What happened? I was on top of the world there for a week, climaxing in my appearance at New York City’s “The Tranny Strip”, and then all of a sudden, silence.
Well, I got sick. Really sick. Really, really, really sick.
I’m not sure if I overdid things or not, but starting on St Patrick’s Day I attended a birthday party for Bella Vendetta at the Anthony’s Gentelmen’s club, then I had three profitable and confident days dancing at The Satin Doll (Thursday, Friday and Saturday).
The DJ at Satin Doll remarked how at one point when I walked off the stage I oozed confidence, and I was sure that the next day at Tranny Strip I was going to kill it as a feature dancer and special guest.
But it didn’t happen that way. I left work early on Saturday night, got plenty of sleep, and left for NYC at noon, doing the 200 mile drive in about 4 hours. This was my first time working The Tranny Strip so my plan was to drive in, dance and make money, and drive home at the end of the night. And all things considered, it was probably the best plan.
Now of course, lots of people seemed to want to meet me outside of the club while I was “in town”, and there was a lot of questions as to why I wasn’t staying longer, or at least staying overnight. Well, it was mostly a question of money. Money is tight and taxes are coming up, and so driving there and taking an hour to find a free parking spot on the street (Yes, they do exist in NYC if you’re patient),and then driving home – was really the best option considering that I had no idea if I was going to make much that night at all.
The other problem was that, on the drive down, I could tell that I was in the beginnings of a cold or flu, and I didn’t feel top of the world lie I really needed to be. But it was too late to back out of it, so I pressed on.
The night itself was decent. Income wise, it was not the big bonanza that I had hoped for, but then again, my mood was growing worse and worse knowing I was just getting sicker. I did about as well as a good night at the Satin Doll, so some respects, I could’ve just stayed at home and made the same amount of money.
Perhaps I would have done better if I hadn’t been on the cusp of getting sick. I had also told them that I was just going to dance and strip and not do a burlesque show, yet after saying that more than twice, they kept billing my performance as a burlesque show. So I had to cobble something together on an unknown stage and it went OK.
Funny thing is that I had becme used to the setup at the Satin Doll, where they have two stripper poles on a central stage, where guys surround it, sitting at a ledge called a “tip rail”. The venue of the Tranny Strip was the opposite of that! The stage is only slightly higher than the audience, and lets just say it’s not that condusive to milking the audience out of their dollar bills. And there are no stripper poles on the stage. There is one in the back near the bar, but I tried a few pole tricks on it and soon realized I was kicking patrons near the bar because it was fairly tight back there.
In fact, the way the venue is made, it’s almost perfect for a few of the performances I have done in the past. This is one of the things I am learning as a performer, that you can’t be sure of how any venue is going to be set up. This trip to the Tranny Strip was meant to be like a reconnaissance mission – a little dip of my toe in the water before I jump in all the way at a later date.
You can’t ever be sure what a venue is going to be like until you’re there. Years back, I did a showgirl performance on an event on a boat, to discover that not only was there no place to get dressed (like they had an extra room somewhere- sorry!), but the ceilings were about 7 feet high meaning my showgirl headdress kept whacking the ceiling.
So the night didn’t go quite as well as I had planned, but I still came out on top, whereas if I had paid for parking and a hotel and all that, I probably would’ve just about broken even. But I did leave armed with the knowledge that if I’m going to DO New York, I realy ought to GO BIG. Because (and this may have been my own perception, as when I get sick, the first thing to sour is my mood) I didn’t feel like I was like any of their other dancers there. The New York tgirls are very attractive in a different way than me, and well, how can I say it without sounding negative.. it’s like they all come out of a factory where they are all trying to look like Kim Kardashian, and well, that’s simply not me. I did meet a few interesting people, and had some fun, but I sure felt like a fish out of water, or a country girl lost in the city. I tried about 3 or 4 looks that night, not feeling that any of them were getting me any dances. At one point I was becoming so negative I actually started to doubt wether being a sex worker was something I really wanted to aspire to. That’s really not the right state of mind to be in when you’re at a place like this.
I don’t know. Like I said, I was starting to feel sicker and sicker, and once 2 am rolled around (when the night was supposed to be over), they announced that they would be open till 4 am, but by then I had given all I could, and I got in my car and went home.
By 5:30 AM I was back in my own bed (and let’s be honest, if I had stayed in town, I probably wouldn’t’ve gotten enough sleep anyway, if I had to check out by 11am), wondering if I had made a mistake by going in the first place. You see, when I get a bad bad cold, it really affects my thinking, and I had 2 or 3 days after that where I couldn’t stop my brain from going round and round in circles. It’s Friday now and only today I’m starting to feel normal, though I’m not fully recovered yet.
So, I DO want to do Tranny Strip again, certainly now that I know how to play to my strengths. Probably I’m best off doing my wacky off the wall burlesque shows there, more as publicity, and don’t try to compete with the Kardashian clones. I know I have “stage presence” and “star quality”, this club seems like the sort of place where I should just show up in my crazy outfits and be memorable- as more of a publicity stunt than trying to be something that I’m not.
I dunno, I’m still sort of sick so it’s still coloring my perception right now. Jeez, I only today just took my first bath since Saturday. I’ve barely eaten all week and my house is a mess and things have gone neglected all week. I’m only starting to get back to normal but I feel like I lost a lot of momentum. That seems to be how my luck is, that whenever I get some momentum going, something happens to whack me in the ankles and set be back a few steps. I wish I could say I “took a week off”, but it’s not like I did anything fun this last week. Sitting in bed trying to sleep and hoping that NyQuil will just knock me unconcsious for 3 days straight isn’t much of a vacation. Honestly I would have rather have been in a coma.
I’ll report in a few days when I figure out what I’m doing next.
-Tara
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