My first audition was in March of 1982 at a club called the Pink Poodle in San Jose, CA. There were no lap dances then. We entered the stage through heavy velvet like curtains that were a reddish burgundy. Behind the curtains was the dressing room. The dressing room has a rolling rack of costumes that were hanging on hangers. I thought that they were provided by the club for the dancers to use while doing stage acts. WRONG! The dancers thought I was funny. An older dancer by the name of Diana, referred to me as being "green". That meant total amateur, virgin, baby stripper. I also remember her as giving her age as 28. This scared the hell out of me. I was 23. She looked 40-something. Was I going to look like that at 28?? (I was so "green" that I was gullible and believed everything people told me. Smart, right?)
The two songs I choose (we did two song sets) was (I was so edgy, lol. For the early 80's.), was "New Toy" by Nena Haggen and "Sex Dwarf" by Soft Cell.
I was nervous. I bounced around and on my second song, I perched myself on the old, neutral colored chair, put my legs up in the air and proceeded to pull my panties off. The audience clapped and approved of my "bush". I was really embarrassed. I was offered a job and I declined.
I came back less than 3 weeks later.
I worked at the Pink Poodle very briefly in 2007. ;) The dances are still done in boxes, no lap dances there!
ReplyDeleteVery cool to hear your story.
i drive by the poodle all the time, never been inside. dance at what used to be kit kat, now cheetahs in sunnyvale. :)
ReplyDeletelol on the 28 year old dancers looking 50 and being scared...when i started at 21 it was the same, i couldnt beliiieeeevvveee that it wasnt all 18 and 19 year olds. at my club now all the top earners are around 30.
and finally -- sex dwarf is an AWESOME song to dance to!
why LA instead of the bay area now? i hear it's rough out there but never danced there myself.
Hello Rachel-
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. I dance in LA because my husband is in the entertainment biz. He is a successful producer of indie films (not porn, lol). I am also an actress. When I danced in the bay area, I went to great lengths to hide my dancing. If my agents knew, they would have dropped me. It was different in the 80's and 90's.
I was actually engaged to one of the owners of the Kit Kat. I designed the interior and came of with the name. It's from the movie, "Caberet" with Liza Minelli. (She was one of my influences.)
@ Catherine: When I worked there, there wasn't even lap dance boxes, lol! Just a stage and porn films in between our sets. After I worked there, my interest in porn was just severely diminished.:-)