Day 6 - "The Voyage That Made Slightly Disturbed Men Of Us."

After a long hiatus from blog posting (I have been pretty damn preoccupied lately... and thus have rarely been in front of this damn machine, well, less so than usual) I have returned for the long-anticipated (by me, at least) Day 6. This, for the record, will hopefully be as detail oriented as the others, but since it occurred well over a month ago... who can say? Needless to say, if I don't get around to 7, 8, or 9, it may just be because I can't remember what happened on those days. Truth be told, I don't know if I could remember most of what happened on those days hours after they ended. That's another story, I guess.

So... here goes.

I wake up in a hotel bed, which isn't too different from the majority of my days over the last week, except this time there is a view of a beautiful pool instead of an ocean, and lots of drunk and desperate people are already roaming around the city looking for some place to throw their money down the toilet and then thank the toilet for the fun experience. I can't wait to be one of them! No, honestly, I really cannot wait to waste money on this day... I have been ready to blow cash in Vegas since I knew my roommate was gonna be here at the same time as myself, and nothing, I repeat, nothing is gonna stop me from being irresponsible this one time. Damnit, I've been to Vegas multiple times this year, and have been well-behaved and... lets face it... a bit housebroken, every single time. Now, instead of a girl, I have my brother side-by-side, we have extra money from the night before, and neither of us have ever been to a strip club. See where this might be going? Damnit, I am walking out of this city with one shady damn story if I have to bankrupt myself to do it.

A clarification to the statement that Mark and I have never attended a strip club. In Virginia Beach... stripping isn't really stripping. When we turned 21, and could legally drink, we went to a club expecting to see something scandalous, but instead saw a bunch of underfed girls with seriously coked out eye sockets drag-assing around the stage like fat kids in candy stores. Not excited chubby kids, but depressingly fat children who refuse to leave the store because the blue gummy sharks are so pretty that they just stare and drool for hours. Yeah, you know what I am talking about. I've seen dead walruses more animated than these gals on stage. Plus, they were sporting bathing suits that weren't nearly as exciting as the ones you would see if you were actually on the beach. Honestly, it was the most de-sexualizing thing I'd seen in a while... the weather channel was more stimulating. At least there you believe it when they say wetness is on the way.

That was kinda gross. Sorry.

My point being... it sucked, and the highlight of that sorry sight of an adventure at 21 was that I was actually bought drinks at this "go go" bar by the bartender, which was sorta cool. It isn't often you get free beer in a place like that, and it was the first and last time a strange (if by strange, you mean unknown) woman ever bought me a beer,. I have been bought beer by odd women I already knew, but that's a different sort of strange. This is a long digression.

So, here in Vegas I awake... ready to waste cash and have some scandal. I'd feel bad about this lushlike attitude, but I am on vacation damnit... and if I'm going into debt, I'm doing it with a smile. So I shower, and decide that I have a few hours to kill before Mark can join me... so I wander the pool area, and scope out the water. Its nice enough, and were I in the mood to char my flesh again, I'd probably have gone swimming.... but I am not ready to risk those delicate knees of mine just yet.... they may not hurt, but they still look more red than Tara Reid's thighs after a night of hard drinkin. So I wander for a spell, and then head upstairs to write on this thing for a while. And Mark calls, and I invite him to hang out for a few minutes while I change in the other room, and we decide to head out for our night.

It isn't even 7:30 yet... way to early to go look at naked strangers. We talk for a few about the night's plan, and decide there is no way we can enter a damn strip club sober. Scurrilous though we may be, the sight of a naked stranger still makes us blush, and we both understand that to get through this incredibly odd experience we are going to need to be good and liquored up. I have trouble enough looking into the eyes of a total stranger, but looking into other things is gonna be trouble to the n'th degree. Fortunately for us, the Monte Carlo has a lovely casino that is quick on the drinks! Back to gambling we go!

And this time, I'm no longer scared of the craps table. I'm ready! Bring it on, muthafucka!

First we try blackjack though... actual table blackjack. And that... for lack of a better word... sucks. Losing 40 bucks blows, but losing 40 bucks in about 10 minutes, REALLY blows. It was in that moment that Mark and I learned an important lesson about gambling. Blackjack is a shitty game. We move on...

Craps! And the night begins...

So we head to the nearest table, which is pretty full, and find a space towards the end where we can bet side-by-side, as friends should. Our intention at this point is to gamble for about an hour, which is just about the perfect amount of time to get 3 or 4 drinks in us. We figure we get a nice buzz going, then head to get some food and drink where we can continue into a full-blown happy-drunk, then we go look at odd naked women. In this plan we will hit the holy triumvirate of sordidness... gambling, booze, and women. Add to that the fact that we are chain-smoking (which ain't easy to do when you aren't really a smoker) simply because we can, and you start to get the picture on what our aim truly was. We, as we have done for years, are collecting experiences for future reflection. Purely from a scientific standpoint, of course. Its a sociological study. Nothing more. Ahem... yeah.

For the first 20 minutes or so, all is going according to plan. The drinks are free-flowing (and also just free... which is fantastic) and we have managed to turn 20 bucks into about 35 bucks, which isn't much, but is better than losing money, that's for damn sure. Makes up a bit for that fucking blackjack game.

Now, if you know the rules of craps, the following description will probably make a bit more sense to you, but if you don't, bear with me, I'll try to dumb it down (no offense) for ya.

Finally the dice come around to our side of the table, and pass first to Mark, who makes a respectable first roll. It doesn't last long, but makes us all a few bucks, and then passes to me. This is my first craps roll ever, and I am pumped. So pumped in fact that I make a huge faux pas and take the dice off the table with two hands, and then pull them off the edge of the table as I reach for my beer. This is, shall we say, not exactly kosher with... well.... anyone, and the resounding cries of "Hey!" "Dice on the table!" and "What are you doing?!" cause me to look around to see what all the hubbub is about. I honestly thought that they were yelling at someone else, and when the dealer's angry eyes are affixed on me, I begin to stammer like a christian in a porn store. About 6 people are loudly chastising me for an affront that I was unaware I was committing. Thank god Mark was there, and he informs me to hand the dice back to the head dealer, which I confusedly do:

... then Mark explains "Bill, you can only touch the dice with one hand and have to keep them over the table at all times."

"Well fuck... how the hell was I supposed to know that?"

"Its kinda common sense. They don't want you to switch out the dice." Skillfully, he refrained from adding "dumbass" at the end of the sentence.

Great, so I have gotten off to a great start. I reach for my beer to take a consoling swig (while they inspect the dice to make sure I haven't fucked with them), and manage, for the second time in 3 minutes to piss the entire table off.

"Hey!" "Drinks off the table!" "What are you doing?"

Huh? What?! Fuck, they're all yelling at me again! What did I do? Oh great, apparently I am resting my beer on the edge of the table, which again, is a huge craps faux pas.

Mark again: "Bill, you can't rest your beer on the table, in case it spills."

"Oh for fuck's sake..."

The stickman passes me back the dice to roll, with a look that plainly says "What are you, fucking retarded?" which I respond to with a strong look of "Yeah, I apparently am fucking retarded. My bad." and I take the dice. Looking up for encouragement from the table, I am greeted by blank stares that barely hid the obvious hostility flowing towards me in waves. I feel like a black man in Mississippi.

That is not a slight on the lovely state of Missis.... actually, it is. I hate Mississippi. Deal with it.

Great... the dealers think I am an idiot, the other players have no faith in me, Mark is embarrassed to be standing with me, and I have the dice in my hand. I'm off to a great start. Well, I'll show them all, they'll like me a whole lot more when I win them some money. I bet on myself to win, Mark bets on me too to show a little faith in me, and everyone else holds onto their money, which is kinda rude, to be honest.

Fine... I'll show them. I shake my arm, toss the dice with a flick of the wrist, andddddd.... 4. Okay... that kinda sucks, but as long as I roll a 4 before I roll a 7, I'll be alright. A few people put money on the table now, and I roll again.... come on 4..... anddddddd..... 7. Fuck. Crapped out immediately, and everyones' money is now gone. As are a few people from the table who now believe me to be bad luck. I'm the douchebag of the Monte Carlo. Great.

About 30 minutes of gambling later Mark and I have made back the money I lost us on my roll, and the dice come back around. Mark does okay, and I swear to redeem myself the second time. I grab the dice (one-handed, no beer, and confidence rolling off me in... okay, that's a lie, I was nervous I'd suck again) and roll. Long story short... I lose yet again, and more people leave the table... and Mark and I are down to our original 20 bucks again. You'd think I'd quit here... I've had my free beer, and am still breaking fairly even.... but no no no, we stay. This was when we were joined at the table by two of the kindest old men I've ever met in my life.

Enter Ray and Don (I forget their real names.... we were drinking), who over the next 30 minutes as the dice move around, begin to tell us all about their lives. Turns out they are best friends, and have been since high school (these guys are easily in their late 60s), who after high school joined the fire department together and worked in the same firehouse for over 40 years until they retired. Ever since the 1960's they have been coming to Vegas at least once a year to gamble and hang out together... and they take a liking to seeing two other young best friends doing the same thing. They begin to tutor us in the better odds to play in craps (including bets we didn't even know we could make) and by the time the dice are back, we're up about 30 bucks thanks to our new best friends. Mark has a decent roll and then I am up for what I have decided is my third and final roll. I advise Ray and Don to hold onto their money, but they, like Mark beside me, put their faith in me and place money on the table. As I get ready to roll, Mark leans over and whispers in my ear... and I quote... "fuck that cunt."

I roll an immediate 7... which means we double our money, because I won on the first roll. Oh yes, I have my luck back. It could be the positive influence of Ray and Don (remember? Always bet on asians and men over 50...), it could be the "three times a charm" phenomenon, it could be the "fuck that cunt" comment that makes me laugh so hard I can hardly roll, hell, it could just be that the good lord wants to bless me for my long-standing righteous hatred of the state of Mississippi, but whatever it is, I am on a roll. And lo and behold, 20 minutes later I still am still rolling without having crapped out once. By this point, the table has reached its limit, I have a group of people actually cheering me on by name, and we are all winning money like crazy. Mark and I are up over a hundred bucks each, Ray and Don are up about 500 each, and I am no longer the douchebag. When I finally do crap out, after the longest table run of the night, everyone is so happy that I actually have people clap for me. For me! Little old me!

It should be noted that Mark continues to whisper that phrase in my ear before every roll... a phrase that we discover weeks later does not make me a better bowler, but the luck may have been gone from it as soon as I stopped caring about what it originally tapped into. Also, it would take a drastic change in the rules of god and man to make me a decent bowler. I'd bet there are double amputees that can bowl better than me.

To summarize what happens next... the dice pass to Ray, and he runs the table even longer than me. By the end of his roll, Mark is up nearly 300 bucks, and I am up about 220 dollars, which coupled with all the money from the night before puts him near 500, and me near 400. We have officially made Vegas our bitch... as have Ray and Don (about 2 grand each), who try to get Mark and I laid by telling some girls how we are the luckiest guys they have ever met in Vegas. It didn't work, but we appreciated the effort. And, get this, they slip us a couple twenties to thank us for all the money we made them, saying "just some fun money... go try another game."

One fantastic burger later, and some more beer... and we are ready to finally hit the strip club. Hell, it won't even really cost us anything. My plan to lose money is Vegas has been thwarted at every corner! HA!

We arrive drunk, and pay our cover... and walk into one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

Vegas strip clubs go one of two ways... topless and fully nude. Each has its own set of rules, but the main difference (aside from the obvious) is that topless clubs serve alcohol, while fully nude ones only serves sodas and juices. I have been trying to figure out why this is, and the only idea I can come up with is that it is to discourage the drunken temptation of trying to fist a complete stranger as they gyrate in front of you nude. God knows I have to fight the urge every time I see a naked lady and I've been drinking.... but whatever, stupid rule or not, it is the way it is, and we have decided to drink beforehand so as to have the full experience. As we enter, I am pretty sure we are both re-evaluating this decision, but we've already paid a cover charge. Argh... the cheapskate in us wins out and we grab a seat in the general seating area away from the stage thinking it'd be safer there. Less embarrassing, you know?

Wrong.

Turns out that strip clubs work like this... if ya sit at the stage and fling bucks at the dancers, you are pretty much left alone (note this: only if you have a wing man, which is a point that will come up soon) by all the strippers who are making their way around the club looking to give lap dances. However, if you sit away from the stage in the comfy chairs all around the place, it is only a matter of minutes before some semi-sweaty, husky voiced broad comes up and sits on your lap and starts saying some very deviant shit to you that I won't write here simply out of respect for any younger readers this might reach. Its odd though, and very very very unnerving. So, after fighting off 2 or 3 of these women who are trying to drag us into back rooms for private dances (and a nervous "naw, not interested" is not a very effective way of making them leave.... you have to really look them in the eye and say "no"... or as I would say "sorry... I'm just kinda absorbing right now" to make them go away) we decide the safer route is to actually sit by the stage, which is truly the lesser of two evils here.

Now I don't mean to villainize this place.... truth be told it was pretty fun, and definitely educational from an anatomical standpoint, but you have to understand that seeing this stuff on a total stranger is kinda like being given a wad of money from a random person on the street, who then promptly runs away screaming. You look at the money, enjoy the money, and know that you like money... but when all is said and done, you mistrust the money and the person who gave it to you. Shit like this just doesn't feel entirely balanced. That's what these naked women are like.... crazy, urban tooth-fairies. Maybe that's hard to envision... but were you there, you'd dig what I'm sayin.

For what its worth though, they do up my appreciation of balance and flexibility.

I was asked later on, by a dear friend of mine, "So what happens? Do you just sit there with a hard-on for the entire time?"

Actually, no. But that may be because I am sitting right next to my best friend, which (no offense Mark) isn't ideal for sexual arousal. Plus, the music in this place is lame as all hell, and I'd find it difficult to perform with even the glorious Kidman to techno music. Call me old-fashioned, but techno renditions of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" will kill a mood pretty damn fast. And I love that song.

Then again, I once had "relations" to Insane Clown Posse... and I'd imagine I'll never stop apologizing to that girl for the rest of my life. For extra billy-trivia points, this happened to be the same person who asked me about the hard-ons in the first place. Life is a beautiful beautiful circle.

Back to the club...

So we're on the edge of the stage, and for the first time in our lives, Mark and I experience a right of passage that all men must experience at one time or another. We each get a little crush on a stripper.

For me, her name was Sabrina, but we'll always know her as "Badger." Why Badger, you ask? Well, quite simply, the gal had a big old tattoo of a fuckin badger on her lower back. This raven-haired lass, at some point in her life entered a tattoo parlor, got on the table, and chose this as her permanent skin mark.

"Chinese symbol for hope?"

"No"

"A crescent moon with stars around it?"

"Uh uh."

"Huh. Fuck, I'm out of ideas then. The only other thing I can do is a badger."

"That's it! Put a badger on me!"

Fucked if I know.... but whatever the case, Sabrina looks quite nice with her badger. And we tip her well.

For Mark, her name is Melanie... and she is an attractive, thin blonde gal. We tip her well too. This is not the end of Melanie's story in our evening.

So, we sit there drinking soda for a while, and chain smoking like crazy to alleviate the nervousness that a situation like this inspires in two, fairly gentlemanly southern boys, when suddenly Mark speaks...

"Aw fuck man. I'll be back in a bit, I gotta go take a shit."

And he leaves. He fucking leaves me alone at a strip club, by the damn stage, unprotected. I have just gone from the relatively unobtrusive boy in the baseball cap to the number one target in the entire club. And he knows it! The fucker knows it! I swear I hear him laughing over the god-awful techno music as he meanders off to the bathroom.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Be cool. Have another cigarette... they taste like shit, but maybe you can smokescreen yourself away from these damn jackals of women that are prowling around old people in a cafeteria, looking for the lime jello. Smoke! Drink! Fuckin diet coke! Oh shit, I can hear them behind me... ignore ignore ignore. Maybe if I pretend to be deaf... damnit, there's a hand on my thigh. Can't ignore that.

And now begins the game of deflection... where I have to find the best combination of words to keep this endless stream of people away from me and my delicate wallet. Fortunately, I discover that the old adage of "honesty is the best policy" works best here.... because when I start saying "i'm just waiting on my roommate who is taking a shit right now" they start to back away right quickly. Woo hoo! I have my new shield. And I wait and wait and wait, and finally Mark emerges, after stopping by the bartender briefly.

We sit and hang for a bit longer, when suddenly Mark is tapped on the shoulder by none other than Melanie herself, who then leads him away as he flashes me a smile and disappears into the back. Turns out when he spoke to the bartender, he was asking her to contact Melanie for a lapdance, and now he is gone once again, and this time my "taking a shit" defense is for nothing... they all see where he's gone. I, once again alone at the stage, wait for the inevitable onslaught of lapdance offers, and have my new defense all planned out. If Mark is gonna keep leaving me alone, I am using him as my reason for staying planted at this stage... so when I hear the words:

"Your friend is having fun, you should too...."

I respond with:

"Yeah, but my friend is slightly mentally retarded, and if he comes out and doesn't see me here he might have a bit of a breakdown."

This also works wonders. I'm actually not sure if I ever told him I said that, but he'll find out soon enough when he reads this. Sorry man, but you left me alone in a strip club twice.

When he returns, looking a bit flushed, but grinning nonetheless... the first things he says to me is...

"I think I did it wrong."

"What? How'd you fuck up a lapdance?"

And then he tells me, and where I was afraid he was gonna say he accidentally punched her or something, it turns out he was worried he wasn't inappropriate enough for the lady. It goes like this, Melanie (who was Russian) gave Mark permission to touch her, but Mark, who is a gentleman, didn't know exactly what she meant. So after touching her elbows, he got nervous about the whole touching her thing and stopped entirely. So far, so good, right?

"That's not so bad."

But then, in a fit of flattery, Mark utters the words...

"God you're beautiful" (to her, not to me...)

To which she replies:

"All men say I am beautiful when I take my clothes off."

Hm. Well shit, if I were a stripper, I'd have probably been flattered by the compliment, but Mel here has decided to take offense. This kinda confused me, but a few days later I stumbled across this...

Be Complimentary
Every woman likes to be told that she is attractive and dancers are no exception. But try to be original, or at least creative. Telling her she is beautiful or has pretty eyes wont get it; she hears that every day. Instead, take the time to figure out what makes her special and compliment that. Try telling her that you think she has great hair or nice skin, or even that she has a nice voice or that she smells really good. Tell her that the outfit shes wearing, (the one she probably spent a good deal of time backstage deciding to wear) looks great on her. The key here is to make the compliment unique and thereby both memorable and believable. One final note, refrain from comments of a sexually frank nature. Remarks like Youve got a great butt and Nice rack, do not qualify as either original or creative. Once, in conversation with a dancer I had just met, I told her, You have a great look, you should try modeling. You could be in Playboy. She shook her head no, I dont have any boobs she replied. Doesnt matter, I laughed, you have the face of an angel. I was rewarded with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

The full article on strip club etiquette can be found at:
http://www.stripclubnetwork.com/stripclubrules.asp

Heh heh. Could be worse Mark, could be worse...

So when all is said and done, he didn't touch her inappropriately and was kind to her. When he relays all this to me, I say that "doing it wrong" probably isn't such a bad thing, and he replies that:

"I think I could smell her."

Now for those of you who don't know Mark all that well, you probably think he meant something foul by this, but the truth is that Mark has absolutely no sense of smell, and can only sense changes in the air. So he can tell when he's near the ocean, or when he's passing near a hot subway grate, but nothing else... except now for strippers. He can smell strippers. Some people go to crazy preachers for faith healing, all Mark needed was a Russian stripper covered in baby powder gyrating near him and his sense of smell returns. God bless Deja Vu.

We finish our cokes and hit the road... the hour is 4, he has work the next day, and I have check out in the morning to head back to Los Angeles. On the way back, we laugh about the night, enjoy how heavy our wallets feel, and have a momentary heart-to-heart about how I expected Vegas to be a painful horrible experience on this trip, but how it actually turned out to be easily the most ridiculous and crazy-fun trip I had made all year. Wouldn't have traded it. I drop him off, head back to the hotel, shower the smoke off me and head to sleep... but only after making a call to the front desk to make my check-out time later.... no way in hell I am getting up early the next day.

And here ends Day 6. If youve read all this, you deserve a cookie. Go get one and pretend I gave it to you.