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PaigeDWinter
12-02-2007, 03:00 PM
Wow... I forgot about this post XD

xoxoGracexoxo
12-02-2007, 03:24 PM
I missed this thread the first time round, so I'll comment now. I read the book and thought it was OK. Not great literature, just a fairly fun, low-effort read. I'm gonna stick up for the author, though.

1. Yeah, she was only a stripper for a year. Then again, she isn't writing a book about "what it's like to be a stripper." She's writing a book about HER experience as a stripper. Nobody's qualified to tell anybody else's story. Fortunately, she sticks to telling her own.

2. She didn't strip for a year in order to write a book about it. She stripped for the same reason most of us do: curiosity + chutzpah + needed to pay bills. I guess she found the world of stripping interesting enough to start a blog about it. LOTS of us have done the same. (Seriously, the number of stripper blogs out there is amazing. There should be a blogspot-like site just for us.) But at the time, it was unique and the blog became popular enough for her to wrangle a book deal out of it. To me this isn't "attention-seeking" so much as it's hustling on a bigger scale. I hope she got some money out of it.

3. A lot of the things she's getting ripped on in this thread were probably totally beyond her control. First-time writers generally have very little say about how the title of their books, let alone how it is marketed. Publishers pretty much take it out of your hands after they buy the rights. I doubt she was the one who chose to portray herself as an "unlikely stripper." That's what some dude in an office decided strippers are all blond and semi-retarded, so she was "unlikely," He's the one who makes the big bucks, so that's what it says on the cover.

4. If anyone's read the book, her portrayal of strip club atmosphere and dynamics is pretty right on. She wasn't a top earner, and doesn't claim to be. She didn't hang out with the managers and get the scoop on the inside dealins. She just showed up, did her best, made some money, and went home. I found it very easy to identify with, maybe because I'm the same way.

I don't know why it's rubbing me the wrong way for you guys to hate on her so much without having read the book. Maybe because I'm also a writer, and I know how much it sucks to have people judge you not only without knowing you, but WITHOUT EVEN HAVING READ THE THING THEY'RE SUPPOSEDLY JUDGING YOU ABOUT.

Alaska
12-02-2007, 03:29 PM
3. I doubt she was the one who chose to portray herself as an "unlikely stripper." That's what some dude in an office decided strippers are all blond and semi-retarded, so she was "unlikely," He's the one who makes the big bucks, so that's what it says on the cover.




But you don't know if that's really true.

I would demand, and yes they would listen to me, that they not use that phrase and come up with something different.

Sophia_Starina
12-02-2007, 03:49 PM
But you don't know if that's really true.

I would demand, and yes they would listen to me, that they not use that phrase and come up with something different.

We don't know if it's true, yes. Why is it such a big deal? Even if that is how Cody titled her book, what's so horrible about it?

We can play a logic game:

1. There is no such thing as a "Likely" stripper
2. Diablo Cody was a stripper
3. Therefor: Diablo Cody was an unlikely stripper.


If I were being offered a sweet publishing deal I probably wouldn't bicker with the company. Even if she came up with it herself she probably never imagined that that phrase would rub so many people the wrong way... Even after the fact, I still don't understand why you're so bothered by it.

Alaska
12-02-2007, 03:54 PM
Because it's pretentious. According to reports in this thread, she made it a point to announce her IQ, so I thought it was likely she was going around saying she was an unlikely stripper, too.

It's true tho, I have not read it and am trying not to pass any more judgement than just the fact that I wouldn't want to read it based on that.

I WOULD be seriously bothered that my publishing co. would use that as a catch phrase, and it prob wouldn't be a big deal to use something else.


I just like it when shit's original, but I need to read the book before I decide that.

Sophia_Starina
12-02-2007, 03:56 PM
Alaska.... methinks you'd like the book. The writer has a sense of humor that I think you would really appreciate (being that you are smart and sassy like she is). Borrow it from your library. I was pleasantly surprised.

xoxoGracexoxo
12-02-2007, 03:57 PM
And one more thing: The interviewer was right, any stripper who passed the fourth grade COULD write a book. But Diablo actually DID write a book. There's all the difference in the world between being able to do something, and actually doing it. I think that's all she was saying.

Someone at a gallery show once told Jackson Pollock, "This is nothing. I could have painted this." Pollock's response: "But you DIDN'T, and I DID."

xoxoGracexoxo
12-02-2007, 04:01 PM
Alaska, I was irritated by the "unlikely stripper" bit, too. I was so irritated that I bought to book so I could be even more irritated. I'm weird like that. I hated the title, the subtitle, the photograph on the cover...all of it.

I was pleasantly surprised. That cliche about not judging a book by its cover exists for a reason, apparently. Nothing about the book matches what you would expect from the cover design, which is why I think that shit was very likely shoved on her by a publisher. And honey, it is VERY hard to say no to those people, but if you think you could, write a book and give it a shot and I will support you.

Lysondra
12-02-2007, 04:23 PM
AHHH, reading the blurb:

Cody, now an arts editor for Minneapolis's alternative weekly, had spent her whole life (all 24 years) "choking on normalcy, decency and Jif sandwiches with the crusts amputated." When she moved from Chicago to Minnesota to live with the new boyfriend she'd found on the "World Wide Waste of Time," she took a job at an ad agency—a setup with good "porn shui" (desk well angled for undetected online porn surfing) but not much else.

'choking on normalcy' 'crusts amputated'.... 'world wide waste of time'....'porn shui'... it's THAT writing style that got me. She can never say something simple and basic or just 'Peanut butter sandwiches with no crusts'. Nope. FOUR hyperboles in two sentences, FOUR!

miabella
12-02-2007, 07:02 PM
All that crap tones way down as she moves on to talk about dancing. in fact, one can measure the effect of sexwork (since she worked in a peep and stripped) on her as the writing stops being quite so precious in the course of the book.

it's still a very frustrating book, mainly because her dude has all the hallmarks of the pimp-boyfriend. even if he did pressure her into writing a book and movie and getting deals for both instead of pressuring her into dating up rich customers.

he was, in fact, the ultimate literary pimp, heh.

noelle
05-15-2008, 03:03 PM
I hope it's okay I bump this sort of old thread, as I just read this book and finally have something to say about it...

I found it pretty entertaining and a quick, fun read. Parts of it really made me laugh. However, I couldn't get past all the trendier-than-thou posturing, and I couldn't help but think if I met her in real life I would probably want to punch her. I'm snarky and quick with a sarcastic quip, but there is such thing as trying too hard.

I know she isn't presenting the book as a "this is what all strippers and all strip clubs are like", but she was obviously drawn to seedier clubs. I work in Minneapolis (not at any of the clubs she worked at!) and hope people don't read this book and imagine that I do illegal nude bed dances and let customers grope me against my better judgment just because we are in the same city.

I didn't read her boyfriend as a "pimp" type at all. He seemed supportive of her. Just because he didn't hate her job, doesn't mean he was trying to pimp her. But maybe there is more to that I don't know about.

However, in the second to last chapter of the book, Diablo Cody says that most sex workers have a history of sexual abuse that they list as a reason they became involved in sex work (I am tired of discussing that, for sure). Then she says:

"I was never molested as a child, probably because I wasn't very attractive."

EXCUSE ME??????? I have never read something so ill informed and horrible! All kinds of people are abused, molested, and raped. Attractiveness has nothing to do with it! What a thoughtless and cruel thing to say.

All in all I would have mostly enjoyed the book, but I can't get past that.

AkashaM
05-15-2008, 05:36 PM
I read the book in an hour at the virgin megastore--I never got the feeling that she felt she was above it all---just kinda dorky and awkward. Its just another stripper memoir--honestly I think it was one of the better written ones. I had all my predjudices upon picking it up, but found that i liked it.

Oh, she does mention SW, briefly. She was a member?

CuriousSeeker
05-16-2008, 04:05 AM
I really thought I gave a fair portrayal of what dancing is like and it's effect on me, etc. People took it really personally, and I wasn't expecting that. I was only telling MY story, not trying to say that every stripper has the same experience.

You nailed it for me, Andygirl. As much as there's plenty that's off-putting to me about Juno (I felt like the writing was so self-consciously affected at times, but feh, maybe I'm just too old to get it), the snark factor in Cody's book really worked for me. In discussing it with friends, I found a lot of humor where they did not; often, I was working on the assumption that something was tongue-in-cheek, whereas other readers didn't think that. I'm not sure who's right...or if it matters.

Andygirl, I also felt she was simply giving her reality, her experience, regardless of how long she worked or where.

However, over time, I've often thought to myself that I'm seeing her fall for a lot of media traps that set her up.


I found it pretty entertaining and a quick, fun read. Parts of it really made me laugh. However, I couldn't get past all the trendier-than-thou posturing, and I couldn't help but think if I met her in real life I would probably want to punch her. I'm snarky and quick with a sarcastic quip, but there is such thing as trying too hard.

You might enjoy Rich's take on Juno then: http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2008/01/so-i-finally-sa.html. Rich is one of my fav bloggers for his snark. I currently love him for his Pot Psychology, which is making the rounds at YouTube.

I still give her enormous credit for having talent as a writer (I might not like all of her writing, but I can recognize she's talented and worked at it), pulling it off, book, movie deal and all.

Strip City will always be my fav, but I also appreciated Elisabeth Eaves' Bare.

xoxoGracexoxo
05-16-2008, 08:46 AM
."I was never molested as a child, probably because I wasn't very attractive."

EXCUSE ME??????? I have never read something so ill informed and horrible! All kinds of people are abused, molested, and raped. Attractiveness has nothing to do with it! What a thoughtless and cruel thing to say.

She's joking. It's not the first time I've heard that joke, either. The whole book (and her movie) are full of these shock-jock one-liners. I doubt she got serious in the second-to-last chapter for the lone sake of claiming that childhood attractiveness is correlated with abuse.

I don't remember her saying all strippers were molested, though. That's a tired claim, if she made it. Now I wanna go back and check.

Morgan_TX
05-16-2008, 09:02 AM
Am I the only one who thinks she's a terrible writer?

Her voice is all wrong. It was wrong in Juno, and it's wrong in this book (from the excerpts I've read). She's an amateur, which is to say that she IS a very good story-teller, but that doesn't make her a writer. She over-uses cliches and tries TOO hard to seem "hip" and "trendy". Of course what's so amusing about this is that most of the people who are actually young enough to actually use some of this grammar tend not to read anything longer than a text message. Her grasp of the English language is elementary, at best.

She is a good story-teller--I'll give her that. But it doesn't make her a good writer.

noelle
05-16-2008, 10:32 AM
She's joking. It's not the first time I've heard that joke, either. The whole book (and her movie) are full of these shock-jock one-liners. I doubt she got serious in the second-to-last chapter for the lone sake of claiming that childhood attractiveness is correlated with abuse.

I don't remember her saying all strippers were molested, though. That's a tired claim, if she made it. Now I wanna go back and check.

I just do not think that is funny at ALL to joke about. Anyone who has to stoop so low as to try to shock people with a joke about child molestation loses in my book.

She didn't say all strippers were molested, I believe she said "many" and she also might have said that it wasn't a fair assumption to make. However, I'm not sure.

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 04:09 PM
Am I the only one who thinks she's a terrible writer?

Her voice is all wrong. It was wrong in Juno, and it's wrong in this book (from the excerpts I've read). She's an amateur, which is to say that she IS a very good story-teller, but that doesn't make her a writer. She over-uses cliches and tries TOO hard to seem "hip" and "trendy". Of course what's so amusing about this is that most of the people who are actually young enough to actually use some of this grammar tend not to read anything longer than a text message. Her grasp of the English language is elementary, at best.

She is a good story-teller--I'll give her that. But it doesn't make her a good writer.

You're saying everything I've been saying for years.

VegasPrincess
05-16-2008, 04:17 PM
Where? Where? I wanna see it! :D

Yeah, me fucking too!!

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 05:02 PM
Probably the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read. To make it simple on why it's garbage...she's one of those people that thinks that in order to prove she's not a stereotype she HAS to use large retarded ass words and use every single way to describe how the sky is blue. I hate when people try so hard to look "smart".

It irked me to death. I read 3 chapters or so, and when I got to the part about the top 10 songs I chucked the book. Those songs are what proved to me, this girl was never a true dancer. She seriously was a tourist.

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 05:09 PM
Probably the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read. To make it simple on why it's garbage...she's one of those people that thinks that in order to prove she's not a stereotype she HAS to use large retarded ass words and use every single way to describe how the sky is blue. I hate when people try so hard to look "smart".

It irked me to death. I read 3 chapters or so, and when I got to the part about the top 10 songs I chucked the book. Those songs are what proved to me, this girl was never a true dancer. She seriously was a tourist.

THANK YOU. THAT was the shit that pissed me off in her writing. I mean fucking hell, she described her life as "choking on normalcy, decency and Jif sandwiches with the crusts amputated".....what the FUCK. CHOKING on normalcy? Crusts AMPUTATED?

Good lord woman. HYPERBOLE MUCH?!

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 05:12 PM
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1592401821/ref=sib_fs_bod/103-4815546-7240628?ie=UTF8&p=S00D&checkSum=elDY2Oq0C19qIk%2BLgoRCOr%2Fas3TvaSOAL2sik TwIloE%3D#reader-link

The first page...

"Jack Frost is a liberal, rangy sadist with ice crystals in his soul patch. Winter is the stuff of legends; stillborn, snow-choked, still as the ice floes on the ten thousand-odd lakes.'

She writes like a fucking emo kid!

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 05:22 PM
She's awful. My boyfriend tried reading me parts from her book while we were stuck in an airport on tour. He felt like he stumbled upon some goldmine of information as he's all pro stripping pro feminist power shit. Whatever gets him through. Anyways, he's reading this crap to me..and he's like "listen to her top 10 list"

Now before he had gotten to his part, he was reading about how clubs are always 10 degrees below freezing and how this girl was wearing some sparkely outfit that looked like crystal rain drops frozen into glittery ...(you get the point) I'm thinking to myself..i bet this top ten list is going to suck

But anyone who has danced knows the avg top 10 ALWAYS consists of "shook me all night long" "pour some sugar on me" "white pony" also, depeche mode and the cure. It's just common knowledge. She didn't even get ONE of those. Not even ones I'd kinda consider. I took the book from him, chucked it across the airport and said "Seriously?! No one talks like that in real life unless they are insecure"

And I stand by that. No one needs or does use senseless fucking huge ass words that take wiki to figure out the meaning of, when they speak .You just don't. Unless you are trying to "prove" something. And in her case she wanted to sound like the SMART educated stripper. So this book she made to help people "understand us" just basically made herself look like the smart one who chose to get out and also had chosen to go in. IE making the stereotypes now affirmed.

I'll say this much, for all her big talk and showmanship at least she can't dress for shit. I think she probably sucked as a dancer.

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 05:29 PM
It's not even the big words that got me... it was just like she cracked open a fucking thesauras every time she had to put a freaking adjective in the sentence.

Example:

I really dislike Diablo Cody's book because I felt it was written poorly.

The loathing in my blackened soul grew no more affable as I perused the pages of Mistress Cody's tome upon my cedar livingroom table, for it's print-dusted pages held no value to me - they were filled with the same recycled rigmorale as a bantam cadaver.

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 05:31 PM
hahaha I'm quoting this because it is seriously awesome. Maybe we all should start REALLY explaining everything. I wonder how fucking annoying that would be.

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 05:33 PM
DO IT DO IT...we should start a 'write like diablo cody' thread.

Or I'm sorry, a Inscribe Equivilent Devil Cody thread.

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 05:35 PM
I think we should pick a phrase a day and see how incredibly long winded we can get.

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 05:36 PM
DEAL! :D Where should this be done? Sporadically throughout SW? Or in a thread?

A Bloop Extended thread? Hahaha.

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 05:56 PM
I think it should be it's own thread. Because after all, it's that special :)

Lysondra
05-16-2008, 06:08 PM
http://www.stripperweb.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1547190#post1547190

Done :D

cutey5032
05-16-2008, 06:14 PM
hey, you guys, offtopic but she used to be on here a couple of years ago when she was still working. Someone recently revived an old thread she started and it made me chuckle.

Aw, come on now you gotta show us this thread. You can't tease us like this!

VegasPrincess
05-16-2008, 06:15 PM
But anyone who has danced knows the avg top 10 ALWAYS consists of "shook me all night long" "pour some sugar on me" "white pony" also, depeche mode and the cure. It's just common knowledge. She didn't even get ONE of those. .

Dont forget Girls, Girls, Girls }:D

Ugh. Everytime I hear that song I automatically start running to stage to do a promo. Damn !!

(End threadjack)

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 06:21 PM
^ lol. A certain DJ that use to work at VIPS ..right before he quit did the best promo song ever. He played "who let the dogs out" and quit the next day lol. I always hid in the bathrooms during the 2 for 1's and the promos. THANK GOD!!!

Sophia_Ashley
05-16-2008, 06:48 PM
never mind

erinorea
05-17-2008, 12:16 AM
I didn't read the book. I did read the excerpt on amazon and decided I probably wouldn't like the book because Cody's writing style is a bit verbose for my taste. I am, however, of the opinion that it is good to learn and regularly exercise words that aren't in our everyday vernacular. An informed vocabulary can be so expressive and beautiful. And the perfect weapon against ignorance. Especially at work. Heh heh.

blondhottie
05-17-2008, 12:55 AM
Aw, come on now you gotta show us this thread. You can't tease us like this!

I believe she used to post here under the name "Asphyxia." I enjoyed her book. I don't think she was trying too hard to sound smart-I think that's just the way she talks, kind of quirky and different.

i.breathe.in
05-17-2008, 10:35 AM
I believe she used to post here under the name "Asphyxia." I enjoyed her book. I don't think she was trying too hard to sound smart-I think that's just the way she talks, kind of quirky and different.

thats true look at her movie juno, that girl in it talked all kinds of wack.

Lysondra
05-17-2008, 10:36 AM
I just read her posts and in one post she says she used to make $1000 at Sheiks and then two posts later she says she only tips more than $40 if she makes over $1000 but that hasn't happened yet....wtf?

miabella
05-17-2008, 06:19 PM
but she also says the mileage in MPLS 'isn't that high', but then says grinding, etc are common and complains about all the girls doing way more.

it's interesting how this persona diverges from the income data in her book and from the purple prose in said book and her movie juno.

Lysondra
05-17-2008, 07:15 PM
Ah I missd that