(this has fuck all to do with gardening. i’m still growing stuff and taking pictures but i was pretty happy with how this turned out so i’m posting this instead of “peas is the only thing you can grow in portland”)

A thing that everyone already knows about Portland: there are supposedly more strip clubs here than anywhere else in the United States. There are more strip clubs in Portland, Oregon than in Titty Bar, Montana[1]. Music played in strip clubs varies depending on the location and clientele of said clubs. Some clubs have DJs, some have jukeboxes, and some clubs (although these are rare these days) still use an unamplified player piano[2]. Questionable music choices are frequent regardless of which club you end up at. Sometimes it can boil down to “the right song, at the wrong place.” Who wants to hear “Pour Some Sugar On Me” when you’re at a club that mostly plays rap? Likewise, would it be wise to play a set with “Got Money”, “Push It”, and “Whatever U Like” when you’re at Hillbilly’s Wet T-Shirt and Moonshine Palace? There are some things that everyone can agree on though, and that is that certain songs just are not fit to listen to at the strip club. Please enjoy this list of songs that you should not take off your clothes to!

1. “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

Incident occurred on 6/7/11 at Casa Diablo. I showed up to see Star, a lady who dances whilst “wearing” a buttplug. I love a gimmick. (By the way, she is a very athletic and skilled dancer, but she will do this thing where she bangs the exterior portion of the plug against the stage so loudly that you fear she’s going to accidently shove it up past the point of no return. Also it kind of looks like a D battery in her bum. My roommate with benefits/life partner, Good Boy, theorized that perhaps it really is a D battery and for her finale she’ll shove it in and her tattoos will light up like some sort of stripper Uncle Fester.) It may have been “Kinda from the 90s, but probably from the 80s Night” that evening at the Casa, or perhaps just Regrettable Music Night, because out of all the songs that Mr. DJ had access to, he decided “Fast Car” was the one to play. Remember these lyrics?

You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us out of here
been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won’t have to drive too far
Just ‘cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
I say his body’s too young to look like his
but mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did

You got a fast car
is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

I gave the good lady onstage some money and I thought about Tracy Chapman. I hope she finally got that car she wanted.

2. Anything by Richard Cheese

No more “Lounge Against the Machine” ever, please. There is a woman who dances at Mary’s Club who used to play Richard Cheese every single time I went in. She has very eclectic tastes and will pick the most esoteric songs to dance to, but Richard Cheese is weak. It’s like saying “Hey, you know how this song used to sound? Did you know it could sound worse?” The only person I know who liked Richard Cheese genuinely was a security guard at the bookstore I worked at in San Francisco. He was also a date rapist.[3] I’m not saying that correlation equals causation here… wait. Yes I am. Anyway, Richard Cheese is shit. Shit sandwich on shit bread with shitstard and shitmatoes.

3. “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes

This song is only fit to be played at the following locations:

• A Barnes and Barnes concert

• A memorial for Barnes and/or Barnes

I guess this would be tolerable if the dancer could involve puppets somehow. Any use of puppetry would automatically turn your stripper set into a burlesque act though, right? Portland, help me out here.

4. “Brick” by Ben Folds Five

I haven’t actually seen anyone dance to this, but I imagine that at some point in the late 1990s, some enterprising young lady received a burned copy of “Whatever and Ever Amen” from a friend of hers. She brought it to the club she worked at and gave the DJ instructions to cue up “Battle of Who Could Care Less”. Perhaps she didn’t tip the DJ enough the previous shift, or perhaps he was just in an assy mood, but he played “Brick” instead. This would be incredible, especially if it was actually the day after Christmas.

5. “Zombie” by The Cranberries

I can’t think of any circumstance that this would be considered acceptable under. Wait, here’s one: If the dancer sings along really really loudly with the EH EH EH EH OH OH OH OH AHHHH AHHH AHHHHH line (3:23), then it’s fine. Damn, I think I know what I’m doing on my birthday this year.

6. “Just A Friend” by Biz Markie

(click the picture to go watch “Just A Friend” on Youtube)

In theory this would be a good song, right? In practice, it will make everyone in the club sing along to the chorus and forget to tip. (Again, I saw this at Casa Diablo.) Also, I think most dancers are aging under the point where they only know Biz Markie from Yo Gabba Gabba, so what you end up with is a handful of confused and pissed-off 20 year olds and a club full of drunk singing old people. And no tips.

7. Any TV theme song, including but not limited to the theme from “Muppet Babies”, with the exception of “Batman Theme”, the theme to the 1966 TV series “Batman”.

I will see a lady take her clothes off to the Batman theme song in my lifetime. Of this, I am certain.[4][5][6][7]

In conclusion, please consider me for the position of “DJ/Announcer/Fry Cook” at Jimmy’s Chicken and Titty Shack. I have my own iPod and I am really good at making chicken and writing lists of songs that I shouldn’t play at work. I have a bus pass, so I’ll show up when I am supposed to.

Thank you for your time,

Heather (future DJ)

[1] Titty Bar, MT is the town founded by Colonel Tittybar in 1877 after his wagon train ran out of cash on the way to California from Illinois. He famously invented the ideas of the modern strip club and the strip club DJ by having all the young buxom women of the wagon train dance around the flagpoles of the small pioneer settlements along the way. Men would throw pemmican and cornmeal mush at ladies they found attractive. Of course refrigeration and laundry soap were essentially nonexistent at the time and so the Colonel would use a bullhorn to encourage gentlemen to “keep your meat and mush in your trousers, but be generous with your one and two-cent pieces!” Back then, it cost a penny to see a young lady’s petticoat, for a nickel she would rub her bustle against a prospector’s lap, and for a dollar she would go into the back of a wagon and read Bible passages or the Farmer’s Almanac out loud to an illiterate gentleman. The Colonel used this cash to purchase provisions and oxen for the rest of his pioneers, and the rest is made-up history.

[2] Generally the dancers at these clubs are old, old women, or young ladies who think that steampunk is retarded because it’s “played out”. These young dancers inevitably dress in a flapper style or a Josephine Baker-esqe banana skirt but will ruin the illusion by having a large, visible tattoo of the Chinese symbols for “Punk Rock Forever” on their décolletage.

[3] Please don’t ask me how I know this unless you feel like making me listening to a whole lot of Tori Amos, followed by me making fun of Tori Amos, followed by me breaking bottles in an alley. 

[4] Man, there are a lot of footnotes in this thing. Who do I think I am, David Foster Wallace?

[5] Who do I think I am, Lloyd Kaufman?

[6] Who do I think I am, Andy “Footnote” Kindler?

[7] I apologize for that last footnote and I apologize to Andy Kindler for dragging him into this mess.