The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (22 page)

Amazingly, nobody complained. There wasn’t a single call to the FCC. Maybe the God of Radio was protecting us. Or maybe it was just Dennis. Because there’s something magical about him. He has a gift for engineering those types of moments. And he’s relentless about it. If Charlie Sheen is in the news, Dennis will call with an angle: “Two of the girls who partied with Charlie are at the BunnyRanch. I think you should interview them.” If Heidi Fleiss is quoted in Page Six, Dennis will call in with Heidi on the line. He’s all about showmanship. He never stops selling. He’s better at marketing than anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s a gift with him.

WE DID ANOTHER SHOW WITH
Howard that had a similar theme but completely different players. This time Howard was looking for a deserving, kindhearted grandfather who needed a good lay. I think the show was inspired by that very funny movie,
Bad Grandpa
. The segment, not surprisingly, was called “Get My Grandpa Laid.”

The idea was to bring a grandpa out to the ranch to let him hang out for a couple of days, live like a rock star, and enjoy his choice of girls — all of it on the house. As soon as Howard introduced this new contest, grandkids across the country began writing
in to nominate their grandfathers.

Finally, as with that Father’s Day special, we narrowed it down to three contenders and Howard flew them to New York. I took Caressa Kisses and a couple of other girls to New York and we went to the studio to meet the three candidates. Two of them were there with their grandsons, and one was with his granddaughter. When we went on the air, each of the kids had to pitch their heart out, describing why he or she felt that their grandfather deserved to visit the BunnyRanch and at one point things got very emotional. One of the grandfathers had cancer and Robin, Howard’s co-host, actually began crying on the air. Howard was also very moved. At one point he said, “I like these grandpas better than I like my own dad.”

The winner was Johnny Orris, eighty-six years old. During the entire show, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes of Caressa, and I was worried that he would want to take her back to the green room and fuck her there and then. Howard wasn’t happy with the results, however, because he had genuinely liked all the grandpas and he felt all three deserved a visit to the BunnyRanch. So I went with it. “You’re all getting laid!” I said, which made me a big hero.

A few weeks later, it was time for Johnny Orris to come to the BunnyRanch. He showed up with his grandson and a friend of the family, and I went out to greet them, but he wasn’t even remotely interested in talking to me. “Where’s Caressa?” he growled.

I said, “She’ll be along. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

And he growled again. “Where’s Caressa?”

Caressa was busy, but she knew Johnny coming and she was planning to party with him. But Johnny got tired of waiting and decided he was hungry. “I haven’t been laid in twenty years,” he said. “I need me a big old steak.” He and his grandson and the family friend left for Harvey’s Casino, and Johnny ordered a prime rib.
The second bite he took, he began choking. His grandson worked for Parks and Recreation and was trained in CPR, and he jumped into action, performing a Heimlich and everything. The friend and the maître d’ also tried to help, but by the time the paramedics arrived — less than ten minutes later — Johnny was dead. To add insult to injury, the casino made the grandson pay for dinner.

It was a tragedy and the media loves a good tragedy, especially a tragedy with a twist. “Grandpa Didn’t Get Laid.” “Winner of Howard Stern Contest Dies Unsatisfied.” “Grandpa Goes to Big BunnyRanch in the Sky.”

I was pretty upset, of course, and Caressa was inconsolable, but two hours later the grandson showed up at the ranch. He’d been crying too, but he had a plan to make himself feel better. “I was hoping I could take his place and party with one of the girls,” he said. “Grandpa would have wanted it that way.” So he pulled himself together, and in a quest for healing, he partied.

B
Y THIS TIME, THANKS TO
all the great publicity, business was booming and I bought another brothel, Kitty’s Guest Ranch, and changed its name to the Love Ranch North. (I would continue to expand: More recently, I bought three brothels in Southern Nevada: Love Range Vegas, the Cherry Patch, which I renamed the Alien Cathouse, and Dennis Hof’s Cathouse.)

I couldn’t be everywhere at once, but I still took a keen interest in the more promising girls and I did what I could to take them aside individually and turn them into champion salesladies. Sometimes I’d fuck them, too. At other times, during a quiet moment in the parlor, I’d have the girls gather around and give them little pep talks. After all, this was my sales force and I depended on them to make a living.

At last count, there were nineteen legal brothels in Nevada and any man can walk into any one of them and get laid. But in my
brothels, I try to take it to another level. Sex is part of it, sure, and certainly the driving force. That’s what gets them through the door. But once they arrive, I want to give them an experience that they will never forget, so I teach my girls to treat every encounter as an adventure. In fact, that became our motto: NOT JUST SEX — AN ADVENTURE.

Some people think prostitution is a valuable public service and maybe it is, but I see it as entertainment. I want my girls to be the best entertainers in the state. I tell my girls, “When a guy walks through that door, I want him to feel as if he’s just walked into an adult Disneyland. I want him to feel welcome and loved, and I want him to feel like he is the most important guy on the planet. I want him to feel your excitement, too. I want him to look at you and think, ‘By golly, this girl seems really interested in me. I think she likes me.’ And the best way to make him see the depth of your interest is to
be
interested. Just keep telling yourself,
I like this guy. We’re going to have fun. I’m going to give him a real good time. And in giving him that good time, I’m going to feel good about myself
. Because you girls are the best. You are Dennis Hof’s girls. Every last one of you is a winner. But you have to
believe
you’re a winner to make the magic happen.”

The world is a competitive place, especially if you’re in sales. Whatever you’re selling — be it real estate, yachts, dildos — there’s a good chance someone else is selling that product, too. So you have to find ways to get noticed.

It’s interesting, because when the girls first get here, they think it’s just about sex. I have to keep reminding them it’s not just about sex; it’s about giving the guy a party. It’s about doing things to that guy behind closed doors that go beyond anything he has ever imagined. It’s about giving him the kind of experience that makes
him come back the following week, and the week after that; and it’s about making sure that when he comes back, he comes back for
you
.

The girls who can make guys fall in love with them a little are the ones who succeed. They’re going to do stuff to these guys they never thought possible, not even in their kinkiest dreams — things no man would dare think to ask his wife. But that’s only the sex part. They’re also going to listen. They’re going to let him tell the story about the time he went up to bat in the ninth inning, with the bases loaded, his team down seven runs to four. He’s going to talk about the first strike and the way the ball sounded as it flew past and smacked the catcher’s mitt,
whoomp!
And he’s going to talk about the second strike, which he had no business taking a swing at anyway. And finally, he’s going to talk about the crack the bat made when he connected and about how he watched the ball sail over the stands and into the parking lot, where — even at that distance — he could hear somebody’s windshield shatter. His wife doesn’t want to hear that story ever again, because she’s heard it a million times. And his friends don’t want to hear it either, because they’re sick of it, too. But if you listen and you let him relive it, he will feel the way he felt that day. Like a fucking king.

“I want every man who comes through the door of this establishment to feel exactly the same way. He is a fucking king and he will be treated like a king.

“Remember, the sex ends quickly — in two or three minutes for most of these guys. But the adventure stays with them long after they’ve gone home.”

And I always go back to that critical element:
listening
. Most of us poor bastards want to be heard. I tell my girls, “Average guy walks through that door, he’s like Al Bundy on TV’s
Married . . . With Children
. Al Bundy was the star of the Polk High School
football team, but every time he tried to bring up the glory days he got shut down. His wife, Peg, raised her hand, got a bored look on her face, and said, ‘Oh, Al! Not again!’ That is fucking emasculating. That’s what these guys are trying to get away from.” That’s why I teach my girls to be good listeners. I drum it into them at every opportunity. “A good salesperson doesn’t talk; a good salesperson listens.”

“You fuck a guy, fuck him good, and he feels terrific. But you listen to a man, he feels good about
himself
 — not just about his dick — and that’s gold because that man is going to become a regular client.”

The truth is, men are painfully simple. They’re like big dogs, looking for a pat on the head and a nice treat. Maybe they think they came to the ranch to bust a nut, and that’s part of it, sure, but we take care of their hearts, too, and that’s really why they’re there. Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t pretend to be some kind of great humanitarian. I’m a businessman and I’m in the ho business to make money. But over the course of these many years I’ve learned that the way to a man’s wallet is through his heart, not his penis. Men are really very simple creatures. They come to the BunnyRanch to
connect
.

ALL OF THIS IS HARD
work, of course, at least initially, but it’s worth it. And that’s why we’re here, to work hard for our clients. The successful girls understand this and they come to discover that the work can be hugely rewarding, and not just financially. The others are free to leave any time.