We gotta admit it: the 1st Annual Arizona Porn Star Ball wore us out.
The feral festivities started at 9 p.m. and lasted well beyond last call. The list of special guests was longer than John Holmes' tool, and included adult film stars Pharyn Sparxxx, Mya Lee, Taryn Thomas, Priya Rai, and Sophia Rossi; hip-hop artists Justus, Pokafase, Baby Bash, and Too Short; and members of the Arizona Cardinals.
The scene was low-key at 9 p.m., with only about 20 or so patrons in the massive show club. Babylon is true to its name: a gigantic, smiling gargoyle greets guests at the front door. Inside, the décor is like that of a classy bordello: red and black zebra-striped carpet, black leather chairs, crystal and glass bead curtains, faux silver chandeliers, flashing green lights, and mirrors. Like most strip clubs, Babylon was thick with the smell of perfume and cheap body spray, but it's also the cleanest strip club we've ever been in (and we've been in many).
Music selections were limited to hip-hop and R&B. Dancers got on stage and ground their goodies around for spectators to the tunes of Chingy, OutKast, Jay-Z, 2 Live Crew, and Kanye West. (The one exception of the evening was a dancer who performed to Slipknot's "Psychosocial." We tipped her just for bringing some metal into the hip-hop-heavy club.
Early in the night, we talked to a Babylon dancer named Sasha, who said she loves working there because it's such a clean club. She also said that on a regular weeknight, there are only about 10 to 15 girls working, but tonight, there were about 70.
And the club needed every single one. By 11 p.m., the place was packed, with a 15-minute wait at the bar and men dressed in their nightclubbing bests crowding every inch of available space.
The adult stars arrived almost en masse. Pharyn Sparxxx had arrived earlier than the rest,dancing around onstage in a white strap thing that barely covered her, uh, naughty
bits. Mya Lee was wearing a glittery silver bra and black fishnets with high-heel boots. She had angel wings tattooed on her back.
East Indian star Priya Rai was celebrating the launch of her official Web site, and did so by performing a routine onstage with the busty, blond Sophia Rossi. She began by bringing out a palette of body paint and letting people who tipped her dip a brush onto her body. Then Rossi came out and the two got all kinds of freaky, rolling around in body paint and pawing at each other vigorously. According to Babylon's DJ, the last time Rai was at the club, she lit her nipples on fire.
By midnight, the VIP area was brimming with notables from the Arizona Cardinals and the hip-hop world (the DJ announced them as they arrived). Baby Bash strolled in with a sizable posse and made a bee-line for the champagne area. Inside the club, people were dancing and drinking to the gills, showering the dancers with dollar bills (literally -- they'd just throw a handful of singles into the air and watch them rain down on the girls).
Mya Lee tipped many of the dancers herself, too, often getting on stage for a quick grind and even licking one dancer's thigh, at one point.
One star who was supposed to be "in the building" (but alas, we never saw her) was Valley resident and porn newbie Taryn Thomas. Brea Lynn was also supposed to be on hand, but we didn't see her, either.
By 1:30 a.m., it had been announced numerous times that Too Short was there (and
we did catch a glimpse of him), but Justus, who was supposed to give a live performance, learned that he wasn't actually performing -- they were just going to play his single instead.
The crowd was super-rowdy by 1:45 a.m. There was barely room to walk, and many people were so worked up they weren't paying attention to where they were walking or what they were grabbing. Since Justus wasn't going to perform and Too Short apparently wasn't getting onstage, we cut out before anything bad could happen. (The last few murders at nightclubs in the Valley were at hip-hop shows or strip clubs, and here we had a combination of the two).
But before we left, we made note of a few things, namely, how many dancers we could count with "tramp stamps" (tattoos on the smalls of their backs). We lost count at 18. We also counted nine stripper poles and four large-screen plasma TVs in the club.
(We also made note of some of the dancers' campy names: Unique, Legacy, Diamond, Temptation, Elektra, Sunshine, Candy, Mysterious, Lucky, Karma, Star, and Love.)
All in all, it was an exhausting night of adult fun. We were impressed with the show club and its caliber of dancers (most were athletic and artistic, doing great pole tricks and
often doubling up onstage for more tips). If there's a 2nd Annual Arizona Porn Star Ball next year, count us in.
