Some things just don't make sense to a tenderfoot

Maybe it's living my whole life in the Northeast...

But even though this story caught my eye in the headlines:

DALLAS -- Texas, where strip clubs have given rise to Anna Nicole Smith and many other less-generously endowed performers, is about to make it more expensive to watch a little bump and grind.

In what some have dubbed the "pole tax," the Lone Star State will require its 150 or so strip clubs to collect a $5-per-customer levy, with most of the proceeds going to help rape victims. The tax goes into effect on New Year's Day.

Here's the part that mystified me:

Strip clubs occupy a mythic place in Texas lore as a spot where young women can work their way through college and small-town girls with dreams of Hollywood stardom get their start on the lowest rung of show biz.

Look, I have nothing against strip clubs. I've been to strip clubs. I've enjoyed strip clubs. I've known people who worked at strip clubs.

But anybody who's ever been to the (late, lamented) Box Car in Phillipsburg, N.J., probably agrees, most mythology about Northeast clubs is...

Well, less the stuff of "rags-to-riches glamor fable," and more the stuff of "eyebrow-raising awkward bachelor-party story."

Tenderfoot:

1. A newcomer not yet hardened to rough outdoor life; a greenhorn.
2. An inexperienced person; a novice.

I guess you could add, "3. Me."