Thirty-Six Years in This City, and I Still Answer the Phone

Most companies booking male strippers in Miami are dispatch operations. You call a number, somebody two states away takes your details, and a dancer nobody in that chain has ever met shows up at your address. It works, more or less. But nobody involved has ever actually done the job.

That’s the whole difference here, and it’s the only thing I’d ask you to weigh when you’re deciding who to call.

The Short Version

What’s Actually On the Résumé

I lead with the credentials because they’re unusual and because they’re checkable — not because a magazine title from the nineties books your bachelorette party. What matters is the thirty-six years underneath them, and what those years taught me about how a room actually works.

Where It Started

Coconut Grove, Late Eighties

I started in 1989. If you know Miami from that era, you know it was a different city — the Grove was the center of the nightlife universe, South Beach was still years away from becoming what it became, and the entertainment business here ran on word of mouth and who you knew at the door.

Monty Trainer’s in Coconut Grove was one of the first places I worked. [CONFIRM: one or two sentences on what Monty Trainer’s was like and what you did there.] It was the kind of room where you learned fast, because there was nowhere to hide and no production to carry you. Just you, a crowd, and whatever you brought with you that night.

[CONFIRM: Mr. Laps / Mr. Laff’s — correct spelling, roughly what years, and what the venue was.]

That period taught me the thing I still hire for: the physical side of this job is the least important part of it. Anyone can get in shape. What you can’t teach quickly is walking into a room cold and knowing, in about ninety seconds, exactly what that particular group needs from you.

Building the Clubs

Opening Every LaBare in South Florida

LaBare is the name in male revue — the clubs that essentially defined the format nationally. I opened all of the South Florida locations. [CONFIRM: roughly what years, and how many locations.]

Opening a club is a completely different discipline from performing in one. You’re building a show from nothing: casting the lineup, structuring a set that holds a room for two hours instead of ten minutes, working out the lighting and the music and the pacing, training guys who can dance but have never had to carry an audience. And then handling the part nobody talks about — the licensing, the neighbors, the local rules that vary block to block in this county.

Every one of those lessons shows up now in how bookings get run. When I tell you a 30-minute arrival window instead of a hard time, that’s not vagueness — that’s three decades of knowing what traffic on the causeways actually does to a schedule.

The Television Years

Two Hundred Credits and Counting

The TV work came out of the club work. Male revue was having a cultural moment, the daytime talk circuit was at its absolute peak, and the shows wanted people who could actually hold a segment.

• The Jerry Springer Show
• Maury — the Maury Povich show
• The Montel Williams Show
• Cristina — the Univision talk show
• [CONFIRM: “Caliente”? — the Spanish-language show you mentioned. Need the correct name.]

Plus a long list of local and syndicated segments that add up to the two hundred number. Some of it was performance. A lot of it was being the person in the room who could explain the business to an audience that had only ever seen a movie version of it.

Filming a Deco Drive segment with the lineup — six appearances, six wins.

Miami’s Own Show

Six Times on Deco Drive

Of everything on the list, the Deco Drive run means the most to me, because it’s local. Deco Drive is Miami’s show — it’s what this city actually watches. Winning six times isn’t a fluke or a booking favor. It’s the audience here, repeatedly, picking the act.

That’s the credential I’d point to if you only had time for one. National TV means you were good on camera. Six wins on the show your own city watches means you were good here, in front of the people who live here, over a span of years.

The Comeback

Coming Out of Retirement for E!

[CONFIRM: the E! show name, roughly what year, and what the segment was. This is the most recent and most searchable credential on the page — worth getting exactly right.]

I’d stepped back from performing by then and was focused entirely on the agency side. [CONFIRM: a sentence or two on why you did it and what it was like being back in front of a camera after time away.]

What It Means For You

Why Any of This Matters to Your Party

Fair question. Here’s the honest answer.

I know what the job actually requires, so I hire for the right thing. Every guy on our roster gets vetted by someone who’s done this work. I don’t hire off photographs. I can tell inside one conversation whether somebody’s going to read a difficult room correctly or make it worse — and that’s the single variable that decides whether your night lands.

I know this city’s rooms. Which South Beach buildings have guest caps and noise cutoffs that will end your party early. Which hotels are relaxed about entertainment and which absolutely are not. What the causeways really do at 10pm on a Saturday. Where a party bus can realistically stop. None of that lives in a database — it comes from thirty-six years of showing up.

Miami is the entire business. We’re not a national brand with a Miami landing page. This market is all we do, which means I’m not guessing about your venue and I’m not routing your booking to somebody who’s never been here.

How We Work

Four Things I’d Want If I Were Booking

• The total, in writing, before you commit. Cost, arrival window, length of the show — texted to you up front. Any agency that won’t do that is telling you something.
• A 30-minute window, not a hard time. A window means nobody’s watching the door instead of enjoying the party, and it means the surprise doesn’t get spoiled by someone checking their phone.
• We show up. On time, in the right costume, briefed on the room you described and who the night is for.
• Discretion by default. What happens at the party stays there. That shouldn’t need saying, but it does.

If you want to see who’s currently working, the lineup is on our Miami male strippers page. If you’d rather just talk it through and get a real number, call me directly.