On Strip Clubs and athletes...

OK...seen a LOT of tweets and blogs wondering about the Strip Club, Athlete and incident thing. Recently, TN Titan Vince Young got into an altercation at a strip club which made the headlines and media. It seems, to many, that this is another in a long line of strip club related problems involving professional athletes going back to Adam "Pacman" Jones and even before. Since so many people are concerned and asking questions (What is it about strip clubs? If it is a hotbed for trouble, why do athletes go?) and since one of the few things I do know a little about is strip clubs, I thought I'd try and help.

First, the strip club itself. To truly answer this question, I'd need a whole other blog or maybe even a book (it's been suggested, numerous times.) But I'll try to sum it up for you. What is it about strip clubs that makes them so attractive. Well, it's a number of factors, most of which aren't really complicated or deep but they combine into the perfect storm. First and foremost, there's beer. Seriously. For most guys in most contexts, that alone is enough to justify visiting or patronizing an establishment. Next, in addition to beer, there's naked (well, topless) women. "So, you mean I can drink beer AND look at titties?" Now, don't you feel a bit silly for even wondering why a guy might want to go to one of these places. But, I'm not done.

See, in addition to beer and titties, a strip club is a place a wife doesn't want to go almost as badly as the husband does want to go. If one's wife is happy and excited to go to the strip club, she is not one of the folks asking why people want to go there. She gets it. But even places that have no beer or titties but that the wife would rather not go tend to be attractive to the average husband. Otherwise, explain golf. Further, with or without the wife, the strip club is a place where you get to toe the marriage bounderies without breaking them. There is this fantasy of the possiblity of being with a beautiful woman, who is not your wife, and, even better, there is absolutely no chance of it actually happening. Hell, they say like 20-25% of dudes will actually cheat on their wives, you think the rest of us aren't wired that way too...the strip club lets you address that part of you without being THAT guy who ruins the marriage, screws up the kids and generally ends up alone and unloved.

And then there's the reason that doesn't much get discussed...the attention. Everyone likes to feel attractive, important and admired. Some of us are lucky enough to get that in a lot of contexts. Most of us only get it in a few. Some poor folks don't get it at all. But, admittedly, we ALL like it. And, if you have the cash, you can BUY it at a strip club. Oh sure, it's not the same. It's basically a fantasy without real teeth. But still, it's better than nothing. Like fat free diet ice cream or veggie burgers. You know it isn't the real thing but it beats abstinence.

So, in sum, Why do guys go to strip clubs? Beer, Titties, No Wife, Hot Chicks (without cheating) who "think" that they (the guys) are hot. There are actually a number of other reasons but these 5 covers 85-90% of the motivation generation.

So, what about the athletes? Why do they get in trouble? let's address that. First of all, the simple fact is, they don't. What do I mean? What about all the stuff I see in the media and the stories and Ben Roethlesberger (who can spell that?) raping that chick in the strip club in Georgia. How can I say they don't get in trouble? Well, I am speaking in scale...you see, LOTS of athletes go to strip clubs all the time. Guys (and Gals) of all different levels of professional sports all over the country and the world frequent strip clubs every damn day. But, because of the puritanical prejudice against sexual expression, we, as a society, freak out over the .001% of athlete strip club visits that result in an 'incident'. Hell, Ben Rapelesberger (as the Mexican calls him) wasn't even in a strip club. And poor Mr. Young's negative exchange was completely irrelevant in the context of the strip club venue. I mean, he punched a dude in the mouth. There was no stripper involved. There was no bouncer involved. It was a simple bar fight that happened to be in a strip club.

But again, you want an analysis of why there is trouble that .001% of the time. Ok...first, Athletes are often young men who come from poor or middle class backgrounds who become REALLY FUCKING RICH. I mean, they get a LOT of money. What do you do with a $15m signing bonus. I mean, after you buy the 'Mtv Crib' and the 4 Bentleys and the bowling alley in your basement. You still have a ton of money. So you invite all your high school buddies over and you smoke some pot and bet on some private dog fights and maybe share a hooker or 3. And you STILL have a CRAPLOAD of money. Well, one thing a strip club is really really good for, it's burning money. If Montgomery Brewster had hit Scores, he could have burned that $30mil in the first 2 weeks and he would have had NOTHING to show for it.

The other factor that comes up is the mental and emotional warping that occurs when you are a professional athlete. Professional sports are a big part of our lives. They prove very important to us. I can tell you, personally, that I am such a serious SF Giants fan that, when they win, I feel GREAT and when they lose, I feel like crap. With that level of pressure on single fans, successful athletes tend to get admired, appreciated, stroked and worshipped to the point of demi-god status. The treatment they get tends to do strange and unpleasant things to the average ego and soon, they start to forget simple things like respect, manners and humility and start to believe that they are better than the average person.

So take this guy with the out of control ego, give him a pile of money and put him in a place were even the common schlub in a food stained t-shirt is made to feel sexy, attractive and important and, yes, sparks will fly. Things will get out of hand. Usually, most people have enough home training, common sense, and attentive friends to prevent any real issues...I mean, Tiger Woods apparently frequented numerous clubs and managed to ruin his life without a single fight or club context 'incident.' But every so often, it grows beyond the normal drunken misbehavior and gets out of hand. And that's what ends up in the press.

So, to sum up again, giant ego, ton of money, ego stroking context, lack of home training, shake (not stir) and you might get a little explosion. But chances are, you won't.

Solution? You want a solution? I bet the NFL does...I bet Roger Goddell is getting plenty sick of dealing with this. Here's a solution, then. Stay home. I'm just kidding...that's not realistic...Sure, some of the dudes are going to marry supermodels and be content to go back to their ridiculous house and bowl a couple of games in the basement with the kids. God Bless em. But the rest of them need training...They need to understand things like choosing and empowering a wingman and taking other dudes talking shit as jealous ramblings that really amount to complement. They need to learn how to recognize their limits when imbibing and how to safely ignore those limits. This stuff can be learned through trial and error but that will not keep any NFL PR Execs in their beds at night. OR, it can be taught.

In today's day and age, fame is far more curse than it is blessing. It is the price they pay to have a job that they love that pays obscene amounts of money. If they can learn to manage their fame or hire someone to do it for them and listen to that person, they don't have to suffer. And they don't have to 'avoid' strip clubs. 'Cause that ain't gonna happen...

(P.S. Dear Adam 'Pacman' Jones. Dude, AVOID STRIP CLUBS. You, sir, have a problem... Love, Gen.)

All I do is win

DJ Khaled – All I Do Is Win Lyrics

[T-Pain - Chorus]
All I Do is win win win no matter what
got money on mind i can never get enough
and everytime I step up in the building
everybody hands go up
and they stay there
and they say yeah
and they stay there
Up down, up down
cause all I do is win win win
and if you goin’ in put your hands in the air..

[Ludacris]
Ludacris goin in on the verse
cause I never been defeated and I won’t stop now
keep your hands up put em in the sky for the homies that didn’t make it and the folks locked down
I never went no where
they saying Luda’s back
blame it on that conjure
the hood call it Ludayac
and I’m on this foolish track so I spit my foolish flows
my hands go up and down like strippers booty’s go
my verses still be serving, tight like a million virgins
last time on a Khaled remix now I’m on the original version
aint never count me out
y’all better count me in
got 20 bank accounts, accountants count me in
make millions every year, the souths champion
cause all I do, all I, all I, all I
all I do is…

[Chorus]

[Rick Ross]
Swerving in my Lolo,
head on the swivel
you know serving me’s a no no
clean as a whistle as I pull out in my Rolls Royce
yellow bone passenger they see it, they say oh boy!
tell Khaled back it up, my n-ggas call me Loco
thats for armed trafficking, don’t make me pull that fo-fo
ask you what you laughing at
represent that mud life
dirty money b-tch you better get your mud right
we come together holding hands and holla thug life
we are strapped in all black
it’s like thug life
(all we do is win)
you riding the what
we riding the night
you riding with me cause you wasn’t riding right
ROSS…

[Chorus]

[Snoop Dogg]
heat in the Kitchen, pot on the stove
water getting boiled, dope getting sold
snoopy in the hoopty, system overload
I’ve been running this rap game since I was 20 years old
I hung with the worst of them
bust till I burst on em
floss em up, toss em up, hardaway, boss em up
pardon me I bossing the pressure up, bless ya bruh
don’t wanna mess with us
we like the U in the 80’s
back to back set a trap
hit the lick, hit it back
hit the trick, jump the track
b-tch I want my money back
time and time again while I’m sipping on this gin
Al Davis said it best, just win baby win

[Chorus]
[End]

Wow, oh wow, it's WoW!

OK…fair warning, this post is mostly about WoW. So, if you have no interest in WoW and lack a desperate need to understand what’s been going on in my head lately, then you probably want to just skip it. Seriously. *shrug* You were warned.

So, on Tuesday night, I quit my guild. If you follow me on twitter and/or facebook, you know that I have been agonizing about my guild for some time. The guild and I had been heading in different directions for some time. The GuildMaster left temporarily to handle some real life issues. Given the extended nature of his absence, someone needed to take over. The Wingman did so. In my opinion, he did the best job he could but he never felt any ownership…more like a manager in charge while the owner was unavailable. So he tried to guide the Guild in the direction that most of the membership wanted. Soon, his management team and core personnel consisted of some fairly strong willed individuals who wanted the guild to be something it wasn’t. And they proceeded to push it in that direction.

Now, I objected all along. But I was in the minority AND persona non grata because of my personal nature. I have never been a ‘serious’ player…I treated the game as a lark and a lot of the members came to dislike me because they saw my casual, carefree attitude as interfering with their serious efforts. (For example, if I rolled on and won a trophy, I might not use it. That’s just how I rolled. This frustrated them, as they would choose to use in immediately, had they won it. So they felt it was wasted.) As time passed, I was ostracized more and more, even though I could and did change those attitudes and behaviors to be more in line with what they would have wanted for a teammate. That is part of the source of the frustration…I mean, I genuinely tried to change for these people but they didn’t seem to notice or care…

On Tuesday, I logged on about 10 minutes after the official invite time, nothing unusual…a good 20 minutes before ‘first pull’ and found that the groups had been formed. Apparently, the invite and ‘first pull’ times had been moved up. With no notice…at least to me. It was in the calendar invite, which I was admonished for not reading more closely but I didn’t see any other notice. And basically, I was casually blocked from participation in favor of pugs. For me, that was the last straw. I became so angry that it became a physical force…I couldn’t stop shaking and my vision was literally tinged with red. I did the /gquit and acted quite rudely towards the officer I was conversing with. (I later apologized; I was unforgivably rude.) She tried to continue the conversation so I put her on ignore. (I later took it off as part of the aforementioned apology; like I said, unforgivably rude.) I couldn’t deal with it.

The hard part, really, besides the ‘fear of the unknown’ and not knowing where my next raid is coming from, is the feelings of anger I have towards the Wingman. I mean, he is probably my best friend in the world and I have just been really really pissed. I know it is in no way his fault…What kind of sense would it have made for him to try and force 20-30 people in a direction they didn’t want in favor of one, me? None. Intellectually, I don’t think he could have handled things any other way and I know he tried to keep it moderate enough for me to ‘hang in there’. Maybe if he had been on the game Tuesday night, things might have been different, I dunno. But he wasn’t and they weren’t. So, I have to try and find a way to get over these feelings…Cuz, despite how they FEEL, I KNOW they are not worth it…friends are few and far between and should not be compromised lightly. And we have brains to get past our emotions and do the right thing…I am dedicated to finding a way to do that.

So, anyway, I joined a ICC pug immediately, to try and salve myself. It was your typical poorly planned and average run pug…took 45 minutes to form up because people kept losing faith and quitting…I ran outside to summon replacements no less than 6 times. Once we started, we handled the 1st room trash with some skill but we lost 3/10 people…which is pretty bad on 1st room trash. Then, in the second room, we activated a 1st room trap and one of the hunters, who had been rezzed twice, failed to run in the second room, leaving us to deal with the unnecessary Ward. Finally, we wiped on the first boss…and, of course, people bailed. Honestly, I was glad to not be saved, though who knows if I’ll get a 10 man this week…

I bounced around for a while…dumped some gold in the AH to level some alt professions…did the weekly…did VOA 25, where I led the dps with 7495 on Toravon. I think that was my highest dps EVER and I was pretty excited. Of course, having no guild, I had no one to share it with :( which hurt and made me question my decision…I sent a tell to one of the few guild members on my friends list and she commiserated with me. She also told me the pugs in her group were fail and they were wiping a lot, which made me feel a bit better as well….nothing like the misery of those who wronged you to pick you up, right? The VOA ended as WG started but a bunch wanted to run 10 man…so I sat around and waited for WG to end, hoping that the Alliance pulled it out…What else did I have to do? The Alliance won and I got a decent 10 man done but what kind of loser waits the whole of WG for a 10-man pug? This kind, I guess.

The other thing I did was something I had been putting off…I took my new stockpile of Frost Badges and bought the last two of my 8 total Tier 10 pieces…completing my 4 piece bonus on my tank set. So I had to run around for Arcanums and Shoulder enchants and gems and stuff but I got it all put together. I put it all on and my tank set cleared 3000 on wow-heroes, which was nice. In the end, I stayed up way too late doing unnecessary stuff, running worthless and pointless heroics (healed Occ on the alt, which impressed the hell out of myself. Died on the last boss as I am quite fail at green dragon but whatever, right? They pulled it out without me.) Went to bed around 1:45a. Miserable over the whole mess.

Woke up Miserable over the whole mess. Went to work miserable over the whole mess. Spent the day miserable over the whole mess. So the wife picked me up and took me out to dinner. Now, we can’t afford to go out to dinner. And I told her that. But she said she’d find the money if I would stop being miserable over the whole mess. Normally, I would call that a bad deal, but there are not a lot of things on this earth that I wouldn’t give up for Chico’s wings and pointless misery doesn’t make the list. So I cheered up and we got barbeque. But I told her I wanted to be home early to get on by 7:45 to try and find a pug spot in a guild ICC run. Have to get back on the horse and guilds aren’t going to find you. She didn’t disagree but dinner took a while and we had to stop at Walmart for staples. Further, she became fed up with my rushing and took the opportunity to give me an earful of her opinion on the situation. (She thinks I should take some time off Wow. I know, crazy, right?) Still, she did buy dinner so I backed off the deadline and gave up on raiding…Got home, put the stuff away, worked on the pool, got the baby to bed and managed to log on around 8:30 or so.

Looked like the guild runs had failed. Day 2 is always tough when you have pugs involved. If just one person bails, the whole run is FUBAR. So again…their misery is my salve. But there weren’t any obvious runs being formed. Some bs ‘Anybody wanna do ICC10?’ on Trade but that’s it. So I ran my daily, CoS. Some of the randoms failed and we had to run the gauntlet like 3 times but we still got the mount for a dude and finished in 35 minutes or so.

Back in Dal, sitting around staring at trade and I see a request for ICC25 come through. It bounces too quick due to gold spammers, so I scroll up and read it. Guy is advertising for ICC 25. dbw reserved (I had to google that. :() min dps 8K. Remember, my best was 7495 so I couldn’t do 8K. So, no fit…Still, I do have a spiffy new tank set on. So I whispered him and asked if they needed a tank and how late they were running. He replied that they WERE looking for a bear tank, were ending by 11 (12m our time) and would I like to go? So I said yes. Got the invite and told the wife I would move downstairs to raid. She looked at the clock and told me I could go if I got her some ice cream. I told her to forget it as I didn’t want to delay the start. Still there were 12 open slots, so I went in the kitchen and got her the ice cream (she acted all surprised, like there was any doubt.), took a leak, and went downstairs.

Well, I sat there for like 40 minutes. At first, I don’t think they were really focused on filling….half of the 13 we had were from one guild and they were all offline on alts. I got the vent info and go on and no one was talking...finally the guy who invited me came on and started doing invites and switching people to alts. At about 10:30 we started pulling trash with 24 and one kitty on the way.

The trash went amazing. I mean, they treated it like par for the course but this was a 75% pug group and we downed the first through third pull without a death. I don’t think my health bar dropped the whole time and I had some real aggro going. On the 4th pull…the stairs to room 2, someone pulled the main middle group midway through…Groups I’m in, that’s an autowipe…grab your ankles and lube up. But I was gonna do my best so I grabbed a couple of the ice dudes and pointed them away from the raid and then I started taunting some stragglers who were harassing the casters. And what do you know…we survived…with like 2 deaths. Out of 25. I was in a good group. The raid leader was pushing us to go…we never got to stop…2nd room ended up with 3 Wards…1st one…then one from the 1st room got dragged in…then the 3rd…but I just did my best and they kept me up. Though I had most hps, I had lowest threat gen of the three tanks (story of a bears life.) so I deemed myself OT and let them hold the wards while I kept the still up misc trash off the healers and clothies. It worked…we survived with minimal deaths and went on to 1st boss.

Got 1st boss on the 1st try. Smooth as a greased up baby’s butt. Some shoulders dropped and loot was one per boss so I rolled. Got em :) Cultist's Bloodsoaked Spaulders

Second boss, I was assigned to left side. No one was assigned to any particular side or adds besides the tanks. I am not good at a whole side but I did the best I could…mostly my dudes ran into the raid and I pulled them back with taunts. No one bitched me out or complained other to politely note that they were free. After three add rounds, the boss freed up. I got on her and went to it…they called for me to take her third and I managed to pick her up and hold her and even move out of D&D (go me!) long enough for her to die. As soon as she dropped we were all on the elevator…no milling around or chit chat. Nothing dropped for me on her.

We were already in the next trash before the first piece was even rolled on. The raid leader advised us that we’d have to end on time because their guild run started at 11. They were doing LK (10 man run with 9/12 down). They invited any of the tanks to join them…I pondered it. I had noticed a couple of things about this run...the raid leader was pocketing the Saronites…not unusual, I guess they were reserved for the guild. The raid leader would link loot but he called for rolls on Vent. This meant that, if you weren’t paying attention to vent, you didn’t get to roll on Loot. This did piss one guy off who claimed he didn’t hear the call for a roll but he was just screwed. (in all fairness, 23 other people heard the call…) Also, the 8K dps rule was NOT being enforced. The raid leader noted the dps and even called people out on it but he didn’t keep the roll winners from getting the loot when they were below 8K. I actually felt good about that….as a fail dps, I hate those rules.

As we approached the boat for the 3rd ‘boss’, the raid leader called a halt and did something I’ve never seen before. He set it to heroic! My first realization was that our raid leader was a Kingslayer…I’ve never run with a Kingslayer. My second realization is that I know JACK SHIT about tanking heroic gunship. :{ So I jumped on WoWwiki and read up on it…luckily it is just like regular except the dudes are tougher and you have to be perfect in avoiding the rockets as they can both knock you back and one shot you. Nothing I couldn’t handle…

Heroic Gunship was rough but fun. Not difficult but I was dodging rockets and grabbing aggro like you wouldn’t believe. It was very draining because of the concentration needed. But we pulled it out and the loot came up…There were two pieces for me, which was REAL exciting, as I don’t’ have ANY heroic gear. I lost the roll on the tank trinket to the other tank which was fine. Then I lost the roll on heroic Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder to a dude I’ll call LuckMeister, cuz he was and cuz that will give him away to anyone from the raid reading this. LuckMeister was the kitty and he was averaging about 5K dps. Not 8K. The raid leader even hesitated before giving it to him…but he got it. Now the rule swings the other way…I guess you take the good with the bad. I let it go.

Time for Saurfang. Raid Leader called for one of the tanks to go dps. I got nervous. I am a fail dps remember, I don’t want to post a shitty dps score and embarrass myself. I admitted that I had a dps spec. On other tank did and then he stated that his dps was only like 6K in that spec. I stole a page from his book and also admitted that. The Raid Leader said it was fine and he assigned me to dps for the fight. I got behind the boss and resolved to do the absolutely best I could. So I jumped on the boss and executed the rotation, playing close attention to my addon which tells me the priority move to make. Well, we downed him…a bit sloppy, so adds got stuck in melee but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t me. I immediately loaded up the Recount and checked my dps. 3200??? Oh, I remember this…have to set it to the single fight. I set it. Well, whaddya know?

Bigger version here

10485! Holy crap! That’s awesome. Of course, I know there were some mitigating factors. For one, in this fight, I just stand there and dps…easy on the concentration. For 2, Blizz has got the bonus on ICC set so high…I am sure the +20% or whatever played a role. But still, AWESOME! Of course, TWO marks that are good for me drop (you can see that in the lower right) and of course, I fail rolled and got nuthin’.

We tore though the next trash as we were running out of time. Made it to Rot in what I would call record time but again just par for the course for these guys. I got to tank first and we kept all three tanks. After my turn, I switched to kitty and dpsed him…every little bit on Rotface. At about 3% I hear, “GenWar, take him!” on vent. WTF? We went through BOTH other tanks?! My heart stopped but I smacked the = key which is my hotkey for bear when in cat and ran through him, whipped around and taunted. The current tank was at 9 and I got my first in less than 3 seconds. Since 10 is autowipe, I think most folks don’t realize how close we came to fuckin that up. But we didn’t and he died seconds later. He dropped some leather parts with high stamina…nice upgrade for tanking set…I rolled and got em. Gangrenous Leggings

Down the hall to Fester…I was assigned the main boss on this fight because that was where my experience lied. Again, not much to it…you stand there and hold aggro and move when the acid rains down…the healing was outstanding…downed him first try and he dropped a tanking neck. Will wonder’s never cease? My tanking neck is my worst piece of all. I’d been rocking the Endurance of the Infernal for as long as I can remember. One last minute roll to top the other two tanks and I am now the proud owner of THIS badboy: Bile-Encrusted Medallion.

We did one try at prof putricide but the guild members in the group were late for their 10 man, so we didn’t try again after 1st wipe. I rezzed myself and headed for the Dal portal…as I did, I noticed that they raid leader was taking rolls on the Saronites…only if you didn’t win anything…I thought that was a particular nice touch…one last chance to make it worth it. I thanked them for the raid and headed out. After a few minutes, the raid leader sent me a tell and asked if I was looking for a guild. I said I was but I couldn’t raid 12m to 3am EST. He said that that was 10 man and that 25 man was 8 to 12m on Thursdays. He then pointed out that I don’t need any 10 man gear…not STRICTLY true, I do still need some of the weapons but it’s true that 25 man should be my focus. So I said what the hell? He sent me an invite and promoted me to initiate. This means, I’m not a full member…I have to go through a trial run (25 man next Thursday) and then do a 2 week trial period for personality fit. (Probably a good thing for me as well as them.) But I might have a new guild only one day later. I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is…I was really scared that I would have to pug forever.

So, that whole long boring story later, I am in a good mood today. I’m excited about my trial run next week. Nervous but I think I can hold my own with most tanks and the guild is DEFINITELY tank light so I might get a bit of slack…We’ll see…

-gen