Lately my mind feels as if it’s being pulled in ten different directions like a piece of taffy. I have to do this; I have to make that; I have to think about this; I have to come to a decision about that.

I gotta go to the podiatrist; I gotta get a colonoscopy; I gotta, gotta, gotta...

I gotta figure out how to make enough money so I won’t be poor in my older age...

People call me from my freelance gig and tell me about a problem, and I think, “Wait a minute? Didn’t we solve that problem already?” Yes, we did--many times. And it has to be solved again. Some things are never permanently fixed.

Like I said in the last entry, when I’m writing, I feel things make sense, that I have a bead on them. Other times--

Well, I just sat on my couch for about an hour and a half before being able to finally stir myself to stand up again. I fell into a funk.

I had just called my high school friend Alice in Chicago, whom I took to the senior prom in 1969. It’s her 55th birthday today, and I gave her my good wishes, just as she had called me on my b-day. And after I hung up I just sat there, not being able to decide what to do next.

Mind you, I already did some work today, got stuff done. Definitely made some money which I will get in a few weeks. But it never seems enough, or adequate, lately.

I looked at the sunlight fading through the blinds and I thought to myself, “It’s Halloween. Why not go take a walk? Check out the big parade in the Village? Well, that’s a pretty crowded scene...so why not go to a stripclub? The girls will be in costume. It’ll be fun. Just forget your problems for a little while.”

But here’s something ironic.

I haven’t been in a stripclub since July 28th. It started out as a project to conserve money, but it became something else; maybe self-improvement. That’s about 93 days since I put a tip in a garter. (I don’t count a Neo-Burlesque show as a stripclub experience, but as a theatrical/entertainment scene.)

So DO I feel differently, as the stripper-cleansed Sir Cranky? In some ways, I do. I feel a little more sociable...not much, but a little. So I think, “Maybe I shouldn’t go back yet. Maybe I should stay away a little longer, see how I feel. See if I change in any real way. See if I feel stronger. Start meeting gals again in the outside world. Maybe I could find a girl to dance for me for free, as a friend, as a lover, but still keep it light, not too serious.” Maybe I could strike up a conversation with one of those cute Japanese college girls I see downtown at Starbucks...

I could say, "Kieri-dayo!" (You're beautiful!) "Kissu-shite!" (Kiss me!) And they could say, "Muko itte-yo!" (Fuck off!)

I told you I have a vivid imagination...

Yes, it’s suddenly like I feel it will be a personal defeat if I go back to the stripclubs now.

Isn’t that a hoot?

Sir Cranky, caught between a tit and a hard place!

Sometimes the world only seems to make sense when I am writing, or reading.

Or perhaps I should say that's the only time it seems manageable.

I'm not the type of writer who agonizes over his words too much. Writing does not give me a sense of being out of control. On the other hand, maybe I don't stretch myself enough with ambitious projects, so perhaps I maintain this sense of control by staying within careful limits. Anyway, I write my stuff, I re-read it, I polish it. I don't have any illusions that what I am writing is particularly brilliant or gem-like, although I certainly wish to write as beautifully as possible within my powers.

Possessed (or victimized) by a very vivid imagination, I can both "experience" the things I write and read, and so those processes become a kind of "lucid dreaming."

It's nothing extraordinary, it's just the way I get into the "zone," or creative flow. Everybody does this in their own way with their own talents or interests. You can be in the flow while planting a garden, or cooking an omelette.

When I recreate a scene from my life in this blog, I see it before me as if on a stage or screen; and when I'm reading a novel, I can hear and see and feel the characters and their situations.

I've been reading a lot of noir fiction lately, and one of the major story devices is the sultry, out-of-control woman cheating on her husband, and getting her lover to help her get rid of her mate.

I mean, this is probably THE major story situation in noir; it figures in many of the stories.

Last year I saw a 3-D movie from the 50s called Inferno, wherein redhead Rhonda Fleming (who possibly had the sexiest thighs in midcentury Hollywood) plots with her stud William Lundigan to strand her rich hubby Robert Ryan in the desert.

Needless to say, it all goes bad. Nobody fucks with Robert Ryan and walks away whistling Dixie.

But I digress. Here's my point:

I've been finding these stories of infidelity kind of depressing, and I finally realized why.

I identify with the husbands being cheated on.

Not feeling particularly stud-like, I put myself in the victim's place. I think, "Yeah, I couldn't satisfy Rhonda Fleming; she'd strand me in the desert too. I would never get to hug her thighs again..."

I remember when I was a little boy my mother taunted my father more than once by telling him that some guys had whistled at her on the street when she went out to get groceries. It seemed to me as if she mentioned this to get him jealous. Of course, I didn't know the context surrounding this remark, why she said it or what my father may have done to provoke it. In any case, it was alarming. I suppose I was afraid my father would lose my mother, and I would lose her too.

I guess as a little boy sees his mother more and more for the ordinary human being she really is, rather than as a saint or nurturing angel, there is a chance he'll view her in femme fatale terms, especially if she's ever boasted about guys other than your father expressing interest in her.

This little incident has stayed with me my entire life, and maybe that's one reason why I get a little gloomy when I see those poor hubbies in the webs of the spider ladies they married in Noir Town, USA.

I saw an interesting double bill yesterday while having lunch over at the apartment of my married friends Jim and Michiko. While we all ate big roast beef and cheese sandwiches that Michiko prepared on hero bread, we first watched War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise, on cable, and then Grand Hotel, the old MGM classic from 1932, on DVD.

War of the Worlds was basically an old-fashioned sci-fi horror movie about Martians invading earth, expertly done. The level of special effects is amazing now, CGI making everything look seamlessly real. I thought the best scenes were the ones where Cruise and his daughter were holed up with the creepy Tim Robbins survivalist character, and being menaced by the investigating aliens. And the scene where Cruise acts decisively to protect his daughter against the unhinged Robbins was very effectively done. The movie was worth seeing for free on tv, but I don't think I would have liked it that much paying ten dollars for it in a theater. It just didn't have much substance beyond the horror; the family drama between Cruise and his kids played out somewhat artificial. Also, tv made all the carnage a little less overwhelming. My friend Jim kept expressing surprise at how startled I was by some of the violence, and it's true; in recent years, I have less tolerance to witness destruction and killing on the screen, especially if they are prolonged. Violence is done so viscerally, so realistically now, without any real artistic distancing, that it's almost like listening to the news or watching a documentary.

Still, the craftsmanship and beauty of some of the complex shots in War of the Worlds did give me real film-buff pleasure. Spielberg can be a real virtuoso with the camera movements; although I guess if I was busy noticing them, they weren't as effective as they should be in sucking me into the drama. Then again, I am more alert to these nuances than the average moviegoer since I have spent years studying films closely both for fun, as well as academically.

Grand Hotel was a good second feature because it is another example of state-of-the-art filmmaking, except from seventy-four years ago. Wonderful actors and direction, and I was also startled by some of the very complex directorial choices. I hadn't seen the movie in almost thirty years (at least) and quickly got into the story of the tormented ballerina (Greta Garbo), the aristocratic jewel thief (John Barrymore), hardboiled stenographer (Joan Crawford), overbearing business magnate (Wallace Beery), and dying wimpy man enjoying his life's last fling (Lionel Barrymore). Jim pointed out how the art deco design of one of the hotel doors had caught his eye, and it made me think about how these old movies could evoke an entire hotel without showing it, partly through the skillful use of a well-crafted door.

Greta Garbo has always been an acquired taste to me, with my preference for earthier actresses; but she grew on me as the movie progressed, as she and John Barrymore worked their romantic magic together. And Barrymore has always been one of my supreme faves; even in his increasingly obvious alcoholic decline he was wonderful. I consider him one of the true godlike figures not just in the cinema, but in the history of the human race!

Halloween was certainly in the air last night in the East Village of Manhattan. I met my writer-artist friend ZP at a gallery/bar that had an art opening of drawings by many downtown talents, and the place got pretty crowded with a smattering of angels, werewolves, and pirates. But the best Halloweeners we saw were outside on St. Marks Place--a gaggle of leggy nurse-impersonators that had me crying out that I needed my temperature taken, and that ZP was undergoing a thrombosis and needed immediate care...and that I was getting a thrombo, too, just to earn my right to some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!

Evolution has truly produced a generation of young women with remarkable gams, but why do they only display them so boldly, with such sexy stockings and daunting heels, on Halloween?

I had to skip our planned Italian dinner last night because I had indigestion all day, so instead ZP and I went for noodle soup at one of the Japanese places on 9th Street. Very attractive waitress. Cute students from New York University were at a nearby table, including one tall, fluffy-tressed redhead with a demure face.

Jeez, it's hard being 55...

ZP treated me to dinner for my birthday and gave me a copy of Manhattan Transfer, the famous novel of 20s New York by John Dos Passos, which I've never read but was always curious about. After chow we went back to the gallery where we ran into another acquaintance of ours, and we scoped out more of the costumed talent. I like how Halloween brings out the fishnet stockings...

Speaking of which, on the way home on the subway, I sat next to this incredible beauty, unfortunately with her boyfriend. She also had fishnet stockings on, but her face was gorgeous and exotic, and she had the blackest hair pulled back in a long swaying ponytail. It sounded as if they were going to a party, but with no costumes. But a girl like that doesn't need a costume. Her beauty makes her otherworldly on a daily basis.

When ZP and I parted at St. Marks Place, I felt restless and not ready to go home yet, so I went into the Starbucks at Astor Place. This place too is crammed with NYU students and various characters; it may well be the biggest Starbucks in town, and I believe it's open all night. There was a street person who kept walking by me on his way to the cream-and-sugar counter who smelled to high heaven. Anyway, I had a cafe mocha and read for awhile and checked out the scenery. A couple sat down at the table next to me, a young white guy and an Asian gal, probably students. They were doing some kind of stuff on their computers together, but I couldn't figure out what. The guy looked interested in the girl, but she seemed oblivious. They kept looking over at the smelly guy when they weren't tapping on their keypads.

There are so many beautiful Asian women in that neighborhood. About four tables away, a Chinese-looking chick wearing what looked to be somebody's college athletics letter jacket sat down by herself and drank a large coffee. I wondered what her story was; was it her boyfriend's jacket, and was she waiting for Big Man on Campus to show up? Are there Big Men on Campus at NYU, or is that not a hip enough concept for that school?

Whenever I see these NYU students, I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd transferred to NYU as I wanted to back in 1970. I think I would have been happier going to school in New York City than in a small college town in the Midwest, but my father said he wouldn't pay for my education if I transferred, and so I meekly gave up the idea. I was so easily intimidated with little confidence in my ability to survive on my own. Or maybe I was just a victim of the same inertia I've always suffered from, and figured I'd just stay at the school I enrolled in...however, I wonder if resentment about this fueled my later contentious relationship with my dad, which was not resolved at the time of his unexpected illness and death in 1977.

I put all this stuff out of my mind, the unanswerable questions about my uninteresting past, and the image of the unattainable young Chinese beauty in her (boyfriend's?) letter jacket. For all I knew, maybe it was her letter jacket. Old fogey that I am (becoming), I must remind myself that, as the bumper sticker says, "women are the new men." I turned back to my cafe mocha, and to the mystery novel I had in my jacket about a temptress ensnaring yet another noir fiction schnook in her web of allure and trickery...

I had a fun time last night, celebrating my 55th birthday. My writer-bodybuilder-streetfighter buddy Rexx and I first had a beer at a new restaurant called the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, which opened recently in Times Square at 49th and Seventh Avenue. All the waitresses walk around in little sarongs and bikini tops, and they have periodic beauty contests where the patrons get to vote on their favorite waitress as the girls parade on a high runway behind the bar.

There were a lot of cute girls there and the atmosphere was relaxed and low-key. There's a large bar downstairs underneath huge video screens, and a smaller one upstairs, and the waitresses just walk around doing their thing (which is serving food and drink while looking as comely as possible). The place was packed with lots of guys in suits after their days' work, so it definitely had a boy's club ambiance--but a cheery and respectful one.

I think the Hawaiian Tropic Zone will do well here in New York. Apparently, it's already a success in other cities. It only goes to show that gals don't always have to take off their tops to please guys entertainment-wise. As a fan of old movies, I've known this fact for a long time, but the modern world, long infatuated with the explicitness of movies, porn, and music videos, seems to be rediscovering it. As Rexx noted as we drank our beers, it was nice to watch all these pretty women circulating without our being asked to pay for a lapdance every five minutes.

One waitress was incredibly tall--at least six-one or two, but she could have been six-seven or eight if she'd been wearing six or seven inch heels instead of modest one-and-a-half inch ones. Bring on the Amazon, I say! Go for it, girl! She had a sweet face with a kind of vulnerable look about her, which made her bikini-clad height even more interesting in contrast.

I wonder what it would be like to have a girlfriend who was six-feet-seven...

After the Hawaiian Tropic Zone we went over to the East Side to a sake bar and Japanese restaurant called Sakagura. It is located in the basement of an office building near Grand Central, giving it a kind of "underground lair" feeling, and it's well-known to connoisseurs of sake. Our cute and friendly waitress/wine expert gave us samples of different types of sake until we settled on our favorites, and we washed down the excellent food (a beef stew, chicken with sea salt and pepper, udon noodles, and miso soup with mushrooms) with a plum wine. Daisuki-dayo! (I like it very much!)

On the way back from the restaurant we stopped off at an another bar for one more drink, although this time I went easy with ginger ale. Since I'll probably have a few drinks tonight when I go out for Italian food with my Kafkaesque-looking writer-artist friend ZP, I decided to pass on more booze. Three drinks is about my limit if I don't want to feel hungover the next day. And to think I used to drink an entire bottle of wine BEFORE I went out disco-dancing back in the late 70s, early 80s...these are the ravages of age, friends!

A most pleasant evening. It was lightly raining as Rexx and I parted in Times Square again, but the warmth of the sake lingered as I walked home through wet streets streaked with neon reflections. Now if only the beautiful Japanese adult video star Sakura Sakurada had been waiting at my door when I got home, to say she wanted to give Sir Cranky a soapy birthday rubdown...or a spanking!

Maybe I have to be 56 to be eligible for that...