Stripper Memory Lane

The place has changed.
The set up is different.
The stage is in a different place.
It's more honest than before.
It knows what it is and what it sells with tawdry 2 for 1 dance specials and the like.

I'm talking to my buddy who ******, I look over and see her.
A girl I dated quite awhile ago.
Still making money the easy or hard way depending on how you look at it.
Quickly a black stripper compliments my hair and asks if she can touch it.
Then she asks to touch my scarf and I oblige her.
A cute short-haired girl takes the stage. She also looks familiar but more on that later.

The girl I dated (quite briefly) throws daggers my way but I could care less. I slam down a jager bomb and a beer and appreciate the strip club that knows what it is and dispenses with the illusory falsity and charade necessary for the gorillas in suits to pretend this is a gentlemanly club.

I might where a genteleman's uniform...but those days are long gone in an antiquated era that knows not from whence it elapses.

The girl lays every played out stripper rationalization known to every man on earth in less than 10 minutes.
How it's not so much about sex all the time.
How it's not as bad as people assume.
It's just support her passion for *****.
How she used to be crazy when she started but now she's calmed down.
How glad she is a not creepy looking old guy came in.
How...blah blah fucking blah.

I'm high and I simply want to sip a beer and have a shot while I look at girls slow grind to classic rock and the occasional velvet revolver or Marilyn Manson song. The girl I briefly dated continues to throw eyeball form aspersions my way and I briefly consider what she'll tell them about me afterward, but I know this will only serve to picque their curiousity as years have passed and this girl is still emotionally vested enough to give a fuck (aren't they always, though?)

I eventually leave and traverse across town to escape the stripper conversation.

It's a man's world indeed. No one ever said it was easy though.

I fade right about 140am and call it a night. I maintained frame and control and hit up a fair number of spots. I did my favorite thing and people watched in the dark abyss of what passes for the human soul.

Some places we feel at home..and high, among the g-strings, I feel at home.

We can only be who and what we are.