Showing posts with label Lapdancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lapdancer. Show all posts

Monday, February 1, 2010

Excerpts from "Lapdancer" #1

Titles Posted Later Today


I thought it would be fun to take the next couple of months to revisit my first book "Lapdancer", as I have a new book called "Juliana Beasley/ Sete 2010 coming out in the spring this year.

The following is a short story taken from an interview that I did back in 1999-2000 with a manager from a strip club in Monsey in Rockland County in New York state. The owner told me that I would have to work there to photograph there.

Some of the following photographs have never been published before. Look for more writing and pix in the weeks to come.

I dance a set of 20 minutes, rush to the changing room, grab my Contax, attach my heavy Quantum battery to the side of a g-string that would begin to sag from the weight of it , and hit the floor. In in a half hour's time, I have to play producer, convincing customers to let me photograph them with dancers, collect model releases and snap shots. I hear my stage name over the speaker, "Now, performing Nico!" I dash back to the dressing room, put away my equipment in my duffle bag and reapply my make-up and run back on the stage with a stellar smile on my face.



“The Million Dollar Question”- John


I started out working as a bouncer at a place called Erotique back in the early ’80s. It was the first big club to come into the area, a big strip club. And it was not nude. It was just topless, and there was no alcohol and no lap dancing. Then I went to another club called T & A. Again, no alcohol, no lap dancing. I came here in the early ’90s, and it was totally nude. And so the girls were up on the bar getting their money and stuff. And then one girl came up to me and said, “A guy wants a lap dance.” I had never heard of it. So I went back to my boss, and he knew less than I did. And so what we did is, we put about six chairs towards the back of the club and said, “These are chairs you can lap dance in.” And at that time we told the girls to charge ten bucks per song, and we would get three bucks out of it.


And it got so popular, it was like a mad house, the line to get in and sit on these chairs. And the funny thing was, they did it in front of everybody else. Nobody got shy, nobody was embarrassed. Me, I would have been embarrassed with an erection with a pretty girl sitting on me and everybody else gawking. Because at that time you did have people leaning against the posts or whatever, just looking at the customers with the girls. And the girls didn’t seem to mind—and they were pretty girls.


Eventually my boss, he got this idea. We took out part of the kitchen and we turned that into a lap dance room. We put like little cubicles up, with no doors because we wanted to see what was going on, and made like eight to nine stools. And then the girls were charging twenty-five bucks, and we would charge the customers five dollars just to get into the room. It just took off. People were coming here not to see the girls on stage, but to do the lap dances. And I always said lap dancing is probably going to put prostitution out of business. And what I meant by that is if a guy comes and gets a lap dance and he puts on a condom and if he does spill a little bit, it’s not going to get it on his clothes. Now there’s a plus; you call that safe sex. I think that’s what a lot of men look at it as. They’re not going to take any disease home. They’re going to come to a place like this and if it happens, it happens—you know, if they have an orgasm. Then they go home to their wives.







I’d never heard of it until we started doing it about nine years ago. I’m sure it happened before. But I think since we started doing it, word-of-mouth got around and now all the other clubs around here are doing it. And we advertise: “The best lap dance around.” And that’s what really works for us. We’re known as the club with the lap dance. We used to be called “Up Close And Personal”—the way the girls got on stage and got up in front of the guy. Believe it or not, some of these guys spend thousands of dollars a day on getting lap dances—a day.


Now we’ve even got VIP rooms in the back, where the guy can go in a little private room. There’s cameras in there. And these guys are paying a buck and a quarter [$125] for a half-hour, so they can get a private lap dance with a girl. It’s amazing. It really is.


They don’t know I have cameras back there. I have two different cameras, one an infrared—they think if they turn the lights off I can’t see them. Because let’s face it, I got to support my wife and kids. And knock on wood, I’ve never been shut down or raided. And a lot of clubs that have total nudity and the lap dances and the private rooms and whatever, they’ve been shut down several times. And we haven’t because of that security system.







The girls go back there. The guys tell them stories about how they like their wives, the position of them when they’re making love. Because I have sound on the cameras, too. And the guy will say, “You know, my wife likes it when she gets on her knees and this and that.” And the girls, you know, they talk back to the guys. Some of the guys like to be insulted. They like to have a girl put her high heel in their balls, you know, stuff like that. Some guys are just really weird. They don’t want to get off where other people can just walk by them or whatever. So the private rooms are worth it to them. And some of these guys are like bankers, or big shots in computers and chemists and all this. They come in, they have women’s clothes beneath their own clothes. So they undress; they got a woman’s bra on or whatever. And the girls spank them a little bit on their rear end. Things like that. But no sex goes on. Some guys don’t even want sex.

Several times I’ve caught a guy taking out his penis. And I have a buzzer back there. I hit the buzzer, and send the bouncer back there; he tells the guy the dance is over and he has to leave. I tell the guy he can come back another day. But if I catch him again—which has never happened—he’s out for life.


Don’t forget, I used to bounce before I became a manager. I was a bouncer out there for about three years. And what that means is, I was right next to the customers. So I had relationships with customers coming in and talking about sports, about wives, kids, work, etc. And a lot of guys who came in, I got to be close with, to talk to like once or twice a week. Some guys even came in three or four times a week. A lot of guys just like to come here to get away. I’ve been married seventeen years myself and I can understand…well I can’t understand spending that kind of money on these girls, but I understand when they say they want to get away for a while.








I get to see and hear why they really come here. A lot of guys get into an argument with their wives; they walk out, and they go to a bar and drink. The next thing you know, they get drunk, they go home, now they’re getting violent about it or whatever. Here, it’s a juice bar. So when some guys get into arguments with their wives or whatever, they come here, they see a pretty girl. They know they’re not taking a girl home. The girl will make the guy feel like he is royalty. You know, “Hi, honey. How are you doing?” A guy could be a fat slob with no teeth in his mouth, you know, somebody a girl wouldn’t take a second look at. But if he came in here and he spent a couple of dollars on a soda and paid the admission to get in the door and tipped the girl a couple of dollars, the guy would be treated like he was Brad Pitt.


And so he spends a couple of hours in here. And when he goes home, he feels like he’s taken ten, twenty pounds off his shoulders. He comes home and he’s in a much better mood. He speaks to his wife in a much different tone. Maybe he makes love with his wife that night because he came here and got aroused by the pretty women. And he doesn’t tell his wife where he was. Because if he ever told his wife, his wife would call him all kinds of names and think he was coming here and whoring around and whatever.

It’s just to get away where nobody else knows you—not your boss, not your wife, not anybody. And you come here and because you have a couple dollars in your pocket, you get treated like you’re the boss. You know, “Could I get you a soda?” “Hi, honey. Can I get you a match?” “What’s your name?” Every girl comes around to you asking your name. You know, they’ll listen to your story about what’s going on. And even if it sounds like you’re completely wrong, the girl’s going to tell you you’re completely right. And that’s what you really want to hear. It’s sort of a therapy.







I’m not a therapist. I’m not a psychologist. But you know what? I would think—let’s say people that rape girls—I’d rather have a guy come into a strip bar and get a couple lap dances and whatever and go home than go out looking for a pretty woman and raping her. You understand what I’m saying? That could help them also.


There’s a whole bunch of really good reasons why clubs like this should be allowed to operate and offer lap dances. Because some guys…let’s face it, there’s some ugly guys out there; their grooming is not…they smell or whatever. And these guys can come here and get a beautiful woman who would never give them a second look, who give them a lap dance, wrap their arms around their neck and whisper in their ear. It’s almost like a date.


Don’t forget, some of these guys are not married. They will probably lay in bed for weeks at a time while they save up their money and think about, “Wow, I know Vanessa’s going to be there on a Wednesday. I’m working overtime this week. Let me go there and see my baby.” They call them regulars.


These guys get thinking that they’re the only guys in these girls’ lives, know what I mean? They send them flowers, candies, Christmas gifts, all that sort of stuff.


I sit back here with my two bosses and sometimes we’ll see a girl in the lap dance room with a guy, and he’ll put like twelve hundred dollars on his credit card. And our question will be, “Well, Jesus, he’s back there for all this while, why the hell doesn’t he just go down to Atlantic City and get an escort?” I don’t have the answer to that. I really don’t. That’s the million dollar question.







The million dollar question. We often wonder about that around here. Because I can speak for myself. If I was not married or I had problems with my wife, instead of coming here and spending four or five hundred dollars and then going home with a big old hard on, I would probably go somewhere, down to Atlantic City or to New York City, so that I can get an escort that’s kind of classy, and pay the five hundred for I don’t know how long. And then I’m definitely going to get what I went there for.




Saturday, April 4, 2009

Hard Heels Meet Hard Times

"It's really hard for me right now."

"Yes, it's hard for everyone right now," she said. I nodded slowly like a sprouting kvetch.

"Dancer in Manager's Office at Runway 69", NYC, 1993. Juliana Beasley.
Notice money safe in background.




Last night, Amy and I met a the Singe Vert , one of my favorite French restaurants. I rarely eat there, with my tight wallet, I just can't spring for pommes frites like I once could, but I always manage to lubricate or drown--depending on the mood--my taste buds with a dry white wine or two. That's less costly than a meal in than any place in NYC with nice faux French caffe posters and no more than 5-6 points on the Weight Watcher's rector scale.

I can always depend on banter and a cackle with the stunning and down to earth, Maia, a bartender with lovely Caribbean curls surrounding her delicate face. For that moment, that first sip, I am in heaven, and the lure of a drink seems healthier than daydreaming about future negative predictions of me rolled in a sleeping bag on the streets of NYC next winter. I hope, at least, I will take the Greyhound out to the Cali coast before I tank, jump on a plane to Honolulu and go couch surf at my friend, Debbie's apartment.

I am queasy. I've been stuffing my face with bread all day...my first excuse to go to the restaurant and gobble down two baskets of French bread. I arrive at Singe Vert, sit on the bar stool near the open door, and take off my jacket.

"I can't drink," I say as if I am walking around with a gaping bleeding wound.

Maia offers a wonderful potion of seltzer, fresh ground ginger and the bitter stuff in the small bottle. With ice. I sip away and gorge myself away to the other place--Land of Carb Denial. Anything to fill that wound. By the time, Amy (yes, the Miss Amy Stein) has arrived, I have started to rock back and forth on my stool to build up some heat in my body. I'm chilled. It's the first signs of spring and people are sitting outside and the door is wide open. I think it must be 57 degrees out there.

"Jessica and Her Boyfriend", Jersey Shore, 1995?, Juliana Beasley



"We gotta' get out of here. I'm freezing."

She suggests the perfect anecdote, sake in a Japanese restaurant nearby and happiness, it's empty. Empty enough for my nauseous stomach. And better yet, happy hour--sake at half price.

After a couple of petite ceramic bottles of sake and the gush of my latest drama, my stomach feels a lot more basic than caustic. I tell Amy, that just last night, I went to the bathroom half asleep, then fell asleep on the toilet and awoke bruised on the tile floor. I'm really proud of this...that I fell asleep on the toilet; despite the probable indecencies, most nights, I can't find a reason to sleep.

John, her super duper husband (no, it's just not fair and accept it) arrives, we have gone through so many little bottles that we forget how many. One thing is certain, we feel a little giddy--that's normal in each others company--but, not in the least bit stoned. Yep, for $2.50, no matter how many thimbles, we drink, we still sit straight up in cushioned hideaway lounge in the back corner. I, however, now have a headache, rumble through my bag of notebooks, prints and pharmaceuticals and grab for those fast acting liquid Motrin.

John is hungry. Outside, we say good-bye.

"I miss you guys", I say. They walk away and I walk towards the Path.

As I walk away, I remember, I didn't bother to tell her, I chipped an important and private tooth that day while eating a bagel with tofu vegetable spread. I had already sent out the alarms to Tia. She suggests the cheapest place in town to go to have it repaired. NO INSURANCE.

I'm home. I turn on my non digital t.v. with the bent rabbit ears, go into the bathroom and fill it with a think layer of hot water to soak the feet. I have learned how to give myself a pedicure at home. One evening, the kundalini teacher named Gurmukh Khalsa at Golden Bridge Yoga inspired the class to massage and give love to your feet at the end of the day. She and her husband do it together, so, I begin to think I should start doing it to myself. I doubt it's the same as incense burning and lovingly looking into a partners eyes and chanting "Sat Nam", but this is all I might get for a while.


Days past of trolloping off to the East Village nail salon for a mani/pedi. Dancer days done, of scooping hands into a sock drawer reaching for crumpled twenties and dollar bills. Dancer days done, of never having to visit the ATM. Done.

"Dancer Sitting on Customer's Lap", Runway 69, NYC, 1993, Juliana Beasley.



I sit up on the coach. A towel lays beneath my tender freshly soaked feet. I grab for that callous razor, I bought the other day at Duane Reade. I teased and flirted with the cute boy with acne who led me to the foot section.

Yes, I had arrived. I am in the old foot person's section. My pedestrial future ahead of me. Callouses, corns, genetic features of bunions from mother, falling arches, in grown nails. The day will come when I will be a Sleestack.

"If I can't put this razor together, I'm going to come back and you can teach me," I said.

He smiled, said he would be there to help and actually, I thought he looked as if I had brightened his boring evening of stocking adult diapers and tampons, side by side.

April 3rd, 2009. The latest news. Senseless maniacal murders in Binghamton. How many of these murders happen a year in this country, I wonder.

I've done it again. I've applied too much pressure on the handle and the razor shaves off too much. In any case, I'm enjoying this, watching the slivers of flesh fall onto the towel in little perfect Parmesan shavings.

I wake up this morning, a dream fresh in my mind...I will go to esthetician school. I need a job. And in hard times, everyone needs their feet to be groped and coddled.

**I took the above B&W photographs in a NYC club called "Runway 69" back in 1993. I knew one of the dancers from the Paradise Club on 33rd St., also in NYC. I was still shooting in black and white before I moved over to color. I actually photographed very little over the beginning years of making "Lapdancer". I feel inspired to scan some of these negatives from the past.

I want to mention that I put these 5X7's up and 11X14's up for sale at Melanie Flood Projects for meager prices. No one bought anything.

Alas, the other night at the wonderful opening of Shen Wei's opening of the "Almost Naked" show (more to come on that....), dear Rubin Natal-San Miguel of the fab Artmostfierce bought two of the 5X7's that I toted along with me that evening to Randall Scott's Gallery, newly opened in Dumbo. And he has preordered another.


"Three Dancers in Dressing Room at Runway 69", NYC, 1993, Juliana Beasley.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Million Dollar Question

"All Nude Shows", Tampa, 2002.

The following interview with John, a manager from T&A's Club in New York is excerpted from my book, "Lapdancer" published in 2003 with powerHouse Books.


“I started out working as a bouncer at a place called Erotique back in the early '80s. It was the first big club to come into the area, big strip club. And it was not nude. It was just topless and there was no alcohol and no lapdancing. Then I went to another club called Pleasure Palace. Again, it was alcohol, no lapdancing. I came here in the early '90s and it was totally nude. And so the girls were up on the bar getting their money and stuff. And then one girl came up to me and said: "A guy wants a lapdance." I had never heard of it. So I went back to my boss and he knew less than I did. And so what we did, we put about six chairs towards the back of the club and we said: "These are chairs you can lapdance in." And at that time we told the girls to charge 10 bucks per song, and we would get three bucks out of it.

They were fully nude lapdances. Yes, they were. No, I'm sorry, excuse me. They had the G-string on, yes, they did. And it got so popular, it was like a mad house; a line to get to sit on these chairs. And the funny thing was, they did it in front of everybody else. Nobody got shy, nobody was embarrassed. I would have been embarrassed with an erection with a pretty girl sitting on me and everybody else gawking. Because at that time you did have people leaning against the posts or whatever just looking at the customers. And the girls didn't seem to mind, and they were pretty girls.

Eventually my boss, he got this idea. We took out part of the kitchen and we turned that into a lapdance room. We put like little cubicles up, with no doors because we wanted to see what was going on; and made like eight to nine stools. And then the girls were charging 25 bucks and we would charge the customers five dollars just to get into the room. It just took off. People were coming here not to see the girls on stage, but would come to do the lapdances. And I always said lapdancing is probably going to put prostitution out of business. And what I mean by that is: If a guy comes and gets a lapdance and he puts on a condom and if he does spill a little bit, it's not going to get on his clothes. Now there's a plus, you call that safe sex. I think that's what a lot of men look at it as. They're not going to take any disease home. They're going to come to a place like this and if it happens, it happens -- you know, if they have an orgasm. Then they go home to their wives.


"Jillian and Customer", Tampa, 2001.

I'd never heard of it until we started doing it about nine years ago. I'm sure it happened before. But I think since we started doing it, word of mouth got around and now all the other clubs around here are doing it. And we advertise: “The best lapdance around.” And that's what really works for us. We're known as the club with the lapdance. We used to be called "Up Close And Personal" -- the way the girls got on stage and got up in front of the guy. Believe it or not, some of these guys spend thousands of dollars a day on getting lapdances -- a day.

Now we've even got V.I.P rooms, where the guy can go back there in a little private room. There's cameras in there. And these guys are paying a buck and a quarter for a half hour, so they can get a private lap with a girl. It's amazing. It really is.

They don't know I have cameras back there. I have two different cameras. I have a camera that they think if they turn the lights off I can't see them. I have infra red cameras back there. Because let's face it, I got to support my wife and kids. And knock on wood, I've never been shut down or raided. And a lot of clubs that have total nudity and the lapdances and whatever and they have the private rooms, they've been shut down several times. And we haven't because of that security system.

The girls go back there. The guys tell them stories about how they like their wives, the position of them when they're making love. Because I have sound too on the cameras. And the guy will say: "You know, my wife likes it when she gets on her knees and this and that." And the girls, you know, they talk back to the guys. Some of the guys like to be insulted. They like to have a girl put their high heel in their balls, you know, inside the pants, of course. Some guys are just really weird. They don't want to get off where other people can just walk by them or whatever. So it's worth it to these guys. And some of these guys are like bankers, or big shots in computers and chemists and all this. They come in, they have women's clothes beneath their own clothes. So they undress; they got a woman's bra on or whatever. And the girls spank them a little bit on their rear end. Things like that. But no sex goes on. Some guys don't even want sex.

Several times I have caught a man taking out his penis. And I have a buzzer back there. I hit the buzzer. I send the bouncer back there and he tells the guy the dance is over, and the guy has to leave. I tell the guy he can come back another day. But if I catch again -- which has never happened -- he's out for life.

Don't forget, I used to bounce before I became a manager. I was a bouncer out there for about three years. And what that means is, I was right next to the customers. So I had relationships with customers coming in and talking about sports, about wives, kids, work, etcetera. And a lot of guys that came in, I got to be close with, to talk to like once or twice a week. Some guys even come in three or four times a week. A lot of guys just like to come here to get away. By that I mean -- I've been married 17 years myself and I can understand -- well, I can't understand to spend that kind of money on these girls, but I can understand when they say they want to get away for a while.


"Jets", Monsey, New York. 2000.


I get to see and hear why they really come here. A lot of guys get in an argument with their wives; they walk out and they go to a bar and drink. The next thing you know, they get drunk, they go home, they're having violence or whatever. Here, it's a juice bar. So when some guys get in arguments with their wives or whatever, they come here; they see a pretty girl. They know they're not taking a girl home. The girl will make the guy feel like he is royalty. You know: "Hi, honey. How are you doing?" A guy could be a fat slob with no teeth in his mouth, which a girl wouldn't take a second look at. But if he came in here and he spent a couple of dollars on a soda and paid the admission to get in at the door and tipped the girl a couple of dollars, the guy would be treated like he was Brad Pitt.

And so he spends a couple of hours in here. And when he goes home, he feels like he's took 10, 20 pounds off his shoulders. He comes home and he's in a much better mood. He speaks to his wife in a much different tone. He probably makes love with his wife that night because he came here and got aroused by the pretty women. And he doesn't tell his wife where he was. Because if he ever told his wife, his wife would call him all kinds of names and think he was coming here and whoring around and whatever.

A small percentage of them do release; the most of the other ones, they come here just to get away. It's just to get away where nobody else knows you -- not your boss, not your wife or anything. And you come here and because you have a couple dollars in your pocket, you get treated like you're the boss. You know: "Could I get you a soda?" "Hi, honey. Can I get you a match?" "What's your name?" Every girl comes around to you asking your name. You know, they'll listen to your story about what's going on. And even if it sounds like you're completely wrong, the girl's going to tell you you're completely right. And that's what you really want to hear. It's sort of a therapy. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist. But you know what? I would think, let's say people that rape girls; I'd rather have a guy come into a strip bar and get a couple lapdances and whatever and go home than go out looking for a pretty woman and raping her. You understand what I'm saying? That could help them also. There's a whole bunch of really good reasons why clubs like this should be allowed open and lapdances are going on. Because there's some guys, let's face it, there's some ugly guys out there ... their grooming is not ... they smell or whatever. And these guys can come here and get a beautiful woman that would never give them a second look, that give them a lapdance, wrap their arms around their neck and whisper in their ear. It's almost like a date.


"Lipstick", Tampa, Florida, 2002.


Don't forget, some of these guys are not married. They will probably lay in bed for weeks at a time while they save up their money and think about: "Wow, I know Vanessa's going to be there on a Wednesday. I'm working overtime this week. Let me go there and see my baby." They call them regulars.

I don't think guys comes here because they're going to come here and have sex and all that stuff. It's not like that. These guys think that they're the only guys in these girls lives. You know what I mean? They send them flowers, candies, Christmas gifts, all that sort of stuff.

I sit back here with my two bosses and sometimes we'll see a girl in the lapdance room with a guy, and he'll get put like $1,200. on his credit card. And our question will be: “Well, Jesus, he's back there for all this while, why don't he just go down to Atlantic City and get an escort?” I don't have the answer to that. That’s the million dollar question. Maybe the answer is: He does not want get laid. Maybe the answer is that in his mind he really likes this girl and he'll go home maybe and give better sex to his wife.


"Gary and Porshe", T&A's, Monsey, New York, 2000.

The million dollar question. We often wonder about that around here. Because I can speak for myself. If I was not married or I had problems with my wife, instead of coming here and spending four or $500. and then go home with a big old hard on; I would probably go somewhere, down to Atlantic City or to New York City, so that I can get an escort that's kind of classy and pay the $500. for I don't know how long. And then I'm definitely going to get what I came there for.

I've seen some of the girls that travel around here in the local little towns, that stand by bus stops and taxi stations. They have no teeth in their mouth. They look like they've been smoking crack for the last two months. What guy'd want to get something ... like that in his car? Or a guy might be afraid if he goes with this girl to release himself, he's going to get knocked over his head and get his wallet stolen. You get AIDS if the condom bursts or something like that.

It could be a safety factor, a feeling of being safe in a place like this. You know there's a bouncer here. You know the girl's not going to reach down and take all your money. You understand what I'm saying? A guy can come here with a $1,500. suit on, with a $100,000.-a-year job and feel safe here, and come and get himself a lapdance and not look like he's weird and not be gawked at by everybody.

Maybe a guy doesn't want to have an orgasm. And maybe another reason is because he is a masochist-- I'm not talking about masochism like sado masochism; I'm just talking about psychological masochism. Maybe his big thing is to come to a place and get abused, verbally abused by a girl or get pampered by a girl and then go home and masturbate to the memory of it.
Or they probably go home and screw their wife, because they're not too appealing to them. I'm a guy, I can speak from experience. I would argue with my wife; sometimes I would go out in a bar and I would get drunk and them come home and try to make love or whatever. Guys just want different ways of getting frustration out of some sort. You know what I mean?


If I was stressed out one day and I road by and said: "There's that place. Let me just stop in there and see what's going on." And all of a sudden I meet this girl. Let's say her name is Girl X. And I talk to her for about maybe an hour and I spend maybe 50, 60 bucks tipping her for an hour. And I really think that I have a chance with this girl. I'll come back and I'll probably come back and back and back and back. And you know, you don't know the kind of games these girls run on guys. Some of these girls can tell guys that: "Yes, I really do like you. I'm in an abusive relationship. Can you help me out? I wish I could live with you." It's all a big game here. The guy plays a game because he's telling the girl: "Yes, you could probably live with me and I'll take care of you," because he wants to get in her pants. And the girl plays the game with the guy because she wants to get into his wallet. Most of the time the girl gets in the wallet but the guy never gets in the pants.”



Monday, January 26, 2009

I am Your Biggest Fan!


"Self Portrait as Nico. Counting Money in Dressing Room", 1995



In the winter of 1995, I was sitting on the cold tile floor of the dressing room in a strip club in Rockland County. I was doing what I did every night--counting my money midway through my 4pm to 4am shift. I was tired. I needed a dancer's working vacation in the sun. I set my sights on Hawaii since my friend, Kaylani and a friend of hers named Bella were going out there anyway. I had my dark hair cut into a bob and had it perfectly tinted a shade of blond that realistically matched the color of my olive skin or at least I thought so. I decided to go from the harsh east coast stage name of "Nico" to the softer and more cutesy name "Jesse" to fit my new hairdo.

Over the next 10 months, I flew back and forth from NYC to Honolulu about 3 times, breaking up my time between the two cities as if I was living between two neighboring states. For months at a time, I lived out of an inexpensive high rise hotel with a weekly rate on the less touristy side of Waikiki.

It was sunny everyday in Hawaii with the classic rainbow over beautifully volcanic chiseled mountains and yet, my mood remained as sallow as the color of the room where I lived. With or without my dangling chili pepper lights, candles, incense and the magazine cut outs, that I had plastered all over the walls to make it feel more homey, my days before running off to work felt like I was living in solitary. In a room, full of beige and orange interwoven cushions on furniture to match the variant bedspread, I felt the lingering presence of some malicious hotel interior designer who thought it would be the most practical to maintain an aura of hideous ennui for many many years to come.

The following Polaroids are bits of my personal treasure-trove, memories of working in a "theatre" strip club in a strip mall on Kapiolani.

Two of the photos are from Queens and New Jersey, but all have one theme in common. I decided to have a "fan photo" taken with various feature dancers as a mimicry of customers who often paid for the same service, in order to take a token of the nights evening, and the dancer, away and home with them.

"Nico and Scandalous in New Jersey", 2006.





"Jesse and Minka", Hawaii, 1995




"Jesse, Braven and Unknown Feature Dancer", Hawaii, 1995



"Jesse and Unknown Feature #2", Hawaii, 1995.

"Jesse and Unknown Feature #3", Hawaii, 1995.


"Nico and the Ray Sisters", Queens, NYC, (1993?).


"Jesse with Unknown Feature Dancer #4", 1995.


The following is an excerpt from my book, "Lapdancer" from powerHouse Books, 2003.


"The stripper lifestyle has its own comforting and predictable routine. Sleeping until 11:00 a.m. (or later, as the week progresses), I drag my tired body out of bed across my studio apartment. A sore body is a reminder of a night well spent, money made, counted, and stashed in forever changing hiding places. Mysteriously browned and callused knees and elbows offer further evidence of my nightly pursuits. Some mornings, I awake still brooding over a night when I have fallen below my average, and berate myself for my lack of motivation on the job or some other possible personal defect that might explain falling short of my quota.


A shower would follow, then a walk into the daylight to a local restaurant where I would sit alone, ponder my future, and reward myself with a sensible non-fattening meal in my trendy Manhattan neighborhood. I hardly had time to hand wash my costumes. They smell of cigarettes, sweat, and the sweet perfumes customers complement me on. Instead I opt for a nap, awake, pop three Advil, and an hour later pick up a double espresso on the run, toting my work duffel bag filled with my best moneymakers—a tight leopard-print dress, a silver Brazilian bikini, a sequined mini, and stiletto heels. One might have thought I was just another ballet dancer running off to a class in the middle of the day.

At first it was buses, trains, and taxis; then later, private drivers like Aman, the yellow cabbie who doubled as my therapist, forever bolstering my spirits like a trainer with his boxer before entering the ring. We would make the usual stops: coffees, brownies, bottles of Jack Daniels. Several blocks before arriving at the designated club, I would let out a sigh. No, I don’t want to go. I’m too tired. I’m sick of the men and I’m even sick of the girls.

He teases me, “Do you want to go home?”
“No,” I reply.

Next came Aramis, the crazy-eyed driver from Uruguay who charged less than Aman, but with him there would always be the risk of getting into some sort of collision, like the time we hydroplaned across three lanes on the Westside Highway, hit a marker on the side of the road, and flipped his Suburban. But the price was right and I was determined to keep expenses low, even at the risk of dying next to a man whose conversational skills consisted of “Hi, Nico.”
The structure I’d created for myself was satisfying for the most part because I immediately saw the results of my hard labor. Here I was, an unskilled worker, earning double what my friends in “straight” jobs were making.


I loved the music, dancing on stage, and the instant connections I made with fellow dancers—and at times, even with customers. For eight hours on nights I danced, I was taking a break from my own complex and contradictory life. In reality I rarely dreaded going to work, unlike with other jobs I had had in the past. Dancing felt emotionally cathartic, empowering, and at times just like another creative extension of myself. I developed my dancing style partially by mimicking other dancers and partly through trial and error. I performed five days a week to a normally adoring public. Sometimes it felt like being a rock star, or what I imagined being a rock star might feel like: discounts on hotels, personal drivers, and makeup."