DAY 137: Soft porn and hard landings

A prince. Credit should at least be given for the lack of fireman's helmet.

DAY after day I drum it into myself: no expectations, no expectations, no expectations… no expectations, and you won’t be disappointed. But with all-male revue Princes of the Night at Crown Casino’s Fusion club, I manage to keep those expectations at sea level without even trying.

I don’t wish to be harsh, but there are some hideous examples of humanity out here in the queue. I’m sandwiched by girls in LBDs and heels casually slagging off the bride-to-be they’re here to rally and the bride’s other gal pals.

“We’re so much younger than all of them,” the one behind me observes. “It’s strange, because you would have thought she would have wanted a more fun crowd tonight.” “I’m getting married, I’m getting married, I’m getting married,” another wails, like she’s just witnessed a horrible accident.

I’m here alone, markedly underdressed in jeans and only a few mm of foundation. (How is it my girlfriends willingly flocked along to see full gash-flashage at a strip club for men, while not one could be persuaded to accompany me to see male strippers? Should I be asking questions?) Thank god I’ve still got a couple of eyelash extensions left.

“Latecomer?” the doorman sympathises. “Your party must already be inside.”

“Er, no, I’m here checking it out for a… friend,” I blurt, totally fluffing my “scouting for a prospective hen night” story.

It’s icy cold inside, presumably to keep everyone’s nipples erect. I skulk at the back with my notebook like a pervert, and tuck into some stale nibblies, spilling humous all over me in the dark. An inflatable male doll is being tossed around the main arena and the girls are onto it like seagulls on a chip. Squawking starts in earnest when our compere, who sounds disquietingly like Yogi Bear, urges us to get excited. Right on!

Via a screen above the stage we get a bit of perfunctory plotline – there’s these medieval knights, right, all brothers, whose father made them become monks, but who now have risen and are quite keen to taste the pleasures of the flesh – before a swagger of dudes burst out in monk robes and start pulling flamboyant dance moves, grinning sheepishly.

Much ass swatting and manhandling of brides-to-be later (one poor girl has her knees pressed together so tightly they go white), it’s the interval, and I’m off. SixFtHick are playing at the Espy, which means proper stripping with actual pubes and real moving parts.

In between hurling themselves around and hauling people on stage so hard their clothes actually fall off*, the brothers Corbett get lewd in a way that makes a mockery of the day’s earlier gyratings. Ben, who must lose half his bodyweight in sweat down his arse-crack, unbuckles his pants and gobs down them, which is a gambit that ought to be trademarked, while Geoff rocks the Wolf Creek sex crim style to stunning effect.

Photographer Zo Gay reckons SixFtHick are "porn for women". She'd know.

Keeper? I doubt any of the small army of friends who suddenly recovered from hangovers/lethargy/leprosy in time for the second part of my evening would say no to a rerun.

* The band told me one girl has broken her nose twice at Six Ft Hick gigs, and I was half hoping that might be my new deed of the day.