The naked truth in a clothed world.

Portland is by far the most beautifully weird city in the world. Even though I haven’t been to every city in the world, I think it’s safe to say that it’s true. I got on the #4 bus today to head back to campus from my boyfriends house in North Portland. We were stopping at various places along 3rd avenue downtown. Right around Couch St. I get off to catch the #8 bus. I get on, and go directly to my favorite seat–the back right of the bus. It’s the best seat because just like in a crowded classroom, you can see everyone and everything going on in front of you, and no one has their eyes on you.. except the professor. A man dressed in shambles with broken eyeglasses taped together at the joints looked at me and said “Mrs. Caffarotti!! You saved my life! Thank you thank you thank you (or something like that) !” I look at him, stare, pause.. and ask him blankly “Who is Mrs. Caffarotti”. He explained to me that she is the woman-doctor (as he referred to her) who saved his life when those bloody Russians poisoned him with rat poison. He advised me that the Russians put rat poison in Halloween candy to kill him last year and he had to get his stomach pumped, then described a pretty graphic scene involving blood, hospitals and tubes and the beautiful woman-doctor Mrs. Caffarotti who saved his life. I kept telling him I wasn’t her, but that’s a pretty cool story, but by the time he had finished rambling about the bloody Russians and the poisoned halloween candy his stop had come up and he left yelling “thank you for saving me life Mrs. Caffarotti have a good day!”.

A business man wearing a bluetooth device on his ear, dressed squarely carrying a briefcase got on and sat in the same place the distraught poisoned man sat. He looked at me, smiled, and said “you know.. some days the morphine just isn’t enough you know?”.

Strange, because this business man got on the bus after the crazy man got off, and never witnessed any of the insanity. It was a very strange thing. But then again, strange things are to be expected on rainy mornings in China town at busy bus stops. The other day an extremely pissed off backpacker/vagrant/nomad was crossing third avenueapproaching the intersection where Pioneer Square mall was, and proclaims loudly “Well would you look at that, a whole DAMN bus stop full of YUPPIES”. I look to my left and there is the definition of yuppy. I look to my right and there is a hippie old man holding a petition sign to make possession of under 1 oz of usable marijuana legal in Portland. The rest of the people at the bus stop were a conglomeration of crazy downtown people, yuppies, teenagers from Beaverton shopping at the mall, college students- definitely not 100 percent yuppy. I decided to talk to this dude, next to me, the target of the backpacker’s disdain.

He was holding a law book. He was wearing a suit. Carrying a briefcase. I say hello. He says hello. I find out he just graduated the university I’m going to, has his degree in Political Science, and guess what his FIRST job out of college is? Something along the lines of Executive Assistant to the City Commissioner of Transportation or something like that. Entry level job? I think not. Proof that it’s not necessarily WHAT you know, but WHO you know that determines what kind of job you get. I asked him what exactly he did, and he said he just had to make sure this guy was on time to appointments and he stayed on schedule.

Getting back on topic.. if there ever was one defined, you can call me Mrs. Caffarotti, because apparently I saved some dude in Portland from the grips of a Russian mafia induced rat poisoned halloween candy death.

-that is all I have to say. First of all, I would just like to say that I am a non-smoking, non-drinking, vegan, buddhist-inspired STRIPPER- Is that enough of an oxymoron stereotype bashing phenomenon for you?

I got my start in Florida, at the Cheetah- a completely nude, air dancing, no contact, full liquor club where I learned the basics of dancing. I learned how to hustle- and very well, and from the best. Lola taught me everything I know about hustling- how to get the best customers, pick the right ones, how and when to ask for a dance, how to keep going once you get dances, how to wear a garter, how to accept tips– EVERYTHING. The Cheetah had no pole and no floorwork, there was just a long,narrow, 4 foot wide runway-like stage that we sauntered and pranced and cartwheeled (well.. not cartwheeled, but there was this one girl who did cartwheels into very illegal splits) down. We weren’t allowed to do floorowork and could only accept stage tip money by kneeling down with our legs closed and holding our garters open. It was very conservative and classy despite the nature of the business. I made 4,000 by the time I left for Portland and thought that I pretty much had this whole dancing thing “down”.

Until I got to Portland. I started at the Dolphin 2, I’m still there but I’ve been at a couple other clubs since just to check them out. The Dolphin 2 is out of the forty something clubs in Portland, the only one I will work at. It is the only one that does not cross my boundaries (couch dances and air dances only, no contact) and I can make money at. My highest night there thus far was 740. My lowest was 29. House fee is 20 if I get there before 8, and I tip out minimum 10 to the DJ and Bouncer each, plus a 20 cab fare home. If I get there on time, tip the minimum and don’t get a ride home, I automatically have to pay out 60 from what I made that night. This means that in order to take home even 100 dollars, I have to make at least 160, which translates to about 5 dances and 60 dollars in stage tips on a crappy night. For an average night where I take home around 250, I have to get 7-8 dances– not that difficult right? But it is.

Because of a little thing called the OLCC- the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Because alcohol exists, and is prevalent in clubs, and is illegal if you’re not 21 (but it still advertised to an underage demographic, btw), I am not allowed on the floor at my club at all. If I step foot on the floor, where all the other dancers are allowed to prance around, show off, advertise themselves, chat up the customers, GET TIPPED FOR THEIR TIME, make conversation, HUSTLE AND ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY…….. I get yelled at.. not only once– but three times. Once by the idiot bouncer who never makes himself present, doesn’t smile and is never watching the couch dance room, then by the misogynistic manager on a power-trip, and third by the retired military pervert of a GM. So not only do they charge me the normal house fee and expect tip-outs for being assholes to me even though they KNOW it’s harder for me to make money and I don’t make as much as the other girls, but they are just plain mean. When I tell them I need to go up on stage more so I can get dances they tell me to go on the minor stage. The so-called “Minor stage” they are referring to is the unused end portion of the bar, which, ironically enough, is within 3 feet of all the alcohol bottles and I could easily grab one or take a sip of a drink off a tray that the waitresses place there if I wanted to. This stage they want me to DANCE on, is up to my waist when I’m wearing my 7 inch stripper heels, and covered in nice slippery polished granite. It’s also very narrow, about 2 feet by 4 feet, and positioned conveniently next to the entrance to the male restroom. You would think that this would be a good position for such a stage, but it’s not. On the way to the bathroom the drunken males are in a rush and don’t stop to say hello, and on the way out they’re in a hurry to get back to their table or want to go get more beer. Occasionally the “minor stage” concept DOES work and i’ll get someone who will tip me a couple ones or stop and chat and MAYBE get a dance, but usually, they just pass me by and make me feel like a decoration.

So during my 7 hour shift, I am up on stage about every 45 minutes assuming there’s 15 girls, 3 stages open and the stage sets are 7 minutes long with 2 minute intervals. I’m visible to the customers 7 times, for 7 minutes, I have 50 minutes in which I am to hustle them FROM THE STAGE. This is not all too easy. If I have 10 customers at my rack, and I don’t want to use the standard “wanna dance” line that usually gets a quick “no thanks” or the dreaded “maybe later”, I have to work the hustle into my stage set. Halfway through the first song I pick the guy who is the most in to me and tell him I would love to dance for him when I get off stage, at the end of my first song when I’m collecting tips I find the guys who seem pretty interested and go for a quick “i would love to dance for you” or “want to go play when I’m done dancing for you?”.. At the end of my second song, I go first for the guys I haven’t spoken to yet because they’re the most likely to walk away quickly and say “I can dance for you now”. The answers are going to be either “maybe later” (which means no because as a minor I can’t walk the floor to find them “later”), “why don’t you come sit down and have a drink first (which results in a lengthy Q&A period with a drunken person about why i’m under 18 and working in a bar and can’t sit down with him which just makes me more frustrated, but it’s okay because these customers are usual ly time wasters anyway), or no thanks. That’s how it goes- and it sucks.

I’m just at the end of my rope. I’m really frustrated with these rules and I will NOT resort to working in a filthy extras-ridden juice bar like Jiggles or Hotties, and I will not put up with making shit money at Stars Cabaret even though the management is a million times nicer and more fair to me.

So for now, I’m working at the Dolphin 2, Monday OR Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, an OLCC-mandated minor, nineteen and naked.

Come see me. I’ll dance for you.

So I’m finally doing it. We’re finally doing it. It’s actually happening. We’re actually going. My passport came in the mail today. It’s an absolutely awful picture, my face looks all shiny and I look Asian (not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just not how I normally look), but that’s besides the point. I have my passport! We’re leaving the country! We’re actually doing it- getting out of here and leaving for European hippie communes, rainbow family, making music on the streets and living the life nomadic. It’s pretty exciting, but also scary.

This means I need to get on the ball. I’ve worked maybe 5 days in September, MAYBE. My excuses are meaningless but are as follows : I went on a trip for a week, it was slow, I got fired from my club of choice and refuse to work with the misogynistic night manager which leaves me with only Mondays and Tuesdays, I haven’t gotten around to calling the Dolphin I, I’ve been sick, I hurt my shoulder, I needed spiritual healing, I’d rather stay home and cuddle with my boyfriend.

BUT NO MORE!!! From now on- I mean TODAY on, I am going to be a hard-working, confident, powerful, gorgeous, money-making machine. Sure, I have class three days a week from 11-6 so I can only work Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, but I need to be doing that consistently. I always make excuses not to go in. I’m going in tonight at the D2, Wednesday at Stars, Saturday at Stars… I need to be making 1,000/week… not 200. If I work 3 nights a week and make an average of 350ish a night, I can make 1,000 a week/4,000/ month.. 8,000 by the time we leave for Europe. That would be perfect, therefore that is what I’m doing.

now to get to work…

My mom found this on a crumpled piece of yellow paper in between the pages of a book after my father died. He wrote it while he was living in a hippie commune in Freedom Maine. He was meditating on the principles of buddhism and existentialism. This is what he wrote:

“You are like you are, because you tell yourself that you are that way. If you had a strong commitment, you could change your impression of yourself, and thus, change your world. And in changing your world over and over through the course of your life, you will never be bored, or depressed, or have any of the woes of men descend on you, for you can change what you see as being important into non importance. Your troubles will n longer be cause of inner disharmony, and you can look on each day as great, wondrous and the world as a constantly enriching setting in which you play out your life”.

He has my handwriting.

This is my favorite poem right now, it makes me cry.

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me
Whispering I love you, before long I die,
I have traveled a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once looked on you,
For I feared I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much
separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for ou, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse
forever;
Be not impatient-a little space-know you I salute the air
the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.

-Walt Whitman

I’m back home in Sarasota. All the love is gone. Everyone I love has left. Everyone I know has no love for me anymore. Everything is different, because nothing has changed. I drove past my old club. It’s on a shady stretch of 301, bordered by car dealerships, furniture warehouses and liquor stores. You can see the neon lights coming before you can read the sign. It must have been a good night, the parking lot was packed at 7pm. The sign outside boasts “100 Beautiful girls every night”. That’s a lie. There are never 100 girls at a time, maybe 40, but not 100, and they’re certainly not all beautiful inside out.

I met an old friend (okay.. lover) for coffee for an hour and a half in the rain. I got jasmine tea with honey, my throat is sore and I didn’t sleep much on the plane due to the screaming baby next to me. I have such a strong maternal instinct, my heart literally hurts, my whole body gets tense when I hear a baby cry. I flew over a volcano… or some sort of geothermal activity. It was pitch black, and there was red lava glowing through the cracks. It was over Idaho. I made a bed for myself out of stolen airplane blankets and my backpack and slept on the floor of the Atlanta airport for an hour. I was at the wrong gate though, I should have known with all the nuzzling couples sitting around that the plane was for Montego Bay, not Tampa. I had to run to catch my plane, they changed the gate at the last minute. While in my rush and sleep-deprived haze, I boarded the subway that connected the airport terminals. There were stripper poles on the subway car. I, not thinking, twirled around it and was playing on it in my hemp sandals and grungy backpack looking like quite the vagrant, before I realized what I was doing. It was quite humorous.

I arrived in Sarasota around 9. My mother cried, of course. I stayed awake the whole ride home, amazed that I was back in Florida, in my mother’s car, driving around. Everything looks different, nothing has changed. I got to my house, my little sister and brother were still sleeping at 11, I guess my little sister worked the night before and was tired. I crashed for four hours in my old bed. I forgot what my room looked like. I’m going to stuff it all in a big suitcase and take it to portland with me. Well, at least my old sheets, curtains and pillow cases, some books, acrylics and brushes, clothes.. you know.. everything I couldn’t fit on my first voyage out there with nothing but 2 suitcases and myself. We have a TV in my house. We have lots of them actually, one in my parents room, one in my brothers, one in my sisters, one in my other brothers, one on the patio, one in the livingroom- my room is the only room without one. That’s a total of 6 televisions in a (now) 4 person house- a little excessive? They even got digital cable now. I laid on the couch and watched the Devil Wears Prada, envious of Anne Hathway’s hair and red lipstick, watched She’s the Man and had the sudden urge to wear a red dress, watched Practical Magic and wanted to BE Sandra Bullock. Practical Magic has got to be my all time favorite movie. I never get sick of it. The only part I dont like is when Jimmy Angelo comes to live in spirit form and glows blue, I have to look away.

I drove around Sarasota in my parent’s little red hyundai that will soon be my little sisters, and felt really bad about driving. My first five minutes in the car were a little awkward after not driving for three months, but after that I was on autopilot again, fidgeting with my ipod music transmitter, calling people on my cell phone, adjusting the mirrors, daydreaming– all the things you’re NOT supposed to do whilst operating a motor vehicle. I miss my bike.

The weather forecast looks like rain all week. I guess that means I’ll be in Tampa with my old roommates, probably go to that little kiosk in Tampa that sells those indian sari wrap skirts I love so much and buy a bunch, probably go to Skippers and dance a bit. We’ll see.

Portland, I miss thee already.