I have a confession to make. I’ve been to the Pink Pony Club.
That sounds like a euphemism for something, but it’s not. I’m being literal. If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s a great one. It’s full of praise and love for a place called the Pink Pony Club, and it’s sung by pop sensation Chappell Roan, who is from the city of Willard, Missouri, which is right outside my hometown of Springfield, MO. And in that town there is a place called The Pony. And it had a pink neon sign out front. And yes, it was a strip club.
No, it was not a very good strip club.
I’m not saying I’m familiar with what makes a good strip club or not, and I definitely didn’t want to go. I was on a bachelor party, and was went along to support the man getting married. I’m not saying this out of some need to present myself as holier than though or whatnot, but I didn’t want to go.
The Pink Pony Club was cruddy, first of all. Dirty floors, and an unwelcoming exterior that was somehow crammed next door to a homely inn with an all-day breakfast. Old people mingling over coffee right next door to a flamboyantly neon strip club made the establishment feel like it’d been plopped into the wrong city, like there was some old-fashioned antique store that should have been there but which had been transposed with this monstrosity and had taken its wrongful place in the stickier parts of Las Vegas.
The interior was no better. Two-low stages and brass rails kept the oglers at bay from the dancers who wore more clothes than moms chasing their kids at the beach, and looked worse. The bartender was a skinny meth head, the patrons kept licking the rails, and the bouncer looked stoned. If I’m starting to sound like Bob Dylan here, that’s unintentional, because the Piano Man would have run straight to that breakfast café and had a coffee, where he’d find greater company with the old fogies. Which is exactly what I did, and waited until the bachelor had had enough fun and wanted to leave.
In the song, however, the Pink Pony Club is a place where a young Chappell Roan could keep on dancing, and have a great time. Maybe there were drag shows that made the place feel more fun on other nights, maybe there was a bright spot to this depressing arena of faded black paint and dust-covered Christmas lights. Either the song is full of nostalgia for something that never really existed, or everyone’s wrong. That the Pony strip club with the pink neon sign wasn’t the Pink Pony Club at all, that it is just a coincidence. Either way, the place changed ownership and is no longer called the Pony. It maintains its confusing presence next to the coffee shop, however, and maybe one day someone will write a new song about how not terrible it apparently is.