Bonk, bonk, bonk. Anybody home in there? Yes this is your wake up call. Time to put up a gate. The hottentots have run amok. And they have soiled our nest, right under our noses. Stripped us of our dignity. Exposing the soft white underbelly of our crass society. Reminding us all what really makes the world go round. Money.

Money buys sex. And sex sells. And what could be a better reminder of that corporate credo than the 81611 strip club now fully erected on the Hyman mall?

Like it or not, guys will be spending their hard-earned dough watching chicks from out of town dance seductively before them. A juice in one hand, their unmentionables in the other.

Guys that have more dough will be able to get closer. The chicks will wiggle their unmentionables right in their face for a couple of twenties. Just imagine what a couple of hundreds will buy. Or maybe thousands. Yes, diamonds are a girls best friend, but some will settle for a string of pearls and a ham sandwich.

I don't know for sure, but I'll bet you that some of these girls know just when to stop. When the money stops, I'd wager. Keep the money coming and the show goes on.

I'll bet my next paycheck that these dancers are in it for the money. And who can blame them? This is a world of survival of the fittest. These fit-figured ladies probably don't have all that many choices. Dance for a few hundred dollars a night, or wait tables at a Denny's where all the men leer at your ass anyway?

College? Don't have the time, and can't afford it. Despite some encouraging statistics, it's not a woman's world yet. Lets see, you're young, cute and broke. What should you do? Enter the ever-shrinking, downsizing, super-competitive workforce, or party, make tons of dough and wield tremendous feminine power over the same corporate jerks that would pinch your butt while holding your career under the water fountain?

Some may argue that a strip joint is just what Aspen needs. Need or not, I see this as just another indicator that the real world is finally here. You see, a greedy landlord is a greedy landlord. And when a greedy landlord gets offered the highest bid for his goods, he takes it. With no regard for the impact.

That space on the mall has been for rent many times over the years. The rent was so high that no-one could sustain a profit. If the owner of the building was concerned with encouraging a family atmosphere, he would have put in a Denny's long ago. But, lo, the owner wanted to make as much money as possible.

Before you condemn the new nudie bar out of hand, think. The 81611 Club does not serve alcohol. When the bar was known as Club Soda, they did. And lots of it. Hell I even know of a guy that got so blasted (on free drinks) that he stumbled over to the bus stop, got picked up by the cops, was plunked in a jail cell where he commenced to eat a bag of pot he still had in his pocket.

The patrons of Club Soda were not all model citizens according to the Miss Manners book of etiquette. Believe it or not some of the folks in there were doing drugs, drinking excessively and looking for loose sex. That is what people do. So, what's better? Juice and genitals or drunks and dirtbags? Erections or collisions?

If the outraged powers that be manage to remove this soiled stain from the Hyman Mall, it will not really solve anything. Because as long as sex sells, there will be a seller.

Guys will do whatever is necessary to get off. If they don't get it at home, they get it somewhere else. If they can't get it for free, they'll buy it. If they can't buy it, they'll take it. If they can't take it...

Maybe the new club has soiled Aspen forever. Or maybe it's a piece of frank reality that we can all benefit from. If these people make money, they will stay. If they don't, they will eventually leave. It's my guess that the greedy landlord who let them in will only delighted to take the cash from the next bidder who comes along after the inevitable fall.

I guess it's up to us.