I turned off Highway 50 and up the steep, winding road that leads to the Bunny Ranch around 5 o'clock. A inauspicious, homemade sign leads the way; the sort of marker you'd typically see pointing towards a car wash fundraiser for a local high school marching band. It's a lonely, gravel road a few hours before sunset on a Friday. Nothing but overgrown patches of brown grass and a worn-out auto-body shop along the way. At one time, at least, the cautionary sign below greeted visitors as they made the trek.

The grounds of the Bunny Ranch are much better kept. The view from up there looks over the golden valley down below. A sign attached to the cargo hold of a truck features two of the ranch's employees besides pastel words that scream "WORLD FAMOUS BUNNY RANCH! AS SEEN ON THE HIT HBO TELEVISION SHOW, CATHOUSE!" The parking lot was mostly empty and quiet. There were few signs of life, with the exception of a bored driver reading a magazine in a limousine parked by the side entrance.

The Bunny Ranch is the color of sand, sterile, with a white security that runs around the perimeter. There's no neon offering "HOT, LEGAL SEX!" or anything like that. The only bit of flare on the building itself is a few pink tiles over the front porch. I made the mistake of going to the side entrance, which is reserved for VIPs eager to avoid the eyes of the public. A voice in a speaker-box said it would buzz me in through the front gate.

TOUR THE GROUNDS UNTIL YOU FEEL AT HOME


A madam greeted me on the front porch. Somewhere north of 50, she was conservatively dressed with bleach-blond hair stretching down her back. Her skin looked like it had jumped out of a tanning bed and onto to her body just seconds before she opened the front door. The foyer looked like the waiting area in a Planet Hollywood with glistening, black tile and plush benches. She handed me a glossy brochure along with an "erotic menu" describing what the employees of the Ranch would and would not be willing to do. As I glanced through it, she told me what would happen next.

"Ok, in a minute I'll bring out the girls. They'll introduce themselves. You take your pick and she'll give you a tour of the grounds. Or, if you would prefer, you can head straight to her room." Each prostitute at the ranch has their own room with a large bed, an HDTV and a private bathroom and shower. "Remember, the tour is free," the madam told me. "You're not obligated to have sex if you don't want to but you can't discuss prices or what you're looking for until you're behind closed doors. This is Nevada state law."

Before I could process these words or the menu, the madam stepped into the adjoining bar area and returned with a dozen scantily clad women. My brain shot a jolt of culture-shock down my spine. I felt like Bashful suddenly presented with a dozen busty Snow Whites. I blushed, fought against a nervous smile and tried to avoid eye contact while maintaining some semblance of calm. "Stay frosty," I told myself as the urge to flee hit. "Remember, you're a professional journalist blogger-type person. If you can survive butting elbows with the Hollywood press and ghost attacks in haunted hotels, you can handle a dozen women who would love to drain both your genitals and your bank account."

Most of them were in their 20s. A few had a natural, co-ed look about them while the rest resembled porn stars. Lots of breast augmentation, Collagen lips and Botox-soaked cheeks in this line-up. One lady, who had endured more than her fair share of plastic surgery, looked like a buxom space alien--- somewhere between Joan Rivers and one of the Visitors from V. I can't imagine what they thought of me, dressed in jeans, hiking boots and a Threadless t-shirt. I had come to Nevada dressed for Burning Man, not a trip to a brothel. Was I some slovenly internet millionaire from the Bay area or a college student from Oregon? Who can tell these days?

The looks in their eyes ranged from quiet desperation to a hungry twinkle worthy of a stockbroker about to unleash a Ponzi Scheme on a client. Each of the women introduced themselves briefly, like contestants on the first episode of a reality show. I nodded politely to them and said hello, feeling like a total sleaze ball all the while. I picked the least intimidating woman in the line-up, "Jane" (neither her real or her professional name), a gal in her early 20s who strongly resembled Meadow on The Sopranos. She was dressed in a pair of skimpy shorts and lacy negligee.

The rest of ladies returned to a small den filled with velvet couches and began chatting as Jane led me over to the bar. Its many bottles glowed red like the dying embers of a campfire in hell. She showed me a row of photos of various celebs who had visited the Ranch (and were willing to have their photos taken). Shots of Ron Jeremy and "Bridget the Midget" were prominently displayed. She's been known to work at the Ranch but apparently had the night off. Across from the bar was a display case filled with sexual toys available for purchase. Jane offered her opinion on the best anal beads in the bunch.

The interior of the Ranch is a mishmash of softly-lit corridors lined with leopard-skin carpets. All in all, it feels like the whorehouse-equivalent of the Winchester Mansion. Jane escorted me out into a concrete courtyard with a hot tub tucked up against a wall. Across the way was a small office, shut for the night. "All of us are required, under Nevada law, to have regular check-ups for sexually transmitted diseases," she told me. A staircase on the other end of the courtyard led up to what she described as a "lagoon." "Yeah, things get pretty wild up there around 3 AM on the weekends."

THE SALES PITCH


Jane led me to her room. A plush bed took up most of the interior, leaving little space for a long, oak dresser. I didn't want to be in there but there was something I had to know: "how much does this girl make an hour?" Jane jumped on the bed and glanced at the Facebook news feed on her laptop. She apologized and followed this up with a text on her cell phone.

I didn't want to waste too much of her time but, on the other hand, it was early in the evening and I figured the place would probably be a ghost town for the next few hours. I suddenly flashed to Holden Caufield's awkward encounter with a prostitute in The Catcher in the Rye

"Ok," she said, closing her cell phone with a loud snap. "Come over here and have a seat."

I could have broken out the "Sorry, I'm Just Here to Garner Fodder for My Blog" excuse but I thought up a trump card on the drive over: the "I'm a Poor College Student. All I've Got on Me is a Hundred Bucks" excuse. No self-respecting prostitute at one of the world's most famous brothels was going to even shake my hand for that kind of scratch. This was my "Get Out of the Whorehouse Free" card.

I took a seat next to her on the bed and she immediately got down to the nitty-gritty. "So, what kind of a budget are you working with?"

"Actually, I'm a college student in Portland. All I've got with me is a hundred dollars."

"Oh, well, we do take Mastercard and Visa."

"I'm afraid I'm living on a budget these days. I'm heading off to Europe after Burning Man too."

"The lowest I can go is $300, actually, and that would be for the first fifteen minutes." I suspected that Jane was still thinking she was going to make a sale. "30 minutes runs $500. For $1200, anything goes. Hot tubs, playing doctor, anal, toys....you name it."

The United States is in the middle of a deep recession but this woman can still make $1200 in a few hours of getting kinky with a stethoscope. What a country we live in! Now I knew why the Visitor in the lobby was still working at the Ranch and willing to endure the knives of countless plastic surgeons.

"This is probably your first term in a brothel, right," Jane asked with a gentle smile.

"Yeah, we don't have these things back in Oregon," I stuttered, suddenly feeling like an Anthony Michael Hall character in a John Hughes movie. "Well, not the legal kind but...er, yeah..."

Despite the clear fact that she was getting nowhere slow, Jane was willing to keep chatting and launched into a history lesson on both the Bunny Ranch and legalized prostitution in Nevada. It was clear that this girl had a head on her shoulders and was a far cry from a bimbo. So what was she doing at the Bunny Ranch? Despite the great pay, a lot of women would never even think of going into this profession. I launched into reporter mode...


THE LIFE OF A WORKING PROSTITUTE IN NEVADA


"I work a 12 hour shift out here," Jane told me. "Four days a week. I'm considered an independent contractor."

"Sorry if I'm being blunt but why are you doing this for a living," I asked. She didn't even blink an eye.

"You know what? Before this, I was a manager in a restaurant. I probably don't need to tell you that I make a lot more money here at the Ranch than I did back there. I choose the hours I work and it's much more fun than having to deal with customers pissed off about lukewarm onion rings."

"I like sex and I like having sex," she continued. "I can turn down any client I want. If I don't like the look of someone or I feel uncomfortable, I politely turn them down. They usually return to the lobby, find another girl and wind up leaving here pretty satisfied."

Does she receive additional benefits or health insurance? "With the exception of the clinic checks, no." How much does the house take? Jane dished-out a detailed rundown of facts and figures but I wasn't about to break out a scratch pad to take it all down. An odd detail that I remembered later: if a taxi cab or a limo driver escorts a john to the ranch, a prostitute has to give them 30% of what they make.

I thanked Jane for her time. "No problem," she said, leading me back to the bar. "Keep us in mind when you graduate and get a career going, of course."

All in all, I was impressed with the place. It wasn't my bag but Jane was a class act. A total professional. When we got back to the bar, around eight gals were still chatting on the couches. "What happened," one of them asked.

"Sorry, guys," I said, trying to think fast and already eying the exit. "This place is just too classy and spendy for me. I'm a college guy, what can I say? Jane's great but she doesn't offer a student discount."

One of the gals bounced off the couch. "I offer a student discount!" The other gals cackled like a coven of witches. She rushed over to my side and took me by the hand. "You wanna come with me," she asked, already leading me off to her room.

Uh-oh. I hadn't planned for this.

To be continued....

Labels: hookers, Nevada, Vices

I wandered into line about 6:30 last night outside the Cinema 21. The show I had come for, the sixth annual HUMP! Amateur Porn Festival, had been sold out for days. Tickets went fast for all of this weekend's six screenings. I lucked out and managed to snag a rush ticket and was one of the last five "pervs" allowed into the theater. I managed to find a spot towards the back of the balcony and had to stand up the entire time.

I've been curious about the festival for a few years now. Given that HUMP! is sponsored by The Seattle Stranger and The Portland Mercury, I figured that the shorts would be closer in nature to a Suicide Girls spread than a RedTube video. And who comes to something like this? I figured the crowd would be comprised entirely of leering guys in trench-coats.

Actually, the audience was an even mix of men and women. An usher stood watch in a corner of the balcony, occasionally telling viewers not to sit in the aisles, but also watching to make sure no one got too "excited." A few times he ran over and a shined a light on people for reasons I don't really want to know about. He definitely kept a close eye on one couple that were sharing a seat.






The shorts themselves are mostly humorous. A film parodying Mad Men features a dead-on intro of a black silhouette tumbling from the Space Needle. Drained Balls involved a couple going at it on top of Robocop pinball machine. There's also The Coffee Boy, a send-up of porn cliches that also mocked Portland stereotypes. In this one, a delivery boy is seduced by a hipster girl in a studio apartment over near NW 23rd. In the middle of everything, she tears open a bag of ground coffee and flings it around the room. Another crowd favorite, The Nun and the Bum, involves a sister who takes who love for Jesus far past the point of piousness. And I should also mention "The Hotel Uranus," a Claymation film clogged with Play-Dough aliens merrily enjoying an orgy on an otherwise dull interstellar Saturday night.

Other selections fall flat. A short featuring a satanic baby is irritating and shocking for the sake of being shocking. "Attack of the Triple Ds" is incomprehensible and, worse yet, features 3-D that doesn't actually work. The festival's second short contains enough misogyny to fuel a entire Womens Studies thesis.

My favorite HUMP! short was the bittersweet "Hi, I'm Pon." It consisted of a series of snapshots set to an awesome, slow-build electronic soundtrack. What starts out as a series of sickly-sweet text messages and an ensuing Hallmark-esque relationship mutates into a tale of well-justified revenge after the protagonist discovers a lewd message on her boyfriend's phone. The last shot is perfect. Since you'll likely never get a chance to see this, I'll reveal it here. "Where's the cord for your digital camera?" "Why?" "Oh, there's some pictures I'd like to get off it."

I can see why tickets for the festival sold out quickly. Here's hoping next year's edition adds a few more screenings.

Labels: hipsters, sex, Vices

This no doubt lucrative enterprise is about to set up shop along SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, just a few doors down from the Dragon Herbarium. With a cantina already located between the two, this could become the West Hill's premiere controlled substances district. Whippets, Corona and bongs all within mere feet of one another. What more could you possibly need to weather the ongoing economic apocalypse, people?

Awesome. How badly do I want to get a photo of this sign on a t-shirt? Kinda badly. If you were to cut that sign it would probably bleed pure, unfiltered civic pride.

Labels: Vices

An excerpt from a fictional letter published by Reason magazine yesterday regarding the recent revelation that the Olympic champion enjoys a little marijuana every now and then....

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have, without a shred of evidence, beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

More here.

And another thing pot doesn't make people do? This.

(a quick thanks goes out to Sho for passing this one along)

Labels: sports, Vices

It's a Wonderful Life taught us all what happens every time a bell rings and A Colbert Christmas revealed what occurs when a bell drops. But what happens every time a Scratch-It addict buys one of these $2.00 Wonderful Life tickets and doesn't win jack squat? My best guess is that an angel rolls his eyes disdainfully.

If the mere existence of these Scratch-Its don't permanently tarnish a beloved holiday classic this NYT editorial from last week should do the trick. An excerpt:

Take the extended sequence in which George Bailey (James Stewart), having repeatedly tried and failed to escape Bedford Falls, N.Y., sees what it would be like had he never been born. The bucolic small town is replaced by a smoky, nightclub-filled, boogie-woogie-driven haven for showgirls and gamblers, who spill raucously out into the crowded sidewalks on Christmas Eve. It’s been renamed Pottersville, after the villainous Mr. Potter, Lionel Barrymore’s scheming financier.

Here’s the thing about Pottersville that struck me when I was 15: It looks like much more fun than stultifying Bedford Falls — the women are hot, the music swings, and the fun times go on all night. If anything, Pottersville captures just the type of excitement George had long been seeking.

And what about that banking issue? When he returns to the "real" Bedford Falls, George is saved by his friends, who open their wallets to cover an $8,000 shortfall at his savings and loan brought about when the evil Mr. Potter snatched a deposit mislaid by George's idiot uncle, Billy (Thomas Mitchell).

But isn’t George still liable for the missing funds, even if he has made restitution? I mean, if someone robs a bank, and then gives the money back, that person still robbed the bank, right?

I checked my theory with Frank J. Clark, the district attorney for Erie County upstate, where, as far as I can tell, the fictional Bedford Falls is set. He thought it over, and then agreed: George would still face prosecution and possible prison time.

"In terms of the theft, sure, you take the money and put it back, you still committed the larceny," he said. "By giving the money back, you have mitigated in large measure what the sentence might be, but you are still technically guilty of the offense."

He took this a bit further: "If you steal over $3,000, it's a D felony; 2 ½ to 7 years is the maximum term for that. The least you can get is probation. You know Jimmy Stewart, though, he had that hangdog face. He'd be a tough guy to send to jail."

Sheesh.

Labels: Vices, Xmas

I've tried kava and I've tried absinthe. I drank the later "non-Czech style" at the Green Dragon on Monday night. Let me tell you something about absinthe: it's much better to down it with a tiny bit of water and sugar. Don't let anyone tell you that it's preferable to mix the stuff with a full eight ounces of h2O. That just dilutes the icky taste and makes the whole process of getting drunk and/or "hallucinating" take longer.

Anyway, I still haven't managed to track down "miracle fruit," which just received a local recommendation over here. It's the latest perfectly legal pseudo-vice I'm bent on trying out but I'd like to buy some locally as opposed to ordering online. If anyone out there has any tips, I'd be much obliged.

Labels: Vices

Someday my dream will come true. A dream to consume absinthe, legally, within the United States, preferably in a bar where people can roll their eyes at me when I order it. I received no less than six eye rolls and one insult when I made the mistake of ordering a glass in a London pub last fall.

According to this excellent Salon article I saw linked on Blogtown this morning, the stuff has never been very popular in Britain. I guess that's why someone behind me muttered something to the effect of, "Stupid Yank. Probably spent all day waiting to get on the London Eye." Whether or not it's considered kosher 3,000 miles from here, I'm still determined to make a semi-regular habit of absinthe consumption. I'm already looking into taking out an insurance policy on my ears.

The Salon article was also linked by "Food Dude" over on Portland Food and Drink. One of his readers mentioned that a liquor store down in the Pearl District may now carry absinthe on its shelves. Woo hoo! With any luck I'll have a brand new personal vice to enjoy this weekend.

Labels: absinthe, Portland, Vices

Some December I may actually be downtown on the same annual Saturday hundreds of Santas take to the streets to get drunk, harass shoppers and get arrested. This December was not that December. Oh, well. I can still watch the highlights on the internet.

Labels: holidays, Vices

This New York Times article on absinthe has been making the rounds on a few local blogs over the past few days. Supposedly, the murky legal barriers banning its use in the states are falling and two companies now successfully export it from Europe. Unfortunately, the good folks at Metroblogging Portland have yet to find a bar or liquor store here in Portland that sells the stuff.

The author of the article tried absinthe and says it induced "a kind of relaxed alertness" but skeptically cautioned he may have just been drunk on over a century of hype and hysteria surrounding the drink. I tried a glass recently and I'd like to think there's more to it than that. Thankfully, it didn't inspire me to write any poetry though.

Labels: Booze, Portland, Vices

Ted Niedermeyer, a former editor of a certain publication I was once involved with, is currently touring China. He recently hit Qingdao, the home of the Tsingtao brewery, where beer can be purchased in the street for .50 cents US. How do the city's entrepreneurs keep their prices so low? Well, at least partially by serving their suds in large plastic bags. Click here for a full report, complete with photos.

Labels: Vices

For months I couldn't find the stuff anywhere, not that I was looking very hard. A few weeks ago, I ducked into Rich's Cigar Shop to ask a pipe-smoking cashier if they had any stock. He sneered and sent me on my way.

Where could I find snus, a new type of chewing tobacco currently being test-marketed in Portland by Camel? Better yet, why did I want to try it in the first place? Curiosity, mostly. I'm not a smoker and I can't stand chewing tobacco. Still, I'll try just about anything once if it'll provide me with blog fodder.

Snus, once enjoyed by folks across the Atlantic until it was banned by the European Union in the early '90s, is still a virtually unknown vice here in the states. I didn't even know of its existence until coming across a series of articles in the Oregonian back in January. Snus is odorless, smokeless, spitless, it doesn't stain your teeth and it won't give you bad breath (but it contains more nicotine than a cigarette and causes cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes). With cigarettes due to be banned entirely from Portland's public places any day now, snus could one day become the vice of local smokers still eager to get their nicotine fix. Snus, it's the hybrid car of tobacco products.

During a random stop at Tobacco Town on SW Barbur (I just needed to use the ATM, honest), there it was, behind the counter and a few feet away from the NASCAR hats and the confederate flag lighters.: a neon display case filled with snus cans. I threw down $4.40 for can filled with tiny "spicy" flavored packets. Also available: "mint" and "original."

I held off on cracking open the protective seal. I wanted to save the snus for an appropriate occassion, which presented itself a few hours later. I owed someone a favor and agreed to see Shrek 3 under the condition that I could get drunk first and pay for Spiderman 3 before sneaking in to watch the big, fat, unfunny ogre do his thing. After a "sushi pizza" at Mio Sushi on NW 23rd, a story for another time, we headed over to Ringler's Annex. As teenagers heading for prom strolled past, a market I'm sure Camel would love to tap, I downed several beers and a shot of tequila. Sometime before leaving, I slipped a packet of snus under my lower lip.

As the directions on the back of the can advised, I waited several minutes for the "tingle" to kick in. Rather than getting a mouth full of gross tobacco, a sweet cinnamon flavor engulfed my tongue. The snus packet tasted more like a stick of Big Red than chewing tobacco. The flavor lasted about 30 minutes, much longer than a stick of gum, and dished out a tobacco buzz stronger than any cigarette I've ever smoked.

I figured the booze and the snus would put me in the right frame of mind for 92 minutes of jokes with all the wit of a Mad Magazine parody and scenes featuring Snow White belting out Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." I was wrong. Halfway through the movie, I could take no more. The audience was howling at everything- the fart gags, the banal puns, the sight of a teenage King Arthur getting a wedgie. My head was pounding and my stomach was ready to stage a regurgo-lution I jumped out of my seat and fled for the bathroom.

While I'd like to blame my stomach ache entirely on what could be the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater, I'm sure the snus played a part. And the sushi pizza. And the beer. And that shot of tequila. I'm happy to report that I did not vomit.

Me: 1.

Shrek, all his pals in the enchanted land of Far, Far Away, snus and booze: 0.

That can of snus will probably sit on my desk for several months under a pile of papers before it winds up in the trash. So is this the future? Will snus save Big Tobacco? As I pointed out months ago, I doubt it. The main reason why people start smoking is because they think it makes them look cool. You can't look cool sucking on a packet of snus. Still, there's likely to be at least a small market once smoking is evenutally banned in public places nationwide. All those jonseing smokers will have to get their fix somehow.

Labels: Booze, movies, Vices

I figure that when most people read an article like this they think to themselves, "What will those evil tobacco executives think of next?" And then there are people like myself that think, "Mmmm....mmmmm....I've gotta get me some of that stuff!"

Here's the deal: Camel is test marketing a form of spitless tobacco called "snus" here in Portland and Austin, Texas. Snus has been banned all over Europe for its cancer causing attributes. Still, the company seems to think it could be a perfect alternative, or eventual replacement, for its number one product here stateside. With smoking bans going into effect seemingly everywhere, I can see why they're worried. After all, even tobacco execs have kids to feed, right? Or do they reproduce like vampires? Strike that last bit. Maybe they have undead hellspawn to feed.

Now critics are worried that snus could create a new generation of nicotine junkies but I remain skeptical. After all, don't teens start smoking cigarettes to rebel against their teachers, parents, uncool peers and...everyone else who doesn't smoke? If no one can take note of the tiny snus pouch in their mouths, then what would be the point? You can't act like a poseur without an easily noticeable accessory.

Color me curious. The next time I pass Rich's Cigar Store, I'm sure I'll stop in for a can of snus. Maybe I'll get addicted and I'll have to have my jaw replaced someday. Or, more likely, I'll give it shot, realize the product is disgusting and wish I had my $4 back.

Not to brag but I guess I'm one of, maybe, ten Americans that manages to enjoy the occasional cigarette without becoming hopelessly addicted. If cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, bidis, cloves and mysterious Russian cigs (thanks again, Cory) haven't managed to get their claws in me, I doubt snus will.

Knock on wood. Look me up in the jaw cancer ward at OHSU sometime around 2040. If this snus thing takes off, I'm sure it will be crowded up there.

Labels: Vices