to collect tips. Turns out, our bachelor had passed out while sitting upright in his chair. His best man offered $20 to Blondie if she could wake him up. She went over and did her best to grind him awake. No dice. She then grabbed her breast, swung it around like a baseball pitcher winding up for a delivery, and smacked him across the face. It make a loud SLAP, loud enough to overcome the music. Still, he was not to be awakened. She tried this technique a few more times - no go. She shrugged her shoulders, reached down between her legs, and accumulated the essense that was her. She then proceeded to rub that essense into the bachelor’s mustache. He still didn’t awaken. The best man gave the $20 to Blondie, even though she didn’t win the bet.
I will say that the bachelor didn’t need to do anything other than inhale the next morning to believe the story we shared with him.
The place is called The Clermont Lounge, in the basement of the Clermont Hotel on Ponce de Leon in Atlanta. Fast forward fifteen years, and the place hasn’t changed much (physically). Except its reputation is now one of novelty, and it is frequented by a hip crowd that loves the unusual ambiance. While still a dive, it has taken on a certain chic.
And, oh yeah, Blondie is still there - a crowd favorite.
If you ever want to visit a great BAD strip club, and your in Atlanta, now you know.
Wiley’s, in New York. East Elmhurst/Jackson Heights, Queens, to be exact. Skanky beyond belief. The door was kept locked, and one had to knock at the door and be recognized by the bouncers to be admitted. This was because, in complete violation of the law, the dancers were completely naked. And all sorts of contact was permitted between the dancers and the patrons, ranging from groping up at the bar to god only knows what in the dark and dim rear area.
The crowd was bad news. Looking back, I can’t believe I survived hanging out at that joint.
I’m an insider at a local club, so I can see a lot of these stories from the stripper’s point of view. Drugs do play a big part with certain dancers in certain clubs, but a lot of them are just good people put in a hard situation with only one obvious way out.
One of my best friends continued to dance while she was pregnant, looooong after she should have stopped. It was kinda sad, kinda embarassing. She’s really well known, so a lot of her friends just tipped her and ignored it. The baby’s dad wasn’t helping her, she has no skills, in her mind it was her only option.
At any rate, the worst one I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot) was in Johnson City, TN. I don’t remember the name. It was right on one of the main drags in town, and you could tell it used to be a Tastee Freez or something of that sort, with the windows boarded over. Lots of signage out front, but inside it was small and pathetic. Only two girls and they only got naked it you paid $20 for a private dance in this little closet-sized room off to the side. It was a total scam.
Also there was a bar in Georgetown that was kinda scary. It’s a wonder I didn’t get killed in there. And I remember one in Little Rock that was equally bad, can’t recall either of the names tho.
I wish this was a thread for the BEST club, but then again that’d be a several way tie too. There’s one in Myrtle Beach (southside), I think it’s the Pink Pony, Prancing Pony, something like that. A few of my ex-gf’s used to go down there and dance for a week or so quite often. I once had two tall, blonde sisters do a lap dance there that was unbelievable. EVERY man should have four nipples touching his face at one point in his life. It’s just a must. The Crystal City Restaurant in Arlington is really good too, they have some really nice brass poles there and the girls use them to their advantage. And I always get nostalgic when I remember my first stip bar, The Stage Door in Baltimore on the block. It was a real dive, tiny, but it was my first and I’ll never forget it. To this day, I can’t hear that Luther Vandross song without recalling that girl doing a rug dance, it was a defining moment in my life.
Of course my favorite will always be Juicies here at home, ahh the memories!
I’ve only been in a strip club once. And I couldn’t say whether or not it was good.
My friends decided (guy friends btw. I’m a girl) that they wanted to go to a strip club. They are the ones driving and I have no clue how to get home from here. It’s also only about 1 in the afternoon. So… whatever. We go to the club (can’t remember the name) for about 5 minutes. Long enough to see the dancer, whom I don’t remember much about except she was at least topless at the time, take a look around and leave.
The guys decided they didn’t want to stick around and told me to tell the bouncer, if asked why we were leaving so soon, that I was uncomfortable.
It was a weird 5 minutes…
There used to be a place in Raleigh called the Keg, which actually had some nice looking women in its heyday, but then eventually became the place for biker chicks to dance, with all their tatooes and nipple rings.
This one chick up there was yelling all sorts of foul-mouthed things at us for not tipping her enough, so I went up there with a dollar bill in my mouth. She pushed my head between her legs, grabbed a knife from somewhere, ripped out my underwear. When she let me go, she yelled WHERE’S MY GODDAMN TIP? I said sorry bitch, that was my last dollar.
LOL Brilliant!
:eek:
That is way scary. The last thing I’m thinking of when going to a strip club is getting knifed by a dancer…
What the hell is a “ping pong ball” trick? Or do I even want to know?
vanilla worked for a strip club? :eek:
Um…doing what?
I’ve been to several horrible strip clubs throughout America. I can only remember the names of a few…
The Joker’s Wild - Muncie, Indiana Two words: pregnant dancer.
Amazon - Phoenix, AZ Great looking girls and cheap lap dances, but a buddy of mine nearly got us beaten up by a bouncer. Not a happy memory.
Bob’s Classy Lady - Van Nuys, CA Mercifully closed a few years ago. I assume Bob was being ironic when he named the joint. The worst club I’ve seen around Los Angeles. Plus their ATM extorted a $12 surcharge that I didn’t find out about until after the fact.
I’ve also encountered some amazing/horrifying things in Mexican strip clubs. (Never a donkey show, though one of my friends claims he saw one). In Mexicali, I did see a less-than-wholesome girl stick a lolipop up her holiest of holes and then hand it to a patron, who ate it. I’d hate to even imagine the diseases you can get from that.
A few general rules: The prettiest girls seem to be in the L.A. area (all the beautiful “actresses” hoping to be discovered, I guess). The best lap dances are in Vegas, which also rivals Miami for the most expensive clubs. The worst dancers and ugliest girls work during the day and on weeknights. And always, always avoid the food.
Finally, does anybody know the logic behind the law in several states that allows topless clubs to serve booze but forbids it all nude clubs? I sort of get the origins of most “blue laws” - no alcohol on election day or Sunday, etc. but not that one.
Years ago me and some friends used to go to place in Pompano called “Diamond Dolls”, it had a mix of the most stunningly beautiful women and some skanks. Mostly it was pretty good though.
Once we went to Joe Robbie stadium in Miami (now Pro Player) for a game and hit most the titty bars on the way home to Boca Raton. Hole-in-wall skank-nests, most of 'em. I swear to god, one girl had what looked like TWO BELLY BUTTONS. Maybe it was mutant night or something, I dunno. Freaky.
A buddy of mine tells of the time he went to a really skanky strip club called “Cafe Risque” off of I-75 in Central Florida. This place advertises on the highway for miles…real nice for the kiddies heading to Disneyland. You know, “Exit NOW!” type of billboards. Anyway, my buddy tells me that it was skanky and all but the kicker was…a song started up, a girl came out and she went over to my buddy and turned around to show him her backside and clear as glass he sees a “toliet ring” impression on her butt. She had just got up from the can. He says he’s not been the same since that visit.
One block from Milwaukee’s Performing Arts Center was Art’s Performing Center. The dancers had bruises and cellulite. I went back more than once, hoping that it would get better, but I had to face that Milwaukee was the place for a great Friday night fish fry, not for a strip club.
You guys may knock the clubs in Indiana, but at least try The Hip Hugger in Kokomo. My friend won’t go with less than $200. Their only rules? “Keep your tongue in your mouth and your hands off the cookie jar.”
Haha! I worked there all through college. We had a pretty good group there for a while, but yes, there was the occasional pregnant dancer. I used to make some serious cash in that bar. Innocent little college girls went over well with the rough crowd. God, there used to be some crazy fights in that place. I look back and it’s like it was another lifetime.
Sex, drugs and rock and roll! \m/