Road Trip to Philly

So I spent part of this Memorial Day weekend in Philly visiting K-Dog. My reasoning for this was something along the lines of “I only have enough energy to spend two afternoons at my condo’s pool trying to figure out the girl I’m staring at is 18” mixed with “I want to get away, but don’t have the patience to A) Drive to NY or B) Deal with the out of town douche bags that come to the West End bars for Memorial Day.” Thus on those two noble platforms, a weekend trip began.
I pull up to the apartment in Philly fully prepared. I’ve got a friend with me who K-Dog remembers: Good Ol’ Jack Daniels. He put his full liter outfit on for this trip. First sign we’ll have some fun. K-Dog also has a female acquaintance with him, who has some admirable physical characteristics about her. Unfortunately, it is revealed by him 15 minutes later that she like to munch carpet, so Plan A is out. By the end of the night we’re on Plan AL.
After a delightful dinner at the local TGI Fridays, it’s my favorite part of any night, getting the bottle open and making a dent in it. The said Jack Daniels gets poured quite a bit into my glass, as is the Patron that K-Dog has sitting around. By the time we head out to the bars, I probably have a few beers and 400 mL of liquor in me. That’s what I call a pre-game. We head out to a few bars, combining the above liquors with Hennessy and a few other adult sodas and then finally end up at an Irish bar.
Upon hitting the dance floor, I’m immediately grinding with a girl. This surprises me immensely, because I’m usually the guy who doesn’t dance, but when is drunk enough, gets pissed off at girls who want to dance, just not with him. In fact, I once compared me going out to establishments like this as my emotional response to watching Goodfellas. First I’m like, “Yeah, this is fun, there’s a bunch of hot chicks dancing. This is going to be a great night,” which coincides with my emotion through the first half of the movie where Liotta is saying things like, “As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster,” and Joe Pesci is killing people for having to get his shine box, and you’re thinking, why don’t I watch Goodfellas more often? But by the end I’m in full on, “Why the fuck won’t these bitches dance with anyone? Why do you come to a place to dance with your girl friends? If it’s because I don’t have enough money, just tell me,” mode, which coincides with “So in the end, was it worth it?”, which end with me asking why did I spend 3 hours of my life, knowing Henry Hill would get coked up and rat everyone out? Why, Why? Anyway, back to the story I’m trying to tell and the first of numerous distractions to the actual plot line that you the reader will have to navigate. This girl, however, seems sufficiently skanky enough that I might have a chance of banging her tonight, but experience tells me that I’ll just end up pissed off again. So my liver and I decided to try another approach.
Instead of dancing with the younger girl who is just waiting for a wealthier male to look at her, I decide to change strategies. There are two older women at the bar, looking to dance. One is probably around 40, with the lines on her face to prove it. Her friend is less obviously older, but still looks pretty cute. The dance begins. It was actually kind of refreshing to dance with girls who weren’t looking to grind on you. I mean, 80s (and one could possibly be a 70s) babies don’t just start dry humping the first person they meet in a club. Ah, a simpler time. Anyway, we’re dancing 3 feet apart from each other, which is really not my strong point. Definitely not my strong point when I’m out with a black guy who can do a whole hell of a lot more than just shake his pelvis randomly and dip his shoulders at appropriate times (two staples of my game). So of course K-Dog ends up dancing with the younger, cuter one, and I end up with Squint Lines. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A divorcee looking to get her freak on with no strings attached seems like a good idea to me. What seemed like a good idea was evidently not when K-Dog asked one of them if they wanted to split a cab. Her response was, “No, it’s ok, my husband is coming to pick me up.” After the shock wore of in 15 seconds, I wondered where their rings were and why they even danced with us. My brain swimming in alcohol came to the conclusion that they were just “trying to have a good time” and “35 year olds need to dance to some Ludicris every once in awhile too.” Not the greatest explanation, but it got me from really regretting that I didn’t dance with Lil’ Miss Grind on you 30 seconds into seeing you. Because that probably would have ended badly. In fact, I can almost guarantee that. You know your life might need to have some changes where getting turned down by a 40 year old woman is actually a better scenario than what could have occurred. Let’s just move on before I need a glass of bourbon to continue.
Being that getting turned down by a 30 year old who faked her entire situation to us wasn’t enough of a weird evening, K-Dog asked, “Wanna go to a strip club?” Me, not deterred by the fact that a 40 year old just turned me down, thought nothing of responding, “Sure.” I probably should have been a little more suspicious when K-Dog mentioned that he has a membership at this strip club and that I might be able to get a blow job if I’m a shrewd negotiator. Not that I’m a connoisseur of strip clubs like King Bunt is (who can not only discuss the quality of women at nearly every strip club in New Jersey, but also the quality of the buffet. I made the obligatory comment that Chris Rock has about food at a strip club and I asked King Bunt if he wanted another shot of Henny), but somehow, I was under the impression that wasn’t part of the standard lap dance (but what do I know? My entire strip club experience is from my freshman year when I learned never to take Day-Quil before going to a strip club. You don’t want to be the 18 year old who can’t get it up during a lap dance. I probably killed that stripper’s self esteem for quite awhile).
My should have been suspicions were confirmed when we got to the strip club, if you want to call it that. First off, we were in the hood. Not the rap hood, the real hood. Every other store (nothing else was open at 2:30 in the morning) had bars over it. There was a cop car parked in the middle of the street and someone was arguing with the cop. It also would have been worth noting to myself that they just had a report about the murder rate in Philly going through the roof recently, but that’s what a normal person on a normal night would have thought. I had 10-15 drinks in me (depending on your definition of a drink and what my memory serves me), so I obviously wasn’t thinking about last week’s cnn.com.
I mentioned above that it was a strip club, if you want to call it that. It really was more like someone converted their basement into a place for people to strip in a way to make money between the hours of 12 – 5 AM because they had some available time. It was set up with a bunch of recliners set up on the outside, with the VIP section being made up of actual couches. I wish I was making this up, but I actually got asked to leave “VIP”. They pat you down, not once, but twice for firearms before entering. Plus, they check you wallet for condoms twice as well. After going through the intense security, I walked into what looked like a rap video. Not the ones you see on 106 & Park though. This was pretty much exactly like the ones on BET Uncut at 3 am by rappers you’ve never heard off. As a topper, just to make it more ghetto, someone decided that putting Christmas lights on the walls would add a touch of class. I was the only white person there, and possibly, ever. There was a good 5 minutes where I kept asking myself if this was real.
After sitting in the Lay-Z-Boy for 10 minutes just waiting, I decided, “How many other times am I going to be in a South Philly strip club? Let’s get a lap dance.” Brilliant logic if there ever was. Its part of a long standing tradition of brilliant logic on my part, kind of like “There’s a random girl waiting to have sex with me on the beach, let me run and get condoms” and “There’s no lasting side effects of drinking while concussed, right?” Anyway, there was no possible way I could shrewdly negotiate a BJ from the stripper so this was not even approached (how does one start that off? I’m sure just asking how much would be the appropriate way to go, but isn’t that just prostitution? I’m not sure if there’s a certain moral thing this woman has to be a stripper, but at least she’s not a whore), and I just settled for my lap dance. Upon leaving, I told K-Dog “I wasn’t sure if this was one of those strip clubs where you can’t touch the girls.” He gave me a look that said “Do you see where you are? There’s some girl getting fingered for $5 in singles over there. What made you even ask that question?” I’ve know the guy for 10 years and we’re able to communicate strip club questions through body language. Whoever said 90% of all communication was non verbal was a fucking genius (one final side note to interrupt any semblance of a cohesive story line here: has anyone else been more concerned for the feelings of strippers than me? Between the day-quil and this stuff, I’m starting to see why I don’t go more often. It’s hard to enjoy yourself if your constantly asking yourself retarded questions that normal guys just don’t give a shit about).
As I’m standing around waiting for K-Dog to get his lap dance, I noticed a stripper walking around in a red New Era fitted…with the USSR sickle and hammer. It takes a lot to shock me (as I shout “Whoa, a blue car”!!! while one drives by), but this did. Could this be real? Who is New Era marketing this to? I don’t think any wanna-be hippies are buying New Era hats at $30 a pop, so it has to be to the hip hop crowd. Would any of them think of pairing this with a Che Guevara shirt that wasn’t red? How many teenage hip hop fans even know what that stands for? 12 percent? I’m completely in shock by this.
I first think that this stripper might be a budding Marxist, but soon realize that A) probably not, and B) If she was intelligent enough to actually understand Communist thought, she would have to see that a stripper is probably more comfortable in a capitalistic society. I mean, commanding top dollar for shaking your ass probably doesn’t occur in Communist cultures. There’s probably a flat rate for that type of action regardless of how hot you are. And from my very limited experience with strippers, they try to milk every dollar out of you. They’re not dancing for Mother Russia. Just look at how the Russian whores embraced capitalism. They’re all over Europe already. In fact, this ghetto strip club might be the best example of pure capitalism that I can think of at the moment (there are probably 100 better examples that I’m just too dumb to think of). Consider this:
Supply and demand rules are in effect. There’s a finite supply of women willing to dance naked for complete strangers, and are hot enough to have men interested in the said dance. There is a steady demand from horny males. Thus, a stripper is able to command $20 for a 5 minute lap dance. Most jobs do not have $80-100 (and probably more) an hour pay rate.

The owners of this establishment recognized a need in the market place (a place for gentlemen to be entertained at a reasonable price) in this location (South Philly).

Though most strip clubs in the suburbs have to deal with zoning restrictions, I don’t think this one had quite the same restrictions as the Bada Bing. They probably don’t call the cops unless absolutely necessary. No liquor, so no license necessary. So there’s probably the least amount of government interference in this establishment as you can get. And if you think those strippers report every dollar to the IRS, you also might believe that I have a very slight drinking problem (very slight, I promise).

So there you go, a stripper wearing a hat with the sickle and hammer when she is actually bleeding capitalism out of her. At least that’s what I tell myself when it’s probably just a cold sore from her herpes (kidding, kidding, these were all very healthy girls, don’t sue me). If I hadn’t spent my last $20 on a lap dance from a non-Marxist stripper, I would have definitely bought one from her, just to see if she actually knew what she was wearing. But I don’t even want to think of the fees on an ATM in a strip club. It has to be higher than Chris Henry at the Bengals Memorial Day BBQ (just an awful, awful, awful joke, but I couldn’t think of any other way to finish that paragraph. Please forgive me and don’t hold this against my children).

So now that I think I convinced you at least 32% that this strip club is a great example of what Adam Smith had in mind, what do you think the bouncer would say during this exchange:

Bouncer: What are you doing touching the girls like that?
Drunken Me: That wasn’t me, that was the metaphorical invisible hand of Adam Smith.
Granted the response would be “Fuck you cracker, I’m gonna kick your ass”, but I’d take an ass whooping knowing that I delivered the greatest response ever to a bouncer asking why you’re getting a little too friendly with the strippers.
So that rambling story right there is a microcosm of what I plan to do with this blog. If you ever had a dissertation in your mind on the capitalistic tendencies of a strip club while waiting for your friend to finish his lap dance, this might entertain you. If you’ve ever thought at the end of a night that having the person you were dancing with say “My husband is picking me up” and then going to the most ghetto strip club ever and you go to bed thinking it was a normal night, this might be a blog you want to add to your favorites. If you get half of the movie quotes, sports references and other random insertions that don’t add anything to the story, this could be a way to kill 15 minutes instead of stabbing your eyes with a pencil. If you feel that your outlook on life is a bit too optimistic and want a sardonic and sarcastic commentator to bring you down, please feel free to stop by and check this out every once in awhile. And I’ll stop now before someone makes a snide comment, “You might be a redneck if…”