I started out my second evening in Memphis on Beale Street. It was just as I remembered it. The only difference I noticed was that the Pat O’Brien’s had closed down. With the street occupied with tourists, I figured getting dinner would take too long at one of the Beale Street restaurants. I walked over to the Hooters a block away, across from Peabody Place, hoping to flirt with some big-titty Memphis belles. It was not to be. The Hooters in downtown Memphis has very ugly waitresses. Out of the thirteen on night shift, only one was fuckable by my standards, and I lost the roulette spin trying to get seated in her section. The real kicker was that even the food at this particular Hooters tasted subpar. At the Hooters back home, the cooks actually care and make the food taste good.
Next I headed to my “go-to” club in Memphis, The Pony. Over the years, The Pony has been a reliable club for me. There are good-looking dancers and the club has a party feel to it. This particular club is probably the closest to being Las Vegas-style out of all of the Bluff City clubs. It appears The Pony is now a chain with additional locations in Huntsville, Starkville, and Poplar Bluff. I think the Memphis location was the original one. The last time I stepped foot in this club was February of 2009.
Pulling into the gravel parking lot, I noticed the large metal statue of a horse had been removed. I headed inside where I was banged with a $15 entrance charge that included cover and your first two beers. Your first beer is given to you at the counter and a small paper ticket is handed to you in order to claim your second beer inside the club. As I was about to walk in, the door girl shouted at me that I needed to tip her. Strike one! The inside of The Pony has one large sixty-foot long stage taking up the center of the club that has three dance stations and two smaller satellite stages. There are always five dancers performing on weekend evenings, rotating each song, which makes for a lot of excitement. I like this because I can always find at least one stage with a girl I want to tip or follow a hottie as she moves through the five-stage rotation. This club attracts a lot of couples for some reason and was packed on a Saturday night. I finally found a place to sit off in a corner. Just then a bouncer came by and told me I had to find somewhere else to sit. Apparently I was sitting in a reserved section for VIP’s. I saw no sign denoting this and could not understand why seats had to be kept empty in a club that was almost at standing-room-only capacity. Strike two! I finally found an opening stage-side and got to do some tipping. None of the girls were giving contact to the tippers. You could put the money in their g-string or garter band, but that was it. Two years ago, a few bucks would get you good contact. There must’ve been some sort of “three-foot” rule or something similar in the last round of Shelby County strip club regulation. This was kind of a letdown, but the club still had some beautiful girls. Kiki is still there and did not look like she aged a single day. Envy put on the greatest pole show I have possibly ever seen. She won a national poledancing competition in Atlanta last year.
I ended up going for some lappers from a stunner from Nashville, flaunting a fit body begging to be fucked. Dance prices were $40 for one or $60 for two. I opted for the latter. The dances are done on benches along a hallway. There is very little privacy; you won’t get extras here. The songs are short, but the contact is cautious two-way. My dancer kept putting her nip-nips in my face. I had to take a lick. She reprimanded me by saying she could get in trouble for that. Yes, the glory days of Memphis strip clubs are definitely long gone. In the process of shuffling around I lost my ticket for my second drink. That is the downside to having to prepay for your beer at Memphis clubs. The waitresses here are vultures. I had to turn several away every minute I was in the club. It was getting very annoying and getting in the way of me enjoying my visit. Strike three, you’re out! I decided to take off. The Pony is still a decent club, but the staff treating me like a blow-up doll and the horrible customer service was enough for me to bail. Poor lap dance value and the lack of stage-side contact are also knocks against a club that used to be my hotspot.
Despite having a free admission pass for Christies Cabaret, I decided to stop back at the Gold Club since I had a pretty good time there the previous evening. I was hoping the dancer I had been with the previous evening was there again, but that was not the case. This allowed me to sample some of the other talent. The girl who shoved her kittie into my face the previous night was back on stage, and sure enough she backed her clean package into my face again, probably violating stage contact rules. Her thong was much skimpier this evening and my mouth touched her labia. I chatted up some of the girls and learned that some of them began stripping before they were even 18. No wonder dancers now have to get licensed in Shelby County. Proposed legislation from G.A. Hardaway to raise the dancer age to 21 in Tennessee might have a little sense to it, but then again, all dancers in the 18-20 range would just dance in another state until they turned 21. The only way of preventing girls from being strippers before age 21 would to pass that law in every state, and that is highly unlikely. I had one girl try and sell me a dance for $60. Some of these dancers have egos bigger than the universe. Not too long after that, another dancer offered me $10 dances. I took her up on it. It seems like the payout model here is a flat fee to work the shift. Club personnel did not seem to be counting dances in order to administer fees on a per-dance basis. The nice thing about this was that the less egotistical girls could be bargained with. Similar to The Pony, the waitresses were very pesky, constantly harrassing you, looking to sell another beer. I would turn away multiple waitresses one right after the other. Watch out for an older one in her early forties; she was the worst of the lot and got mean when you turned her down. They are money whores just like the strippers, only they keep their clothes on. What these clubs should do is assign each waitress a section so that you only have to deal with one rather than all of them. I ended up closing down the club; Memphis strip clubs stay open till 6AM on Friday and Saturday nights. It was surreal walking out only to watch the sun come up over the horizon. I got a couple hours of sleep and had to start the long journey home.
To summarize, I think the Memphis scene has gone downhill and is a shadow of its former self. Almost no girls providing contact at the stage was a big disappointment. Private dance contact was still decent, but unless you can find a girl willing to negotiate, lap dance will be expensive. I think you can BYOL to clubs, but having to pay the two-drink minimum before you even get in the door is lame if the club is having a poor night and it's not worth sticking around. Waitresses are very pushy. There are still a lot of beautiful women working in the Memphis clubs, but the town is definitely on the downswing since the Purple Palace got shut down. I would not recommend making a special trip here just to monger, but the scene is worth a stab if you have other reasons for coming to the Memphis area.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Part 7: Memphis
I returned to the Home of the Blues for the first time in a year for a short vacation and to see how recent legislation had impacted the local strip clubs. Apparently, Shelby County had barred the sale of hard liquor in Memphis strip clubs and required dancer licenses. Club owners felt this would put them out of business, but so far it had not. After checking into my hotel just south of the Mississippi state line, I resurfaced back into the Volunteer State and considered my options for the evening.
Virtually all of Memphis’s establishments are in an area south of I-240, yet north of the Mississippi state line, and close to the airport. The only club that is not in the aforementioned area is the Gold Club near the I-240/I-40 interchange on the east side of the city. Further classifying the Memphis scene, you have black clubs and white clubs generally speaking. The majority black clubs are: Babes of Babylon, Pure Passion, Showgirls, Jet Strip, and El Cabaret Dulce Amante (which is black/Latina). The majority white clubs are: The Pony, Gold Club, and Christies Cabaret.
My game plan was to hit the isolated Gold Club out on the eastern front and then possibly double back to the airport area, if needed, where the rest of the clubs are more closely concentrated. On my way into town that afternoon, I had heard on the news that there was a shooting outside the Gold Club the previous night. I could not find a news article on the internet. When I arrived at the club I asked about the shooting and, yes, it was true. Two Mexicans got into a scuffle in the parking lot resulting in one shooting the other in the leg. That makes for two shootings at Memphis titty bars in one week’s time. There was a shooting at Babes of Babylon seven days prior. Apparently, Bluff City strip clubs could get dicey.
The last time I was at the Gold Club was in May of 2007. I remember this place being kind of dumpy with very few good-looking girls. Well, my current visit was completely the opposite. The Gold Club had been recently renovated (which was dragged out over a period of three years according to locals). The quality of dancers was definitely above average with some stunning 18-24 year old babes.* The inside was upscale with two stages, a large main with a pole and a small secondary with a spinning pole. According to the DJ, this club has the only spinning pole in Memphis, and the girls were all hanging out at the secondary stage early on trying to practice tricks on the spinning pole since it had been installed very recently. This was definitely not the same crappy club I remembered from four years prior.
Dances are $40 and a horrible value for a short song. You either have to try to negotiate a better price or wait until the occasional 2-for-1 deals. The two-fers also include a prize: a shirt or mug. Generally, guys were only buying dances during blue light shopping. I noticed some girls were charging $40 for the 2-for-1 prize dance while others were charging $50. I think the girls have to pay the house $10 for the souvenir itself, and some were trying to pass on that fee to the patrons. Dancers really seemed to hate doing the two-fers because they made half as much money. Dances took place in cubbyholes that anyone on the main floor could see into. You will not get extras here. In fact, I noticed the really perverted guys liked to sit at the tables that were within six feet of the cubbies, so they could be peeping Toms to your private dances. While you could generally get two-way contact during dances, 90% of girls would not touch you during stage tipping. You could insert money into their g-string and that was it except for a couple girls daring enough to break an apparent “buffer rule”. I was lucky enough to have one freak back her pussy into my face when I tipped. The Lycra covering her snatch was pressed to my lips. She smelled like spring flowers, and I would have loved to have partaken in that feast. Beer was being served, but there was no liquor being served. There is a two drink minimum, which are prepaid for with the entrance fee of $19 ($8 cover + $5.50 beer + $5.50 beer).
Some of the girls seemed to have bad attitudes. For example, I got a two-fer from a bolt-on Barbie, and she would not remove her top because she would only be making half as much money during the promo than she would have made if some dumbass actually paid full price for two dances. I made it a point to grab her melons with her bra on. I tipped a tattooed brunette well on stage, thinking I was sending a message. When she got off stage she ignored me and sat with some guy at the bar for two hours. The guy bought her one drink, unbelievable. Eventually, I hooked up with another young stripper. The attraction was mutual and the conversation interesting. Eventually we went for some lap dances and that is when we spontaneously started making out and got all girlfriendsy-boyfriendsy. She kept dropping hints that she really was into me and did not even want me to pay for the lap dances, but I still paid in full. I let my guard down and starting getting pathetic--something I am usually able to contain--falling in love with a stripper. I was spending time with a girl I would have definitely dated outside of the club. I tried to keep my head straight and reaffirm the past hour was a dream and did not happen. I tried to tell myself that my lover had a boyfriend, which is likely. Meanwhile, I noticed a guy staring at me from across the room the whole time all of this was going on. Now where I come from, if you stare at other guys, (A) you are a homosexual or (B) you want to fight. I could have destroyed this faggot easily. I soon learned the guy staring me down was one of my new ATF’s regulars. He was jealous and clearly freaking out that his girl was all over me and ignoring him. I agreed she should visit him so she could make money; after all this is her job and I secretly needed to disconnect to keep myself from falling in love with a dancer. I ordered some more beers and chilled out a bit. The regular was a tightwad, not spending a dime on her for the hour and a half I remained at the club. I am starting to see this type of thing a lot: a guy drops hundreds his first few visits to establish “regular” status with a girl. Then, he starts to get cheap and really milks the dancer’s time on subsequent visits. The dancer is scared to drop him from her stable because he may start discharging big bills like he has in the past. These are generally lonely guys that get absolutely no interaction with women in the real world, so they want to come into strip clubs and talk to girls for hours on end and spend as little as necessary to string them along. I have seen this frequently at Brad’s Brass Flamingo.
I did not make it back to the airport district that evening. Tired, I headed back to the hotel and planned to do more reconnaissance the following evening.
*Side note: As of a few weeks ago Democrat Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis wanted to pass HB 0072 to raise the minimum age of strippers from 18 to 21. I have not heard if this has been made into Tennessee law yet.
Virtually all of Memphis’s establishments are in an area south of I-240, yet north of the Mississippi state line, and close to the airport. The only club that is not in the aforementioned area is the Gold Club near the I-240/I-40 interchange on the east side of the city. Further classifying the Memphis scene, you have black clubs and white clubs generally speaking. The majority black clubs are: Babes of Babylon, Pure Passion, Showgirls, Jet Strip, and El Cabaret Dulce Amante (which is black/Latina). The majority white clubs are: The Pony, Gold Club, and Christies Cabaret.
My game plan was to hit the isolated Gold Club out on the eastern front and then possibly double back to the airport area, if needed, where the rest of the clubs are more closely concentrated. On my way into town that afternoon, I had heard on the news that there was a shooting outside the Gold Club the previous night. I could not find a news article on the internet. When I arrived at the club I asked about the shooting and, yes, it was true. Two Mexicans got into a scuffle in the parking lot resulting in one shooting the other in the leg. That makes for two shootings at Memphis titty bars in one week’s time. There was a shooting at Babes of Babylon seven days prior. Apparently, Bluff City strip clubs could get dicey.
The last time I was at the Gold Club was in May of 2007. I remember this place being kind of dumpy with very few good-looking girls. Well, my current visit was completely the opposite. The Gold Club had been recently renovated (which was dragged out over a period of three years according to locals). The quality of dancers was definitely above average with some stunning 18-24 year old babes.* The inside was upscale with two stages, a large main with a pole and a small secondary with a spinning pole. According to the DJ, this club has the only spinning pole in Memphis, and the girls were all hanging out at the secondary stage early on trying to practice tricks on the spinning pole since it had been installed very recently. This was definitely not the same crappy club I remembered from four years prior.
Dances are $40 and a horrible value for a short song. You either have to try to negotiate a better price or wait until the occasional 2-for-1 deals. The two-fers also include a prize: a shirt or mug. Generally, guys were only buying dances during blue light shopping. I noticed some girls were charging $40 for the 2-for-1 prize dance while others were charging $50. I think the girls have to pay the house $10 for the souvenir itself, and some were trying to pass on that fee to the patrons. Dancers really seemed to hate doing the two-fers because they made half as much money. Dances took place in cubbyholes that anyone on the main floor could see into. You will not get extras here. In fact, I noticed the really perverted guys liked to sit at the tables that were within six feet of the cubbies, so they could be peeping Toms to your private dances. While you could generally get two-way contact during dances, 90% of girls would not touch you during stage tipping. You could insert money into their g-string and that was it except for a couple girls daring enough to break an apparent “buffer rule”. I was lucky enough to have one freak back her pussy into my face when I tipped. The Lycra covering her snatch was pressed to my lips. She smelled like spring flowers, and I would have loved to have partaken in that feast. Beer was being served, but there was no liquor being served. There is a two drink minimum, which are prepaid for with the entrance fee of $19 ($8 cover + $5.50 beer + $5.50 beer).
Some of the girls seemed to have bad attitudes. For example, I got a two-fer from a bolt-on Barbie, and she would not remove her top because she would only be making half as much money during the promo than she would have made if some dumbass actually paid full price for two dances. I made it a point to grab her melons with her bra on. I tipped a tattooed brunette well on stage, thinking I was sending a message. When she got off stage she ignored me and sat with some guy at the bar for two hours. The guy bought her one drink, unbelievable. Eventually, I hooked up with another young stripper. The attraction was mutual and the conversation interesting. Eventually we went for some lap dances and that is when we spontaneously started making out and got all girlfriendsy-boyfriendsy. She kept dropping hints that she really was into me and did not even want me to pay for the lap dances, but I still paid in full. I let my guard down and starting getting pathetic--something I am usually able to contain--falling in love with a stripper. I was spending time with a girl I would have definitely dated outside of the club. I tried to keep my head straight and reaffirm the past hour was a dream and did not happen. I tried to tell myself that my lover had a boyfriend, which is likely. Meanwhile, I noticed a guy staring at me from across the room the whole time all of this was going on. Now where I come from, if you stare at other guys, (A) you are a homosexual or (B) you want to fight. I could have destroyed this faggot easily. I soon learned the guy staring me down was one of my new ATF’s regulars. He was jealous and clearly freaking out that his girl was all over me and ignoring him. I agreed she should visit him so she could make money; after all this is her job and I secretly needed to disconnect to keep myself from falling in love with a dancer. I ordered some more beers and chilled out a bit. The regular was a tightwad, not spending a dime on her for the hour and a half I remained at the club. I am starting to see this type of thing a lot: a guy drops hundreds his first few visits to establish “regular” status with a girl. Then, he starts to get cheap and really milks the dancer’s time on subsequent visits. The dancer is scared to drop him from her stable because he may start discharging big bills like he has in the past. These are generally lonely guys that get absolutely no interaction with women in the real world, so they want to come into strip clubs and talk to girls for hours on end and spend as little as necessary to string them along. I have seen this frequently at Brad’s Brass Flamingo.
I did not make it back to the airport district that evening. Tired, I headed back to the hotel and planned to do more reconnaissance the following evening.
*Side note: As of a few weeks ago Democrat Rep. G.A. Hardaway of Memphis wanted to pass HB 0072 to raise the minimum age of strippers from 18 to 21. I have not heard if this has been made into Tennessee law yet.
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