Coco's history -- part 7 -- Dita Von Tesse and my big change

Several things happened in 2002 and 2003, when I was 22.
The first thing was that I finally reconciled myself as a stripper, not a student stripping part-time, not a girl going through a naughty phase, but a full-on, full-time member of the sex trade.

The second thing is that I saw a photo of Dita Von Tesse in Playboy. She was on the cover and she was so gorgeous, so classy and old-fashioned. At this point, she wasn't very famous yet -- maybe in the burlesque world -- but not as a popular figure like she is now.
Also -- and I'm dating myself -- this is before everything on earth was online. This is before Youtube.
I looked everywhere for her videos. And I finally found copies of "Bound in Stockings" and "Naked and Helpless."
I decided I had to see her live. I just had to.

So I used some of my hard-earned money and flew to New York City.
I had never been to New York. I wasn't exactly a small-town girl anymore, but I was still wowed.
And I was so wowed by her. Wowed by the whole place. I really wanted to stay.

Back in Canada, I had long moved from my original strip joint -- the place with the lunch bar my friends and I once went to as a joke as students.
I was working at better places, more like gentlemen's clubs. But I was still a stripper, someone who just took off her clothes for money. And what Dita Von Tesse was doing was an art.

My friend in New York had a little art photo / erotic magazine and hired me as a photographer and writer, and sponsored me to work. Back then, it wasn't hard for a Canadian to get a work visa, even though it was after 9/11.

The stripper as vampire -- work hours

Every club is different, but there are usually 2 or 3 shifts, like a restaurant.
The first is usually 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. This is for businessmen having lunch, or coming in after work for happy hour. The upside is that it is the safest shift. Plus, you can have normal, human waking hours. The downside is that you make the least money here.
The second shift is, say, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. There is usually a little overlap with the last shift, since happy hour is popular. This is the one I like best, since I make way more money dealing with drunk guys out on the town for a night than I do with two suits having a sandwich between meetings. But, the hours are still saner than...
... The late shift. This is probably something like 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. or even later. This is the highest-paying shift, but the most dangerous. Anyone who is in a strip joint at 3 or 4 or 5 a.m. is trashed, aggressive and horny. Plus, it really screws with your body clock.

Your Body Clock
By the time you wind down from the late shift and get home, it's dawn. Usually, you can't sleep right away, since you're pumped for your shift -- plus, you really need a shower and some food. So you watch the sun rise like an insomniac. When I did this shift, I usually slept from about 9 a.m. to about 4 or 5 p.m. I took alot of sleeping pills and didn't see much of the sun. Honestly, I found it depressing.
Like I said, I prefer the middle shift. I get off at 2 a.m., get home by 3 a.m. and am asleep by 5 a.m. OK, I still took sleeping pills and it still isn't normal, but at least I'd be up by about noon, giving me a whole afternoon on daytime to run errands, run outside, go for a swim and generally feel human.

P.S. 24-hour strip joints have different shifts.

Image of Salma Hayek playing a stripper vampire in the 90s, before she made it big.