The Art of Whore

The title of this post is not supposed to be self-effacing OR ACCURATE, I just thought of it and find it funny.

Anyway.

I was telling J how I did the math and realized I'll be okay money-wise, that it's been dead at the club, but I always manage to squeeze out of there with a buck-fifty minimum, like it always comes SOMEHOW by the end of the night even after tipout, and that the other girls are all really over me by now, because they'll walk out of there with like fifteen, thirty, sixty, on these nights... and I totally understand it because sometimes I'll be sitting there for the first two or three hours and there's like nary a soul around, and I'm like, wow, I'm gonna make ten dollars tonight... But it doesn't happen, and he was like what is it that makes you better at it? So, I'm gonna break it down here. My secrets. The art of the club.

It took me a while to get this... I think like with everything, it's just kinda practice, and I've never really thought about it, but it's kinda like this:

First. If you walk in and one of your regulars is there, you go sit with them obviously, but if they're talking to another girl, you just come with a warm, familiar friendly hello, smile and nod at the lady, and say okay well I'll talk to you in a bit...

If there aren't any regulars, you don't go up to anyone until you go onstage. You go onstage, scope out the crowd, see how people react while you're up there, then take a moment after you get off and go around and gently talk to all of them, slowly approaching, just smiling, see if they're open to talking, ask if they enjoyed the show, everything slowly, clocking the reactions... If they're cheap and at all reluctant to tip, or try to be smartasses, or talk a big game, forget about them completely. Don't even look at 'em again. Usually I'll find one guy who really wants to talk, buys you a drink... Sit down with this guy... See if he's smart, sweet, lonely, hip, nerdy, whatever. Behave accordingly. Match his pace, intelligence, and his sense of humor.

Do not ask if he wants a dance. Stick with him. Wait til your turn onstage again, and he'll tip you a lot when you're up there, which usually makes others do the same, and more interested, cuz they see you're devoting your attention to one guy and not all desperate. Also, obviously, see how much he's tipping, because if he likes you, he'll tip what he can afford, and sometimes that's peanuts, and call for a *graceful exit.

Now, by the time a guy has talked to you for a bit, and feels like he knows you, it's usually totally okay to say, Ok! You stickin' around? I'm just gonna go make the rounds for a bit and see if I can get any dances... Make it kinda funny, and they'll usually be like, Oh of course, do what ya gotta do, or, Hey, aren't you gonna ask me? That way you cover all the bases, and always have someone to go back to and sit with... While you're making the rounds, another girl might come up to them, and ask them for a dance, and they'll be totally overit, and whenever you come back to them they'll want to talk to you.

A lot of the girls will just come up to the guys at the beginning of the night and ask for a dance or talk to them for a second and then walk away and whine in the dressing room how he's cheap and not tipping. Stupid. Most guys who come in early and aren't regulars are lonely and want to like, feel like they're special and have a special connection with a girl, and don't wanna feel like they're being hustled, even though that's exactly what's going on.

Now, later in the night, gets more packed and people are more drunk, I still don't go up and just ask for a dance right off the bat. Again, see who's watching you onstage, and only initiate the dance thing, with the guy you've been chatting to, or the new people who've been watching you, if there's a "Two for One," which is all the frickin' time, like every four songs. Make it sound like a deal, obviously. Explain it earnestly and slowly like a bimbo.

And, of course it helps to be really pretty, and a good dancer. Always seem like you're in a good mood. DON'T COMPLAIN, already. And everything slooooow, slow, slow. These girls just ambush the duders or come at them like vultures. Some of them come on really strong and basically scare the guys into getting dances, and it works for them, but it's not necessary. And besides you don't wanna make your money with dances. I only do that on a shitty night. It means a cut of your earnings, and the really big spenders don't usually get them...

*As far as walking away from a duder, always be cheerful and nice about it and say you'll be around and come back in a bit. Even if you're never ever going near the cheap bastard again.

That's about it. It's pretty obvious and intuitive but kind of hard to perfect. Also... It kinda helps to not be friends with the other girls. They waste their time hanging together and complaining when it's slow and get caught up drinking together and being assholes. Get really LOOSE, I mean, it's never a good idea to turn down a drink... And you wanna be relaxed and fun. And seem a little drunk. But never get drunk. You just lose your focus and sometimes your money.

Yep. That's it.

And furthermore,

The girls at the club- allllll collectively decided to dislike me. I don't give a goddamn, because as soon as I walk in, I plop myself down next to some duder who's gonna shell out all night, who doesn't like lapdances and thinks he's the first person to suggest, Can I just give you the $$ to sit here and talk to you? I don't wanna go in there... and I'm like, yeah, I totally know, it's kinda weird, I'd totally rather talk to you here too, that would be cool... And THEN I don't have to give the percentage of it to the house. So at the end of the night there's the little list with our names and X's next to them for how many dances we did, which determines how much of our hardearned greenbacks we give up, I've got like, one, or three, or no X's... but anyhow... yeah, I just don't talk to them, at all, I come in dressed already under my hoodie and plop the F down.

So this inglorious ho' whose dancer name is so marvelously retarded and gross I will certainly leave it to y'all's imaginations, well the duder she was sitting with pointed at me, as I walked by, like Can you get that girl over here? And S--F-----, who was eating, a fucking hot dog, in the club, no F.N. joke, made an obscene gesture, and I was loaded up, so I walked over there and leaned on the table and smiled at her. And she goes
What
And I go, Hey!
And she goes, Can I help you
And I go, Sure!
And she goes, What?
And I go, I just saw, you makin a little gesture over here, is there a problem?
I wasn't making a GESTURE! Someone OVER THERE... made... like a gesture at ME, so I made a gesture back, I'm just sitting here eating a hot dog!
Okay! Have fun!

So then later while I was talking to a duder she came up to me again, with her spiked insane hair, which she just bleached, which is doing nary a damn thing for her, and like insane makeup, and little latex top and pudgy little boy body-- (I have to give it to her, she puts on quite a show, she can like climb up the ceiling like spiderman, and wears a blindfold and shit, but its not sexy, just.. nuts...) and says, Why did you come over to my table while I was talking?
Same reason you're here at my table now.
What, why, I wasn't even doing anything, I was just sitting there eating a hot dog-
Got it
I pretend like you're not here, you don't even exist to me-
Awesome
I was just sitting there eating a hot dog
O-KAY NOW

This little lady has been dancing here for YEARS and thinks herself quite the queen bee, and is always bitching and complaining. I'm over it. But she and the sexy girl are friends now, that's what they all do at the club, they become little best buddies like, what's that damn game called, where you circle 'round the chairs? Oh, Musical Chairs. yes. like musical chairs. and then talk smack about each other. it's some kind of stunted development high school bizarre objectifying stripper thing. I abstain.

Everything in its right place....

I did everything right today. Class and errands, bought my psych book, printed out my contract with the studio, sent a bunch of letters, saw a couple people I needed to say, played piano for ages and came up with stuff I love and practiced and I've still got yoga and a run to do but I'll do it...

My boss from the club called me Tuesday night, he's always cool as shit, asked what was going on so I said I'll go Saturday so I will.

Jess doesn't want me to be her bridesmaid anymore. I told her I'd help her make an audition tape for some show, help her with the singing and the dance routine. I told her ages ago and she never tried to get together to work on it and when the day rolled around, it was like two and a half weeks ago, she called me a few nights before and was like are you ready and then told me it would take all day, that it was three hours away (she couldn't find a studio in town??) and her friend would be doing makeup and all this SHIT that was never part of the deal... She expected me to drive to her house, almost and hour away at like five in the morning so we could leave to be there at eight, and that we'd "wrap" by 5 pm and I'd get home at EIGHT to be dropped off at work, on my one day off, the morning after a concert, the week I started school. I was like, Oh god babe this is really freaking me out, it's going to be REALLY hard, can you find someone else? If not, I'm there, ok?

And she says, "I'm not gonna get butt-sore [sic] or anything, I can find someone else, it's fine, if not I'll let you know..."

So I said, "Ok, COOL!" OBVIOUSLY. And hoped she'd find someone.

Well, I didn't hear anything back from her, so I asked Manny and he said the audition was cool, though they messed up the tape, yadiyadi, he wasn't there, but he didn't know of any kind of problem she had with me... So I wrote her, and she wrote back, HIGH AND F'IN MIGHTY, how she had decided to ask someone else, because of what I showed with my decision.

Okay, fuck me, I didn't even MAKE a decision, I more like begged to be excused. We've been friends for a while now, and now that I think about it, she's spent a good portion of our time together talking about her "career" which is not a career at all, while I sat there and bit my tongue, having been a professional PERFORMER since I was sixteen, in the ballet COMPANY, and a band, for a living, and she has absolutely no respect for what I've accomplished despite supposedly being on the same "path..." She doesn't ask me about it, anything I've done, important things according to people who are in it, she sits there and tells me how to get an agent, and that oh, she's not gonna study dance, or bother with an instrument, she's going to do commercials to make some money first... She's NOT an actress, she's not a dancer, she's not a singer, it's a lark for her, and she called me self-absorbed??? I don't talk about a goddamn thing with her, she doesn't know about my music, she doesn't know what my JOB is, she doesn't know about Julian of course, but I mean, I don't talk about my work with people-- it's tacky-- it's not interesting, or relatable. I talk about music with other musicians, dance with dancers, writing with writers, exploring it together, the difficulties and the beauty and the path... She sits there and regurgitates this stuff these phony ignorant teachers tell her in these one-day seminar classes, and reads self-help books, and doesn't listen to anything I say the few times I say it, and it's just painful and insulting and inconsiderate, and I don't even know if we were ever close at all now... Then she talks about the things she's done for me and that I needed to give back??? She's given me a trash bag of old clothes that are 4 sizes too big for me-- as if I'm homeless-- and decals for my wall (an object I couldn't even identify, or as Manny says, SWADW (shit we all don't want)), and made me business cards for Christmas which I would never use, but she's been generous, but I didn't know she was keeping COUNT... And I don't have anything to give, I don't live with a fiance who takes care of my shit, I didn't grow up anywhere near here, I don't have family here, I'm pursuing 10 million things all alone and if she ever thought about my life she'd realize a lot of these sacrifices are for the "path," are for music, were for dance, and a lot of them are NOT by choice, and I don't have SHIT, and my headlights are falling off my car, so no, I don't send out Christmas cards. This just really upset me. But whatever.