Sunday in New York...wasn't that the title of a movie once? I do like this town on Sunday...I only like Saturday more because Sunday is still to come...I haven't had a vacation in quite awhile, so maybe that's why I absolutely CRAVE my days off...and although I am a freelancer, I work Monday through Friday, with weekends off. It makes my life feel "normal," whatever that means...

Only occasionally do I work on Sundays, if my work load is extra-heavy.

I went to bed early last night...well, about 11:30...early for me...but my cold is feeling better from the extra sleep. Crazy dreams though...I dreamt that I went to a store to get fitted for a suit, but it was way too big for me...or rather, the jacket was cut more like one of those dusters from a Sergio Leone western, rather than a suit jacket...then, although I didn't take the suit, I paid for it anyway, and in cash...and on the receipt, the amount paid was blacked out...

I can't even begin to figure it out. I just liked the nonsensical imagery and actions and wanted to record them here...I also dreamt that I was doing some work, and watching tv at the same time, flipping the channels with a remote control. A seductive bar hostess from a scene in a movie I watched last night was also in the room, talking and distracting me from my work too. This working while watching tv is actually the most bizarre part of the dream--because I absolutely NEVER work with the tube on--I can't concentrate with the distraction of voices and images (although I can do certain kinds of work with music or songs on my portable CD player)...although you might say I definitely DO work with the distractions of women who work in bars--meaning, the strippers who occupy a lot of my thoughts...

Sir Cranky's Sunday in New York...I got up about 8, shaved, dressed, bought a garlic bagel with cream cheese and coffee...then I read the New York Post...by the time I got through it, I was totally agitated. Between an outrageous story about the $10,000 some teenager might spend on going to her prom (it's her clothing and accessories that obsess her, not the fact that she DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A DATE!!), editorials with rabble-rousing titles like "Marriage is for White People" (about the disparity between blacks and whites in percentages of wedlock), and tales of the various killings and thievings and two-faced tomfoolery that clog the ethical arteries of this great city's heart, my mood changed to dark...

On Sunday mornings I sometimes think that my life might be more pleasant if I had a regular girlfriend, instead of little visits to my favorite dancer, Lily...as my writer/artist friend ZP has said many times, if I wanted a girlfriend, I could find one...but it is the emotional claustrophobia that I feel when I get involved that way which keeps me from doing so.

Still, I got succor from an unexpected source this morning. The Post gossip chronicler Liz Smith always has a pithy quote atop her columns, and today's was from the psychologist Carl Rogers: "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

One of my precise reasons for writing this blog is to accept myself exactly as I am.

Miss Smith also puts in a nice plug for the "old white males" who are now unfashionable as role models in our politically correct multicultural society...great men of the past centuries whose genius is now disparaged in order to hype the contributions of formerly oppressed peoples. But Liz Smith says, rightly, and I applaud her for it: "Why would we toss away the greatness that was Greece, Rome, and Western Europe, which handed us most of the best of our culture?"

As a person who admires everything from Greek myths to Roman poetry to Renaissance painting to German classical music to Russian, Irish, French, Yiddish and British fiction, I agree!

Liz Smith also put in a fine remembrance of the late fashion designer Oleg Cassini, who died last week. Veteran readers of this blog will remember how admiringly I have written about one of his wives, the late actress Gene Tierney, who was so wonderful in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Leave Her to Heaven. Lucky Oleg sounds like he was quite a guy!

Ah, Sunday in Cranky's New York...for the second Sunday in a row, there is some kind of weird buzzing going on in the vicinity...like a buzzsaw, non-stop. How can the people who are responsible for it bear it without a break? I guess I will have to wind up this entry and take a walk. I'll brush the garlic out with some Crest toothpaste and take my Tower Video Constitutional--meaning, I will take my brisk once-a-week walk from my apartment to Tower Video to see what new DVDs have arrived. One of our fellow Blogstreamers, Lady Blumoon, reminded me that Memoirs of a Geisha is coming out. Although I had reservations about it when I saw the movie in the theaters, it has lingered in my affections. Tower should have it on sale this week...

I went to the stripclub last night as I had planned, after shaving, showering, dressing, and splashing on a little cologne. Because I’d had a large corned beef sandwich from the popular Stage Delicatessen for lunch (as part of my cold-fighting regimen, natch), I wasn’t hungry for dinner, so I just had a Jameson’s and soda before I went out to see Lily, my favorite dancer. I know it might sound like sacrilege to drink Jameson’s that way, but it’s a less intense change of pace from having it straight up.

I told Lily that I was there even though I was getting over a cold, because I had no way of contacting her to say I would rather come on another night. She has MY email address, but since she hasn’t yet sent me any messages, I don’t have HER address. She said I didn’t have to come if I didn’t feel well, but I said that since I’d promised to be there, I wanted to show up.

I told her that she didn’t have to lapdance for me if she wanted to keep a physical distance. She said she certainly didn’t want to get my cold, but that since she’d been taking vitamins regularly she’d been getting colds less. She asked me when I came down with the cold (Monday) and then she counted on her fingers (with their fetching manicure) that it was five days. She asked if I was on the mend. I said I basically was, and so everything was hunky-dory with her. Business as usual. I ordered her a drink.

It’s funny--being there, away from my dusty cluttered apartment and my Kleenex and my thoughts and my constitutional crankiness, I did feel better, just as I’d felt better the previous night when I got out of the house to have a tequila and a Mexican dinner with my buddy Rexx. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the company, or maybe a combination of the two, but all the time I was in the stripclub last night I didn’t sneeze, I only had to blow my nose once, and I generally felt okay.

Lily told me she’s going on a vacation in a few weeks to visit her family, and so she’s going to have to work extra-hard to make money to pay for it. The trip will be expensive, and since she plans on doing a lot of shopping--that’s one of her favorite activities--she’ll need dough. This is bad timing for Sir Cranky--by mid-April, with my taxes paid partly out of my savings and largely on a credit line which I spend the rest of the year repaying, I’m going to be pretty low on peeler money, and so she’s not going to be making much moolah from yours truly. As it is, I spent more than I wanted to last night. I’d planned to get four dances, but ended up having six.

Lily looks really good, and when she dances for me I get very aroused; just recalling the nearness of her body as I write makes me have to catch my breath. If I ever had the luck of going to bed with her, I don’t think I’d want to get up from the sheets for three days. Now, when a woman you desire is dancing to just tease you, even the molecules of air around her hair and skin seemed charged with whatever it is you like in her. Talk about auras...you really can feel a woman’s aura when she lapdances for you. The teasing, the withholding, the promise, and the fantasy all work together to make you feel yearning that lights up your entire body and leaves you feeling a little befuddled afterward.

I wonder why I like this kind of prolonged teasing. However, I only really savor it with a dancer I like on a personal level and deeply desire on the sexual one. With other dancers, I can take or leave it. But with Lily, as with my previous favorite dancer Angela, this teasing almost always leaves me feeling two seemingly paradoxical things: physically unsatisfied and yet comforted by the presence of the teaser. Maybe it’s some Oedipal thing...as where a little boy feels simultaneously both the allure of his mother, and her need to maintain a certain distance from him. Damn, you’d think my nine years of therapy in the 70s would have laid this mystery to rest, but apparently not.

Still, before the dancing or after, it bothers me that when we’re just hanging out, Lily doesn’t do much lately to carry on a conversation. Maybe conversation is beside the point; maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m trying to cloak my raw hunger for her in a mantel of something else...affection or an absurd concept of May-October romance. Still, it annoys me to sit there when she doesn’t say much. I told her about my work (not this blog, though), partly to give her something to ask me about, but she rarely does. I certainly ask about herself, as she has told me about her interests and pursuits, but I grow tired of just putting the conversation on her.

So last night I just sat there, drinking my beer, letting her say something if she wanted to. She started talking about a customer who wanted to take her to lunch, but mentioned that this guy didn’t treat her very nicely. She said she was sorry to talk to me about this stuff, but that she felt comfortable opening up with me. She added that she couldn’t believe that I’ve only known her since last fall--she'd thought it was almost a year. (Silently, I hoped it hasn't been THAT boring!) Anyway, I replied that I liked to think of her as a friend, and I enjoyed listening to what was going on with her. Then I added, “But forget this guy. Why don’t you have lunch with ME sometime?”

She said yes, now seeming more than amenable to the idea, and I was happy. I thought to myself that maybe away from the club the conversation would flow better if we could just hang out without her worrying about making enough money to pay her nightly house-fee and other typical dancer concerns. She said, though, that because of her late night schedule it was hard to be on time for things like lunch or the noon hour classes she takes, so I said, “We could meet for dinner if you want. I’ll work around your schedule.” I left the ball on her side of the court. I told her to email me if she felt like getting together.

I think I am attracted to Lily precisely because, besides her good looks, she’s into being sexy and pretty, and likes to do “girlie” things like excitedly shop for clothes and accessories and watch zany programs on cable. When she tells me about the latest gruesome contemporary horror flick she’s seen--and which I would never in a million years want to view, because I find the new stuff disturbing--I am reminded that some young women in their mid-twenties are still not that far removed from a recklessly youthful mindset. Hell, Sir Cranky is still fascinated with the horror movies of HIS adolescence in the 60s! Although she doesn’t come across as a brainiac, Lily seems intelligent and is taking courses to learn a new profession. I know from my own professional work that she’s not bullshitting me about her classes; I am familiar with some of the stuff she’s studying, and the details she mentions ring true. I desire her in spite of the things I don’t like about her (mostly the lame conversation) because besides being delectable to look at, she’s flirty and playful; I admire her adventurous life in coming to New York to study and make money as a stripper; and because when she’s told me stories about her past life, she comes across as a decent, loyal, warm-hearted person.

As I said here earlier, I spent a little more than I had wanted to last night. All right, water under the bridge! I’ll make more money next week, as my father used to say when he acted generous. And Lily pointedly thanked me for giving her enough money in the two hours we spent together so that she’d be able to pay her house-fee (which all dancers pay nightly to the club in order to dance). As we parted, and as I once again told her to write me whenever she felt like it so we could meet up for a meal, she said that she didn’t know when that would be--because she’s very busy. Presumably with planning her vacation and dancing in the club and going to school. I wanted to say, “But you still have to eat, don’t you?” I didn’t say it, though. Just to hear that old clichéd excuse of “I’m so busy” immediately brought me back down to earth.

I know that my suggestion of “let’s have dinner” can symbolize a lot more to her, and she might wonder if I’m going to expect some kind of sexual relationship after dessert--so this might have to be clarified. I mean, she only knows me as a customer. Although if she said, “Forget dinner, Cranky, let’s just go to bed,” my reply would be, “YES LILY!!” and my tail would immediately start wagging. Still, I like to take things easy and when I say dinner, that’s all I mean. Whatever does or does not result from that, I’m willing to find out at a reasonable pace. Still, it’s best to count on NOTHING coming of this--so if something ever does, then maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Or, given the less-than-ideal situations I’ve found myself in during previous abortive attempts at dating strippers, perhaps I should add that I fervently HOPE I’d be pleasantly surprised.

Rather than unpleasantly...

Man, this cold of mine is hanging on...I'm getting better but I feel a little crumbly at the edges. Last week I promised my favorite dancer Lily that I would see her tonight at the stripclub, but I wish she had emailed me this week so I could email her back and tell her I would rather put it off until next week. You see, the last time we met, I gave her an email address because she told me she had no way to reach me when SHE couldn't show up on one of her scheduled days...but until she writes me, I won't know where to write HER back. But I guess I can go out tonight; I'll just tell her I have a cold, so if she doesn't want to get too close and do a lapdance, she'll have that choice. Or I'll give her a little dough as a raincheck, and then next time, she can dance for me a couple of times extra. She told me once that she gets colds very easily, but it shouldn't be a problem if I just have a drink with her and tip her onstage.

I have gotten a few very bad colds from strippers, just from them standing over me and breathing in my face as they dance for me when they're not well. It's usually after they get the dances and the Jacksons that I hear them sniffling or coughing, and I realize to my dismay that I just paid for a slow grind and a sneeze...because unlike Sir Cranky who can rearrange his schedule as a freelancer to accommodate his sniffles and coddle himself, these poor girls often have to show up for work even if they're sick, or pay fines to their clubs.

Even with this cold, however, I've gotten a good amount of work done at home. I find it very hard to simply recuperate and watch tv. I have such a Puritan work ethic, it's no wonder I love the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne!

Moving along here, when I went online this afternoon, I read a news flash about a wife who confessed to shooting her minister husband to death...there just seem to be so many intense stories of murder and mayhem in the media these days.

You've heard me grumble before about listening to the radio in morning, and in five minutes hearing about enough misery to last me the whole day through...

Somebody should start a radio station called WTOA--Triumph Over Adversity. Instead of reporting that so-and-so did such-and-such to whom-and-whom, it could tell stories like, "John Smith managed to restrain his temper and not kick his dog when he came home from a bad day at work." Or, "Mary Jones patted herself on the back for not calling her son a lazy bum." Or, "Bill Williams was able to concentrate on his studies despite the distraction of his favorite stripclub, and he passed his final exams." I'd also like to hear, "Elroy Schmitt managed to reduce his beer belly through exercise and cutting back on cheeseburgers," and "Zelda Fonsworthy decided to put away the sensible shoes for a night and go out dancing in strappy high-heeled sandals." And how about, "Despite misgivings about his intelligence fostered by his sarcastic father, Orville Thwackmiller was able to invent shoestrings that do not come untied."

I know other people have complained about this, but it always bears repeating: there is a lot of decent stuff we never get a clue about. It would be nice to hear about it every morning for five friggin' minutes on the newscasts!

Actually, I noticed last night that when I went out to meet my writer/bodybuilder/streetfighter friend Rexx for a Mexican dinner, I felt considerably better. Maybe staying inside too much is making me feel less well. The weather is finally warming up, although it's supposed to rain or snow a little this weekend. Anyway, when I mentioned to Rexx that I couldn't ever recall just drinking a shot of tequila (as unbelievable as that seems), he ordered us a couple Cuervos and down the hatch they went. I've had tequila in mixed drinks and Mexican coffee, but never straight. It was damn good, and made me feel better than all the aspirin and orange juice I've been taking.

So I think I will go out and see Lily. And here's a story for WTOA, if I may immodestly interject my own self: "Sir Cranky goes to visit Lily and is willing to forgo her fantastic lapdancing so she doesn't get his cold." Not exactly The Song of Bernadette, but maybe sorta uplifting?

Or maybe I flatter myself?

I've been reading--in papers like New York Newsday or the New York Post--about all these cute female bloggers who are getting book and tv deals for their salacious online postings. Today in the Post, writer Mandy Stadtmiller's article "Primetime.com" dubbed them "blogettes..." Why not blogitrixes? Hey, I'm just thinking out loud...

In the Post article, there is a picture of Jessica Cutler, who fictionalized her blog into a novel called "The Washingtonienne" that's been optioned by Sarah Jessica Parker's company for a potential tv series. This Jessica is cute...she looks part Asian. Is she? I am a bit hung up on Asian women right now...I go through stages as far as the types of gals I am attracted to. Phases, as the child psychologists used to call them. (Hey, I've never pretended that I'm fully mature, even at fifty-four...)

Anyway, in the late 80s, early 90s, black chicks were tops on the Sir Cranky parade. I seemed to be a customer of every black stripper in the clubs I went to...I think the influence of gangsta hip hop culture changed many black dancers, though. The ones I've met in recent days seem much harder...intense with an iron resolve to take no prisoners and get my lapdance dollar...as if hustling the customers is a form of female machismo. But I do like streetsmart girls of all kinds...I get along well with them...but I enjoy a little softness and humor in them, too. Hearts of gold, you know the cliché...

My memories of the 1990s are misty with memories of overwork and commuting back and forth in all kinds of weather to my freelance job...at one club, before Mayor Giuliani's zoning laws made things difficult for adult entertainment in New York, I was a regular customer of five dancers: one Puerto Rican girl, one Japanese girl, two African-American girls, and one blonde Greek-American...those were the salad days! We'd sit and chat and have a few laughs, and they would actually be embarrassed to get too many dances out of me, as if that would make them seem less friendly and more avaricious...and in those days, dances were ten bucks apiece! And the clubs were packed. Now, at twenty dollars per dance, they're empty half the time.

The zoning laws changed a lot...all those dancers I just mentioned left the club, because they couldn't make any money. Eventually the clubs figured out how to work within the laws again, but it took awhile...

I remember days, when the zoning first went into effect, that one afternoon I was the only customer in the entire club. A sexy Colombian girl I knew was onstage...she had to wear a top and shorts because of the new restrictions at that time...but I didn't care! If I like a girl, she can dance in a bag! Well, maybe a transparent bag...

Getting back to Stadtmiller's Post article...another blogette I find appealing is this Brooke Parkhurst. According to Stadtmiller, she "dined out on rich men's fantasies (and dime) and then lived to blog the tale." Parkhurst's now working on a novel of her blog called Belle of New York...a tv series or movie is a possibility...the piece describes her as "a Southern belle making her way in the big city." She sounds as if she knows how to tease a man...

Just like a stripper!

The other blogette in the article, Stephanie Klein, doesn't appeal to me although she shows lots of cleavage in her photo, and the queen bee of chick lit who's also spotlighted, Candace Bushnell, looks as if she sprinkles nails over her Cheerios. These two apparently share a literary focus on the size of male members...I'm sensitive in that department...

In a perfect world, I could bring Jessica and Brooke together into a lapdance competition over my lap, and then write about it here. But who said this was a perfect world?

Hmm. I bet my favorite dancer Lily could teach them a thing or two about making a man feel swell...

My cold finally got the better of me last night. I had intended to go online again and write a post last night, and reply to comments, but I felt so damn tired I had to go to bed early. That’s rare for me. Then my sleep was fitful...I guess that’s what I get for watching the nightmarish 1961 sword-and-sandal/gladiator movie The Giant of Metropolis over my spicy Chinese take-out dinner...

This is an exceptionally bizarre flick about the lost continent of Atlantis (here called Metropolis), and a strongman (played by American bodybuilder Gordon Mitchell) who infiltrates the place and helps bring about its doom. Metropolis is portrayed as a joyless civilization corrupted by its great power and dedication to insane scientific pursuits like eternal youth--although, this being an Italian movie made at the height of the 1960s gladiator craze, the film’s producers certainly knew enough to dress the women of Metropolis in exciting, form-fitting outfits. Liane Orfei and Bella Cortez play the queen and princess of Metropolis most memorably. Rolondo Lupi is fantastic as Yotar, the deluded king of Metropolis.

The movie is primarily a grim if gripping look at a surrealistic dream-like world (the sets are amazing) where the power of the king is absolute even to the point where he is willing to sacrifice his beautiful daughter and innocent young son to his cruel whims. That’s what I mean about nightmarish...the movie also has a great soundtrack with harsh, creepy music.

So, watching that while eating chicken with cashews and an egg roll swathed in mustard sauce put my dreams firmly in Metropolis last night, although I can’t remember the details.

The Giant of Metropolis is available on DVD from Retromedia Entertainment. There are trailers from other gladiator movies, as well as a brief interview with Giant’s star, Gordon Mitchell. He died in 2003 at the age of eighty, and it sounds as if he had a pretty cool career, not only as a professional bodybuilder and actor, but also as a painter in later life. My only caveat is that the interview is so short! I could have thought of a hundred more questions to ask him, such as...what was it like to work with the magnificently sexy Chelo Alonso in Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops? (See my post “In thrall to the Evil Queen” for more on Chelo, and a link to some gorgeous photos.) Anyway, The Giant of Metropolis is worth checking out if you like sword-and-sandals. There’s another version from Alpha Video, acceptable but their picture is cropped slightly on the edges--although Alpha does include a fun bonus feature, the rarely seen Hercules and the Princess of Troy, starring Gordon Scott and the late Diana Hyland (who, if memory serves me correctly, was John Travolta’s good friend in the early part of his career).

Anyway, people talk about addictions, and writing can be an addiction too. Even though I banged up my left forefinger last weekend--which I crankily chronicled in my post “A nightclub called Bed”--I haven’t given it much of a rest at the keyboard. Although the cut seems to have mostly healed, where I banged up the bone still aches me. It finally dawned on me last night--talk about denial--that everytime I press on the keys with the tip of my left forefinger, it is transmitting that pressure to lower down where my finger got hurt.

So what I’m going to do today is write shorter posts to ease up on my finger a little and give it a rest. I’ll check in again later because, to paraphrase Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to write!”