Michael Craig's Journal

Richard Brodie showed up on Monday so we could, nominally, work on turning his excellent web site, Lion Tales, into a book. Although we got some work done, we spent a lot more time sampling Scottsdale’s best restaurants, smoking cigars, and - though this was not on the agenda until it was too late for me to do anything about it - obsessing over where the town’s naked ladies plied their trade. What I should do about Pokerworks bringing in a younger, more popular blogger would have to be crammed into the schedule on my initiative.

Leaving no stone unturned, Brodie interrupted his session of chatting up the hostess of the club/lounge at his hotel - making conversation, being charming, flirting - to ask her for the lowdown on the local ecdysiastical arts. As a testament to Starwood Resorts’ commitment to meeting the customers’ needs, she brought him within minutes a 2-page alphabetical list of the local stripping establishments.

Richard perused the list, troubled. “I’m looking for a place I went to when I was in town about 10 years ago. I saw this totally hot dancer named Danielle. I don’t recognize the name of the place on this list.”

“What was it called?” the hostess asked.

“I can’t remember it. But I’d know it if I saw it.”

“Forget that place,” I told him. “And forget Danielle. She probably got married, ODed, or found God years ago. And if by some miracle of medical science she’s still leaning her haunches on a stripper pole, both she and that club are probably going by a different name.”

Running his finger along the list, he stopped and cackled, “The Hitler Lounge? What kind of a show do you think they have?”

I grabbed the list. The name was “Hiliter Lounge.” But without spaces or hyphens and in a font that looked like a ransom note, the name could pass for something out of a Third Reich porno movie.

At dinner that night, Brodie once again pulled out the list and asked our waiter to help him remember the name of his long lost fantasyland.

“I haven’t been to one of those places in at least a week, so my knowledge may be out of date.” But he went through the list, ticking off concise reviews of each club.

“Full contact lap dances, nice … Lots of tattoos … Lotta old chicks … Bouncers with bad attitudes … Whoa, the Hitler Lounge? You got me on what’s happening at that place.”

Remarkably, he helped Richard remember the name of the strip club he had been repressing all these years. It was called Skin, and it was still in business. He had no idea whether or not the venerable Danielle was still “treading the boards.”

We never went to Skin, though Richard Brodie carried that list (which we later noticed covered only the first half of the alphabet - the only demerit I could give to the Westin’s operation) like the Magna Carta for 3 1/2 days.

A fortiori, we never discussed what I should do about working alongside Iggy. In fact, every time the subject came up, Richard said something encouraging to me, like “Wow, Pokerworks is really lucky to get him” or “He’s got to be bringing them a huge amount of traffic” or “Is Pokerworks going to want to keep your blog, too?”

In the end, it was Amy Calistri who gave me the best (and only real) advice about what to do.

“You’ve written some good posts. That one about Pamela Anderson -”

“Which I stole from you,” I reminded her. (She remembered.)

“- was some good work. You wrote something good about Richard Lee’s home being ransacked by police. Sam Grizzle living on Mike Matusow’s couch? That was good. Write some more like that.”

“You mean ‘work’?”

“I know,” she said, “It’s a dirty word to every blogger. But I think if you want to hold on to your blog at Pokerworks, you may have to resort to it.”

Amy, Amy, Amy. You’re like the doctor who delivers the bad news that my personal injury lawsuit is frivolous. Or that my student ID will no longer get me $3 off at Regal Cinemas. It’s news I don’t want to hear but you have a way of making it as plain as Jennifer Aniston without make-up.

I have no choice but to write some very good columns for my Journal in the months/weeks/days until my inevitable firing. That’ll teach ‘em.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 9:12 am and is filed under My favourites:.