Havana writes: Hey Luke, could use your help. A guy from Atlanta named Jack Pepper comes into the club where my friend works. He says that he wants to photograph her and another girl in a playboy, lesbian, artsy style, as well as put her in his awards show he says he setting up for Las Vegas with Penn and Teller, and has Pauly Shore hosting. If you could find out the truth, it would be greatly appreciated. Next time I'll tell you what happened when Tyffanny Mynx featured there a little while back.

XXX writes: Jack Pepper is right hand man for Jack Gallardi, owner of Gallardi South Enterprises, Pepper books the features for Gallardi's numerous clubs in the South. Jack is no more a photographer than Kid Vegas is a pornographer but Jack does have connections. Just what Kind of awards is Jack putting together? It is no secret that Penn Jillete is a big porn fan ditto Pauly Shore and Pauly's career is in the toilet anyhow. Nothing involving these guys (Gallardi, Pepper) would shock me. Look into a a story that happened in Anderson County SC last September or so. A Greenvilee SC club employee was making a run to Atlanta with the nights drop, he was ambushed on I85 South at around 3AM by what was described as gangbangers in a Black Mustang or similar, cept these gangbangers used fully automatic weapons...yep, machine guns. It never even made the newspapers. Lots of people were questioned about it though. CW has it that it was a hit, the car was torched. Maybe someone wanting to tell Jack G something, but more likely Jack G. telling someone something.

R. Robin McDonald writes in the August 19, 1999 Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

For Vanessa Steele, dancing naked is a business. The fees she commands as a featured dancer at nude clubs across the nation were her livelihood --- until she was disqualified from a national nude beauty pageant at a DeKalb County strip club because, she claims, the contest was rigged.

Blackballed by the club owners who had once hired her to highlight their nude extravaganzas and banned from nightclubs in four states that are owned by the Pink Pony's owner, Jack Galardi, Steele decided to fight back. The dancer is suing the Pink Pony, its Las Vegas owner and pageant organizers, saying they violated Georgia's beauty pageant statute and state racketeering laws. She is seeking triple the amount of money she spent to participate in the contest and her legal fees. Judges' ballots allegedly salvaged from the Pink Pony's Dumpster showed Steele had the highest score among the contestants when she was disqualified from the pageant in September 1997.

"It's rigged," said Steele's Atlanta lawyer, Mark Spix. "The spokesmodel for the Pink Pony won."

The lawsuit provides a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse at the city' s nude nightclub industry, the owners who operate those clubs, and the treatment of the dancers who seek employment there. It is a world in which the nightclubs that industry insiders refer to simply as "gentleman's clubs" are often anything but refined.

"She complained. I'm sure that marked her," Spix said of Steele. "There's an unlimited supply of women. There's not an unlimited number of nightclubs."

By 1997, the "Miss Nude World International" pageant had attracted national publicity. HBO was filming the pageant for its cable television show, "Real Sex," at the Pink Pony. Oui was doing a magazine photo shoot.

For the contestants, the stakes were higher. So was the price tag for participating.

Steele said she paid a $250 entry fee. She said each contestant was also required to buy a $600 advertisement in the pageant brochure.

She invested more than $10,000 for evening gowns, bikinis, clothing for mandatory outings and appearances and two custom-designed costumes for feature performances as the Sun Goddess and the Ice Princess.

She said her costumes were hand-sewn and adorned with Australian crystals, beads and sequins. Her sun goddess cape was stitched from 20 yards of satin. There were boots, gloves, garters, bustiers and bikinis that she would strip away during her act.

She bought promotional materials, T-shirts, posters, buttons, and small gifts for her customers to promote herself. She rented a snow machine for one act. As a contestant in the weeklong pageant, she also performed free of charge.

"They tell you they want you to campaign," she said."Every time someone called, they said you've got to buy this if you truly want to win."

Steele raised her first questions about the beauty pageant when she said she discovered that pageant organizers had billed contestants a $30-a-night surcharge for their motel rooms. Pageant literature warned contestants not to contact the hotel. Organizers told her the billing discrepancy was "an oversight," she said.

She became more concerned after the initial contest rounds Tuesday night. She had polished the number in previous performances and stripped for a Pink Pony audience just two weeks prior to the pageant.

"My show went very well," she said. "The audience was very responsive. When I came off the stage, people were saying, 'You won it.' " When she learned a day later that she had placed third instead of first, she asked to see the judges' score sheets. When Steele added her scores, she said she discovered the totals were wrong and that her real scores were much higher.