The Seville Series: Roosevelt Purifoy

Roosevelt Purifoy worked for the RCI corporation before they purchased Seville. When the buy out happened, RCI transferred Roosevelt to Seville. He was a floor host (bouncer/manager/pimp/matchmaker/cashier).

Roosevelt was kind of nice, but unfortunately he works for a corporation that wants to treat dancers as employees, while still calling them independent contractors, as long as the club isn't called “Rick's.” RCI didn't do a very good job of letting Roosevelt know that Seville is not Rick's, so he had a tendency to tell me to do things such as get up off my favorite sofa that I liked to lounge on, or direct me on which customers he wanted me to talk to.

Roosevelt wasn't on the show floor for more than a handful of times while I was at Seville. He was usually upstairs in the champagne lounge, so we didn't work together very often. Seville is a large facility, and it is easy to not see everyone working there all of the time. Once, while he was on the show floor, he told the dancers that they couldn't talk to customers who were seated at a certain area, unless they had his permission to do so. As a result, a dozen or so strippers were all sitting around at the edge of his special sectioned off area, waiting for him to shepherd them in.

During the few times that I was in the champagne lounge and saw Roosevelt, he would be the person to tell customers how much money to pay for blocks of my time, as he did with the handful of other dancers who I talked to. Maybe Roosevelt forgot that he wasn't at Rick's, or maybe RCI didn't want him to know the difference.

One night during a customer brawl when all of the bouncers had to get involved, I saw Michael Sigmon approach Roosevelt from behind, grab his shoulder and pull him back. Roosevelt said to Michael Sigmon, “Don't touch me!” Michael Sigmon continued to keep contact with Roosevelt despite Roosevelt's request to stop, as though he was more interested in brawling with Roosevelt than handling the customers. There was some tension between the two of them, and if Michael Sigmon gets what he has coming to him some day, I'm rooting for Ro.

Roosevelt and I are both Chicagoans-- he a South-Sider and I a south-suburban-sider with some Ukrainian Village living behind me. One day, Roosevelt told me that he liked that we are both Chicagoans and that he really appreciated the way I came in “on time” every day and hustled so well. I don't know how Roosevelt knew about my timeliness or hustling skills since we so rarely worked together, but he wanted to express his appreciation. Then, he invited me out to lunch to “get to know” one another. He insisted that I take down his number. Ugh. I already had that nightmare!

Leo Mena from Hustler Vegas pestered me about having sushi with him, so much that I had to sue Hustler for it and do an interview with Vice magazine. It's so difficult to find a strip club I can work in without getting bothered by oafs who have significantly more power than me. When Roosevelt asked me to go out to eat with him, I was worried that if I complained about this type of thing at a second club, after Leo Mena from Hustler, it would just make me seem like the boy who cried wolf. I don't want to go out to eat with any of these wolves or be eaten by them, but they are persistent to get my blood.

I passive-aggressively said “sure” to Roosevelt when he told me to call him, then never did. That is what I usually do when creepy coworkers ask me to hang out with them and I want nothing to do with them. Being blunt about that kind of thing can ignite a mob rule, fueled by rejection rage.

In subsequent shifts, the few times that we would run into one another, he would just turn away and give me the cold shoulder. That is a strange thing for a manager to do to their subservient when all previous interactions were professionally cordial. However, I was happy that he didn't keep asking me to hang out with him.

Roosevelt has several children and a broken relationship with their mother. That is not an uncommon thing to encounter when dealing with men who work in the strip club industry. Many men who exist in the strip club industry have shattered romantic lives, because they live in the moonlight like vampires, basking in the everlasting love of youthful lambs, who come and go on a conveyor belt of hiring and firing.

I do my best to support dancers who aren't sheep, and to prevent them from getting torn to shreds by wolves, craving our sweet sweet nectar to drink like red wine in the throat of a thirsty alcoholic, high on submission and bloodlust.

The Seville Series: Michelle Glisson

Michelle Glisson is a dancer at Seville who goes by Lita. Michelle Glisson is in her thirties and a long-time Seville employee. I enjoyed working with her because she spoke clearly and didn't behave like she was in a bad music video.

One time she told me about how she drove out to a rabbit breeder in Wisconsin, to purchase a "pet" rabbit. I told her how disgusting it is to not go to a shelter to adopt a rabbit, and how breeders do not have the best interests of rabbits in mind when breeding and selling them. I explained to Michelle Glisson how millions of animals die in shelters each year because of pet overpopulation and careless human beings. Michelle Glisson laughed at me when I explained this to her and for the next few months, told other people about our little interaction. She thought that I was “a PETA person” and laughed at me while I ate steamed edamame from the kitchen. People who purchase animals from breeders are selfish narcissists who don't deserve the honor of knowing rabbits. Unfortunately some of the people who Michelle Glisson told about our interaction were managers, who used dancer's dislike of me as a reason to fire me.

One time, I was sexually assaulted by a customer and told her about it. I asked what would happen with the customer. She told me to just walk away from him. I asked her if a bouncer would throw him out. She said no, they don't do that at Seville. She seemed confused that I would even propose such a question. It is depressing when people don't understand why perpetuators of sexual assault should not be welcome.

Across the nation, strip club staff rely on dancers to be scabs, snitches, collaborators and company-women. They utilize this wedge as a way to remove dissenters who stand up for their rights. Sadly, there is stronger unity in most clubs among staff and their dancer friends than among the dancers themselves. Many women collude with gross old men, even if they are violent and/or emotionally abusive misogynists. This phenomenon happened to stripper rights activists in San Francisco during the nineties, and it happens today, almost everywhere.

A common tactic that abusive strip club staff utilizes when gossiping about dancers with other dancers is calling the victim "negative." For example, an emotionally abusive old man strip club staff might say to one dancer about another, "She's too negative." By using the word "negative," the staff worker is describing a woman who stands up for herself, does not tolerate sexual assault and knows her rights as well as the rights of others. Many strip club staff members have sad lives and are emotionally starved man-children, so all this stuff is hard for them to understand and they resort to impulsive behavior.

The Seville Series: William Edmund Reau III

From coast to coast, strip club floor hosts slither about in high end clubs, wearing cheap suits, leaving a goo trail of hair gel and oil as they go. Most people don't know what a strip club floor host is. I didn't know what one was until about six years after I started dancing, because they are usually only employed in large corporate clubs. Floor hosts generally work as a bouncer, manager, seating host and agent of sales. All of these job titles rolled into one person can create a conflict of interest for the dancer's well-being. Since floor hosts usually don't make much of an hourly wage, they must hustle dancers to tip them. One way they accomplish this is by finding customers for dancers who aren't good at sales, and work like pimps or match makers, selling VIP sessions for the dancer. Floor hosts expect dancer tips for this service. Another way floor hosts train dancers to tip them is by threatening not to “take care” of the dancers who don't tip. By “take care,” eel floor hosts mean that they will not do their duties as bouncers to protect dancers, not do their duties as managers to mediate problems a dancer may have, and may otherwise avoid a dancer who needs manager approval to do something like end her shift or go upstairs.

William Borea is a floor host at Seville. William and I have a shared fondness for literary arts and martial arts. He is an old man who has made attempts to break into professional screenwriting and acting. As a young man, he studied some psychology. He is a wrestler who is known in the Minneapolis fighting world as Billy Blaze, performing at locations like the Eagles Club and Knights of Columbus in Bloomington. He is part of a tag team called Body Beautiful. Despite his lifelong quest for the limelight, William Borea hasn't managed to leave the dim light of Seville, where he has been sliming it up for many years.

Aside from Jason Ewing, Billy was the primary show floor host. There were other ones who mostly worked upstairs or outside, but Billy and Jason were the show floor duo most of the time. Considering Jason as the alternative, Billy didn't have much competition when it came to who the dancers had to befriend to have things go their way. In authority situations when there are multiple positions, there is usually someone who plays the “good cop.” This individual uses psychological manipulation to get their subservient to open up to them and talk about life. This is a way for them to extract information and stay in control of a situation. Billy was very much a “good cop” character at Seville, but all cops are bad.

When I first started working at Seville, I had a very difficult time getting Billy to help me with things like seating me at a fifteen-minute couch, giving me permission to go upstairs or signing my permission slip to leave. I could tell that he mostly preyed on naive strippers who weren't good hustlers, because that was how he earned his tips. Shortly after I first started working at Seville, I had a concussion and had to leave early a few times because of my post-concussion syndrome. Despite me telling him this, Billy continued to encourage me to stay longer when I said I needed to go. I thought he was a really evil person, but he was a person who I had to get along with in order to have my work shift go smoothly. Some clubs have a set up where there is a podium that one worker stands at and checks out dancers or gives them permission to do a dance. Seville didn't have anything stationary like that, and instead dancers had to track down a floor host to help her out with transactions and tasks. This was difficult to do at times when it was busy and floor hosts were mostly running around to make their own tips. To maximize my profit, I found it helpful to compliment Billy on aesthetic bullshit that he expressed enjoyment about, such as his cowboy boots. Secretly, I thought his cowboy attire was hideous, but I didn't like it when Billy avoided basic manager duties.

Some of the Seville staff thought I needed to work out more often, and openly commented about it. For some reason, Billy felt the need to tell me that if I just jogged a few minutes each day, I would have more energy and my writing would improve.

Due to cosmetic procedures, Billy's face is fairly homely. Whenever I would have to talk to him, I would try to figure out what he had done. It looked like he used some kind of auburn coloring on his eyebrows, goatee and mustache. I suspected he used botox or had a face lift, and I would just think to myself, “What the fuck?”

Billy was smarter than most of the Seville employees. That's not saying a lot since most of them are really dumb, but Billy was at the top, cognitively speaking. Because of Billy's smarts, he was probably onto me quicker than some other people. He is also friends with some of the staff from other Minnesota clubs I had sued. When he spoke to me about club rules, it was difficult to hear him, because he whisper-spoke. That is-- he talked very quietly, so my audio recorder did not pick up what he was saying. If I asked him a yes or no question, he would nod or shake his head without speaking. If he needed to tell me to do something, he would whisper it very close to my ear. On the night that Michael Sigmon came in to yell at me about my dance prices, he summoned 'ole Billy boy to reiterate it to me. Billy is smarter than Michael, so instead of yelling like Michael was, he whispered the pricing rules. Sometimes, communicating with him reminded me of that episode “Hush” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where nobody speaks and instead talks in motions and gestures. He had a very mafiaesque way, and it was all so his employer could continue to exploit, steal from and abuse vulnerable young women who don't know their labor rights, then deny it in arbitration. That probably isn't what Billy saw himself doing decades ago during college or when he first tried to succeed in show business, but that is his life at Seville.

Despite his background in martial arts and wrestling, Billy didn't do a whole lot with regards to throwing out sexual predators who had assaulted me at Seville. One night during baseball season, a group of Canadians came down to see the Blue Jays play. Drunk and rowdy after the game, one of them reached up and smacked my ass on stage. I grabbed him by the shirt, smacked him, screamed in his ear to never do that again, then bit his ear and left little teeth marks, all while I was on stage and my music was playing. I regret not ripping his ear off with my mouth. Some clubs will fire a dancer for doing that kind of thing, while other clubs will throw out the customer for assaulting the dancer. I wasn't sure what Seville would do, but I knew Billy was near by and saw. I approached him after I got off stage to see what his reaction would be. He was slumped on a stool and didn't mention it either way. The drunken Canadian Blue Jay fan was still wandering around for an hour or so in the not-so-gentle men's club.

Another night, a customer grabbed my ass while he was on a couch and I was moving past him. In response, I grabbed him by the throat and screamed in his ear. In addition to Billy creeping around watching that, Kim Kardashian's ex husband, Chris Humphries was also there. I'm not sure what Humphries was up to, but Billy did nothing to reprimand the customer who had assaulted me. He had no financial reason to make a scene where millionaires were partying. I was happy that Billy didn't interrupt me when I pummeled men, but disgusted in him for not throwing sexual predators out of the club completely. One of the reasons manager Rayner Perez told the arbitrator I was fired was because customers had complained that I am “rude.” In reality, I fought back when I was assaulted and had no help from Scum Billy.

During the end of my employment at Seville, Billy was doing a lot of following me around, spying on me and the conversations I was having with other dancers. Surveillance is something that workplaces do to people who they are threatened by. One dancer who he kept a close eye on when talking to me was a young woman named Tatum Smith. I don't know why he kept an eye on that, but I do know that Tatum Smith has spent time partying at Lake Vermilion with certain other Seville employees in a certain cabin, and I know that Tatum Smith has spent a lot of time rubbing her rear end against Billy while they were in corners or seated at the bar.

I can only use this website as a warning to those dancers who will ever work at Seville or with him in the future. If you have information about William "Billy Blaze" Borea, please email me from the contact tab at the top of this page.

The last time I saw Billy was a couple of shifts before I was fired. I did not tell him that I was leaving like I usually did, and did not tip him like I usually did. He appeared to be upset with me. I smiled at him and said bye. He went out of town after that shift, on his honey moon for the latest of his multiple marriages.

The Seville Series: Dino Perlman and RCI

This is Dino Perlman.

He is a money swindling con artist who opened and owned Seville from 2004 until 2015. As a con artist, he went from woman to woman, convincing each one that she was an independent contractor, fabricating the truth about labor law, even though he enforced rules that legally classified them as employees. For his own personal and financial gain, he didn't pay them an hourly wage, charged them various fees for working and made them tip his recognized employees so he didn't have to pay them a living wage out of his pockets. Weasle con artist Dino Perlman had signs put up in the dressing room, telling dancers to give their money away to his employees. His recognized employees were a crew of abusive predators, many of who still work at Seville. He sold his business to a corporation called RCI in 2015.

RCI owns the Rick's franchise of strip clubs, which were sued in a class action several years ago for misclassification. Rick's does not always succeed with preventing sexual harassment. For example, Rick's in Minneapolis was recently sued for sexual harassment.

During my arbitration, Minneapolis RCI regional manager Kevin Arrowood admitted that Dino Perlman did not operate Seville in a legally consistent way with regards to misclassifying dancers. Kevin Arrowood made it clear that Dino Perlman enforced rules upon dancers that made them employees. Kevin stated that when RCI took over, they changed the rules enough to classify correctly. It is great that Kevin was able to admit that Dino Perlman was conning women for years, but Kevin was incorrect when claiming that RCI stopped all that.

Hopefully Seville continues to get sued until they change their business practices. A great way to keep the conversation going is to do press and publicity, so that dancers have plenty of resources and exposure to the truth. Here is a recent exclusive I did with the Minneapolis Star Tribune: Please Click

The Seville Series: Britta Linehan

This woman with dreadlocks is named Britta Linehan.

Britta worked as a cocktail server at Seville during my employment. Her facebook occupation states that she is a “gypsy at the universe.” I didn't find any online evidence of Romani heritage, but perhaps I missed it.

Britta was nice to me at Seville during a time when a lot of the staff members were not. For this reason, I contacted her before my arbitration. I wanted to see if she would be willing to testify about some common knowledge and policies at Seville. To my unpleasant surprise, she didn't want to. Britta wrote things to me such as,

“clearly I don't know your personal experience, and if anything harmful happened to you that is 100% wrong. In the end though, maybe you should find a different profession IMPO as opposed to working in clubs and suing them," and, “It's clear what your agenda is," and, “find a new career.”

Britta Linehan's opinion on labor rights is one that a lot of people mistakenly believe. People like Britta believe that if a worker does not like her workplace or industry, leaving it would be best. This logic tells women that if they are being oppressed, they should give up and go away, rather than stand up for themselves. Britta's weekend, minimum wage and title VII protections all exist because labor rights activists of past generations fought and died for her rights, instead of just packing up and leaving in hopes of a better situation some place else. I doubt Britta gets too deep with any of that. After all, she posted a petition on her facebook that was circulating around Minneapolis, opposing the raise on minimum wages for people in the service industry.

Women and abused employees don't need to go some place else because someone is hurting them. It's understandable that they do sometimes, but it is also great when they choose to make their abusers and oppressors uncomfortable. Fighting back is a good thing, but people like Britta are just really dumb and complicit, so they don't get it.

I danced for almost nine years before ever suing a strip club. In total, I've only sued about 10% of strip clubs I have worked. I could have sued more, but it is exhausting and emotionally draining to do.

Many times over the past couple of years, I have been accused of being an opportunistic con artist by dumb people with emotional ties to abusers, who don't understand how social change happens. My agenda is to stand my ground and hold my oppressors accountable for their actions. In a way, I am not the right kind of victim that people normally sympathize with. Because I sometimes go to great lengths to stand up for myself instead of cowering, people tend to think that I am sophisticated enough to control a workplace situation and stop bad things from happening to me. That is not always true. Bad things have happened to me, and I often cannot stop them from happening. But, that doesn't mean I am going to be terrorized away from an entire industry and let my abusers win. People like Britta tend to sympathize more with victims who cower and quit. Dreadlocked Britta is a clown and a walking example of the hypocrisy of ShitLib cities like Minneapolis.

The Seville Series: Two Dweeb DJs

This orange-toned douche is Steven Jaye:

Steven Jaye was the head DJ at Seville during my employment. When I first met him, he asked me to stay in the DJ booth with him as he queued up a computer screen with a long list of rules for the stage rotation. He described the details of each rule on the list. During litigation, Seville never admitted that this list exists in digital form or that the rules are real. With arbitration, there was no subpoena.

Among Seville and Steven Jaye's rules were that song length, number of songs and type of music were all selected by him. Dancers had to remove their tops by the end of the first song. If the side stage was open, dancers had to migrate over to it for a second set after their front stage set was complete. Dancers were not to leave the side stage or the front stage until their replacement arrived. All of these rules were real while I worked there, which legally classified me as an employee, but Seville didn't admit to any of that.

Clubs that don't want to get sued will instruct their staff to state sentences such as, "It's up to you" or "It's your choice to go up." There were no such choices or clarifications at Seville.

Steven Jaye informed me that the “minimum” tip out to the DJs was $20, while it was $50 to be taken off stage completely. I grilled him on the minimum tip out and got him to admit that I didn't actually have to give him $20 per night. It bothered me that he would even propose such a minimum. I usually gave him $5 per night or less, although he didn't even deserve that. There was once a DJ in Colorado who I hated so much that I spitefully tipped him with packets of Quaker oatmeal. I really regret not doing that to Steven Jaye. Sometimes younger dancers would complain to me that Steven Jaye was harassing them for more than $20 per night if they made a lot of money, and it saddened me so. I tried to encourage as many dancers as I could to not tip him, but many still did out of fear and intimidation. Sometimes Steven Jaye would get drunk in the DJ booth and ramble slurred nonsense on the microphone late into the night and wee hours of the morning.

I hated going on stage at Seville and only did so because it was mandatory. There is no pole to do tricks on, and the customer base was often unpleasant. Sometimes when I got to the side stage, I would just rest and wait for time to pass. If Steven Jaye saw me doing this, he would come up to me and twirl his hand, in a gesture that was signaling me to dance. Managers regularly walked around to enforce these rules as well.

Chris Black is this cross-eyed dufus who DJs at Seville during the slow nights:

His industry name is “DJ Beasey," and he lends his musical services to no-name rappers who celebrate date rape and misogyny in their albums. I can't find any history of him DJing at other strip clubs before Seville, but perhaps it is nowhere on the internet. It wouldn't surprise me if Seville was his first strip club, because he was sweet and normal at first. Chris Black was nice in the beginning, and I would go so far as to tip him $20 out of kindness, even as it went against my beliefs. Chris Black also took song suggestions, unlike Steven Jaye. However, Chris Black is a beta male who hung out with manipulative, misogynist alpha male DJs, who instructed him to be mean to strippers.

As I was about to head out the door after one of my last shifts had ended, a manager ordered me to go back to the DJ booth, because Chris Black wanted to speak with me. He had radioed to a manager that I needed to come back to the DJ booth. When I got inside the DJ booth, Chris Black was angrily yelling at me for only tipping him $9 on a night when he thought I made more money than usual. He was flailing his hands around in his booth, telling me that the minimum was $20. He lectured me that I needed to give him more money if I did well. I think he expected me to give him more of my money at that very moment, but instead I was like, “oh,” and didn't give him any more. He then stated that if I didn't give him more money, he wouldn't “look out for” me. I asked him if he was threatening me. He said no, it wasn't a threat, just that if I didn't give him more money, he wouldn't “look out for” me. I told him that it sounded like a threat. He said it was “just some food for thought,” while I was recording it all. In the strip club world, when a DJ does not "look out for" a dancer, it means that he will do everything in his power to make her uncomfortable, unpopular and ultimately unemployed. It is a tactic utilized by DJs who lack the wiles and charm needed to enchant a stripper into tipping him voluntarily.

During a subsequent shift, which was my last shift, I told DJ Steven Jaye about the Chris Black conversation. I suggested to Steven Jaye that if the DJs want to have more money, they should organize a labor union and force their employers to pay them a better living wage. This is a suggestion that I have made to DJs for many years, long before I ever sued a club. Steven Jaye informed me that he is in a DJ group called PANDA, and that unionizing has been discussed among DJs in the past. Steven Jaye informed me that while he would join a DJ union if it was created, it's not important enough for him to dedicate his life to. It didn't surprise me that Steven Jaye wouldn't dedicate his life to DJ union activism. It is easier for DJs to just bully young women into giving them their money, rather than stand up to the older men who own strip clubs.

Both Steven Jaye and Chris Black are tremendous scumbags, yet neither of them were the most vile DJs at Seville. There was a third, but that's for another time.

The Seville Series: Michael Sigmon

This bald man is named Michael Sigmon.

Michael Sigmon is the door man at Seville. He also has a title of manager, though at corporate clubs like Seville, many men have some kind of management title. It is easier to evade legal responsibility when half a dozen or so men are all titled "manager" and only one needs to attend an arbitration without the threat of subpoenas.

Whenever other dancers would tip Michael, he would stare at me very intensely, to try to intimidate me into tipping him. He told me before that he is in the pool of other managers who get tips, but that there are “many mouths to feed” with regards to how much I put into the manager tip pool. He would list the managers working, to describe to me how the manager tips were split up. On nights that he walked me to my car, I took recordings of him telling me that I should tip staff members, such as floor hosts. Michael worked at Seville before Dino Perlman sold it to RCI, and possesses a legally inconsistent idea of how dancers should be treated. RCI didn't do a very good job of educating Michael about stripper labor rights or reprogramming him from the illegal ways that Mr. Perlman ran his business. That's probably not an accident.

Shortly before my termination, Michael came into the club, yelling at me because leaving customers had complained that I was charging $20 a dance on Sundays, while Sunday dances were advertised as $10. Michael was also upset with me because customers had complained that I was charging more money during other parts of the week, when dances were only supposed to be $20. He was so angry with me that he and Erika Grinols had to spend time gossiping about it after the confrontation. Grinols is always up for a good gossip session about the dancers, whose very existence, bodies and labor give her a job and sustenance to live her life.

If dancers are truly independent contractors at Seville, they would be able to charge whatever they want for floor dances, without being harassed by people like Michael. If dancers are employees, they must charge whatever the club wants them to charge. This is a major determining factor in the economic realities test. Seville fails at this factor, but one reason why I lost on this one is because Seville brought in three dancers who suck staff dick, to lie during their testimonies.

Sometimes clubs that have been sued will still advertise a price for dances, but not enforce the rule when a customer complains about a dancer charging more. These clubs do not enforce their advertised price, because they do not wish to be sued again. Michael was not supposed to come inside to yell at me, but he did because he is an ignorant, misogynist heap of shit that Seville does not regulate.

When I brought up Michael's behavior in arbitration, the Seville people asked me what repercussions happened after Michael yelled at me. They asked me if I really got in trouble for what I was doing. This question was their way to weasel out of liability, by claiming that I was not punished. They even smirked when asking me this question. Aside from being yelled at by Michael, there were no immediate repercussions. Of course, being yelled at by one's manager itself is a punishment. When it happened, I was thirty years old and had been in the industry for over a decade, yet I was still intimidated by Michael yelling at me. He is abnormally tall, with a very deep voice. I can only imagine how much scarier he would be to a twenty year old who does not have experience dealing with volatile male coworkers.

By the end of my employment at Seville, I no longer trusted the valets with my vehicle, because I knew that most people at Seville wanted me gone and I didn't know if the valets did too. For this reason, I started parking on the nearby ramp. Seville's policy was to have a bouncer walk dancers to their cars on the ramp. Michael usually did this, but by the end of my employment, he grew to dislike me so much that he wouldn't walk me. I always got a mass murderer vibe from him, like he could flip out at any moment and go postal. Michael has a lot of toxic male anger bubbling beneath his thin veil of genteel etiquette. He would often express discontent with me in particular, so I didn't mind that he stopped walking me to my car and radioed for another manager to do it.

If you have information about Michael Sigmon's mental health history, please contact me, anonymously or not, through the contact tab at the top of this page.

The Seville Series: Brandi Michele

Brandi Michele went by the stage name “Hunter” at Seville.

She came up to me at work a couple of times, to angrily inform me that her customers had complained that I was not smiling enough. Brandi Michele would then tell me that I need to smile more. It makes me sad that Brandi Michele did not say something to her customers such as,

“So what that she is not smiling. Women are entitled to a range of feelings and expressions. They don't need to sit like Stepford statues until you are ready to give them money. You are a misogynist. Don't tell women to smile.”

That is what I would have said to a man complaining about a woman not smiling. Instead, Brandi Michele chose to harass me about my naturally pouty face, thus siding with some entitled man in a strip club. I feel really sorry for Brandi Michele's daughter, who has probably spent her childhood being subject to misogynist sentiments, like that women need to smile more to make misogynist men feel happy.

At work, Brandi Michele used to brag about how she perused escorting websites like Craigslist or Backpage, looking for advertisements that strippers she knew put up. When she found ones she recognized, she would print them off, to out escorts who were closeted, by telling everyone she could about the advertisements. That is a very mean and dangerous thing to do to an escort, but Brandi Michele regularly expressed violent fantasies about her hatred for escorts.

Brandi Michele's signature stage move at Seville was squatting on a glass beer bottle, then walking around the stage with it wedged between her buttocks. This move always grossed me out, and made me think it caused Seville to attract the wrong kind of crowd. It was interesting to me the way that Brandi Michele behaved in this crude, crass way, yet held such vehement hatred of escorts. I don't think Brandi Michele realizes that to outsiders, both strippers and escorts are perceived as deplorable sluts unworthy of rights or dignity, and that by unifying we would all be stronger. That would make me smile gleefully.

At arbitration, manager Rayner Perez stated that part of the reason I was fired was that dancers had complained about me. He did not say which dancers had complained about me, but I will always wonder if Brandi Michele was one of them.

The Seville Series: Kumara Becker

This is Kumara Becker. She is a bartender and stripper at Seville. Kumara Becker's stage name is Kennedy, but she is not like the historical Kennedy family in appearance or thought.

Kumara has worked at Seville for many years. Soon after meeting new dancers, she is likely to inform them that she has worked at Seville for many years. While most Seville dancers are very young, sometimes strip clubs have a few dancers who have stayed for years. Dancers like Kumara tend to use their longevity as a point of pride, a reason to brag, gloat and dominate other women. While traditional jobs might give a worker a pension, union or healthcare, dancing at a club for a long time doesn't. While traveling strippers have a rich mosaic of life experiences and memories of new places across vast geographic areas, strippers who mostly stay in the same club to brag about their longevity do not have those things. Some strippers stay in the same club during their entire careers, like minerals on a faucet-- hardened, scaly and resistant to change. These individuals are usually snitches and should be avoided at all costs.

I was a subject of Kumara Becker's snitching. One night, I asked her what management would do if I wore ballerina slippers instead of high heels. Kumara angrily stated that we were not at the ballet, so I should wear heels because she thought they looked better. I asked her if management would say anything if I didn't wear heels. She told me that they would tell me to put on some heels.

A few nights later, I wore wedges with ballerina ribbons. Kumara Becker pointed them out to dufus manager Jason Ewing and stated,

“See, I told you!”

Jason stated, “She thinks she's fighting the man.”

I don't avoid wearing heels in order to fight the man. I do it because I don't want to have damaged joints, body aches and herniated discs. Jason didn't say anything to me about my heels that night, but he said to Kumara Becker, “Just say 'I don't recall'.”

I went back and forth between the heels and wedges for a couple of weeks before I was fired, while management discussed my footwear amongst themselves.

There is a longer post about footwear on the site at this link: Footwear

I've always thought that the best place for a stiletto heel is in a man's jugular vein. When I think about Jason and Kumara's concern with my footwear at Seville and the sadness I feel that I didn't win all of my claims against that club, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

The Seville Series: Poppin' Bottles!

The Seville Series on StripperLaborRights.com is in full swing, while the NYC stripper strike is making historical waves in mainstream media. Joyfully in solidarity with the NYC stripper strike, I chatted with MarketWatch reporter Kari Paul a couple of weeks ago about my observations in the industry regarding racial inequality and the stigma that prevents strippers from defending their title VII rights here: MarketWatch.

While the NYC stripper strike is partially about racial disparity problems within the industry, it is also about bottle staff extracting money from strippers, competing financially and stealing customers.

At Seville, as in New York City, there are women who work in strip clubs to sell expensive bottles of alcohol. While the specifics of the clubs may differ, the parallels are noteworthy.

Like strippers, the alcohol saleswomen at Seville are scantily dressed. Like strippers, they often experience sexual harassment from staff and customers. Unlike strippers, these women receive an hourly wage and recognition of title VII rights without having to sue for employee acknowledgment. At Seville, they compete with dancers in the champagne lounge, and will sometimes sell blocks of their time to a customer who a stripper has brought up there. It is financially beneficial for the club to allow this, while strippers are at a disadvantage economically, socially and legally.

I avoided going to the champagne lounge at Seville as much as possible, but sometimes customers would ask to go up there and I would agree to hang out with them for a half hour or more.

Usually once I was seated with the customer, a woman selling alcohol would approach us. She was often accompanied by a manager, and they would pressure my customer to spend hundreds of dollars on champagne. Many Seville dancers disliked this, because it makes the customer uncomfortable and takes money away from us. It is the club's way of using our hustling skills to their own advantage, by hawking booze. I would usually warn customers ahead of time that this was going to happen, so that they would be prepared to reject the staff and instead give their extra money to me.

One night close to my termination, I forgot to do that before going to the champagne lounge. An alcohol salesperson who goes by the name Zelene was assigned to interrupt my hustle by poaching my customer. I had never spoken to Zelene before, and politely introduced myself to her with my stage name, Kelly. Zelene sneered at me and replied in a shrill voice,

“OH, I've heard all about you.”

I'm not sure why she was mean to me upon our introduction, but have hypothesized that it probably had to do with her friendships with Jeremy and Megan Chase, as well as most of the Seville staff who were aware of my litigious past by the end of my employment. Zelene proceeded to converse with my customer and did not acknowledge me for the rest of my time in the champagne area, except to occasionally sneer at me.

Hopefully strikes like the one in NYC will spread to other parts of the country, so that clubs will no longer feel comfortable instructing alcohol salespersons like Zelene to behave the way that they do.

I don't have hard feelings for Zelene. She is selling bottles, as she is instructed to do by the capitalist, patriarchal establishment for which she works. She and I were both cogs in their machine. It is disappointing that Zelene was not smart enough to realize this.

Zelene has worked at Seville for a while and is socially invested in their party culture. She will probably be there for a while and not go very far in life or ever evolve her personal understanding of capitalist male supremacy enough to ever understand her role in it or why strippers strike.

It is ironic that despite Zelene's conformity,  she posted a meme on facebook with the famous Laurel Thatcher Ulrich quote, "Well behaved women seldom make history."

May all litigious and striking strippers prevail through obstacles from the wrong side of history.

The Seville Series: Artemis

Artemis was a dancer at Seville during the time that I worked there. I educated her about stripper labor rights, before she began leaking information about our conversations to staff. I want to know Artemis's legal name, and am offering an all-expenses paid vacation to Wisconsin Dells to whoever gives it to me. Please click the contact tab at the top of this page and email me, anonymously or not, for details. I will keep your information private.

As a description to help those who are unsure of who she is-- Artemis has black hair, porcelain white skin and blue-green eyes. She is taller, from Wisconsin and in her 20's. She has an educational background in life sciences, enjoys cocaine and is culturally Catholic. She lived in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis during the time that she worked at Seville.

The Seville Series: Erika Grinols

Erika Grinols is an older woman bartender and front desk cashier who has worked at Seville for a very long time.

Erika once described my behavior as “bullshit” because I wouldn't sit with a customer who was unwilling to give me any money. She thought I should have sat with him for free. As stated before, Seville most often hires very young and naive dancers without previous experience, because they are much more willing to sit with people who want free attention. Erika received an hourly wage for her labor.

Erika was a person who spent time discussing how she didn't think I should be working there, because I did not give customers free attention. Many of the other dancers avoided her, because she was so mean to them. Many of the dancers wondered aloud why trollish Grinols was allowed to work at Seville and be so cruel to the them for various reasons.

One time, Megan Chase overheard me discussing stripper labor rights with another dancer while I was sitting at the bar. She scurried over to Erika Grinols to tell on me, and then they both stood together to glare at me. Erika Grinols doesn't like it when beautiful women discuss how to defend themselves against their oppressive employer.

If you have any embarrassing, incriminating or salacious information about Erika Grinols, please contact me through the contact tab at the top of this page. If you have information on how Erika has maintained her position at Seville despite her behavior and physical appearance, submitting that would also be appreciated. Prizes will be awarded to whoever submits the most scandalous info. Please email me for the details.

The Seville Series: Jeremy Chase

Jeremy Chase is a middle-aged man who displays a sense of entitlement to the free emotional labor from young women in his workplace. He works as a bar back at Seville and was one of the worst coworkers I have ever had in my life. I never complained about him to management, because he is friends with many of the staff members and had a certain power over them that I did not understand. He often joked about cocaine, and I often wondered if he was everybody's drug dealer. Bar backs aren't normally as popular in strip clubs as Jeremy was. I did not discuss his behavior in arbitration, or even tell most people about it.

My contact tab is at the top of this page. If you have information about Jeremy's past harassment, abuses, criminal history or behavior, please contact me. I will keep your information private if you want me to. I want to understand how a hairy beast like Jeremy Chase became who he is at Seville, despite his lack of substance and success in life.

In the beginning, we would say hi in passing. While he was walking behind me, up stairs for example, he would look at my ass and say things like, “mmm,” in the way that people sometimes do when they have food in front of them. That grossed me out, but I just ignored it, because I was able to dismiss him as a simple and harmless misogynist bar back who nobody really cares about. However, I began to notice his physically flirtatious friendships with some of the dancers. Though Jeremy is out of shape and unsightly, some of the Seville dancers seem to be close with him. While I worked at Seville, I saw him put his hands many of the dancers to hug, caress and cradle. It confused me why he seemed to have such great connections with so many vulnerable young women trying to make a living. I would watch in confusion as these things happened night after night. Unlike any other bar back with whom I have ever worked, Jeremy would be hanging out in strange places, like the dressing room, the small space behind the front stage curtain, and anywhere in close proximity to my fellow strippers. He took up space and attention whenever he had a free moment, to make sex jokes and discuss his love of ass. Jeremy's jokes aren't very funny. For example, he once stated that he gave his roommates a lesson on how to repair a bicycle, in exchange for then giving him “blow jobs.” That was a joke Jeremy was making, and displays his plebeian sense of humor that revolves around his own genitals.

Jeremy is not a professional or successful photographer, but he pretends to be one sometimes. Most real photographers I know don't work full time as a bar back and live in a rental home with lots of roommates like Jeremy does. The photographs that Jeremy puts on the internet are almost always of women, often Seville strippers, wearing little to no clothes. The photos look nice because the subjects are beautiful, but the actual photography isn't anything special. He thinks he is a photographer though, and spent much of his work shift snapping photos of strippers.

Jeremy didn't mind dating the dancers outside of the club, which management knew all about, as well as his wife, Megan Chase, who is a bar tender at Seville. Megan was in her twenties, was cosmetically augmented and fit many mainstream beauty standards . Megan has been mentioned in a previous post here, about when she was disgruntled with me for telling on her friend Amber for sexually assaulting me. Although Megan surrounds herself with awful people, she is a sweet and passive person with sad eyes and a demure personality. Megan disliked me, because her comrades did. I don't think she has very high self-esteem or an identity of her own. Sometimes Megan would poach customers who came to see strippers, and give them lap dances herself. Currently in NYC, many strippers are on strike because bartenders in NYC spend so much of their time behaving like strippers, while also receiving an hourly wage and employee benefits. Some of Megan's work is similar to that.

With my reserved nature and disgusted facial expressions, Jeremy realized that I disliked him. His behavior toward me switched from creepy flirtatious predator, to treating me as a threat to be removed from the club. He began to do things to make my work life uncomfortable and to convince other people to dislike me as well. He would loudly discuss how he didn't think I should be working at Seville because I was not outgoing enough. He would talk to multiple staff members about it, initiating these conversations. He would complain if I was sitting at the bar and he had to do some work up there, because he thought my personality was a “buzz kill.” Jeremy began to critique my body as well, and comment to other people about how he thought I needed to be more curvaceous, so that he could find me more attractive. He would go into gross detail about it. It's painful to experience all that and be mostly powerless. Nobody with power at Seville cares about that kind of behavior. It's a terrible place to be, but a place that a lot of young women want to work. Despite everything that one must endure at Seville, it is a great place to make money. I know I wasn't the only person to be picked on by Jeremy, nor was I the only person to be fired because I didn't go along with his weirdness.

Jeremy didn't spend money at Seville as a customer or contribute financially. He probably didn't have a lot of money to spend. The kinds of women who Jeremy seemed to prefer were the naive and vulnerable. His instagram has a meme that says something like, I like my women how I like my rum: 18 years old and full of coke. That is how people like Jeremy succeed socially. In the regular world, he is a nobody. Seville is the only place where Jeremy is somebody important. He will take great effort to get rid of women who don't agree.

The Seville Series: Verbal Sexual Harassment

Mara and Ben were two bartenders at Seville while I worked there. Both of them verbally harassed me.

Below is a photo of Ben:

Ben has been working at Seville for a long time. He is friends with the original owner, Dino Perlman, who sold the club to RCI a couple of years ago. Ben spent much of his work shift staring at the women on stage, rating their physical attractiveness and making misogynistic remarks about the ones he doesn't like, usually regarding his disdain for body fat. Ben also openly discussed which of the dancers he would “fuck.”

Sometimes when dancers were seated at the bar while Ben was working, he would playfully untie their outfits. Usually they giggled when he did this, but I suspect they were just tolerating his bullshit in order to keep their jobs. He's not attractive or likable, so I can't imagine most women would enjoy his playful assaults. While I was polite and occasionally tipped him, it didn't take Ben very long to decide that he didn't like me. Ben would loudly state, while talking to other people, that he thought I was snobby. He probably thought this, because I was at Seville to work and did not tolerate his disgusting workplace behavior by placating it with giggles and flirtations.

While Ben was a bartender who got paid an hourly wage to work and also earned tips, he had grown accustomed to seeing women's time and energy being taken advantage of for free, from men who expected it. Many dancers at Seville are between the ages of 18-22 and have never danced before, and who were unaware of their labor rights. As such, many don't use their time wisely when hustling, nor have many yet learned to be assertive with customers who wanted their time for free. Many dancers at Seville would sit with customers for free, or endure their degrading behaviors without asking for financial compensation. I didn't do that, because I have learned to conserve my time and hustle rapidly. Ben didn't like that about me very much, so many of his misogynistic remarks were directed at me. He once referred to me as “an animal" for the speed at which I go about my business.

Donald Trump was running for president during the time that I worked at Seville, and there were times when Ben would profile people based on their looks, to determine whether or not he thought they were Trump supporters. The problem with Ben is that he is not very smart or talented with determining what a person thinks about. He once saw a petit man with a sweater wrapped around his shoulders, and thought the man was a Trump supporter based on this, before listening to the man speak and realizing he was a tourist from Europe. Ben apologized to the man for assuming he was an American who would vote for Trump.

After a while, Ben made an interesting judgment about me. He thought that I was a cop, and began spreading rumors that I was undercover. Ben didn't know this, but I have audio recordings that I took of him when he didn't think I was around, of him telling other dancers about his theory.

Mara was one of the bartenders who Ben often worked and chatted with. She hides her face from the internet, so I cannot post a photo of her. For a visual reference, her face strongly resembles Howard Stern's.

Her handlebar for various internet accounts is “juuiceb0x,” and on the internet she pretends to be an open-minded feminist who is opposed to violence against sex workers.

While I worked at Seville, Mara was often a person who Ben discussed women with in degrading ways, while they were bar tending together. While bartender Mara occasionally danced at Seville for a hobby, she probably couldn't make enough money doing it full time like the other dancers were able to, due to her nontraditional physical appearance and cruel behavior toward others. It always confused me that a woman who looks like Mara felt comfortable criticizing dancers based on their appearances, but that is what she did openly and frequently.

The few times that she was preparing herself in the dressing room to dance, she would intentionally get physically close to me, as though she wanted to fight. I avoided her as much as possible. Once while I was by the sink, she came very close to me and whispered something about how unattractive my dancing looked. Seville doesn't have a pole to dance on like most strip clubs do, so I was bit confused on what to do when first starting at Seville.

Some of the Seville staff noticed the large number of single-song lap dances that I was selling, and began to openly dissect how I did it. Interestingly, Mara began to copy what I did during nights that she was dancing. For example, she and the other staff would examine the specific manner in which I touched customer's necks while speaking to them before selling a song. Mara would then try to do this, usually unsuccessfully, during nights that she danced. It was creepy that she began copying me, especially because she continued to discuss me negatively while she was bar tending. I often wondered why an adult woman was engaging in this kind of behavior, especially one pretending to be a liberal feminist in online sex worker communities. I wasn't the only person who had problems with Mara, and she often discussed how management was on the brink of firing her. They never did though. After all, it wasn't Mara standing up for the rights of sex workers and threatening the way Seville ran their business.

One night close to my termination, I told manager William Borea about Ben and Mara's harassment of dancers on stage and harassment of me. Borea suggested that if I tip them, they would be nicer to me. I informed him that I frequently tipped them. He said he would talk to them. In a subsequent shift, I overheard Ben telling another bartender that he and Mara were not allowed to look at me any more. Ben stated that he did not care if he couldn't look at me, because I “ain't hot.” While I think Ben is gross and am not bothered that he doesn't think I am “hot,” having to listen to another comment about my appearance from him was still sexual harassment, even when it was negative. The goal in telling on him was to prevent him from commenting at all. I was terminated from Seville shortly after.

Mara and Ben's behavior is mostly tolerated in the state of Minnesota, and not high enough on the threshold of sexual harassment to have justice in the legal system or anywhere.

The Seville Series: Physical Sexual Harassment

This unattractive man is named Jason Ewing. He is a manager at Seville in Minneapolis.

Jason thought I was attractive and made the decision to hire me after I auditioned at Seville in April 2016. When I came in the next day for orientation, Jason put his hands around my waist in the champagne room area upstairs while he and I were alone, to show me what level of contact was expected from customers. He didn't need to put his hands on me. He could have just verbally described what champagne rooms are like. That is what normal managers do-- maintain a certain level of aloofness and physical space during orientation. Jason put his hands around my waist because he was sexually harassing me.

During my first month of working at Seville, a cocktail waitress named Amber (last name unknown) came up to me while I was sitting with a customer, where she playfully grabbed my breast to get my attention and ask the customer if he wanted any drinks. Sometimes when women are in strip clubs, they think they have a free pass to grab the body parts of dancers. Many women think they can get away with this, because leftist social justice warriors have focused so much of their attention on defeating white male sexual assault that they dismiss assault when it is perpetuated by marginalized groups. To call out the predatory behavior of anyone else doesn't fit the narrative that social justice warriors want to push. I had never spoken to Amber before and was not signaling that I permitted her to touch me.

After Amber grabbed my breast, I told Jason Ewing about it during my next work shift. He said he would talk to her about it. In subsequent shifts for the next couple of months, Amber stayed away from me for the most part. Amber's work friend, a bartender named Megan Chase, proceeded to sneer at me from then on. Many people in the strip club world do not understand why a dancer would have physical boundaries and not want someone to touch her. That is because we live in a rape culture that dismisses the physical boundaries of sex workers. It is considered rude and unfriendly at Seville to resist playful flirtations from coworkers.

A few months after I told on Amber, most of the staff at Seville realized they didn't like me. This made Amber comfortable enough to start bothering me again. While I was sitting with customers, she would bend over with her ass in my face, to ask them if they wanted anything to drink. While I was engaged in lap dances, she would interrupt customers to ask them if they wanted any drinks. I had to tell Jason Ewing about it, to get her to leave me alone. I was fired a couple months later.

At arbitration with Seville, the managers they brought in to testify were ones who I hardly interacted with. Businesses can do that type of thing in arbitration, and Jason Ewing did not have to be subpoenaed. The manager at arbitration, Rayner Perez, stated that he heard Amber had caressed my thigh, rather than what she actually did. Seville's lawyer repeated that story. It was disgusting and gross to be called a liar about reporting my sexual assault from my assailant Amber, pictured below.

The threshold for sexual harassment in Minnesota is very high, because lawmakers in Minnesota are comfortable living in a predatory rape culture. That is one of the reasons why I lost on the sexual harassment claims against Seville.

In my next post, I will discuss the sexual harassment at Seville that was not physical.

The Seville Series: National Labor Relations Board

Between April and September of 2016, I worked at a club in Minneapolis, called Seville. During this time, I encountered sexual harassment, surveillance, illegal tip pooling, misclassification and exploitation of the workers. Seville knew what I was about, so they eventually terminated my contract. I filed a charge with the NLRB, and privately sued them in arbitration for misclassification, sexual harassment and illegal tip pooling. The next number of entries will discuss Seville and be called “The Seville Series.”

***

With the NLRB, I did not have a chance to have a hearing like I wanted to. If a club makes an offer to settle that the NLRB finds acceptable, even if I don't want to settle, the NLRB will approve a unilateral decision to do so. That is what happened with my charge at Seville through the NLRB. A hearing was scheduled that I was willing to attend, but Seville made an offer that the NLRB accepted. Below is the poster that they had to put up on behalf of me:

Seville's NLRB Poster

I wrote to the regional director of the NLRB, requesting that she not approve settlement. While she did not comply with my request, she did send me a nice email, describing how she thought I had already “won” and didn't need to have a hearing. I asked her if I could put it on my website. Below is her email:

Dear Ms. Campbell,

I have considered your request that I not approve a settlement in 18-CA-183731, RCI Dining Services (Glenwood), Inc. d/b/a The Seville Club.  A settlement does not reflect anything less than a win when it provides for a full remedy of the violations.  If we won this case before an administrative law judge, that decision is no less challengeable than the Regional Director’s merit finding.  Specifically, the Judge’s decision can be appealed to the Board and the Board’s decision can be appealed to the Circuit Court, and finally, the Circuit Court’s decision to the Supreme Court.  All of this litigation is at a cost to the Agency, and thus, the taxpayers, which is why the Agency does not litigate cases where a settlement is reached that remedies the violations found.  If we were to present this case to an administrative law judge and they found merit, they would be ordering the same remedies.  It would not be a responsible fiduciary decision for me to take this matter to trial, when there wouldn’t be further remedial relief.  Further, I find it notable that the settlement being presented to me for approval in this case does not contain a non-admissions clause, which is something I rarely see.  A non-admissions clause is usually requested and granted to non-recidivist employers and it says, “By entering into this agreement, the Employer does not admit that is has violated the National Labor Relations Act.” 

I applaud you for your work educating workers about their rights, as employees.   Your charge has resulted in a win; the Region found merit to your charge and the violations will be remedied.  This is a very good win and the settlement, along with the remedies imposed, are a result of your actions advocating for employees’ rights and filing a charge with the NLRB.  The Employer is being held accountable by the remedies required in the settlement.  Furthermore, the settlement requires that the Employer comply with the settlement and not violate the Act by similar conduct or the settlement will be revoked and complaint reissued for trial.  As I stated, this is a settlement that does address all of the employee rights, under the Act, that were violated.  I hope you will reconsider entering into the settlement based on the further information I’ve provided.

Respectfully,

Jennifer Hadsall, Regional Director

National Labor Relations Board, Region 18

Tool: Chip Chermak of the NLRB

Last year, I had to go to the NLRB in Minneapolis to do an affidavit. The investigator taking my affidavit was named Chip Chermak. Chip lazily and sluggishly typed what I was saying for several hours, before we took a lunch break. I finished lunch before him, and waited in the lobby of the NLRB for his return. While I was sitting in the lobby, I overheard two men walking down the hall of the federal building, giddily laughing like school boys. As they approached the NLRB office, one man said to the other,

"What tools does she use?"

The other one replied that he didn't know, and said it in a tone of perverse curiosity. As the two men walked through the lobby, I saw that they worked for the NLRB. One was my investigator Chip Chermak, and the other was an NLRB worker named Joseph Borong. Joseph looked at my legs folded as I sat in the chair, and sneered at me. Chip chuckled condescendingly, and ushered me back into his office so that I could continue the affidavit.

Once in his office, I asked him why he and his coworker were laughing about "tools" together. Chip confirmed that they were laughing about the tools question on the Economic Realities test, in relation to my affidavit. He told me that since Joseph Borong is an attorney, it wasn't a big deal for him to know about my affidavit, even as they were strutting down the halls of the federal building loudly joking about it. I explained to Chip that my case was a serious thing, to be treated with respect and dignity. I explained to Chip that while reporting a strip club to the NLRB was uncommon, that doesn't mean I don't deserve any less respect. Chip continued to chuckle at me, and tell me that most of the time, tools reported to the NLRB included things like saws or hammers. Since Chip was too emotionally undeveloped, misogynist and disrespectful to understand my tools were not perverse or funny objects, I explained to him that the tools in clubs include the stage, couches, chairs, audio equipment, lighting and building-- just to name a few.

Chip's typing of my affidavit was extremely sloppy and full of typos, so I had to return for several days to complete it. He also let me take it home to correct, which I wasn't supposed to do. Eventually, I told Chip's boss about his misogynist treatment of my job and affidavit, and my case was assigned to a different investigator. Chip's boss apologized for his behavior, while also telling me that all of the investigators take their jobs seriously.

One blurb that multiple workers at the NLRB have recited to me is that all of their investigators take their jobs seriously and treat cases with respect. It's upsetting to be gas lit like that, because it wasn't true with Chip Chermak. It is my hope that tax payers who support the NLRB will one day remove Chip Chermak from his position as investigator, by getting him fired.

Reading in The Club

If there's one thing that good 'ole boys who run strip clubs don't like, it's strippers reading.

Sometimes strip clubs are very dead, particularly at the start of a shift. One can sit for hours in the club, as time passes and no money is available. While strip clubs are often dimly lit, I own a reading light that clips on to my books. Recently, I was reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. The DJ, who was pacing about the club, approached me and asked,

"Whatcha readin'?"

I told him what I was reading, to which he replied that he didn't know anything about algebra or science. Since most DJs are really stupid, that didn't surprise me at all. We talked a bit about science, because I mistakenly thought he was interested in time theories. However, he quickly changed the subject to how the owner and manager didn't want me to be sitting at the bar reading, but that they didn't want to say anything to me. He mentioned how I looked unapproachable like that. He didn't mention how the club has been sued, and how the owner and manager are too afraid to tell me not to read, because I could sue them for that. He didn't mention how he wasn't supposed to be bullying an independent contractor into not reading. Luckily, I was recording everything without him knowing. Reading is awesome! I continued to read at the bar after he went away, and I also fantasized about how cool it would be to have a little read-in protest with other strippers.

The owner furiously paced around, watching me reading, but not saying anything. His circular pacing and gelled hair reminded me of a shark. It was hilarious.

My advice to other dancers who like to read books while the club is slow is to not to let bullies intimidate you into not reading at the bar. If you want to talk to customers, approach them yourself. If not, go ahead and enjoy your book. You don't have to sit blankly, staring into space as time passes. If staff bullies you for reading, just record them and sue them. Laugh at them. Know that although you may feel isolated, you are never alone. Your bomb ass settlement check will give you loads of free time to read a heaping helping of books at the local cafe or wherever you want to go.

Activist Threats Tab

Previously on this website, I had a tab called "Activist Threats." In it, there were entries about conflict within the activist community that I experienced or witnessed. I still have an archive of the activist threats tab, available offline, and would be happy to share information with anyone who is wondering about problematic groups or individuals. Some of my Activist Threats topics included: Sex Worker Outreach Project, Caty Simon, Cris Sardina, Elle Stanger and Matilda Bickers. If you would like more information about those activist threats to stripper labor rights, please contact me. I removed the tab, because I want this website to focus more on the lawsuits and clubs. However, exposing threats within the activist world is still important. Information about these problematic entities should be available to anyone who asks. My contact tab is at the top of the page. I'd be happy to discuss McCarthyist Leftists, scabs and other obstacles. Please feel free to contact me.

SJWs are aggressively destroying all that is good and progressive. Avoid them and get out while you still can. It's great on the outside.

I Sued Silk Madison and it was AWESOME!!!

Silk is a chain of strip clubs in the state of Wisconsin. This past Spring, I drove out to the town of Middleton, Wisconsin. Middleton is just outside of Madison, and it is the home of Silk Exotic Madison.

Silk's labor violations were overwhelmingly obvious and clear. Being a stripper there, it was very obvious that I was an employee being misclassified as an independent contractor. Almost everything on the Economic Realities test that classifies workers as employees is something that Silk did. I audio recorded everything that I possibly could.

When the manager, Nelson, was having me fill out the paperwork on my first day, he briefly mentioned that there was an arbitration agreement that I was signing, and that if I wanted out of the arbitration agreement, I could write to the corporate headquarters. The contact information to the corporate headquarters was included in the contract. The problem, of course, was that Nelson did not give me a copy of the contract. I asked for a copy multiple times for a couple of days, and each time, he brushed me off or said he was having problems with the printer.

Silk fired me by email, which I never experienced before. Their email was a reply to an email I sent to them, after googling corporate email addresses. They made up a completely false reason for firing me, which I can easily prove is false. I will save my recordings forever and offer them to any future plaintiffs who want to sue Silk.

After receiving my termination email, I promptly filed a charge with the NLRB and drove to Milwaukee for an affidavit.

Silk was VERY eager to get rid of me, any chance of seeing me again, and the NLRB investigating their club. Therefore, they made a monetary offer that was substantial enough to get us away from them as quickly as possible. The NLRB and I agreed to accept the offer. Silk tried to be sneaky by preventing me from telling anyone that I sued them or discussing my working conditions, but the NLRB wouldn't let them get away with that. I will forever cherish my ability to tell everyone how awesome it was to sue Silk. I will forever keep my audio recorded documentation of their broken labor laws, and I will forever encourage every dancer who has ever experienced worker misclassification at Silk to sue them. You will not be disappointed! If you need help finding out which organizations to report them to for which violations, or if you need a lawyer reference, please contact me! It would also be a good idea to bring a hidden recorder with you to work at all times. I hope Silk has to pay many more settlements in the future. Unfortunately, the one thing I can't talk about is the amount of money that I settled for. Below is the email that I sent to Silk after finding their corporate email addresses, followed by their response email, which contains my termination:

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Brandi Campbell. I was hired at Silk Madison on June 1st. On June 2nd, I came in to work my first shift. Before working, I had to sign a contract. I asked Nelson if I could have a copy of that contract so I could see what I was signing. He said he would get me one by the end of the night. At the end of the night, he said he would get me one the next time that we worked together. On June 3rd I asked Nelson for a copy of my contract. He said his ink cartridge ran out of ink and he would get me the contract another time. I know that at least two dancers were hired since I was hired, so presumably contracts were printed off for them to sign for the club. I, as well as other workers, should be provided with copies of what they are signing.

I do not agree with arbitration and I do not want to be legally bound to it. Nelson said there is a paragraph in the contract which provides the contact information regarding how I can opt out of arbitration. Unfortunately, despite my multiple requests for a copy of the contract, I still have not been given one.

I do not wish to wear heels at work. I will be wearing ballet flats from now on during work. Last night, Nelson told me it was mandatory to wear heels. I believe I, as well as other dancers, should be able to decide what kind of footwear to wear.

At the end of my shift last night, DJ “South Paw” approached me and asked for a tip. I informed him that it was a slow night and I couldn't tip. He demanded that I give him “just five bucks.” I told him no. He then began harassing me, telling me it was bad to do on only my second shift. I was sitting down and he was standing over me, speaking aggressively. I do not want DJ South Paw to bully me for tips in the future. I suggest paying your employees a living wage so they don't rely on the dancers for money. I believe some other dancers are bullied into paying your workers, and that is not right.

I am scheduled to come into work today, Sunday, but I am sick today and I am not coming in. I am also not interested in seeing South Paw tonight after last night. The thought gives me anxiety.

I expect to have a copy of my contract by my next shift, which is Wednesday. However, the main point of this letter, which I am emailing to Silk, is to notify you that I wish to opt of of arbitration and that I did not want to sign the arbitration agreement at all. I would have followed the instructions provided on the contract in order to opt out of arbitration, but again, despite my multiple requests, I have not received a contract.

Hopefully these problems will be cleared up and my Wednesday shift will be less stressful.

Kindly,

Brandi Campbell

***

Hi Brandi –

        After receiving your email, we took the time to investigate your allegations.     We investigated your allegation of harassment by our D.J. and believe it to be unfounded.  Others who were witness to the conversation between the two of you report that his end of the conversation was very amicable, nothing hostile, threatening or harassing about it.  He was, however, chiding you for because you missed a set obligation:  when it was your turn to perform onstage and your name was called, you did not appear.  On Sunday you did not appear at all, and did not call the club to let Nelson know that you would not be coming in as scheduled.  This absence was a second series of missed set obligations, which constitutes a material breach of the lease agreement.  We are therefore terminating your lease, effective 24 hours from now.

       As to your other point, dancers are routinely given a copy of any documents that they sign when they request them and are also permitted to take documents to consider them and to seek legal advice before signing.   It is our understanding that you did not ask to take your documents to an advisor before you signed them, but you did ask for a copy after you signed them.    June 2 was a busy night, and Nelson just did not get to it before you had left for which he apologizes.  He did have trouble with the printer on June 3.  We are sorry if this delay inconvenienced you.   If you will send us your mailing address, we will have a copy of your lease sent to you immediately.

Regards,

Silk Exotic Madison