Magic City
Where the Glass's aint Clean and the Girls aren't Pretty
I had to look up Magic City. I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. The Atlanta Hawks wanted to have a promotional night for something called “Magic City”. When I saw all the angry posts, my first thought was:
How and why does the city of Atlanta or the Hawks have a relationship with Disney, and why promote them? This is Ted Turner, WCW territory.
Well, for any of you fellow olds or uniformed, Magic City is an infamous (more than famous) Strip Club in Atlanta, and the Hawks wanted to bolster attendance by spending an evening paying homage to this “Gentlemen’s Club.”
Most of the posts I saw were complaints about how lame the NBA is. I love pro wrestling and enjoyed the Attitude Era; hell, I even bought Sable’s Playboy at Brooks Drugs, but I wouldn’t have watched that shit with my kids. Having a rated R Superstar worked in wrestling, but for the National Basketball Association, it would have been a disaster.
Former Celtic and a guy I like, Luke Kornet, weighed in, saying honoring the strip club “would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, specifically in being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society”.
I am not a strip club guy. I don’t begrudge people who are, but for me, I just never felt comfortable in those places. Today, my dear readers, inspired by the Atlanta Hawks and the Dominque Wilkins poster I had on my wall, I am going to share some of my experiences going to strip joints. I am doing this so maybe you won’t have to.
The first time I went to a strip joint was 35 years ago, almost to the date. We were sophomores in High School, and we had a “school trip” with our high school. For years, this travel agency infiltrated high schools with pamphlets about ski trips. We went home and told our parents about the “school trip,” and they were foolish enough to let us go.
After checking into the hotel, Hank and I ordered a couple of Harvey Wallbangers (inspired by the film See No Evil, Hear No Evil). We muscled down a few sips, and we hit the streets. My fellow Riverside Boys and I went out looking for love in mostly the right places. The first place we entered wasn’t a strip joint but a “sex store.” Bolstered by some liquid courage and the desire always to impress and shock my friends, I led the way in and asked the person working there a direct question:
“Where’s the sex man?”
He pointed us to some video booths in the back. We took a quick look and got the fuck out of there. Most of us had Cinemax at home.
Our next stop was a real club with real ladies dancing naked. We entered the establishment and ventured up the stairs. They didn’t want to let us in. None of us had an ID, and if we did, it would have shown that none of us was over sixteen. I don’t remember who was the first to flash some of that Canadian De Niro, but we bribed our way into the bar.
We ordered a round of Molsons and sat down. We weren’t there for long before Hank went into a different room. I don’t know how he finessed his way into that or why we were thrown out minutes later; I never asked him.
My next trip to a strip club was two years later. Now, seniors in high school have discovered the “Fuzzy Grape.” This was an eighteen-plus place in Webster, Massachusetts, a two-hour ride away. My girlfriend discovered a Polaroid in my car a week after it was taken of me and one of the Wild twins posing with a topless stripper. She wasn’t a looker (the stripper, girlfriend was hot)! The GF had boobs that defied gravity.
Route one, Saugus, Massachusetts, is a helluva place. I mean that in both the good and the bad sense. Before Steakhouses became sheik, Route One boasted the Hilltop, the best steak joint we knew of. It also has/had every other restaurant you can think of and still boasts Hockey Town USA (dress warm and try the pizza) and the Prince’s Leaning Tower of Pizza.
It also hosts/hosted the holy trinity of terrible strip joints. I am including Squire in Revere, which is just off Route 1, but I am going to start with the other two. Near Route 95 ramps, Route One has the “World-Famous” Golden Banana on the North side and the Cabaret on the South. So, if you’re driving and pass a strip joint and wish you had stopped and turned around, you pass another one going South.
All three are dumps, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with the Cabaret, which is also the dumpiest. The other places are shit, but this place is fucking disgusting. It had the vending machine holding cock rings, among other things, in the bathroom. “You call this a bowling alley?” – Roy Munson.
Of the three, the only one I was never in fear for my life in was the Golden Banana. This place was the biggest, and along with the private stage, had cages hung up around the room directly above some tables. “Live Cage Dancing” is on the fucking sign.
The second strangest time I went there was following a high school football dinner. We were there with our coaches following a reunion at a VFW or Elks in Woburn. It was strange eyeing strippers while sitting next to my running backs coach (sup Jim), but I mostly remember this night because I had one eye on the NBA draft lottery and my Celtics just lost the ping-pong lottery for Tim Duncan. Toast and I were crushed.
The most memorable time there thankfully didn’t happen. I was commuting to Salem State at the time, and it was the one time I went there at night to study at the library. I don’t think I stayed there long, but on the way home, I decided to stop somewhere for one drink. I pulled into the lot of Golden Banana, and for the first and only time, I was going to go to a strip club by myself. Questioning my life decisions, I walk through the door, and I am stopped at the lobby.
“Are you sure you want to come in?” asks the man in the tight T-shirt.
“Ah shit, yeah, I’m that guy that goes to a strip club alone.”
“No, man, it’s not that. It’s ladies’ night tonight,” he replies. I stand there, saying nothing, “meaning it’s dudes dancing.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Sitting in my truck, ready to back out, a thought occurs to me, ‘What if I went in and sat at the bar? One of the Seahags in there will try to pick me up.’ One of my great what ifs…
Some years later, with the same crew that I was in Montreal, we decided to go to the Squire. “They got a good buffet there,” are words I once overheard my father say. This was the 2000s. We were around 30, and we were drunk.
I didn’t want to go, “This place was just in the news, a couple of people got shot here,” I say to TL after we go through the newly installed metal detectors.
“Yeah, this is a mob place. Don’t fuck around here,” answered Nino as we sat down at the stage.
Three of us were taking turns making runs to the bathroom, and at one point, it was just me and TL sitting with our beer bottles resting on the stage. TL makes a noise when she bends over. Then he does it again. After the third time, the stripper stops, picks up his beer bottle, and starts swinging it at him. She didn’t break it over the edge of the bar first; that would have been awesome!
The bouncers rushed over, and I, being under the influence of decemt cocaine, could still speak. I try my best to explain the situation.
“Noises, like queef noises?” the head bouncer questions.
“Yes, exactly like that.”
“Go sit down and tell your buddy to stop fucking around.”
Our buddies return from the bathroom, catch the aftermath, and enjoy my retelling of the story. A little time passes by, and I come back from the bathroom, and two others take my place, and the queef stripper returns to the stage. “That guy is still here!” She calls out to whoever is behind the stage, and then she shouts out to the floor and directs it at the bouncers, “Get those guys!”
Me, TL, and Beef (the driver and the only one not doing drugs or insulting strippers) are on our feet and running, knocking over our own chairs and a few others along the way. We hit the pavement and turn two quick, hard lefts, and we are racing down the parking lot to Beefs’ vehicle.
I look back as I am climbing in the back, and I see Nino and Hank coming around the corner, both yelling, “Start the car!”
Taking mushrooms at a strip club is something I only did once. I was never what I call a “shroom shnob,” time and place were not important, only the company I kept was.
“Dude, how can you guys be in this room drinking beers and playing Madden and not out in nature?” is a phrase I have never spoken.
I don’t recall how it came to be, but it wasn’t planned. I didn’t pick up shrooms with the idea of going to the Cabaret. I just happened to have some, and the crew I was with wanted to go to a strip club. I don’t remember where we were coming from or who was driving, but I was in the back seat and said to “Major” Tom, “You want to split some mushrooms?” He looked over and saw the open bag in my hands, inviting him in.
I haven’t done mushrooms in decades*, but here are my few rules.
1. Be patient. Let the shit do its work before shoveling more in your mouth
2. Don’t trip alone and don’t get separated from your tripping partners
Follow those simple rules, and the rest is cream cheese.
There is a good crew of us, two cars full of guys. Tom and I are sitting at a table with Chester off from the stage, set in a corner against a wall. We had a row of friends sitting in front of us, sitting up at the stage. There was a sheet of plexiglass about a foot high on the edge of the stage. This served as a divider and a place for patrons to fold bills over to summon the dancers over.
Tom and I are laughing, we are having a ball! While we were soaking up the absurdity of the situation. We didn’t leave each other’s side. We split pitchers with Chester and went to relieve ourselves at the same time (no vending machine purchases made). I remember calling behind me to him walking the tight hall back from the bathroom, “Are you seeing trails?” through a giggle. “Did you see the size of that chicken?” may have been his response.
Sometime after we were back at our table, a dancer finished up her routine. One member of our party, let’s call him Dave, still had a dollar on the shield. The stripper never made it over to him, so he went to pull it back to save it for the next girl. As he went to retrieve it, the bill fell onto the other side of the glass and onto the stage. This is when “Dave” made a grave mistake. She saw him reach over, and she called attention to it!
My table watched the entire sequence; I don’t think I blinked. If I weren’t tripping, I would have provided live commentary to my friends. The lights go on, and bouncers are suddenly everywhere. It was like they were sliding down the stripper poles from the ceiling.
The Cab had one humungous bouncer that reminded me of former professional superstar “The One-Man Gang,” before he signed with Slick and became Ahkeem the “African” Dream. If you ever went there in the 1990s, you remember this guy!
My guy Chester tries to pay Peacemaker, much like I did at the Squire a few years later, but the One-Man Gang isn’t interested in talking. He walked through Eric’s arms and leaned on him. That’s all he did; he fucking leaned on him. The rest of the bouncers grabbed “Dave” and the rest of our crew. As they did, Major Tom grabbed me and, through a magnificent grin, said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He pushed me forward and held on to my sweatshirt as I led the way out the door.
I was also at the Cab on September 18, 1996. I just looked up the date. That’s right, I watched Roger Clemens throw his second 20-strikeout game at the Cabaret in Saugus, MA. I ran into a random Riverside Boy adjacent friend. I am not naming him, for he was by himself, but I left my party and joined him and watched the game.
Notice I said sweatshirt and not sweatpants. I’m an addict, not an animal.
Going to strip joints with my brother-in-law's (wife’s older brother) for his bachelor party turned out to be a memorable experience. I didn’t know any of his friends, and I was picked up by one of them in the van we rented. I didn’t know it at the time, but aside from two of his lifelong friends, the rest of the bachelor party van was filled with work friends. The driver was a work friend, and by the end of the night, he and I had exchanged more words than he could have had with my brother-in-law in 2 lifetimes. He ended up crashing at my house, but didn’t sleep. He left when I went to bed at 5:30 am.
I was his first stop on the pickup, and we were all meeting at a guy’s house in Waltham. We weren’t out of my driveway when he mentioned cocaine. He used the term “stuffing my beak,” which is a term I heard my older brother use.
We dropped off guys at the central meeting spot and went up and picked up a shitload of blow while the guys played cards with the bride-to-be's two younger brothers. We came back and loaded up the van with our crew, leaving the younger brothers at the house.
The second place we stopped and where we spent most of the night was the Cadillac Lounge in Providence. Most of my stripper stories are bad, and this one will be, but tip of the cap to the city of Providence and the quality and quantity of their gentlemen’s clubs.
Side Bar: One night, my brother and I stumbled into a strip club after the Eagles at the Providence Civic Center in the early 2000s. Most of the drugs had worn off, but not the ecstasy. That was a fun night and left me with a simple, easy feeling.
The night with my brother-in-law, we ended the night at the Cadillac Lounge, where we watched the Red Sox beat the Indians in an ALCS game. Before we went there, we stopped at an even grimier place. I don’t remember the name, but I do remember the girl.
She was a redhead; I like redheads. I also like “big ones, small ones, short ones, dark ones, white ones…” I watched her leave the stage, and I didn’t see my brother-in-law, so I approached her and asked her for a private dance.
She replied with my options and finished by saying, “I don’t usually do this, but for $400 you can take me to a room back there and fuck the shit out of me.”
I was quick to respond with the fastest way I could think of to get away from her, “Sorry, I don’t have that kind of money.”
“There is an ATM right over there,” and she pointed to it.
I walked right out the front door and smoked Marlboro mediums until the rest of the party was ready to go.
The maddest a stripper ever got at me personally was at Tens on Salisbury Beach. It was my great friend Top Jimmy’s bachelor party for his second wedding. We were in our 40s, and we spent the day doing paintball and drinking. I was sore as hell. We had a limo coming to take us to Salisbury, but it broke down and didn’t show.
I was the best man and felt the need to step up, so I loaded up my Toyota Corolla and made the journey from Southern NH to Salisbury Beach. This was before I admitted to being an alcoholic, and oddly enough, one of the guys who went paintballing had told me that day that he was in AA. This is important because I agreed to drive, and I told myself I would stop drinking.
I had a coffee on the ride and switched to beers when we got to the strip joint. They are having laughs, but I am fucking miserable.
“You’re not even watching me,” calls a voice from above (and to my right).
I don’t turn my gaze but reply, “watching the football game.”
I see her turn her head and turn back to me, and she says, “Football season already?”
“Preseason,” I say, and turn my head to the biggest blackest stripper in the Northeast. She had smoke coming out of her ears. I left a five-dollar bill on the stage and went outside and smoked Marlboro Mediums till my friends were ready.
Eventually, I went back in and got them.
The best joints for my liking are in Montreal. I have been to one in Las Vegas and a few in Toronto, along with the New England joints I highlighted. I went to one in New Orleans that was so dirty I was reminded of Goonies when I went to sip my drink, “It’s wet, isn’t it? Drink it!?
I was never comfortable in strip joints; it was never my idea. The best thing about strip joints and my only must on the list are the backrubs. For the uninformed, a back rub at a strip club is exactly that. You pull up your shirt exposing much of your back as you can, and a stripper or a waitress rubs it. If she’s good, she will finish by rubbing her naked boobs on your naked back. In my day, that cost you $10.00 and lasted a song. I bet it costs $20 nowadays, so pick a long song.
I’ve been to all the strip clubs, from Toronto to Back Bay, and they all say Hammer, oh Hammer, we can do all the hand stuff, but you're gonna have to pay.
Can’t touch this.
Not a strip club guy, but I have been to them from coast to coast. From Canada to Seattle, I have paid women to watch them dance, and nearly every time I wish I were sitting at a Pizzeria Unos.
My only other tip about strip joints is to do your best to avoid them, but if you do go, stay out of the back rooms. But if you do go into the backrooms, find a girl you really like and pay her once. Don’t keep buying additional songs; negotiate a specific amount of time, and make one transaction. Don’t let her talk you into anything else.
* I forgot about a Bob Seger concert back in 2019
“According to a recent study, women find men with beards to be more attractive than men without beards. This study was conducted by the University of Bob Seger.” - Norm MacDonald.
