Chameleon wildest strip club in the Saint Louis Metro East? Chameleon even outdid the Dollies Playhouse because it broke all the rules.

“The Wild Times Magazine”, what do you want to do with it? Read it or wipe your ass with it?” Tommy asked me after putting a rack of “Wild Times” magazines next to his strip club’s shitter.

Tommy totally transformed Chameleon wildest strip club in the Saint Louis Metro East into being the most outrageous night club you could ever imagine. Because Tommy was totally outrageous. Tommy broke just about every law in Illinois short of robbery and murder.

Tommy reveled at presenting himself as the king of sleaze.

And as a man totally devoid of principles and tack. Like Jack Nicolson playing the joker in Batman, Tommy was the very incarnation of evil. And loved playing his part with as much gusto as a Laurence Olivier playing Richard the Third.

My pal, young Howard, the lawyer and I oftentimes toasted the Chameleon’s strippers, “We love fucking whorehouses.” And even though it was the strippers shouted back to us, and “we love working for one.”

But whereas Tommy played the bad cop, his wife played the good cop. Buying drinks for all the girls. While getting totally shitfaced.

Chameleon wildest strip club in the Saint Louis Metro East earned its reputation due to its not even having a liquor license. Because it operated as a private club keeping and selling alcohol for members only.

I was of course one of Chameleon’s most revered members. As well as any one of my friends accompanying me into the club.

I would oftentimes bring stripper friends of mine from other clubs to Chameleon.

For example, Selena and Angie from Visions, Jade from Dollies, and Nipples from C-Mowes which was next door to Chameleon.

But the girl who would become my best friend of them all was Angel, who loved Tequila and oftentimes shouted out at me, “Jack, get your fucking bony ass over here and buy me a fucking tequila!”

And how could I refuse? Angel was the prettiest girl at the Chameleon. While every time I’d buy her one of her fucking tequilas she would buy me a drink.

But one day while I was having lunch at Applebees, which was less than a mile from my Collinsville apartment a beautiful girl came up to my table all smiles. The girl showed no signs of being a stripper at Chameleon wildest strip club in the Saint Louis Metro East or being a stripper anywhere else.

The girl looked as clean cut as any high school cheerleader and just about as young. A well dressed man in his twenties stood behind her.

The young girl turned out to be Angel. The young man, her boyfriend. It didn’t take long after that for Angel and I to start going out together. About then I would often run into her boyfriend lurking close to Chameleon, who turned out to be not nearly as clean cut as I had made him out to be at Applebees.

One night I passed David as he was lurking around near the club. When he asked me, “Did you fuck Angel?”

I was totally appalled and disgusted with David. And didn’t reply one way or the other. Because I never had sex with most of the Chameleon girls.

And if I ever did, I never paid a single one of them. Barbie had visited me at my apartment several times. Once for a full scale photo shoot. And so had Krystal and Candy. As had Tessie. And Angel many times. I had even climbed up the steps of Monks Mound with Tessie to do an off the wall video mocking Beater.

It was no big deal for me to go out with the Chameleon girls after Chameleon closed. While Tommy and his wife gave me carte blanche to see the girls whenever I wanted.

Although Tommy fined his girls at every opportunity. For coming late to work their shifts, or the smallest violation of his rules. He never viewed me as one of his customers. Because by this time we had become friends and partners in crime. Due to my often doing liquor runs for him to the Clark Gas Station. Or my doing a web site for him free of charge.

But after Angel kicked David out of her house and David kept trying to get in her front door I gave a can of Pepper Spray to Angel

Angel nailed David right in the face with the pepper spray I had given her that night.

The pepper spray stopped David in his tracks. But less than one week later he murdered his best friend by stabbing him in the face with a screwdriver.

“I got a farm hernia” I told the doctors as they put me asleep. “I’m going to a strip club tonight.

And I did exactly that. I left the hospital at 2 p.m. only a few hours after they operated on me for a farm hernia. After having dinner with my best friend and his wife we walked into the Dollies strip club in Washington Park, Illinois.

So why am I calling a plain ordinary hernia a farm hernia?

I once asked Kermit, my best friend’s father “what do you do when you have a farm hernia?”

I just tuck in my gut and keep driving that tractor because I have to keep farming until I have all my crops planted before will allow any doctor to operate on me for a farm hernia.

Farming requires a lot of hard physical labor. While doctors ask their patients not to lift more than twenty pounds for two months after having a hernia operation. So farmers face a huge dilemma after getting a farm hernia. On average they have just ten days to get their corn crop planted due to inclement weather in April and May. Long periods of heavy rainfall oftentimes occur in Illinois during these two months. While a delay into June causes huge yield losses. And huge losses that a farmer won’t be able to recover for many years.

So a farmer doesn’t have the luxury of taking a vacation from all that hard physical labor he has to perform after he gets a farm hernia.

I will never forget watching Kermit’s son getting into the cab of his four wheel drive tractor just one day after he broke one of his legs and one f his arms in a single farm accident.

While loading up large trucks with corn in the hallway of our on farm grain elevator complex, Jack fell down on the concrete floor that had become slippery due to the loose grain kernels that had littered the floor.

One day later I found him crawling back and forth underneath a 40 foot long field cultivator replacing worn out shovels. Now a field cultivator is a large tillage tool farmers use to prepare their seedbeds for their planters. A forty foot field cultivator might have 100 shovels. Which routinely come off in the middle of the field and constantly wear out.

I watched Jack shoving his tool box across the dirt as he squirmed back and forth replacing shovels with one of his socket wrenches. Can’t remember how long it took him to get the implement field ready, but it was one or two days afterwards that I saw him getting into that tractor cab carrying two crutches as he lifted himself up the steel ladder attached to his tractor using his arms.

I got lucky when I got that second farm hernia

Because for over a year I never knew I had it. Sure, I felt a fair amount of discomfort most of the time. But the pain never amounted to that much until I tried to exercise. I had to lay off the running. And used a cross country skiing machine for aerobics. But after a few minutes my groin started to hurt like hell.

I must have seen five doctors. And each time I went to see one, the doctor would prescribe ibuprofen or some other pain killer. But each time I saw one of those doctors, the doctor would tell me to keep taking my pain meds.

I never saw that tell tale bulge that accompanies most hernias. Until I decided “to hell with it!” And went all out on my cross country skiing machine.

I suffered from a lot more pain after a few minutes going all out on the cross country skiing machine. It felt like I had ripped my groin to shreds. After I finally saw a bulge in my groin, I went to a surgeon in Carlinville, Illinois.

“You’ve got a farm hernia son,” the new doctor told me. I can operate on you three days from now.

As I mentioned, I got lucky with that second farm hernia. By the time that bulge emerged in my groin we were into the Fall. We had gotten the harvest in and we had already completed all the post harvest field work.

Lady luck had ridden with me when I got the first farm hernia. I got that hernia during the winter when I wouldn’t have to do a lot of hard physical labor.

When I got operated on for that first farm hernia, my good friend, Steve Waters, wanted to take me back to my house and look after me for the next twenty-fours or so. Back then Steve was living in Springfield, Illinois, and Steve loved nothing more than visiting my farm where we could shoot guns and drink a lot of beer together out in the country.

To lessen the post operative pain, the doctor gave me Darvocet.

So within an hour after Steve drove me back to my farm, we started having a few beers together. After we downed several beers, I took a Darvocet capsule. And when Steve asked me what it was, I replied. “Darvocet. I think it’s a narcotic.”

“Let me have one?” Steve replied.

After downing a few more beers and each of us swallowing Darvocet, Steve decided that I felt well enough to accompany him to a Farmersville tavern. Each of us had 19 beers that night. Proving that I was not drunk. Because I could still count.

I am scared to death of having hernia operations. Because the knife comes just too close to my balls.

So while the doctors were giving me the anesthetic for my second farm hernia, I decided to make them all laugh. That’s what I do at hospitals before getting operated on. To conquer my fear.

“Tonight I am celebrating this operation,” I told the doctors. I’m going to a strip club. And get drunk on my ass with all the strippers.”

So true to my word I had Jack and his wife, Donna, drive me to the Dollies Playhouse strip club. Which didn’t take much convincing. Because Donna was an ex stripper. While Jack had met his future wife while she was stripping at the Main Street strip club.

Now that Donna, she was really something. After Jack and I met her I would often go to Main Street and buy her a lot of drinks. She was so much fun to drink with. She would later marry Jack. And become as loyal a wife as they come. For years they would live within 600 yards of me.

I swallowed my second Darvocet only a few minutes after we entered the strip club.

As Alex watched me take it right after I bought us a couple of beers.

An hour later, after I started on my fourth beer of the night, Alex watched me swallow my third Darvocet capsule.

“Don’t swallow it Jack”, Alex yelled at me. But it was already too late.

No doctor would have approved of the things I did that night. I carried at least one stripper around the room. Even though the girls weighed a lot than 20 pounds. While Alex kept telling me, “Don’t.” She’s always being such a mother to me.

Washington Park Chameleon Club didn’t have a liquor license and had its bar girls providing sex for its customers. It was wonderful.

Young Howard, a young lawyer friend of mine from the Missouri side of the Mississippi and I used to meet at the Washington Park Chameleon. And Howard and I would oftentimes have toasts, to each other, the girls and the bar.

“I love Fucking Whorehouses, Howard would shout out for everyone to hear.”

And I’d reply, “I love this whorehouse. Best bar in town.”

I suppose the Washington Park Chameleon Club was the real deal. A whorehouse. But I loved the place and never paid one of the Chameleon girls a dime.

Athough I sure bought of them drinks. Expecially my favorites. I went out with a lot of the girls as soon as the place closed.

The way it all worked is Tommy had a back room area behind the bar that had its own jacuzzi room and a small bedroom next to it. If a customer wanted to take one of the girls into the back, he had to pay the “club” a twenty dollar towel fee. So if the police ever came into the bar, Tommy would tell them, “I don’t know what they are doing back there. I only get paid twenty-five bucks per towel.

As far as I know Tommy never made a dime whenever one of his girls did a trick other than the towel fee. While he avoided having to have a liquor license because he called the Washington Park Chameleon a private club.

Tommy oftentimes asked me to drive up highway 111 two miles to a Clark Station where I’d buy several cases of beer for him. Of course Tommy always paid me back. And gave me a lot of free beer in return for my services. So when the police came in to ask him about all the beer Tommy was keeping, Tommy would tell them, “Oh that beer belongs to Frank or Sam or Fred. I’m just keeping it cold for them.” Then Tommy would show the police a mug or two, telling them, “this one’s Fred’s special glass and this one belongs to Sam. They are members of my private club.”

I know all of you are going to ask, “How did Tommy make any money selling his beer so cheap when all he gets is two dollars a can and a few measley twenty-five dollar towel fees?

For one thing Tommy charged each girl working for him a fifty dollars tipout fee each time she worked her shift. But that’s a long time ago so I don’t really remember what he was charging back then. Tommy also owned and operated a towing company right down the street from Chameleon. It certainly helped that Tommy’s wife was working for the Washington Park Police. Because each time anyone was pulled over for drunken driving or had a car that needed a tow, Tommy would gladly tow the vehicle to his tow yard.

Then there were the fines. If for any reason a girl was late for her shift or couldn’t make it, Tommy would collect a $100.00 fine. Tommy had two phone lines, one for his towing service, the other for his personal use. But Tommy made sure that he never gave out his personal number to any of his girls. So if a girl couldn’t get to the bar on time. Or even taking one of her children to the hospital, Tommy could always tell the girl, “You never called me to tell me your excuse.

Yeah, a know a lot of you people reading this post are thinking that Tommy was a despicable degenerate. But I really liked the guy and always will.

It didn’t take me long to start doing a web site for the Washington Park Chameleon Club. Being the only man using digital cameras in the Saint Louis Metro East clubs I was always buying the latest and greatest digital cameras. Tommy would oftentimes buy a digital camera I had outgrown or a printer from me.

I also got a lot of free beer at the Washington Park Chameleon. Especially on those nights Tommy had his wife managing the bar for him. Tommy’s wife was always out for a good time And the Chameleon girls loved her to death. While Tommy never drank much while he was running the bar, his wife was a complete lush. And not half as strict as her husband. It got to be almost embarrassing for me because Tommy’s wife would oftentimes buy me six or eight beers.

While Tommy in his own way was the opposite of a comic book superhero character. Such as the Joker in Batman, played by Jack Nicholson.

The joker of course is the incarnation of pure evil. But Jack Nicholson’s hilarious playing the Joker. Tommy was a lot like Jack Nicholson playing the joker. Reveling in his ability to play off the villain.

The Washington Park Chameleon was a private club. And I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it. No one got into the Chameleon without Tommy’s say so. And Tommy either liked you or he didn’t. He kept the front entrance door locked while he sat at the very front of the bar evaluating whether he’d let someone in or not. He kept a .357 magnum revolver near him out of sight. And a sawed off Louisville slugger baseball bat near his right hand.

I can’t forget one night Tommy was bragging to me how he beat the holy hell out of a man with his baseball bat.

One night a young guy who had been beating up his dancer girlfriend came into the bar and started to get physical with his girlfriend. Tommy walloped the guy with his baseball bat a few times and threw him out of the bar. But when the man damaged his door frame on his way out, Tommy called the police and had him thrown in jail. Being the good samaritan that he was Tommy paid the man’s bail. But only after the man paid him far more than the door frame was worth.

I will never forget two nights in which the Washington Chameleon got involved with the police.

I was on my way home one night from the Dollies Playhouse strip club when an Illinois State trooper stopped me and gave me two tickets. One for failure to show proof of insurance. The other for not wearing a seat belt. With Chameon just two blocks away I paid Tommy a little visit. When I showed Tommy my two police citations, Tommy took them from me and went out into his parking lot without saying a word. Five minutes later he came back and handed me the two tickets the police officer had confiscated from me.

On another night the police raided the Washington Park Chameleon Club. I was inside having a few beers with one of the girls when four policemen entered the bar. Tommy jumped up from his barstool and greeted the police officers as if they were his best friends in the world. The police officers never got twenty feet past the Chameleon’s front door. As Tommy exchanged some friendly gossip with the police, I kept thinking about the girl who had just gone into the back room area to do a trick with a customer.

But the best part about the Chameleon was Angel. Although she was by far the prettiest girl in the Washington Park Chameleon club, she never allowed me to ever take pictures of her. Angel would soon become one of my best friends.

Related Links you might enjoy visiting

Jack Corbett In the Hot Tub at the Chameleon Adult Club

The Night the Police raided the Chameleon Club

Jack Corbett’s wild times at the strip clubs in Washington Park

Angie, my photographer for the Chameleon hot tub photo shoots with Krystal

To learn more about that motivates a lot of dancers such as Krystal and Angie and why they do what they do I recommend reading my latest book, Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer

For those who want to know more about the Washington Park Chameleon, its unforgetable owner, Tommy, the clubs in the Saint Louis Metro East I recommend that you read Scott Eden’s “Fantasies Made Fresh (Note….Especially those who want a mofe in depth view of Tommy’s character and appearance read the second half of Scott’s ground breaking article.)