Atlanta’s Clermont Lounge

The Wizard

Emerging from the forest, the shaman shook free a kudzu vine, kicked his boots clean of Georgia red clay and went back to fucking with a toothpick he didn’t need. He wrestled the toothpick to & fro with his tongue as if casting a spell with a sorcerer’s wand. No, not a wand. A maestro’s baton. As if the shaman were directing the orchestra of cicadas screaming from the hidden places of North Highland Avenue. The toothpick, soon enfeebled, was tossed aside as a taunt to the woods the shaman just walked out of. He immediately regretted his loss and checked his pockets for alternative shit to fuck with. It was a nervous energy, this scrambled egg of yin-yang as the shaman was imperfectly caffeinated & stoned, or what his wife would describe as “raccoon-bit”.

Fuck you Kyle!, the shaman said for no good goddamn reason but intuition. Intuitive paranoia. He knew no kyles. The shaman was surprised by his own words, but never by forest whispers. Not any more. 

Cloaked in dark sorcerer fabrics he may have stolen from a coal miner or the corpse of George Carlin, the shaman entered the cocktail bar known as “Dad’s” and introduced himself to the bartender. “Butch Sevens”, he said as if she’d immediately know of him. The bartender didn’t so much as blink. Or breathe. She did have a pulse, at least a pulsating temple. Which gods might she worship?, he wondered. She had more holes in her head than was intended by any deity he was aware of. How does she get through airport security? The shaman – Butch – reasoned he’d find her attractive if he was a magnet. Anyway…, Butch said as he casually drummed the bar-top with his fingertips. Crossing his arms, he leaned forward on his elbows to speak more intimately. Eyelids narrowing, intent on the mission, Butch said, I am looking for someone. The bartender gave a slight tilt to her head. Jangling. She said, I just mix the drinks, man. Butch nodded and flashed her a crisp five-dollar bill. He put the money on the bar, tapped it twice and let the moment settle like dust. This fella, Butch said to interrupt the stillness, this fella I am looking for would’ve checked into the Clermont Hotel within the last few hours and is likely wandering this neck of the woods. He’s an unrenown egyptologist, the shaman said. About yay high!, he said after removing his elbows from the bar to provide a a horizontal karate chop to the thick air. He’s better known as a fabulist, Butch told her, or as we’d say in Oklahoma, when it comes to bullshit he’s a rodeo clown with a shovel calling himself a matador.

Through her pierced septum the cocktail waitress snorted a grunt of recognition. Try the beer garden, she said and pocketed the money.

Butch Sevens tried the beer garden. And this is where he found me. 

Reviews of Clermont Hotel

Quotes on Clermont Lounge

(The Clermont Lounge) is a sort-of lost-luggage department for strippers – Anthony Bourdain, The Layover

Have you ever been on the city bus & had a look around & said to yourself, ‘I wonder what all these people look like naked?’ Well guess what, Vic Neverman? It’s Friday night! – Shaman Butch Sevens

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here – Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Clermont Lounge

We crossed Ponce de Leon towards Clermont Hotel where signs illuminated the path to the notorious lounge. Descending into the hellmouth, we gave our coin to the ferryman and were admitted entry. The shaman said to me, once we enter, I can no longer protect you. I accepted this. I’ve already learned the hard way spirit guides are all psychopomp & circumstance. Hermes, Anubis, Mephistopheles, the whole lot of them are no better than fork-tongued real estate agents hosting the worst open house ever. Stale donuts. Carrots & celery with soured dip. Skeletons in the closet. Hell ain’t no picnic. 

Butch & I crossed the threshold.

The underworld of the Clermont Lounge was standard protocol dance club: black-painted wooden floor, load-bearing pilings partially mirrored, soft pink & orange florescent lights. The focal point to the club was the horseshoe bar to the immediate right after entering. Within the horseshoe, past the bartenders, past their spirits & wares, was the central stage where dancers performed. To urge on the performers, patrons were encouraged to wad-up their dollar bills to toss over the bar to the dance floor. The resulting litter of crumpled currency resembled the cast-aside tissues of an illicit massage parlor. I’d imagine. 

The first woman we saw on stage was as-advertised not the run-of-the-mill exotic dancer. She was middle-aged with a noticeably unhealthy body-mass-index. Seeing her back against the floor with legs in the air, I wondered if this might be open mic night for OB-GYN exams. No. She soon proved herself to be a professional. She moved with confidence and the audience loved her. What a woman?, Butch hollered over the music. She’s resplendent, he said, it’s like Birth of Venus if Venus was stepping out of a gravy boat. Dude!, I said, her stage name is “Nancy Ranch Sauce”. She is not resplendent, I said. Her sweaty skin does have the alabaster sheen of boiled chicken, but she is not resplendent.

Butch Sevens had said Clermont Lounge is one of Atlanta’s holiest sites and a cultural institution. This journey, the shaman promised, will be a feast for the senses! The sight of more flesh than your eyes could ever desire! Unprovoked scent of body odors & marijuana smoke & latrine cakes! The regrettable taste of sweat & rogue pubic hair in your beer! The ear-bleeding sound of primal music! The uneasy feel of the bass throbbing your gonads & rattling your bones! But more than that!, the shaman said with a victorious index finger to heaven, this shall be an exploration into humanity. 

Exploration?, I asked, or exploitation?

It just sounds like gimmick, I said when Butch introduced this idea of an Atlanta pilgrimage. A strip-club, I said, cannot claim the moral high-ground by employing cheap labor in the form of dancers who are unemployable elsewhere. Butch disagreed, saying I was thinking of this wrong. He said, put away your preconceived bullshit and rejoin the human race, bro. Let’s take a trip back to the dawn of man…

Faulkner said civilization begins with distillation, but Butch Sevens would go further. He believes in the “beer before bread” hypothesis. Imagine…, the shaman preached, imagine our hunter/gatherer forebears leaving the forest after a week of rain to quickly dart across a field of wild oats when, finding themselves thirsty, took a sip out of a puddle of fermented oat water. They drink it and think… damn, bro, my tongue is numb, my face feels funny. Of course, they don’t speak these words because they have no words. They previously had no need for language. Not yet. Not until they realized there is more to life than mere survival. There is beer. 

But lightning doesn’t strike twice! How often would our ancestors happen upon the alchemical miracle of a sudden puddle of beer? Those hunters & gathers were complex enough to only solve simple puzzles. They could subsist off the land as long as there was plenty. In times of scarcity, they migrated. Theirs was a sustainable life requiring minimal shallow thought. Basic survival communication required no more than simple clicks, grunts and pelvic thrusts. But to thrive… whelp, this required more. Recreating the puddle of beer was the first spark of intellectual pursuit in the history of mankind. Here was a riddle older than words: how to get more beer? This pursuit of sudsy happiness was the first step towards civilization. They figured it out. Man made beer. The nomads settled around drinking holes. Eventually they added barstools.

Yeah, dude…, I said to Butch, all hail beer!, I get it. But strip-dancing pre-dates bars. All sorts of characters in the animal kingdom have a mating dance. We could just as easily have your beer evolution conversation in a pub.

Shaking his head Butch Sevens said, once Adam & Eve became ashamed of their buck-assed nakedness and began wearing fig leaves, the act of removing the fig leaf became a seductive & sinful delight. But it wasn’t until we had bars before strip-dancing became more than an act performed privately by cave-light. With beer came bars and with bars came stripper poles. It’s all fucking linear, bro. 

It’s not fucking linear, bro. Correlation does not equate causation, dude. 

Listen Vic, the shaman said, beer required alchemy. Science is born. Recipes required measurements. Math is born. Once we had beer on the regular, intoxication inspired poetry. Words were born. Storytelling is birthed from bar gossip. Art went from finger-painting on cave walls to literature and performative dance in bars. Eventually they added poker machines. 

And here we are, bro, Butch Sevens raised his bottle of beer to toast with me in the basement confines of the Clermont Lounge. You, Vic Neverman, are writing literature about beer. Full fucking circle. Don’t you see? Writers and strippers are cut from the same cloth. Children of the same god. 

Who?, Dionysius?, I asked. Or Hades?

Butch Sevens went on, saying, just like your bullshit stories do not represent all of literature, lap dances do not represent all of performance art. And Clermont Lounge is not just any titty-bar. Have a look around. This isn’t the typical strip-club crowd drooling over youth & lost innocence & Brazilian butt-lifts. No, this crowd is congregated to worship the feminine form in its entirety. All of it. Every ounce. You’re losing the forest for the trees, Vic, or, more appropriately, you’re losing the forest for the strip-tease. Tonight, Butch said, you are witnessing a community reveling in the divine. 

The divine? Is that why my shoes are sticking to the floor?

Is it not invigorating?, Butch asked with arms outstretched, this positive environment for women to make a buck? These dancers do not possess the customary percocet stare you find in other gentleman’s clubs. They are not numbed zombies gyrating through the motions. The dancers here are having a blast. Look at this chick, he said, she’s having more fun in this moment than you’ve had your entire life. 

The Headliner

Around midnight, the lights dimmed and the music lowered. Butch Sevens had not dared to hope this time would come. I could sense the gravity of the moment in the collective gasp of the crowd. The DJ’s announcement was drowned out by the immediate roar of fans who recognized the legendary Blondie as she took stage. Known for crushing beer cans between her buttocks, Blondie has been dancing at Clermont Lounge for nearly fifty years. Semi-retired, Blondie only dances a few times a week. We were blessed. Wearing – temporarily – a cowgirl getup with her luxurious blonde wig, Blondie began dancing & disrobing to Shania Twain as the crowd lost its goddamn mind. 

She’s a masterpiece!, Butch claimed of Blondie. A masterpiece, sure, I granted Butch as much. She was a dusty first edition book. Dog-earred from generations of strangers passing through. A cracked & over-burdened spine. Butch said, she must be near seventy and she can still wiggle those hips and kick those boots! Blondie’s smile is radiant. He raised his beer bottle to yell, this is how we should celebrate our elders!

We gave old people pickle-ball. Isn’t that enough?

Dude…, Butch said. This is the last bastion of communal joy before the fall of mankind. Think about it, bro. People used to come together. We’d drink together. We had common songs, songs which were regional, uniting us as a people, uniting us against the tribal idiots from the next valley over. There were no radio broadcasts, or, even worse, streaming services allowing individuals to be entertained in private. No, entertainment was only available through a collaboration of neighbors. Civilization, during the early goings, granted the joys of spectacle, but to bring those joys to the stage, we all had to work together, spectate together, congregate in a common place. We feasted, we sang, we married each other’s cousins, we celebrated our elders! Sure, when their time came, we left our old folk in the woods to die, but dude… are nursing homes any different? Vic!, the Clermont Lounge is a celebration of the human spirit. It is no mistake many of these dancers resemble Babylonian fertility goddesses. Where you see some broad wagging her titties, I see the mortal representation of Mother Earth… Gaia… 

Gaia, sure, I said, but primarily we’re looking at the boobs of Mother Earth. Butch Sevens, blinking away a tear or two, shrugged and said, yeah, well yeah. Mostly I’m looking at her boobs.