Many moons ago, late 90's style,...

Many moons ago, late 90's style, I stayed in Beloit for a summer while doing some language immersion at a local Uni. The Bear Chest was the shit back then, almost felt like a lawless enclave in a dying town (you should have seen the town mall back then, dead). Apparently the town is revitalized somewhat since then. The Bear Chest wasn't part of that. I remember huge crowds when I was there back in the day. I would convince my studious fellows a break from the book learnin' was a good thing, we'd pile into someones hooptie and roll over here. Park in the crater filled lot across the street, sidestep the requisite white guy in the wife beater hanging around peddling pills and powders, and wander in to this bastion of titties and ass. There were girls of all kinds here: trailer park sluts, girls next door, supermodel look-a-likes. They would generally put effort into their stage shows, though the little raised dance floor could hardly be called a stage, except that it had a pole or maybe it was two, sticking out of it. The girls would wander amongst the crowd doing mini table dances for a tip of just a couple bucks. If you felt a connection you could tell her right there "couchdance" and if she didn't have a whale present you would soon find yourself sitting in one of the ruddy little booths up in the bar area, tits in your face and thoughts of language learning furthest from your mind.

And......

Fast forward to today. I stopped in a few days ago, pit stop while driving from Chitown to that frozen tundra Kevin Garnett abandoned a few years ago. Oh my god. How is this place even still open? What happened?? I'm not sure how many girls were there dancing, I saw a few. It wasn't a pleasant site. Lifeless stage dancers, I'm pretty sure they were all doped up on something gives the 10,000 yard stare. I was shocked. Upon seeing the first girl I found my beer the far more attractive viewing target, memories of shotgunning back in the day filling my noggin. Theres a trick to it, training your throat to remain open as you dump way to much libation in there, way too fast. I trained often back then, they say muscles have a long memory. Is the throat a muscle, I was about to find out. The next girl came on. I also saw a third and fourth girl walking in the bar. Yeah. 3 seconds later, beer slammed, I was on my feet going for the door. As I opened it, someone called out a question about my leaving already. I didn't answer, I didn't look back. Remember earlier when I said the BearChest used to be the shit? Now it is just shit. Don't go. The streetwalkers down the block looked better than the dancers in this place. And fuck, there was that same dude in the wifebeater..I think he was wearing the same one as 15 yrs ago, judging by his tai dye dirt designs! Looks like he learned to multi-task in that time, dealing pills, powders and/or sw pussy.