What the hell am I doing...

What the hell am I doing in Lawrence, Kansas? A long and sad story. Actually the town looks like there could be some pretty areas when there are leaves on the trees. Stuck in a cookie-cutter hotel outside of town, so I ask the desk clerk where there's some entertainment. Paradise, he says. Best strip joint in Kansas. I take that with a grain of salt. Kansas, so far, has not impressed, except for some really friendly people. One of them turns out to be my hotel clerk, who tells me he goes there a lot, and if I want to wait until he gets off, he'll take me and we can, uh, get off. Since night life option B is last year's movies at the cineplex, I take him up on the offer.

From the outside, the club is a windowless barn at the back of a dirt parking lot a few miles outside of town past the airport. Inside is actually relatively nice. But the first thing that hits you is the tobacco smell. It's "smoking allowed" combined with poor ventilation; the air smells, the furniture smells, the girls . . . it takes a while to get used to this, although it wasn't that long ago that every joint in the now-pure northeast was the same. The second thing that hits you, though, is the number of attractive ladies, mostly in their late 20s, scattered around the room. It's not an aggressive atmosphere. The dollar jar gets passed around, but we weren't constantly solicited for dances, even though my new friend was clearly a regular. Eye contact will get you attention, though. And full-contact lappers are TEN BUCKS, which works out to a whole lot of paradise for very little money, with an appropriate ending for the evening.

There is a membership fee of $15, although since I was with a member, I got in for $5. It's a one-time annual charge. Since you'll pay more as a nightly cover charge in some more upscale but less friendly clubs, it's worth it.

If I'm ever unhappily back in Lawrence, I'll happily return here.