It's kinda shocking that the Ypsi/Ann...

It's kinda shocking that the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area only offers one club, the Deja Vu, to what's got to be an area full of repressed academics and zesty regular folks looking for fun or some kind of getaway. As a result, the 'Vu kind of gets away with murder but also probably loses a lot of easy, steady customers and their smaller parcels of bread. Everything about the place screams 'upsell,' from the uncool cover ($9?!?), the lack of booze - blame that on stodgy zoning laws, I guess - to the frustrating distance between the performer and audience. That's awesome and worthwhile if it makes dancers feel safer, period. But what it also does is demand a bigger buy-in from than they've already made to access the "juice bar."

Coming from a state where clubs are a-plenty, more informal and less likely to feel like being in a Best Buy, I am a sucker for dollar dances and easy interactions before anything escalates. At the Vu you get the feeling that the dancers dancing are merely auditioning for your private time and your $20+ between their times onstage. Whatever conversations you fall into are bound to end abruptly once you say the big 'Yes' or 'No' - almost as abruptly as the unsubtle DJ cuts off every track without even a fadeout according to some standardized time.

I don't mean to sound overly naive here - what I'm criticizing is undoubtedly a working business model: the escalating dance menu goes all the way up to $200. It no doubt encourages the kinds of cool guys who want to watch themselves peel off big bucks, and any idiot can understand why dancers and management would find those guys attractive. I just hope most of those big bucks are staying with the girls, all of whom seemed friendly and at home in the Vu. Luna in particular deserves a mention for making a strong and expensive impression as the early shift wound down, dancing like she meant it and neither holding back nor putting out with her almost impossibly mature and perfect form. Dazzling, charming Aubrey just plain sparkled so much that I might have to return to this joint despite myself. Last night she was too popular to catch up with by the time she struck the stage, so I held on to my last couple of bills and met the cold night with a grimace. I cannot criticize too much a place that knows what it's trying to do and executes, but I can surely tell you that it's not my vibe.