February 28, 2007
Whole Lotta Shakin’
The Penthouse Executive Club about which Andrew just posted sounds swellegant but kinda lacking in the heart and soul department — unlike the now-defunct southern Illinois establishment known as The Chalet. Till a couple of years ago The Chalet sat just outside Murphysboro in a couple of low conjoined buildings that just hollered ‘roadhouse’ and featured, in addition to strip shows in the bar, country cookin’ in a family-restaurant atmosphere. What really distinguished The Chalet was its friendly, down-home feel and the easy come-and-go, so to speak, between the strip club and the restaurant. (Dallas Flockers: Imagine a sit-down-and-be-served Luby’s where once you’d mopped up the last puddle of chicken-fried steak gravy, you could wander over into the next room to watch girls get nekkid and shimmy. Or vice versa, I guess.)
It’s been at least fifteen years since I visited The Chalet, but I don’t think I will ever forget there witnessing one of the sweetest, most joyful sights I’ve ever seen. One of the strippers had, I believe, pretty well concluded her performance (nekkid as a jaybird) when an old geezer in denim overalls dropped some change in the jukebox. Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ ” came a-roaring out, the old man hopped up onstage, and the stripper and he performed an exhilarating jitterbug for the duration of the song. (”We got chicken in the barn/Whose barn?/What barn?/My barn!”)
Both the old man and the stripper seemed to be having such a durned good time that they made me feel good and I went and left my purse there at The Chalet that night. Had to go retrieve it on my lunch hour the next day. “Where you going?” “The Chalet.” “The Chalet?” “Yeah, The Chalet. Left my purse there last night.”
And, of course, it was still there. Everything still in it.
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15 Responses to “Whole Lotta Shakin’”
Oh, Sheila, I love that story! I’ve always wanted to go to a strip club but never have–seems like it would be too sad. I had friends years ago who used to frequent a spot in Dallas that sounded much like The Chalet. I don’t remember the name of the club, but their favorite dancer was named Bubbles Galore.
great fucking story, Sheila. to have witnessed this moment would be a high point.
It was a high point, Deron — and I am absolutely convinced there was nothing ’staged’ about it!
William Blake would have liked it, too, now that I come to think of it . . .
I wonder, Cindy, whether anything remotely like an old-timey strip club (as opposed to a ‘gentlemen’s club’ featuring pole- and lap-dancing, ‘et cetera’) still exists in Dallas — or any big city. When I was a little kid, The Dallas Morning News still featured ads for such places — including, of course, Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club.
there’s one on I-30 that some friends of mine used to go to because it made them feel like big rollers as opposed to going to the ones on I-35 and feeling like chumps.
I don’t think they sold chicken fried steak, though.
I’ll bet there are still some on Harry Hines. I’ll investigate.
oh! I haven’t been to this one, but when Amy and I go shoping for fabric for her purses we always pass the electric lady lounge on harry hines.
When I was 16 and worked in construction with a small band of house builders, my favorite thing to hear (when it began to rain) was: “Roll up the cords, we’re goin’ to the tiddy-bar!” Sometimes the place wouldn’t let me in and I had to wait in the truck. But sometimes I got in, and even though I had enough hormones in me to burn up 50 boys my age (as WCW says in his autobiography) it was sad, sad. Like a woman sweeping with no clothes on.
I’ve been to some good ones that have made me really happy. The best has been when we’ve gone coed. I think it makes everyone calmer.
Deron, I was with boys and girls on the night I recounted, and yeah, I think it did make a difference — though, really, the ebullience was so extraordinary I think no one could have resisted its power. Not something one could say of many strip-club visits.
Daryl (and others): Okay, now we will have to start recording and posting our own audio files . . . because your construction crew reminiscence really tempts me to retail anecdotes I’ve heard from Cooper’s and my longtime friend Allen, who worked on a paint crew for a while in Dallas. But I would prefer to record him spinning some of these tales and thus to share them with Flockers and friends.
Sheila, if you do audio, you might check out odeo.com. I’ve heard they are looking for new ownership, but in the past they have offered easy free audio blogging capabilities. Allen, or anyone for that matter, could record onto the site and those files could be linked here.
Thanks, Deron. I’ve been thinking about Ourmedia, too, but I’m happy to receive any and all suggestions.
I’m an audio kind of girl, you know, and I’m wanting to get back into audio production and . . . whatever.
I’m all ears.
Gosh, Deron, I can’t tell from the photos of you!
(Ba-da-boom! Where’s my rubber chicken? Where’s Scurvy Miller?)
that’s what I hear.
Ow! Ow! Ow!