Disco Inferno

TowelBoy is perpetually amused that there's never a dull moment at the Country Club. For those of you that have never been to Club Pittsburgh, our bathhouse has been dubbed the “Country Club” by the CP faithful. My boss asserts that a visit to CP is unlike any other bathhouse experience. We were recently trying to explain these differences to the designer who created our fabulous new site. (Nice, huh?) Basically, Club Pittsburgh is far more social than most other sex clubs. The first apparent difference is the music. While we do enjoy the hard house sounds occasionally, you'll find the musical selections sprinkled with the individual tastes of our staff members. This varies from Top 40 hits to acid jazz. Frequent guests of the Country Club can guess who's working by the music they're hearing. This is a great segue to another unique element – our staff. Club Pittsburgh employees tend to stick around. Most of our employees have been here for a handful of years, and they've developed a great rapport with our members. They know our members on a first-name basis, as well as what time of day they prefer to visit, what they're going to rent, and the type of products they like to purchase. In some respects, the attendants are often like bartenders, listening to people's troubles and offering candid advice. The Country Club also has events that encourage our members and guests to socialize. We've had ho-downs, foam parties, holiday celebrations, theme nights, and most recently, a house music dance party. The Winter House Party Dance gave revelers a perfect example of the Country Club rule: Expect the unexpected.

I could fill volumes with stories of hot & steamy episodes at the baths. And although those tales are titillating, my inside prospective keeps me privy to gossip and mishaps. Just about every queen I know enjoys nothing more than a dirty little secret. If you were at the dance party on Saturday, I'm sure you know that the fire alarm kept going crazy. What you missed is a comedy of errors behind the scenes.

The bells and whistles started around 3 AM. Literally. While members, guests, and staff were dancing their winter blues away, something odd was happening on the alarm control panel. I first heard the alarm during the “Liquor Miracle”, that special time when the bartenders close shop, the attendants pray to the Holy Boo, and the crowd migrates to the bathhouse. With a gaggle of handsome horny men pouring out of the elevator, the blaring siren of the fire alarm filled the building. What strikes me as odd is that the randy guys outside and the Winter House revelers inside were absolutely oblivious to what could have been a raging inferno. But I digress. I recognize the problem as a false alarm (it's a recurring problem, actually), and I call the alarm company to kill the alarm and stop two dozen beefy firemen from showing up in the lobby. The overly-cheerful operator informs me that the problem is in “Zone 2”, which is on our roof. I know the drill. In the past year alone, Zone 2 has gone completely ape-shit no less than three times. This time, the fog machine for the dance party is what finally pushed the sensor over the edge. No worries. We shut off the fog machine, open the windows, reset the alarm panel, and we're back in business.

For about thirty seconds.

Of course, the alarm goes off again. I call the alarm company, reset the alarm, assure everyone that we're not going to erupt into a ball of fire, and try to press forward with the party. And this cycle repeats itself every forty-five seconds. I actually think I may have carpal tunnel syndrome from resetting the keypad. The guys keep streaming in, unconcerned about the continuous warning of a smoky holocaust. The operator for the alarm company blatantly refuses to disarm Zone 2. Each time, she questions my conclusion that it's a false alarm. “Please check the area to make sure there's no fire.” Get real, Mary. This has been going on for an hour. We would have burned to the ground by now. I miss a call to the alarm company while dealing with our customers, and the fire department shows up in the lobby. Nobody with authority is dressed, so I'm having a hard time finding someone to go down and talk to the firemen. And of course, there's a bigger problem: the fire alarm disables the elevator. There are guys at the front door that can't get up to the club, and those checking out can't leave. Poor Richie got stuck escorting guests up and down the stairwell. After three hours of ringing bells, flashing lights, and more drama than sweeps month on Y&R, we solved the alarm problem. And as always, the party went on.

The problem is actually lint. Obviously, we wash & dry a lot of towels. After nearly seven years, the lint has managed to take over. There is lint covering our electronic equipment, climbing its way up the walls, getting stuck in the computers, and garnishing the duct work. We keep cleaning it, and it keeps multiplying. There are even times when my car gets covered with lint. (The dryer vents are above my parking space.) Poor Patches goes crazy perpetually cleaning the lint traps in the dryers. (Patches once made a butt plug out of the dryer lint. Seriously.) But even Patches' efforts at lint removal are futile; lint rules Club Pittsburgh. And apparently it gets into the alarm sensor in Zone 2. The lint in the sensor traps the remnants of the fog machine as they try to escape through the ventilation. Bells, whistles, disabled elevators, and rugged firemen ensue. And that ads a whole new level of excitement to the Winter House Party Dance.

Even though there wasn't an actual fire, our friends at Hot House kept the video lounge burning in February. The MGM of porn sent us a brand new batch of DVDs for our exclusive Hot House channel. (Channel 69, of course.) Some of the new movies include both titles in the VERBOTEN series, as well as the latest in TRUNKS. (#4 if you're counting.) There are also several PACK videos, in which one Hot House hunk is entertained by a pack of hotties. Brilliant director Steven Scarborough shot these movies as one continuous scene. There are a lot more hardcore titles, like MISTER FISTER, and a lot more of my Hot House husband, Mike Roberts. Be sure to stop in soon and check out Mike in his JOCKSTRAP.

I pilfered the photos above from the Hot House website. It's extremely cool and interactive. You can even join the Backroom, with exclusive video feeds not available on DVD. Check it out:

www.hothouse.com

Keeping the fire burning all winter long,
TowelBoy