Backstage At Chippendales (13 page)

             
Several weeks after Janie and I had last seen each other, an opportunity came up wherein I was to do a promotional calendar signing up in Seattle.  This would be a perfect time to visit Janie again!  I told Janie, and Janie said that she wanted to move down with me to Los Angeles right away, and she suggested that I should fly up, do the promotion, and that we would just drive back down together in Janie’s car, with all her stuff.  It was decided then!  We would even place an ad in the local paper to sell the other half of the round trip ticket as a one-way ticket (this was before they checked ID’s for boarding passes).  We got 100 bucks promised for the ticket.

The plans were all set. I had rented us an apartment in West Los Angeles, I’d had the utilities hooked up, and it was all ready to move in.  I had blown most of our furnishings budget on a round waterbed, and we had a crappy refrigerator, an entertainment center but not even a TV or a couch.  We would get the rest of the stuff later.  I had been given the round-trip flight ticket from Chippendales’ main office to go to Seattle.  But at the last minute, the promotional engagement was cancelled, the very morning that I

was to leave!  I made a calculated decision to go anyway and pretend that I never got the message.  I wasn’t about to let anything mess up my plans with Janie.  I went to the airport with my bag packed with collar, cuffs and spandexes as I usually would, figuring that the lady who canceled might still want me to do the promotion once she heard I was coming anyway.  (She didn’t.)  The only one to meet me at Sea-Tac airport was my lovely Janie.  Boy did she look beautiful. 

Janie had all her stuff packed in her car and was ready to go, but I had to call in to Steve C. at the Chippendales office first to get the skinny on where to go for the hotel for my gig that I “didn’t know” was cancelled when the people from the promotion didn’t show up at the airport.  When I “found out” it was canceled, I feigned appropriate surprise and indignation since I was already here and what was I supposed to do and all, and what about the money I was supposed to get paid for the promotion.  Well, the people who had booked the gig and canceled at such a late time felt lucky that I had someone to stay with, and were glad to get out of the hotel bill—they had no idea that I’d actually gotten the call for cancellation before I’d left.  Janie and I met with the people to sell the other half of the ticket for the $100 and we turned right around and left for sunny Southern California.  We

drove about 600 miles that first day (half the distance) and stayed in a cheap motel.  I remember that we paid in cash and stole some of the pillows. 

Along the way down south, I found a marijuana pipe in Janie’s center console.  I convinced her to let me throw it out the window.  She consented.  I figured that was the end of drugs for her.  Boy was I wrong. I should have noticed the empty baggies in the console and asked what those were for or from, but I didn’t know any better. Turns out that they were from crystal meth (methamphetamine), but again, I didn’t know any better. 

Well, we just rollicked on down the road until we arrived at our new digs—they were nice…Janie approved. Underground parking, A/C, a marble fireplace, it wasn’t bad at all, and she really liked the big round waterbed with the custom black silk sheets.  That first night, I recall, we “listened” to TV on the stereo system—it was “The Simpsons” which was a new show back then…and it was just as funny without a TV…and we were in love, so what did we care?

Janie quickly got a job with the local Blue Shield office doing essentially what she had been doing before, only they promoted her rather quickly to head up a team of ten people!  She enjoyed the job, but it was hard work.  I was still working at Chippendales, but my money intake had been shrinking as we had switched locations from “The Stock Exchange” to

“Carlos & Charlies” on the Sunset Strip where we just didn’t have the capacity to take in as many customers for everyone to make as much money.  Soon, we got a couch and a better refrigerator, and of course, a TV.  But Janie missed the lucrative side cash she had been making as a stripper, and I’ll tell you, I sure missed the $300 nights I had been averaging at Chippendales, which had now plummeted down to around $60.  I felt financially inadequate, and like less of a man because of it. 

The main reason Chippendales moved from “The Stock Exchange” over to “Carlos & Charlies” was that the waiters had been caught conspiring with the bartenders to overcharge for drinks—that is, the bartenders wouldn’t ring up a lot of the drink orders at all, and those that they did ring up would be at the regular price, $3 for well drinks, $4 for specialty drinks. Meanwhile, the waiters would standardly charge the women $5 for well drinks and $6 for specialty drinks.  For any tray of drinks that were not rung up at all by the bartender, there would be a kickback at the end of the night.  Either way, “The Stock Exchange” was technically getting screwed out of at least $2 per drink anyway on each and every drink at the very least. The waiters overcharged the women on drinks, this was over and above the tips they got,
and the women tipped the waiters on the higher drink prices too
, so the waiters were really making out.  I’m an honest, decent fellow these days, but in those days, however honest and decent, I must confess, I was doing it, too.  

When I had been doing souvenir sales, I had also been
somewhat
similarly overcharging.  I had rationalized my overcharging there because,

the way I saw it, Chippendales was the entity whom I figured was my “wholesaler” and so I’d take the “wholesale price” on the item (the amount I was charged by Chippendales for each item, which was also the amount I was supposed to charge) and I’d beef it up to what I figured was a “retail price” and I pocketed the difference, this in addition to my commission of 20% on the items’ lower “wholesale” price.  The law of supply and demand would tell you that I should sell fewer items at a higher price, but, Chippendales management just never noticed with me, because my souvenir sales had more than tripled any previous souvenir salesman’s figures.   I had figured that Chippendales was still making out because they were lucky to have such a talented salesman as me.  But I was no longer the souvenir salesman at Carlos & Charlies due to my often being out of town on weekends doing Chippendales promotional gigs.

At the new Carlos & Charlie’s location, they watched the bar sales like hawks, so there were no drinks shenanigans to be done there, and no extra money to be made other than your straight tips as a waiter. [
None
of that sort of overcharging thing goes on at today’s Chippendales, I assure you].

Another thing the guys complained about at the new Carlos & Charlie’s location was that there were nowhere near as many hidden places

wherein they could have sex with the women who were patronizing the club.  And as you know, that was one of the main benefits of working at Chippendales, so that was a biggie, too.

I remember one night after work at Chippendales new location at Carlos & Charlie’s when Janie came in, all plastered drunk (and probably high on meth)—so she shouldn’t have been driving.  After the show, we got in an argument, partly about money, but I convinced her to leave her car there in the lot. On the way home, Janie tried to jump out of my MOVING CAR and I had to grab her and pull her back in.  That should have been one of several red flags about Janie right there, but it didn’t register with me at the time—I was in love.  She just went whacko on me that night.  The next morning, we talked about money again, and she said she was interested in stripping again.  We agreed that we would go check out some strip clubs the next day for her to work at, one day a week. Since I did not go to women’s strip clubs, though, I hadn’t the first clue as to which one was the best fit for her.

The next day, we first visited the first strip club that had came to my mind, that “NUDES NUDES NUDES” one down by the airport by LAX.  We went inside, and the atmosphere was dark and dank, and the girls were nowhere near as pretty as Janie.  The owner came out, took one look at

Janie, and said, “You want the Bare Elegance, down on Inglewood Boulevard.  That’s where all the pretty girls dance.”  And it was off to the Bare Elegance we headed.   They hired Janie right away, and our money troubles were over—Janie was bringing home an extra $300 a shift, and they had her working three shifts a week.  But little did I know what a snake pit she’d sunk herself into.  She was doing crystal meth to keep herself up and still working her job during the days at Blue Shield.  Soon after, I bought Janie some new fake tits with an insurance settlement I’d just gotten.  Her personality changed soon after that, just like Ellen’s had, and then, things changed between me and Janie.

It was difficult being with Janie and going to law school; and it was weird being a law student and working at Chippendales as well—not like being a college student at UCLA.  At UCLA, everybody was doing other things, too.  At Loyola Law School, that’s all you did—that was your life.  You weren’t supposed to be doing anything else with your life but study.  I was an anomaly.  My fellow students found out what I was doing, and I often heard whispers and giggles from the girls as I walked by in the halls.  I wasn’t sure if I liked that anymore.  I wanted to be taken seriously as a student at Loyola, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted that other part of my persona to be public knowledge.  Too late for that, though. 

Within weeks of starting school, I was taking advantage of the free student counseling facility—Janie and I needed relationship counseling to see us through our difficulties.  Janie went with me to one session, then refused to go to any other sessions.  I went alone, from then on.  I remember the lady counselor kept asking me, “what are you
doing
with this girl?”  I knew she was right.  Janie was bad for me at this stage in my life.

Meanwhile, the tips were still dismal at Chippendales.  Since I had started my first year of law school at Loyola Law School, I was otherwise focused with my energies, so the work at the Chippendales club was barely worth my time.  Thank the Lord for the promotional work, which was on weekends, and still paid well.

In order to pick up some extra money with its top promotional producers, Chippendales would sometimes send out some of us guys on acting or modeling gigs, acting as our agent.  I did a few modeling gigs that paid a several hundred dollars each, but this one episode poisoned me to any further outside agency calls.

I was supposed to go to this one agency on Hollywood Boulevard one morning to do a reading for a TV pilot episode—something involving surfers.  I showed up, and sat in the waiting room along with a few other surf-mutt looking characters.  When I was called, the front receptionist announced me to her boss as ‘Greg Raffetto, the guy from Chippendales.’   “I’ll just be a minute,” came the reply from the intercom.   I waited perhaps four, maybe five minutes, then came an oddly muffled “Okay, I’m ready for him,” from the intercom. 

“Through those doors, and down the hallway, last door on the left,” said the receptionist.   And off I went, wondering what sort of a cold reading

they were going to have me do, since there was no material being provided prior to the interview.

When I entered this guy’s office, there was nobody in it, though…just an empty desk and chair, and two interviewee chairs—an empty office with only a door at the back, left ajar.  I sat in the interviewee chair for a minute or two. Nothing.  Finally, I decided to get up and peek my head through the rear door just to let this guy know I was here.  I poke my head in, and barely got out the first half of a ‘hel-lo?’ when, oh hell, I saw it.  Here was this guy, just leaning against the back cabinet in his office, dick in hand,
beating off
!  Then he looks across at me…and smiles!  I guess he expected me to come on in and suck dick or whatever, but I just thought…hey, I don’t fly that way. What did I need this kind of crap for, anyway?  I was going to law school for Christ’s sake! By golly I hoofed it the hell out of there and didn’t look back.  I didn’t look back on acting gigs anymore either.  The way I saw it…being an actor was as hard as being a lawyer, but the pay rate and success rate was much better being a lawyer.  So unless I reeeealllly reeeeeeallllly wanted to be an actor, it was better to just keep right on going to law school than to have to put up with shit like this.

And thus endeth my career as an actor and a model.