DOWN AND DIRTY

It was a murky So SoCal investigation: Where does the mud for mud wrestling come from? Rumors circulated that it wasn’t real mud at all, not the dirt-and-water variety favored by children and pampered ladies at upscale beauty spas, but some sort of amalgamative mixture. Since the Tropicana nightclub--that paean to pugilistic mud wrestling overlooking the Hollywood Freeway--isn’t open during the day and doesn’t boast an answering machine, I had no choice but to pay a visit in person. And even then, no one would go officially on the record.

At least it has free parking. I’d just managed to persuade the beefy, good-natured bouncer to divulge the Trop’s sacred mud recipe when he was summoned into a side room by a guy lurking at the cashier cage. When my “informant” returned, he’d been silenced. But the somewhat bored security guy in the parking lot talked, saying the mud was “fake dirt mixed with warm water, and a bunch of cut-up sponges or shredded newspaper thrown in to make it look like chunks of mud.” Case closed.

That is until, at a dinner party a few days later, a fellow guest told me she’d once been quite friendly with the Trop’s owner--who remains elusive--and heard the mud wasn’t made on the premises but bought by the tubful, “the same sort you can buy at the Pleasure Chest.”

Alas, the Pleasure Chest in West Hollywood knew nothing of it. “We may have carried it in the past,” said the man behind the counter, “but we don’t anymore.” He quickly suggested brush-on latex or Body Pudding ($4.95 for four ounces--don’t ask), but, being on a strict diet, I politely declined.