"Hi, are you Jon or is it Jack? Jack Corbett?"

"Yeah, I'm Jack. And you're..."

"Are you armed?"

And so my latest adventures in perving, Metro East St. Louis-style (or
is it St. Louis Metro East?), kicked into a higher gear. Not that I
hadn't already enjoyed my share of heavy raunch $2 skank laps and the
like. Sure as the stains on my shorts, I had. But chancing to meet
Jack, the Father of All Stripping for this scene, was like jumping
through my TV screen into a Technicolor, X-rated episode of Petticoat
Junction. Like hopping onto the Strangelove A-Bomb with Slim Pickens
for a bronco ride into pussy oblivion. YEE-HA!=20

The big moment took place within the cinder block walls of Dollie's
Playhouse in Washington Park, ground zero for the divier side of this
scene. I had made it my first stop in town that afternoon, perved for
while, then gone out and perved at a couple of other venues, only to
return in the evening for further perving. Which was proceeding quite
nicely, when I noticed a somewhat respectable looking fellow across
the stage setting up a laptop (computer). I knew right away it had to
be Jack. I had seen him in there once last year, but I hadn't made the
connection. I had my misgivings this time, too, but I thought, what
the hell, I gotta at least say hi.

Anybody who goes back more than a few ASSC months knows about Jack
Corbett, aka Jon Huntman, purveyor of the Lost Angels Forum,
chronicler of Metro East St. Louis clubs, Top Stripper Lori Mellon,
Yur Buddie DiRT, etc etc. Jack's presence on ASSC consisted mostly of
plugs for his (free) Website, which came off looking a lot like spam.
A clash of Net cultures came to a head once or twice when ASSCers told
him to shape up or buzz off. I got in some pretty harsh slams myself,
although I always liked how Jack's mismatch with ASSC mirrored the
isolation of the East St. Louis strip scene from everyplace else in
country. It truly is a world unto itself down there, a land that time
forgot. Clubs have evolved along a different, deviant path into
something strange and wonderful. It's down home funky with a whiff of
danger, like an old Ike Turner riff. And it's incredibly wide open. I
don't know enough about the region to say why. It's southern Illinois
farm country cheek to cheek with rustbelt urban decay and it all feels
kind of Southern Baptist and depraved and corrupt like further down
the Mississippi. I've been going down there every chance I get for a
couple of years. I love it.

OK, enough of that...

Jack swears he's clean for weapons, so I tell him who I am, and that I
had called him an ignorant Illinois bean farmer on ASSC and so forth.
We have a good laugh and he introduces me to his entourage and shows
me what's up on his laptop. They're all chatting on his Lost Angels
=46orum, which is like IRC only you can insert pictures. I tell him I
get bored easily by computers, especially watching Web graphics
download or talking in chat groups as they hem and haw, so combining
the two likely is not my cup of tea, especially when there are, like,
real live naked girls nearby. I have to admit his forum doesn't look
all bad, though. The pictures are good for digital stuff and people
are actually carrying on what appears to be an intelligible
discussion. Somebody online even recognizes me as "ASSC's
resident asshole" when my presence is mentioned. I say I'm sure it's
meant in a nice way. Jade, a Dollie's dancer who is sort of Jack's
digital disciple, thinks it's "cute". She perches herself on my
asshole knee and dines on Beef Jerky as we all get acquainted. Even
though I should be thinking about winding things down soon, I readily
agree when invited to join this rollicking crew for any and all
felonious assignments in their all-night crime spree.

I'm disappointed that Top Stripper Lori Mellon and DiRT aren't on
hand. But Jade and a bizarre dude from Indiana answering to the
moniker Crazy Czech take up the slack. They're playing around on the
computer with photos they shot with Jack's digital camera of the Czech
in the ridiculous getup he still wears--red, white and blue face paint
(A belated 4th of July tribute?? Who knows??), Detroit Red Wings
hockey jersey with a belt strapped over it, cutoff jeans and so on. A
real fun guy. Meanwhile, Jack drags over some stripper I think he's
just met who French kisses everybody she's introduced to. I'm not sure
I'm game for that, but after being shown all this computer stuff, a
stageside lap dance would be a nice change. There must be something
about the lighting in clubs that prevents my eyes from properly
focusing on a screen. I pull myself up and stagger away zombie-like...

Must..get..more..laps..must..get..more..laps..must..get..more..laps..

Off the stage and onto my lap comes this deliciously curvy young
brunette with full pouty lips, who I'd never seen before. The sight of
this wakes me up good and hard by the time she gets down to working on
me. She unzips her dress, and out spills luscious tits and hips and
buttcheeks just made for rubbing against my boner and sinking my
hands and lips into, so I do. She's into the oral thing, too,
especially all over my neck and ear. Didn't get to talk much and never
did catch her name. Maybe some other time.

Back in Jack's corner, they're talking about moving on. The Czech has
Jade asking what fisting means, because he's offered to demonstrate at
a club up the road. We tell her it's one of those thing that's best
described by doing, but I'm half wondering if the Czech is for real,
as crazy as he seems and as wild as things get in some of these clubs.
Either way, we leave Dollie's to chart out new realms of debauchery.
Jack rides with me.

Jack tells me how Dollie's has been in a kind of limbo ever since the
49% owner was jailed three weeks ago when the body of the 51% owner,
missing since last fall, was at last found. Jack's convinced he
couldn't have done it, but frankly I'm more curious about the sordid
details than guilt or innocence. Murder seems like business as usual
around here anyway. We exchange further observations on clubs and
strippers here and elsewhere, the Net, ASSC, his recent misfortunes in
San Francisco (which sound like a nastier, offline culture clash) and
yadda yadda yadda. Jack really has this scene covered, but more
impressive still is Jade, who leads us all over town, to places Jack
has scarcely heard of, in pursuit of more and more bizarre
stepchildren of the urge to love. Jade and I go arm-in-arm as "dates",
and at every turn, there's somebody she knows.

=46irst, we hit a former strip/swingers club turned strip club featuring
backroom hot tubs. Onstage is a naked, red hot firecracker doing the
splits then rubbing her crotch aggressively into a patron's face. Jack
informs me that she is the one who recently beat up Lori Mellon--no
small feat--after accusing her of stealing, which Jack thinks
unlikely. After watching her in action and exchanging a few rude
remarks, I believe her to be capable of anything to take care of her
shit, as I'm sure she has to here. There's definitely a sinister air
to this place (which I like).  Maybe it's due to its swingers history,
maybe the hot tub deal or the dancers I spot who I vaguely recall
propositioning me elsewhere on past visits. I may be back on my own
another night.

Next, we check out the newly opened upstairs at C-Mowe's, which has
been transformed into something more like a real strip club. No
carpeting on the new stages. No mustaches on the new strippers. Really
sleek. I'm not sure if I like it. David Lynch no longer would.

However, our next stop would fit nicely into a Blue Velvet sequel. The
Colony Theatre remains a swingers club of some sort. From the outside,
it looks like a roller rink. Very large. And popular, considering the
$9 cover. More cars than I ever would have expected at a place where
you fork over so much to meet other people who can't get a da...er, I
mean swingers. None of us are willing to pay, so we don't see any of
it beyond the selection of snacks in the forlorn looking lobby, where
we have to drag Jack away from trying to sell a manager on his Web
services, despite the guy's insistence that he "already has a
scanner".

=46rom pseudo swingers to ersatz singers. Somehow we wind up in a
karaoke bar. I'm sure Jade had good reason for dragging us here, but
it couldn't have been to hear the Czech attempt a song that should
never be offered in karaoke anyway, Prince's "Let's Go Cra...aw, to
hell with it, what am I doing telling ASSC about this in the first
place? It's supposed to be about strip clubs.

Like our next stop, Faces. Well, almost. Tim Evanson to the contrary,
ASSC isn't generally about gay strip clubs. No, I didn't pet the
doggie. I didn't even come close to tipping, other than the bartender.
But this place is a blast. It's a regular gay dance club with an
upstairs cabaret. First, we see a very stylish floor show in drag (the
*show* is in drag, okay?). Good dancing, great dresses, fabulous hair,
gross butts. I stay real close to Jade. Then I start to feel kind of
turned on, so I get real affectionate with Jade. The Crazy Czech shows
so such confusion, stealing a pinch of the drag queens' asses as they
pass by. And Jack, who had been opposed to coming here in the first
place, seems highly stimulated by it all, literally jumping up and
down with no particular provocation. After the floor show come the
male strippers, a pair of cowboy studs. They strip down to jockstraps
and get some mild strokes from the audience through the jocks. Then
put their hat over it, pull the jocks off and cavort around holding
their hats like idiots, teasing the crowd. It's too much to take,
so we don't stick around long enough to be sure whether they
eventually parade around getting their naked peckers jacked off by the
audience, like Tim described in D.C., but it wasn't looking likely.

At about 4 AM, we finally arrive at a proper, respectable strip club,
Paradise in Centreville. It's probably my favorite of the more upscale
clubs in the area. Upscale here means merely better facilities, better
pussy (ie, not too many skanks) and a DJ, but not low mileage. I like
Paradise because the upscale parts are low-key--not too glitzy or
noisy--and the pussy is usually superb. It's an excellent place for
objectifying strippers, which I am in the mood for. After availing
myself of the first two or three pussies presented at the stage, I see
one that I don't care for, so I go off to find out what crimes the
rest of the gang is plotting.

They've taken over half of the VIP room. Cool. I didn't know you could
do that. Jack has his laptop plugged in, and Jade is downloading
pictures from his digital camera, saving them to disk, sharpening them
and stuff. I'd much rather be touching and feeling real live pussies.
To be messing around with geek toys amid it all seems jaded beyond all
hope, but I have to admire their enthusiasm at this hour. Jade has an
amazing aptitude for this stuff and Jack--well, Jack, at his age,
should have been home in bed six hours ago, but he hasn't lost a step.
The Czech, on the other hand, has. He's dozed off on a couch, his
facepaint and getup forming a puzzling sight for the freaked out
customers that dancers are dragging in here for couch dances. I take
it as an omen for myself. I better move on.

I toy with the idea of joining the gang at Pop's 24-hour bar in
Sauget, but it's 6 AM now, and 7 fucking AM in Michigan where I have
stuff to do today, and it's, like, daylight outside and I haven't
slept in 24 hours. They curse me up and down for wimping out, but I'm
sure they meant it in a good way. I'd hate to think I let them down
after all the fun they showed me. Hell, I never expected it to come to
this. I just wanted to shake hands with Jack (or is it Jon?)

CMG
(Reply to cgould@ the ISP in header)