The Night I Don’t Remember

 

As we know, I do my best to share the stories of my readers. This one really has no direct category to be placed in, but I will add it to the collection of great stripper and strip bar stories. The reader who submitted this story asked to remain unidentified for professional reasons. No, I don’t know what is meant by that, but I always abide by requests and people see it when they read stuff here. I have seen this happen in real life more than once, like every day. One would be amazed what people leave at a strip bar. One would be surprised the efforts people go through to get their stuff back. And, yes, unfortunately it is kinda like talking with a giggly five year old when you call a strip bar, its always been that way because she is never hired for her people skills on the phone, she is hired to be the first thing you see when you walk thru the doors so you go DAMN! let me in. When one enters a strip bar it is like walking through the portal to an alternate universe, often one needs to pinch themselves because the world is cruel outside the doors. So, allot of weird shit happens in a strip bar, but then again a strippers job is to separate a visitor from as much of his/her money in the shortest amount of time, every time. With that being said, read the email.

Begin email———————

I went to the strip club the other night…allegedly.  I’m not sure it counts though because I don’t remember being there, much less remember driving home.  “Oh the humanity Grayson, the humanity,” I hear the voices saying.  “How dare you drive home black-out drunk; you could have killed someone!”  Shut thefuck up right now and let me finish you interrupting ass-hag!  I didn’t quite drive home drunk and I do specifically remember one incident from the night…being woken at 3:30am by a security guard(?) while passed out in my truck in some establishment’s parking lot.  Whose parking lot it was…I was totally and completely unsure of.  After that, I am wholly unaware of the events except for the fact that I slept for the next 26 hours straight, missing work and occasionally waking up from some pretty twisted dreams of disembodied heads, parallel universes and ex-girlfriends wanting to “give it another shot”…again; then dumping me and shitting – both figuratively and literally – on me and my life.  I mean, this heartless cheating cunt had the audacity to…wait, what the fuck was I talking about?  Oh yeah, right…blacking out at a strip club and not remembering; I’m the good guy.  Anyway, it was like the movie The Hangover, minus the ‘wolf-pack’ and a whole lot more depressing.  Like our lovable characters from the film, I was (possibly) drugged with GHB and had to follow vague clues I’d unknowingly left myself in order to find, not a lost friend and groom for an imminent wedding the following morning, but my debit card and driver’s license.  So yeah, a completely sad version of the now classic comedy.

The entire night started with an innocent trip to a bar, not to drink, but to sit way back in a corner booth with my notebook (actual paper-type book you write in with pens; not a computer…I ain’t fuckin’ rich folks).  Yes, I said that shit with my nose in the air like some pretentious hipster at Star Bucks; feel free to punch me if you ever see me.  Anyway, how I got from said bar to, what I later found out to be Cabaret East, I have no fucking idea; but I figured my notebook might have a clue, since I’m always leaving myself notes.  I had 20 pages of some seriously fucked up and twisted shit written in there that I am proud to say I loved, and don’t actually know when I wrote it that night.  When I got done high-fiving myself and making mental notes to write shit-faced drunk (or drugged) more often, I noticed 2 phone numbers on the last page of writing.  One had the name of a tattoo parlor and the other was for a person named Corrin.  Intrigued, I picked up my cell phone ready to dial her(?) number until I came to the sudden realization that I had to have used my GPS since I surely had no idea how to get where I went or how to get home.  Sure enough, my GPS was the last app I used that night.  I searched the ‘recent addresses’, plugged that shit into Google Search and voila, Cabaret East.  I got the phone number, called that bitch up and what follows is the conversation, verbatim, I had with the receptionist…as much as I can recall days later anyway:

Girl – Cabaret East

Me – Yeah, hi.  I believe I visited your fine establishment Sunday night, and whether I left by my own accord or was forcibly removed, I’m not sure, but I believe ya’ll might be in possession of my ID and debit card.

Girl – Um…what?

Me – I think I walked my tab.  Do you have my debit card?

Girl – Uh…I dunno.

(Silence for ten seconds)

Me – (irritated at this point) Can you…I dunno…look?!

Girl – Oh yeah (giggles), sure, one sec.

Me – Wait wait wait!

Girl – What?

Me – Don’t you need my name?!

Girl – (giggles again) Oh yeah…of course!

After talking to this brick wall of human intelligence for what felt like an eternity, I was finally able to extract from her that, yes, they did indeed have possession of my shit.  I hung up the phone, triumphant that I CSI’d the shit out of my situation,  while also ashamed-beyond-words at the same time because I still don’t know how my shit got there in the first place. I will be fucked until my literal day of recollection.

Later Tuesday evening, I went up to the titty club to retrieve my shit and was met by a big, burly, black mother fucker who looked like he’d choke me with my own intestines; who also happened to remember both, helping me to my truck as I vomited along the way AND waking me up at 3:30 in the AM to send my hobo-ass packing.  I thanked him for telling me about such obviously proud moments in my life, then  I swore to him that I’d been drugged; in return he handed me a bill with a smile…for just under $350.  I fought back maniacal fits of laughter, tears and the intense urge to vomit.

I wasn’t sure if I was playing out my fantasy of a poor man’s Hank Moody from Californication or if I was literally just fucked up enough to get myself into such shenanigans; because I don’t generally share much about my actual personal life other than the intense anger that I feel in general towards society, but I’m pretty sure some people at this point would consider a negative bank account due to a – for all intents-and-purposes – fake night of debauchery, as rock bottom; for me…it’s just another Sunday night.

As for Corrin…she is a stripper, who had as much recollection of me as I had for her; we will not be in touch.

End email————————–

I like this man’s references to movies and life in general. I have the answer he seeks. It wasn’t drugs, it’s deeper than that, its more mental than that, it was out his normal element if you ask me. Plus, writers are fucking out there in their own world anyway, no offense to y’all writers, but it’s true. People often overthink shit too, which is death to our brains, then add in strippers, titties, alcohol, a strip bar, blacking out, and one can see where the imagination just goes ape shit. Not to mention the movie reference, because those were some pretty fucked up movies. Neither here nor there, he solved his dilemma. Too bad he doesn’t remember what went down. Or does he? Maybe its his mind blocking shit that isn’t in his norm or his mind knows that if he recalls anything that he will be in mental disarray. Who knows.

You’re Bitching Up The Wrong Tree

Okay, visitors here know in a past not so distant life ago I was a bartender in a full nude strip bar. Many of y’all still ask me why. Why? The money was great and the scenery wasn’t that bad either. As well, many (not all) have judged my morals or judgment in career options, mostly I was told how I glorified the world of stripping when strippers are really disgusting slut whore beasts and are the lowest form of human on the planet, right after the douchebags who go to strip bars and pay to see naked women dance in their face. Yes, I simplified it for y’all, forgive me, but I never understood how or why people judge strippers. Strippers strip for whatever reason, I’m not real sure how many of them want to shake what their momma gave them in front of strangers for money. But, I know for a fact that there are reasons women strip, every single one of them has a reason. Some of those reasons have been explored here in the past, and I always get told that I’m very biased because I “lived” in their world too long while working as a bartender. How can that even be true or make sense.

I thought that since I received this great example from an angered reader who wanted to reach out with her own information that this would be the perfect opportunity to take another moment to discuss choices of employment, perhaps motivations, and of course to glitzy lure of stacks of cash. In a moment, y’all will read the email I got yesterday explaining to me that I needed to be more clear to people so others who do strip or want a career in stripping have information so they don’t get fucked, literally. As far as my past posts, they are my own personal experiences OR experiences that were shared with me by real life strippers while I was a bartender. And, look people, again knowing from personal experience, some of the choices for employment are harder than others. So, read the email below, catch back up with me afterwords. If you ask me, the writer/sender was/is a stripper and got burnt somehow, I would assume she sued or attempt to sue her place of employment because one of her patrons tipped her with information instead of dollar bills. Just my humble opinion.

Begin email———————————–

1. Strippers, exotic dancers, showgirls, lap dancers, peep show dancers, & erotic entertainers are EMPLOYEES of the club they work for.

Stripping is a J-O-B. Strippers will never be independent contractors. It doesn’t matter if the boss calls a stripper an independent contractor or if it’s a term she applies to herself.  The reality is that the way strip clubs operate, the strippers working in can only be employees. It’s because management must exercise a certain amount of control over working conditions or else there would be chaos. Some might argue that management creates more disorder with their policies than order. Management need to figure out which dancers are going to work on any given shift; how many shifts there are in a day; how many hours each shift runs; many decide what dancers may wear at work; how many dances she perform on stage, and so on. The reason why strip clubs misclassify strippers as “independent contractors” is to dodge their employer obligations. The irony is that clubs say you’re an independent contractor but actually treat you like an employee.

2. Strip club employers must pay all their workers minimum wage, at a bare minimum.

Strip club employers must also pay into social security, worker’s compensation, employer taxes, & a slew of others good things that workers in any other industry are guaranteed as employees.  Personally, I think that strippers should get paid far more than minimum wages.  After all, not every chick is willing to take her clothes off in front of random strangers & gyrate on their laps to arouse them!  The management like the money strippers make for their business, but they don’t want to pay these women for their labor.  THIS IS ILLEGAL.

3. State labor laws state that it is illegal for an employer (here, the strip club owner) to take any portion of his/her employee’s (here, the stripper) tips.

To add insult to injury, management charge strippers for the privilege to work!You know:  those stage fees, quotas, commissions, piece rate system, locker fees, booking fees, etc, etc…. It’s also illegal for employers to require strippers to tip other employees (DJ, House Mom, Manager, Bartender, etc).  Management minimally pay non-stripper staff and expect strippers to underwrite the remainder of their wages.  Why are these fees-to-work illegal?  Because strippers earn their money through tips that customers provide for them.  Strippers use their tips to pay management these illegal mandatory fees. THIS IS ILLEGAL. Lets review by answering the following questions for yourself.

Were you misclassified as an independent contractor while being employed as a stripper?

Did management fail to pay you minimum wages while you were a stripper?

Did you have to pay management to work while you were employed as a stripper?

If you said “yes” to one or more of these questions, your labor rights were violated. Take action to assert your labor rights!

End of email——————————————-

**** On a very special note. The Sting Of The Scorpion Blog has not, will not, and cannot provide any legal advice. Visitors of this blog should consult with their own lawyer for legal advice. The information provided was for informational purposes ONLY. I claim no legal knowledge in regards to topics discussed here. Now, you’ve been warned and informed motherfuckers! ****

In reality I don’t care what people do with their lives, how they spend their money, or who they choose to see naked. I can, however, say that every single person who walks through the door of a strip club (employee or patron) has their own reason for being inside those walls. I mentioned before, my goal was to make money, as much as I could as fast as I could. Now, having a 8-5 job during the day and then working another 8+ hours afterwards as a “part time” sucked, I won’t lie, it made for long days/nights. As well, it was a 42 minute drive for me personally which racks miles up on the vehicle as well as adds just a few more hours each day. Yes, once at work the scenery, in general, was pleasant. The work environment was a bit weird because my involvement with the business of the club were pretty nil. I did, however, meet some very nice people along the way while I worked there, I’ll leave that part right there. Want to know more just read around this blog a little and you’ll see what I mean.

Getting back to how I or what I write about glorifies the occupation of stripping, because, lets face it together, I get accused of never writing about anything but strippers using their nakedness to separate men of all ages from their money in the shortest time possible. What y’all have got from me is the brutal honesty, not the fucking fairytale la la land some people seem to live in. I guess my point is simple, working as a stripper is what it is, it’s a choice someone makes, and often enough people get judged because in someone else’s opinion it was the wrong choice to make. Trust me, I’m 46 years old and still get grief from my mother because I bartended in more than one strip club over the years. “How can you do that to your wife and treat her without respect by working at a strip bar?” is my favorite question to date. My wife only had one dislike about me working there and that was the simple fact that I was getting in after 1 in the morning day after day and I was tired. I was tired and didn’t want to do anything except hang out around the house, I was a big fan of not going anywhere or not doing anything. In the end, it was my wife’s opinion that made me want to quit in the first place. She asked me to quit one time, and I made it happen that day. On the flip side, all joking aside here, she was the one that said I needed to get a part time job to fill some time, make a little money, and get out more. In fact, it was a friend of a friend of a friend of one of her co-workers that my wife gave me the number to call for the job. She was informed, the moment I went to the interview, that it was at a strip club. Her answer was it was decision either way, but told me I knew I could make some serious cash if I took it. Yes, she does not about my past life, not that it was talked about much.

Luckily, at the place I worked, everyone was an employee, we all had health coverage if we chose, we could participate in the 401k, they were workers comp compliant, the whole 9 yards. However, indeed, a portion of my paycheck was dependent on bar sales, door sales, and stripper tips. Yes, now I’m the bad guy. No, it wasn’t my rule, and nobody fought it, it was just the way it was I guess. But, they did not pay to dance, they did not have fees except for one, which was if you were scheduled to work and you were a no show/no call, you were given three days off without pay as a warning to be more courteous to your coworkers. It mentions minimum wage above, um no, how the average stripper was making from $18.00 to $23.00 an hour, plus tips, plus dances, plus whatever the hell else they were doing on the side, if anything. Again, I’m not defending the industry itself, merely where I worked.

Oddly enough, during the mere course of writing this post I have received 4 more emails “scolding” me for being a sinner, supporter of sinning, and indulging in the slavery which we collectively call the “sex trades” since stripping somehow falls into that category. Maybe I truly am blind, somewhat oblivious to the blythe which is that of the life of a stripper. But, wait….. for….. it….., I don’t care, I really don’t, I don’t care what people do which their lives. Well, that’s not altogether true, I do care that I contribute a large amount of my paycheck to pay for others to sit at home on the crack pipe, on the xBox, or on the porch, instead of them getting out and getting a fucking job. We’ll talk about that another time, I read a study recently that the average person on a combination of government service programs average about $19.20 an hour. Like I said, lets get back to that another day. My mere connection with the stripping industry is purely coincidental, meaning we would work in the same building, all of us dependent on the very steady stream of people entering the neon lit establishment we called a strip bar.

But, I understand, the easy thing to do is to judge those doing things we don’t agree with. We should just be happy people are out working instead of sucking on the welfare titty all day. Until we as human beings stop looking at the opposite sex with lust in our eyes there will always be a place where we can see the opposite sex naked. Have y’all been on the internet later, have y’all seen what y’all have been searching for, and y’all call me the pervert?  Again, another post for what people’s perversions are. Your choice, fucking hate me, if that gets you though the day, great, just fucking hate me. Meanwhile, I will give you something to think about, my final thought here today. All strippers have a story, a life, a family, and although you detest their industry or them as people, just remember it takes guts to strip in front of strangers, it takes courage to get out there to earn a living no matter what your craft may be. Before we get all biblical on me, remember, I don’t by into it, so in reality it’s a major waste of both of our times. But, as usual, I will get the emails, the comments, and so forth, and I will post here on this blog the ignorance that is spewed. There is no justice in the world, we all know it, sometimes we decide that instead of running away from life, we jump on that old hag, dig the spurs in deep, and ride her until that bitch throws us or we tame the beast. Your choice.

Next Generation Of Story Telling

Another Life, Another Time

I generally get a handful of texts and e-mails every week from people I worked with at Club X. Usually just to let me known whats been happening and what will be happening. I suppose it is done to “keep me in the loop” even though I have been out of that loop for quite some time now. I generally do not reply to 99% because there usually isn’t anything for me to say. Now, I have two people, one stripper and one waitress, that I do keep up with and talk to regularly because we all became decent friends over the years I worked there. What makes them special you might ask? I will make a long story short, because it actually took me a few months to figure out what was going on. In the beginning I thought there was just the waitress who also was a stripper on her off nights. She would talk to me like normal regardless of what shoes she was wearing that night. Then, out of the blue, after a couple of months, she was on the dance floor stripping and at the same exact time she was waitressing. I thought I had lost my damn mind at first and then they both came over to the bar I was working and sat down, the both smiled while they just sat there looking at me. Yes, now I know, they are twin sisters. There had always been the two of them and few, if anybody, knew about it. Most people in the club thought the same thing I did. Anyway, a friendship grew and developed and now they keep in contact with me quite a bit.

This morning I get an e-mail from them asking me if I miss being a bartender there. They also known I was laid off and wanted to known why I just don’t come back. Do I miss being a bartender there? Not really. I do miss the money but I have said this all before now. I’m sure I could go back to bartending and it would be a decent paycheck, but I walked away when I did for some very specific reasons, first and foremost it was because I was done working nights and second is the hours I worked. It was a freaking part time job yet I worked 50-60 hours a week while having a day job doing 40 hours a week. You do the math, I was tired, more like exhausted, no walked around like a freaking zombie most days. So, I gave up bartending at the strip club, with that I have up about $100k a year, so yes, it has been missed. However, after doing that for 5 years, I socked away a nice start to a retirement, which, so far, we haven’t had to dip into, as of yet. I think it would take something very drastic to get me to go back permanently. Not that time is not now. I liked it after I quite, I see my family now and we have relationships now, something we could not have when I was working nights. I won’t bore y’all with the issues that job caused with my wife. I will say that it wasn’t for the reasons y’all might be thinking, it was simpler, it was because I was never home to spend time with her, ever, and it had a tremendous impact on our marriage. I will leave it there.

I do miss the people, I do miss bartending, and yes, I even miss being surrounded by hundreds of totally nude woman every day. The scenery was always nice. But, back in the real world is where I belong. Perhaps if I was single it would be different. One never knows. As always, the sisters like to include pictures of themselves at work, and to date the one shown here today has been the only one I have been able to share. I wonder, daily, where my life is going, and with often reminders of the past I see that wherever it is that I am supposed to be going is probably I’m the direction I am already headed. I am happier now that I have been in so many years. That’s what we should be, right, happy in our life? Personally, I think that is the answer.

The Insanity Of Too Many Choices

Sometimes I open my e-mail to find wonderful things to write about. This one was pretty interesting because someone is e-mailing me wanting to know if she can 1) be my guest blogger, 2) tell me a story about her magic weekend which changed her life, and 3) to remind me I didn’t talk to everyone when I worked at Club X. She went on to remind me that she guesses she is one of the people who fell through the cracks because she wasn’t a stripper like the rest of them. But, she does know me, I do know her, and she knows that I write about stories told to me as a bartender. However, here is the catch, we never spoke in person much at all. She mentions that she has been trying to track down my e-mail address for sometime now since not only did I quite bartending at Club X but I also shut down that blog and moved all the stories over her sub-categorized under “Scorpion Sting’s Bartender Stories”. So, I can see how I might have been a little bit hard to find. Anyway, long story short, she has asked to tell her story and how it all came full circle a few weekends ago. I think it is a fantastic idea. I think it is a fantastic story. Now, be warned, the story is colorful, explicit, uses coarse adult language, and her story describes explicit adult oriented situations. If you are good with that then we should move forward to her story. Let me introduce Lynn, pictured, 23 years old, model, waitress, and really has a way with words.

“All through high school I was a model. There were some jobs that I didn’t really want to do but the payout was ten times what I was making modeling teen bathing suits. As time progressed I met different photographers who offered different amounts of money depending if I wanted to add pictures to their private collection. I learned the term ‘being used’ really fast because I was getting used quite a bit before I figured out I didn’t have to and I had choices to do otherwise. Probably the first bad choice I made was to let myself be photographed completely in the nude. You might be asking why. If you are asking why it was because I was 16 at the time, still in high school, still living at home with my parents and siblings, and if it had ever got out then it would have been the death of me, and I’m serious about that. The second bad choice was the night after that shoot that I broke into the photographer’s office, stole all the media storage devices I could find, destroyed all of his cameras, a wrecked the place beyond recognition. No, I didn’t get caught. Yes, I did retrieve the media device. Do I know if it was downloaded? No, still to this day I don’t know. We will get back to this photographer later.

Right after graduation I moved from my hometown of Raleigh North Carolina to Houston Texas to take a modeling gig that a model headhunter promised me would be available. I found a decent one room apartment that wasn’t too expensive that I thought I would be able to afford. I contacted the agency to find out appearance dates and I was told the project had been delayed by at least 8 months. All I could think was what in the fuck am I going to do for 8 months. How will I pay for this fucking apartment. How will I eat. I quickly searched around the local media to see if there was anything else hot going on that I could get my teeth into but all I could find is jobs that would require me to move to either the east coast or west coast. I can’t move because now I’m on the verge of being ass in the wind broke because of the stupid ass delays. I spent the next couple of days looking around local to my apartment for anything temporary I could do. Lucky me, I found a job as a waitress at IHOP. The pay was going to suck, the hours were going to suck, but if I’m lucky maybe someone will tip me on occasion. My presumptions were right, the money really sucked hind tit, I worked whatever shit shift the other bitches didn’t want to work, but I found that I can increase my tips by increasing the skin I ‘accidentally’ let show to the perves that would come in after church on Sunday.

There actually was a strange cycle of people who came in the doors of this IHOP. I got to see them all because of all the wackity fuck hours I worked 7 days a week. Not only was there a church right up the block but there was a strip bar as well. Come to find out, whether a person was talking to Jesus or spending their money on strippers, they all want pancakes at some point in the day or night. I would always hear the crowds from both places talking about going to the other. I guess everyone has needs. After 7 1/2 months of working at IHOP I figured it was time to call the agency since I hadn’t heard anything. I was not at all fucking happy with the response I got. Not only has the project been cancelled but they were able to place all of the models with new projects except for two, myself and some other skinny bitch. Well, wasn’t this just some special shit. Back to work at IHOP until I can get this bullshit straightened out. One night I overheard two guys talking about how the service at the strip bar was sucking lately because they needed more waitresses. The one guy, a real drunken troll, told me I should go work at the strip bar as a waitress or a stripper, this was his free advice for me, he said the next time I would have to sit on his lap and talk about the first thing that pops up. Interesting proposal, the lap sitting, but from where I stood it looked like it would be a waste of both of our times.

I did, however, decide to go to the strip bar and see what that was all about, after all, anything has to be better than being a waitress at IHOP. I went over to Club X after my shift ended at like midnight so I really didn’t know what kind of job hunting I would be doing but I figured if nothing else I could get fucked up since I haven’t been fucked up face down ass up drunk in quite a while. Fortunately for me I was not beaten down to pay the $25 cover to get in the door. I did explain that I was here looking for work and that might have had something to do with it. Is it strange to feel creeped out feeling like I was being stripped down and fucked mentally by the three completely nude women at the door? I have been eyeballed before but never with such intense passion. Since the manager of the waitstaff was not in I was directed to the next best thing, the head bartender. That is where you first entered my life. If I remember correctly, you told me “to go fuck myself elsewhere because I’m too damn busy to jack with you right now”. I didn’t reply, I just tucked my tail between my legs and asked for a tequila shot. This, I think, got your attention.

After a few hours you had time to talk to me, it was a talk with me walk with me type scenario. I had to keep up with you if we were to talk. After introducing myself to you and explaining why I was here it almost seemed as if you were just a little put off by my presence. You probably won’t ever admit to that will you? You ended up giving me your card telling me to return tomorrow before 5pm and we could talk about my opportunities then. I ended up leaving not knowing if I actually wanted to come back and work for such a dickhead. I slept on it, questioning myself if this is what I wanted to do or would it be best just to turn tail and go back to Raleigh. I was off work that day so I had some time to think about what I wanted to wear to my interview. What does a girl wear to be interviewed at a full nude strip bar. I mean, right, I saw what the other waitresses were wearing and I also saw how much money they were raking in. I just didn’t know if I could deal with the groping hands of drunk assholes all night long. Sure, it might be fun if I was drinking too, but I would be the sober one, I would be the one that had to put up or shut up, and that just might get me in some deep shit. But, I do like a challenge, and this motherfucker was going to challenge me on an entirely new level.

I walked in wearing my tightest jeans, by tight I mean that they rubbed me in all the right ways, so by the time I got there I was ready for anything you could throw my direction. I did wear sneakers because that is what I saw the others wearing. I wore a bikini top as a shirt figuring we could cut tight through the bullshit and get this ball rolling. Little did I know that the interview process was to throw me out on the floor to fend for myself, sink or swim. I think that the 3 hours I worked went without a glitch. I reported back to you as I was instructed, in fact I recall you paging the “f.n.g. waitress to report to the main bar”. I had to ask what f.n.g. meant, I was told it meant “fucking new girl”. Hell, why not just call me Lynn. You told me I could start tonight at $22 an hour plus tip out if I was interested. Fuck yeah I was interested! The last words from you is “the only thing I want to see from you right now is your ass walking away from me”. No, I didn’t take it as a flirt or a compliment, I knew what you meant.

I did this job for the next few years, never looking back, and never considering if I missed the boat with my modeling. One day, out of the blue not too terribly long ago, a man in the club approached me, handed me his card, and asked if I had ever modeled before. I recognized him but he had no fucking idea who I was. He chatted me up for quite a while, I kept declining, telling him he didn’t look like someone I wanted to get involved with, business or otherwise. But, this asshole just wouldn’t take a fuck no with the meaning I was putting behind it so I decided to have some fun with the prick. After talking with a few friends at the club, they decided to help me out because it sounded fun. I agreed to go back to the motel with this loser photographer to let him “check me out” to see if I got what it takes to be a model. It’s code for “I’m going to ass rape you, exploit you, film you without your knowledge, and make money off you while you try to figure out what was in your drink you cunt”. But, we had a different scenario planned, a way different evening is about to happen than what he thinks will play out. What a joke.

He met me at the door of the hotel room with this big cheesy smile on his face. He asked if we were ready and I told him I had to use the little girl’s room first. I opened the door to the room very quietly, letting in my friends who stood in the shadows for now. I walked out of the bathroom butt naked and his eyes lit up like little gold treasures. I eased over to the bed where he directed me to go. As soon as he turned his back to me my friends jumped him, put a black pillow case over his head, zip tied his hands behind his back, and proceeded to rip his pants off. One of my friends whispered loudly in his ear that he was going to make him squeal like the little pig he is. At this point I grabbed my clothes and left the room. I never saw my two friends again and come to think of it I never saw that shitbag of a photographer again either. Soon enough in the next coming weeks I did get another casting call which looked promising to me. I walked out of the doors of Club X one night and have never returned. The modeling gig is great, I will have to send you some postcards from where I am at in Milan when I get a chance. Thanks for reading my story. Sorry it took so long to get to you, you are a hard person to track down. Lynn.”

So, I thought this was a great story worth re-telling. I hope everyone enjoyed as well. Every one of us on this planet has a story to tell of some kind. Personally, I am just glad I have been trusted to do just that, tell everyone’s story as they were told to me. I have met some real interesting people in my life and travels which makes up for all the tools I have had to put up with. Until next time, remember to eat it every day.

The Death Of A Journey’s Ghost

I’ve wrote my fair share here about how I worshipped at the alter of Crown Royal for many years. However, I have never told the story of the journey I thought I was on, the journey where I was looking for the questions to answers I had, and how my journey came to an absolute sudden stop. Over the past weekend I came across a ghost from my not so distant past. I wasn’t looking for the ghost, but I think I was lead to finding it for a reason. I think my finding the ghost let me reflect about the past and how it led me to be where I am today. Over the years I have given alcoholics a very hard time because I don’t believe being an alcoholic is a disease or a disability because it’s absolutely not, being an alcoholic is a choice because drinking is a choice. Personally, at this point in my life I don’t care if a single person agrees with me or disagrees with me, it’s a choice and that’s a damn fact. Oddly enough, I’m listening to “Whiskey In The Jar” by Metallica as I write about all of this. I can’t help it, I like the song, it drowns out the chatter of the conversation happening in Spanish 10 feet away. I didn’t need to be put in a “mood” because I was already there, already at the point where I had opened the wounds far enough where I was ready to write without any struggles. But I am struggling, I struggle with the feelings and emotions that have come out since opening the coffin of my dead journey. The big question y’all might be having is what journey died and how did it die. First of all, the short answer is I didn’t like where my life was going so I killed it dead, then I stomped a mudhole into it, then I kicked the shit out of it, then I burned it until it was a crispy critter,  and then I buried it. Obviously I didn’t kill it or bury real well, I killed it alright, but my burial lacked conviction because I found it or it found me, however one chooses to look at it.

Now, before we begin exploring, let me just add that I’m not glorifying drinking or downplaying alcoholism as a prominent problem in American society. You might here me poke fun or saying derogatory things about both, but they are based on my experience, my observation, and my own opinion. So, with that, let’s start at the end because that is where my actual journey began. When I’m done writing this today this the journey might be over, it might get buried again, and for sure the reminders (triggers) have been dealt with accordingly. So, anyway, I was looking through some boxes in my storage building for a box, which as I found, was un-labeled, that contained files I needed, to include my DD-214 (discharge paperwork) and some other VA paperwork. Back when I packed all this up it would appear that liquor boxes were what I had. Mostly because I worked at a bar, so I always liberated the sturdy boxes. I didn’t know what box the files I was looking for actually looked like because I have slept since that day. As I went through the boxes, opening around 50 or so boxes, I came across a long forgotten collection, I found 3 boxes of Crown Royal bags of mixed and varied sizes. I sat down in my chair and thought damn, this was a slap in the face I wasn’t expecting. Way back when, back in the day if you will, I used to drink allot, you may not actually be able to comprehend how much, just know it was more than the average social drinker. My drink of choice was Crown Royal on ice, and many times I just skipped the ice altogether because I kept my Crown in a freezer. When I was in the Air Force I stockpiled Crown Royal, when I say stockpiled I bought it regularly by the case or two to three cases at a time. It wasn’t because I had parties all the time, it was my personal drinking stock. When I drank with friends I drank what they had and usually allot of tequila.

I can’t even began to phatheom the amount of Crown Royal I drank just while I was in the Air Force. Need I remind everyone that I built explosives for a living? To this day it still surprises me that I still have all my fingers. When I got my retirement orders I began to really stock up because I knew I would need Crown Royal on the cheap after my departure. I priced it out on the economy and found that I could buy it at the package store on base for right around 1/5 the cost. After I got out I drank as I pleased like there was no end to my supply for around 2 years. I always had an excuse to drink, if there is such a thing. My brother-in-law at the time, married to my baby sister, was an entertainer of sorts. He had a small band that consisted of himself as lead singer and guitar player, his sister who also sang and played keyboard, and her husband who played the drums. On occasion there were other members but my brother-in-law was such a dick that they didn’t stay that long. Anyway, every weekend starting Friday night they would play all the local dive country bars which were all b.y.o.b. (bring your own bottle) holes in the wall in the middle of nowhere at times. I don’t care for the wanging and twanging of country music much but I figured what a better place to get laid than by some drunk redneck girls. It has been my experience that redneck girls can ride for well over 8 seconds. After an ugly divorce I wanted two things in life and only two things, I wanted to drink to forget my own name and I wanted to fuck anyone who didn’t need me to remember her name.

Bonus, I could do as much as I wanted of both and nobody batted an eye at me. Not that it would have mattered because quite simply I didn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion. About six months after getting out of the Air Force, while working for my father the concrete contractor, I found myself working on the other side of town. After an extremely long day in the heat, humidity, and the hot Texas sun, I was ready to call it quits for the day. Making my way home I drove by a bar with an advertisement I could not ignore, they were have a wet t-shirt contest, and drink specials. I was all over it. When I went in, after paying cover, I was entering the club with a mission, get drunk and find some tail. Bingo! The first thing I saw was a fantastic ass bent over the bar grabbing something from behind. My reaction? I walked up to her and smacked that ass with all my might! She jumped up so fast I almost got whiplash watching her. I knew something was up because it was all happening in slow motion and I was still 100% sober. She looked me square in the eye and TOLD me I owed her some drinks, some dancing, and a good fucking to take her mind off of how bad her ass was stinging. It’s a deal. We drank. We danced, well, she danced, I just moved around in a stuper. We drank. We made out a bit. We drank. Then I took her home, she was special.

We got married a year and a half later. Before that we spent allot of time together, I eventually moved her and her young daughter (1) into my apartment on the other side of town. She got a job and we were moving on. I introduced her to my weekend habit of going out to country gigs and life was one big party. Shortly after we got married, within the first month or so, after a night out partying, I woke up in my own puke. This wasn’t the first time, but I vowed that morning it was going to be the last damn time. And y’all know what? I’ve never looked back. Shortly after that my dad retired, leaving me without a job, so I contacted a friend of a friend of a friend who hired me as their front end bartender. My wife was worried that being in that close contact with alcohol that I would be heading back down the path of least resistance. She had no problem with it being a full nude strip bar but worried about me around all the alcohol. She had always heard it only takes one sip and all hell can break loose.

Fortunately for both of us I had no interest in the drinking any more. No, I never really quit drinking, but I quit drinking myself just shy of a coma every night. In fact, these days I don’t drink much at all, we don’t go out to bars, and most of my friends are actually family. So far so good. Personally I can’t see myself going back, I know, never say never. What happened to the Crown Royal bags? Currently my mother-in-law has them in her possession. She wanted them to make a quilt for me. I explained I didn’t need a quilt because I don’t want the everyday reminder of what an asshole I was when I was drinking. So who knows what she will eventually do with them. No, there was no Crown Royal remaining, which is unfortunate because that makes an easy Christmas present for most of the people I know.  You’ve heard of cleaning out one’s closet, well this was my version. Oh, I found all the records I was hunting for in the first place. No telling what is in the rest of those boxes, probably shit I don’t need to be seeing anyways.

Disclaimer From Bartender: Untold Stories

Welcome to the section where I get to share stories about the great club I worked at in the not so distant past, the interesting industry that I worked in, the array of people I had the pleasure to  meet everyday, and of course being a bartender in a full nude strip bar. Just take a stool and enjoy the beverage of your choice while I share stories and tantalizing tales that have been shared with me and/or observed by me. Now y’all are ready to be “exposed” to the things I’ve heard and the things I’ve seen thru the eyes and ears of a real Texas Bartender while working in a real Texas strip club. One can search around The Sting Of The Scorpion and find a variety of stories directly or indirectly related to Bartender Stories, I encourage y’all to look to the links on the right and click “Scorpion Sting’s Bartender Stories” as this will help to narrow your search.

As a bartender in a full nude strip bar I was witness to many amazing sites, I got to meet many amazing people, and best of all I got to listen to the stories of many people. The incredible challenge I always had was knowing what to do with all of the information that had been offered to me. What do I do? Write a book? Write a movie? Neither, but I did write it all down. I took notes and wrote down triggers so that the stories would come back to me easy. Why do all that? Why bother? Good question, which the stories I will tell will hopefully relay and answer some of those, if not all, questions. In time gone by I had a separate blog dedicated solely to telling stories from my perspective from behind the bar based on my conversations and observations. And, unfortunately I fell victim to some culling of blogs and it became a deleted statistic I chalked up as a great loss. However, as y’all can see here, I have been trying to maintain the tradition of telling my stories. from this point forward I will warn you that the content will become adult oriented and the language as well as the descriptive picture will become a bit more colorful. I’m not the best story-teller, but I try to be a fair story re-teller.

The views and opinions expressed within the walls of this blog section are mine. However, the purpose of this blog section is to re-tell stories I have heard and to tell stories based on what I have seen, so some things will be borrowed to a point. All names have been changed or omitted. Quite possibly y’all might read things here written in a coarse or blunt manner. This will not be done to offend you, however it might be needed at times to relay the true and accurate message. Some of the images you will find in this blog section belong to ME because I took them. Others are assumed royalty free and found publically on the internet. When needed, or asked for, I will include where or who I got the photo from. Please contact me if you have any questions at all about anything you may find here. Please enjoy your stay, return soon and often. Don’t be surprised if the story I tell one day is about you or somebody you know.