The Author's Confession

I was a dancer in Las Vegas off and on for almost fifteen years. In between times, I worked in Reno and Tahoe, in South Africa twice, and around Northern Europe on a cruise ship. But Vegas kept pulling me back with easy work and cheap apartment rentals, no matter how many times I tried to escape the asphalt-liquifying summers.

Those years were the very end of a golden era. Dancers in Nevada then could pick the kind of career they wanted, and work without pause. All the big hotels – MGM, Stardust, the Dunes – produced enormous topless extravaganzas, with dozens if not hundreds of performers on stage. If you signed those contracts you got insurance coverage a free food in the cafeteria, and lots of time during the day to raise a family or go back to school and rack up multiple advanced degrees.

On the other hand, for the dancers who hungered after harder work and greater recognition, there were lots of little cabaret shows. These featured a handful of dancers, a bare minimum of sets and costumes, and some of the most demanding, coolest dancing to be seen on any stage anywhere. When choreographers like Ron Lewis, Cary LaSpina, or (a few years later) Michael Darren or Jaymi Marshall were in control, those shows and those dancers could be breathtaking. I still have a couple of ‘em on video, and aside from being amazed at just how nude we all were, I am still blown away by them.

That whole world is gone now. Cirque du Soleil has become the entertainment flavor of choice in Vegas, and the cabarets have gone the way of the tiny topless dinosaur. The tight community I was a part of has dissipated and disappeared.

This is all, no doubt, good and proper. Times change, and the brilliant production of 1980 becomes the embarrassingly cheesy throwback of 1998. But I still miss that era. I miss the dancing and the fun backstage and the community of performers coming and going. I miss the weird dressing room smell of pancake makeup and Acquanet infused over decades.

All this sentiment and remembered joy gave rise to Totally! Nude! Showgirls!!! several years ago. This story has grown and evolved. I've shared it with friends, discussed it with agents, and, for a short time, given it its own website. Now, as my life goes in new directions, I offer this version as one last tribute. I do love this story, and all its crazy denizens, and I think they deserve a life outside of my head.

One note: none of the characters presented here are meant to be representations of anyone real, in spite of what some of my friends think. A few of these characters were inspired by real people, but they are mine alone, and none of their foibles or faults is meant as any kind of commentary on any flesh-and-blood figure. (In several cases, the real people I knew are so big and entertaining and over-the-top that I would be incompetent to represent them, let alone out-do them for the purposes of a humorous novel.)

These characters live in a city which is Las Vegas and isn’t, in a world which is realistic and which never existed at all. I hope you enjoy. (The characters will certainly be having a fine time.)