Where Do You Dream Of Going?

Posted by Scorpion Sting on November 7, 2013

The Journey That Changed A life

Posted by Scorpion Sting on October 16, 2013

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 story I will tell today will hopefully relay and answer some of those 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. Without further ado I will begin with a story about a 17 y/o runaway that set out on a journey that changed her perspective and changed her life forever. These are her experiences as she told them to me.

On the day after she turned 17 she decided that life in Schuyler Nebraska wasn’t what she wanted any longer. She had been thinking about leaving for a while but never had the guts to just up and walk away. Her home life was not anything she can admit to be glamorous by any means. Her mother had died a few years before which she took real hard. She was an only child and now she was still living with her mom’s boyfriend. He, in all reality, was all she had. He is decent to her. He has allowed her to continue to live with him as long as she stayed in school. It has become really weird because he has a new girlfriend who also lives with them. She is only 3 years older and that is hard enough to deal with. All remembrance of her mother is of her own accounts as the boyfriend rarely if ever talks about her. She started feeling out-of-place and in the way of the new life he was starting for himself. So, she decided that she needed to get away, far away, far enough that she didn’t have to worry about the life she wanted to leave behind. She celebrated her birthday with her friends and her part-time on and off boyfriend. It wasn’t a party or anything, just went out to a friends property to drink and get a little wild. The next morning she left the house she grew up in for the last 8 years with nothing but the clothes on her back and the cash she had been saving. As far as she was concerned she only took what she needed and would get more as she moved on and when it was needed. She just started walking south, following the back country roads, following railroads at times, and sleeping where she could when she could. She would bath in restrooms of fast food places and gas stations which was already getting old after a few days. She would get picked up on occasion but it rarely lasted very long because she would feel uncomfortable and unsafe. The only way she felt she could pay was with some kind of sexual favor and she didn’t want to go there.

Unfortunately as she traveled she found herself in need of money, food, and a warm place to stay the night. She learned that her body was something that she could use and get what she wanted in return. She would blow into different hole in the wall towns and waitress at the local bars mostly. She learned that the less she wore to work and the more she teased the men that this equaled more money. She recalled the time she wore the shortest shorts she could find to the bar one night. She remembers these shorts because they have become her lucky shorts over time. She thinks its funny because she got them at a thrift shop for twenty-five cents. While at the bar that night she was convinced to enter into a wet t-shirt contest because the 1st place prize was $1500.00 and a trip to Las Vegas. She remembers thinking Vegas was going the wrong direction for her but if she got the trip she would go and check it out. She spent allot of time telling little white lies about her age in order to work in the bars. Lucky for her they never asked for any identification because she didn’t even have any. So, she entered the contest with all the local girls from the bar and the area around. She knew she would have to make it dirty to have a chance. She wanted the guys to remember her when they went home drunk to their wives and girlfriends. She has began to find the power of showing a little skin here and there. She didn’t win the wet t-shirt contest, but she did place 3rd out of some 40 other women, which in her opinion wasn’t too damn bad. As well, it had a $400.00 prize to go with the title. She knew she would have to try just a little harder the next time. As it turns out her journey to wherever she was going was taking quite some time. It’s been close to a year now and she still finds herself moving. She spent a few months over the winter in San Antonio Texas where she made some good friends and had a decent job working at a hole in the wall strip club as a waitress and a bar-back. She was thinking that this is where it’s at, she just might have found her knew home.

Then, one day out of the blue her roommate decided she wanted to go to Houston to visit family and asked if she wanted to tag along for the weekend. She figured why not, let’s go. Just so happens that when they got into town they saw an advertisement for, as it was billed, the largest wet t-shirt contest on the planet. They joked about going, then the joking became serious, then the joking turned into a dare, the dare turned into a bet. They showed up at Club X in the early evening that Saturday to see if they could check out the competition. They realized real fast that the club was actually a full need strip club and they might be in over their heads. Since she was 18 now she actually had the required identification to prove her age to participate in the wet t-shirt contest. They were given t-shirts with the club logo all over it. As she finds out later, I had a contest of my own to design those t-shirts, she found that funny for some reason I found out later. After getting ready and so forth they had a few drinks when it was announced that there will be over 700 participants in the wet t-shirt contest. Seems that many people want the prizes and don’t care that they will have to show their tits to get it. She had learned over the last year that it’s just a wet t-shirt contest but what it turns out to be is a totally different animal. The men don’t want to see the girls in their t-shirt, they want to see everything but that. She also found that she needed to learn how to move like a stripper if she ever wanted to win, an edge that she thinks she mastered. Then, the parade of tatas began and she remembers how nervous she really was because there were 700 plus girls who all wanted the same prize. She made it thru the initial cut, she made it thru the semi-final cut, and ended up in the top 10 by the time the night progressed. It was time to turn up the heat, game fucking on! She put her game face on and showed Houston what she was made of. She ended up not winning however, she didn’t win the $10,000.00 cash prize for 1st, she didn’t win the $7,500.00 cash prize for 2nd place. She did secure 3rd place and that $5,000.00 purse. She was also approached by the club’s dancer recruiter and asked to attend the boot camp if she would like to have a job. Oh, her friend? Her friend got put out in the semi-finals, receiving a zero dollar prize. She thought about the offer quite a bit the rest of the night and on into Sunday. She spoke to her friends mom and asked if she could stay with them for a while and she was told yes, of course. Her friend went back to San Antonio that night and she went back down to the strip club to talk to the recruiter about her offer. Since she had already answered the question if she wanted the job or not by staying she got geared up and fired up about going to boot camp to see if she gets the job.

She had to go shopping, she needed some clothes to do the boot camp, and some more street clothes because what she had wasn’t much anymore. During the two weeks of the boot camp she kept wondering if stripping was what she wanted to do. She kept weighing her options, and decided she would give it her best shot. At the end of the 2 weeks she was offered the job and she accepted the job. She remembers thinking that she can’t believe she has got herself into this. She realized that her journey was not important because she didn’t have a destination in mind at the time. Her first couple weeks were a little rough, getting into the routine, dealing with being on probation, and getting used to dancing in the nude in front of such large crowds. It was very overwhelming for her. Once she had been there for about a month she explained that she had stages she liked and disliked, her favorite stage was my bar because it was an opportunity to really let loose. My bar was extended out in all directions to serve as a decent sized stage, this stage even had it’s own pole. She began to meet people and open up and talk to people like myself when she had the time. She did pretty good money-wise and that made her pretty happy. Then, those dreams came crashing down around her, she ended up tearing her knee up real bad one night doing some very enlightening moves. I actually saw it because it happened on my bar. She considered her stripper career to now be ended. She ended up with a real wicked scar down the outside of her leg as a souvenir. She actually kept her job but moved to the front door checking i.d.s and taking admissions. While she was doing that she was going to school to get her TABC license. Once she got that she moved into the bars as a bar-back. She missed the money of stripping but didn’t really miss having to get naked to get paid. She did okay behind the bar, about $50,000 a year plus about $15,000.00 in tips annually. So, bartending wasn’t a bad gig either. Now, she reminded me, that it didn’t stop her from filling in on occasion or the random striptease while she was tending bar. She had fun with it.

She doesn’t think her journey is over because she doesn’t see herself staying in one place for too long. I think she will always do well in life because she chases what she wants and when she catches it she rides it like she stole it. Her story isn’t unlike many. People generally think poorly of strippers and often consider them to be no better than drug addict prostitutes. Not everyone that ends up stripping is running away from something, in fact, many aren’t running at all, they found that the income is great. Sadly, our society shuns nudity and makes it very taboo which tends to lend to be why when a person says strip bar or stripper it is usually done in a whisper. Yes, I know, being a nude stripper isn’t a game that everyone can or even wants to play, but it seems that more and more women are exploring it as an option. Everyday woman, like the ones you work with, go to school with, see at the grocery store, your neighbor, woman everywhere are trying new things for new reasons. Not every story always has a happy ending, as in life, sometimes there are tragedies as well. Keep that in mind the next time you judge someone before knowing them. I hope you have enjoyed this latest installment to the Bartender Stories. Until next time, remember to eat it every day!

Dealing With Difficult People In Your Life

Posted by Scorpion Sting on September 27, 2013

I have spent a considerable amount of time, which I sort of consider to be wasted time now, either dealing with difficult people or wondering what is the best way(s) to actually deal with the difficult people I encounter in my daily life. I have spent much quality time being a “people watcher” for many reasons. No, I do not have aspirations of being a great “people whisperer” but I have found that observation and silence are tools that give proven results in my life. Maybe you experience them as well. First, I had to be able to recognize the different kinds of difficult people. Second, I had to develop questions to ask myself about how I wanted to best deal with the difficult people I have in my life. Third, I had to learn different strategies to help me interact with the difficult people in my life. So, I was reading some things I wrote over time which have really been just “notes to self”. I started writing my questions, methods, answers, and strategies down back when I was in the Air Force since I learned that just because I perceived a person as difficult didn’t actually mean that person was difficult. These observations have grown year to year, job to job, marriage to marriage, and as I have aged or matured. So lets begin.

Do you recognize any of these 9 types of people?

The Know-It-Alls – They are the arrogant and always have an opinion on every single subject. When they are wrong they get very defensive.
The Passives – These are the people who never have an opinion and never offer a clue to where they stand.
The Dictators – These people are constantly demanding and are overly brutally critical of others. They enjoy being the intimidating bully.
The “Yes” People – These people will agree to everything and rarely follow through with any commitment they make. You learn fast that you cannot trust them.
The “No” People – These are the inflexible people who are very quick to point out why something is wrong and show negativity towards making something work,
The Gripers – They prefer complaining instead of finding solution because nothing is ever “right” for them to begin with.
The Extremely Religious – This person has an extreme and unconditional approach with life and people. These are the people who fear their God(s) in such a way they feel they must spread the fear with every word they speak to anyone that will listen.
The Bullshitter – They are the habitual liars who are habitually undependable in every aspect of their own being.
The Fucktard – This is an extraordinarily stupid individual who is so willing to disregard all common sense. They are obviously oblivious to everything about everything in every way. This is a person of unbelievable, inexcusable and indescribable stupidity.

Now, I know damn well you recognize each and every one of the people listed above. I know, also, that this is a pretty short list, more “types” can be added of course, as well as sub-categorized. Being able to notice people is the key. These are the people you live with, work with, rely on, and communicate with on a daily basis. Once you recognize what kind of person they are you can develop a strategy to quickly, confidently, and effectively deal with every kind of difficult person. It’s actually easier than it sounds.

Ask yourself the following 20 questions:

Do you want to be able to understand the difficult people in your life?
Do you want to learn how they think, what they fear, and why they do what they do?
Do you want the ability to understand how to make dealing with them less frustrating?
Would you like to know specifically what to do and say in every difficult situation?
Would you like to be less of a target for the difficult people in your life?
Would you like to be able to derail difficult people and teach them to treat you with respect?
Do you want to bring out the best or worst in people?
Did you know that difficult people are not difficult people all the time?
Do you want to know what makes a difficult person tick?
Do you want to know why complainers are complaining?
Would you like to know how to get people to keep their word to you?
Would you like to be able to respond to those who practice one-upmanship?
Want to react better when you are being yelled at?
Is it possible to be in sync with a difficult person and get along?
Do you wish you reacted better when you are criticized unfairly?
Do you know when to back down or to hold your ground?
What do you do with excuse makers and blamers in your life?
Do you wish people didn’t or couldn’t push your “buttons”?
Can you give an aggressive person an alternative direction to the aggression and conflict?
Did you know that specific “body language” is a more powerful tool than actual words.

In the end I think everyone gets tired of over-blown promises that turn out to just be an empty bucket. You can take control. You can be in charge. You can own what you think and break out of the bad habits that you have created or that have been created by others. Are you one of the 9 types of people I listed? Oddly enough most people are a collective of many types based on the people that surround them. Over time your actions, voice, and personality will become contagious to those who are around you. Toxic people become less of a threat once you understand what makes them the way they are. There are many factors to understanding others and most often begins with understanding oneself first. It is hard to heal a wound that cannot be seen. Now, I know you are waiting for the “punch-line” or the “answer” and unfortunately I don’t have either to offer. I can, however, offer unsolicited advice which shows that tact and skill in handling difficult people become very enviable traits in a person. Changing your ways will be something that is noticed immediately and at that point you have balanced the playing field. Once you realize your own person power over difficult people your confidence in any situation will become one of your best traits. If you take nothing more away from this information just remember to just smile at a difficult person because it will throw them off guard because they will spend endless amounts of time wondering why you are smiling at them. Meanwhile they tend to forget why they were being difficult and often dismiss themselves from the conversation or situation. Personally, I know I can defuse any difficult person by doing two simple things, being silent and smiling. It works.

Rest Stop Wanderings

Posted by Scorpion Sting on July 9, 2013

I have spent a good portion of my life traveling from one place to another for one reason or another. I have seen many cities, plenty of the countryside, and every place I have traveled in the world offers it’s own idea of a rest stop for travelers. I guess it’s the old cliché that when one isn’t looking for a place to pee there are options for stopping everywhere and when you really, I mean really got to go there isn’t a place in site. Personally, I was raised to use my resources while traveling but sometimes one needs to sit down and think about one’s business. As much as I love the state of Texas, I have noticed that once you get off the beaten path in the middle of nowhere that a rest stop for the public doesn’t really seem to exist. Trust me, I spend hours driving hundreds of miles on country roads every week and I know where I can pull over and when it is best to wait. I usually plan my trips around pit stops, especially as I get older, but more on that later. A wise man once told me that I should never pass up a restroom or the opportunity to use one because you never know when the next one will come about.

Life before GPS, Google Maps, and cell phones was interesting, a person had to memorize where the rest stops were at since they were never any rest stops listed on the maps I was using. But what if you were traveling into unknown territory? Whenever I travel it’s done in a car of some sort. I don’t fly. In the beginning this would irritate my wife. Why? I’m really not sure, maybe she liked the close to instant satisfaction of getting to her destination in the shorted amount of time possible. But that isn’t why we are here, I could write 1,000 posts on the discussions (arguments) we have had about travel arrangements, maybe later. I enjoy it when I’m driving. I travel at my own pace, enjoy the scenery, and see my surroundings on my way. Sometimes when riding my Goldwing I find myself lost in the ride and find myself wondering what in the hell the hurry is all about when getting to a destination. The destination will still be there when I get there. When I travel alone not being able to find a rest stop is not a problem because I’m a person who will make a pit stop when my body says to make a pit stop.

I mentioned above a few times that I drive everywhere I go. It’s just the way it is in my life. In fact, I can remember being younger (much younger) and taking the road trips with my family going all over the United States. Maybe that is where I get it from, who knows. I was never, and I am never now, afraid to take a journey. When I was in the Air Force living in Japan I found out very fast that there isn’t any such thing as a rest stop. Nature was your rest stop. I lived off the base way off the beaten path of American influence. I had to basically learn to drive all over again because when I first got there I thought all the Japanese had lost their freaking minds the way they drove. I had to adapt pretty fast. What better way to adapt to the new driving environment then to just get out and explore. Being this was at the northern tip of northeast Japan it was obvious that I was in farm country. Being fro southeast Texas I was no stranger to this kind of living. Nor was I a stranger to farm equipment, large and small, sharing the roads with all the rest of the cars and trucks. You will see me call the way they drove as backwards, don’t take offense to this, all I really mean it is opposite to what I knew, such as driving on the left side of the road as well as the right hand side (steering wheel placement) drive vehicles. An example of the challenge for me was re-learning to drive a standard (stick) because now I was having to shift with my left hand and the tree pattern for shifting was opposite as well. Let me get this back on track here. The only way to get comfortable driving the “new to me way” was to just get out and drive. In four years I would have to venture to say there weren’t many roads in Japan I didn’t travel. Oh, wait, there are no rest stops, period. But fortunately I never got caught taking in the scenery and “watering” the grass when I needed to. The biggest shock I saw up in the country was this Japanese gentleman taking a shit on the road. When he was done he scooped it up, placed it in a bag, took a bottle of water to rinse the spot down, and then he got in his car and left. Probably took less than 30 seconds. I never had to resort to popping a squat on the road luckily.

I also found myself driving in few other countries like South Korea, Turkey, Iceland, Greenland, Italy, Spain, Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, and some others I’m forbidden to ever acknowledge. Lets just say I have seen my share of international crappy roads in wartime and in peacetime. What I learned is that I should never skip an opportunity to use the rest room when it’s available. Due to laws and the indigenous people one never knew what to expect if one was caught whipping it out to piss in the wind. It always seemed prudent to follow the lead of the local people. I just watched what they did and that became the new normal. Hell, most of the places I traveled through I found the open road was their rest stops. It was nothing to see cars and trucks pulled to the side of a major road and there be two or three tents put up, a camp fire, and people making their own way. I saw this allot in the Middle East. I never attempted it. I was afraid of the unknown. Most of the places I was at weren’t real “American friendly” if you smell what I’m stepping in here. There were just things that were dumb ideas and not worth any of the risks that may have been involved. I recall a funny time, at least I thought it was funny, also amazing in a way because it was the first time I had ever seen it. I was in Kuwait and it was really fucking hot, I thought I knew heat, but this was fucking hot. How hot you ask? It was hot enough that during the heat of the day one could cook things in their shorts. Did I mention it was fucking hot? Anyway, I drank water all the time. One didn’t sweat much because it was so dry and arid that it just evaporated instantly, just leaving the salt residue behind. A person knew if they were hydrated by the color of his/her own pee. You knew if your pee was dark and had a stink that you were becoming dehydrated. You knew that if it was light in color or almost clear that you were doing it right. One day in the middle of the afternoon I was traveling in the water truck returning to the base and really need to go. I pulled over off the road and went to the passenger side so I was “hidden” from view of passing drivers. At first, after unbuttoning my pant and pulling myself out, the hot breeze felt decent. Within moments the direct sunlight and hot wind began to burn like fire. Imagine if you were in the dark all the time and when you came to the surface the light, wind, and heat just knocked you on your ass. Yes, that hot. In a hurry, I began to pee in the sand. Like any male, young or old, I was trying to write my name. When the pee hit the sand it didn’t even puddle, it just instantly dried up and blew away in the blowing dust. First time for me seeing that little phenomena, not the last by a long shot though.

I spent a fair amount of time in the deserts of New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona while in the Air Force as well. Each place with it’s own travel challenges. Anyone who has traveled on the I10 or I40 corridor knows what I’m talking about. There isn’t shit out there, and there isn’t even shit between where there isn’t any shit. It was always long stretches between civilization. Population was so scarce that most places just said fuck it to speed limits and put up Drive Safely signs everywhere. Most of the driving out here was monitored by aircraft because it was so vast. Rest stops? Not too many. Don’t even think about breaking down if you are off the main roads because it could be days before you see another human being. Some state’s idea (excuse) for a rest stop basically looks like the picture below, a porta-potty or two, a trash can, and maybe a tree. I found that traveling north from my location really only goes to prove my point. Once I was out of sight of any given city or human population it seemed as if there was just a road leading somewhere, nowhere, or anywhere. I understand it takes “funding” to have rest stops. I also understand it seems to be pretty low on the totem pole as far as being a priority. Which is the irony of it all, states want you to travel to them as a destination or thru them on the way to your destination, yet most of the states I have traveled to or thru are not very accommodating to the motorist. If it were then most states would take care of their roads as well. Think about this, I ride my Goldwing from Houston Texas to Sturgis South Dakota every year in August for the bike rally. I have to drive thru Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota to get there and then do all of it in reverse to get home. I usually drive the 1350 miles straight thru, only stopping to pee, grab a bite, get fuel, and grab a nap for a few hours at a nice rest stop in Nebraska. Usually I get there in about 24 hours, sometime longer if it is up to my wife. Sometimes she drives a “chase vehicle” with my trailer just in case but she usually arrives at least 10 hours behind me.

I usually don’t let the lack of or the poor condition of rest stops deter me from driving anywhere. I like driving and riding way to much for that. Trust me, I make do. In fact, in the last two years I have driven to Ogden Utah and back six times, to South Dakota and back three times, and to Orlando Florida (and further south) and back twice. Plus, to El Paso Texas twice already this year. Only two of those long haul trips were not for pleasure and all but four of those trips were done on my Goldwing. I have pretty much every rest stop or pee location ingrained in my mind for those trips and it never fails, if I don’t stop I have made a mistake. I guess, if nothing else, I will leave you with this lesson in life, never be to “good” to pee on a tree or squat in the bushes. It’s not worth it to be uncomfortable, it really isn’t. Also, always, and I mean always for you hard headed ones, pee before you leave the house, you won’t regret it. I will write a few more posts about my travels in some future posts.