Ava Adore

Shift Roundup!

10.20.10, 10.22.10, 10.24.10, and 10.25.10, all 6pm-12am.

It’s been boring, what can I say. First we chalked it up to the playoffs, but the Yankees lost out due to the fact that they weren’t playing like they fucking cared—Come on. Come back out of the woodwork. You want my tits, I want your money. Fair trade.

Anyway. Each night had one good thing about it, like Keith and Bob, whom I always like bullshitting with. Ch. and I call them Penn and Teller; Keith looks exactly like Penn, and Bob looks close enough to Teller that we don’t care if they’re different people. Ch. likes to think it’s really them.

On Sunday one of my regulars, Charlie (of Proud Mary fame), came in to visit. I authentically love spending time with him. He’s such a bloody sweetheart. He just moved to Bayside, and I used to live in Whitestone, so we talked about that for awhile. He comes in with his friend Joe, who likes to hang with Lilah.

Charlie does this thing, I’m pretty sure it’s an unconscious tic, but when he’s happy or pleased, he makes little whimpery-sigh puppy noises. So if you’re leaning into him and rubbing his back and talking, he just kinda makes noises like this. It’s adorable but I don’t want to call him on it in case he gets self-conscious.

Monday I got to see Jim, who doesn’t get dances but tips well because he’s one of the liquor suppliers to the House and he does spends and I’m his favourite to chat with meanwhile. Last time we talked about Napoleon and Russia. This time ranged from Tarantino to Louis XIV.

Oh, does anyone know: Did Tarantino cameo in Kill Bill as he does in most of his other films? If so, as who? I need to find this out.

Other than that, not much went on. Hung out with regulars Tony, John and Jeff; got a few dances from randoms; nothing to remark on. I don’t remember what I wore, partly because I’m ADD with it and partly because Penn and Teller like to tip me to go through my wardrobe.

Douchebag Count: 0.
$hift Grades: C, C, D, and C, respectively.

Shift: 09.12.10, 8pm-4am.

Lawd, that was a crap night. Not one dance. And I hustled and sat with every dude who walked in. All of them had money for stage—all of them had compliments to give—but when it came to put up or shut up, they all fell short.

It didn’t help that the place cleared out by 1am, which is uncharacteristic for the House. One of the bouncers said it could have to do with our major anniversary party on Wednesday; he also said it could be the abundance of cops out right now.

I also had Surprise Period two days early, which is also a joy. So I got to experience one of those weird moments that is embarassing for ‘normal’ people and common occurrence for strippers: I asked Sk. for a tampon.

I’ve had it asked of me dozens of times, but it reminds me still about my own social grooming and the culture that deems that womanly things are embarassing and degrading inherently because they’re to do with women. Surreal, sometimes.

All in all, I’m cranky. No worthwhile customers, 1 douchebag who was a That Guy and not even worth a write up, so slow I actually started my last stage set in sweatpants (sexay!).

It was one of those nights where the job grates on you. The music was too obnoxious, one girl was too drunk and wouldn’t shut up and kept repeating herself and I wanted to slap her, there was a fight over a cigarette…. you get the idea.

…The funny thing is, now that I’m on twitter, I can notice trends: apparently it was a crap night for everyone last night, worldwide. Is there a metaphysical money clock I should be aware of? That’d be good to know.

Douchebag Count: 1.
$hift Grade: D

Shift: 08.13.10, 6pm-12am.

I am only putting this up here as a faithful service to compiling reports of every shift.

Friday sucked. And sucked hard, and long. It was another 20 billion girl night, which is usually no problem—I compete well—but when competing for only a few clients on a goddamn Friday, well, that’s some bad news. I didn’t get one dance.

At some point, bored with $5 per set and no clients, I wandered back to annoy our manager, whom I adore. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m hella bored so I’m going to annoy you.’ We watched the cameras and then he said magical words:

‘Yeah, it’s a pretty stale night. I’ve got girls. You go on home.’

I LOVE YOU OKAY THANKS BYE.

Shift: 07.14.10, 8pm-4am.

Slow night. It seemed promising at first, because it was decently busy at 9pm, but as the night wore on we got less and less customers, plus no 2-o’clock-rush (aka Drunk Boys Have the Most Fun). So it was not a very productive evening.

Lilah, Ny., and I began the night with our Douchebag of the Evening! Insert canned applause sound byte here. We sat with Jimbo (we can not make this up) for about an hour, and he did tip us, but then he pulled a pseudo-Bank Run/ner…

He asked us to change into our more off-beat costumes. He wanted me to pull out the Catholic Schoolgirl (which I like, never wear any more but just carry around cos it’s a staple) and Lilah in her nun getup and Ny. in her robin’s egg blue PVC.

True to form, by the time we came back to collect and show off, he was nowhere to be found. Cowardice at its classiest.

After that I had the pleasure of bullshitting with John from Westnyle (metal band, check them out) and we talked for hours, mainly about music and the human condition, as if you would be surprised by that. He gave me one dance, my only of the night.

And, to date, hands-down, my favourite dance. I don’t know if I can even call it that. He kept making faces and funny movements the whole time, which made ‘sexy dancing’ pretty much impossible. We spent most of the five minutes laughing.

He was my last customer and I was his “Fifth favourite person.” Which I suppose is a plus, since by the first fifteen minutes of talking I was his ninth favourite person, so I moved up in rank.

Other than that, I just hung out with the girls. Lo. came in briefly; I hadn’t seen her since Friday, apparently she’s doing day shifts now—sad times. And Ds. got wrecked, which, if it is at all possible, made her even more adorable.

I am not kidding when I say I brushed her hair for her like a little girl. She was so giggly and cute and entertaining. I believe it is an all-out talent for a girl to be absolutely darling while she’s absolutely shitfaced.

Minor bruising. Costumes: Limewire, Catholic Schoolgirl, Punk Rock Princess, Boifriend.

Douchebag Count: 1.
$hift Grade: D

Shift: 06.21.10, 6pm-2am.

Ugh. Where to start. I’m not sure anyone was even relevant. It was another “barely a dozen customers” kinda evening. So rather than run each customer down one by one, since no one stayed very long, I’ll just give you the highlights.

Sammy came back in. Only this time I do count him as a certified douchebag for the evening. While he gave me $300 for listening to him last time, this time he only flipped me a $20, and gave all the girls a hard time, would barely tip anyone, and if anything a dollar, even Jo., whom he usually tips well too.

The icing on the cake was when I was called to stage and he turns to me, full Father Figure style, and says, ‘If you dance on stage I am leaving.’ I was like, ‘You watched me last time.’ And he just repeated himself. This nonsense after asking if I wanted to have his babies. Literally. I am not sitting with him again.

The other highlight was a gent named Greg who stopped me from sitting with this really nice guy John, which I now regret. John wound up getting a private with Ds., who took my seat after I relinquished it to sit with Greg. John is a sweet guy, graphic designer for an in-house company, so we had a lot to talk about.

Greg on the other hand was alllll about getting a dance from me (sound familiar yet?) and just wanted to hang out with Ts. (a new Russian girl I actually really enjoy spending time with) and I first. And then the infamous statement: ‘I just gotta run to my car to get more money.’ Car, ATM, Bank—same difference: Bank Run/ner.

I made pretty much no cash apart from what I made on stage: everyone was really into my Punk Rock Princess costume, I got tipped really well for that and rocked the handcuffs with it to House of 1000 Corpses (finally got around to adding that officially, only took me a month).

The only dance I got was because Au. was watching out for me again. She’s really sweet and I love working with her and I hope to get her back, too, soon; we were both hanging out and bored and she called in a regular of hers, Michael, whom she let give me a dance. He was very well-spoken.

I should have some of my regulars in tonight… god willing… and I was looking forward to returning her the favour, but she called me today and said the House had fired her for ‘making out with a customer,’ which seems like a pretty ridiculous charge when girls are kept who do worse. I’m hoping the House changes its mind and rehires her.

Minor friction bruises, inner right thigh, but too tiny to care or take photos of. Costumes were La Cage and Punk Rock Princess. In personal news, I did feel a lot better after dancing and it definitely helped clear my head to just not think for awhile. I love dancing.

Douchebag Count: 2.
$hift Grade: D

Shift: 06.14.10, 6pm-2am.

This was the slowest night I may have ever worked, ever. Definitely the slowest Monday, and in competition with whatever the worst Thursday’s been.

There were a grand total of 10 guys the entire night—and I’m being generous—up until 1:30 a-bloody-m. Oh… and I should mention, at least 20 girls. Management added girls for summer season, but the gents weren’t out in spades last night.

Chatted with our deejay for the first two hours. Then I got to talking to this guy Tony, who tipped but just didn’t have a lot of money; he was very cool though and we spent a lot of time just talking. We were being very geeky.

The kind of geeky where we quizzed each other on the differences between butterflies and moths, how ‘panther’ refers two 2 big cats while ‘puma/mountain lion/cougar’ all refer to 1, and how male anglerfish are fucking screwed (you want to click that link).

Then I spent a brief amount of time with a duo of guys who used to come to the House 5 times a week last summer and were getting back into the groove; the one I was chatting with, Drew, was out for his birthday.

They didn’t stay long. He said they’d be back on Saturday and that I should come in to hang out and have a good time (because Saturday is not a usual day for me). Yeah, I’ll do that. Just as long as I can hold my breath while I do it.

After he left, I got bored again. Really bloody bored. I sat by the bar, along with 8 other girls, and stared at the dancers, the ceiling, whatever was on television behind the bar, anything. Then Au. made eyes at me and called me over to the dude she was with.

He was a liquor rep and his name was Jim; he was in to see our main manager, who wasn’t there that night, so he blew up the bar tab in appreciation of the House’s business.

Jim tipped heavily and if it weren’t for Au.’s help and his compliance, I may not have made anything last night past tipout. Jim was a very funny guy, we bantered back and forth and repeated each other’s names because we have terrible memories.

We sounded like we were on a talk show: “What do you think of this song, Ava?” “I don’t know Jim, it’s a little bland for my taste, I prefer something with more of a backbone, Jim. What do you like to listen to, Jim?”

And that was my night. Stellar, I know. What sucks worse? Steve never came back in—not like I should be surprised—but Lucas (a regular of mine from months ago) did! …Only just as I was leaving. My luck, I swear.

No new bruises. Costumes: Cherry Kirsch, Closer, Pink Lady.

Douchebag Count: 0.
$hift Grade: D

Shift: 05.19.10, 11pm-4am.

So with how there’s really been no money at the club lately, I decided to go in with Lilah for a late Wednesday shift to see if it was any better (as I am usually there Thursdays and Mondays). I got my Show Stopper outfit (see previous post) in the mail yesterday and thought I’d try it out, besides.

There wasn’t much of a spending difference. 1 dance, 1 douchebag, pretty average statistics lately, unfortunately. My first client was the dance/douche combo. I was called over by Douchebag of the Evening, who was there with a girl, Traci. She turned out to be very sweet and she is who received the dance. More on Dbag in a bit.

Then no one paid attention to me, so I did a costume change into what Ry. calls my “MILF” outfit: “muppet I’d like to fuck.” Don’t ask. It involves fluorescent fringe. That didn’t work out either, so I pulled out the big guns: Snow White. Why everybody loves Snow White, I don’t know, but I won’t complain.

So as Snow White I made my biggest tips of the night, first with a guy who was very close to being a Screwdriver except he was tipping Dy. and I very consistently. When we were clear there would be no ‘happy ending’ in a dance of any kind, he tipped each of us 20 to do a heavy makeout with each other. I was not going to complain.

Last set of the night, a group of 3 girls and a guy came in, around 3:15. The DJ was playing my main songs, Mirrors and Ka-boom Ka-boom, so I was rocking pretty hard. They made it rain for me, so it was a nice ending to the evening, and they were all sweet. A shame I couldn’t stay to chat with the place closing up.

No news is good news: Minor bruising, not worth adding to the war wounds gallery. I thought I was going to have way worse friction bruising from some of the spins I was doing, but so far, so good.

Douchebag Count: 1.
$hift Grade: D

Shift: 05.13.10, 6pm-2am.

Last night was a really shitty night. I walked out with, I believe, the least amount of money I’ve ever made at the House yet in my three months of working there. The customers just didn’t have it to give.

I chatted with this nice Aussie guy, for awhile, but he had no money and had spent his last $9 on a beer he was nursing when I got there. I’ll quote him in my next QFLN. There were a couple other gents, nothing too much, one regular, Dave, who was too cuddly.

There was one guy who was generous tipping me named Christopher. He was a joker, he introduced himself as “B’Christopher, with a B,” which made me crack a smile. He had a broken arm, so no dances there.

I’ll get to Old Italian Man in a minute, who makes rank as our Douchebag of the Evening. Other than that, highlights include “Bill,” who gave $100 tips to Lo. and Ls. before I got there; wish I knew what he looked like for future reference, heh.

Also, discovered Bk. is a bitch. I don’t have to abbreviate her name as Bk., but I’m going to, because I giggle and picture her as a hamburger.

No news is good news: NO BRUISES YEAY!

Douchebag Count: 1.
$hift Grade: D