By: staniel
[2002-03-13]
Least Erotic Experience Ever
yuck
In a previous
article I mentioned J. and P. - two fellow employees with whom I used to get drunk on a nightly basis during the Christmas 1999 season at
Radio Shack. Every single night I had a terrible time due to the pall cast over any event by these two, with their respective fits - rage for J. and depression for P. One night was especially memorable.
Our venue of choice for the drinking was a lame bar and grill near the Port Authority train station in scenic Lindenwold, NJ. It's called the Pufferbelly or "The Puff" to the bar-hopping set, and the management clearly wishes it was a Bennigans or T.G.I. Friday's - stained wooden walls with lots of stupid, arbitrarily-chosen crap displayed thereon. There is a railroad theme to the decor that spills outside to one of the entrances, where knee-high train made of sheet metal stands guard. Thankfully, I was usually far too drunk to take notice of any of their theme nights, which tended towards country music and/or karaoke.
Such surroundings grow stale with familiarity, or indeed, upon fresh acquaintance. One night this was especially poignant and P. suggested that we repair to the
Fantasy Showbar (caution: porn), aka 710 due to the presence of that number in its address. Now, I can't recall how many times 710 has changed owners or been temporarily closed due to prostitution investigations, nor how many of such instances as I might recall were merely rumors, but over the years there have been a lot.
In New Jersey, it is illegal to serve alcoholic beverages in a house of burlesque. This mattered little, as I was an inch shy of vomiting when we left the bar, and judging by J.'s driving on the way over (in his wife's minivan, which had a Tweety Bird sticker on one window, and which was on two wheels for at least one turn) he was in no need of further refreshment either.
P. was a certified member of this club. He had paid a forgotten sum of money for this privilege, but it was a lot to a minimum-wage Shacker as I recall, and it allowed us all to enter under his umbrella of membership without paying the cover charge. Inside, the simplistic throb of dance music assaulted the ears and we were advised of the no-touch policy and the club's acceptance of various credit and ATM cards. We took seats in the gallery and watched some stage and pole dances; we received the hard-sell from girls who had finished publicly gyrating and wished to find clients for the various couch, shower, and other sundry dances. I declined various offers which were almost identical in verbage and delivered in a cross between a fast, monotonous infomercial voice and an attempted seductive tone. Bowing to pressure from my compatriots I finally acquiesced and purchased a couch dance and was taken around a corner to a booth, given a refresher course in the rules, and allowed to see uncovered crotch, which is not done onstage or in lap dances performed in the public area. I counted pimples and failed to be aroused, then heard a pitch for various quasi-legal sounding dances deeper in the recesses of the establishment. I declined pretty quickly; J. had waited and heard all the terms before refusing to pay $200 for a situation that apparently involved two girls behind a glass barrier in a private room, allowing him to do whatever he liked to himself while watching.
To this day, I can't hear The Vengabus without thinking of sweat, cheap perfume, ass pimples, and stomach pain. Judging from various people I've talked to about strip club experiences, it would seem that the only way to enjoy a trip to such an establishment is to be a girl.
I can see it now: "Scared Celibate".
There sure seem to be a lot of Nudie Bars around the Newark Airport. Here, you can call for "pirvate dancers" in your home or hotel room, but in bars, they got to wear g-strings and pasties. Washington across the river, the dancers are not too bad, pretty, and get totally nekkid. The fun for me is looking for unusual tattoos and piercings, there are some erotic and amusing ornaments. One place, they had a pickle-shooting contest. A local Syrian restaurant has belly dancers, and the sword dance is good; one belly dancer has a belt of gold coins that she can make jingle merrily. In fact, she can make her apparatus vibrate at such a rate that I'd be reluctant to let her get a-hold of my private benjamin. Speaking of the benjamins, there are several dancers who roll-up $100 bills longways and make them disappear down their throats while winking knowingly. One dancer has a ring in her labia so she doesn't flap open while dancing, and another has tattooed roses growing out of her bush. One dancer has Chinese calligraphy which I think say, "Batteries not included"
Yes, it sounds very erotic to have pretty chicks naked and sweating next to you, preferably with moody dim illumination, everybody beating themselves with birch twigs.
Having been there and done that, I have found that temperatures above 60 C (140 F for the anglosaxes out there) act wonderfully in removing all eroticism from the experience. It's great fun but definetely non-erotic.
I guess I can see people who are there enroute to NYC or uh, Paterson or something might stop briefly for some nudity, but having seen some of Newark (Penn Station mainly) I can't say as there's much fun to be had and, were I to visit a go-go type place again, I could think of plenty of less creepy cities in which to do it.
There is one thing about Newark I really liked (aside from the janitor in the bus station yelling "Nigga, why you took a shit?!" at a guy who had used an out-of-order toilet). There's a street you can drive down and see, in order, a 99 cent store, 89 cent store, and 79 cent store. Whether this is the product of fierce competition or simply a method by which the degree of poorness of Newark citizens can be ascertained, I do not know.
"In New Jersey, it is illegal to serve alcoholic beverages in a house of burlesque."
man how ass backwards. if there is one place where alcohol should be served it's a god damned nudie joint. stupid weird puritan laws... in CT the "package" stores still close at 8 p.m. and on sundays, which doesn't curb anyone's drinking but used to cause me to panic frequently at 7:30. bastards.
of course here in bavaria you can drink anywhere you like but every store closes at 8 and is closed all day sunday.
as you might expect there is a word, Torschlussangst, to describe the desperate feeling that overcomes one before a door is closed. although i have also heard a possibly mis-heard variation, Torschussangst, which would be fear of shooting goals in soccer.
Dumb laws abound everywhere, and not just regarding sex, and the exhibition or sale thereof. In Manville, New Jersey, it is illegal to offer whiskey or cigarettes to animals at the local zoo. In Fredricksburg, Virginia, after dark, cars must be preceeded by a man with a lantern. In Trenton, New Jersey, you may not throw a bad pickle in the street.
South Carolina SECTION 16-15-250. Communicating obscene messages to women. It is unlawful for a person to anonymously write, print, or by other manner or means, except by telephone, communicate, send, or
deliver to another person within this State, any obscene, profane,
indecent, vulgar, suggestive, or immoral message.
Can you offer them regular beer?
Why would you offer cigarettes? I can just imagine an Irish ex-con trying to tempt naive sheep...
In Quitman, Georgia, it is illegal for a chicken to cross the road.
Sorry guys, but I got the "FWD: WACKY LAWS" thing too many times when I had my consulting job to find it funny ever again. Christ.
Anyway, Wakboth, are you talking about saunas with the 140°F thing, or have you been frequenting erotic establishments on Venus?
Sorry for whacky laws, I'm no lawyer! The sign in my sauna recommends 15min at 180F, 5min out, then 10min back in at 180F. I like it dry for most of the first part, then when I throw water on the rocks, it feels like getting hit with a hammer. It's a good way to get rid of toxins. But you know, you can cook lamb at 130F, and burgers at 160F, according to Thermy. But there's no law against it.
Does that mean that people value your opinion, or that they're not giving you any benefits?
The latter, though I was in the minority of competent people in that office, so a bit of the former as well. I must stress that I barely knew what I was doing and ran back to the training manuals a lot; I just wasn't an IDIOT and it was a GE office.
It doesn't matter if you got valuable experience, a lot of managment is going to consultants, part-time, short-term, etc, to keep from paying well and giving benefit packages. I've seen work conditions deteriorate around here for a long time. Working union in the Bay Area was good while that lasted. Anyway, I've had consulting jobs, and sometimes they pay by contract, no benefits, gaps between contracts. I think the best thing is to keep several irons in the fire. Also, offshore tax situation.
Also, I'm rilly pissed today because it turns out that some parts of NJ around vitamin and pharmacy factories are radioactive, and nobody told me of that risk when I was there. Oh, well; a short life and a merry one. Bring on the nubiles!
I thought all the radiation was down in Salem and all the pharmaceuticals were up in Edison.
Both Ortho and Johnson near Edison are listed as contaminated with various radionuclides / multi-curie range; I'm not sure what radionuclides are exactly, but the multi-curie part doesn't sound good. Some of the dancers in Edison glow in the dark.
do nudists get ass pimples, or is it just those of us shackled by clothing conformity?
Sounds like a scifi RPG supplement the likes of which never seem to be written. Dang.
And yes, I'm referring to saunas. Personally, I like the temperature in the 80-100 C (176 - 212 F) range, but the crusty old coots seem to prefer the 120 C (250 F) temperatures.
As long as you keep drinking (beer, water, juices, whatever) and eat a couple of sausages every now and then to get the electrolytes, you can keep on going as long as you want. And yes, there are stories of lone, drunken people passing out in saunas and being discovered next morning well done.
No 'l' in that. It's the fear of kicking the penalty wide so you probably won't suffer it at closing time.
i don't know which of them is the "original" expression but i HAVE heard both. i found these online examples of doorclosingfear being discussed in parliament, so that might lend it some legitimacy:
"Die unüberlegten Pläne der Bundesregierung können bei diesem Personenkreis zu einer Torschlußangst führen und damit zu einer panikartigen Nutzung der Aufnahmebescheide."
http://www.bundestag.de/mdbhome/koschha0/bab28.htm
"Die derzeitige Bundesregierung bewirkt mit ihrer Aussiedlerpolitik in den Herkunftsländern eine Torschlussangst, die zu einer überstürzten Nutzung vorhandener Aufnahmebescheide führt."
http://www.cducsu.bundestag.de/arb_9900/vertr.htm
Torgeschlagenhinterausgehenangst-fear of the door hitting you in the ass on the way out.
I am very afraid of her.
of course, the classic example of a german word that the rest of the world doesn't really need is schadenfreude, joy at the damaging of others...
We've all observed the element of human nature that many individuals will try to damage another individual who they envy because the latter has something the former does not.
Now there's a quantitative analysis, from a peer-reviewed journal. As
reported second-hand from The Economist, February 16-22, 2002:
"Economic man would surely never spend his money merely to hurt others, while leaving himself poorer? The professors were shocked to find that even at the price of 25 cents for every dollar burnt, 62% of the participants paid for the privilege of impoverishing their peers." ... "No surprise to novelists. But the idea that man is a social animal, more concerned with relative rank and status than with absolute well-being, sits awkwardly with economics."
Full article:
The economics of envy
Rich-bashing
Economists chance upon irrational behaviour
ADAM SMITH famously argued that an invisible hand of self-interest guides markets to beneficial results. Today, rational and unemotional agents, rather than altruistic angels or envious demons, lie at the centre of most equation-choked economic theories. But a new paper, "Are People Willing to Pay to Reduce Others' Incomes?", in the February issue of Annales d'Economie et de Statistique, suggests that Smith should have paid more heed to another hand: the one that cuts down tall poppies.
Daniel Zizzo of Oxford University and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University crafted a series of experiments in which groups of four people were given nearly equal sums of money. The four had to gamble with their new wealth in random, computerised bets; two came out each time with more cash, and two with less. Richer or poorer, each was then given the chance to spend his money to reduce the take of his fellow subjects. There was no prospect that this would make him any richer. Indeed, it would cost him anywhere from two to 25 cents for every dollar destroyed that belonged to his fellow players.
Economic man would surely never spend his money merely to hurt others, while leaving himself poorer? The professors were shocked to find that even at the price of 25 cents for every dollar burnt, 62% of the participants paid for the privilege of impoverishing their peers. What accounts for this?
One answer could be the players' sense of fairness. Another, of course, could be envy or Schadenfreude. The poor souls who lose some of their initial wealth like to burn the undeserving who receive a lot. No surprise to novelists. But the idea that man is a social animal, more concerned with relative rank and status than with absolute well-being, sits awkwardly with economics.
Even the rich winners in the experiment like to see others taken down a peg: they destroy the wealth of rich and poor alike. The authors speculate that the plutocrats expect the plebeians, out of jealousy, to destroy their wealth. Preemptive retaliation preserves their rank. Nothing irrational about that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Economist
February 16-22, 2002
Page 65
Expand it all you want, we still know you're just repeating your posts. Incidentally, it's
page 69.
I should have just posted a link to the previous reference to that word. When French words creep into the English language, they are called "gaulicisms," but but I'm not sure what they call those sneaky German words.
back to the original topic...
i just went to a bachelorette party in a strip club here in Frankfurt, Germany. That was my first, and last, visit to such a club. I do believe that I will be forever psychologically scarred from the event. My mexican girlfriend told me she just sees strippers as clowns and that the whole thing is innocent fun. My screams of horror at the sight of the first male dancer nearly imploded the eardrum of my neighbor. I am sure they were all glad when I left.
Dude that place is a shit hole I've been there before and I knew 2 chicks that "danced" there. They told me about how they shoved ring pops in their snatches and then passing them to people for like 5 or 10 bucks.
this web site is the worst peice of shit site ever.
Hey, by the way, to the WAY EDGY anonymous poster above me: Keep it up, man! Put those stupid internet fools in their place and teach them to be Joe Cool like you, and someday a girl might actually talk to you and your Dad won't regret you were born? Or not. Also, way to have balls by posting without a name, fag.
Staniel: They had a no-touch policy? The website mentions several times that the shower dance involves the customer soaping up girls. They phrased it as "Imagine yourself soaping up our beautiful naked girls, starting at the neck and working your way down to their back door!" followed by retarded comments saying that if you're some sort of erectile-dysfunction loser you could watch them get eachother off while you sob and prod at your useless member. Did they change policy, or are they being fags and saying "WELL WE ONLY SAID "IMAGINE" YOURSELF DOING IT RIGHT I MEAN THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE DOING"?
Much as I hate to reinforce stereotypes, that comment came from an AOL user. I suspect it's an employee of the establishment mentioned who didn't appreciate the link. Anyway, Romosome, this was a few years back and I haven't been to a strip club since, so I don't know.
