Your Big Night Out
So the wifey's out of town, the kids are at the Grandfolks house and suddenly, like those magical days before you fucked your life all up, you are a free man for a night or two. You're the convict who has escaped from prison, praying you don't get caught and fucking determined to live it up before the shackles of reality and the nightsticks of routine are once again applied to you.
You've plotted and schemed with you buddies over the past few weeks, slowly building your team and mustering your assets. You don't have any rich friends so you've had to make due with the available bro-pool and have done the best you can given the circumstances.
You review your troops:
Steve-He's always free because he never got married or started a family. He has very little obligations outside of his career and makes pretty decent money most of which is disposable because he lives in a cheap apartment and has few interests outside of banging random skanks and collecting diecast muscle cars.
You're of two minds about Steve; on one hand you pity him because he has no anchor, he just sort of drifts through life on a trail of easy cooze, mediocre credit card debt and 1/24th scale Plymouths.
On the other hand you envy him his freedom. He has no one who depends on him-he could quit his job tomorrow and move to East Sodomy, Arkansas and no one would give a shit. And that often sounds pretty fucking awesome.
All in all, you hate Steve but figure he's most likely to spend money irresponsibly, therefore he made the team. That and because he was free that night.
Irwin-Irwin is a weak willed shell of a man who used to be unpredictable and fun WAY back before he got married and his wife sucked the joy of life out of him like a spider on a trapped fly. He's the same age as you yet looks 10 years older, all stooped and broken. Irwin hasn't done anything 'fun' in 15 years and the only reason he agreed to come out on your freedom night is because you threatened to never talk to him again if he didn't do it and since you're Irwin's only friend, this terrified the living shit out of him.*1
He pictured the remainder of his life with nothing outside of his Catholic-Barbarian wife and his indifferent and emotionally distant cocker spaniel, Yvonne, to interact with and came up with some clever and uncharacteristically plausible lies as to what he was up to that night.
Mikey-Completely insane when drunk which is anytime he goes somewhere that serves alcohol and utterly embarrassing to be around after about the ten drink mark. You emphatically didn't want him as part of your freedom night team, but some other asshole you invited spilled the beans and he has attached himself to your party like a tit-seeking lamprey.
Mikey's presence ensures that at some point during the night you will have to deal with cops. After debating with yourself for a couple of hours, you decide to bring along your tiny .32 caliber pistol in case you're forced to put him down quietly like a
Drew-Easy going, good looking and liked by everyone he meets. Success has been easy for Drew because of his excellent people skills and laid back surfer-guy vibe. Drew is married with two kids and his wife is not only hot, but she's really cool as well and in fact would happily go to the strip club with Drew if your freedom night rules permitted it.*2
So availability was never an issue for Drew given the understanding and liberal nature of his wifey. You knew he'd be able to make it and although you are happy he'll be joining your team and are looking forward to spending some drunken, booby-groping time with him, in reality you hate his fucking guts.
You're not exactly jealous and you're not exactly envious, you just feel like life could've thrown a bit more adversity at Drew and actually hit him with something. Fucking wanker.
If your team was the A-Team, Drew would be Faceman, the least badass and most useless of the lot.
Other Steve: Other Steve is one of life's bit players. He's like the character that's always in the background when the main characters are doing something fun or exciting, or just out of shot so that he only experiences fun and excitement through other people more interesting than him.
If your freedom night team was a Star Trek landing party, Other Steve would be wearing a red shirt.
Other Steve is just one of those guys who was always there at the peripheral of the action and although he has speaking lines, they all suck and are frequently annoying. You consented to having Other Steve along because it pads out your numbers, making it seem like going out to a titty club with a group of your friends on the weekend is something you do routinely.
Also more team members means less individual commitment when you all go in on some bottle service.
(Because pouring your own drinks in a bar is a great idea that nothing bad could ever come of.)
Jeremiah: He's one of several of your African American friends but due to the fact that he was the only one of them who could make it to your cooch safari, people assume he's a 'token' black friend cultivated or possibly vat-grown, to make you seem more cool.*3
Jeremiah is a stalwart friend who would be the first in to help you in a fight or to pitch in money to get you a blowjob in Champagne Room 4. He's a lawyer and by that he means he did two semesters of law school before switching to Supply Chain Dynamics. He's smooth with the ladies and insists it has nothing to do with his race but you secretly suspect he's lying about that.
You consider Jeremiah tied with Drew as the most valuable members of your team. They are both natural icebreakers and they both make more money than you.
So....
Let's get into some helpful advice from a man who's seen a million teams just like yours come and go. Most of this advice is merely common sense but since common sense usually dies around the sixth drink, many of you out there fiendishly planning your strip club voyage should take heed and possibly make some notes.
Ready?
Transportation.
You are all going to get fucking wasted. That's a given unless you have some sort of superhero friend who can be counted on to be the designated driver and who doesn't end up as the first one passed out. Since there's only a hundred or so of these humans in existence the chances are good that you don't know one of them. Therefore the matter of how you're going to get from your base of operations to the titty club(s) is of utmost importance.
The obvious choice is a limo and I'll list the reasons why.
1)While it is more expensive than a cab or driving yourself, it's far cheaper than a DWI and/or wrongful death suit.
2) If you have enough red shirts in the group, the cost-per-idiot becomes pretty reasonable.
3) Limo drivers frequently have free passes*4 to a variety of local strip clubs or can generally get you in for free because they know the staff at most clubs due to the fact that 80% of their job entails shuttling drunk packs of slavering morons to and from strip clubs. Remember to tip him, you cheap bastard.
4) You can drink in the limo, and do drugs. More importantly, you can stash booze in the limo so when the club closes and all the bars are shut down you're not one of those pathetic fucking mouth breathers desperately trying to buy booze because you weren't smart enough to plan ahead.
The Cover Charge
There's going to be a cover charge to get into any strip club worth the name on a Friday or Saturday night. Count on it and plan accordingly. It is going to be an unreasonable amount of money in your opinion and you are actually right about this. It IS unreasonable but we at the club don't care because all the other clubs are charging an equally stupid amount of dough to get in as well and we just want to fit in.
That being said, if the thought of having to pay $10-20 per person to enter a clam shack is something you're not willing to do, or didn't think you'd have to, then find some porn online and stay the fuck home. There is nothing worse than some miserable dickdrip trying to haggle his way into the premises because they don't want to pay the cover charge.
So if this describes you, some forward thinking on your part may just alleviate the problem. I've already mentioned free passes, they are incredibly easy to come by. Tip a Floor Host and ask him for some, POOF-you're next time at the club will be free, I guarantee it.
Also if you're coming in with a group, offer to buy a bottle if the club will waive the cover charge. This will usually do the trick. And despite the seemingly ridiculous prices a club will charge for bottle service, in the end it's usually about even money to buy the bottle than it would be to buy a bottle's worth of individual drinks.
You can also just go for the whole 'Hey buddy, I have 10 guys here I want to get into the club so here's a neatly folded $50 bill in my hand that I will subtly transfer to yours by way of a handshake.' This frequently works as well because we Floor Lumps need to make a living too.
The bottom line is don't be a cheapskate at the door. You knew there was gonna be a cover charge, so pull up your big boy drawers and fucking pay it.
Bottle Service
Imagine walking into a liquor store to pick up a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. Depending on where you live and the greed of the liquor store owner where you buy your booze, a standard liter bottle of Goose will run you about $39-45.
Now picture going in to that same store the next day for another bottle*5 and you find the price has jumped to $250. Still gonna buy that bottle?
Of course not. You storm the hell out and go to another place to find out if they're charging $250 too. But this doesn't apply to the strip club scene. In the environs of our boobie bedecked circus, $250 seems somehow reasonable. Like it's OK for a mark up that high because everything else is astronomically priced as well.
So, like I said, bottle service. Let's do some alconomics*6, people.
Unlike ordinary ma and pop bars and neighborhood dives, the club I work at has been corporatized to a pretty extreme degree. Like the last club I worked at as well, all the drinks are made from pushing buttons on a fountain gun. Only specialty shots are made by hand and even those mostly rely on booze dispensed by what is, essentially, a robot. This system pours out exactly one ounce of alcohol per drink and it's constantly being calibrated for accuracy.
As a result the club gets exactly 25 mixed drinks from each bottle of hooch it sells at around $10 a pop. There are an amazing amount of security measures in place to make it as difficult as possible for any bartenders to sling free drinks which is only good business I suppose. Believe it or not, bartenders too can be complete assholes who cost their employers a lot of money in gratis drinks and off till sales. On the other hand handicapping an honest bartender's leeway to cater to and reward good tippers can impair their ability to cultivate good regulars.*7
So, let's recap where we're at so far: If you were to drink an entire bottle's worth of individually ordered screwdrivers at my club, it would cost you $237.50 plus tip if you're not a piece of shit.
Whereas Bottle Service for whatever kind of vodka you choose and all the mixers you want will run you $250, plus tip if you're not a piece of shit.
A difference of $12.50 in favor of single drinks, so why do Bottle Service you ask?
And this, dear readers, is what I'm here for.
Bottle service has a few distinct advantages:
1) As aforementioned, it can be used to defer cover charges if you go about it the right way. Therefore for every member of your team, you save a minimum of $10. You figure this savings into the price of bottle service and your drinks just got a lot cheaper.
2) Bottle Service frequently comes with it's own reserved seating options, which in a busy club, can provide your team with a much needed forward operating base and refuge for regrouping and head counts.
3) You can pour your own drinks, so pour heavy my friend. The more you can put down before the bottle's dry is the more you win in every sense. Inebriation, value drinking, sense of accomplishment.
4) You won't die slowly at your table waiting for one of our unbelievably inept waitresses to notice you in between smoking and crying breaks and to take your drink order. Bottle Service can also spare you the agony of waiting for that very same waitress to bring some drinks that were made forty five minutes ago to your table, her tear streaked face radiating regret that she sucks at her job.
Bearing all that in mind it does have it's own drawbacks as well. Chiefly:
1) Some of your team members may have done the mental alconomics too and are busily value drinking as the bottle is slaughtered quickly and efficiently.
2) Bottle Service attracts Booze-Harpies and Jekylls to your table like blood in the water attracts makos and great whites. I've seen some very visceral carnage in my days, like this one time when a school of Boozacudas swarmed a lightly defended bottle of Patron with horrifying results.
To this day I don't like to talk about it...
3) Creatures even more unspeakable, such as Vodzilla, Red Rum*8 and Maggot will feel the call of Bottle Service with their unholy senses and only the clever, lucky and resolute will escape their bitchnanigans.
Now because this is an advice installment, here's some steps you can take to ward off dancer assaults on your precious Bottle:
1) Form a defensive perimeter around The Bottle. Team members should be spaced evenly, knees uniformly within one inch of the next man's knee. For skinnier strippers, the tolerances are even tighter. Failure to maintain this barrier will mean a thirsty stripper ravens forth into the soft, white underbelly of your beloved Bottle and as you can imagine, butchery ensues.
2) When a wandering stripper shambles up and asks if it can have a drink, you must have an effigy chosen. An effigy is a nonexistent member of your party whom the rest of you all hold in very high regard. Maybe he's the Boss, maybe he's the 'money guy' or maybe he's the bachelor who is extremely uptight about money and who has paid for the bottle. Any way you choose to spin it, when a strange dancer asks if she can have a drink you all have to feign mild panic and describe how not cool your effigy is with free drinks. Pass the buck to the man to the right. After a few revolutions of the team perimeter, even the most determined alcoholic will lose interest or at least get mad enough to walk away screaming insults.
Still a win.
The 'Boss' scenario generally works best in these circumstances. As long as you're more frightened sounding than assholey, the disappointed boozacuda will generally swim away in search of easier drinks.
3) Bait and Switch: When you order your Bottle, have them bring at least four bottled waters as well. Any club will gladly throw these in because they charge at least $4 for bottled water and that is, ironically, what they paid for the entire case.
Take a couple of the waters and either drink them or pour them out somewhere and then fill them with the contents of your vodka Bottle. Then take the remaining two water bottles and pour them into the empty vodka Bottle, thus creating a stripper trap that will induce dancers to sit with you for free, thinking they are glomming free drinks from you.
Most of them won't be able to tell there's no alcohol in their drinks because of all the coke they did utterly wiped out their sense of taste and smell.
It's a win-win.
In summary, my advice to you freedom night participants boils down to this:
-Arrange appropriate transportation, preferably a limo.
-Pay the fucking cover charge without griping like a irritated New Jersey bitch, or negotiate a deal for free cover with the purchase of a bottle
-Get Bottle Service, especially when it gets you free cover
-Don't be a cunt.
-Tip generously.
That is all for now, my Herderites. I must do something despicable to myself now.
-The StripperHerder
*1 Which technically makes you a bad person.
*2 Including a female in your strip club adventuring party is always a risky proposition. The author recommends that you never, ever do it if there's any alternative but if forced to do it make sure the woman is over 30 and not childishly insecure.
*3 If you're reading this and you are African American, feel free to reverse Jeremiah's race and make him the 'token' white guy if you so desire.
*4 Free passes are little comps that a club gives out to get you in the door. Make sure to read the fine print on them because there are always some sort of restrictions on them; they're not valid after a certain time or on a particular day etc etc.
*5 Drinking kinda heavy aren't ya?
*6 Alconomics [noun] Any kind of mathematics used to understand, explain or defend alcohol or to rationalize it's (ab)use.
*7 The backbone of any business's revenue.
*8 Irish girl. Fucking insane. Likes Captain Morgans. You get the idea.
