Nickeltips

I recently moved to Portland, Oregon, home to the highest strip club per capita rate in the nation. Being unemployed here has had two unintended consequences: I spend a lot of time daydreaming about businesses I could start and I spend a lot of time bemoaning the high cost of strip clubs and my lack of disposable income. Thus, the plan for Nickeltips was born.

It's a strip club whose primary currency is not the tuck-a-buck single, but hardy, unassuming nickel. At twenty to the dollar, a hundo will get you 2000 shiny nickels. All of a sudden making it rain has all the thrill - and danger - of a hailstorm. Imagine a dark cavern lit by the glitter of flying coins. Change machines line the walls, and the usuals sport the official black leather fanny pack with pink embroidered Nickeltips logo, bulging with change, low-slung on the hip. Everywhere the jingle. Holiday songs take on special significance, and "Jingle Bells" becomes a year-round standard. Waitresses wear coin changers on their belts, and all change is, of course, given in all nickels. There would be Buffalo Head night, as well as single-source theme nights where all nickels thrown come from the same mint. Mint juleps would be popular, served in nickel plated julep glasses, with tiny slip-on maple sap bucket covers for protection.



At the end of the night, bartenders and dancers would use snow shovels to scoop up the piles of specie, some two or three feet deep. And through the early morning, the whirr of coin counters will tally the night's take.

- This will be the first in a series of posts on business concepts that I am working through. Expect more items like this one in coming weeks!

Roller Derby

I experienced my first roller derby last week, at the Jackson Convention Center, Jackson, MS. There were about 350 people in attendance, sitting on convention center chairs around a taped-in ring on the floor. The Magnolia Roller Vixens and the Belles n' Bombshells (all female) duked it out in helmets, knee-pads, and hand guards. Aesthetically, this sport owes as much to suburban mall goths as it does burlesque shows of the wild west. There were leggings in a fantasy of baroque patterns, and frilly or embroidered underwear seemed to be the norm.

There were some righteous crashes, but on the whole the competition was pretty amateur. The teams spent some time at the beginning explaining to the audience the rules of competition; I got the feeling some of the competitors were learning as much as I was.

I loved reading the players' names and numbers. Both are selected by the player, evoking the "Pistol" Pete Maravich era of the NBA. Most women chose off-color puns and threatening-sounding circus names, like "Princess Sledge Rammer" or "Lisbeth Von Lush." But more creative players dipped into literary sources, like "Zelda Fistgerald." And one woman ignored the raunchy spirit entirely with the name "Judicious." The numbers too were wide-ranging in their inspiration. My favorite was H1N1.

Possible roller derby names for myself, in keeping with the southern literary tradition:

Eudora Welts

William Fucker