Strippers urged to 'recession proof' bodies

Yesterday I got a call from a public relations firm that represents a plastic surgeon. He is going to  strip club dressing rooms and giving Vegas dancers a combination sales pitch and motivational lecture on how to "recession proof" their bodies. Ah, Vegas.

I asked if this jargon meant he was trying to sell lots of boob jobs? But, of course, I wasn't thinking. That particular surgical intervention has already taken place for many dancers in the topless bars of Vegas. So, in fact, this surgeon offers a far wider range of cosmetic surgical options. I am hoping to go along with the plastic surgeon next week as he gives such a speech at a topless bar.

On a similar topic, I was at a major Vegas topless bar over the weekend reporting a story for my column in Las Vegas Weekly. On my way out of the club, it turned out I knew the general manager of this topless club (we both have strong connections to Minneapolis). He gave me a tour of the club. We then headed toward a booth to catch up and I agreed not to name his club in what I wrote. I knew that way I could get more candid answers from him; candor is usually not easy to get from most management in the Vegas jiggle business. I asked him if he felt there was a recession in the Vegas topless bar business right now. "Absolutely. We feel it. It impacts the middle. But the rich people still have plenty of money and so from VIP clients we can still make plenty."  And, the best way to get VIPs. . . . Well, it turns out this club is one of the ones the plastic surgeon is planning to come give the dancers the "recession-proof"-your-body lecture.

Anyway, when we reached the booth, looking forward to talk about First Avenue and the Replacements reissues, he evicted four dancers conferring at the table. They were all attractive in the identical dancer way. I don't mean that to be condescending. These were very attractive women who all had the same hair, makeup and style of dress. As the dancers were leaving the table, the general manager pointed out one who happened to be the top-earning dancer at the club. "Last month she cleared $80,000," he said. Yes, I double-checked that with him. In one month. As I had already told him I was not running the club's name, he had little motivation to lie to me.

For perspective, most dancers I have interviewed over the years are looking for $500 to $1,000 on a good night. A lot of the big numbers you hear from stripping in Vegas are exaggerated or skewed. But there are certainly a few dancers like this one.

I once directly reported on a dancer who earned $3,000 in a single shift and, for her, a very typical night. In her case, though, the reason she made so much money was not exactly clean. She was a hustler who slipped bribes to doormen to get the best customers, along with lots of other entrepreneurial efforts less noble, including secretly meeting clients outside the club for, she claimed, just dinners and shopping.  Arranging meetings with clients outside a strip club is a firing offense at almost every club in Vegas. But the risk to her was worth it. There are a lot of strip clubs in Vegas and she knew she could always get another club to hire her. For her, each night was renewed exploration into the land of tourists for fresh money opportunities.

So, I wondered if this dancer was the same deal?  Honestly, there was nothing distinctive physically about her. She was as attractive as most Vegas strippers in a totally unsurprising way. She had shoulder -length dark hair (probably extensions), seemed to have already recession-proofed her chest, and was perhaps 5' 8" in heels. Very typical. I know dancing is primarily a sales job. But $80,000 is a lot of dances to sell in a month. So, I asked the general manager how she managed to earn so much money and was she, to be blunt, a hooker on the side?

He swore she was not, and that she was simply the best worker he had ever met. First off, she works only in the VIP room (where a dancer can get $500 an hour plus tips). Second, she creates regular fans who often come to see her every night of their vacation once they meet her and, according to the manager, she has "a personality you can't fake. It is so down to earth if you met her and talked to her for five minutes, Richard, you would want to give her all your money."

Well, that wasn't going to happen. But I did ask to meet her for a brief interview to see if I could detect whatever charisma she had that made her so special that she could make in a single month what for many would be an annual salary. Of course, she was in the VIP room by then with a customer and unavailable for interviews, working on her next month's total.

(Photo by Sarah Gerke)