fankie…the blog

I should have known, and in fact I pretty much did know that it was going to be one of those days when I ordered my first beer. “Did you want a 16 ouncer or a 22?” All the sudden, I’m in the Dolorean and I’ve just hit 88 miles per hour and I’m back in 1997. “22, please.”

Before taking the first sip from the frosty, statuesque mug of brew, though, I jumped back into the time machine to the present and took a second to ponder the beauty of what sat before me. No need in rushing to the third or fourth one. It’ll get here young man, I thought.  Then Zay rolled in, and all that shit was out the window, or I guess the vertically opening door.

After looking at the “grilled” items on the menu, we decided that if we were really going to be able to digest our 22-ouncers (yes, the s indicates we ordered more) we needed some greasy food. It’s simple biology. Look that shit up. I went with my debauchery-day standby of burger parmesiana. It’s a layer of grease, cheese, greese and more cheese. Oh yeah.

 When the check came, I grabbed it and told Zay, “I’ll get this, you get the $10 stop.” “You sure?” he asked. I was sure. “Okay, but I’m just letting you know right now, it’ll be more than $10.” “Well, I can’t stop you there.”

I threw out the possibility of the Double Dribble. Ixnay on the ribble-day. Apparently since Phatthew wasn’t there to balance out the raunch-scale of strip club choices, I was overruled. We instead opted to spend the stormy afternoon at the Viewpoint.

I’ve never been to the Viewpoint for two main reasons. 1) I don’t know where it is. I’ve been there now and I still don’t really know. 2) I thought it had a dress code. It doesn’t, but I thought it did. I’m all about wearing the proper clothes. I’m like Grace Kelly in Rear Window that way. Okay, I’m probably sharing too much there.

Anyhoo, we roll in and I’ll admit, I was a little afraid. Not of the crowd or the bouncers or even the prices. No, the girls were a bit scary. And I don’t mean scary looking. They were just fine in that regard. But one of them came up to me and said, “You tipped me and when I tried to say thank you, your little friend distracted you.” “He’s got issues, I said.” “Well, again, thank you,” she said. I assured her she was very welcome and pretended that I had really not just pissed my pants.

Another of these dancers is an old acquaintance of one of Zay’s boys.  We opted to sit back a row from the rack, and from the stage she would occassionally glance over, but avoid eye contact. “Yep, she recognizes me,” Zay said. “That’s why she keeps looking away.”

Eventually she came over and told Zay, “I didn’t think that was you. You usually come in here all incognito and shit with your glasses on.” I found it a bit eerie that good old Lamal and his band of Kajagoobers were belting out “Too Shy” as all this was going on. It was apparently 80s day at the Viewpoint.

Before we even rolled over there, we had discussed how an important part of the strip-club experience/how much we tip the dancers is based on the music that is played.  I figured that all the different chicks there couldn’t just happen to be picking all this 80s stuff (two Tone Loc ditties, a couple Durans and ”Eye of the Tiger” among them) but apparently they were. The DJ told them to go 80s. They  told him where in the 80s to go.

Then Zay supplied his own road map for this stripclub Dolorean ride. He is an open Pat Benatar fan. Nothing wrong with that. Oh, did I mention I saw her in 1997 open for Styx? I pumped my fists without a hint of irony. He got the stripper to get the dj to throw on “We Belong.” Watching her and Zay belt out an impromptu quasi-karaoke duet right there at the rack was magic. It was like Kenny and Dolly type magic. I was so excited a dumped my glass of ice all over the place. (By this time I had switched to water. They didn’t offer 22 ouncers at this place.)

Being on  a roll, Zay told her to throw on some Belinda Carlisle and some GoGos next.

“We Got the Beat” eventually came on to start her next two song set. Oh, and did I mention I saw Belinda Carlisle live in 1990? Got a t-shirt too. “If the next song isn’t ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ I will stab you.” That wasn’t me talking at that show, it was Zay talking to the dancer. “Nice,” I thought.  ”Now one of us is gonna get stabbed.” Thankfully about that time Belinda belted out “Ooooh baby do you know what that’s worth?” and no one suffered any puncture wounds.

I realize I just described an afternoon with another dude during which we both unashamedly expressed our un-ironic love of Benatar and Carlisle. Does that mean we belong together? Oh, I think you know what it means.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 9:56 am and is filed under Strip Clubs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.