>>> Primal Urges
By staff writer Nathan DeGraaf
August 10, 2005

Peek: So when are you gonna get around to writing a column on strip clubs?
Nathan: I’ve been meaning to… but it’s just such a tough topic to write about. I mean, it means so much to me.
Peek: Me too, man. But you’ll do it justice. After all, it’s a part of you.

I love strip clubs. I mean, I absolutely love them. I could write five hundred pages about strip clubs. If Court said to me, “DeGraaf, I want you to travel the country for an entire year and review every strip club you can find. I’ll cover the expenses,” he’d have to scrape me off the ceiling with a rake. This is why I’ve been hesitant about touching this topic. I mean, how can you say everything you need to about such a great subject in less than a thousand words? Answer: You can’t. But, to borrow a line from my buddy Jason, “Sometimes you have to fuck up to have fun.” Quite possibly, truer words have never been spoken.

So, because one column is clearly not enough for this important topic, I’m gonna use this column and my next four (or five) to address this issue. The following is an interview between Jason and myself. He asked the questions, I answered them. We wrote some stuff down on cocktail napkins. It was real professional. After devoting an entire month to this issue, I think y’all will have enough strip club information to really see the beauty of this subject. Or, as Peek once said, “They’re like bars but with naked women in them. How can you not love them?”

Jason: Nate, why should we listen to anything you have to say about strip clubs? What makes you an expert?
Nathan: Good questions. I have been going to strip clubs with much regularity since I was 15 years old. I have been to strip clubs in Illinois, Texas, Louisiana,New Jersey, Florida, New York, Nevada, California, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy. I could tell you a million strip club stories (and just might, I have a blog now, too). I even spent my 17th birthday in a strip club. (Side note: as I have previously mentioned, my birthday is Christmas. If you want to meet the crème de le crème of losers, go to a strip club on Christmas. I had three different people approach me with business cards for their bail bond companies that day. All of them had the same sales pitch, too: “No one plans on going to jail, but if you ever end up there, it’s good to have us on your side.”) I never go on vacation without going to at least one strip club, and I have spent an easy $30,000 in strip clubs in my life. Go ahead, ask me anything.

J: 15 years old? How’d you get in?
N8: A fake ID, some carefully selected friends, and my own illegal business were all factors that made me an early regular in St. Louis strip clubs.

J: Okay, so you have a lot of experiences with strip clubs, but have you ever had any experience with strippers?
N8: I’ve had five.

J: Okay, so how should I behave in a strip club if I want to get the stripper to like me?
N8: Because I doubt you are wealthy, in a successful band, or in the movie industry, there’s really only one surefire, works-every-time way that you can get almost any stripper you want: bring a lot of cocaine.

J: I don’t have any coke. How else can I fuck a stripper?
N8: Ah, you want a challenge. Too good to possess an illegal narcotic are you? Fine. Here are some other helpful hints: treat them like shit, blow them off, beat up their boyfriends, don’t be a sucker (i.e. give them any more than roughly ten dollars in a night), don’t be a deadbeat (i.e. fail to give them any money at all), and don’t speak in complete sentences (these chicks think they’re exploiting you because you’re dumb—let them think it, destroying their illusions will get you nowhere). Also, always lie about what you do for a living. I’m always a minor league baseball player who just got signed by the Yankees (they have a minor league team in Tampa), but you can be any athlete or entertainer you want. My buddy Mike gets far with “professional kick boxer.” I suggest youpick the sport or entertainment industry segment you know the most about. Always take them to a motel (just trust me on this one, you do not want them knowing where you live) and only drink straight alcohol in front of them (you’re a pansy if you need coke in your Jack Daniels). In the end though, it’s just easier to have a bunch of cocaine. Trust me on this.

J: Are all strippers the same?
N8: In one capacity, yes. Pretty much all of them were abused in some fashion as children (emotionally or physically, but probably both), most of them will use any drug you can get them, 85% of them are 60% bisexual, and any of them worth not turning away from will have that pseudo-cockiness one can only get from being a beautiful, stupid, jaded young woman. There are a couple of other types. For example, some of them are just artsy chicks who don’t mind getting naked and a few are just harmless party girls trying to (honestly) pay their way through school. But for the most part, yeah, they’re all the same.

J: Give me some examples of the lies most strippers tell.
N8: Demanding, aren’t you. Okay, but next time say please. Strippers, when they first meet you, always say that they just started their careers. I dated one for six months, and every day was her first day at the club. Also, you can bet money that they have a great story about why they became strippers. These stories always involve some (if not all) of the following terms: “My boyfriend,” “My ex-boyfriend,” “Prison,” “Hospital,” “Just moved,” and my personal favorite, “Hooters girls don’t really make that much money.”

J: After this column, what are your plans for further exploring this topic?
N8: Well, I’d like to do one that compares the different kinds of strip clubs, follow that with one that compares the different kinds of strippers, follow that with one that describes my personal relationships with strippers, and then finish off the series by simply describing a typical night out hitting strip clubs. After that I’ll probably import a bunch of coke and open up my own strip club.

J: Do you think your editor will have a problem with this topic?
N8: If he does, it typically means I’m not being funny at all.

J: Finally, are you going to buy the next round or what?
N8: I’m on it, Jay. I’m on it. Just save those ones, you’re gonna need ‘em in a minute.

Nate's Strip Club Series – Turning boys into men, and girls away from stripping.
Part 1: Interview and Intro
Part 2: Classing the Strip Clubs
Part 3: Staging the Strippers
Part 4: My Two Stripper Girlfriends

Part 5: The End-All Love Story

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