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One hundred feet from the fenced in
swimming pool a man operated a handmade mini crane on the top of which he
had mounted a video camera/ With this setup he could get above the crowd
to get video footage of over 100 completely nude entertainers performing
on the large outdoor stage within the swimming pool area, dancing on mini
stages on the extreme edges of the pool with each one having its own pole,
or cavorting around both in and out of the water. The min crane operator
had paid his $50.00 admission fee along with nearly 5,000 other spectators
to
Ponderosa Sun Club’s Nudes-A-Poppin
nude beauty and dancing contest
during which several dozen trophies and titles would be earned by the
contestants. The bigger titles will be some of the most coveted ever
earned in the winning entertainers careers. Hundreds of spectators had
brought their cameras in the hopes of getting decent shots of their
favorite girls from outside the fenced in area. The mere fact that someone
would go through the trouble to build a mini crane to get video footage
is an unforgettable graphical image of how much the
spectators lusted for the chance to
shoot the girls at close range either around the pool or on the stage. But
this privilege belonged to a very select chosen few. I was one of the
lucky ones to be within this inner circle. (Note...to find out more about
how Ponderosa Sun Club and Nudes-A-Poppin started and evolved into what
they are today please
check my August 2003
or
September 2002 articles in the “Looking Glass's back issues)
The contestants are from everywhere, from as far away as California,
although more than half are from the Midwest. It all starts on Saturday
morning in the registration building two hundred yards from the pool.
It immediately becomes very clear that the owners of the Ponderosa
Sun Club are very serious about how they are running their Nudes-A-Poppin
business. Each entertainer who will compete signs in at a long table just
inside the entrance to the registration building. Although there will be
nearly a dozen male dancers, most of the entertainers are female. All must
provide proof of age in this first step of the registration process
in which each contestant is photographed along with her ID with a Polaroid
camera. She then signs her first release which is attached to
photo copies of both herself and her ID.
After getting her number which she will wear for the duration of the
competitions, she moves onto a second long table where
she sits with other entertainers. Here she has stacked in front of her
perhaps a half a dozen releases for magazines who are represented by their
photographers. My name badge identifies me with "Exotic Dancer", but my t
shirt reads “The Looking Glass Magazine”. I will get exposure for both the
contestants and the event in both magazines, but I’m using the Alpha
Productions release with its faint watermark of the Alpha wolf. After
signing all the releases the contestant moves each to each magazine's photographer/photographers in turn. First stop is with Vernon, who shoots for
“Easy Rider Magazine", who takes the girl's picture as she
holds out her number and the release she has just signed for "Easy Rider".
She then moves onto me and then it’s to the “Cheri Magazine”
photographers and finally “Club Magazine".
One of the girl’s ancestry is obviously Japanese. So I tell her how highly
I regard Japanese women. Later one of the contestants tells me she's
originally from Thailand. I am captivated because not only is Scarlett from
Thailand;she's also a stunner, so I just have to tell her how I'm going
to Thailand in October, this time for a
month instead of the paltry 12 days I spent there in May. The Lumberyard
Club from Des Moines has brought 23 girls and over half of them know me so
naturally I do a lot of kidding around with them. By the time the last
entertainer had signed her releases that Saturday morning I'm sure every
other photographer in the place, not to mention the people running the
event had just about had enough of me slowing up the whole process which
until I had come along had run with German like speed and efficiency .
 They need to pass a law against guys like me having so much fun. Come to
think of it, it’s really hard to think
of
anyone anywhere near my age who has as much fun as I do. I’ve shot a lot
of Pure Talent Agency Feature Showcases. These go for four nights and are
held all over the country. The feature entertainers and I stay in the same
hotels and often go to lunch together. Sometimes I will have one of the
participating features as my roommate. And I’ve written a lot of magazine
articles about feature entertainers.
 Both
Natasha Stone and Lollytopps, who both book with Pure Talent are staying
at my motel during the Nudes-A-Poppin pageant. And I’ve written magazine articles about Kloey Love and L.A.
LaMann, one of the M.C.’s for this event. Paine and Pleasure, from
Columbus, Ohio have roomed with me, gotten involved in S.P.E.W. wrestling,
partied with me at the Exotic Dancer Expo, and competed for the M.S. Texas
Pageant
which I had been hired to shoot. And the Lumberyard, with its 23 girls here
at Ponderosa had teamed up with Big Daddys Cabaret in Missouri to form
S.P.E.W. Since I’m one of the photographers for S.P.E.W. and its web site
designer I had traveled with the Lumberyard entertainer-wrestlers, so I had
gotten to feel pretty close to some of them as well.
 It was time for the fun and games to begin. First were the group pictures.
Both “Cheri” and “Club Magazine”
had brought halter top t shirts for all the entertainers who modeled them
for the photographers. The girls gave us both front and rear shots. This
gave us photographers ample opportunity to closely scrutinize the
anatomical details for over fifty entertainer’s private parts in record
making time.
Someone asked me: “That’s what you ought to do, Jack. Get “Looking Glass”
t shirts for all the girls and have them all pose just for the “Looking
Glass”. Which is not a bad idea but I’d rather save the money for my next
Thailand trip. . But I had brought “Looking Glass” t shirts for Mike Skymaster,
my roommate and for
Paine and
Pleasure,
Damien Davidson, and
Lollytopps.
 After doing the group shots, the girls were instructed to pose on the
swing set or race each other with one girl on each team bracing her hands
against the ground while her partner lifted her up by her legs before
wheel-barrowing her to the finish line of photographers standing next to
each other recording it all for posterity.
By 2 p.m. We all called it a day. Ponderosa would once again revert to a
full time nudist club and all picture taking would stop. Mike and I
decided that we were starving so we headed to a fuel stop next to our
motel. After filling up with Arby’s beef sandwiches we headed back to the
room where we were soon joined by two entertainers from Missouri who had
shared a room next to ours last year. We had all gone skinny dipping
together on Saturday night last year in Ponderosa’s 120 foot long pool.
Which is no great accomplishment considering that swim suits are not an
option and that Ponderosa’s security will kick anyone out of the pool area
who so much as attempts to get into the water with any sort of clothing
on. In the room we showed the girls slide shows on my laptop of the
pictures we had just taken, then played for them online videos of
S.P.E.W.
wrestling from the S.P.E.W. web site.
That night there’s a dance over at the Sun Club. But, my roommate and
photography assistant, Mike Skymaster and I have agreed to head back to
the motel by 10 p.m. no matter what happens. Even if the most gorgeous
babes on earth invite us back to their RV, tent, or motel room, it’s back
to the motel for wind down time with a couple beers then sleep. We need to
be back at the registration building by 7:30 a.m. to be on time to process
the releases of the girls who waited until Sunday to show up and want to
be sharp for a long afternoon’s shooting in the hot sun.
The dance is held at an outdoor pavilion. There are people dancing out on
the concrete floor in the nude but most of these are the nudists. I don’t
remember any of the entertainers showing up naked, but unlike in year’s
past, this time there’s a good crowd of entertainers at the dance. We
already know quite a few of the girls and it’s easy to meet the ones we
haven’t met yet. We had brought in bottled beer, which was a mistake since
as soon as one of the yellow t shirted Ponderosa Security men spotted us,
the man politely asked to put the bottles away. But he did allow
us to take our cooler over to the camping area of RV’s and tents occupied
by the Lumberyard crowd. There we had felt right at home since I already
knew more than half of the Lumberyard girls and had become pals with Big
Mike, the club GM. Over at the pavilion we had to put our beer in plastic
containers.
Imagine being an adult industry professional in a setting such as this
one. I am both a writer and a photographer, and I’m wearing my “Looking
Glass” t shirt. I worked with every entertainer at the pavilion on her
release earlier in the day, and over a third of the girls had already
known me from other adult industry events I had covered, from my writing,
photo shoots, etc. Several of the feature entertainers at the dance had
stayed over at my apartment while doing photo shoots. This was our kind of
crowd. All of us existed in the same adult entertainment world where we
could relate to each other on a common ground of similar interests. There
were no sides to the pavilion, just a roof, which exposed all of us to the
warm night air. We had women all around us who were as fun as they were
pretty, but we had to leave at 10 and said our goodbyes very reluctantly.
The next morning’s work started with three or four hours in the
registration building handling the releases for the newcomers. Meanwhile
thousands of spectators were arriving outside the little building. The
contests started at noon just as I was taking the picture of the last
entertainer with the release she had just signed.
The whole atmosphere on Sunday reminds one of a county fair. Hot dogs and
other fast foods are being sold at small outdoor stands. Already there’s
several thousand people milling around the pool area. Inside the fence
that surrounds the pool, the entertainers, both the female as well as the
male dancers have already assembled as the first dancers start doing their
shows. Porn star MC’s Ron Jeremy and L.A. LaMann
 are
already on the microphone along with the other M.C.’s. There are so many
people here that the yellow shirted Ponderosa security have everyone
parking in what appears to be a forty acre field. And who knows how many
men and women are working security, thirty, fifty? Some of them are riding
around in golf carts. Others are watching the gate to the swimming pool to
make sure that only the contestants, industry professionals, boyfriends of
some of the entertainers, and others who need to be in the inside
perimeter enter this central staging area.
One hundred feet outside the enclosed pool area there’s a crowd of several
hundred spectators watching a wet t-shirt contest, but I pay little
attention to that since I’m at the main event and within the inner circle
practically all the spectators would be willing to die for to be in right
now.
And inside this fenced in area, it’s a virtual turkey shoot. Finding
models, either one at a time or in groups of girls is like going hunting
in a zoo. I plan on shooting them on the long rectangular stage, lying or
standing about the pool, or in the arms of my assistant and pal, Mike Skymaster, but I have a special area for a chosen few, and that’s posing
in one of two little waterfalls formed from a pile of attractive large
stones down which rivulets of water flow from mostly obscured garden
hoses. Small water filled pools have formed below the small waterfalls. It
is here that I want to take some of the entertainers.
 One
of the first girls I ask to go with me to one of the waterfalls is
Paradise, a sprightly and very cute dancer from the Lumberyard.
Paradise has wrestled in at least four S.P.E.W. events. She has driven
with the other Lumberyard wrestlers 420 miles one way from Des Moines to
Big Daddys Cabaret to wrestle the Missouri girls on two occasions. So
right there, Paradise is very special since she’s proven herself to be
willing to go to extreme measures to put herself out in the limelight of
the adult entertainment world. And just two weeks before, she had sought
me out while I was taking pictures at the last
S.P.E.W. event at Big Daddys and
had
 asked me to spend extra time with her getting good pictures. And I
had, taking pictures of her on my Miata sports cars, posing in front of
the mirrors inside the club and even with a 50 pound Bengal tiger.
Paradise eagerly accepted my invitation to go with me over to the
waterfalls, like a Sophomore High School girl who was just asked to go to
the Prom, and pranced down to the twin rock piles beaming from ear to ear.
(I knew I had a little star with me, she just didn’t know it yet). One of
the next models I chose to take down to the waterfalls was Pleasure, as in
Pleasure and Paine. Now those two are a story unto themselves. Paine is
Pleasure’s mother. The two travel together, and often perform on the stage
as a duo act. Because they are mother and daughter, they are completely
misunderstood, even by many adult industry professionals who view a
mother-daughter act as sick or perverted. “What are they up to, doing each
other?” I’ve been asked.
But I know them very well and am sure that the opposite is true. There are
no finer women on the stage today than Paine and Pleasure, who set a high
standard that few of their peers can even begin to match.
Pleasure’s a blonde goddess. If there is such a thing as perfection in the
female body form Pleasure’s it. But
Pleasure’s not as
 outgoing as her mother so she’s often overlooked. She’s
warm and approachable, but she’s not one of these in your face, “Hi, my
name is Pleasure and I am.....” kind of girls many dancers are, and who
can blame them for wanting to get ahead? But once Pleasure starts posing
on the top of the rock pile, other photographers converge on the area out
of nowhere like maggots crawling out from underneath a log. “Man, where’s
she been hiding?” I hear one of them ask in an awed voice.
Both girls, Pleasure and Paradise, are very young, not even old enough to
legally drink. But for me they represent the future of this profession,
both of them in their own way, best of the breed. Another girl I really
want to pose for me is Scarlett the girl from Thailand. Thai girls
send me, and not just me, every man in our group who was with me in
Thailand last May fell in love with Thai women. The girl I met here at
Nudes-A-Poppin in the sign up building is a stunner, a beauty worthy of
representing Thai womanhood. So I invite her to walk with me down to the
waterfalls. I have chosen wisely for she doesn’t disappoint except she
calls me a “Dirty old man” for no reason at all.
But if you watched me hanging around all these nude entertainers here at
Nudes-A-Poppin, you might call me that because I’m putting my heads in
their laps as they sit around the pool, or upon their naked breasts. And
some of them I end up carrying around in my arms. But much of the time
it’s the girls who instigate such behavior. One of the feature
entertainers keeps coming up behind me to goose me. One of the new
Lumberyard girls, proud of her new breast job, keeps sticking her large
breasts in my face. We are all having fun together here and that’s what
counts.
 While
I’m taking pictures of girls at the waterfalls, the entertainment goes on
fifty yards away at the large outdoor stage. There’s competitions for
various categories....go-go or for Miss Rising Star or for male dancers
only and for male dancers performing with female entertainers. The
entertainers perform in groups, but sometimes a single entertainer puts on
a single performance complete with props up alone on the stage.
Ron Jeremy is once again doing a great job as one of the M.C.’s. At times
crude, Ron has a way of putting his co-MC’s in the limelight while giving
them plenty of credit while taking a back seat to some of the better known
feature entertainers. And L.A. LaMann—well what can I say about her other
than to use such adjectives as terrific and off the wall. She bills
herself as the bad girl of the entertainment circuit and is known for
giving the finger to just about everyone in range of her antics. But don’t
tell anybody that you’ve heard it here–L.A. is a real lady with a soft
heart beneath the bad girl exterior and I should know after doing that
front cover article of her for Xtreme Magazine.
Both Damien Davidson and Lollytopps look fabulous out there doing the pole
on the outdoor stage. But so does Kelly Taylor. All three of them are models on our Xtreme
 Weapons calendar.
I’d say nobody does the pole better than Lollytopps, but afterwards she
admits to me: “I’ve been studying her and I still haven’t figured out how
Kelly does that pole trick.” Nobody has that I know because somehow Kelly
has figured out how to slowly rotate around that pole, then stop, coming
to a complete halt as she floats up there motionless like a butterfly
above a flower.
Regan Anthony puts on a dazzling performance. If one were to generalize
and say that feature entertainers are much more difficult to photograph on
stage than house dancers since they are so quick–so kaleidoscopic in their
fast movements that only the quickest cameras and photographers can even
begin to capture them at the right moment, it must be Regan one is
thinking of. She’s a ball of fiery energy who sets a frenetic hyper pace
few can follow–a performer who always gives 110 percent.
There are ten judges seated in front of the long stage. And they have
their work more than cut out for themselves. There are so many categories
the judges have to evaluate. There are a couple of dozen trophies or more.
These are not professional judges for they have been randomly picked from
the crowd of spectators. The judging will be as scrupulously fair as it
gets here at Nudes-A-Poppin.
Which is one of the many reasons why garnering a first place trophy in
nearly any category is esteemed so highly. There are excellent
entertainers I know very well who will not even manage a fifth or tenth
place finish, who will wind up going home empty handed, yet who are
successful at getting bookings on the feature circuit.
For the house dancers, those who are not professionals.....not being
feature entertainers that is, the most highly prized trophy is Nudes-A-Poppin’s
Miss Nude Galaxy. The trophy like several of the other most prestigious
trophies must be about seven feet tall. Mike Skymaster and I look on as
the M.C. calls one entertainer after the other up onto the stage. Ten
dancers will get a trophy starting with 10th place and working up to the
grand prize, the most coveted of them all for Miss Nude Galaxy.
How can I root against any of my pals here, and some of the entertainers
are just that, my pals? And the girl I’ve got in mind is not the best
dancer in this crowd. She’s a nobody--someone who has not even been
discovered yet. But we are talking about a beauty award here. The trophy
will not go to the girl with the best body. There’s the “Cheri Magazine’s”
award for the best natural body that covers that. Miss Nude Galaxy will go
to the “It girl”, the girl who’s just got it. The girl who is ravishing,
who radiates the essence of feminity and who can draw people both male and
female like honey draws a bee.
“Who do you think should win?” I ask Mike.
“That’ hard to say.”
“Well, I think it should be Paradise. All day yesterday and all day today
she’s just been simply magnetic, full of the zest for life, smiling,
joking around with everyone around her. She’s imposed her presence on
everyone in range of her. She is the star of stars here, unmatchable this
entire weekend.”
“I agree.”
 And
when the last girl is announced, it is Paradise, who is called up on that
stage—“Miss Nude Galaxy 2004". It is her time in the sun, and hopefully
she will grasp what is hers if she wants it badly enough—to become one of
the finest attractions on the adult entertainment horizon, and not fall
prey to all the snakes waiting to exploit her. “Paradise,
do not change a thing.”
Virtually the same age as Paradise is
Pleasure. And whereas Paradise is like a sweet breath of fresh air
constantly
hovering
 around the crowd that becomes part of the very environment
itself, Pleasure is more subdued. But if Michelangelo were alive today, he
would sculpt someone just like Pleasure. And unknown to everyone reading
this article, it would be Pleasure or that wonderful female photographer
for “Cheri Magazine” I’d choose to be marooned on a desert island
with—that is if I had to be marooned. The reason is simple. On that island
there would be coconut trees and it would be either me or the girl who
would be shimmying up those trees for dinner or wading around in the ocean
for crabs. Most of the entertainers here would be calling out: “Jack, go
get us some dinner.” But I know that photographer works her butt off every
time I’m around her and has a heart as soft as melted ice cream. And I
know Pleasure’s as soft hearted as the girl who works for “Cheri”.
 Pleasure’s
simply not hit her stride yet, but she winds up winning first place for
Miss Nude Petit North America. But it’s Regan Anthony who wins
“Entertainer of the Year”, and the seven foot
trophy for this VERY prestigious category. And neither Paradise nor Pleasure, as beautiful as they are, can
begin to touch Regan as an entertainer, but their careers are just
starting. The sky is the limit for both girls. Regan’s just hitting her
stride. And it will be Regan who will be the next cover girl for my alphapro.com web site so stay tuned for some stunning pictures of Regan,
who is one of my favorite feature entertainers on the circuit.
 One of the hugest stars in Ponderosa’s History is literally that...huge.
Wearing a quadruple X t shirt, Big Mike towers over most men. Big Mike is the
General Manager at the Lumberyard which has brought twenty-three dancers
to Nudes-A-Poppin. Hey...we are talking about Des Moines, Iowa here, not
Las Vegas or New York City, and there is not one of you club owners or
managers out there from either place who has become nearly as well known
as Big Mike who's taken a club out from virtual obscurity from cow patch
city to being one of the best known on the North American continent.
There’s a large trophy for the club that’s brought the most girls, and
it’s Big Mike who is announced before 5,000 people as the man who’s done
it for his club. Some of you club owners out there who think you are doing
a successful job of marketing your club should wake up and realize what
this man has done, and is continuing to do everyday, but that’s a story
for next month’s “Looking Glass” in our coming exclusive interview of Big
Mike, the architect behind “The Lumberyard’s” climb to fame.
When you see video footage on television of large groups of naked women
wearing numbers outdoors, chances are you are seeing bits and pieces of
Nudes-A-Poppins annual nude beauty pageants. Both last year and the year
before I had right at 90 contestants both male and female sign my
releases. This year over 100 women competed, 25 % more than last year. If
you are an entertainer, and I don’t care if you are a house dancer or a
feature entertainer. I urge you to participate in next year’s
Nudes-A-Poppin pageant. Not only is it the most prestigious event of its
kind, it is also incredibly well managed and run. But at the same time
it’s so laid back and relaxing, thus representing an unprecedented
opportunity to get together with your adult industry friends both new and
old. And next year is destined to be the best yet since not only will
everything be present that has made this such a great event, S.P.E.W.
Wrestling will for the first time put its delectable female wrestlers into
the big ring on Saturday here at Nudes. So look for Nudes-A-Poppin to get
a great jump start that will put everyone in high gear right from the get
go.
The
rest of the Nudes-A-Poppin Jack Corbett series
Nudes-A-Poppin 2002
Nudes-A-Poppin 2003
Nudes-A-Poppin 2004
Nudes-A-Poppin
2005 |
