Page 38 - Exotic | May 2025

Well, here I am, once again, using this plat- form that Exotic has so generously handed me for the purpose of shameless self-promo- tion. Last June, I wrote about Strip City, the TV sitcom that I co-wrote with a friend and that I was—and still am—pursuing. I pushed my Kickstarter campaign to raise money to pay for the pilot filming. As it turns out, times are tough, and Kickstarter failed to meet the set funding goal. Not one to let that stop me, I set out dreaming up alternate means of rais- ing money.
When I approached my boss, Frank, about the possibility of hosting a fundraising event at X Exotic Lounge, where I work, he readily granted me his blessing. After securing both a venue and the support of my bosses, my next task was to figure out what the event would be. It occurred to me that I’ve got- ten to know a few stand-up comics over the years and that a stand-up comedy night in a strip club might be fun.
whose name my boss had invoked. I learned that Lenny started performing his stand-up material as an emcee at strip clubs in LA. But what I read next left me picking my jaw up off the floor. One of the first clubs he performed in was a strip club in LA called Strip City. The synchronicity of the whole thing felt to me, deep in my soul, like the universe telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I was on the right track.
Those moments of confirmation didn’t end there. I recently saw a video on YouTube in which Bert Kreischer spoke with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, and about 5 min- utes in, the conversation turned to the fact that comedy clubs, as we know them, didn’t exist when Cheech and Chong were starting out. Instead, they performed at strip clubs, to the confusion of the audience, who were initially baffled by such an interruption. Why, the audience wondered, were they watching these guys perform their act and not staring at the titties they were there to see?
I was watching M*A*S*H recently, and the first episode of season 10 shows a USO tour that had come to Korea to perform for the troops. One of the singers on the tour devel- ops acute appendicitis and is rushed to the 4077th, where Hawkeye removes her ap- pendix. When the other performers on the tour made their way to the MASH unit, I was struck by the fact that the headliners of the tour were a comedian named Fast Freddie and Brandy Doyle, a world-famous stripper.
What I’ve come to realize is that, far from the novel concept for an entertaining show that I initially thought I’d dreamed up, I in- stead managed to stumble—completely un- aware—upon a rich tradition, a deeply inter- twined history that exists between the worlds of burlesque entertainment and stand-up comedy. Although I’ve long known about Portland’s famed and storied strip club cul- ture, I’m only now beginning to understand what a truly robust stand-up scene our city has. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the widespread open-mic network that exists throughout Portland, but I’m starting to get
the picture. I can’t even begin to express how exciting it’s been to bring together the com- edy and strip club worlds (I guess you could say we’ve brought those worlds back togeth- er) and to watch it resonate with people.
While I was the guy who dreamed this whole thing up, I’ve had an overwhelming amount of help along the way. I mentioned my idea to Japan the Punk Rock Comic, a regular at X Exotic Lounge and a revered elder within the Portland comedy scene, who naturally has a dedicated following in...Korea (which, to me, is a piece of conceptual comedy that I imag- ine Andy Kaufman would have found hilari- ous...it’s sure got me laughing pretty hard). He approached me less than a week later to let me know he’d put together a full lineup of comedians and that we just needed to pick a date. I’ve learned a lot from Japan about how to put on a good show, and without him, I’d probably still have this comedy night trapped in the limbo of the planning phase.
I’ve also found a mentor in the form of Spartacus, a regular at Dixie Tavern (he goes by Spartacus, but at Dixie, we affectionately abbreviate it to “Sparky”). I’ve listened, fas- cinated, to the stories he’s told and retold over the years of his days working at the fa- mous Comix Annex in Houston, Texas. Sparky worked there in the ‘80s as security and, eventually, as a manager. He took advan- tage of the opportunity presented by such a workplace and broke into stand-up himself. Back then, Comix Annex was a comedy prov- ing ground akin to The Comedy Store in LA, or The Improv or The Comedy Cellar in New York. Sparky speaks fondly of his experiences getting to know legends like Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks, meeting the likes of Bob Saget, Chris Rock, Brett Butler, and Dana Carvey, and opening for Andrew Dice Clay. When I told him I was starting a comedy show and that I was working up a set so I could try my hand at performing, he gifted me four old note- books full of his handwritten comedy mate- rial. When he gave me those notebooks, he did so while telling one of Mitch Hedberg’s jokes, telling me, “Here, you throw these away.” Joke’s on him, though. I’ll treasure
I pitched the idea to Frank, who responded by saying, “Yeah...like Lenny Bruce used to do.” Now, I knew of Lenny Bruce. I knew he was one of the gods in the pantheon of com- edy. I immediately recognized that it wasn’t an insignificant thing for my boss to draw such a comparison. I also recognized that when it came to Lenny Bruce, I possessed a knowledge gap that clearly needed to be closed. The next day, I opened up Wikipe- dia and looked up this legendary comedian
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