TakeItOff (13 page)

Chapter Ten: Moving On

Justin

I’ve been onstage and could do no wrong. I’ve also been
onstage doing the exact same thing and could get no love. There is no such
thing as being sexy all the time. It all boils down to a mental thing. How you
feel about yourself. We’ve seen ugly guys make money because they thought they
were the shit, and we’ve seen really good-looking guys get spanked onstage.
Really bomb. Women, no doubt, feed off confidence. The hardest part is the
first and last years of your career. Very few guys are able to go out on top
but when they do, it’s like taking a vacation for years and getting back to the
real world without ever being affected in a bad way.

Looks, stage presence and dancing ability are the three
important attributes you want to obtain if you don’t already have them. Looks
always seem to get better after a guy dances for a bit. This is due to the
lifestyle of getting plenty of sleep, good nutrition and regular training.
Tanning always makes one more attractive as well. The lifestyle enables you to
achieve a better version of yourself physically.

Mentally, it’s another story. Physical and mental health are
both equally important. Mental ability, though, is obtained only by logging in
your time onstage in the club and on roadshows. Some guys start at a higher
performing level than others, but this doesn’t mean they stay above the
performers who aren’t as good. From having a career of almost twenty years, I’ve
seen guys before their prime, in their prime and past their prime. Experience
makes you better until the point comes where you mentally need a break. The job
can be very stressful. Money is always up and down. Seasonal too. Spring and
summer are the best times because of the bachelorette parties held during those
times. Much like the squirrel who worked all summer long saving his acorns,
winter time comes and you’d better have a good client base or be dating a
stripper!

Eventually, if you’re smart, you know this particular ride
is coming to an end. It’s time to start thinking about the next phase of your
life. Something a little more stable. A little less wild. You might be
surprised at where ex-strippers end up. I have a friend who is now a high
school teacher and football coach. Another owns a bar and grill in Houston.
Construction jobs or managers at men’s club are common jobs they fall into.
Another guy does soft porn movies on late night Cinemax. Another got to produce
a reality show on the SyFy channel. I’ve seen a few in movies and commercials.
Among the others are a banker, a car salesman, a chiropractor, a massage
therapist and an indie filmmaker. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, some
who started out with good looks and a head start in life wasted their potential
by becoming druggies.

Sometimes I love seeing old friends and hanging out. My old
dance friends are like frat brothers to me. For the most part my old dance
buddies are doing well and adjusting to the transition.

The problem is, sometimes when you work in the biz too long,
a piece of the biz stays in you. What do I mean? Well, I was doing construction
for an old friend who started dancing fifteen years before I did. He still
loved the biz and was opening a male exotic club in Austin. I was painting and
remodeling the new club. We went to Home Depot one day and he was talking to
people at the top of his lungs in his MC voice, and it sounded like a monster
truck rally radio commercial. You know the one, “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!”

He started selling me to the other customers in the paint
department as if they were an audience and we were a roadshow. At first, he
told them that I was the best painter this side of the Rio Grande. Then he
really got carried away and started talking about how I could paint their house
and then fuck their wives better than anyone. Not once, not twice, but over and
over, he was screaming to these regular folks at eight o’clock in the morning, “Oh
my God! He’ll fuck your wife!”

I don’t embarrass easily, but I was mortified by his
behavior. I just looked at him stone-faced, like everyone else, while he was
ranting on and on. I finally grabbed my keys and left. It made me realize that
not only am I lucky to be doing well in my career after dancing, I am
apparently lucky to be able to know the appropriate time and place for acting
like a stripper. That guy eventually started a strip-o-gram company in Austin.
He’s successful because he can use his megaphone voice on the phone all day
long to sell his employees for those birthday and bachelorette parties.

When Is It Time to Quit?

A dancer once said he knew it was time to quit when a girl
asked him while he was dancing on a side stage if he would move so she could
see the rookie on the main stage. He went straight into the back and packed his
bags. It had to be hard to give it up since he was the definition of what a
male dancer should be when he was in his prime. We all thought this guy would
be famous someday. He had it all—good looks, dancing ability and personality.
His only downfall I saw was that he didn’t evolve as much as some of his
coworkers did. But I’m sure in his eyes, he didn’t have to. But time waits for
no man.

There are two types of top dawgs. The bright star who burns
out fast and the dimmer star who gradually gets better and better. The bright
star makes good money almost overnight. Customers will pay to be around him
very fast to try to get their hooks in him before anyone else does. Success is
fast and so is the lifestyle, which could be another reason for a quicker fade.

We were both more the dim stars. It wasn’t easy for us when we
started, so we had to improve daily. It took me a long time to find my niche. Our
workouts had to be more intense, and tanning was always a must. Every time we
were onstage was dance practice. We learned through constant trial and error,
but because we were continually learning, we were always getting better and
changing with the times. Maybe that’s why the dim star lasts longer.

But even an enduring career must eventually end. When you
find a girl you’re really in love with and start a family, this is a good time
to retire. Or when you’ve taken everything you can from the business and there
are no more mountains to climb, this is a good time to hang up the G-string and
go out on top. When you’ve saved all those one-dollar bills over all those
years and invested them so that the money now works for you, that is a great
time to quit.

Unfortunately, most strippers aren’t very smart with their
money and have to be forced out. Often, they lose most of their options and
start trying to evolve when it’s too late.

You Know it’s Time to Hang it Up…

* When you have to give out more and more stuff onstage to
get girls to come up and tip.

* When the crowd no longer screams in excitement to see you,
it is definitely time to move on. The chances you’re going to land a lifesaving
customer are slim now anyway, and the competition is younger and better.

* When you can no longer deal with the whole lifestyle and
customer relationship game, either call it quits or take a nice, long vacation.
The dance career is what you make of it. You can settle for average or you can
be as successful as you possibly can be.

* When your body does not have that chiseled look anymore.
Many dancers have no choice but to retire because their lack of commitment in
the gym catches up with them. Also, excessive partying and binge drinking
shorten one’s career.

* When you have a kid who is older than the girl you’re lap dancing
for, it might be time to hang it up.

* When you become the old guy at the after-party.

* When there is no link between you and the younger dancers.
Your music is classic to them.

* When your life, working late at night, is no longer
convenient. Maybe because you have kids or a day job.

* When the number of girls coming to main stage to tip you
is steadily declining.

* When your attitude sucks! Many guys at the end of a long
career will have much animosity toward the biz and the women who come in. That
attitude shows, and girls stop liking guys who are sour or negative. They’re
out for a good time, and if you can’t give it to them, it’s time to retire.

* When you really don’t look forward to working and find
yourself wanting to just stay in the dressing room, even when it’s packed and
everyone is making money on the floor.

* When the only girls who tip you are the old regulars whom
you have to hang with during the day.

* When your hairstyle is twenty years out of date.

* When you damn near have to overdose on drugs just to go to
work.

* When all your friends have retired.

* When you can make more money as a waiter than as a
stripper.

* When you need multiple guys onstage with you during your
main set so the women don’t walk away when you take your clothes off.

* When girls stop asking if you’re gay and start asking how
old you are.

* When your conversation includes topics such as Botox, chemical
peels, laser facials, hair coloring products for men and treatments for
baldness.

* When your best friend at work is twenty years younger than
you.

* When you stop saying, “This guy is like my brother,” and
start saying, “This guy is like my son!”

* When your son is now starting to dance himself.

While dancing in my twenties, I always thought I needed to
find a “real” job. After all, I had a college degree and thought I should use
it. Most dancers in their twenties aren’t thinking too far ahead. When I
decided dancing was my career for now and was a real job, I started making real
money. It seemed not too long after, the question aoise more often, “When is it
time to retire?”

For me, it was when I started to feel the need to lie about
my age. For two weeks before my thirtieth birthday, I felt really depressed.
Even though it was just a number, I felt okay to say I was a twenty-something
stripper. It was not as easy to flow off the tongue that I was thirty-something
and a stripper. For other guys, it could be as simple as a woman telling him to
move aside so she could see someone else. Women can be cruel and can say some
of the rudest things, but when you are at the end of your career, it seems it is
amplified.

Some guys are able to leave the biz with a great attitude
toward it, to the point it makes us mad if we hear anyone bash it. We were able
to get the best out of the biz without allowing it to affect our lives in a
negative way. We benefited from dancing, and we knew that we would never
experience the kind of midlife crisis that guys go through when they feel that
they have passed their prime and settled in life without having truly lived.

If you pay attention to what you learn by being a stripper,
then you will realize the importance of these skills, such as having the
confidence to talk to a pretty lady. You’d be surprised how many men are scared
of a pretty girl. Have you ever seen a pretty girl with an average guy? Well,
that’s because he wasn’t scared to talk to her. Confidence. If every man had total
confidence in himself, he would accomplish way more in life.

Being a male stripper can open doors, and if you’re smart,
you take advantage of that while you’re still in your prime. I realized dancing
was a great way to make money while trying to become a professional
bodybuilder. It enabled me to have the lifestyle I needed to train properly.
Other smart guys used the job to finish college.

The first doors dancing opened to me were with the friends I
met. These guys became like family over the years. You’re with them more than
you’re with anyone, even more than the guys who train in the gym with you. You’re
with them through the good times and the bad. Even holidays. Most are really
cool guys, and you’re happy to call them friends.

The ability to make as much money as you potentially can is
an obvious door opened. It’s not as if there is a salary cap. The only limits
are the ones you put on yourself. Modeling gigs are also frequently acquired.
The first one I got was for a calendar of men from Dallas that sold by the
thousands. It felt good to know I was going to be on the walls of so many girls.
I was so proud of that. Then I did a photo shoot as a cowboy, and I see that
pic everywhere like coffee mugs, snow globes, cork boards for people’s offices
and iPhone skins. That was one of my best pics ever. Next was being a
Playgirl
centerfold. That was the first time I felt I really did something big in
modeling since
Playgirl
was worldwide.

The best opportunity as a model was becoming a romance novel
cover model and touring the country signing books and calendars. Meeting people
who had read a book and visualized me as the main character always seemed so
cool. It also got my foot in the door to be on national television on several
appearances, including a cast member on a reality TV show, a couple of single
appearances on regular TV shows and as a model on
Good Morning Texas News
.

Another door opened is relationships with women. I can
honestly say the girls I was in serious relationships with were all special to
me and great in their own ways. If I never started stripping, I would have
never met them, and I’m so glad I did. To this day I consider them friends. And
best of all, I found true love.

Dancing also helped me achieve my fitness goals. Since it’s
our job to stay in shape, it’s almost like you get paid to have a healthy
lifestyle. That’s a win-win situation to me since I enjoy working out and
making money. And the benefit of being healthy is priceless.

Traveling is another perk of the job. When I started, I didn’t
realize this door would be opened. I would have been happy dancing on that same
hardwood stage the whole time, but after seeing the world, I’m glad it worked
out the way it did. For a small-town boy to be able to spin a globe, stop it
with my finger and have a good chance I would go there is overwhelming
sometimes. A lot of people never leave the city where they grow up, much less
their state. Or their country or even continent. But I’ve met people all over
the world and seen so many different cultures. It’s a real blessing I’ve had.