The San Francisco Harlot was Scarlet the Harlot. But my new friend would name himself as a computer code, PlONe

Both of them had been coming to our Lost Angels chats, PlOne a lot more than Scarlet. Who had made a big name for herself more for being an intellectual and protester than as a whore. Several of the men had ventured into our Lost Angels chat room by chance or because they were looking for strippers. Whereas we had to lure Scarlet in who already had a large web site and substantial following. Grey Ghost got her measure straight off when he described her as one kick ass bitch.

When Grey Ghost calls a woman a kickass bitch, he’s giving her the highest compliment. Which Scarlet deserved not because she was the most famous San Francisco Harlot. But because she had a heart of gold and a real flair for taking the spotlight. For Scarlet was a unionizer. With a mission of organizing all of San Francisco’s whores and strippers into a union demanding real pay that could be taxed with benefits such as social security and health insurance.

Back in 1997, most strip clubs treated their dancers as outside contractors.

For example, the better Saint Louis Metro East Clubs required all their dancers to pay a thirty dollar nightly tip out for the privilege of stripping for the club’s customers. While a top end San Francisco club might charge as much as a fifty dollar nightly tip out. The stripper would earn most of her income off her share of customers’ drinks and lap dances that would last several minutes at $15.00 to $20.00 per dance. Because the clubs treated their dancers as outside contractors instead of employees, no salaries were paid and no benefits provided. With hardly any paperwork required from the Federal or State government.

Scarlet the San Francisco Harlot wanted a square deal for San Francisco’s strippers and whores.

While I wanted to meet her in the worse way. By the time Grey Ghost and I got Scarlet to host several of our Lost Angels chats, Baron and PlONe had become Lost Angels chat room regulars.

Baron was a gifted writer who lived in Washington State’s Olympic Mountains. Who wrote a lot like Ernest Hemingway and like Hemingway had lived life on the edge. Whereas PlONe lived out in a wealthy San Francisco suburb and seemed every inch a city boy. I had to meet all three of them, Scarlet the Harlot, PlONe and the Baron. And bought three plane tickets, one to San Francisco, a second one from San Francisco to Seattle. And a third ticket from Seattle back to Saint Louis.

I would have dinner with Scarlet at Sinbad’s. Sinbad’s was a terrific eatery with a sensational view of the Bay Bridge at night. I found Scarlet to be a fascinating woman who as I describe in Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer to have some very clear goals of making the world a better place.

The Lost Angels Chat functioned a lot like Facebook does today. But I think in almost every way it was far superior. While we had a far more intellectual membership including on San Francisco Harlot.

There was none of this, I like this, I like what you posted. I like your restaurant (even though I have never been there). I like the picture of that turd you showed all of us”. Facebook is trite. It’s full of hypocrisy. And it’s very boring. Our Lost Angels chats were hardly ever boring. There was nothing like it on the internet back in 1997. Most of our members were strippers or people who were interested in strip clubs. So the Lost Angels had all of the mystery, excitement and warped senses of humor of the people who work for strip clubs. And who are addicted to them as customers.

The Lost Angels used to have annual parties, at a strip club, at a restaurant, and later at my apartment once I moved to Collinsville.

At these parties, each member could vote for who was the best or worse person according to certain criteria.

For example, best dancer. Or woman of the year. Worse bullshitter (Male). Worse bullshitter (female), Most derelict (Male). Most derelict (Female). Most obnoxious female, Most obnoxious male, Most Gallant, Most unreliable Male, most unreliable female, best prankster, Leach of the Year Then we put the results on line. Our 1999 Lost Angels Chat Room Awards being a prime example.

Many of our stripper members prided themselves on being reliable. Or telling the truth. If you can imagine that. We even had a category for best club owner. And humanitarian of the Year. Which went to Tommy Davis, the owner of Chameleon who prided himself by how awful he was to his dancer employees.

Our Lost Angels chat members were outrageous. We poked fun at each other. And ridiculed people we didn’t like. And we got some very interesting members such as an English escort owner, a San Francisco Harlot unionizing the city’s sex workers, several topless club owners and managers, Baron a writer living in Washington State’s Olympic Mountains, and PlONe, a high powered computer programmer, lots of strippers. We were the only game in town in those days.

Perhaps the brainiest of us all was PlOne who introduced vast improvements to the Lost Angels Chat System

A few months after I visited PlONe and Scarlot the Harlot in San Francisco, I gave PlOne the user name and password for my alphapro.com web site. The Lost Angels chat platform was already a good setup due to its being html based. Which allowed our chat members to post digital pictures right into their messages. But PlOne introduced some very outstanding new features, such as the ability for our members to privately message each other. Or message just several members while others in the chat couldn’t view their private messages. PlOne devised several other useful features such as a timing mechanism which could indicate how much time had elapsed since a member had left the chat.

During my visit to San Francisco, PlONe explained to me how he had gotten his name. PlOne was extraordinarily gifted having a PHD in Computer Science. But he was a nerd and proud of it. Back in 1997, a group of guys frequented the Chez Paree strip club in downtown San Francisco. Compared to MItchell Brothers, Crazy Horse, and several other SF clubs, Chez Paree wasn’t all that much. But it had a desktop computer in the club that anyone could use to get online. Visitors to the Chez Paree were also encouraged to bringing their own laptops into the bar. A group of Chez Paree’s customers and strippers formed their own Chez Paree chat group. And started messaging each other in an IRC based chat room.

The Chez Paree IRC chat room was a total piece of crap. It was text based and user unfriendly but it was all they had in those days.

You couldn’t insert pictures into your chat messages in irc based chat rooms. Our Lost Angels chat room simply blew all irc based chats away. While most of the Chez Paree group members were very self centered. While having a very high opinion of themselves. Many of its members ridiculed PlONe and several other guys for being nerds. Calling them Pathetic Losers. While the “Pathetic Losers” turned the tables on the Chez Paree in crowd by calling each other Pathetic Loser one, Pathetic Loser two, and so on. The Pathetic Losers would have the last laugh. Due to their having high paying computer IT jobs.

I found most of the Chez Paree guys to be a very snotty unthinking group of nitwits unlike a San Francisco Harlot I had just taken to dinner.

After PlONe and I visited Chez Paree the second time, some of Chez Paree’s staunchest chat members were calling me a hick farmer who didn’t know his place. I tried to get the Chez Paree group to embrace the digital photography I had introduced to the Dollies and Stimmelators. And to our colorful Lost Angels chat room. With no success whatsoever.

But a few months later, CMG, one of my most critical Chez Paree adversaries, paid us a surprise visit at Dollies. Crazy Czech was there that weekend. And so was Jade. And we took CMG out on the town to show him what life was really like on the Saint Louis East Side. Within a week after his return to San Francisco, CMG wrote this report in the Chez Paree chat about how much fun he had with us hicks from the MIdwest.

I didn’t forget to write about the Homeless San Francisco Prostitute. Although I included Scarlet the Harlot as the San Francisco harlot I wanted to write about here, you can read about the Homeless whore in Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer.

You might also want to read “San Francisco strippers win right to form a union, 1996-1997″ This is the same time period Scarlet the Harlot was trying to unionize San Francisco’s sex workers.