The Chicago Bears have been an obnoxious background noise throughout my life that I have never cared about. Similarly, The Chicago Bears regularly coming into VIP's were obnoxious background characters in my work shifts. I dislike Football so much. I only knew The Bears came into VIP's, because many of my coworkers, both dancers and male staff alike, became giddy and excited about them whenever it happened. I was unable to recognize or identify any of the players. I remember them as very large men who paid as little attention to me as I paid to them. My VIP's working conditions and coworkers were so much more interesting than The Loser Bears. There were many layers to my VIP's experience. The club probably deserves it's own series. For the sake of this post, I will briefly sew together relevant snippets, to keep in theme with Celeb Mashup.

Joseph Patrick Mankiewicz and George Gellis were two short men with Napoleon complexes, who overthrew the power of my manager Bob. Joe and George were VIP's employees who complained about Bob to Pete Vrdolyak and the owner. A couple of months into my misclassified employment at VIP's, Bob was demoted from manager, to front lobby attendant. The reason for Bob's demotion, according to everyone I spoke with, was that he was “too nice to the girls.” Bob would frequently do things like let dancers leave early, waive our illegal fees, and side with the dancers when misogynist abusive customers complained about us. I never knew Bob to fire any dancers or raise his voice.

Joseph Patrick Mankiewicz's previous position at VIP's, before stealing Bob's job like an eel, was Champagne Room Host. He'd pop bottles and tend to guests in the more expensive, secluded, exclusive area of the club, which was really just up a couple of steps and behind a half wall with frosted glass. The Chicago Bears liked hanging out up there. One night when a few of The Loser Bears were in, they went out of their way to exclusively invite all of the big titty dancers up there to hang out with them, leaving dancers with modest bosoms on the main show floor to walk around and participate in the mandatory stage rotation. From what I heard, The Loser Bears were financially generous to dancers they liked. I never got a dollar out of any of them. Mankiewicz had a reputation for being a player, who abused his power with dancers by having romantic and sexual entanglements with them. While the majority of dancers at VIP's were older Slavic women from Europe, Joe went for the small number of younger white or Latina dancers.

George Gellis was already an assistant manager at VIP's before Bob was demoted, but he was still Bob's subordinate prior to the position change. Gellis is an older, ugly, short, oily, Greek American. Like many Greek Americans, he is a bully. Previously, George worked for his family's Greek restaurant. His family disliked him, so he went on to work in other bars and restaurants, before finding his way to bar tending at VIP's. He eventually worked his way up to manager. It wasn't long after he became assistant manager that he overthrew Bob's position. George Gellis went on a firing spree soon after Bob's demotion. He wouldn't always fire a dancer right away though. He'd call us individually into his office, berate us for mundane issues, pull us aside on the show floor, and sometimes sadistically harass us for days, weeks, or months before finally firing us. I still didn't know what misclassification was when I worked at VIP's, but I did think George's behavior was very wrong. As the Autumn of 2013 progressed and I saw many of my fellow dancers suffering because of oily George, I also thought about my own suffering and termination from Admiral just a few months prior.

The VIP's dressing room had house moms with a nightly mandatory fee of $15, and makeup artists with a nightly mandatory fee of $15. If dancers didn't want to get our makeup done, we were given the option of buying a set of fake eyelashes. Simply keeping our money was not an option. VIP's house moms were terrible cooks, with terrible taste in food. They didn't care to prepare vegan options. So, they usually took my money for nothing. I'd order delivery food or bring my own bag dinner, in addition to paying the house moms for food I didn't eat. Similarly, the fat bitch makeup artists had very little interest in providing me with cruelty free and vegan options, so they'd lie to me about their products and try to hide the labels. I hated buying all of those eyelashes I never wore, and paying those bitches for their shit food I didn't eat. After Bob was demoted, the women upstairs started complaining to Joe Mankiewicz about me, by stating that I was being difficult for my cruelty free and vegan requests. Joe addressed the issue with me in the office one day while he was critiquing my overall work performance. He berated and yelled at me, would not give me the option of just keeping my money for my own makeup and food, and continued to be complicit in my financial exploitation. Joe was a dwarfish, cocky, exploitative, cold hearted prick who enjoyed harming dancers who did not submit to him socially and/or sexually.

As football season started in the second half of 2013, the club made it mandatory for the dancers to pay some expensive fee, on top of all our other fees, to order our own football jerseys with our stage names printed on them. We were required to wear these jerseys, instead of our gowns, on certain nights of the week. I felt even more unattractive wearing my customized football jersey than I did wearing my borrowed purple gown.

Around the time that I had to start wearing football jerseys to work, I once again picked up my search on how to help strippers through activism. I knew it was wrong of the club to take so much of our money. I knew it was wrong to have so many hideously ugly male coworkers harass us. I knew it was wrong of the club to make us buy football jerseys and wear them. I decided to see to it that I'd take down George Gellis, Joe Mankiewicz, and all that they represented.

I can't remember what kind of internet search lead me to the Chicago chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach project, but by late 2013, I became a regular at SWOP meetings. I was the only stripper at the SWOP meetings. Most of the other attendees were prostitutes, who were mostly unwelcoming to me. Much of their activism revolved around decrim, harm reduction, and de-stigmatizing adult entertainment. I felt very out of place and grossed out by the subject matter that they discussed at their meetings, but the president of Chicago SWOP at the time, Serpent Libertine, made sure to address my specific needs. When introducing myself, I described George Gellis's behavior, how much money was taken from me every night that I worked, the harassment from staff, and all of the bullshit that VIP's made me and other dancers endure. Serpent Libertine plainly stated that this was a “labor issue,” and took the initiative to contact labor lawyers around Chicago for me. While I did contact a labor lawyer in Portland about a year and a half prior, as mentioned in my Fabiano Scherner post, I still didn't understand that the extent of my workplace problems were specifically labor issues. I was still very uneducated on the issue of misclassification, and how contractors are not able to have a union.

Serpent put me on the path to contact Hima B., the former California stripper who sued multiple clubs. Hima was producing a film called License to Pimp. Serpent got into contact with a member of the Chicago IWW for me as well, and accompanied me to meetings with him at local community centers in Chicago. We brainstormed the best way to go about holding VIP's accountable and getting justice for the dancers who were mistreated or fired. As fate would have it, another great Chicago firing occurred in early 2014. George Gellis fired me after several months of threats. I made my “George Gellis is Sorry” website shortly thereafter.

Chicago's remaining strip club that I wasn't fired from, Pink Monkey, never found me attractive enough to even let me through the front lobby. After a few brief and intolerable shifts in the suburban clubs, I decided to leave Chicago and da Bears and da Bulls and da Vrdolyaks and da Pollocks entirely in early 2014.

Shortly before leaving Illinois, Serpent Libertine accompanied me to a meeting that she set up with a labor law firm that was willing to give me a free in-person consultation. Our IWW comrade also joined us. At that time, I was so naive that I thought labor lawyers were activists who are genuinely interested in making policy change. I was so naive that I thought one lawsuit would do it. The lawyers we met with thought it was odd that I had a SWOP and IWW member with me. Being so inexperienced at the time, I was mesmerized by Serpent's ability to schedule this meeting in person. The firm in Chicago didn't end up taking the VIP's case though. I never ended up suing VIP's. Someone else did a few years later.

Right after that Chicago lawyer meeting, I drove out to Colorado to find work. My special needs rabbit was able to have a nationally known specialist veterinarian operate on his foot in a Denver suburb. That was one of several reasons why I moved to Denver. By the Summer of 2014, I received news that Joe Mankiewicz was fired by Pete Vrdolyak. According to the information I received, my “George Gellis is Sorry” website inspired other dancers to speak up about Mankiewicz's sexual exploitation to upper management. It's always made me happy to think about how I inspired those dancers to speak out about his player behavior and have him suffer the consequences. I hate players.

RCI has since bought the club and turned it into a Rick's. I never got to say goodbye to Rob Reilly. I never cared about what happened to The Bears, or if they still go there.