Oshawa awash

From Strippers to Students, reads a headline in the latest Oshawa This Week. Could the recruitment tactics of the Windsor club that offered to pay the tuition of cerebral lap dancers be spreading this way? No, it’s the Genosha Hotel, built in 1929 – and a former location of a Million Dollar Saloon – being sold to a Toronto firm who’ll convert the Chicago-style heritage site into a Durham College residence. The takeover of dilapidated peeler bars in the 905 has tended to result in their conversion to houses of worship – the Friction nightclub in northeast Markham was transformed into the Olive Branch Community Church, and the Newmarket Community Church overtook a joint called Lookers. Maybe exotic dancing isn’t the profit centre it used to be – prices for private dances soaring above the rate of inflation, competition from rub ‘n’ tugs, free online porn trickling down to the neanderthal market, etc. On the other hand, burlesque seems to be  languishing on the low end of the rotation when it comes to the accouterments of caddish behaviour: Cigars are coming back, poker is on the way out, styling products are so last year … so, another Lindy Hop revival must be right around the bend.