Snowflakes in Hell

I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I noticed that a lot of the comments I received on my first (real) post were, well, not exactly relevant to the post. It seems like a few of you have questions about the strip club industry and you’ve been waiting for a stripper to come online and answer them in a semi-anonymous forum. Perhaps there are still some unanswered questions out there. This is your chance to ask them. Feel free to ask me anything about stripping, strippers, strip clubs, etc., and I will answer to the best of my ability based on my personal experience and knowledge.

I’m willing to bet that at least some of the reading audience did not know that firearms have generated several turns-of-phrase that still of relative common use in today’s lexicon. We’re going to go over a couple of the ones you might have heard, and what their origins are.

One phrase I’m guessing everyone has heard, especially if you watch war movies is “lock and load”; which has graduated to the general lexicon. It’s current usage means “get or be ready” for whatever action may happen. With the M1 Garand, we wouldn’t have this handy phrase for overzealous business majors to use in class. The phrase was originally “load and lock”, which referred to inserting a clip (I don’t get to say that much…clip clip clip clip) into the M1 Garand, and locking the bolt forward. An alternate interpretation suggest that the phrase was originally “lock and load” and referred to locking the bolt in the rearward position prior to inserting the clip into the rifle.

No matter the origin, the phrase was immortalized by John Wayne in the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima; and was also uses later in both Platoon, and one of the Star Trek movies.

The next phrase is “flash in the pan”, which is currently used to describe bands, actors, or artists that have one hit and then disappear. Its usage is similar to “shooting star”, and “one hit wonder”.

This phrase has its genesis in the days of flintlock weapons. Back then, loose powder was carried in “the pan” of your weapon; which would in theory ignite the main powder charge. However, as flinters were and are notoriously unreliable, a “flash in the pan” would sometimes occur, where the powder in the pan would burn but not ignite the main charge. The result would be a pretty lightshow, and a very unhappy soldier.

That concludes today’s “gun induced grammar” lesson; feel free to add your own in the comments section!

My industry is a perfect example of one of the real problems with guns. The wrong people have them and the right people don’t. There have been several strip club shootings in the news recently, the most recent occurring less than a week ago in Texas. Before that there was a high-profile incident in Las Vegas involving multiple celebrities.

Working around drunk people in any capacity can be pretty scary. Most of the clubs I’ve worked at either have metal detectors or (more commonly) “wand” patrons as they come in. At the ones that only wand people, I’ve only seen it done on the weekends and evenings. I understand the logic (basically it’s profiling) but it seems to me that a preventative measure that takes 15-20 seconds should be performed every time if it’s going to be used at all.

The real problem, though, is that bouncers are never armed. In most places security is a joke. A lot of dancers refer to them as “door guys,” because we can’t bring ourselves to say “bouncers” or “security” without an accompanying eye-roll. I would love it if every club had armed bouncers. The problem is that clubs don’t want to deal with the hassle of having every bouncer licensed, trained and background-checked. Not for a position that pays minimum wage plus tips. Most bouncers don’t stay in the industry very long, either, so it would be time-consuming and costly to jump through the hoops to arm each bouncer, only to have to do it again a few months later. Additionally, a lot of clubs are skittish of having too much visible security. According to this line of thinking, metal detectors and armed bouncers make a club look dangerous and scare away the “right” type of customer.

Before I started dancing in clubs I worked at a peep show. This was the only time I ever worked with an armed bouncer. The peep show was in a porn shop, and the bouncer was also a clerk. He was definitely a “gun guy” who always had his weapon on him, including at work. He carried it unconcealed. I never had a single problem with customers there when he was on shift. It didn’t seem to affect my money or the shop’s business. However, he carried his weapon because it was part of his lifestyle, not as part of the job. I guess the only conclusion I can reach from these musings is that if I were to ever open a club of any sort I’d want to hire “gun guys” for security. Opening a club is not in my ten-year plan, so for now I’ll just continue to work at places with metal detectors and avoid NFL players.