Talk about revenge of the nerds: Rion* was an antisocial workaholic throughout high school and college. Then he put himself through grad school at Harvard working as an exotic dancer. And what are those former high school linebackers up to these days, hmm?
The story ought to sound familiar to many of us: Rion wasn't very social, worked all the time, and "had no concept of dress or style," he says. In the socially stratified high school world, he ran with the "nerd herd." In college, he wouldn't have had time to party much even if he'd wanted to. He worked his way through University of Massachusetts at Amherst with menial jobs, and went to nine or 10 parties the whole time.
Some of Rion's geekiness was by choice. He thought fashion was "irrelevant and superficial," he says, "which I still kind of feel in a lot of ways, but it paid my way through grad school to change that."
Learning to relax at ... Harvard grad school?
Because Rion had studied philosophy and athletics in college, he had to change directions entirely to learn computer science in grad school. He entered a competitive night school program designed to give the dedicated path-changers a chance and weed out the slackers. But it was only a part-time job. Ah ...
In February 1997, after he'd been enrolled in Harvard for a month, Rion went out to Man Ray and ... you know that cliché movie scene where one guy is dancing and everyone else forms a circle around him and starts cheering him on? That really happened. Rion's great dance moves came from his gymnastics training, and the manager of the club was so impressed that he offered Rion a job dancing at a special event that Saturday. Earning $100 for three 20-minute sets would sound good to any grad student, so Rion agreed.
"And you'll make tips if the women like you," added the manger.
Huh?
"We want you to dance in a G-string."
Oh.
Rion agreed to give it a shot. "They put me next to this huge steroid guy who was twice my size but couldn't move for shit," he recalls, "So I actually did really well, and then they called me back." Rion continued to impress club-goers -- and incite the jealousy of other dancers -- with his handstands and other gymnastics tricks. So sometimes skills beat brawn, even in the world of scantily-clad dancers.
Rion found an agent and was dancing all over New England within a few months. Within a year, he went independent, printed up business cards, and arranged his own try-outs. At his peak, Rion was the top dancer at Avalon -- a high-turnover position, just like high-tech -- for four months.
He's also worked at the Lansdowne Street Playhouse, Karma Club, Europa, Axis, and Mirabar in Rhode Island. Bet you didn't know Lansdowne Street had so many exotic dancers! Most of those clubs only do it for special occasions, but Avalon has 'em every Sunday for what Rion calls their "semi-gay night" (it's actually a pretty mixed crowd).
His current favorite spot is Yesterday's (formerly called Joy Boston). They've got both male and female dancers for their "Liquid" nights every Thursday. That's 533 Washington Street, downtown. Don't say digitalMASS never helped your social life.
Rion finished Harvard in June 1999 with a concentration in technical writing and multimedia, having taken some programming courses and learned graphic design. Now the 29-year-old Boston resident splits his time between dancing once or twice a week and doing consulting/contracting work in graphic design and Web site building. He makes more money from the computer work these days, but dancing still pays more by the hour ($75-$100 an hour, cash).
"After the break, smart strippers!"
We'd love to say we broke this story, but Rion has already appeared on a look-at-me-now Jenny Jones episode entitled "Former Geeks, Now Chic." (Jenny's got a thing for geeks, it seems).
Thing is, he's still a computer guy. When I called him, he was working and apologized for being in "geek mode." One of his dance costumes is a 9-foot tall mech warrior suit he made himself. Let's compromise and call him a Chic Geek.
*"Rion" is a pseudonym.
Jen Muehlbauer's column appears every Friday in digitalMASS.
Her e-mail address is jen@englishmajor.com.