Sorry 'bout your unfortunate experience, Tiggo. You've apparently been caught in an increasingly popular practice by some club owners that parallels our friends in the automotive sales industry: the old 'bait-and-switch' routine. You asked for the
E! True Hollywood Story -- so I'll give you the story.
Crystal was set to play in the Columbus club during the advertised dates and one thing that the barkeep said was true: Crystal
did, in fact, perform for the first two days. One the morning of the third day (Thursday), I got a call from Crystal and she was
quite upset. It seems that she showed up for work (a noon performance) and was told -- through intermediaries, btw -- that the owner had fired her for being 'overweight'.
Crystal said that he'd been complaining about this ever since she'd walked in the door but that, instead of firing her on the spot, he'd done nothing to prevent her from performing. So if she was so 'fat' in the eyes of her customers, then why is it that she earned 'only' $230 in tips the first day? If she was so 'repulsive' to the staff, then why did they try to get her to give a private dance to one of the bouncers (who was having a birthday)? The crowds were good -- not great (and the weather was sh*tty; I was in the area) -- and everything had gone smoothly. Til the Thursday bomb.
Short of assaulting someone, this is probably the worst thing that can happen to a feature dancer, as it immediately tarnishes her professional reputation. The first person that she has to answer to is her agent, for without the agent's approval of her appearance, the feature will receive no additional work. Her agents had how wonderful Crystal looked during the '04 Fan Fair and were completely taken aback by her gorgeous appearance. One agent asked when she had plastic surgery done in order to look so incredible. Crystal practically giggled when she told her that she's never had any plastic surgery done to her face or anywhere else (save the obvious, of course). She looked THAT good.
As a consequence of this issue with the Columbus club owner, Crystal had to send in a 'report card', of sorts to the agent in order to demonstrate that the club owner was full of guano. She took two photos in her motel room via a cell phone camera and emailed them to the agent as proof of her innocence in the matter. She also emailed them to me in order to ask what I thought of how she looked. (Yeah, it rough being a close, personal friend, I tell ya...) I am including them as an attachment. Judge for yourself. Yes, the quality is crap (whaddya want from a cell phone cam?) but on the bright side, they're so crummy that they can hardly be faked or photo-manipulated. Assuming that you take my statement as fact (that these pics were taken on the day that she was fired), you're left with the truth of the situation.
Fans of Miz Storm's will recognize her, not to mention her 'unique attributes', in a heartbeat. (They're
quite distinctive.) You can make what you want out of her holding her arms up and whatever for the photo but it is [/u]
obvious[/u] that she is
far from fat. Certainly, I would travel three hours to see her in
that physical condition without thinking twice about it. (Come to think of it, I
did travel three hours to see her on her last prior appearance in Ohio -- Fremont, Ohio -- in March '04 and she looks
better than she did then...)
IMO, she looks fantastic. I've seen her twice later in the year (late Sept. in Memphis and mid-Nov. in Albuquerque) and as good as she looked then, she continues to improve. She's been on a fitness craze this year and it has certainly paid off. Geez, I've even been with her to the gym and have seen firsthand just how ridiculously
hard she works. She looks the best she has in years. If you loved her in '99-'00, Tiggo, you'd love her in '05 -- trust me on this.
Crystal was not only screwed out of the most lucrative days of her contract (the weekend) but, due to her release, was left with her rental car and hotel bills for the rest of the week and the consequent (and substantial) fee for changing her plane tickets (club owners rarely pay for travel anymore; they used to
always do so) in order to leave the area ASAP. (No point in being there if you're not working, eh?) Thus, she traveled and worked the two days for a several hundred dollar
deficit. The a**hole that owned the club, not only hadn't the courage to fire her face-to-face but did make her wait
five additional hours before he could cut a check for the days that she did work.
From what Crystal has been able to gather from an individual that works for various features who come through the area, this is somewhat of an SOP for this particular club. They advertise a well-known feature, find a reason to fire them (i.e., the feature doesn't look like her promo material), then substitute a cheaper feature. You know as well as I do, Tiggo, that some flat-chested bimbo was put up in Crystal's place and that she was probably a local girl. No one else could've been performing by
that afternoon (especially with the local weather being what it was). By bringing in the feature for at least one show, the owner avoided liability for breach of contract. Their excuses include such lunacy as the feature "breaking" her leg -- yet the next week, the feature has not only
not canceled any future work but is working again and exceeding the expectations of her promo material at another club.
Your friendly neighborhood bartender is part of the con. The boss makes the rules, the boss wants to make it look like its all the feature's fault, the bartender wants to keep his job -- so what does he care? The club advertises the feature, then dumps her because of her cost. Then the staff lies to the customer --
you. They're perfectly fine with the fact that you've already paid the cover charge, ordered a drink and probably had a lapdance.
This is the kind of crap that Crystal has been having to take for the last several years. She truly enjoys featuring and she's in excellent shape but it doesn't matter: the work is just drying up. Big bust features are simply not the novelty that they once were. Add into this the fact that the club owners know this and, in addition to paying for less and less bennies (e.g., no travel pay and sometimes don't even pay for her damned motel room), Crystal is only making maybe a 1/3 of what she did 7 or 8 years ago. Less money and having to pay for so much of these expenses out of her own pocket -- well, hell, it's getting to the point where it just ain't worth all of the crap. People should be
amazedthat she's lasted this long. I'm sure that Casey James, Alyssa Alps and whoever's left will vouch for Crystal on this. It's ridiculous.
Crystal
is still featuring; she just finished work last week in Lake Charles, Louisiana -- a mere two weeks after being labeled 'fat' -- and the club owner, staff, and the patrons loved her. Go figure. My advice, though, is that if you're indeed a fan, go see her whenever possible -- even if it is three hours away because I don't know how much longer she's gonna do this. Just be sure to call the club prior to leaving for showtimes.
(Though, admittedly, this wouldn't have helped in this situation.)
Crystal is genuinely sorry for the disappointment suffered by her fans in this instance. (Actually, when I talked to her, she thinks that she knows who you are after reading your post -- which makes her feel worse that this happened.) She knew that her fans were going to get screwed and she wishes that somehow she could have stopped all of the advertising and warned everyone, but, obviously, she couldn't. All that I can suggest is that you keep checking her website for appearances (she does a pretty good job of keeping current) at
www.crystalstorm.us.
Hope this helps, man.