Some things just don’t make sense.
Today as I was sitting behind the dirty windshield, I passed a sign in front of one of the local strip joints. Strip joint may not be the politically correct term for these establishments, but then since I am not politically correct I will use the term strip joint. Anyway, the sign said “Come in and watch all the Red Sox games here”. Now I am not saying that I have ever patronized any of these establishments in the past, but if I had… well wait there was the time when two of my college buddies and I were asked to leave one of these establishments when we made some remark about not tipping when we had to pay an exorbitant price for a bottle of beer, but that’s a story for another day. Maybe “asked to leave” isn’t really the right way to put it, we were thrown out by a rather large hairy armed gentleman, but again that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, where was I? Ahh yes, if I were to patronize one of these establishments, I certainly wouldn’t be going there to watch a baseball game. Why would I pay a cover charge and buy over-priced drinks to watch the baseball game? Wouldn’t I be going in there to watch the women? After all isn’t that the point? And how would that make the dancers feel? You come in and watch the ball game instead of them? I can just picture some guy sitting at the bar and saying “Hey honey can you move a little to your right, you’re blocking the screen and I can’t see the damn game.” And I got bounced for not leaving a tip? Well theoretically I got bounced, I guess you can’t get bounced if you never went in. Kind of like “If a tree falls and no one is there the hear it did it make sound?” If you told the wife you didn’t go to a strip joint, does that mean you really didn’t? Actually at the time of this alleged bouncing incident I wasn’t married, but you get the point.
So where was I? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a sign which read “Come in and see our beautiful women dance for you?” Which reminds me of another thing, the few times I went to one of these establishments, I don’t recall seeing any beautiful women dancing. It was more women who were living a hard life, trying to make a living, grinding out a living, literally. But then who am I to judge? We all must do what we must do to survive, to live. Whatever it takes.
Ok, see it was like this, back in the mid-seventies, when I was in college, we could go to a local bar and pay maybe 75 cents for a beer. The same beer at the Teddy Bear club was two dollars. So we would buy a couple six packs for the ride in and out of Boston and then we would each buy one round, which would cost us six dollars. And we would make these beers last, we had it timed so we could see all the girls dance once in the time it took us to milk three beers. And the barkeep just couldn’t understand why we would only give him a five and a one, or six ones. I still recall him counting and recounting these bills. “So where you guys from” he finally asked. “Southbridge” we answered. “Don’t you know how to tip in Southbridge?” “Only when we get good service” we answered. “Get the f*** out”, and now….. you know the rest of the story.
