Art Night: Dante's

Oh, what I've yet to learn! I've been to Dante's several times over the last couple of years. I saw Michael Penn get heckled off-stage by some drunk moron who kept asking if he knew any songs about guys in black jeans. I attended several Rick Emerson fan parties as we cheered on Storm Large on that Rock Star show. And I've been to one or two Clyde Lewis things to see what's swimming around in his head.

But Dante's has this other side, see. A side I've never participated in. The Frank Faillace side. Love him or hate him, Frank knows what the people want. They want their smut. And he gives it to them. In spades. And Dante's is Frank's baby. And a couple nights a week, Dante's celebrates that other side.

Tonight I went down and checked out the Beavers game with a friend, with an eye toward hitting Dante's afterward for the Xotica-Go-Go. Just to see what that was all about.

Burnside, from 3rd on up to Broadway, is beginning to sprout a couple of nude establishments. Dante's has a place upstairs, the Cabaret has opened on the north side of the street, and of course there's always Mary's Place, a place I've yet to visit and is probably only appreciated while the Rose Festival fleet is in town. Anyway, I noticed tonight that the Paris Theater has turned into some sort of nude establishment. Sometime, when it's not a school night, I'll have to make a little crawl out of all those places.

Back to the task at hand. Xotica-Go-Go. 9pm, sharp, said everything I read. So I showed up at 9:15 to find the door closed and the door man outside.

"See the girl at the register," he said.

No problem, I thought. I walked inside and was mildly shocked by what I saw. The Xotica -Go-Go evidently hadn't begun yet. Up on stage, I saw a nude woman lying on her side. Lounging, is more like it. Interesting, I though.

"Are you here for Dr. Sketchy's?" the girl asked. She wore a black top that exposed her shoulders and accentuated her medium breasts.

"Huh?" I asked, momentarily stunned. I was expecting to see the Moulin Rouge and had instead walked into something completely different.

"Do you have your student ID?," she asked.

No student ID. I'm a civilian.

"Six bucks", she said.

I took a look around as I headed toward the ATM to grab some cash. A bunch of college-age guys were sitting around the club with sketch pads, drawing the lounging model on-stage.

Dr. Sketchy's! It all finally made sense. My friend The Librarian had told me about similar projects in Boise, where bars would host "art nights". For a cover, guys were given pencil and paper and a fresh young model to draw. Or they could just say screw it and drink beer. It was the owner's way of getting around Idaho's rather strict rules about nudity and such. Call it art, they figured, and you could do about anything you wanted. An interesting theory. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out.

I thought about it for a second. $6 to draw a naked girl? That seems kind of steep. Especially when I can come home and look at this girl for free.

So I excused myself and headed for home. I'll definitely hit Sinferno or Xotica-Go-Go one of these nights. You can count on that. Just not tonight.


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