Evening at Club Rock-Za
By Wil Forbis
As I watched, the fulsome young woman reached out with her darkened, feline arm and pulled the businessman’s face into her remarkably firm and rotund breasts. As his head rested there, apparently content to smell her sweet smells, she ran her hands along his back, over his shoulders and up into his thinning hair. While the businessman's amused friend looked on, the girl coyly laughed as the man resting between her light-chocolate orbs (I gauged her to be of Polynesian descent) mumbled something into her ear. The girl then pulled herself away from the businessman and repositioned herself so that her legs were spread in front of him, exposing a delightful treasure trove that was unfortunately obscured from my view."What the hell is going on here?" I hear you ask. "Has Wil Forbis become so creatively dry he's succumbed to reprinting sections of 50's stag novels in place of his inimitable column?" I cannot say your curiosity is unfounded my friend, so let me back up a bit and explain myself. But before I do, let me reminisce just a bit longer about that Phillipino stripper’s wonderful, wonderful breasts.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm....
For the record, I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, spending most of my youth there (ages 5 to 18.) The experience of growing up white in as ethnically diverse a place as Hawaii is impossible to explain to someone who hasn't lived it, and fortunately beyond the scope of this column. Suffice to say, it's nothing like what you would expect it to be, in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse.
I grew up primarily in an area called McCully, a neighborhood that is to this day quite distant in appearance from the average American ‘burb. If I took a random photograph of the place I could probably convince the uninitiated that it was a scene from Malaysia or one of the more middle-class areas of Viet Nam. Most of the inhabitants were Asians, Phillipinos, Hawaiians or some combination thereof. Though a few condominiums ride the top of the McCully skyline, most people live in either old wooden houses or two story apartment buildings.
However, McCully is not simply a quiet township, for it borders the Ala Wai Canal and across that is Waikiki, the area of Hawaii most people are probably familiar with through Airline commercials and old Magnum P.I. episodes. Waikiki is the haven for Japanese tourists in Honolulu, lined with beaches containing imported sand (Australian I believe), giant hotels, Nightclubs featuring local entertainers, and a fair amount of strip clubs. (The Japanese have a much less censorious view of pornography.)
When I was a child growing up in Hawaii, I always saw such burlesque lounges as a forbidden zone, but was really only mildly curious as to what was inside. The world of adults seems treacherously boring to children (mainly because it is) and I had little interest in what entertainment they took part in. I and my childhood cohorts weren’t naive, we had a fair idea what went on in such places, but little interest in exploring.
That really didn't change much when I grew up. I explored a few strip clubs in the years after turning "legal" but for the most part found them silly and tame to what could be found on the Internet. It seemed pretty clear that strippers were playing a role and secretly mocked the guys who fell for it. I could never lose myself in the purported fantasy. (I was once given a free - and unrequested - lap dance at a strip joint in Seattle, but while girl grinded away on my groin we spent most of the time talking about here visiting grandmother. "Is she here at the club?" I asked.)
However, when I recently returned to Hawaii for a brief r-n-r, I decided rescind my abstinence from gentlemen’s entertainment, and check one of the local clubs out. Hawaii is so totally different from the rest of the country, it followed that their strip bars would be too. And while I knew most of Honolulu like the back of my hand, the strip bars were a alluring unknown.
The place I chose, Club Rock-Za, was not really in Waikiki, but right on the border of Waikiki and McCully (on Beratania Ave if you're interested.) I gravitated to this particular club because ten years earlier my friend Jason Reese and I were walking along the avenue when we caught view of a mirror in Rock-Za, reflecting the lower half of a naked, dancing women. While I felt extremely uncomfortable standing there staring, in plain view of passerbys, Jason insisted we peruse the view a while. So where ten years earlier I had seen a bit of Rock-Za, (Doesn't "Rock-Za" sound like something Godzilla would fight) I would now see the rest.
Upon entering, I paid the obligatory shockingly high cover fee, and purchased a Heineken. The place brought to mind the strip joint in Beverly Hills Cop, though the neon blue lighting seemed more reminiscent of TRON. There was a definite Hawaii flavor, an older Okinawan women stood near the door (a Rock-Za mama-san) offering to exchange your large denomination bills for their equivalent value in ones.) I held on to my cash and walked over to a nearby sofa.
The sight before me was described at the beginning of this article and pretty much being repeated throughout the bar. The women were on tables, as to be expected, some dancing and some providing the same bizarre and somewhat confusing erotic services offered by the dark skinned girl. It was unclear what was "okay" and what wasn't. I got the feeling lap dances weren't allowed (The girls seemed to have a "Keep both feet on the table at all times" rule imposed upon them) but it was perfectly all right for them to practically suckle the customers to their breasts, or bring the men's heads right up to their vaginas.
I was just as curious as to whom the customers of Rock-Za would be as I was the girls. Would they be mostly Asian, white or local? ("Local" in Hawaii is more a definition of attitude than race, but I would generally consider a Hawaiian, Phillipino or 3rd generation Chinese person local, while be less prone to apply the term to a 90 year old Japanese grandmother.) The men turned out to be a pretty equal disbursement of the usual races in Hawaii, though I, at 28, felt like one of the youngest. The girls were about half white, the remaining being divided between locals, pure Japanese (i.e. not born in Hawaii) and one black chick. All of them were extremely attractive, a fair share of them armed with the kind of breasts nature does not provide.
However, I was here for more than just kinks, I was genuinely curious to see what my fellow males would get out of a place like this. Wasn't this the equivalent of paying for a pricktease? It seems like guys always complain about women who lead them on, perhaps get undressed and then refused to put out. Here they were more than willing to line young ladies’ stockings for the same behavior. (Plus pay six dollars a Heineken. Sheesh.)
And to be honest as I sit here writing this, I still don't get it. You always see strippers on television talk shows go to great lengths to justify their behavior, but if I could make several hundred dollars a night dancing to AC/DC on tabletops and occasionally disinterestedly rubbing my labia I 'd do it to. But why are the guys there? I can see the allure of a hooker, or choking the chicken to some online porn, but why parade down to some smoky overpriced bar for... well basically nothing. Playboy in 3d.
I mean, look, I consider myself a strapping red blooded American, I have the same needs and desires as any other vibrant, sexually potent young man. But why would I want to torment myself with this thing I can't have? I don't stand outside Ferrari showrooms drooling after automobiles I'll never be able to afford, why do so with women?
Still, I didn't write off the whole night. I had managed to see a different culture in action and though I didn't understand it, I was richer for the experience. Like watching a tribe of Pygmies eat live monkey brains, I'd seen the modern male at his most vacuous and lived to tell about it. And yet... something stuck with me as I slept that night and hounded me throughout the next day. It was only after I boarded my plane back to the mainland that it burst upon me, a realization of sorts. I knew soon I would have to return to Hawaii. And when I did, my first stop would be Club Rock-Za.
Wil Forbis is a well known international playboy who lives a fast paced life attending chic parties, performing feats of derring-do and making love to the world's most beautiful women. Together with his partner, Scrotum-Boy, he is making the world safe for democracy. Email - acidlogic@hotmail.comVisit Wil's web log, The Wil Forbis Blog, and receive complete enlightenment.