I noticed a large jump in the number of visitors here in the last day...I always wonder why that happens. Did fans of Gina Lollobrigida or Marjorie Lord find their way here because I mentioned them in my last two posts?

Anyway, I went to a reading last night at the KGB Bar on the Lower East Side and heard Hard Case Crime’s newest author, Christa Faust, read a short story called “Cutman.” Hard Case, about which I’ve written here on this blog before, just published Christa’s new novel Money Shot, a fast-moving tale of a streetwise ex-porn star caught up in a spiral of treachery and murder in the modern day X-rated video business. It has a truly socko revenge ending that really stays in the mind. Check the book out for a fun read...“Cutman” was a bit different, the first person tale of a very butch-looking lesbian who works ringside at boxing matches repairing the cuts that the fighters receive during their bouts. When the "cutman" falls in love with a gorgeous female fighter who gets fucked over by a nasty boyfriend, revenge is on the menu...Ms. Faust, who is slender and blonde with a long ponytail that you’d see on an Amazon dominatrix in a 1950s fetish comic strip by the late Gene Bilbrew, and who looks nothing like a mannish lesbian, was completely obscured from my sightlines during her reading because of the crowd in the bar, but it turned out okay because I must say her voice very evocatively (and compassionately) brought to vivid life the homely “cutman” with a worshipful yen for the lovely girl boxer. It was almost like listening to a story on old-time radio, with her voice bringing it all to life. I met Ms. Faust briefly after the reading to congratulate her on the story, which is available in an anthology called "Hell of a Woman," published by a company other than Hard Case.

It was interesting to hear a story about a cutman also because I recently enjoyed an episode on the first season DVDs of the 1960s series The Fugitive, wherein David Janssen does that job for awhile during one of his stopovers across America as he tries to find the one-armed man who murdered his wife...

Charles Ardai aka Richard Aleas, publisher of Hard Case Crime and also the author of two of its best books, Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence, read his latest short story which was modeled on the fast-moving “spicy” (aka racy) pulp mysteries of the 1930s. His tale well captured the rat-a-tat-tat rhythms of that era, with a little extra modern spice (and a good Yiddishism or two) thrown in as well. He too is quite an evocative reader.

I had to get back home to do some work, so I only stayed for the first half of the reading, but it was a fun hour. As I’ve said before, if you like either retro noir fiction, or modern day noir, check out Hard Case Crime, which publishes both. I’ve read and enjoyed many of their books. Here’s the link to their site for more info. I don’t work for them or anything, I’m just a big fan.

HardCaseCrime

It was a pleasant party last night at my friend’s house. Let’s call him Erik, and his girlfriend Tina. Erik is a musician and artist, and a member of an informal group of movie buffs I get together with once a week; it’s like a guys’ “poker night” but instead of poker we watch vintage movies and tv shows. For example, I watched The Strange Mrs. Crane with them the other night, which I wrote about in my previous post.

Erik and Tina own a nice railroad-style apartment near Times Square; it has four rooms, which makes it palatial by the standards of myself and most of the people I know, who live in studios or one-bedrooms. The apartment needed a lot of work when they moved in, but they fixed it up and it’s pretty cozy.There was a small but friendly crowd of people at their party, most of them in their thirties; Erik and Tina are in their thirties too. It was his birthday that was being celebrated; I gave him a DVD of a cool Boris Karloff movie called British Intelligence, which has a great image of a menacing Boris on the box cover. It is, in fact, one of the best boxcovers I’ve ever seen on any DVD. Here's a link to it at the site BestPrices.com:

BritishIntelligence

Anyway, as per my usual inhibited behavior at parties, I gravitated to the people I already knew, rather than those I was unfamiliar with. I spoke mostly with Erik and another one of our movie buff buddies, whom I’ll call Walt. Still, at least I got out for a change, although I felt it necessary to lubricate myself with two Jameson and sodas before I went. However, I just had one beer at the party, and pizza and Coke and birthday cake...

Walt is an artist in his late sixties who has a long gray beard and kind of resembles Leonardo DaVinci. He's a soft-spoken, gently humorous, and erudite guy who has lived in Greenwich Village since the 60s. Although not famous himself, he has known or encountered many of the renowned musicians who passed through the Village in its countercultural heyday, so it’s always fun to hear him talk about people like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. I don’t know much about popular music or its history but those are icons anybody can relate to. Walt’s not a name-dropper, it’s more that he ran into these folks and can share personal anecdotes about seeing them at parties or restaurants or clubs or even at the hardware store...

I asked Walt about stripclubs in the 60s in the Village, and with his eye for the telling image he recounted how the strippers used to take smoke breaks outside the Heat Wave, the best-known Village stripclub of that era, located where the Blue Note jazz club now stands. As the peelers stood in their costumes in the doorway puffing on their cigarettes, they were a kind of impromptu advertisement for the show inside...the beat cops didn’t like it, but they tolerated it, according to Walt. He said many of the strippers were in their forties, too, unlike today’s dancers who rarely look over thirty (at least in the contemporary Manhattan clubs I’ve patronized). Walt worked at a store next door to the Heat Wave, and that’s why he was privy to these details.

I got home from the party shortly after midnight, but I felt a little restless so I read the personal ads on the website craigslist for awhile. I never answer the ads, but I found a few last night that seemed interesting...the women sounded friendly and unpretentious, but I just don’t put myself out there...

I went to breakfast this morning at a coffee shop a couple of blocks from my apartment, a rare pleasure for me because it’s gotten too expensive to shell out seven bucks for eggs, potatoes, juice, toast and coffee on my increasingly tight budget as a freelance worker in ever-leaner times. These days I usually eat breakfast at home...actually, most of my meals, for that matter. Even saving money on tips to waiters and waitresses is important, so between take-out and sitdown, I opt for take-out, unless I make a sandwich at home. But twice this week I felt a real need to get out of my apartment and eat amongst the clatter of other people’s silverware and voices, so I didn’t give myself an argument.

There was a group of folks at the next table, and I noticed a mother and daughter pair who resembled each other. The mother was probably around my age; an attractive auburn-haired woman, but probably in her early fifties (or perhaps a weathered late forties); her daughter looked a lot like her, but she was clearly in her mid-twenties. I had to laugh inwardly at how I found the mother “too old” for me and the daughter “just right.” I am sure my more “MILF-minded” friends would have found the mother just peachy, but I am just hung up on young women, probably because in some ways (not all ways, though) I have not really matured beyond my twenties (although sometimes I think I have not matured beyond the age of fourteen)...I mean, I think I have a certain amount of insight and wisdom appropriate to my real age of fifty-six, but when it comes to sexual desire, I rarely feel drawn to any woman over thirty...there are exceptions (remember, I once wrote here that I even found Judi Dench kind of sexy in the movie Mrs. Henderson Presents, and she is seventy!), but overall, I like the younger gals...not that I do anything to get them, or their mothers, for that matter...

There was an article in the New York Post today about the “Rise of the Manchild” of the 21st century, the slacking, beer-guzzling, videogame-playing types who inhabit movies like Knocked Up. The gently chiding female writer of the piece (Kay S. Hymowitz) posited that marriage and children are what finally make boys grow up and leave behind the things of extended adolescence. Well, since I never married and never had children, maybe that’s why I too remain something of a manchild myself...the phenomenon is not new to the younger generation, by any means. I like what Hymowitz said about how Knocked Up was a "fairy tale for guys" about how a "beautiful princess" comes along to show an immature young man how to become an adult. I think she summed up the subtext of that movie quite well...because Katherine Heigl certainly fit all the qualifications for a beautiful princess in my book!

A young woman came into the coffee shop just as I was finishing my breakfast. She had a book and note paper with her, and I surmised that she was going to take notes for a book review. Damn, she was very attractive. She had a way of holding the menu that was very feminine and graceful, and her slender wrist gave her bulky silver watchband a kind of feminine daintiness too. It’s funny how women can wear things ordinarily associated with men and turn them into womanly accessories...she also had a lovely smile. Her brown hair was upswept and she had a pert nose. You know, I could have figured out some way to reach out to her, even though she was one table too far away for easy conversation...maybe ten paces away...so what stopped me? I used to be able to meet women in restaurants, bars, on the street, bookstores, museums, libraries, even bank lines...I think what stops me now is a concentrated form of absolute pessimism, as if I can see nothing but sadness coming from any attempt. I wish I was just sex-minded and thought in terms of meeting women simply to screw them, but apparently I don’t...I have some kind of scenario in my head which leads me to say, “Why bother?” and then wonder why I feel so hopeless about it all...but historically, the fact is: most of my relationships with women lead to heartbreak, and that’s what began my retreat into the stripclubs and other venues of the imagination.

It seems to me that our lives are logical, if we examine the evidence...

It's been two weeks since my last entry. Sorry if I gave the impression that I vanished into the abyss...a couple of friends who follow the blog called to ask if I was all right...I guess I am...you tell me.

Let’s catch up on what’s been happening...although I don’t know why anybody would be interested anymore in my mundane life...after all, who wants to read strippersversusdvds without any strippers in it? But money is so low I can’t patronize the clubs without gnawing anguish...all right, maybe I am being a little melodramatic, but you get the idea...

Anyway, I revised my novel again over the last fourteen days, rewrote the opening and the ending, and added a little stuff in the middle. Now I have to tweak and polish it further...I think it's better, although my opinion depends on my mood...and I’m very pessimistic a lot of the time. I just want to finish this fucker, and I realize I was in too much of a hurry to get it out there because I need MONEY...my friends and associates’ comments were helpful, and I took their criticisms constructively...I sincerely thought the book was solid when I gave it to them to read, but I learned that it needed some more work...and that’s okay. I just hope to sell it (me and eight million other aspiring novelists have the same dream)...

Lately I'm also having a hard time blogging because I seem to be closing up emotionally...or maybe I’m being hard on myself? Perhaps I want to save my emotions for finishing my novel revisions right now, so I can pour my passion into depicting the lives of my characters...who are actually far more engaged in life than I am...it's like I'm a voyeur watching the people in my head...

As I sit here writing, I can hear the girls in the next apartment having a bachelorette party tonight...wonder how raucous that’s going to get....they’re very unfriendly people, never say hello in the hallway...I guess I’m too old and bald to acknowledge as a neighbor...or maybe they hear me often talking to myself in my curmudgeonly way, and think I’m totally fucking nuts and a must-to-avoid...

On other fronts, I have seen some good old movies. Woman of Straw (1964) was a fine, lush melodrama starring Sean Connery and Gina Lollobrigida as two lovers scheming to get an old man’s fortune...Gina was gorgeous and Sean was a scheming bastard...and Gina showed off her beautiful feet and legs in one shot while sunbathing...and I also saw Tonight for Sure (1961), Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie, a softcore “nudie cutie” he made while apparently still a film student, and it was quite a sexy little flick! There were some great girls in the movie, either disrobing to the buff, taking bubble baths, or doing stripteases. I found myself getting aroused watching it because the girls looked good and were made up in a flattering, early 60s way...one redhead was particularly fetching, with her big firm boobs and bouffant hairdo...yum-yum...

I also saw The Strange Mrs. Crane (1948), an obscure B-movie starring Marjorie Lord. Baby boomers will remember Ms. Lord from her role as Danny Thomas’s wife in the series Make Room for Daddy. Anyway, in this flick from the earlier part of her career, she plays a con artist, quite glamorous and sexy, who marries an older man running for governor. Just as things seem to be going well, and she appears to be living a straight (as opposed to criminal) life, she runs into her old partner in confidence games, played by Robert Shayne of Inspector Henderson fame on the old 50s Superman series. Here he is a pencil-moustached smoothie named “Floyd Durant” and he attempts to blackmail Marjorie with his evidence about her old felonious life. It leads to her murdering him and then sitting on the jury while another woman is tried for the crime! Needless to say (since this was 40s Hollywood), Marjorie’s character doesn’t get away with it, and the story is brought to a twisty conclusion in fifty-nine entertaining minutes. I got this flick on a DVD from a collector at a memorabilia show...keep your eye out for it...

In fact, tonight I’m going to a birthday party for a friend I met through the movie memorabilia scene. I’m not much for parties these days, but maybe it’ll be fun. Nonetheless I am having a Jameson and soda before I go out...make that two Jameson and sodas...and I’m listening to the soundtrack from Bride of Frankenstein. Some of the music, particularly the chase sequences, was reused in the Flash Gordon serials...very stirring...

I’ve been feeling so stressed lately that the booze is going straight to my brain...well, there’s going to be pizza at the party, I hear...

There was an article in the New York Post today by Danica Lo about "WAGs"--the term for "wives and girlfriends" of football players. I think a catchier word would be "footmolls." The article's descriptions of these beautiful women in their high heels hanging onto jocks made me think of the "molls" in gangster films, all dolled up and hovering adoringly behind their thugs.

Ms. Lo's article talked about how some football groupies take the discarded condoms from their wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am dreamboats and insert turkey basters in the rubbers to suck up the semen with which they can then attempt self-insemination!

Can you imagine such a mother explaining to Junior years later how he came into the world? Explaining how mommy banged a baller in a nightclub bathroom and after Mr. Quarterback left the stall the stork flew up through the toilet and put a baby in mommy's belly?

Gee, I wouldn't have had any of these thoughts if I hadn't read the New York Post today...

Not writing on the blog can become a habit, a habit of avoidance. I ran out of steam around New Year’s Eve, I guess, although in the first week of January I did write a couple of entries. However I felt they were too unfocused and grumpy and didn't post them...but now here I am again.

Now we’re well into the year 2008, and the hurlyburly of the holidays is far behind us...although the credit card debt awaits me for my new camera...

I stopped by the stripclub three days ago but felt bored and restless the whole time. I saw the girl who danced for me so enthusiastically before Christmas, and her behavior was more muted without the Santa outfit and, probably, a few drinks under her belt (er, g-string)...she was friendly, but seemed to have a cold, so I left before she could ask me for a dance and I could get an opportunity to catch her sniffles...

The weather has been unseasonably warm but is turning colder again.

My nephew stopped in New York on his way to Israel (see my previous entry) and he was suitably impressed by the lights of Times Square...

I haven’t been able to make any headway in revising my novel...money worries preoccupy me, so I did some extra freelance work to pay some extra bills...

I feel the January blahs, I guess.