Swinging Richards, it's really like
a neighborhood hangout.
It's that familiar.
It's like family.
My name's Matt Colunga,
I'm 32 years old, I've been here 12 years
at Swinging Richards.
I started dancing when I was 20 years old
and I said I was only gonna do it for six months
and I danced for two and a half years.
Then I started bartending, I started waiting tables,
started DJ-ing and just moved into the management.
I found managing the club just kind of boring,
so I have to DJ and manage on top of it
to keep me occupied.
Here the songs have got to be four and a half minutes long.
They can't be any more because a table dance is too long
if it goes over four and a half minutes,
so you've got to cut a portion of the song out
and mix it with another portion of the song
while you're talking on the mic,
while you're taking care of customer problems.
Which does keep me busy.
Up to a thousand, it's not like we're asking
for 20s, 100s.
Sitting there staring at him
is not going to get him naked any faster
and is only going to make for a boring fucking show.
Ladies, we got a line waiting for a little wage
and boys cannot pay their bill with their pussies.
We've got a great list of boys,
almost 70 dancers from all around the world.
Yeah, my name is Matthew.
I'm Ukrainian and American, my mom's American.
So it's a fun little mix to be here in America.
Swinging Richards been a part of my life
because this makes my life a little more interesting.
I meet thousands of people from around the world.
I think Richards is a one of a kind place.
It's a fantasy on Earth.
It's not a fantasy in your mind
that you're not gonna be able to create,
you can actually create it in here
for just a little entry fee and a little bit of music,
next thing you know, you walk out of here with a smile.
We're a one of a kind club in the country.
I mean, our only competition really is Montreal.
We're a totally nude strip club, VIP rooms,
table dances, and full bar.
Oh yeah, that's good!
Let's give it up for Roman.
My name is Sean.
I work at Swinging Richards in Atlanta, Georgia.
Strippers are definitely their own person.
It's whatever floats your boat,
it's all an individuality thing.
There's really no standard way
to strip.
Me, personally, man,
I don't really look at myself as that guy.
You know, I hold down a normal life, normal job.
I'm a single father, you know, this is how I bring in
extra income for my leisure.
It's a job where we dance, we perform,
and we're paid for it in tips.
I have been tipped as much as a hundred dollar bill on stage
and I've been tipped dollars as well.
When I come into the club to work for the evening,
there's a house fee.
The house fee is $35.
At the end of the evening, we tip the DJ out
ten percent of whatever tips we've made
throughout the evening and then
the person at the door gets a flat six dollar rate
for the evening for working the door
from every dancer.
Uh, when we do table dances,
table dances last for five minutes a piece on the floor
the table dances cost $10 and in the VIP lounge,
the table dances cost $20 and then beyond the lounge
in the private VIP rooms, there are...
The costs start at $140 for 15 minutes
where $40 goes to the house
and $100 goes to the dancer.
For a half hour, $65 goes to the house
and $200 goes to the dancer
and upwards of $75 goes to the house for an hour
and $400 to the dancer.
It takes a dollar bill
first walk to the big stage, slide it in their armband.
They're more than happy to take their clothes off for you.
Once a stripper, always a stripper
in a lot of people's books, man.
My ex-wife is a stripper and she is just
the epitome of a stripper.
She is out for money,
whatever you can get, she needs a rich guy.
That's why we ain't together
because I'm not rich enough for her.
What's up, guys?
I uh, just rolled into work,
it's almost eight o'clock.
Grabbing all my junk out of my car.
Oh, I need armbands
or else I can't work.
The city of Atlanta has these really stupid rules.
Lots of them.
One of them is our garter can't be on the legs,
it has to be on the arms.
Too close to the private areas, I guess.
They come in here and fine the club a thousand dollars
for every improper tip to the garter.
At one point in time we had a situation
that required a little attention, legally,
and they tried to use that as the basis
to pull the liquor license for the club,
which would really hamper our business.
Another crazy night.
Lookin' forward to it.
See you inside.
What's up?
What's up, superstar?
Mr. Charlie!
Hi, my name's Justin Winchell.
I used to manage Tiffany's,
which is our sister club down the street,
which is a female strip club.
And started working at Swinging Richards
and was intermittently a GM here.
But this is definitely its own show.
There's a lot going on here that's uh...
You know, there's really nothing else like it.
I've seen a lot of things and I've done a lot of things,
all around the world and all around the United States
and there is no other place like Swinging Richards.
It's definitely an item of its own.
Hey there, my name's Billy Sandberg.
I've been working here at Swinging Richards,
I guess since November of 2007.
We're definitely a showplace, you may say
and come here on any given night
and you will see some crazy things
that you will not see anywhere else.
We pack 'em in and we make sure
that everybody has a good time
and are cocktailed and that you can see,
um, what we like to call "the helicopter" a lot.
Every dancer that works there is unique in their own way
and they all have their own story
and they all have...
They all have their reasons as for why they're there.
I love being a father.
He's changed my life, you know.
When I first started working here a long time ago
is when I first had him
and the fatherhood hadn't set in yet, you know.
He was like nine months old,
parents and everybody's helping take care of him,
you know, I'm up here, you know or working.
I had a full-time job then, too
and I was working this and utilizing this
for the weekends.
But once she fell off the map, I realized
somebody's gotta step up and take care of him.
My family can't do it.
I wouldn't, I'm too egotistical of a man
to have somebody else raise my kid, you know.
I'm the guy who's like, I don't wanna ask for help
until it's fucking right at the very end
and I'm about to fuck everything up, you know.
Money shouldn't be an issue to a five year old
and nowadays how fucking mean kids are
and how they pick on you.
You know, if you're not wearing designer shit
at age seven, you're getting ragged on.
Times have changed big time.
I just want to make sure that I provide for him
the best I can, you know?
And in order to do that right now,
I gotta take off my clothes for money.
Well, what do you want, my stage name?
Pierce.
I dance by Pierce, my name's Michael.
I've been here for 15 months.
I was born in the States,
I grew up in South America
and then my dad passed away and I moved here.
I moved, like, probably nine times before I was 10.
My personality was never developed in a single locality,
so I ended up a mutt of cultures.
You know, I got dual culture,
but then I got to experience different living areas
and you know, I didn't grow up with a dad,
so it was difficult for me as a child.
I was in the Marine Corps for eight years,
honorably discharged.
Went to Iraq and Afghanistan.
About to finish my degree in biology,
biochemistry focus, pre-med.
It fills a purpose for me, you know?
Trying to go to med school is not cheap.
This provides a pretty comfortable living
and you get a lot of fun out of it.
You can do well easily,
make more than a thousand dollars in a night.
This is one of those things that's always been
kinda taboo.
People think all dancers are dumbasses,
we're all just sexual objects or pieces of meat.
I don't like that at all.
I consider myself intelligent.
I'm driven, I've got desires and goals
and plans and this is a good bridge,
but I don't want while I'm here to make it more than that.
I want it to be something representative
of how I feel for people.
My name's Alex Meyer, Troy is my stage name.
I moved up to Atlanta.
My girlfriend's a dancer.
She said, "Hey, you got a hot body, you should go dance."
so I did so.
I currently go to Macon State at Warner Robins
and I'm doing it for business and finance,
trying to further my education.
This is a good place to get extra cash,
give you the money to support yourself
while you're going to school.
All right, you go make money, bitches!
Yeah, no, you gotta do it like this.
Hey, you gotta...
Oh, okay.
Well, let me start over.
Yeah, you gotta.
Let's go make money, bitches!
Hell yeah!
Woo-hoo!
I do it 'cause it makes good money
and it fills a void.
Whatever that void may be.
This is my little baby, Zeus, right here,
that I like to drift.
It's like dragging, but basically sideways.
Life's too boring if you sit in one place.
You only live once, so,
you know, why not?
It's a big question.
Why not do certain things, why not go sideways,
and why not have a blast?
That's why I work here
and that's why I drive my baby, Zeus.
That's why I like to take my clothes off,
so it all makes for a fun life
and I enjoy it every day.
It's not what you would think, you know?
I had the typical Chippendale idea in my head
and it's not like that.
It's not g-strings, you know,
it's just a whole bunch of cool guys
really just kind of getting down, just making money.
I was actually recommended to come work here
by another female stripper that works
at a club in Atlanta.
She had been telling me to do it,
her and all her girlfriends were strippers,
they were buddies of mine that grew up
and turned stripper.
I was hesitant to do it,
'cause I'm not a big, muscular man or nothin' like that.
You know, I don't have this giant wang on me or nothin'.
But when I came up here and interviewed and everything,
which was weird as hell.
The interview is literally you drop your pants
and you're either hired or fired at that moment.
It's kinda weird.
Been on a lot of interviews, never another one like that.
We have what we call our "yard dick."
So when people come in here to ask
if we need any dancers hired or anything,
we tell them to drop it immediately.
And as you can see, as it goes down through the line,
my favorite is number eleven, which is "mule cock."
This is definitely a high priority on the hiring list.
This is my board, this is where the dancers sign in.
We used to write their names down,
but then the dancer's constantly,
"When am I going up, when am I going up?"
not that they don't do it now.
I mean, it's old-fashioned,
we keep track of it with a little clip here
of who's going up next.
We use Velcro because when you're up in the DJ booth
and your back's turned,
the dancers like to switch their name
and this kinda helps me.
I hear that sound of them switching their name.
A lot of dancers don't like going out with other dancers,
you know, "They got bigger dicks, they're bigger than me.
"They look like my type, they make more money than me."
So if they switch their name,
then all of a sudden somebody else is upset,
then this person's upset.
So that was Knight switching his name over there.
Knight likes to fluff himself in the back,
get his dick as big as possible without being hard,
because it'd be illegal.
But now most of the dancers don't wanna go up with him
on stage because, I mean honestly, it's like...
This hangin' down
and you watch, here in the next ten minutes
somebody's gonna bitch they have to go on stage with him.
Woo!
- Okay. - Hold on.
All right, I'm gonna have to talk to this bitch.
It is a giant kinder care.
It's stuck on your titty!
I dropped the ball.
Shut up!
Oh!
You drop the ball every time.
Only in your court.
It's like running a female strip club
and I hate to say it, the guys are a lot of times worse
than running the girls.
It's a gay environment,
but you do get women coming here.
Some of your dancers are gay, some of them are straight.
The straight ones, you know,
if they're having a bad night
tend to go towards the women.
So we get more women in here.
So then it's my job to make fun of the women
on the microphone, which I enjoy doing.
The three fat girls at the end of the stage
not tipping the dancers, ladies,
come on, if there's three of you,
you can't afford a dollar bill,
what the fuck are you here for?
There is no five dollar foot long special
here at Swinging Richards.
We charge by the inch!
What do I love most about coming to Swinging Richards?
I think the fact that you can have a good time
and not feel judged,
whether you're a male or female, gay or straight,
it's just nice to come to a place like this
'cause you don't have to be necessarily this or that.
Whether I dance for a man, a woman,
it makes no difference at all.
I am an entertainer to the soul,
to the core of who I am.
As a musician, when I perform for an audience,
it doesn't matter whether there are
men or women in the audience,
it doesn't matter whether there are men or women
watching me take my clothes off.
Certainly, it's no crime
to be attracted to naked men.
You have the most interesting people
that come through the door,
to the most famous people that have come through the door.
It's a cool job.
You get a lot of networking.
You meet all sorts of different individuals.
You got your trust fund babies to sugar mamas
to sugar daddies from every walk of life.
Like I was telling you earlier, you get some crazy people.
For that reason I tend to avoid the wrong type of person
here, 'cause you can find plenty of them.
You run into so many fucking characters in here,
you don't know who's real or who's fake.
Hoo-whee, some of the shit people say in your ear
is fucking just...
It's hard to bear.
You know, I've had some customers come up to me
and say some pretty explicit things.
You find yourself reminding the customers quite often
that, you know, there are still boundaries.
There are still boundaries, this is still a place of work.
It is a place of fantasy,
but the fantasy does have guidelines.
It's a hit or miss type of thing, you know?
It's either who lucks out or who hustles the most.
I'm not a hustler, so I kind of gotta wait
for somebody to just pick me and give me some money.
There are going to be customers
that are going to try and
create a fantasy situation,
they're going to say things that are sometimes shocking.
And you know, you have to learn that it's just role play.
On the floor of Swinging Richards, of course,
we have a lot of rules in place to keep things in order.
Of course in an environment like this,
where you have alcohol and you have the appearance
of sex being sold, and so many other things,
you know, nudity and...
You know, we got all the candy here.
But there are so many things and so many opportunities
for things to get out of control
that we like to preemptively, I guess,
smack 'em over the head and get 'em right
before they go wrong.
In that we have security guards in place
that monitor the floor, as well as myself
and other managers that patrol the floor,
make sure customers aren't touching the dancers.
Just basically monitoring things,
looking for drug use, excessive drinking,
that sort of thing.
Because those are essentially the things
that tend to ignite most of the fires
that possibly could happen in an average night here.
There's a lot of responsibility that goes along
with being an erotic dancer.
You know, you're not allowed to touch us,
we're up here, we're on stage and we're nude.
We run a pretty tight ship in monitoring the floor
at all times and we definitely hold dancer meetings
where we address certain issues
and time pertinent issues with the dancers themselves.
Going over rules such as how they're supposed to interact
with customers, what's appropriate, what's not.
You have to be able to control your environment.
You gotta take it with a grain of salt.
It doesn't mean anything it's just fun.
It's just people coming in to...
It's fantasy.
It's just fantasy camp, it's not anything other than that.
And along with creating that,
you just have a lot of fun flirting
and getting to know people.
Then once you break down those barriers
and you get to know them,
then it becomes real.
Then they're not even saying explicit things
to you anymore.
They start talking about their life
and their kids and their wives
and wives coming in their with their husbands
and they're talking about each other
and they open up to you about their interaction
with one another.
And they kind of share with you
and they kind of vent to one another
but with a third person there.
Almost like a therapist.
You fulfill a certain void to some people,
you create some great platonic relationships.
Sometimes you run into some relationships
that might end up being not so platonic,
so you have to be careful and pick and choose.
Some of the experiences that we go through up here
are pretty wild, definitely.
It's actually pretty cool, though, man, really.
All said and done.
Working at Swinging Richards has been so great
because it's allowed me
to become aware of myself
and in doing so, it's allowed me to learn
how to approach complete strangers
and still maintain a level of comfort
between two people that have never met before.
Here you create a fulfillment of fantasy, enjoyment.
You get to be the reason behind a smile for somebody.
Essentially your older crew's gonna basically
know how to act
and they essentially, some of them,
teach the other dancers, you know,
how to get money in certain ways
that are wholesome or kosher.
So you don't step outside the rules.
You know, I think when somebody decides
to start dancing or make that decision in their life,
they can go about it A: the wrong way
or B: the right way.
You use this shit?
You know, when I first worked here, man,
it was really intimidating, I'll give you that.
It was hard to work here and get in the groove.
Everybody kind of filled my head
with a lot of different stuff,
but I found my own way and learned how to
make my own money and do my own thing
and go off on my own adventure while working here.
Dylan on backstage up next.
I'll have dancers come and approach me
in the locker room and they'll say,
"Hey, I had this guy and he did this
and he put his hands on me this way,
in a certain way and he held me
and I couldn't get away from him."
And I'm like, "Well, this is how you deal
with that situation."
And for every situation there's a different way to...
There's a different possibility.
It's not the only way.
They learn something about themselves.
Like, oh, okay, I can take this situation
and control it and still be respectful
and still allow the customer to have a good time
and in the process have a good time myself.
It takes a person with tact, intelligence,
and a good personality, I think,
is kind of what lays the foundation.
You know, you gotta have the meat, of course,
and the looks, but you know,
to really be a good entertainer,
you really need to know what you're doing
when you're interacting with your customers,
where do you draw the line to make your money?
There are just etiquettes in socializing with customers
and respecting when another entertainer
is engaged with certain members of the audience
and it's all about timing,
it's all about when you approach a customer
or how you approach a customer
and how you respect the bounds of certain dancers
and recognizing exactly what...
How another entertainer is
setting up their approach to members of the audience
to engage them and to interact with them
and to do table dances
and to create opportunities to go into the VIP rooms.
My name is David Ohmann.
I'm the assistant manager here at Swinging Richards.
A little bit about our entertainers at Swinging Richards
and the other adult entertainers in the city of Atlanta,
they are all subcontract employees.
They don't receive a paycheck from the house,
they actually pay to work here.
Dancers don't get written paychecks.
We actually pay the club to work there.
We're more like hairstylists,
where we rent a booth, you know?
But we rent the whole floor.
We pay them every night to work.
The city is who permits us
with an adult entertainment permit is what it's called.
To take your clothes off, basically.
They know that we ain't gonna pay taxes
on the amount of money that we make.
Half those dancers up there, like a good one,
probably makes a minimum of 70,000 dollars a year.
Different people come into this job
for different reasons.
Sometimes they just need money for school,
sometimes they're exploring their sexuality.
Oh, yeah, I sleep with mostly women,
but hey, who's not curious about both sex, you know?
That's what makes life interesting.
We're like a big dysfunctional family.
It's weird.
You know, I mean, you got gay brothers
and straight brothers that say they're straight,
but they're really gay in my book.
And it's like, well, whatever.
You know, whatever floats your boat.
You can do whatever the fuck you want to.
You know, I don't judge people.
My name is Dallas, I am a performer,
I use the word performer,
and a dancer here at Swinging Richards.
My sexuality is one that I keep to myself.
I mean, I don't want everybody knowing my sexuality,
'cause hey, I like to make everybody think I'm open.
Whether I'm gay or whether I'm straight,
it doesn't matter.
When I come into this club, I'm here for a purpose.
I'm here, to put it in a nutshell,
to be very blunt about it, 'cause that's the person I am,
I'm here to make money.
I'm not a good hustler, you know?
There are some guys here that have got a good mouthpiece.
They can make a lotta money just because
they can talk.
It's like they can talk a wallet open.
And when you talk a wallet open, out pours the money.
That's not me.
I make my money by personality.
So, you know, I build a social intimacy with people.
I'm very big on respect
and the reason I'm not very good at hustling
is 'cause I can't belittle someone
and treat them like a dollar bill
because I don't wanna be treated like a piece of meat.
Every stripper's a hustler.
They're out for money, they're out for something.
Back in the day, you'd make $1700 in a night
without trying.
Now you make $150.
To me it's not worth it.
These guys, that's all they see is $150
and it's like, "Oh, sure that's good money."
I'm like, fuck it, you're out of your mind.
You know, it's not good money, not for what you're doing.
You're taking your clothes off for money.
It's a very unique job.
It's got its pros, it definitely has its cons.
The relationship I'm in right now, met a new girl,
she's probably the best girl I've ever met,
relationship-wise, you know.
She's genuine, really, really, really good person
and this right here is a big conflict.
So I mean, I'm stuck right now between the decision of
making it with her, having something,
fulfilling my life,
or temporary fulfillment by money.
This place desensitizes you towards sex.
So like, it ruins your sex life in a sense,
because you think of people differently.
That's like all they want of you, you know?
My girlfriend comes up and she wants me
and we roll around in the bed,
which any typical guy'd be fuckin' just...
Excited, ready to go all the time
and it's like, she's like, "Why aren't you hard?"
I'm like, well, shit this is nothin' to me.
I rub up on people like this all the time.
It doesn't arouse me like it should
and that sucks.
That sucks big time, you know?
Now, I mean, don't get me wrong, I can, you know...
I can still perform,
but the defamation of your character here
is just horrible.
Letting people fuckin' look at you like that
and talk to you the way they do, man.
I mean, that's really what does it for me.
It's not for the weak-minded.
It's good if you use this as a bridge.
Some of these guys don't really,
so I feel for them.
It's a delicate balance, you know.
You could let it go too far, it could consume you.
Just like recently, you know,
one of our dancers passed away.
Pretty much a drug overdose
and at the same time just abuse of alcohol
and things like that
and you know, this environment can really consume you.
We are a close knit family here,
as strange as that sounds.
One of our family members, whose name is Dustin,
he passed away this week.
He had been with us for several years off and on.
Dustin's thing.
Yeah, I want to.
What time does it start?
Uh, it's five o'clock in Noonan.
Five o'clock in Noonan?
Is he gonna let us...
Is he gonna waiver our late fee, late shit?
Unfortunately, Dustin lost his life this week.
It's been very hard for all of us.
Once again, you guys, we're here to honor
a great friend of ours, he died this week.
We love him a lot, we miss him a lot.
He was a great person.
It's a shame he's departed.
We're always gonna remember him.
Those of you who knew him and loved him,
you know who this is about.
The bonds that are formed here
go way beyond tipping dollars in the armbands.
We'll miss him a lot.
Today was a day where we had one of our own,
a very good friend to most of us,
'cause all of us are really close,
he died this week.
His name was Dustin.
Great guy, we loved him.
Today was his memorial service.
We basically said our goodbyes.
It was a hard day for all of us,
but we all realize that death is a part of life
and instead of trying to mourn his death,
we all try to celebrate his life.
This one's for you, Dustin.
They love you.
They love the bar, they love their friends.
All right, guys, give it up for Dustin!
We love that man, we miss him a lot.
Every day, I come up here,
I try to be a fantasy for my patrons, you know,
my buddies and my boys.
Then we get there and it's a lot more respectful.
I'm always the hype one, always happy.
I'm excited, I always want to run around,
I'm the one doing backflips
and the one jumpin' off the wall.
I'm the one just making shit happen.
Get there I gotta be calm.
You know, I gotta slow down, pay my respects
to a man who I respected a lot.
With the dancers, they unite and they come together
and they talk about their lives with one another.
It's like family.
You're in the locker room at the beginning of the night
every single evening and you know, guys are walking in
and they're taking showers and they're shaving
and they're getting ready for the evening
and they're talking about their day.
And you just end up engaging in conversation,
getting to know one another.
So just by being around one another
you get to talk and learn about who the other guys are.
It's almost like being on a baseball team
or a football team or basketball team
and you're in the locker room and then...
You know, some guys coming off the floor
and then some more guys go out
and you're all going out to play.
You're all on the court.
You all go back out on the field at one point or another.
And I think you get that back there
in a room full of 40 or 50 guys,
you get so much compassion and so much sharing
and in those moments, you bond.
You gain that camaraderie and that brotherhood.
And I guess it can be really therapeutic in that sense.
It becomes difficult outside of here, you know?
When I'm personally out based upon the crowd I'm in
and the atmosphere that I'm at...
I mean it depends on if I'm telling people what I really do.
And I don't like that idea in the back of my head.
I like to be comfortable with expressing myself
and telling people what I got going on.
You know, I don't hide nothin' from nobody,
I got nothing to hide.
My kid knows I work at night.
He thinks I work security.
He's five years old and I don't like lying to him.
I mean, it ain't none of his business, really,
right now he's five, but, you know...
I mean, I remember shit from when I was five.
I don't wanna, I don't know,
it's just not right to lie to people like that.
I don't know.
I mean, my mom knows, but I mean, shit.
I mean, you can't just tell everyone.
Like, "Hey, what do you do?"
Yeah, I tell them I work at a bar.
You know, until I get a feel for how they're gonna think
of what I do, I don't want them to be like,
"Oh, my god, you're a male stripper!"
Most people may feel a little out of place, you know?
They may not...
Me, I don't.
When I come in here, I'm the same person
as when I'm outside of here.
I'm me, I'm Dallas.
I do what I do, I am who I am.
If you don't like it, you don't like it.
If you love me, hey, you got a reason to love me.
It's defaming to my character
and that's where it hurts me,
is the fact that if I tell somebody,
"Well, what do you do if you're working at night
and you got a day job, what do you do?"
"Uh, well, I'm in the entertainment industry."
And they look at me like I'm full of shit
or they look at me like,
"What kinda entertainment industry are you talkin'"
They want a little bit more detailed description
of what I'm doing and then I usually lie
and say I work security at a club.
And you know, I'm not a liar,
so as soon as it happens, they're like,
"Oh, he's full of shit."
Well now their imagination is just roaming
and there's so many other worse possibilities
than being a male dancer.
My parents know that I dance,
that I pursue a career as a musician.
They support me 100%.
I'm not gonna give you an opportunity
to see me outside of here and see a different side of me
where you can judge me in a different way.
I stay who I am.
You know, I'm a very honest, a very blunt,
a very forward person.
I'm that way in and out of this club.
I am who I am.
When I say something, I mean it.
And that doesn't go for just inside this club.
I am not single, I do have a significant other.
That person knows exactly what I do
and is perfectly okay with it.
And the rest of my family knows what I do.
People ask questions, you get made fun of a lot.
You know, especially working at a gay strip club
and being a straight guy.
It's like, oh well, you can't be that straight.
And I'm like, well, you know I mean...
It's either straight or gay with me, you know.
I don't suck dick, I don't get my dick sucked,
and I don't have sex with men.
It's like complicated.
I'm just confused as hell right now
about the whole being a stripper thing.
I think it's time me and the stripper life part ways.
I don't want to make it sound
like strippers are bad and all that,
but it's a different lifestyle.
We got 36 hot boys in the house.
Now looking for...
You know, one day I'll look back
and I'll say I did this,
but still, it's like, who the fuck you gonna tell?
You know what I mean?
They'll still defame you...
Once a stripper, always a stripper
in a lot of people's books.
One thing we do here at Swinging Richards
to ensure the safety of our dancers at the end of the night
is require them to take an Intoxilyzer test
to test their blood alcohol level,
make sure that they're safe to get on the road
and get home.
My name is Steven Marchi
and the mosquitos are out tonight.
And this right here, this is a mock demo
that I produced in my own studio.
This would be actually the cover of my album.
It's titled 'This Moment.'
Atlanta has Swinging Richards
and that's a great draw for me.
It's just a very warm, inviting city.
And it's beautiful.
The landscape is beautiful, the city's beautiful.
But Atlanta has a great music scene.
I've met a lot of amazing musicians in this town.
It's a really peaceful place to be.
It definitely feels like home to me.
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.
So it's my day off from the club and everything
and I'm actually up here at an exposition
at the Cobb Galleria outside of Atlanta
for a fighting convention.
Actually looking for a different gym to go to
to train in, further my training in Muay Thai and jujitsu.
While I was here, they have a jujitsu tournament going on,
which a lot of the guys at work,
we train and all fight together.
A lot of the dancers who have done previous sports,
such as wrestling in high school,
they left it behind them.
Like myself, I was a two-time state champion.
Devon, he got fourth in state.
Pierce won state, Samson won state.
A lot of people who, you know, the high school events
that stayed behind, now we're training in more of,
I guess an adult sport for fighting
or MMA, mixed martial arts,
which is a combination of all different types of fighting.
There's not that many fight gyms here in Atlanta,
so with the slight few that there are,
we end up fighting with each other
and training with each other.
Today I went searching for a job,
got my tie right here to try to look all fancy.
My kid just started going back to school.
I have him Monday to Friday,
so working nights are kinda out of the question,
because it's really hard to find a babysitter
that'll hang out from eight o'clock
until three in the morning and then go home.
You know, 'cause I don't want them there.
They gotta go.
I've been in and out of this city,
traveling with my music and playing gigs
and then back to Atlanta and working at Swinging Richards.
Obviously, I think it's great.
People that have gotten to know me
and know that I've been pursuing music as a career,
they ask me, "How come you're still here?"
And the simple reason is because I can be.
What other job opportunity
allows you to come and go as you please?
And just by simply saying, hey, I need to take off
for a month or I need to take off for two months
because I need to go out and book shows,
or because I have a group of venues
that I'm going to be performing in,
I have to travel across country.
What other job allows you to do that
and then when you come back into town you still have a job?
It's such an amazing freedom
that I've been able to obtain working at Richards.
I just can't...
It's beyond gratitude.
It's not where I imagined myself being
at 26 years old, you know, with a five year old son.
I kind of need something a little bit more stable.
The reason I'm dressed like this today
is 'cause I'm actually out looking for
a more of a corporate job.
So this is where my career got started right here.
I used to manage this warehouse.
This is my dad's retail division
flooring and tile superstore.
This is what I used to do and stuff in here.
I actually built all this shit.
Everything you see in here was built by me.
All those carpets right there,
I used to roll them up.
It was a pain in the ass.
When I first was employed with Richards,
I was 21 years old
and my family had found out then
and was not as shocked as I was kinda hoping they'd be,
really.
The second go-around, they weren't as happy.
Just because of where I came from,
but it was more understandable because,
it's like, shit, you gotta make money, you know?
I mean you got a mortgage and utilities
and the fucking car payment.
You know, got my son to provide for and everything.
So they knew...
You know, it's like I wasn't trying to make
a career out of it for the rest of my life,
but at least it shows that I'm willing to do
what I gotta do right now.
The club never impedes on my life because it's a job.
Just like when people go to work,
when they leave work, they leave work at work.
That's just how it is.
Now, I may meet with clients or whatever
that I'll go have lunch with or dinner with
or stuff like that.
But that's just, it is what it is.
It never impedes on my life.
The freedom that I've achieved
being a part of this industry
and learning about the community that I'm in,
priceless.
How amazing for me that I get to
engage with an audience
and be able to have that effect, that impact in their life.
That's, I mean, that's a passion of mine
and it just so happens that it's attached
with being an erotic dancer
and it's attached to being a singer songwriter
and a musician.
I think I would only have the right to be afraid
if I was ashamed of what I was doing
and I'm not ashamed of what I do.
That's why I'm not affected by what people think
of what I do as a dancer
or what I do as a musician.
As long as my efforts are to make everyone else's life,
you know, an enjoyable event
and I share that with them,
I'm gold in my book.
Back when I was 21 years old
and I'd first started stripping,
one, the morale of the club was different.
The group of dancers were so much different.
It wasn't so...
Everybody wasn't so money hungry.
It's different strokes for different folks
in a place like that, big time.
Because you've got customers
that like to be hustled, knowing they're being hustled,
and they're just okay with it.
Then you got the people who like the softer guy
who's, you know, "Oh yeah, it's not about the money,
it's not about this."
Even when everybody fuckin' knows it's about the money.
First time I was ever dancing at Swinging Richards,
I was fine.
I've always been the center of attention,
I've always wanted to make sure everybody was looking at me.
It just made it easier.
When I worked at Richards the first time,
I was pretty much willing to do whatever it took
to make that dollar right then.
You know, that dollar that's in your face,
that you know you can get it,
you know you're gonna be a fuckin' idiot
if you don't walk away with this money.
So whatever it takes to get that money
out of their pocket and into your pocket,
you're gonna do.
Well, the second go-round, I've learned
that money is not that important.
The one thing that led me back into Swinging Richards
was the fact that I had lost my job
and we had...
I mean, I didn't have any source of income coming in.
I was instilled with, when I was making
a couple of bad decisions when my kid was first born,
my father told me, he said,
"When it's decision making time," he said,
"Just think about it like what would your son
want you to do?
If your son was right there watching you
make these decisions,
how would you present yourself to him?"
And you know, that has been instilled in me ever since then.
I can't fuck up now,
because every time I get in the position
to make a bad decision, I'm thinking,
what's my son thinking?
What would he want me to do?
How would a genuine kid like that
want his father to respond in this situation?
And obviously my kid's not gonna want me to do
half the shit that you do in there for money.
It's what I do.
It's what I'm comfortable with.
It's who I am
and if somebody's going to judge me for that,
let them judge me.
I mean, people are going to judge you
every single day of your life.
But I'm just outspoken
and I tend to use this philosophy that I don't care.
I do care, I just apply tact where it needs to be applied
and sometimes it doesn't need to be applied.
In many ways, this kind of environment can be one of those
places where it doesn't need to be applied at all.
I feel that I'm very, uh...
Very fortunate to be able to work in an environment
that feels so natural to me.
You know, I enjoy interacting with my audience.
I enjoy meeting new people.
I enjoy exposing people to themselves
and helping them understand and accept themselves.
That's why we're here, on this Earth.
To grow internally, spiritually.
To learn about who we are
and what our abilities are
and what we're capable of.
And then turn around and share that with others.
It's definitely something, though,
that when I'm 40 I will definitely look back
and be like, what the fuck, you know?
I mean, I used to swing on a fuckin' pole.
Not that much, but you know.
Definitely been on the pole once or twice.
As the oldest employee of Swinging Richards,
I have to stand my ground
and let the professionals do what they do best.
So I'm extremely old fashioned.
I do what I love and I love what I do.
You can't live your life unless you're doing that.
Can't do this forever.
Unless you're Steven.
'Cause he looks good when he's 40.
I didn't say that on camera!
36... 32.
- 36. - 27!
27 for the 19th time.
Anyway, um...
I'm kidding.
You know your heart.
If you know your mind and you achieve to learn
and grow every day,
I don't think there's anything that becomes
more empowering in life than that.
Just, uh...
Just something that's part of my life.
The old showbiz phrase of always...
Always leave them wanting more.