8. ANGRY WELL-DRESSED DOORMAN - Summer, Fall 2012 The next afternoon I walked into Cabaret Internationale, it was different. The girls were huddled up by the back wall. Some new owner bought the club, the same people who owned Rachel's supposedly, the Veigles. They already owned the shithole Dollhouse directly across the street, but that dive could never compete with Cabaret Internationale. They immediately f1red all the dj's. The cute girls I was there for, and half the other girls, were already gone. It was half empty. The way it worked at Cabaret Internationale, was the dj was the point of contact for the girls. He is the one they would go to if they got sick and had to leave early. He is the one they would have to pay their house fee to at the end of the night, only $10 or $15 if I remember correctly, and tip out if they had a good night. This is how it worked at Club Madonna, at all Italian-owned clubs, and at pretty much all the clubs I went to (except maybe Tootsie which was too big). I was told Cabaret Internationale was owned by an Italian family with a C, like "Canonico" or something. And supposedly they sold Cabaret Internationale to the Veigles for north of a million, and still owned a strip club in Cocoa. The dj being the point of contact for the strippers supposedly originated in the early 1990's. A dj named Tony Galeota started recruiting his own girls for Playmates Pompano. Club owners are businessmen who know how to get liquor licenses. dj's are cool, they can do things club owners can’t, like know what music is popular, sell cocaine, who knows. There was one dj in particular at Cabaret Internationale, the main dj, whom the prettier girls were very close to. He was a cool guy for his age, but very square looking and kind of a father figure. I don’t know if he was having sex with the strippers. He liked the girls so much, my guess is he did have sex with them. What else would he be in it for? Now he was gone, and the girls he was close to, the cute girls, I guess quit the same day. I never saw any of them again. With all the girls gone, I was reduced to coming in to Cabaret Intemationale each week to check for cute girls, the same as I had at Club Madonna. It is wrong to just sit and watch girls dance without spending any money. And it's insulting to do it for 10 or 20 minutes then leave. But I also learned the hard way that you can’t just tip random girls in Orlando. They get the wrong idea. The next time you come in they won’t leave you alone, and they will punch other girls who try to talk to you. It takes a month to shake them off. On the last day you are the one who gets punched, for leading them on the day you tipped them, and dumping them. One time I got one dance from a little blonde girl, because I had come in for two weeks without giving any interest to a single girl. She had some regulars who were like 75 years old and were richer than me, so I thought she wouldn’t bother me again. After I spent that $15 or whatever, she went Fatal Attraction. She took a bunch of pictures with me and my motorcycle helmet and posted them on facebook. She called me all day trying to persuade me to get a matching tattoo. She cried for like a week when I didn't come for her birthday. And then she got mean. So I remember one day right after they sold the club and the girls left. I sat down and did my best to avoid eye contact so none of the girls would bother me. So the guys at the door decided to harass me, and one of the new young guys comes over and says "There’s a 1-drink minimum." The previous management usually let me in for free because I was a known as a big spender in the past. The new people didn't recognize me. I asked "Can I buy a cigar?" The previous management, starting from that first night I went into Cabaret Internationale, always had some cigars they could sell me. So I would give the manager $20 for a $10 cigar, and then I could sit and smoke it without anyone bothering me. And without having to get drunk and drive home just to spend some money. The young guy said he didn't think or know if they had any cigars. I said the manager always had them. He said he would ask Jim. I asked "Who’s Jim?" He said "You know, the well-dressed guy." I didn't know the previous manager’s name, he was a bit older guy. I hadn’t even bothered to notice that he was gone. And that's when I saw there was a taller-looking guy by the door with the two young guys. His hair was like blonde and he was dressed II-l9