T.S.O.T.S.B. Worldwide Headquarters

Looking Away To See Clearly

This is what our society has been reduced to or at least its been my observations in the last four months or so. I have had the opportunity to see things that I normally wouldn’t pay attention to. We overlook so much in our daily lives, things that are right in our face, and we just don’t pay attention. Some would say its because we are too close to it therefore becoming very ignorant to our surroundings. Maybe its complacency, maybe it is lack of pride, or maybe its just because ignorance is the “acceptable” way of doing things. We could debate reasons until the end of time but the fact will remain the same, our lack of attention to detail has had a severe negative impact on our every day lives. We are raised to accept a lesser quality, a lesser quantity, and to give a “pass” to those things or people who do it in a substandard fashion. Why? Why in the fuck do we expect to get low quality or quantity and accept it as par for the course? Why in the fuck is is next to impossible to get those around us to accept responsibility for their words or actions? How in the fuck does anything get done in a timely manner? Its simple, it doesn’t, and most of us just roll with the punches. Don’t you just get sick of the shit? Will our glass ever runneth over with all the bullshit? Shouldn’t we be ready to stop being cheated in regards to everything?

We know its impossible to negotiate with morons and we know there is duplicity in wanting something different. Can we be this out of touch with the people around us? Why fucking keep turning a blind eye? I watched an amazing transformation over the past several months, something I have never seen on a day to day basis before, I watched an empty lot evolve into a living, breathing restaurant. Now, I have a very vivid imagination, but I couldn’t ever theoretically imagine the struggles I witnessed. Hell, just take the weather, shitty weather really holds up construction, the delays roll out like dominos, and cascade in a way that if a person keen on logistics had not been in charge, I wouldn’t be looking at a restaurant that will be serving food and drinks in two days. In many ways it was like watching the ringmaster of a large production circus who had his fair share of goofy fucktard clowns to deal with each and every day. I had to wonder, more than once mind you, how some of these contractors got out of bed in the morning much less contribute to the construction of this building. I’m being 1000% serious, all kidding aside, I was left with my mouth wide open wondering how a handful were able to tie their shoes or wipe their own asses allot of the times. They were all paid for excellence but more often than not only brought half a bucket of bullshit to the jobs at hand.

Fear not tho, because of the powers of a few, this building will soon be seating the masses, all ignorant of what it took to get it completed. As well they should be, they should be oblivious to the course of actions it took just so they could drink beer and consume wings until they are fat and happy. We, as people in our society, don’t want to know how hard it was to get here, they just want to know when the waitress is swinging back through. Luckily, its in a great location, it lay on the line that separates the rednecks who can’t afford a clue to the rich and wannabe rich who can’t wait to have a new place to sit and to bitch about the things us poorer folks, myself included, aren’t doing up to their personal standards. But do the rich and snotty visit sport’s bars? The the poor bastards up the road have the extra money to pay double or even triple the prices of their favorite hole in the wall bar closer to home? In my opinion, this would have been a good place for a topless bar and grill, fuck the sports part, serve drinks and wings topless, trust me, its a combination that works, beer, boobs, and wings. Maybe I should keep this idea to myself, maybe I need to look into a location for myself. I know the strip bar business and the business end of the bar, I’m just saying. I have lived here for many years and have yet to see an adult entertainment bar anywhere near here. Again, its the perfect market with zero competition. Just food for thought, that’s all. For now, the good people of our fair city get yet another sports bar and grill.

Did I ever mention that for a dedicated people watcher like myself that this has been an interesting project? Let’s leave it at the fact that there was rarely a dull moment. In many ways I felt like nobody could top the people the day before, but, each day u was proven dead fucking wrong. I learned very fast to just buckle up, shut my mouth, so I could better watch and learn. So I did, and I did learn, and yes it all moved at the speed of blur for me. Yet, this new restaurant is but the tip of the spear? Why? Because dammit, were restaurant builders!

Is The Price Of “Sex” Getting Cheaper?

I was strangely surprised to see the following message as inline text from a long time information donator to T.S.O.T.S.B. from a long time personal friend of mine. Normally she sends me links, pictures, and/or ideas to pick and choose from once or twice a month. But this time, this time she sent “words” from some place and did not reference a source of any sorts. Meaning, therefore I didn’t have an opportunity to see where all this came from. In the end, she used it to ask me a question about the strip club industry, she wanted to know if the “economy” determines how much money I make as a bartender or how much money a stripper is paid.

I wish I had a simple answer. Just as well, she was only trying to help me to tie into my “Sex sells everything” experiment I have been doing here and she just wanted to “show” that sex sells sex sometimes. As a bartender in a full nude strip club I tend to see many things the “average” person isn’t even aware is going on in the first place. To begin with, I see the flow of money, the exchanges that happen casually to “purchase” that special experience. A trend I have seen and heard is that there has became a new meaning to the arts of negotiation because, let’s all face the facts, people want more bang for their buck while paying as little as possible, so hard core economics comes into play. Strippers have a bottom line, of course, but they have the skills to never have to accept bottom dollar for anything they have to offer, they will not sell themselves short for any reason since they are there to separate customers from as much of their money as possible.

“They keep talking about recovery, but for many folks, work doesn’t pay what it used to. According to a recent report, Manhattan and Los Angeles counties lead America in falling wages. In the counties which contain Dallas, Phoenix, and Chicago, workers are also seeing their paycheck shrink. We can add sex workers to the list of people dealing with falling income.

Th Economist examined over 190,000 profiles of female sex workers on websites that feature customer reviews. Based on that data, which covered 84 cities and 12 countries (with the majority of workers in the United States), an interesting trend was revealed: the price of an hour with a female sex worker has been plunging. The average cost nationwide in 2014 is $260, down from $340 back in 2006.

What’s going on? What a sex worker charges depends on many things, including what types of services are involved, the location, and the physical attributes of the worker. Sex workers who conform to Western standards of beauty can charge more. Blondes get a premium, as do those with slim (but not too skinny) bodies and ample breasts. Getting fake boobs can really pay off in sex work: “For those not naturally well endowed, breast implants may make economic sense: going from flat-chested to a D-cup increases hourly rates by approximately $40, meaning that at a typical price of $3,700, surgery could pay for itself after around 90 hours.”

Other ways sex workers can charge more is to provide niche services like having sex with two men at once, or providing S&M role-playing. Big-city sex workers in places like New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and London can charge more, too.

According to the Economist, the reason behind the drop in price is partly the 2007-’08 financial crisis. Other factors, like the migration of poorer sex workers into richer areas can also cause a drop in prices. This trend has been happening in Europe since the European Union expanded to include poorer eastern European countries, which has sent workers across borders. A 2013 article in Time magazine noted that Germany had become the “Cut-Rate Prostitution Capital of the World,” with thousands of brothels and “hundreds of thousands of prostitutes,” many from places like Romania and Bulgaria, dealing with intense competition and pushed-down prices. (Prostitution became legal in Germany in 2002.) In Berlin, oral sex from an Eastern European sex worker can reportedly be had for as little as $13.

The Internet is to blame, too, as more people are selling sex online. Because it’s easier and more discreet to sell sex online, women who in the past may have avoided such work are signing up. “More attractive and better-educated women, whose marital and job prospects are therefore better, are more likely to consider sex work easily if it is arranged online,” notes the report. Technology increases the efficiency and speed of matching client to sex worker: there are even apps which allow customers to filter sex workers according to specifications like breast size, age or height. A new German app even promises that you can order a sex worker the way you would order an Uber car, using GPS to connect client to worker.

But changing attitudes toward sex work in our society are also part of this trend. The stricter a society is about casual and adulterous sex, the more sex work will be in demand. The acceptance of premarital sex and divorce mean that men are less likely to be driven to sex workers because they can’t get their sexual needs met anywhere else.

It’s a bummer to be a sex worker when prices are falling. But interestingly, it looks like incomes may not have fallen as steeply as the decline in prices would suggest, because sex workers have been able to cut expenses.”