Monday, October 31, 2005

Would you pay $60 to look at Robbie's bits?

Robbie Williams is starting up a website for fans with an inner sanctum. For a mere $60 you get a t-shirt and full frontal pictures of himself. So, is it worth it? Is it better not to know? Obviously it's not going to be a disappointing sight, but how do we know it's real? We've all heard of photoshop, and do we trust him not to indulge a little? Do we really want to see it at all?

Reminds me of my hen's night, when I was dragged onto a Stud's Afloat boat. While I have nothing against male strippers in general, this was a pretty poor experience. The wine or champagne they gave us could have doubled as paintstripper, and probably did, dinner was half cold, and the guys were okay looking, but nothing really special. Not that they didn't try, all the waiters had tight black pants with no shirts on but believe me, 5 o'clock shadow on the chest is not a good look. Also, if you don't tend to drink to excess, as I don't, then you see the gaps in the performance.

The only highlight of the night was the last stripper who came out in a gorgeous white naval uniform. Unfortunately he then took it off. I don't think I was the only one in the room thinking '' Nooooo, put it back on! You look so much better with it on!"

This was only beaten by the horrible experience I was unfortunately responsible for in Canberra. But some background first. We were celebrating the upcoming marriage of good friends of ours. I was going out with the bride and a group of girls, and D was going out with the groom and a group of mates. So our night started with dinner where we presented the bride with the usual brightly coloured veil covered in condoms, a huge lollipop dummy necklace, an large male apendage candle, and some amusingly shaped pasta. As you do. Except that we discovered in Canberra, at the time, you didn't. The other hens nights we ran into you could only distinguish the bride by the small, discrete touch of tulle in her hair. They all looked at our bride like they were so glad they didn't know us. But fortunately by that time the bride was too drunk on champagne to care. That's when she asked if there was a stripper. We hadn't organised one, because being a good catholic girl, we didn't think that was her scene. As she drunkenly slurred, it was going to be her only chance...

So off to the public phone and a bemused directory assistance person when I asked for strip clubs in Canberra with male strippers. Fortunately at the time there were only about two, so we rang both. The first was booked solid, but the second thought they might be able to help us. I should have known when the guy I was on the phone to said 'hang on I'll see and called out to someone else do you want to do a strip tonight?'. The reply was (unfortunately) yeah, okay, why not.

So we got into taxis and headed for the den of iniquity and building supplies that is Fyshwick. At the door of the strip club we paid $20 to get in and were herded past the female strippers stripping in front of a very drunk group of men. It was byo grog so no concerns about not getting served for being too drunk. A huge cheer went up when they thought that we were the second round of ladies coming in to entertain them.

We were led to an area at the back that had been hastily hessianed off and which sported pictures of a buff young man, who we were told would be our stripper for the night. By this time the girls were starting to sober up. A wading pool was brought in for some reason which we never really worked out. Then after about an hour waiting and sobering up, the stripper appeared in monks robes, with nunchucks. At this point our eyes widened, in horror. We could see the resemblance between this pasty interloper and the posters, but it looked like his older, paler, less fit brother. He then started dancing and twirling the nun chucks, for about three seconds before throwing them out the door and taking off the robe. We were about to sue for false advertising. This was not the six pack shown in the poster, this was pale and flabby flesh and no way were the girls drunk enough to go through with this. Unfortunately we were stuck. The bride was horrified, but the rest of us decided to take it in our stride and laugh hysterically at this poor guy trying to do a strip. We cowards quickly pointed out who was the bride when he asked, and she, poor girl, copped most of the crap. He stripped down to his jocks in front of her and gyrated in her face. Then he picked on the girls screaming with laughter, which was most of them. He seemed to spend an inordinate amount to time grinding his bum into people's laps. As his back was all sweaty this was really really gross. Finally he left, after trying to convince some of us to play in the paddling pool. No way were we going to become the next act. So we left.

As we walked out the door a group of taxis were pulling up. Suddenly there was a scream and one of the girls was pointing to the taxis. A familiar lot of faces were piling back in to the taxis which were then screeching away from the curb. Yep we had caught the boys about to enter the same club. Unfortunately we then had to explain what we were doing there. But it was okay, they were just as embarrassed as we were. Then we swapped stories about how bad it had been and agreed never to talk about it again.

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