Stardust

I personally do not know of any male my age from Quezon City who has not set foot inside Stardust at least once in their lives, but for those anomalous few: Stardust is a KTV club along Quezon Avenue, right smack in the middle of several other KTVs and massage parlors of varying degrees of quality. The entire strip of Quezon Avenue is generally regarded to be the red-light district of North Metro Manila, and as such, competition in the area is fairly high. Now, I happen to have a special sentimental attachment to Stardust because it was the first club I ever entered, and it's also the place that opened my eyes to the various intricacies of the girlie-bar world. (So if there's a smidgen of bias over the next few paragraphs, that's my official excuse.)

Pricing
GRO: PhP400/hour
Model: PhP560/hour
Solo: PhP800/hour*

Stardust's per-hour rate is traditionally based around drinks. PhP800 will get a solo girl a very large glass of very watered-down beer, which they will sip through a straw for about an hour while listening to you make an ass of yourself. If you're feeling particularly generous, you can spring for a PhP1200 mixed drink (I forget what's in it, but it's called a California). Theoretically this will soften your girl up quite a bit, not just because it's less watered-down, but also because she makes more money for her time. Like bus drivers, these girls' daily wage is based completely on commissions of about 15%-20% for each ladies drink she receives. Essentially that means that a California represents PhP240 to them, while a regular beer only represents PhP160.

Of course, these girls aren't the only ones drinking. Guests' beers -- real ones, in bottles -- will run you about PhP80 each, which isn't exactly cheap (although in the grand scheme of things, it's just slightly above the average). There's also a PhP200 consumable cover charge at the door. The beer pricing is interesting actually, because this is the primary way that these bars recoup costs from guests who don't table. On any given night, you will see only about half of the tables in Stardust with girls in them; the other half will be nursing beers and watching the show.

Additionally, VIP rooms at Stardust cost between PhP1,200 and PhP3,000, consumable for guests' drinks and food. (In other words, you can eat and drink as much as you want, but ladies' drinks are still charged separately.) It's very easy to forget this when you're locked in a room with a girl's breasts on your forehead, so keep that in mind. I've been slapped down with some fairly hefty bills this way, and all I can say is, thank God I was too drunk to argue at the time.


The Show
Although it is impossible to properly rate and rank these things (I'd have to be there every night to judge consistency), I would say that Stardust's floor shows are one of the best you can find in the Quezon City area. The Friday ones are particularly killer -- apart from the usual solos and models, there are beer tricks, lesbian coupling and a big 50%-off auction at midnight. As a result, it's usually a real bitch to find a table on Friday night, so I do not recommend going there past 11pm.


The Girls
Stardust has a fairly wide gamut of girls. I've never determined how many regular girls they actually have, but given that their showroom is 7 rows deep, 50 seems like a conservative estimate. Stardust girls will usually go on-stage with numbers pinned to their underwear so you can ask the FM about them at your leisure.

Ironically, I have only had direct experiences with two of those 50 girls, although there's one other one, Donita, who is worth visiting simply because she looks very much like a certain STI endorser. ("Donita" is not her real name of course, but if you happen to ask the FMs, they'll know who you're talking about.)

Stardust is the first and only club I've ever gone to without at least one other friend with me, and this was back when I was still a bit of a rookie. One of the FMs, "Lara," had to sit with me for almost half-an-hour while I hemmed and hawed about tabling. This was punctuated by two trips to the showroom; both times I honestly could not find anyone interesting. After a lot of unnecessary small-talk, I finally just asked her to bring me whoever she thought was good. Five minutes later, she comes back with a girl named "Kris" on her arm, and all was good in the world.

Now that I look back on that night, I realize that Lara was possibly the only FM I ever met who recommended the top-end girls instead of the girls that were (I guess you could say) second-tier selections. One of the FMs' jobs is to make sure that inventory is moved in the most efficient manner, which generally means that if they can get away with it, they will give you the unpopular girls first. (This has happened to me enough times in enough places that I have actually gotten quite used to it.)

So yeah, as you can imagine, Kris was totally solo quality. Fair skin, pouty lips, expressive eyes, and -- at the risk of offending my predominantly female readership -- a very fine rack. Of course, that was all before she spoke. Kris was, as became apparent within the first two seconds of being introduced to her, a native of Bacolod, and her accent was quite typical of the region. Now, I don't generally care about accents that much, but let's just say it's difficult to get really hot and heavy with someone when they talk like the fuckin' laundrywoman.

That's not to say that I didn't get anything going though. Being a warm-blooded male in his mid-20's, I forged bravely ahead regardless. It was my first time alone in this adult Disneyland, and I went on to spend the next two hours momoling* the crap out of Kris in a VIP room the size of a large water closet. (Unfortunately I never had the guts to go beyond that, as I had promised myself I wouldn't stay longer than 2 hours no matter what.)

On hindsight though, it was totally within the realm of possibility that I could've gone all the way to the gimik phase with her if I had had the stones to ask. (And by that, I mean, without paying for it.) I'm not a super-attractive guy by anyone's standards, but considering that the audience at the time was composed of fathers in their 50's and dudes that looked like they fixed Betamaxes for a living, I was easily the hottest guy in the joint.

Towards the end of our second hour, Kris had given me her real name, her mobile number and a general idea of where she lived, just in case I ever felt like visiting her in the daytime. I never actually got around to using any of that info though, mostly because I could not imagine having a real-life conversation with her anywhere but in the most private of settings. Still, I did enjoy myself, so it's not like anyone would be twisting my arm to hang out with her again.

Interesting sidenote: as I was leaving, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to give her a tip. It wasn't a huge amount -- just PhP500 -- but for some reason, she stared right past it. After about two seconds, I sheepishly put the money away and said my goodbyes. To this day, I have no idea if she was insulted by the amount (I doubt it), or if she felt that I was going out of my way to remind her that she was, in fact, a bar-girl (possibly).

Either way, I stopped trying to tip the girls after that. If they genuinely liked you, they wouldn't need it, and if they didn't like you, then you wouldn't feel like giving it anyway, so what's the point?**



*MOMOL = make-out-make-out-lang

**I still tip the FMs though, just because you get small favors out of it later, e.g., they'll often let you reserve a girl over SMS if you notify them early enough.