For those of you who are first stumbling upon this blog and wondering why it's called "strippersversusdvds" when there don't seem to be strippers being written about...well, when I started the blog in September 2005 I had plenty of strippers to write about, because once upon a time (from about 1973 to early 2006) I could afford to go to stripclubs regularly in Manhattan, and I was very into the whole scene (with occasional time-outs for serious relationships with non-dancers that didn't work out in the long term). But in the last year I've had financial reverses as a freelance worker and had to severely cut back on my visits to Lapdance Land...

I haven't lost my interest in dancers but for the time being it's just too expensive for me to go out to the Manhattan clubs and have a relaxed, good time. So I get my eyefuls of feminine candy on the street now, looking at the Big Apple's exhibitionistic regular gals walking around in their low-cut tops, short-shorts, and high heel sandals and flat-soled flip-flops...

I've been working on a novel this summer and if I manage to sell the thing when I'm done with it, I'll treat myself to a nice evening at a club without pinching every penny...

In a way my self-imposed exile from tittie bars has heightened my senses in the outside world as I am able to conjure up vivid daydreams about girls I see in the street for maybe ten seconds...

I'm gifted that way, I guess...

Meanwhile, I can continue to watch DVDs and write about them here, and I do; and I also discuss books and other stuff too.

I'm coming into the home stretch with the revision and polishing of my novel, a psychological suspense thing. I've been thinking for weeks on how to punch up the ending to give the "customers" (as hardboiled detective writer Mickey Spillane liked to refer to readers) the most satisfying experience, and I think I got the solution to the problem this morning as I was getting out of bed. I won't get to that scene for a few more days, as I revise page by page, but I'm eager to write it and see if my solution works...

The late great Evan Hunter/Ed McBain (author of Blackboard Jungle and the 87th Precinct series) once wrote that the novelist tends to slow down as he approaches the conclusion of his revision work, and I actually feel that...I was going to write today on the manuscript as I have for the last six days, but my body and my strained eyes tell me to rest and hold off until tomorrow to begin the final assault...

Ah, testosterone will out! Look how I couched my language in macho terms: "to begin the final assault"...fun fact about Sir Cranky: the first thing I ever wrote in the sense of being a "writer" was at age 8, when I created a little booklet complete with text and drawings about The Battle of Iwo Jima...I believe I cribbed the info from a 1950s series of volumes called All About Books, which were aimed to give children overviews of various topics like dinosaurs and World War 2...

Anyway, I don't know if my current literary creation is all that good, despite the accumulated skill of 47 additional years with a pen, but at least I will have tried my best to provide an interesting read from start to finish. I also hope to meet my goal of completing it before summer's end.

Last night one of my film buff buddies loaned me a copy of Satan's Cheerleaders, a 1977 exploitation movie. The main point of interest to me was that in addition to the unknown starlets playing cheerleaders menaced by Satanists, the film boasted Hollywood veterans John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, John Carradine, Jack Kruschen, and Sydney Chaplin. In their 40s and 50s heyday, those actors worked with some of the greatest directors in the medium--Howard Hawks, Robert Siodmak, John Ford, and Billy Wilder. But when the plum assignments in the top films stopped coming, these actors obviously still wanted to act for whatever reasons, and so they got involved in this cheesy flick.

The names Jack Kruschen and Sydney Chaplin may not be as readily recognizable as the others, but as character actors they appeared in, respectively, Billy Wilder's The Apartment and Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharoahs. Chaplin was Charlie Chaplin's son and he played the scheming soldier who gets involved with Joan Collins' evil queen of Egypt in that very entertaining epic, now available on DVD.

I have to say that girls in those exploitation movies from the 70s are, for the most part, much less beautiful than the starlets who appear in similar trash today. The bar has really been raised in the kind of looks now deemed necessary to qualify a girl to be menaced on-screen by villains, monsters, or other forms of creep.

It was kind of sad watching Satan's Cheerleaders, because although the script was abysmal (I kept jumping around because it got boring), the Hollywood veterans gave it all the professionalism they'd learned in their earlier days during the studio system. The late John Ireland in particular has always been one of my favorite character actors, and in this crappy movie he shows some fine comedic skill in a few scenes. I read in a film magazine that Ireland had been working on an autobiography before his death, but it was never published. A pity, because the excerpt was most enjoyable and whetted my appetite for more. Here was a guy who had the potential to be a bigger star, but never really got the one iconic breakthrough role. But in his early days of the 40s he made some fine movies like Red River and Railroaded, and of course he can be seen in Kirk Douglas's Spartacus as well.

But acting sure is a tough gig to sustain over the long haul.

I wanted to post here tonight but I can't really sit at my desk now, I have to sit on the couch and elevate my foot...yes, had to return to the podiatrist late this afternoon for a little work. I went to a different podiatrist last fall, but the problem returned, so I went back to the first one I visited two years ago...this really isn't that interesting, I'm sorry...so spank me...anyway, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I have a big bandage on my big toe and I must walk gingerly and keep it up for a day or so...

Anyway, didn't want anybody to think I'm slacking off here...before I went to the doctor, I was cranking on my freelance work and polishing my novel manuscript too...now I must endure a little forced leisure...fortunately I got a cool 1962 burlesque magazine from one of my memorabilia pals, so that will aid me in my convalescence...

I'm only exaggerating for comic effect, I suppose, but it's a darn truth that the bandage on my toe is so big I can't even get my slippers on!

I'd like to see a cartoon with Bugs Bunny visiting a podiatrist...

And I'm writing all this without any drugs...

See ya later.

I've noticed a strange fashion phenomenon on the streets lately. Women dressed up in pretty frocks--often with plunging cleavage to accentuate the thrust of their womanhood; sexy high-heeled sandals or pumps; hair and makeup done; but their accompanying men attired in t-shirts, shorts, sandals or even flip-flops! In the old days of twenty or thirty years ago, I can't imagine a woman who was nicely dressed not saying to her man, "Put something else on. I'm not going to be seen with you when I'm sharp like this and you look like a slob."

It seems to me an odd lowering of the expectations of women today that they would look as if they're dressed for a cocktail party, but allow themselves to be accompanied by men who look like they're going to wash the dog.

I don't get it. I would be embarrassed to dress down like that when my woman was all spiffy. I would feel childish in comparison.

What is wrong with young guys today? This is just one more way they give up their dignity and surrender their power to women. One day they're going to wake up and discover that females are giving all the orders. It's not going to be a happy day for guys, or gals either.

Equality--okay.

Matriarchy--BAH!!!

The "kaddish" is the Jewish prayer of mourning.

Yesterday, August 18th, was the thirtieth anniversary of my father's death. Yes, he died in 1977, two days after Elvis Presley. While the world was making a big deal over Elvis, my family and I were dealing with my father's passing, the conclusion to his ten months of terrible suffering. He had a neurological disease that rendered him immobile, and he also developed dementia that cut him off from who he had been, and from communicating with his loved ones. He was 49.

Today is the anniversary of his death according to the Hebrew calendar, and I said a prayer for him, in my fashion. I spent some time recalling all his good points, his sense of humor, his generosity, his honesty, his dedication to his family and his work. He paid my tuition to a good college that put me on a lifelong journey of curiosity and learning, and although he didn't like New York himself despite having grown up in Brooklyn and Staten Island (he moved to Chicago when he went to graduate school), he helped me get a foothold in New York in 1971 by using a personal connection to get me a summer job here after my sophomore year. So he did a lot for me even though my permanent move to New York didn't seem to make him very happy. He always seemed to suggest that he wanted me to move back to Chicago.

The sudden onset of his illness in 1976, and his rapid deterioration, were a shock that I have never quite gotten over. It sent me into a confused emotional spiral for several years. We were at odds at the time of his sickness, as sons and fathers sometimes are, and any chance at coming to terms with each other before his death was made impossible by his dementia. The awfulness of his fate influenced my already morbid cast of mind...

Anyway, he took care of my mother, my sisters, and me, and he was admired and loved by the people he tended to (he was in a health profession). I just wish he had been warmer towards me, less addicted to the rigid model of "I'm the father, you are the son, so listen to what I say because I know best, period." The negative fallout of that attitude made it hard for me to feel gratitude for the good things he did. He was a distant sort of person in some ways, at least toward me (we rarely did things together as father and son), but as I said he was generous and attentive and helpful in other ways. He did his best, and I do my best to remember him with respect and love. Yet even as I write this, I feel somehow that I am letting him down...