Mankato Memoirs: Conclusion

Even the least shitty strip club in America still misclassifies and doesn't properly address sexual harassment. Being the lessor of many evils doesn't negate the validity of claims that I brought against Mettler’s. I'm doing the lords work when I file these suits.

Academia shill, Eric Sprankle, works in Mankato. Advocating for strippers and stealing our limelight has boosted his career. I never heard a word from him throughout any of my struggles. I am not in contact with SWOP in Minnesota or anywhere else. I intentionally cut Hima B. out of my life, as mentioned in previous posts. I don’t regret any of these things.

In the Spring of 2017, I ran out of decent clubs to work at in Minnesota after Mettler's, and have sparsely been back to the state. I don't really miss it either. I had planned a grand conclusion to the end of this Minnesota saga, but these past few months have given me writer’s block. I am just happy to move on.

Mankato Memoirs: The Decision to Sue

Working at Mettler's, I never knew how much the club knew about my litigious past. I worried that Jan Vasil knew. Jan was Woody's girlfriend, and a longtime bartender/manager of Mettler's. Though we seldom spoke, I always got a vibe from her that she knew about my past. One time she walked past me in the dressing room singing “Get Up Stand Up” by Bob Marley. Given my past experiences with Song Wars, I thought maybe this was alluding to standing up for stripper rights and a subtle queue. Or, I could've just been paranoid. I have a lot of PTSD from these experiences.

One day at Mettler's early on, an old man going by Rob came in to buy some dances from me. He told me he was a “consultant” for businesses, like strip clubs, and that he advises people to get rid of “people like you,” meaning me. He made references to how people like me cause trouble for businesses. I trembled as I danced for him and he made vague death threats. I'll probably never know who he was.

Mettler's is owned by a family of obese people with the surname Maes. I rarely spoke with them, but it became apparent near the end of my time there that they had some idea of my history with suing clubs. I felt they were closing in and that eventually, they would make up a reason to fire me.

Mettler's was generally an easy going place to work, and of course I could have developed some Stockholm Syndrome with regards to accepting workplace hostility and accepting certain misclassification and exploitative practices.

Dancer Lilly (real name Elisabeth Sund) used to sit with Dan Johnson and laugh with him while he talked shit about me and disparaged me for not smiling more or behaving in a more stereotypical feminine, welcoming, demure way. Lilly tries to be a feminist, so it really bothered me that she would sit there and do things like that. She wasn't very responsive if I attempted to discuss Dan Johnson with her. Last I knew Lilly, her phone number was 952 594 1917. Perhaps my readers could investigate for me and find out why Elisabeth Sund is friends with misogynist men who dedicated time to harass me in the workplace.

I did not deliver one of my infamous letters to Mettler's like I have done with other clubs. I just told my vegan SJW lawyer, Tim Phillips, when to serve them and what to sue them for. I was very thankful to have his willingness. I left Mettler’s and Mankato on my own accord, before they were served.

Mankato Memoirs: Remembering Chase Tuseth

I usually write my posts and publish them the same day, but still have rough ideas in my head of what I want to post ahead of time. One post I wanted to be sure to include in Mankato Memoirs is Remembering Chase Tuseth. I thought of posting about him months ago, and WOW have things changed since then. I was going to provide a whole commentary about Chase, but I’ll just sum it up.

In early 2017, a customer of mine at Mettler’s mentioned that an unarmed man was shot by police in a Mankato hotel room. I was surprised by this news, because it was nowhere on the internet. Unicorn Riot didn’t have any parades about it, and no SJW lawyers that I knew of were representing Chase’s family. I later learned that Chase Tuseth doesn’t fit the SJW media-friendly victim profile, so his police brutality death doesn’t matter. But, in light of recent events, I’ll just leave it there. I have been researching Chase Tuseth’s murder for a long time now, and the social climate of why his murder was so under-reported.

Mankato Memoirs: Harley

Does anyone know if Harley from Mettler’s spoke with the Mettler’s lawyers? Harley and I spent significant amounts of time chatting together at work, and I can certainly make an interesting post out of her. I haven’t talked to her in ages. She didn’t respond to me when I messaged her about my lawsuit. I don’t want to make a post about her if I don’t have to. I’d just like to know what her role was in all of this after I left. If you have any information, please contact me through the contact tab up top. I’ll hold off on posting about her for now, maybe forever, maybe not.

Mankato Memoirs: Nikki

Nikki was a Mettler's dancer who will not be doxxed here.

Nikki was a young woman from Omaha, who spoke in an urban vernacular dialect. While she was very fair skinned, with light eyes and a mother named Becky, Nikki expressed her hatred for white people each night that I worked with her. She identified as “Mexican and Israeli.” Due to her hatred for white people who she doesn't know personally, Nikki was quite mean to me in the beginning of my time at Mettler's, and made a false assumption, for reasons unbeknownst to me, that I have a trust fund. Nikki created a mental disorder that she called “White People Syndrome,” which she described as tendency for white people to recklessly go about life with no consideration for other people around them. She was the dancer who Brody Christensen lied to by telling her he is Jewish, in an attempt to trick her into having sexual relations with him.

Nikki drank heavily at work. Because of her DWI record, she had her license revoked and sometimes had problems getting around without a car. She regularly expressed her anger that the system took away her individual liberties by not allowing her to drive drunk.

One thing I really liked about Nikki was her tendency to beat men who touched her without her consent in the workplace. She was often at odds with management about defending herself against sexual predators and assaults. Every instance I ever witnessed between her and a customer gave her justification to physically defend herself, but for whatever reason, management came down very hard on Nikki about these issues in ways that I found to be unfair. As a result, she sometimes had to creatively hide the fact that she defended herself. She has very voluminous, long, curly auburn hair, and would use her hair as a visual shield so Woody couldn't see her pummeling men who tried to touch her. For whatever reason, Nikki often had to become argumentative with Woody before he removed a customer for her, in a way that other dancers did not have had to deal with if they wanted him to remove someone. Nikki often criticized Woody for his flirtatious behaviors, and described his actions as “swinging his dick.” Despite our differences, I thought Nikki was a brave person, and someone who might be interested in stripper rights. We eventually became work friends.

After I left Mettler's, I kept in contact with Nikki. She was fired not too long after I quit, for allegedly physically harming dancer Nicole Lemma. Nikki expressed interest in joining the suit if it was to become a class action. It is possible she would have joined, if it didn't resolve.

Mankato Memoirs: Genevieve

Mettler's had a dancer who went by Genevieve. She will not be doxxed, though I don't think she hides the fact that she's a stripper anyway. When I first started working at Mettler's, I heard that Genevieve was also a vegan, so I approached her to talk about veganism. However, she was aloof, almost unresponsive, and initially expressed no interest in speaking with me. She maintained friendships with Metter’s staff, which sickened me. I also noticed that her cosmetics were not vegan. Genevieve had a crush on manager Woody, and regularly gave him lap dances. This caused dismay to dancers such as Meme and myself.

Genevieve was a Canadian from Vancouver, BC. Her expressed distaste for American culture was comedic, and like a clown she trounced around the club, discussing her hatred for Americans, all the while living and breathing throughout Mankato like she loved it, socializing, adding facebook friends, going out for drinks and aging gracefully.

“In Canada it's so much better in every way!” she would drunkenly shout about every subject that came up, social or personal or aesthetic or otherwise. She was a white woman who fit many mainstream beauty standards. She had celiac disease, which caused her belly to bulge. I didn't know how long she had been in Mankato, except that it was multiples of years with no end in sight. Why would she ever want to return to Canada? If she was in Canada, she couldn't brag about being Canadian to all of her peers. I liked to imagine Genevieve in clown shoes when she went on stage, with a big red clown nose and Canadian flag.

Genevieve had a boyfriend from Pakistan who was in his early twenties. She met him in the strip club and became his cougar girlfriend. He was a student up at the university, and he too hated America. I knew this, because she talked about him incessantly, making statements like,

“America is no different than Arab countries with honor killings!” and “You really need to find a Middle-Eastern guy if you want someone who respects women!”

Genevieve wanted street cred, so she would often go on about the rough streets of Vancouver, BC, and how hood she was, making statements like,

“I grew up in a pretty rough part of B.C., real working class area.”

After I worked at Mettler's for a few months, Genevieve decided to be nice to me. She confided in me that she was getting casually raped by her boyfriend. When I told her she should dump him, she became defensive of him, because he was new to Western culture and she didn't think it was his fault that he didn't know what “No” means. We became friendly acquaintances at work. After I left Mettler's, she continued to help me out, in a way, with my lawsuit. Even as Genevieve tried to help, she still didn't understand what misclassification means. Her inability to understand what misclassification means is a source of great frustration to me. Here are some of the things she wrote to me on facebook:

“Hey! Thank you for launching the suit. We think it was a part of the beginning of positive change. But we need a lot more change. Moose was about to lower the house Fee's but didn't go through with it. I'm sorry but I don't want to be a part of the suit. I want to remain an independent contractor privately.”

“Not enough girls were working & moose finally asked what he can do to inspire girls to want to work. He agreed to get us couches & then he was going to lower house... But since we all have been making more $ with the couches I think he feels like He's done enough.”

“All He's lightened up was no more drinking restrictions on girls who had that...But woody still enforces it regardless.”

 “Most of us feel that with the location the set up is the best option. It wouldn't work for any of us if we had schedule, & nobody would work @ 5 given the option Nobody would stay to 2...The contract offers you the option to be an employee... minimum wage & u give all tips/earnings to them. No health insurance. They need to offer an employment option like Larry flynt's clubs do.”

“Brandi, only today I was sent an article about you & mettlers, which lead me to your blog. I know that you know that i don't want to partake in your class action. I am for some of your pushes. My father is a union negotiator so my ideals differ also i' m not sure if you know what I did with Rci's insurance.”

“I've passed on the info. She doesn't want to be involved with other dancers much & wants to be private. She met with a lawyer on her own who told her the best she could do is a class action with other dancers & lastnight she came to me saying other dancers tried but it was thrown out so I guess no hope. So that's why I came to you. She's moving out of state in 2 weeks so if she can meet with the lawyer than good. I'm sure from a distance it can still work. She's been asked by current dancers to make a change since her job isn't at risk. I feel weird wondering what I could do since I'm out too. I'm set on unionizing. Would you join a union?”

“I didn't think I would be quit for good & have the time to make a change. At least it feels surreal that if I want to now is the time. I have very little beefs with mettlers. I want there to be a union for all dancers in minnesota. It's a bit messy, but I think will work. Maybe mn has a different laws, but usually independent contractors (construction, truckers, actors, etc) get to have unions. Girls might be resistant to union fees. It's less than house fees when house fees are outrageous. It's complex how within unions typically a person with seniority has more privilages... yet in the world of dancing age makes you less profitable. So I don't know how that would work. I passed the lawyers info on to her & we'll see what she does. She's moving out of state in 2 weeks. That shouldn't be a big problem if she joins a class action.”

“I am good & I apologize am not taking the time to read past your last msg. I have no clue what's going on at mettlers. I don't have enough spare time nor enough soul urge to work on encouraging change. I did pass on your Info to the woman who wanted to join your journey. I haven't had communicatio since then to know what she is doing.”

Mankato Memoirs: Gail

Gail started out as my customer and frequent patron of Mettler's. I first met her around Halloween time, when she bought a whole bunch of table dances from me. She'd usually be drinking with her little hobbit-looking fiance, Jake Willaert. She told me she's from Mankato, but I later learned that she's actually from the smaller and more rural Minnesota town of Owatonna. She has a receding chin bone that suggests she is highly genetically inbred:

While she introduced herself to me as Gail, her facebook name is Abby Lou. When she became a stripper, her stage name was Brandi. I suspect that her real first name is Abigail. I have no idea what her surname is, but if you would like to share that with me, please use the contact tab at the top of this page. In 2016-2017, her phone number was 507 323 0043.

Gail and her fiance Jake Willaert were in a Mankato area garage band together, which played at local venues. She expressed interest in my high-pitched voice being a part of their vocals. Her voice is deep and unfeminine. However, I had no interest in singing for her band. Gail was a college student in South Dakota, studying secondary education. In South Dakota, a driver could be arrested if a passenger in their vehicle has drugs. Gail was giving a young woman a ride home in South Dakota when that happened to her. While I worked at Mettler's, she was dealing with this ongoing legal matter and the disruption it caused to her academic life. Discussing legal matters was something Gail and I did early on. In a legal matter separate than the South Dakota issue, Gail sued her relatives. This piqued my interest; I thought maybe Gail would be a good person for me to try to befriend, in order to get her involved in stripper rights matters. However, while she was the first one to offer me her phone number, she eschewed all attempts I made to hang out. She was also unwilling to discuss worker rights, unions or related issues. Then, after I said that her fiance is creepy, she stopped talking to me.

Gail developed a friendship with Scott “Asshole” Harkema, who I posted about a couple of weeks ago. She was also pals with a creepy perverse old man customer named Gary. What I noticed about Gail was that she gave a lot of free time and attention to misogynist scumbags hanging out in the club. With her tendency to fluidly treat Mettler's as both a place to make money and a place to hang out when she was not working, she was undeniably and blatantly a scab. Not only did she give customers free time and attention, but she spent time sitting with them while they bashed me with misogynist slurs and criticisms that I should smile more and give them free attention. Here she is hanging out with Scott Harkema and a bunch of other gross Mettler's regulars who expect free time and attention from women:

If a worker is truly an independent contractor, that worker is able to sell her dances for whatever price she wants, for whatever time duration she wants. Sometimes I ended my dances before the song was over, in order to test Mettler's. Gail doesn't know what worker misclassification means. Sometimes while she was hanging out with customers like Scott Harkema, she would watch me like a hawk as I danced, to see if I finished the entire song and watch how much I charged. If I did something that was against the Mettler's rules, she'd jump in her chair, start gossiping about me with one of her old pervert friends, or exclaim, “I SAW THAT!” as though she was catching me scamming a customer. I’d just look over at her and smile while she glared at me. If Gail was really interested in catching scam artists, she’d educate herself about what worker misclassification means and come to understand that strip clubs have scammed millions of dollars out of thousands of strippers for several decades. Gail will likely never do that, because she was primarily in the strip club to feed her emotional needs, rather than to make a living.

Gail spent significant amounts of time watching me dance on stage as well. When DJ Will was off the clock, she was usually one to run up to him and give him dances. In all, she acted like a tool of the patriarchy, disgustingly complicit to all that was wrong with Mettler's, and always on the lookout to sabotage me.

Mankato Memoirs: Parris Quinn and Pamela Pleasants

Parris Quinn and Pamela Pleasants were a mother daughter stripper team who sometimes did dances together on stage. Off stage, they gave two-girl lap dances to customers, as though they were having a threeway. It was SO UNBELIEVABLY GROSS. HOLY SHIT.

Pamela worked at Mettler's since at least the 90's. She didn't come in a lot while I was there, but her daughter Parris was at Mettler's regularly. Poor Parris. I can't imagine the type of grooming she must have endured growing up to become the adult she was in 2016, so proud of doing two-girl shows with her mother. I thought about not using her real name since I consider her a survivor. But, the fact of the matter is, she spoke with the Mettler's lawyer about me. She's not closeted about working at Mettler's, so this is hardly a doxx post. They used their real names in lieu of stage names. This post is just a portrait of two sad people.

When I started at Mettler's and many times thereafter, Parris introduced herself to me and others as “a second-generation stripper.” In literally every conversation I have ever had with her, and literally every conversation I overheard her having with other dancers, she gave unsolicited, incorrect, patronizing advice about how to be a better stripper, using her second-generation status as a way to emphasize her knowledge. The thing about Parris was that she wasn't much of a hustler during one-on-one interactions with customers. She also had minimal dancing ability or naturally flowing movements. She just accumulated a lot of tips and tricks from Pamela throughout her childhood, which she preached about to dancers who made much more money that she did. Her mouth and gums make that awkward geeky suction noise when she speaks. It was all just pitiful.

One time, two guys from Iowa came into the club. I was giving one of them a dance while Parris was dancing for the other. My customer had a large, red, pitted, demonic face with glasses. He was repeatedly and aggressively asking why he couldn't sexually assault me. I was explaining to him that I didn't fucking want him to touch me because he is unattractive. Meanwhile, pathetic Parris was next to me, struggling to hold back the enormous hands of her customer, to prevent him from touching her. She giggled to me,

“They're from Iowa, they don't know any better!”

I ended that dance without giving him a refund. For those unaware, Iowa strip clubs are known for being horribly gross for the dancers. I will not work in that state because of it. Sometimes Iowa residents would drive up to Mankato and experience disappointment when going to Mettler's. Many Iowa customers are used to getting away with sexually assaulting dancers. They do not deserve sympathy or kindness, though. The patience that Parris displayed for them was only a symptom of her conditioning.

Mettler's did not enforce illegal rules with regards to what kind of shoes dancers had to wear. Eventually I started wearing ballet slippers, with no objections from management. The one person who did approach me with an objection was Parris Quinn. Parris was used to being proud of aesthetic stripper norms, so when she saw me in my ballet slippers, she approached me with concern. She calmly asked me where my heels were, just as many control freak strippers with fascistic tendencies have done in my past. I informed her that I did not want to wear them, and that I was fine with my ballet slippers. She prodded me with questions for the next several minutes, dismay in her voice, before leaving me the fuck alone.

Parris Quinn is not a mean person. She speaks gently and kindly, but with passive aggressive slanted statements one might hear from a grandmother who begins every insulting sentence with, “Bless her heart.” Most of the dancers didn't like working with creepy overbearing Parris. Most of the dancers did not appreciate seeing Parris and Pamela dancing together.

Parris, Pamela and their dancer friend Cara used to peek in my backpack and makeup bags if I left them open in the dressing room. I never knew if they did this because they were nosy, or because they knew that I audio recorded strip clubs, and were searching for my electronic devices. People have done that more than a few times over the past few years, as though my recorders would even be visible. Sometimes Parris pried into my life outside of Mettler's, by asking me questions about where I lived. Sometimes she used her epilepsy as a way to try to invite herself over to my home. She used her seizures as a reason to explain that she could not drive herself home at night, and said that she needed to sleep in my home. I lied to her and told her I had a home, rather than explain to her that I lived in hotels and camping grounds. I have a little seizure problem too sometimes, so maybe she felt more comfortable talking to me about her epilepsy. I never knew what her motivation was in any of our interactions, be it her loyalty to Mettler's, paranoia that I was a undercover, or a genuine inability to drive herself home and a desire to rely on the Mettler's community to take care of her. Whatever her motivations were, she creeped me out too much to ever want to converse with her for very long or tell her about my life.

Near the end of my time at Mettler's, her mother started a move to Florida. Parris was displaying symptoms of clinical depression because of their separation. She was in her mid-twenties by then. I was happy when Pam moved to Florida, because I thought it would be good for Parris's self-esteem to cut the umbilical cord.

When Hima B. came to Mankato to film, I asked Parris if she wanted to do an interview for the documentary. I hadn't worked at Mettler's or talked to Parris for a few months by that point. When I contacted her, she was still depressed about her mom leaving. She said she didn't want to be in the film, because Mettler's would get pissed.

Mankato Memoirs: Nicole Lemma

Nicole Lemma danced at Mettler’s under the name Victoria. Dancer Harley once stole a My Little Pony from Victoria’s area in the dressing room, due to Victoria treating most other dancers like garbage in the workplace. Victoria once told me that if I can’t handle being touched and harassed in the workplace,

“Then don’t be a stripper.”

Nicole Lemma encourages rape culture, by telling dancers they should just endure harassment and assault. If you are a stripper who doesn’t like harassment and assault in the workplace, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a stripper. It just means you respect yourself enough to understand that every worker, no matter the job, deserves to be safe and protected.

Nicole Lemma regularly discussed how unattractive she thought other Mettler’s dancers were. In terms of looks, most Mettler’s dancers were on the au naturale 90’s beautiful skater/hippie/witchy/biker/pixie spectrum, whereas Nicole Lemma had gross looking fake tits and a freakish fake tan like Donald Trump’s:

Mankato Memoirs: Shauna Payton

Shauna Payton danced at Mettler’s with the stage name Cherish. Mettler’s never allowed her to break or bend any of their misclassification rules and strictly threatened to take her job away if she did. I have several audio recordings of her complaining about this. She didn’t make as much money as most other dancers, so she couldn’t always afford a cab ride back to where she was staying. Other dancers charged her money for a lift, but she knew I have a bleeding heart, so she usually pressured me for free rides. I probably spent about $50 total chauffeuring her around Mankato and surrounding towns, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes she stayed at Budget Host Inn. I didn’t want most people to know that I stayed there too, so if we were staying there at the same time, I’d drive around for a while after dropping her off, then park in the back and hope she never noticed my car. As far as I know, she never did.

Before resolving the lawsuit, I messaged her, to see if she wanted to help with the potential class action. I knew she was apathetic and probably wouldn’t help. What I didn’t expect was that she went out of her way to leave me two mean facebook voice recordings, telling me that Mettler’s never did anything wrong and that I won’t go far with my lawsuit because she’s already talked to the Mettler’s lawyer. What a lying pathetic bitch.

Mankato Memoirs: Amalia Osburn

Amalia Osburn is DJ Mark Holman's rebound and current mate. She wanted dancer Lilly's leftovers after Lilly and Mark broke up. Her dancer name was Mercedes. After I left, she switched to cocktail serving.

Amalia was fairly snotty to most dancers at Mettler's. She had danced there long enough that she was in good with owners and management. She was one of the few dancers who was able to break or bend misclassification rules because manager Jan liked her. Amalia also came in a lot when Mettler's was low on dancers and needed to call some in last minute.

Amalia doesn't know what worker misclassification means. When Mettler's was getting sued by me, they had a lawyer come in during working hours, to interview various dancers who they thought might be good to testify on the club's behalf. Amalia gladly had a private conversation with the Mettler's attorney about it.

Mankato Memoirs: Meme

Mettler's had a dancer who went by the stage name of Meme. She was a savvy business woman, always on her hustle, independent and driven. Manager Woody was very fond of her, which meant he let her leave early and break some of the rules when she wanted to. In the beginning, I considered her an ally, because she didn't engage in petty bullshit. She is a tall, intelligent, beautiful Ojibwe woman. Sometimes she would dispense advice to me, such as reminding me that smiling Minnesotans are actually just secretly plotting and evil, in her words,

“Remember that a smile is an upside down frown.”

Meme turned on me when one of her regulars also became my regular. She could not deal with the burning rage of jealousy. This regular of hers paid me to sit and talk to him. His main goal in talking to me was an attempt to gather behind-the-scenes information about Meme. I protected her privacy and told him nothing of value. This customer of hers learned that I am good at searching for things on the internet and doing investigations on foot. He hired me to do a skip tracing side job, to find out where his soon-to-be ex wife was hiding some of his assets.

Meme did not understand what was going on between her regular and I, so she deluded herself into believing that I was a prostitute banging her customer outside of work. She spread rumors at Mettler's that I am a prostitute. Prior to her customer hiring me to skip trace, Meme told him that I am an undercover cop, and that most people at Mettler's think so.

I am neither a cop nor a prostitute. I was simply a prudish stripper, an occasional skip tracer, trying to make my way in the world, standing up for the labor rights of strippers, while eating high quality vegan food every day, hating the capitalist patriarchy. It deeply disturbs me that anyone would slander me so much as Meme did. I thought about doxxing Meme, to tell the world who this venomous paranoid person is. She has been pursuing a career in medicine for many years— we are roughly the same age. I will not do her dirty like that. I still respect Meme, one of the greatest hustlers I have ever known.

Meme knew that labor violations were occurring at Mettler’s, but also recognized that in many ways, Mettler’s is an easier place to work than every other club in the country and many vanilla jobs. So, Meme kept her mouth shut about labor violations there. Having people at Mettler’s suspect me to be a cop put a real damper on any attempts at labor organizing in the workplace.

Mankato Memoirs: Brody Christensen

I once had friendly acquaintance named Brody Christensen. He was a Mettler’s customer. Brody did not engage in assault or harassment at Mettler’s. However, he was too notable a Mankato character not to pass up in Mankato Memoirs.

Brody Christensen and I are about the same age, but he hadn't spent a lot of his life outside of Mankato. His mother had some type of health problem, which required him to stay in town to care for her and his younger siblings. Things that I did in high school, things that excite a person who hasn't spent much time outside of their home town, are things that adult Brody was interested in. For example, Brody spent his time reading existentialist literature, like Nietzsche. He was always spouting multi-syllabic words that he didn't know the definition of. He'd use them out of context, in ways that made no sense. He didn't like his Midwestern accent, so he spoke in a fake East Coast accent, like one might hear in Massachusetts.

Brody had a part time day job as a door-to-door window treatment salesman. He was also a drug dealer on probation. He enjoyed traveling around Mankato by foot, hanging out in the local pubs with foreign exchange students from the local university, learning about their countries, and engaging in drug deals with them. For example, I once met up with Brody at a gaming bar called Blue Bricks, where he was shooting pool with some refugees from Sierra Leone, discussing drug sales. When I arrived, his associates left, and as he put a quarter into a pool table to release the balls, he said to me,

“This night is all about you, while we ponder our existential dilemma together.” However, after he began the game, he became preoccupied by a barista from Coffee Hag, who he spotted hanging out at a table with other people in the open room next to us. He went out for a cigarette and to stare at her, while I was left to sit at a table by myself for a long period of time inside of Blue Bricks. When he returned, we shot a game that he easily won. He was astonishingly boring to be with, so I left. I also left because the parking lot space only gave me two hours. Two hours was all I really needed to know that Brody sucked, although I continued to text with him for a few days after. He invited himself over to my motel room, texting something along the lines of,

“You can play with my hair, watch a David Finch movie with me, and tell me that life is but a dream.”

Brody had a girlfriend named Mikayla. I let him know that I was not comfortable with the idea of him coming over, and that I was only interested in hanging out publicly. He stopped responding to my texts completely. From there, I became depressed and returned to Coffee Hag by myself, to practice LSAT puzzles and surf the net. One day at Coffee Hag a few weeks later, I saw him on a date with a woman who wasn't his girlfriend. I texted him, telling him that I didn't mean to be at Coffee Hag during his date. He checked his texts during the date, then shooed her out of the cafe fairly quickly. After she left, he sat at my table, apologized to me for not responding to my other texts, and told me that his mother recently had surgery. I didn't respond much to him. He, like so many small town assholes I have met in my life, said to me while shaking his head,

“You're so weird.”

I wasn't weird in larger West Coast cities though, and I certainly wasn't weird in comparison to all the oddballs on my twitter feed. I was just weird to a dweeb like Brody who hung around strip clubs and shot pool at Blue Bricks, chasing women behind his girlfriend's back and cheating on her, potentially exposing her to diseases and poisoning her with things she had no knowledge of. Brody tried desperately to escape the small town scum around him, but he was thirtyish and had never left. One time, he referred to Mettler's dancers as “The Island of Misfit Toys.” The irony was that Brody fit the profile of a misfit toy more than a lot of us dancers.

At Mettler's, Brody went through cycles, where he was there a lot, and then didn't come back for weeks or months at a time. I didn't tell anyone at Mettler's that Brody and I hung out or talked outside of work. Eventually he and I fell completely out of touch. One day in the dressing room, I overheard one of the dancers complaining about him. She was a Jewish gal, and Brody had been trying to court her, by lying to her, telling her that he is also Jewish. She was angry about this, and also angry after learning about his girlfriend. A couple of the other dancers began discussing their experiences with Brody as well. I didn't share any of my experiences with them that occurred in previous months. I just listened.

I overheard some of the dancers discussing how they wanted to make a doxxing web page about Brody in Mankato, but that never came to fruition.

Mankato Memoirs: Dan Johnson

In about December 2016 at Mettler's, I met a little man in a green hoodie that said “Get Lucky” on the front, with little Celtic knots on the hood. I knew from looking at him that he wasn't Irish. As he began a whining monologue about how I needed to provide better customer service to the patronage by sitting with them and smiling more, I knew he was a steaming pile of shit. I asked him if he was Irish anyway, and he confirmed that he was just wearing the hoodie because he liked it. His name was Dan, and he worked at a bagel shop called Tandem Bagels, which was across the street from Mettler's. I was familiar with Tandem Bagels— not because I had ever been inside— but because I frequently passed it by and wondered if they had vegan cream cheese, so much that I found their menu online to see that it was not a vegan friendly place. I didn't mention my vegan status to Dan at the beginning of our conversation, because I knew that would probably prevent him from spending money on me. I bit my vegan tongue until after he spent money on me. During the time that I was dancing for him, Dan chose to use that time to tell me that I needed to smile more. I humored him, by making no mention of how ugly and disgusting looking he was, and how the entirety of his being would make most women grimace in repulsion. I smiled and nodded at him while he ranted to me and bought more dances. When he ran low on funds, I mentioned that I looked at the Tandem Bagels menu online, but I didn't want to go there, because they didn't have vegan cream cheese or vegan sandwiches. He immediately became angry and upset with me, raised his voice and stated,

“See that's what I don't like about vegans! Vegans want to shove everything down other people's throats!...I want to shove my cock down your throat!”

I walked away from him right after that, both because he was out of money and because he was threatening me with sexual assault. It was deeply painful to have some ugly, disgusting Mankato douchebag threatening to sexually assault me. I continued to hustle throughout the night, thinking about how grotesque Dan was, while he stared me down. A cocktail waitress named Missy (real name Melissa) approached him and chatted. In the cess pool of Mankato, where everyone knows everyone, Missy and Dan Johnson went back years, since high school. They had the same circle of friends. Later on, Missy informed me that he admitted to her that he told me he wanted to shove his cock down my throat. He expressed remorse to Missy about his statement. However, in subsequent visits to the club, he spent time glaring at me and making my life uncomfortable. He did this by discussing me with other dancers, discussing how I should smile more, and talking negatively about me with customers. Whenever he was in my workplace, he would make it a point to stare me down. Whenever I saw his hideous visage, I was haunted with his statement, “I want to shove my cock down your throat.” His presence caused me stress and anxiety. This went on for months, from about December when I met him until about April when I stopped working at Mettler’s.

If I was more ambitious, I would've tried getting a restraining order against Dan Johnson. I had a meeting with CADA about him. They gave me a run down of legal options on how to handle him. However, it was uncertain as to whether or not I would have success in getting the restraining order, so I didn't go through with it. I spoke with my manager Woody about Dan. Woody acknowledged that Dan is “a dirty guy,” and assured me that my job was not in jeopardy because of anything Dan Johnson said about me in the workplace. However, Dan was never asked to leave my workplace. Dan was friends with the owner's son and knew most of the Mettler's staff.

Dan’s behavior was a contributing factor in the sexual harassment portion of the lawsuit.

Mankato Memoirs: Scott Harkema

Another day at Mettler's, another fucking loser from rural Minnesota, sitting around for hours and days, expecting dancers to give him their time and attention for very little money. Another day in a strip club, another disgusting man benefiting from the capitalist patriarchy and punishing those who do not comply.

Scott Harkema introduced himself as “Asshole” to most people. He is from Janesville, Minnesota, which is not too far of a drive from Mankato. He has “Asshole” embroidered on various articles of his clothing, and his garage is labeled “Asshole's Garage.” The nickname suits him well.

When I first started working at Mettler’s, Scott and I started talking about traumatic brain injury. I was going through a personal injury lawsuit from my traumatic brain injury, and he went through one already. For these reasons, in the beginning, I felt the emotions of pity and kinship with Scott. However, he began slandering a dancer named Ryder because she allowed him to take photographs of her in his vehicle repair shop, and then for whatever reason, she wanted nothing to do with him. Scott's conversations with me increasingly turned to him trying to get me to let him take photographs of me in his automobile shop, which included a stripper pole. I was becoming annoyed with this, and his unwillingness to spend much money in my workplace. So, I decided to completely cut off communication with him and pretend like he wasn't there.

After I cut off communication with Scott in my workplace, he would spend his time sitting around with newer strippers, referring to me as a “bitch” and trying to get my manager Jan to discipline me for not smiling more. For whatever reason, my managers Jan and Woody, as well as the Maes family, gave Scott Harkema a free pass to behave this way, even though most customers were not allowed to behave that way. He had been coming to Mettler’s for years and cycling through dancers like that. This contributed to the sexual harassment portion of the lawsuit.

Mankato Memoirs: Hans Tinsley

With Karl and Mark as the primary Mettler's DJs, Will usually just worked the slow nights or filled in when one of those two couldn't make it. A fourth tier DJ named Rito was briefly there when I started. He didn't get along with a lot of the staff. I don’t know the details of that situation. When Mettler's was down to three DJs, they began the search for a new fourth.

Hans Tinsley was an unattractive, balding man in his late twenties. He often hung out at Mettler's. He purchased a lap dance from me when I first started working there. He was disappointed that I would not give him more physical contact during the dance. He was subsequently mean to me in the misogynist way that horny, sexually deprived STEM majors are to women who they feel threatened by. Hans didn’t spend a lot of money while he was in Mettler’s. He mostly expected the women to use their time and energy to give him free attention.

As a high-IQ STEM guy, Hans used his fast functioning brain to talk down to me, attempt to point out how stupid he thought I was, and use every interaction he had with me as a way to prop up his own superiority. Interacting with him was like talking to a very pretentious, narcissistic, middle school aged savant honors student who has low self esteem. It was disturbing to encounter a man in his late twenties like that who spent most of his leisure time in the strip club where I worked. But, you'll find a lot of people who behave that way in college towns. I often wondered why Hans sat in Mettler's for hours upon hours, most days of the week. I suspected that he might've been a drug dealer, with Mettler's as his main place to sell, but I have no evidence of that. Otherwise, he was just a fucking loser with no social life outside of Mettler's.

I found Hans's facebook while I worked at Mettler's. He was friends with some of the dancers. The posts are hidden now, but in 2017, he had a bunch of public posts that he wrote during high school. They were about what a social misfit he was, lusting after cheerleaders, sitting on the bleachers by himself and generally being a misanthropic, misogynist, deprived sociopath. Some of his posts described cheerleaders with misogynist language. Sometimes people like this call themselves “introverts,” but what I have found is that introverts from academia are actually just ugly unwanted misanthropes. The psychology of Hans is very text book and garden variety.

The dancers who Hans hung out with were generally in the 18-22 year old age range. I believe Hans was stunted socially, and was making up for lost time. Sometimes he would encourage dancers not to talk to me. One time I walked past him speaking with a dancer about me and overheard him say,

“Smack a bitch.”

I didn't tell anyone about it at the time, because I had a lot of other issues to deal with. I tried to marginalize Hans's almost constant presence as best I could. Whatever his connections were to Mettler's, eventually they let him become their fourth DJ. I was super bummed when this happened. Hans didn't seem to have any previous DJ experience or know how to smoothly work the equipment. Sometimes he would play songs that were not on my playlist, or play newer versions of the songs that were covered by newer artists. I did not like any of this. When I confronted him about it, he told me that he was bored with my old songs and wanted to liven things up. I was a spectacular performer at Mettler’s, sold more than most people, and have been in the industry since 2006. I didn’t need Hans Tinsley to reconfigure my presentation.

To hide his bald spots, Hans used to wear a knit cap or other head coverings. When he became the fourth DJ, people sometimes mistook him for Karl Bindig's son. They are both Germanic, glasses-clad balding men of similar bone structure, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Recent internet evidence has shown that Hans started shaving his head, sans knit cap, and owning that shit:

I googled him while writing this, to see that he has been dabbling in politics. On paper we seem to agree on things, but I still wouldn't vote for him. I’d rather he die of coronavirus than hold any political power.

Mankato Memoirs: DJ Karl and DJ Mark

Karl Marx was a 19th century socialist revolutionary and economist from Germany. DJ Karl Bindig and DJ Mark Holman were the two primary DJs at Mettler's. Both had worked there many years by the time I arrived.

Mettler's had a policy that banned most music with misogynist language, such as referring to women as “bitch.” For the most part, Mettler's banned rap and hip-hop. There was also a supposed ban on heavy metal and hard rock music, but heavy metal and hard rock music were played at Mettler's all the time. The owners of Mettler's had a list of songs they wanted the DJs to integrate into the dancers playlists throughout the night. Most of these songs were enjoyable classic rock hits, but a lot of them were god awful Nickleback songs.

Mettler's did not have a digital sound system. They had a large collection of CDs for their CD system. Unless a dancer brought in her own CDs and had the DJ pre-approve the songs, she generally had to select songs from the Mettler's CDs. Only certain songs on each Mettler's CD was allowed. DJ Mark also had his own personal collection of CDs that he brought in and allowed dancers to sift through to make song requests. Most of Mark's music was 80's and 90's gothic/industrial/rock.

Karl and Mark generally did not ask for tips or bully dancers for their lunch money like most DJs do. Mettler's paid their staff a living wage. I usually tipped Mark a few bucks because I liked him. I tipped DJ Karl less often. When I first started working there, Karl said to me that he only plays good music for dancers who tip him. However, I rarely tipped him and still demanded that he play songs from my list. Karl was an irritable man who used to throw around CD cases within his booth.

The DJs determined set length, which was usually 1-3 songs. This was misclassification. DJ Karl repeatedly sent dancers home if they arrived at 5:30 PM rather than the mandatory 5:00 PM. This was an instance of misclassification. Legally I could point out that the musical restrictions were very much misclassifying, that Mettler's was engaging in a certain politically incorrect filtering of music genres, in order to avoid attracting certain kinds of customers. I could point those true things out.

I could also tell you that I loved working with Karl and Mark, because I did. Karl and Mark are both squares, not interested in being cool, not interested in being hip, not interested in any of the usual douchebag DJ elements. Karl and Mark never trolled dancers with Song Wars that I was aware of. DJ Mark was physically attractive in a gothic/industrial rural Minnesota way. He was a decent human being who never engaged in any abusive behaviors that I know of. I was happy to be in a club with so much gothic/industrial/new wave/indie/grunge/rock music. I was happy to be relieved from the abundance of twerking and poop chute themed songs found in Minneapolis. I was relieved to be surrounded by so much flannel, cammo, beards, and patrons that reminded me of my early years dancing in Oregon. I was relieved to be surrounded by people who didn't body shame me for being svelte. It was a relief, OK. Karl and Mark's gen-X stubbornness was like frolicking through Boulder, Colorado in the 90's, like skateboarding down Burnside in Portland, Oregon before it was gentrified, like taking a backwoods drive through the Smoky Mountains and stumbling upon a hillbilly hippie encampment. You do not find strip clubs like this very often.

Keeping a timely and orderly stage rotation was mandatory at Mettler's, so customers could be entertained. It was definitely misclassification. The stage at Mettler's was my all time favorite. It wasn't too big or too little. The front pole spun, was the perfect circumference, metal and length. I never had a dance lesson in my life. I have never taken a dance class in my life. I have no previous experience in any type of dance besides needing to go to work to pay for my existence. Everyone at Mettler's stopped what they were doing when I went on stage, to watch my stunning spinning.

Mankato Memoirs: DJ Will

Mettler's had an extremely creepy DJ named Will.

I first met Will when I danced at Choice in Minneapolis, before knowing that he was a strip club DJ. He used to go into Choice all the time to buy lap dances from me, the late Audrina, and a few other Choice dancers. He came off as an odd looking, cocky loser trying to make his way in the world. I wish I could find a photo of him to show everyone, but I don't even know his last name to look him up. As a descriptive reference, I will tell you that he looked like a short, pudgy, facially warped version of Tiger Woods. I recognized him instantly when I went into Mettler's to audition. I was instantly very worried that he would connect the dots and out me as the notorious Minneapolis stripper who has been suing clubs since 2015. However, rather than doing that, Will began accusing me of having worked at Mettler's previously. He started an argument with me about it that went on for several minutes before my audition. He said that he never forgets a face and that he knew he saw my face dancing at Mettler’s before. He jumped out of his DJ booth with his stumpy little legs and ran over to manager Jan, to ask her if I had worked there before. I didn't bother to notify him that he recognized me because he used to buy lap dances from me at Choice. After my audition, he expressed that he remembered me from Choice. I told him that I wasn’t lying about Mettler’s, to which he replied that he never called me a liar.

Will frequented Mettler’s on his nights off, to buy lap dances from his coworkers. I never gave him one at Mettler’s. He is in his 40's, but used to email dancers who were in their late teens, tell them they are sexually attractive. He would often offer to hang out with them. He had been at Mettler's for a while, so I'd assume the owners knew about what he was up to.

One evening, Will played Rod Stewart when it was my turn on stage. Rod Stewart was absolutely not on my playlist. When I scolded him about it after my set was done, he informed me that the song was in the owner's list of songs they wanted him to play throughout the night. That was an instance of worker misclassification, and certainly opened up the possibility of a class action lawsuit.

When Will would announce certain dancers who he wanted to troll, he would use the same time frame to advertise a type of drink that the club referred to as “blo-job shots.” For example, he would say something along the lines of, “Here’s Inga...BLO-JOB shots available at the bar!” This is a form of sexual harassment.

One night when Will overheard a hurried phone conversation between myself and someone I was talking to, I mentioned that I was under a lot of stress. Will then stated that he could help me relieve some of that stress. After work that night when I was in my usual haunt of the North Mankato Perkins diner, ugly ass Will sauntered in and ordered some fettuccine Alfredo. He sat at my table and told me about his life, starting with high school marching band onward, to how he became a strip club DJ in a po-dunk Minnesota town. I avoided eye contact with him and spent most of our meal surfing the internet on my laptop computer, in order to make him feel insignificant.

Mankato Memoirs: Two Crappy Bouncers

Mettler’s had two crappy bouncers who were sometimes OK with dancers experiencing sexual harassment and assault. They’d only throw out customers when their bosses gave them the word. They’d make comments and engage in behaviors that inhibited rape culture.

Brian Kass was one such bouncer. When I first started at Mettler’s, a customer smacked my ass and was made to leave. Another customer said to me, while Brian was standing next to him laughing,

“In his defense, you’re really hot.”

Brian’s laughter at the customer’s comment promoted rape culture, because it blamed the victim for her assault, rather than the predator. On a subsequent night, Brian let that customer back in. He informed me that the customer was a friend of one of the owners.

Kyle Schuh was another bouncer at Mettler’s. He had a girlfriend, but would regularly get lap dances and patronize the strip club while he wasn’t working, to ask out a dancer named Harley. Kyle generally did not throw out customers or do much to stop assault. If I acted as my own bouncer and prevented an assailant, Kyle would instruct me not to protect myself. I never saw Kyle do anything when customers engaged in verbal assault, such as using the word “bitch” to describe strippers in the workplace.

Mankato Memoirs: Daryl Woodward

Daryl Woodward went by Woody at Mettler’s. He was a bartender and manager. From what I personally witnessed and experienced, he engaged in many behaviors that would be considered feminist. That means he roughed up and threw men out for merely using the term “bitch” to describe women. He immediately had men thrown out for touching me. About 90% of the time, he became violent and protective if a customer threatened me in any way. Woody never tried to flirt with me, harass me, or ask for anything in return for his protection. He never punished me for not socializing with certain people. He never blamed me for negative behaviors that other people exhibited toward me. He never pressured me to have a conversation with him. I barely spoke to the guy unless I needed to complain about someone, but I usually knew he would be there for me if I needed him. He misclassified me by imposing rules that legally made me an employee, but working at Mettler’s was still easier for me to deal with than most other jobs. In my personal experience, he was one of the best, most feminist managers I have had in any occupation, in my life. I felt more comfortable with him as a manager than I have working in manufacturing, legal services, food service, and in most other strip clubs across the United States. All of my personal experiences with Woody caused me to feel great disappointment in him when I heard about what other dancers experienced.

One dancer at Mettler’s had a heavy menstrual cycle, and occasionally had to leave work early because of it. When she tried to talk to Woody about it, he threatened to fire her for leaving early. A few times, she was fired or otherwise suspended. Threatening to fire a dancer for leaving early, while calling her an independent contractor, is a thing that people do when they misclassify workers. It is also just misogynist and gross given her circumstances. Woody’s behavior toward her opened up the possibility of a class action lawsuit. Sometimes if he had a crush on a dancer, he would be more lenient with the rules by letting his crush leave early.

Woody and other Mettler’s staff would occasionally buy lap dances from the dancers. That made most of the dancers uncomfortable, because the boundaries of authority they had as coworkers became grey.

Harley was a young dancer at Mettler’s who had never worked at a strip club before. One night after work when Woody had been drinking, he followed her out to her car to flirt with her. It made her very uncomfortable. In subsequent shifts, Woody began crying and apologized for his behavior.