http://www.metrotimes.com/culture/story.asp?id=14918
There's no stage at this strip club. No pole. Not even a bar. And the music comes from a boom box.
Welcome to Club Thunderbolt, the strangest place in the city to get a lap dance. It's located in the back room of an old house in an east side neighborhood of working class bungalows.
"Everybody in the neighborhood knows what I do," says Jay Thunderbolt, the 45-year-old club owner, homeowner, house mom and house DJ. "In the summertime you got all these girls leaving wearing four ounces of clothing, so they kind of get what's going on."
Thunderbolt, who stopped using his real name years ago, is a striking sight. He's 6 foot 5, has longish hair combed back, and he wears a black suit with a bulletproof vest underneath and a gun on his waist. His face droops on one side, the aftereffects of getting shot in the head, in a Detroit alley, when he was 11 years old.
"Before they [strippers and patrons] come over I tell everyone I'm real scary looking, so don't freak out," he says. Get past his looks, though, and he's droll and laid-back, with an acute sense of the club's absurdity.
There's no stage at this strip club. No pole. Not even a bar. And the music comes from a boom box.
Welcome to Club Thunderbolt, the strangest place in the city to get a lap dance. It's located in the back room of an old house in an east side neighborhood of working class bungalows.
"Everybody in the neighborhood knows what I do," says Jay Thunderbolt, the 45-year-old club owner, homeowner, house mom and house DJ. "In the summertime you got all these girls leaving wearing four ounces of clothing, so they kind of get what's going on."
Thunderbolt, who stopped using his real name years ago, is a striking sight. He's 6 foot 5, has longish hair combed back, and he wears a black suit with a bulletproof vest underneath and a gun on his waist. His face droops on one side, the aftereffects of getting shot in the head, in a Detroit alley, when he was 11 years old.
"Before they [strippers and patrons] come over I tell everyone I'm real scary looking, so don't freak out," he says. Get past his looks, though, and he's droll and laid-back, with an acute sense of the club's absurdity.
