Chippendales The Show

By Jamie Helmick

Let's just say, for the sake of the story, that maybe you're running a little late to your night at Chippendales. Maybe you spent a few too many minutes primping for an evening of scantily-clad, muscular men dancing and thrusting about. Maybe you had a hot streak out on the casino floor. Maybe you and punctuality aren't on speaking terms anymore.

Whatever the reason, you're a little late. Frantically scurrying through the Rio's sprawling floors, you reach the area just in front of the theater at a minute past show time. Berating yourself and your companion, you mentally ready an apology for the ticket taker, swearing to let it never happen again (as well you should), when all of the sudden you hear it, "…to the beat of the rhythm of the night…" And then suddenly floats are moving and dancers are throwing beads from the floats and it's Mardi Gras, right there in the middle of the Rio casino.

It's a spectacle if you've ever beheld one and here's the kicker – it's not even worth it to watch. It's not worth it because a few feet away, just inside the doors you finally made it to, is a show you will talk about for literally years.

Chippendales starts out innocent enough. When you walk in, you and your companion in tardiness, say, maybe your old college roommate, are seated at small round tables (four to a table) and a video begins on a screen – people that have seen the show before giving their testimonials. Your old roommate orders some drinks from a Chippendale-in-training-cocktail-server and fans herself after he leaves with the napkins already on the table. Her fanning hand will be exhausted by the end of the night.

The video screen lifts and suddenly men, dressed as though they finished filming "The Matrix," are on stage and music, beats and a voice announce that, "you're in the pleasure zone."

Here's an abbreviated run-down of things you will never look at the same way after seeing Chippendales: nunchucks, doctors, dating game shows, breakdancers, paint that glows under black light and your college roommate.

This girl, woman, lady, whatever, this person you lived with, this person you've seen inebriated and maybe relieving herself of a lot of beer in some weird places, this person you watched go through boy crisis after boy crisis in college, is now having a boy crisis of a different kind and you have finally reached the point where, like we said, you will never see her the same way again.

Now, it would be enough if she were just in the audience, all of the sudden hooting, hollering, whistling and screaming in ways that would make even the manliest of men blush. But, no, this is your old friend, the one who graduated summa cum laude, the one who sat on the governing board for four clubs and still made time for the swim team, this is your friend that always goes the extra mile and her night at Chippendales is no exception.

Your old pal, she makes it on stage. The show has a lot of numbers and skits where audience participation is allowed and encouraged. And so, after passing up a chance to become a dating show contestant that demonstrates her favorite position for the eyes of Bachelor No. 1 or the recipient of a sexy serenade, she sees her opening and takes it.

We'll say your friend does something tame during the day, maybe she's a meeting planner, maybe she's, aw, who cares. Normally her existence is a fairly mild one. In what is arguably the crowning jewel of Chippendales audience participation, your friend is chosen to stand center stage in the ER. Sexy doctors dance about, everything's going great and then the scene changes and suddenly she's "chained" in a sort of bondage chamber, being teased and touched by men so much hotter than the brothers of Sigma Phi Delta that she used to run around with that you literally have no adjectives to describe them.

It's hilarious and provocative and sexy all at once and when she finally comes down from the stage and the dancers titillate a few more times, she won't be the same woman.

You may want to tease her a little, poke a little fun at your dear friend, but one final note of advice – don't.

Keep in mind, to that girl, the one breathlessly clutching a ripped tank top torn and tossed from the body of a dancer, you're her college roommate and there's another of showing of Chippendales tomorrow.