Celeb Mashup: Sting

Sometimes when strip clubs want to make me feel paranoid, they'll play “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, while monitoring my every workplace move. Sometimes it's a dubstep version, sometimes it's the original, sometimes some other mix of the song. It is likely that some fucking loser will read this Sting post and make sure I hear the song soon.

Sting is a misogynist loser piece of shit who goes to strip clubs and violates dancer boundaries. Personally, I'm not surprised that a rich male shitlib who went on all those Oprah shows, and does all those performative charitable events, would behave like he does in strip clubs. I met him at the Admiral Theater on Chicago's North side, in either 2012 or 2013-- I can't remember the specific month.

I started working at Admiral in 2012, and was fired in 2013. I was never given a reason for my termination. In hindsight, it was probably for discussing my labor rights with coworkers and managers. I just didn't know that at the time, because I still wasn't educated on stripper labor rights at the time.

There were so many nice things about working at Admiral. The architecture and interiors are aesthetically exquisite. I've never found in another strip club as visually beautiful as the Admiral. It was owned by an Italian mafia-linked guy named Sam Cecola. The air smelled like Mediterranean floral parfum. The lighting was a sensual red. Large murals of Cleopatra-looking women and other picturesque Mediterranean ladies covered the lobby. The club was once a vaudeville house, so the lobby was more like a vintage movie theater lobby where patrons paid the entrance fee. Admiral has high ceilings and red theater curtains on the stage, which dancers gracefully emerged from to start our sets. The front stage had no pole. There was no alcohol served at Admiral. I don't remember seeing any twerking on the stage, or other ghetto shit. There were all kinds of weird nooks and crannies throughout the building. It kind of felt like I was stepping into a Noir film when going in there. Many dancers and strip club staff referred to Admiral as “the Disney World of strip clubs,” because the vibe was so uniquely stunning in a Capone-era Chicago way. Most of the dancers were classically pretty, including runway and fashion models, whose photos were on Chicago buses and taxis, simultaneous to the time that they danced at Admiral. I made insane amounts of money while working there. Best of all, Admiral was (primarily) an air-dance club. We got fully nude, but customers (generally) couldn't touch us. Most of the customers were docile, did not put up a fight to violate my boundaries, did not harass me in any way. Bouncers would remove customers immediately if the slightest infraction took place, without the dancer's honesty being questioned. The term “believe all women” could definitely be applied to the bouncer's reactions to dancer complaints regarding customers. The “house mom” usually kept endless amounts of pasta, fresh fruit and juice for us in the finely finished, wood floor dressing room. I've posted before about how I don't tip for “house mom” food, but Admiral was an exception. I ate multiple bowls of pasta many nights that I worked there.

There were things to hate about Admiral Theater too. The manager, Steve, talked to dancers like shit. We had mandatory, unpaid staff meetings. There were strict dress code standards. We had to wear heels at least three inches, and nice dresses. Dancers could be fired for not participating in mandatory theme nights and costume nights, so I had to buy princess and fairy costumes with my own money. Steve fired dancers on a whim all the time, when his temper flared up. The club took large amounts of our money. Even though I made lots of money there, taking any of it from me was not OK. Rules for our personal aesthetics were strict, especially on stage. There was a $40 fine for chewing gum. One time while I was on stage, I was picking a piece of a cracker out of my tooth with my tongue. My manager mistook it for a piece of gum, and fined me $40. When I tried explaining to him that it was a cracker, that only made him more angry. Coffee drinking on the show floor was forbidden. We had to look otherworldly, elegant, and statuesque at all times-- without making an hourly wage, while paying out huge sums of our money to the club, while being verbally abused and screamed at by Italianos and their staff. The house mom shamed me so badly about not wearing enough makeup, that I started wearing voluminous amounts of concealer and foundation-- a practice I continued for the next eleven years and only recently stopped.

Sting also loved Admiral Theater. His real name is Gordon Sumner. To clarify, I should say that lots of models, musicians, artists, and random washed up celebrities went to Admiral. Sam Cecola is a well known person in his own right. I remained friends with a few of my dancer coworkers after I was fired. I don't plan on giving anyone from Admiral their own post besides Sting. This will be the only Admiral post in this series.

On a night like any other at Admiral, I sat down next to a couple of random old men, to say hello and try to hustle them. When the guy closest to me turned his head to say hello with a British accent, I had to focus on his face a bit. I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him for a moment. Then, I was like,

“You're Sting!”

Sting was in a cheerful, joking mood, and said,

“Nooo, he's Sting!” while pointing to the old man next to him. Then, I said something to him about how often he went on the Oprah show. For those who don't know, Sting used to make guest appearances on The Oprah Show. The Oprah Show was based in Chicago, at Harpo Studios. I always thought it was odd how I'd be watching Oprah, and then Sting would come on. I never liked how often Sting was an Oprah guest. I've never cared for him.

Sting chuckled when I mentioned Oprah to him. I mentioned something to him about his wife Trudie Styler discussing tantric sex with Oprah. He laughed again. I didn't feel much chemistry with him at all, so I got up and moved on.

I couldn't focus on hustling for the remainder of the evening that Sting was in the building. I approached my manager Steve, and excitedly told him that Sting was there. Steve became angry, and said to me,

“YEAH. He's a friend of Sams!” Steve conveyed that Sting goes to the Admiral sometimes, and made it clear to me that I should stop acting excited about it. I thought it was interesting that Sting is a guy who advertises all of his charitable acts and goes on Oprah, but he is friends with a criminal like Sam Cecola. I couldn't say any of that to Steve though. I had to act cool, act casual.

I don't actually like any of Sting's music. I think it sucks. I was merely excited by the novelty of Sting's celebrity. For some reason, Sting's presence made me feel flushed and nervous. I was blushing and trembling. Sting is such a fucking loser who is not attractive at all, but I was frazzled about the novelty of the situation.

I approached several other dancers that evening, to discreetly point out Sting. I was peeking around stage curtains and such. Some of the dancers had never heard of him. One of them who did know of him was like, “Who cares? The Police suck.” Several of the dancers who had worked there a while already knew that Sting was somewhat of a regular. Nobody else seemed to be as shook by Sting's presence as I was.

At some point, Sting got a 15-minute dance from a lanky, older millennial dancer with blonde hair. She was not unlike a younger version of his wife, Trudie Styler. Afterwards, the dancer told me and several others that while she was hoovering over him, he put both of his hands on her hips, yanked her down to sit on him, and that she could feel his erection while sitting on his lap. He then thrusted his hips up. The dancer reported that Sting's erection was small, about the size of her thumb. Normally at Admiral, this level of physical contact would not happen. She was visibly flustered and upset when describing what happened. But, because it was Sting, and a friend of Sam Cecola's, she did not complain about him to management or bouncers.

I shouldn't have to explain this, but just because a woman is hoovering over someone while dancing does not give a man consent to grab her hips and yank her down to sit on his lap while he as a thumb-sized erection and dry hump her. That is assault, and it is disgusting.

After that evening, I researched all of the controversial events related to Small Dick Sumner that have taken place over the past few decades. There are many, unsurprisingly. I recently read that he’s a rapist. His shitlib politics and performative charitable events are problematic, unsurprisingly.

I think Sting was in the Admiral again in the course of my misclassified employment there, but I don't remember specifics. I cried when I got fired by a manager named Todd. I didn't think it could happen to me. I emailed Sam Cecola a couple of times after getting fired, to try to get my job back. I also went in there a couple of times to try to talk to him, but nothing worked. Being fired from Admiral for unknown reasons really prompted me to want to get active for dancer rights, so I started looking for Chicago activist groups around the Summer of 2013.

I thought my Sting saga was over, until I moved to Denver in 2014. I worked at a club called Penthouse, which was about a block away from Shotgun Willie's strip club. While I was at Penthouse, I told some staff about meeting Sting at Admiral. The Penthouse staff then informed me that Sting has also been to Penthouse and Shotgun Willie's. Several months before I moved there, he was very intoxicated, and loudly walking between the two clubs in the parking lots that separate them. One of the clubs would not allow him back in, due to his aggressive drunken behavior, though I can't remember which one.

Admiral has been sued over the past few years. I've posted about it on the site before, but I don't know the specifics. I was happy to see it finally happened, even though the settlement or payout will just be a slap on the wrist for the Cecola family. Last April when I visited Chicagoland, I saw a former Admiral coworker. She said it's kind of run down now, and stated that “all the magic that was there before is gone now.”

I have so many questions for Oprah about this. If I ever meet her, I think the first thing I'd say is:

“Oprah you stupid fuckin bitch. Why are you friends with a sexually predatory, loser piece of shit like Sting? Do you know Sam Cecola? Has he ever been to Harpo Studios? Do you know that Sting went to Admiral when he visited you in Chicago? Do you go to Admiral too? Are you OK with Sting being a sexual predator, even though you've had so many shows about assault survivors? What do you think about all of Admiral's labor violations that eroded the self esteem of dancers, who were in constant threat of losing their jobs and living in poverty?”