Please Report To The Mainstage!

This post was originally going to be about my 5 favorite summer songs, but this summer has sucked a mountain of monkey ass so I am going to pass on that topic.

Since the notorious 'Rick's' on Lake City Way was recently purchased I figured I'd write a post on the 5 songs you will always hear at the strip joint you go to for the next bachelor party you attend. I'm going to come clean, I've been to Rick's back in the day...once for a bachelor party and alcohol was involved and then a couple other times when more alcohol was involved. It's not something I'm exactly proud of, but hey, it was something to do. I mean, there were only so many times you could roll to The Romper Room to hit on and dance* (badly) with sorority girls with too many starchy foods in their diet, right? No? Let's move on....

*I once pulled my left calf muscle at The Romper Room dancing with a girl from the local Alpha Phi house to 'Love Roller Coaster'. I had to limp off the floor and then spent the rest of the night icing my calf in a booth. It wasn't one of my better performances.

Disclaimer - this post is in no way an endorsement of the stripper lifestyle, nor do I condone patronizing strip clubs...especially now that I am the father of three girls. I'm a wee bit more sensitive now. This post is for entertainment purposes only and a post I've had kicking around in my head since 2001...before I even had a blog. Please keep that in mind....thanks!

These songs aren't ranked by order of preference since 3/5 of them are horrible songs. Instead, I've ranked them by the level of, um, performance art involved by the dancer...and then viewed through the prism of the only Canadian strip joint I ever went to, Brandy's in Vancouver for my brother's bachelor party. Rick's was low rent and skeevy, Brandy's was thisclose to being a Vegas style show...or so I told myself as I shelled out $100.00 USD (back when USD meant something, I might add!) for a 'VIP Booth'. Hey, your brother only gets married once, right?

Let's boogie!

5. Cherry Pie - Warrant: There are songs that are vapid and stupid that I enjoy...Prince's 'Cream' comes to mind. Then there are songs like 'Cherry Pie' that are just idiotic. And vapid...but not in a manner that comes within striking range of enjoyable. I'll admit that I loathed Warrant, they were no talent ass clowns that appealed to an audience I didn't understand. But I'm not here to debate the relevance of Warrant. They managed to record a song that will live forever within the walls of strip clubs the world over. This song is for your just off the bus stripper with a heart o' gold. A basic plodding and bombastic hard rock tune, perfect for the gal that only has rudimentary dance/pole moves. An elementary song for a paint by numbers performance. Side note - if I saw Warrant lead singer Jani Lane at Target I would probably punch him in the throat.

4. Panama - Van Halen: I love this song. So do strippers. 'Panama' is the perfect song for the hangin' on by a thread older dancer to perform to. It's frantic and thrashes about like a marlin at the end of an electrified fishing line...but, it also has that quiet section where David Lee Roth goes into his soliloquy about making adjustments to the driver's seat in his car, giving an aging dancer needing to catch her breath. There's only so far that performance enhancing drugs (read: cocaine) will take you. Sometimes you need to take a breather.

3. You Shook Me - AC/DC: This song (and the next) are guaranteed to make white girls dance at wedding receptions. What kind of stripper does her thing to 'You Shook Me'? The kind that still has her fast ball working but doesn't want to over use it. This tune gives her perfect cover to throw junk in between giving the audience the heater...and when she does it more than makes up for the hanging curve balls and worm burners she sent bouncing in front of the plate. Confident, mature, with the moxie and experience to work the pitch count in her favor is what describes this working girl.

2. Poor Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard: This song blows. In fact, all of 'Hysteria' blows...but 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' was scientifically created to appeal to drill team types, shy girls at wedding receptions, and strippers. So it's got that going for it. Now, your average stripper just can't saunter out to the main stage and do what she does to this song. That just isn't going to work. There are a couple of tempo/dynamic changes, so she's going to have to adjust her game accordingly. Gentlemen's Club patrons may not be into high falutin culturally relevant entertainment, but they can tell when someone's winging it. The gal we saw at Brandy's had a full blown routine worked out that involved a chair, a leopard skin rug, and Jolly Rancher candy that she tossed into the crowd (our VIP booth was too far from the action to score any Jolly Ranchers...still bummed about that). She was a pro's pro. Side note - as we were leaving the club this dancer jumped into the elevator with us. I was completely intimidated and couldn't make eye contact. My brother, however, was not and asked her for the name of the best dance club in town and if she would like to accompany us to said club. When she asked what kind of dance club we were looking for he said, 'hip hop'. She gave our party a quick look over, smirked and sighed simultaneously and replied, 'you guys aren't hip hop club material'. With that she exited the elevator, climbed into a waiting Town Car, and was whisked out of our lives and into the Vancouver night. We wound up getting into a huge argument with a cab driver and had to walk the mean Canadian streets back to our hotel...with no visits to dance clubs hip hop or otherwise.

1. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns & Roses: This is one of the most iconic power ballads of the 1980's, even though I don't consider it a ballad. It moves at a much brisker pace than say, 'Home Sweet Home'. The fact that this song, with lyrics an ex of mine described as 'tender', was written by a misogynistic borderline sociopath like Axl Rose is somewhat ironic. Rose's history of violence towards women is well documented, yet he was still able to come across genuinely vulnerable during the first two verses of this song. Axl of course ends this tune with his trademark menacing growl, further illustrating the complicated nature of the former William Bailey's existence. Axl Rose has some serious issues. The same could be said for any stripper that chooses 'Sweet Child O' Mine' as their signature song. Coming out and shimmying around would do this song a grave injustice. This song requires a performance, a story to be told through movement...even if that story is one of fatherly neglect or something far more sinister. The tone of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' changes dramatically after the second guitar solo. Gone are Axl's plaintive vocals, replaced by the pentatonic pyrotechnics of Slash. Gone too is Axl's willingness to open up and wax poetic about the object of his affection, left is confusion...as if Axl is no longer certain as to what comes next now that he has opened up. 'Where do we go now?' is repeated over and over. And it is this phrase and the music that accompanies it transforms this song into the ultimate stripper's anthem. I believe that the last two minutes of this song were a form of primal scream therapy for Axl Rose. The closing stanza has a cathartic effect on the dancer too, giving her the opportunity to physically work out the rage and trigger the emotional fault lines that crisscross her heart and soul. Why pay a therapist when you can get paid to release the turmoil and confusion left in the wake of a dysfunctional daughter/father relationship? It's a psycho-therapy session set to a 4/4 beat, some major chords, and the cat caught in a combine vocal screechings of Axl Rose...and you get paid while doing it. This was the closing number that the headliner at Brandy's finished her set with. By the time the song was over I'm pretty sure I needed therapy. It was at that moment when it kind of dawned on me that strippers are all kind of emotionally damaged and willing to exploit (and be exploited) themselves for a few bucks or loonies. Think about that next time the bachelor party you are attending barges through the doors of a strip joint...but not so much that you forget to tip your waitresses and/or finish that bottle of Grey Goose you dropped $125 on.