When I auditioned and was hired at Mouse's Ear in 2012, some guy from the Carolinas was managing the club. He seemed like a rambling idiot, and is part of the reason why I decided not to work a shift out there in 2012. I didn't meet the Browning brothers until 2019.

Buddy and Ralph Browning are the two old white male brothers who owned and operated Mouse's Ear. They managed it by themselves the entire time that I worked there. I was told by a long time customer that they had another drug dealer brother who was murdered. I was informed by this customer that their brother opened his front door after someone knocked on it, and was shot point blank. Apparently this happened many years ago. Mouse's Ear has been in Knoxville for decades.

While I worked at Mouse's Ear in 2019, several of the lower-IQ dancers reminisced fondly and seemed forlorn for some manager who worked there prior to my arrival, but who was no longer working there.

Buddy and Ralph Browning had a bad cop/good cop dynamic in terms of enforcing rules and general treatment of the dancers. They divided their shifts pretty evenly in terms of working hours. Buddy Browning was the “bad cop” in that scenario.

Buddy Browning is tall, very wrinkly in the face, but with a good body and masculine bone structure. He was a former football player and coach of some local team. He has brown eyes and greying hairs, with a deep, assertive, Southern voice. Some might've considered him a silver fox, like a knock-off, Appalachian Richard Gere. He is both jovial and mean, charming and wicked, charismatic and cruel. His demeanor reminds me a bit of Leonardo DiCaprio's slave owner character Calvin Candie in the movie Django Unchained. In fact, given all of the labor violations at Mouse's Ear, it's very easy for me to imagine Buddy being an 1800s slave owner. The year was 2019 though, and all Buddy could do was misclassify strippers. I'm pretty sure someone sued Mouse's Ear before me, but that didn't stop Buddy. Sometimes Buddy would put the club's air conditioner down into the low 60s, all of the dancers would have to put on a sweater, we'd all be shivering and suffering. A dancer who went by Lilith informed me that Buddy and Ralph were cocaine addicts, and when the air conditioner was that low, it meant they had done some lines in the office and didn't want to overheat. Lilith also informed me that Buddy's wife was about twenty years old and “wore the pants” in their relationship. I don't know how credible Lilith's information was. Buddy certainly liked to sexually harass certain dancers in ways such as putting his arms around them, and coming up behind them to be playful while he was intoxicated. He put his arm around me a couple of times, and it was surprisingly arousing. He has a certain BDSM quality to his Southern sickness. I never sued Mouse's Ear for sexual harassment. One time Buddy started interrogating me about my Illinois license plates, because I told everyone at work that I moved into an apartment in town. He felt the need to inform me that I had to get my plates switched over to Tennessee, and that if a cop pulled me over, I could get in trouble. He is such a sadist that I worried he was going to to intentionally call the cops on me about my plates, but it never happened. Besides, I was just lying about that apartment. As mentioned, I stayed in motels down there. Every couple of months, I returned to Illinois to check my mail and visit my legal residence. Buddy loved bossing everyone around whenever he could. One time while it was slow, he made all of the dancers get in a conga line with him in the front, then he led it around the club with him dancing.

Ralph Browning is the “good cop” brother, but as we know on this site, all cops are bad. Most of the dancers liked Ralph much more than Buddy, because he was more lenient with the rules. I fucking hated Ralph, even though I was allowed to chew gum on the show floor during his shifts while Buddy restricted it. I don't like it when oppressive pieces of shit try to be nice to save face. I prefer they are up front about how horrible they are, like Buddy was. Ralph is shorter than Buddy, balding, with much less masculine bone structure. He wears glasses and is generally a little old man with limited self-esteem. Sometimes small men of limited self-esteem are threatened by my strong assertive hustling ability and overall presence. Thus, Ralph developed a delusion that I was predatory toward customers and coworkers in an inappropriate way, which I absolutely was not. He'd follow me around and stand very close to me if I was talking to a drunk customer named Rocky who used to come in, because he thought I might “take advantage” of Rocky. All I did, and all I intended to do, was sell dances to Rocky, but that didn't stop Ralph from bothering me. Ralph also used to follow me around and closely watch me interact with two dancers who went by Brazil and Sunshine. I was a much better hustler than these two dancers. They became very jealous of my skills, so they victimized themselves, complained to Ralph about it, and he was dumb enough to believe them. Stupid Ralph ignored actual abusive, toxic behaviors that were exhibited from certain dancers and coworkers. I will address the specifics of these issues in future entries. You will read much more about both of the Brownings in future entries. This post is just a Browning primer.

One thing I really hated about the Brownings was that they let those stupid bitch church ladies into the club to bring scripture, swag, food, and shame. The church ladies hung out in our dressing room, and it was fucking disgusting.

Indoor smoking was totally allowed at Mouse's Ear. Indoor smoking is generally still allowed in Tennessee strip clubs, and can be quite the culture shock to the average Yankee. My lungs were certainly shocked by all that smoke. I developed legitimate and noticeable breathing problems, and a continuous low-level congestion by late Summer.

There was a second Mouse's Ear up in Johnson City prior to my arrival. Several dancers stated that the Brownings intentionally burned it down, in order to collect the insurance money. I saw no evidence of that, but wouldn't doubt if it was true. Since Deja Vu bought Mouse's Ear Knoxville, they opened up a new Johnson City Mouse's Ear, so the dancers can go back and forth between Knoxville and Johnson City if they want.

While I was working at Mouse's Ear, someone from Deja Vu was hanging out, looking around at the club, and made an offer to Buddy for over one million dollars. At that time, Buddy did not accept the offer. COVID shut down Mouse's Ear for part of 2020. By 2021, the sale to Deja Vu was just about done. One of the provisions Deja Vu had for the Brownings was they they had to settle my lawsuit before their transaction was complete. I got a damn sweet settlement and will elaborate more on that in future posts. Thanks, Deja Vu.