You thought I was going to say “titties,” didn’t you? Hah!
Last night we were had a going-away party for our friend Nikhil — his H1-B visa is up, so he’s going back to India. However, having been in Atlanta for several years, he’s never been to The Clermont Lounge (often misspelled “Clairemont”). This is an Atlanta destination, so of course we had to take him. For those not in the know, this is quite possibly the worst strip club in the country, if not the world. In fact, it is not so much a strip club as a freakshow, with one great-grandmother stripper, and their star act “Blondie,” a 350 lb. black woman who wears a blond wig and crushes beer cans with her tits. The sort of place you’d expect to see an amputee stripper.
This is the second time I’ve been there, the first having been for a friend’s bachelor party. The great-grandmother was out that night, and I don’t think I will ever be able to burn the image out of my memory of her releasing her sagging breasts, flopping her torso around, then angrily looking at whatever unlucky patron was right in front of her, as if they owed her a dollar bill for the display.
Rule one of The Clermont: don’t make eye contact with the strippers.
Oh, did I mention there was apparently a prostitution sting going on at the Clermont Hotel? (The strip club is in the basement of the hotel.) They had the paddy wagon right by the entrance to the club. So very classy. It does, at least, have cheap drinks. The bartender insisted we all have something called a Red-Headed Slut. Too sweet for my tastes, but I was a trooper and slugged it.
Anyway, there were surprisingly few horrific strippers. There was even one that might be qualified as somewhat hot. Her stage name was Jessica Rabbit, real name Amy. Cary and I talked to her a bit, and wonder of wonders, she immediately recognized Cary’s Mage: the Ascension t-shirt. Apparently she used to play Mage and Werewolf (as recently as a couple of years ago), is a White Wolf fan, an amateur flame dancer, and writes horror scripts and short stories. Scripts and stories which actually seemed pretty compelling, from the few examples she gave us. Who knew that being affiliated with White Wolf gets stripper cred?
So, we got Nikhil a double lap dance from her, and a 40s-ish looking stripper. Some hot and cold for contrast, if you will. I attempted to surreptitiously take pictures to give Nikhil something to remember the night by, but unfortunately I got busted (by a patron, no less), and had to delete all of the pics I took. Bummer.
We left shortly thereafter, to go to The Pink Pony, just to get the taste of the Clermont out of our mouths. Clermont to Pink Pony seems to be a tradition in the making. I was oddly blasé about The Pink Pony — it was quite refreshing after The Clermont, but overall I just wasn’t feeling it. We got Nikhil a lap dance from a smoking-hot Aussie chick, and left shortly thereafter. But not before a lap dance was inflicted upon me as well, by a girl that looked just like Paris Hilton — if Paris Hilton had collagen injections and a boob job. I was pretty horrified, actually.
I was thinking about strip clubs in general last night, and who all they exploit. They obviously reinforce stereotypes all around — women as sex objects, men as mindless creatures wanting only sex. But I actually think that men are more exploited than women, because it’s their pocketbooks that are getting drained, and the women profit from it (quite nicely, too). Strippers are the ultimate con-artists, and I truly say that with sincere appreciation for their skill as such.
