Reviews by JayJay15

Public Service Announcement: I will no longer tip any dancer who dances to hip hop. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. My wife and I and a couple of friends spent the weekend at Topsail Island, and took out a few hours on Friday night to visit Cherry's Nightclub, somewhat oddly named, a local waitress explained to us, because the town of Snead's Ferry did not want to be known as the kind of community that would have a "Gentleman's Club," and the same waitress assured us that "the town is trying to get rid of it." Shame on Snead's Ferry. I don't know if there is a club out there that exists that would be my "perfect" club, because I suspect that my "perfect" club would likely have nude women propelling themselves, selectively (i.e., according to my own personal selection) onto my lap and begging me to take them to a hotel room which they would be willing to pay for. But Cherry's is better than any strip club I have been to in years. With a couple of caveats, for which, see below. I entered with my wife at my side. Again, she is cute enough that she was being recruiting by various dancers all night long. I paid $10 to get in and she paid nothing to get in. The waitress that we had talked to at a restaurant earlier in the day said Cherry's opened at 7 pm. By my exerience, if a strip club is open at 7, the dancers are on stage in earnest by 10 or 11. We arrived right at 9 and everything was in full swing. At that early hour, there were decidedly more dancers than were customers. There were three couples that I could see, and the rest appeared to be Marines. Cherry's runs a shuttle from the base in Jacksonville to the club, so the Marines come in with no plans to drive home, and they drink like they do not plan to drive home. So the crowd at Cherry's is as rowdy as any legitimate strip club I have ever attended. However, I think it is important to note that the Marines do exercise their vaunted discipline - at least by my observation. They are rowdy with one another, drunk, and loud, but they seem to be very gentle and respectful to the girls, and my wife and my involvement with them all night long was extremely courteous. So, hooah! Drinks are moderately priced, but if you have a smoking hot wife (as I do) at least one of the bartenders has no problem giving you free drinks. Otherwise, if memory serves, the sodas were $2, the beers were $3-$4, and the mixed drinks were $5-$7. Lap dances in VIP are $25, with ONE AND ONLY ONE (emphasized to me by a stripper) chance at a two dances for $25 just before midnight. My wife and I went back with probably the hottest dancer in the place and each got one dance that was decidedly low mileage. However, we could see a couple of the other lap dances taking place around us and it actually appeared that there was some making out going on, if you get my drift. Strip clubs are, however, girls. Only the girls ultimately matter, and the best possible strip club minus totally hot, pleasant, and sensual girls is just another nice building (see my review of Gentleman's Playground in Rocky Mount). Cherry's has one of the finest mixtures of girls I have ever seen. Young girls and MILFs, skinny chicks and huge knockers, black and white, athletic dancers and go-go dancers and girls that look like they are having sex with the pole, highly tatted girls and some of the most attractive porcelain-skinned beauties ever. Only a couple of girls did the kind of dancing that I prefer - dancing that is all sex. Two that stand our were named Leah and Jordan. While most of the girls (regrettably) danced to hip-hop, I did hear Zeppelin, a set of country music, Nine Inch Nails, Tom Petty, and Jimi Hendrix, among others. Most of the girls were gymnasts, go-go dancers, or bootyshakers. But whereas the normal number of sensual dancers in a club is only one or two, I would say that there were a half dozen at Cherry's on the night we went. Many of the dancers will come and sit in your lap and spend time with you if a) they like you or b) you have been spending on them. Jordan sought us out and offered to give us VIP performances during the 2-for-1 special. There was a lot of physical contact generally, it appeared, but again, our VIP room experience was a bit tame. I can say authoritatively that others' results varied. Our disappointment was probably more a function of us getting a lap dance from the hottest chick in the place than anything else. We tipped all the girls who danced to anything other than hip hop. We didn't tip anyone who danced to hip hop. It was interesting, then, that the girls we tipped, except for Jordan, really did not make their way around to see if we were interested in them or not. It did appear that many of the girls were dealing with established customers that they knew quite well, so one's results might vary based on the time lapse between one's visit and the last military payday. Overall, the quality of the dancers was far higher than anything I have seen other than the old "Mustang Ranch" in Selma during its heyday. It has probably been seven years or more since I have seen such generally attractive dancers together in one club. There was nothing negative or disappointing about our first visit except for the perfunctory nature of our VIP room experience. But we will likely go back and sample a couple of other dancers and hope to see different results. Overall, an excellent club - on that I am committed to investigating again.

Well, I really don't know what to say. Ummmmm, the dancers are distributed all along the bell curve. Except for that pesky middle part of the bell curve. Literally, you jump from an 8 to a 2 in rapid succession. Sadly, I overheard a conversation in which the second most beautiful girl in the room was told she could not be a dancer because she was too old. The chick looked younger than half the girls on staff on the day I went. Weird. In the time I was there, about three hours, I saw three girls I would consider highly sexually desirable. One of them was the girl who was told she was too old to dance there. The dancers can't dance. At all. In fact, it's pretty embarrassing. One dancer, who I think was named Kyus, a short, thin, little redhead, was the best dancer there and played great music to boot. The "club" is a remodeled doublewide trailer. It gives the epithet "trailer trash" all new meaning. I tipped Kyus and one of the other girls. I talked to a couple of girls, both of whom started pushing VIP right off the bat. So I took the bait. "OK, whether I want to pay for a VIP dance with you depends on what goes on back there." To which, the stripper replied, "I dance for you." To which, I replied, "But you are doing that here. You mean you want me to give you $30 (the price she quoted me) to do exactly what you are now doing, just in a different place?" "But we get to be alone," she says. "Being alone with someone who does nothing for you is pretty much the equivalent of being alone, I have learned," said I. "What is it that you want to do?" "Really?" "Like touching?" "OK, so is at least THAT allowed?" "Yes. But I only want people touching me if they buy a bunch of dances." My wallet begins screeching, "Danger, Will Robinson!" So I ask, "A bunch of dances? How many is a bunch?" "Well, if you bought three, like, I wouldn't mind if you touched me on the fourth dance," she says. "I think the price of touching you just went from $30 to $120. You know, I've got a wife at home who will pay me $200 to touch her." I didn't even begin to consider extras, after that little exchange. There is a pool table and they allow you to smoke and there was sports on the tv. I think that the cokes were $2 and the beers might have been in the $4 to $5 range. So if you have $20 and want to shoot some pool, watch sportscenter, get a coke, and see some tits, maybe this is the place for you. If you are expecting attractive women, capable dancers, or actual VIP treatment for your VIP bucks, you probably will go someplace else. Like Fayetteville.

I have never been to a strip club in my life from which I wanted to immediately, or almost immediately, flee. You have got to be kidding me. My wife and I showed up at Cafe Risque at about ten pm on a Saturday night. Lesson for life: When you drive up to a strip club where there are ostensibly naked boobies inside, and there is NOT ONE CUSTOMER in the house on a Saturday night, circumstances are telling you that there is a big problem. And it was downhill from there. So we go inside. It was late at night and my wife and I had been to a sporting event, and driving home we figured we'd both like something to eat and to watch some bewbs, so we stroll inside after paying $8 entry (this is the price they charge males who are "just passing through," I have no idea what they charge locals and truckers, the other two categories that they asked about) and the place is quiet. There is not one soul to be seen. The "manager," a five-foot nothing blonde woman with 46-inch hips and weighing about 170 pounds, whom I later learned was a former "dancer" and who "will be dancing again in two weeks," rushed into the back to fetch... whomever... was supposed to be up front. She returned with assurances that they would be up to "take care of us right away," and I learned that, in Harnett County, North Carolina, "right away" equals about seven minutes. At which point a decidedly middle-aged waitress emerged wearing granny shorts and a nice Walmart style top and began to "take our order." Again, I learned about the language divide between Harnett County and the rest of the world, as, in Harnett County, "taking someone's order" equates to "begging them to purchase the prime rib" and referring them to the sex toy shop in the back and letting them know that they are free to peruse the stack of dirty magazines for sale beside the exit and bragging about how this is only your second night waitressing here but you are already outselling the manager on the prime rib. Apparently it's some kind of contest. Who knew? Still, no titties. The "waitress" was a gravelly-voiced woman of approximately 5'5 and weighing a good 190 pounds. My wife and I disagreed about her age - wifey thinks she is about 55, I swore not a day under 58. So you get the idea. This becomes important later in the story. Pleasant enough in personality, with a decidedly trailer park edge, she did a good job of waiting on us in what would be exceedingly difficult circumstances, as our level of frustration escalated as our experience at Cafe Risque set into a degenerative spiral. She is not pretty. Nobody would want to see her naked. I doubt that she wants to see herself naked. Again, these details become important later. I have no desire to hurt anyone's feelings, and again, the waitress did a wonderful job. But some women belong on the stage, and some do not. I later termed the waitress "the wildebeest." Again, wait for the story to develop here.... Now, some context. I have been to Cafe Risque before. The dancers are often young mothers (by young I mean 30ish and below), nice looking older women (35+), with a generous sprinkling of college students. The waitresses tend to be college students, in my experience. The last time I went, a young girl in her 20s with incredulous boobage and wearing a bikini and flip flops waited on us. In my experience, there tend to be 3-6 dancers working on a shift, all of them at least "pretty," when not knockout gorgeous. So to see a 58-year old, wrinkled Wildebeest, with leathery brown skin thankfully covered by trailer park chic and bragging about how many prime ribs she has sold was... shocking. The first dancer came out and got on stage. More hip hop - the anti-music - yay. She was a pretty college student type with dirty blonde hair and a little bit of paunch. She couldn't dance - yet - but I could build a kingdom of strip clubs filled with girls just like her. Except for the decidedly boring dancing and the fact that I prefer bigger than "B" cups, she was just fine. Meanwhile, the other stripper comes up and starts chatting up my wife and I. Immediately, the come-on for my wife to become a dancer there begins. Within five minutes, the second stripper is pushing an application on my wife. What can I say? My wife was the hottest chick there that night. Meanwhile, the Wildebeest brings out our coffee. Who knew that coffee costs $3.50 anywhere on the planet not named "Starbucks?" And who knew they kept charging you $3.50 all night long since there are no free refills? The negative surprises are mounting. So I get up and wander to the bathroom. Which is conveniently locked, with a handscrawled paper sign on it, "Out of Order." Actually, both the men's and women's bathrooms were so designated. And you know how paper gets discolored after it has been out in the air for a while? Yeah, the signs had been up for a while. I walk back into the dining/stripping area long enough to notice that the restaurant cleanliness rating is only a "B." I wonder if the lack of bathrooms has anything to do with that? The manager stops me and begins bragging about how a few weeks ago she was a stripper (which has me thinking, "Really? A girl can put on 90 pounds in only a few weeks?", but I didn't say that) and how she taught all the other strippers to dance. Sandy blonde girl is still on stage and judging from her dancing ability, I decide that if I had to take credit for her dancing I would be hiding under a table or hanging myself right now. But maybe that's just me. So I ask the manager, "Do you have a bathroom?" She points me to a door labeled "Trucker's Lounge" just beside the stage and I amble in to find a commode, a sink, and a shower. My anger is rising to the point by now that I actually have to decide whether I am going to piss in the shower, sink, or commode. I make the moral choice, which may not have been the correct choice. Back out at the table I sit next to my wife again, who is STILL getting the "you'd make a great stripper and this is the place to strip" spiel. Meanwhile, ONE other customer has ambled in and is sitting against the wall. He appears to be in his mid-20s. The stripper who is selling my wife into a career of toplessness assures us "He comes here all the time and never tips. He just eats and looks at the titties." By this time, Sandy Blonde is off the stage and I am wondering exactly where are the titties that this non-tipper looks at. Between bouts of being pelted with applications for employment, my wife and I take a look at the menu. Cheese omelet. No question. After seven minutes of arguing how superior the prime rib is to the cheese omelet, the Wildebeest trucks our order into the back. The stripper who has taken a liking to my wife then informs us, "The manager wants her to dance, but she won't do it." My heart melts. I seriously want to run. "Did I hear you correctly?" I ask. "Did you just say that the waitress is being asked to dance? I mean, dance, like onstage? Like lapdances? I mean, not like the girls at Texas Steakhouse do. You know, like naked?" "Absolutely," replied the stripper, apparently not recognizing my shock or its origins. "Everyone who works here as a waitress is supposed to dance when they are needed." "HER???" I asked. It's too late to run. My wife won't let me. I know she won't because she told me so. Because very soon, the Recruiting Stripper takes the stage and I turn to my wife and say, under the piercing shriekings of R&B emitting from the speaker just above our head, "We gotta get out of here." She proceeds to play the role of accountant. "It cost us $8 to get in. I just tipped the Recruiting Stripper $3 for giving me all this information about this place. We just ordered a second round of coffee, so that's $15 worth of coffee. Now we ordered two cheese omelets at a cost of about $16, with tax. If we don't at least eat our omelets, we are out nearly $50 for nothing! No way we are leaving." You don't get it, I argue. We came here to see tits, and there are no tits. And worse, they want to show us Wildebeest tits! I could die in here, and the last thing I would see is a naked Wildebeest! She remained unmoved. Worse yet, she then started talking about tipping the Wildebeest, and how much more we would be out.... So I started thinking. First thing I notice when I come into the parking lot is a) the notable absence of cars, and 2) the craters that you could hide a rhino or wildebeest in. Axles all over I-95 must be groaning after visits to Cafe Risque. This place is falling apart from the outside in, I tell myself. It's not the strippers. The strippers are as attractive as they are in most places. Solid 6's and 7's on that particular night. My wife is without a doubt a 9, but that is another story. But the point is that the fact that there are at least five employees on the campus (The Wildebeest, Sandy Blonde Stripper, Recruiting Stripper, The Manager, and a male whom I surmise may be the cook, who stood outside for the entire hour and a half that we were there chatting on his cellphone) and only 2-3 customers has nothing to do with the girls. Overpriced food + no free refills on something as cheap as coffee + a stripper so harried by having been overworked to cover shifts but underpaid because the customers long ago gave up on this place + TWO out of order bathrooms + a parking lot resembling death valley + a "B" sanitation rating + an attempt to force a Wildebeest to get naked CAN ONLY be a series of problems related to one thing: a failure of leadership. Whoever is in charge of this circus is the world's biggest incompetent. Either that, or they have already made the decision to let the operation wind down. I am going to pretend that the problem is incompetence here for a moment. Look, strip clubs are easy. Strip clubs are girls. Add food to girls, and you have something nice. Add a nice interior, and that's nice too. Good music, nice. Sports, nice. Ameneties are nice. T-shirts are nice. Even the dirty magazines are nice. But look folks, if you don't have girls, you don't have a strip club. And when you find yourself recruiting Wildebeests to make a shift work, it is time to take a second look at what you are doing. In summary, I will say this: The management of Cafe Risque has made it impossible for the girls who work for them to make any money. The club is relying on the various fees paid by the girls to keep the doors open. That means that all the girls have gone, rightly so, to other clubs, where they can actually make money. The girls who work at Cafe Risque work under unreasonable fees and conditions, including one condition that many of them seem to like, but which actually cuts into their ability to make money - and that is the restraints placed on customers when they get a lap dance. The girls have abandoned the place, and this has been going on for a while. Because the girls have abandoned the place, the boys don't come either, and the few who come come for a meal, not really to enjoy the girls. As I said before, it may be that the decision has already been made to shut down this operation. It has all the signs of a business that is going out of business. But if that is not the case, I can save Cafe Risque, and will be glad to do so for a mere $100,000 per year. I will come in and change everything, so that the place is more amenable to pretty girls, and the wealthy boys will soon flock in. This is not hard, unless you are a moron. And by the way, the cheese omelet was fine, but hardly worth $8. It feels really weird when you get to the end of your meal and realize that you spent $8 on an entree, and $10.50 on three cups of coffee. At the end of the night we were out fifty dollars. We tipped the dancers a grand total of about $6 and the waitress $5. The dancers were so prissy that they wouldn't even allow me to slip the money into their g-strings, but rather into straps on their shoes. THAT was the final insult. My first day as manager, EVERYONE gets fired. Except The Wildebeest, who was a pretty good waitress, and never gave up, even when she could tell I was getting peeved.

Imagine entering a grocery store with your grocery list. You have got to pick up tortillas, beef, salsa, milk, bread, eggs, dog food, and bleach. You walk down aisle one and find that, from top to bottom, the shelves are filled with Snickers bars. So you cross over into aisle two: top to bottom Snickers bars. After trundling down aisles 3-5 and finding every single shelf filled with Snickers bars, you search out a guy who looks like he works there. As it happens, it's the manager. You ask him, "Look, can you tell me where the eggs and beef and dog food are? I've got this grocery list, and thus far, I have only been able to find Snickers bars on every shelf in every aisle." The manager replies, "Oh, we don't carry any of that stuff." Indignantly, you ask, "How can you not carry EGGS? Isn't this a grocery store?" To which the managers answers, "But I don't like eggs. I like Snickers bars." This rather cryptic opening will be justified below. Like most strip clubs (I am finding), Thee Body Shop Cabaret looks like crap from the outside. But don't be fooled. When you enter, the physical plant is simple and open, yet somewhat plush and, dare I say, fancy? There are no TVs or other distractions like at many clubs, so one is naturally inclined to focus on the strippers dancing on a small raised stage (one of the lowest I've seen, maybe 3 feet off the floor, max?). While there is a large bar, alcohol is not served. Mixers are available and the barkeep/manager distributes the alcohol that you bring in. The place is cozy, yet open, and ALL of the employees, on the night I went, from manager to security to EVERY girl I interacted with, had great attitudes and (with one exception, see below) seemed to be really focused on customer service. Great plant. Great attitudes. Great potential. But.... First, the addresses that are available for the club really seem to conflict with GPS. Notice that I did not say "conflict with MY GPS." I went with some other folks in another car, and their GPS didn't pick it up, either. My GPS actually had us arriving at the club a full 15 minutes before we got there. The other car's GPS told us we were arriving a good 22 minutes before we got there. Thank God for cell phones. And upon reading reviews on other websites, I can see that this is a relatively common problem. It is not impossible to find, but you probably will need to backtrack and try again to accomplish it. OK, so that's not a big problem. But here's the thing: After purchasing a bottled water (moderately priced) and sitting down with my friends (it was all of our first time at this club), I hadn't sat through three stripper's onstage routines before I realized something. Were I Hannibal Lechter (and I am not) with a desire to remove one of the dancer's heads, and put it on each of the successive dancer's bodies, there would be absolutely no variation whatsoever. Let me say it a little more clearly: every single dancer there, save one, was a stereotypical sort of "college cutie," with a "college cutie" body and a "college cutie" face and a "college cutie" bubbly disposition and a "college cutie" attitude toward their dancing (i.e., that entertaining their customers came in third to self-expression and certain feminist abstractions like feeling secure or maintaining control or whatnot). The one exception to this was a kind of chunky girl who was, nevertheless, probably the second most attractive girl there. But she was so wrapped up in her boyfriend none of us ever got to meet her. But think about it: what do you expect when you go to a strip club? Well, there are gonna be "college cuties," for sure. But you also expect a couple of examples of "gonzo jugs." And maybe a MILF or two. And a black girl, and a Hispanic girl or two. And a goth girl. And a metalhead girl. And a short girl. And a tall girl. And a couple of girls who could pass for 19, and a few who could pass for 30ish, and a few who could pass for 40. And some are haughty and some are high mileage. And some see themselves as artists who are focused on the dance and some see themselves as there to provide a sensual experience for customers and some have absolutely no idea why they are there. But in this club, every dancer who appeared on the night I went fit the same body type, the same general hair type, all white girls (most were overly tanned), most had B or C cups, most were friendly with a strong undertone of attitude, and all - at least by appearance - showed a maximum of six years of age variance from top to bottom. Now.... You want to talk about standardization that reaches an all new level of annoying? OK. Postulate four hours of alternative music screeching through the speakers. Tinny, whiny, shallow imitations of rock music songs, one right after the other. Admittedly, not as bad as hip hop, which is the norm, and which is a situation most easily solved by suicide, but still. Utter and complete standardization. A weird variation of the Stepford Wives. Stepford Strippers? Stepford Strippers along with what could be a single godawful song repeated over and over and over for four hours. So, you are into college cuties? Great. You will love this club. You think alternative music actually deserves the appellation of "music." Then you will be right at home. But check this out: There were less than twenty people in the club. On a weekend night. All of them seemed to pretty much know each other. Accounting for people moving in and out, let's postulate that there were 30+ people there in the four hours I was there. And most of them seemed to be there to hang out with their friends. Don't get me wrong. The thirty people that were there passed more money in four hours than a lot of clubs that I have seen that had a hundred and sixty during the course of the night. But I think that my point is pretty clear: This is a niche club. It is not, I think, intended to attract the general public. Which may be exactly the way that management/ownership wants it. But you need to be forewarned. If you don't fit the niche, you will spend all night wondering, "When are they gonna play some AC/DC?" Or, "Where are the gonzo boobs and MILFs?" Now, having said this, let's get to specifics. Brianna is without a doubt the class of this club. Sweet, perky, attractive, and with a combination of sensuality and some minor gymnastics for her stage show. We left right after the strippers all came to do the proverbial money-harvesting five-dollar table dancers, but happily, Brianna came and gave us all a dance. Relatively high mileage for a dance that took place on the open floor, gorgeous girl, and like I said, sweet. However, as the girls rotated around, a redhead approached somebody else in my party and did the old trick of continuing to dance after the dance that was paid for ended and then charging him for it. This was particularly aggravating because, as you know, if you play 60 alternative rock songs in a row, there is absolutely no difference between any two of them, so it is impossible to keep track of that sort of thing. This was NOT a practice in the club (apparently). Brianna did not do this. None of the other girls did it to anyone that I knew. But be warned. Look, this club is immaculate in many respects, and it has GREAT potential. Add a few MILFS, add a couple of different body types, add some gonzo sweater puppies, and who knows?, maybe this club is my favorite club. Add all that AND vary the music significantly, and likely the patronage at this club increases by a factor of five or six. After all, who would shop at a grocery store that only sold Snickers bars? But I have to honestly ask myself - with the level of standardization I saw at this club, I wonder if the standardization is intentional? And I wonder if it is intentionally imposed in an attempt to limit the appeal of the club to some populace deemed safe, reliable, or otherwise desirable?

I showed up at 8 pm and nobody was at the club. Nobody. So I sat in the parking lot and waited. About 8:17 people started showing up - all of a sudden. I saw two white girls, whom I wrongly assumed to be strippers, head in, and figured it was time to enter. The bouncer was amenable to a brief conversation and was knowledgeable and friendly. He explained that the club was late in opening because the manager "was running 20 minutes behind." The manager actually showed up around 9:20 pm. The club looks like a dump from the outside. The business sign outside still has enough letters left over, apparently from October of last year (or even a prior year) that I can tell they were advertising some kind of Halloween event - "_a___ween P__ry." However, once you get inside, the place is warm, open, inviting, and, at least as far as physical plant goes, nicely upscale. The room is wide open with a pair of TVs broadcasting sports. There are sweepstakes machines, electronic bar games, and a pool table. There is a prominently-displayed ATM. There are dozens of small, round tables with an average of three plush, rolling easy chairs surrounding each, along with a series of the same chairs up at the central dance stage. There are lots of graceful amenities in the club, from being allowed to skip the cover charge because I had waited outdoors to the free mints at the door. The music itself was worth attending the club for, as it was a mixture of rock (Jefferson Starship, Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, Journey, and Blackfoot were just a few of the bands I heard) and a slight dash of hip hop. One of the complaints that I have with the modern club is that they all seem to be, by default, hip hop clubs, which is not only jarring to those who have musical taste, but attracts a thug element. In short, the atmosphere, from the comfort, the music, and the friendliness of the non-dancer employees, was among the most positive I have experienced. I bought bottled water which was moderately priced. The dancers are present and are mingling around, apparently with their boyfriends. I sat from roughly 8:30 pm to 11ish when the dancing actually started and was never approached by a dancer. I only saw two dancers on the stage for that period of time, and they were not really dancing as much as they appeared to be working on their pole work and/or warming up. So I sat there for 2 1/2 hours and watched sports. At 11 the dancing started. "Alexandra" started off the set. One of my complaints about modern strip clubs is that the dancers tend to be either "booty shakers," as if they had been kidnapped from a hip hop video, or "pole workers," as if they had once been Olympic gymnasts. In my experience, one looks long and hard to find dancers who are actually sexy. Well, "Alexandra" was sexy. Her movements were slow and sensual, very much suggestive of her rubbing up against her man, simulated oral sex, and playful hair-whipping, flirting, and gyrating. I could envision myself dancing with her and being the beneficiary of that cute little body (in that cute little schoolgirl outfit). When she danced to "I Touch Myself," she did, and it was hot. "Alexandra" was followed by "Elaina" (Helena? You know how difficult strip club DJs are to understand), a tall, youngish girl who appears to be something like the "house mom." They kept calling on her throughout the night to run back behind the stage and check the sound equipment. She, too, is quite a sensual dancer, and understands, unlike (apparently) many of the other dancers, that exotic dancing is ultimately about sex, but she also mixes in a bit of pole work. But she does it in such a way that it appears that the athletic pole work that she does is not forced into her otherwise very sensual dance routines. "Elaina" was obviously a crowd favorite, and I think with good reason, as folks lined up on the stairs leading up onto the stage to tip her. It appears that the rule is no contact, as those who tipped her gripped the two rails on the stage and just slipped money into her lingerie. There are two stages. The central stage in the front has two poles, and it is not uncommon to see more than one girl on the stage at a time. There is a small rear stage with a single pole, as well. The remaining dancers seemed to pretty much fall into the "booty shaker" and "pole worker/gymnast" categories. The dancing, other than "Alexandra's" and "Elaina's," I found to be largely uninspired and not arousing in the least. Even worse, it is a "pasty" club, which is undoubtedly not the fault of the club itself (certainly it is a result of a local ordinance), but still it is irritating to have to look at paint and plastic rather than boob. Not only were the girls not seductive in their dancing, but, largely, they were less than 7s, again excepting "Alexandra" and "Elaina," who seemed to be solid 8s/9s. I was told that the private dances were $25, but "Alexandra," whom I was interested in getting a dance from, seemed to disappear. Or, at least I disappeared before she re-appeared. After about the third dancer past "Elaina" was boring both herself and me to death, I decided that maybe the girls were tired from a busy weekend. The club is a very nice club. The girls are less than what it appears that a club of this caliber ought to have. I wonder how much of the trouble attracting good dancers has to do with it being a pasty club, how much of it has to do with who shows up on Sunday night, or how much of it has to do with the fact that I might have shown up on a bad night? I don't know. But I will likely show up again on a different night to see if things are any better. At any rate, it is worth returning to get to relax with some sports for an hour, and then see "Alexandra" and "Elaina" dance a little. Without the pasties and with a slightly more seductive dance team, this club could be/could have been my favorite club. I will go back. And I will probably learn that Sunday is just the wrong night to visit.

The saga of strip clubs in Goldsboro is getting complicated. First, there were Sid's Showgirls and Teaser's. Teaser's, by the way, has been open in Goldsboro since the 1960s, or so the owner/manager at the time told me. Strangely, in a town filled with military guys, there seems to be no way to keep two strip clubs open, so Sid's closed down for a while. Then, after a highly-publicized murder at Teaser's, a recent history of thuggery and violence, and even an attempt to convert the club into something like an urban talent night for a couple of nights a week, Teaser's lost its liquor license. Teaser's fought to get the liquor license back, but the damage was done (in combination with the club's reputation for becoming a halfway house between Goldsboro and several major prisons). Teaser's closed. So now, many of the dancers and bouncers from Teaser's have moved over to the newly-reopened Sid's Showgirls. Call it Teaser's II, hopefully without the prospect of future murders. I entered the newly-revised Sid's about 10:30, literally standing in line behind the dancers who were checking in. I wanted to get there early enough to get a seat, because Sid's is so cramped and small that the majority of the clientele stands for the majority of the night. All told, there are likely less than 30 chairs accessible to the public in the club, exclusive of the couches in the VIP area, which could easily hold another 40 people. Go figure. Sid's has a "bar." Sid's also has a floor. Sid's also has a bathroom. And trust me, the differences between the three are not as wide as one might assume. The "bar" doesn't serve diet colas, energy drinks, juice, or water. You can buy beer or "mixed drinks." The scare quotes are required around "mixed drinks" because I once ordered a Long Island Iced Tea for a lady and saw the bartender pour Soda and Vodka into a plastic cup. The thug factor is extreme. This is both a negative and a positive. Negatively, they run in packs and provoke other customers. Positively, it is quite possible to get a second-hand high from all the pot being smoked. Or, if you prefer, get a first-hand high from all the pot being peddled by Snoop Dogg lookalikes. The dancers tend to congregate at the two extremes of a bell curve. Almost all the dancers are black. I'd say that half of the dancers, black and white, are between 8-10 on the looks scale. The other half are between 2-4. Still another ten per cent are between 5-7s. OK, I'm bad at math, but you get the idea. The charm of Sid's is conveyed in the old joke about the little boy who is frantically shoveling manure, but whose optimism compels him to confess that "there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere!" Several of the dancers are pure gold - the very epitome of what strippers ought to be. "Misty" is short. Real short. Like, if she were 4'11, minus the 11, she's that short. She is also one of the most utterly beautiful black women I have ever seen. Impeccably put together, with the most outrageously normal manners, and don't let me forget that DDs on a girl that short look... amazing. She is flirty, intimate, and humble in her actions. While one expects to be pelted all night with aggressive demands of "Wanna dance?", Misty begins every conversation with me with "Are you all right? Do you need anything?" Yes, I need something. You living with me. But that's beside the point. Misty looks you in the eye when she speaks to you and is a very sensual dancer (though not the most sensual dancer I've seen, see below). Her body and personality are beyond pleasurable, and I don't regret a dime I gave her. "Marie" is one of the few white girls - porcelain white - and I have NEVER seen a stripper quite like her. The majority of modern strippers, in my experience, are either booty shakers or pole workers. Marie is sex. All sex. She is the most sensual person I have seen in my life, whether at a strip club or not. She works the pole as if it is her husband, and she faces men when she dances for them as she would if she were doing the horizontal tango. Every part of her dancing is simulated sex, it seems, with her body pressed against you, with her kneeling between your knees gazing up at you, and her arms around you. Now, don't get me wrong. This girl is the furthest thing from "slutty," though I say she is all about sex. She is sweet, demure, girl-next-door-like (she even wears cute nerd glasses), and professional. When she finished dancing for me, she hugged my neck, very southern-style, gave me a peck on the cheek, and thanked me for my tip and for "letting me dance for you." To see Marie work is not like watching a stripper. It is like watching some chick make out. There is no way to describe her adequately with mere words. There are other girls at Sid's, like these two, who are either extremely beautiful or extremely talented. Sid's is a fun place to go because it's like Forrest Gump's boxa choklits - you never know what you are gonna get. The club ain't much, and the dancers as a group are decidedly below par. But there are four or five of these girls who are doing something very special, or are very special themselves, and are carving out a career and conferring real pleasure on guys in spite of being stuck in what amounts to a hole in the wall. If you like traveling around to greasy spoons to get the "local flavor," you will appreciate Sid's. If you only indulge in four-star dining, you might want to try a different club.