This is a bizarre thought:

I haven't been to a stripclub in almost five weeks, mostly for financial reasons, and I feel as if I am aging quicker because of it. Like a mad doctor in a horror movie of the 40s, kept youthful by regular injections of sci-fi serums, I feel as if the atmosphere, the company, the interactions, and the sheer multitude of comely flesh in the stripclubs has heretofore fended off my natural aging process. Not unlike the madmen in 1944's The Man in Half Moon Street or its 1959 remake, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, without my regular "medicine"--in my case, visits to the tittie bars--I feel as if I am reverting to my real age of 55, instead of the age that the stripclubs have kept me, which hovers around 22.

The amateur doctor in me is now writing a prescription to get my ass over to a Palace of Prurience pronto!!!

Since I've been writing this blog, I hardly ever write in my journal, and that may not be a good thing. Actually, the word "journal" is too high-toned for what it is; I just jot down my thoughts and observations about my life on a computer file, or in a small notebook.

I was reading an article recently about how a blog is different from a journal in that it is a form of public performance, whereas the journal or diary is meant for the writer alone. I don't think that's necessarily true for everyone who blogs, but it has been for me. Although I have been pretty candid here, I never forget I am writing for readers, and not just for myself.

However, lately I've been feeling less willing to rehash my various forms of angst here, feeling that I'm only going to repeat myself and bore not just you, but myself as well.

Writing a blog can really make a person aware of the finite nature of his or her personality. After you do it for almost two years, you start to see the recurring themes and obsessions, especially if you're a person who tends to fall into steady patterns like I do. I start wonder, "Is that all there is to Sir Cranky?"

I was brooding about my life and I realized how I tend to stick with the same things for a long time. That's the way it's been in my professional life, in my friendships, in my creative endeavors, in my living quarters, in my choice of physician, barber, laundromat, coffee shops; and of course in my pattern of becoming a steady long-time customer to those strippers I like. Yes, I locate a comfort zone and then I stick to it.

I'm not very adventurous except at the beginning of things. In my work, for example, I'll improvise and devise patterns that I will stick with if they seem to be successful. And in my personal life, I'll adhere to relationships that seem workable and pleasant.

I wonder why I have this need to feel secure and "in the groove" with things. I wonder if it's because I used to see my parents fight so much, and perhaps I was afraid that our family life would fly apart into chaos. That's one theory. Or maybe there is a natural human temperament that prefers things to remain as they are for as long as possible, and I have that temperament.

I even seem to like dust to stay in the same place. I've lived in my apartment for sixteen years, and with all the clutter of books and magazines and videos, there are patches of dust that have remained untouched (and, to be honest, unreachable) throughout much of that time.

Sometimes my crammed living space seems surreal to me, because I grew up with a compulsively cleaning mother who forced us to keep everything neat. I seem to have gone in the opposite direction once freed from her watchful and critical eye. I think, "Can this really be how I live?" Well, like a seedy detective in an old Hollywood movie, you might say I live in my office, rather than have an office in my apartment. Yes, that's the explanation I'll stick with.

Now all I need is a beautiful blonde in seamed stockings and heels to walk into my "office" and ask for my hardboiled assistance in some matter...

And so I take leave of reality once again, and settle comfortably into fantasy.

In any case, I think it might do me some good not only to continue writing here, because I enjoy doing it, but also to write more in my personal private notebook every once in awhile, just to let loose with my thoughts and feelings without worrying what an audience will think about them. Because maybe in my desire to entertain, I'm not examining all the essential things I should...things that are important to me, but which might seem self-indulgent and tedious as part of the continuing saga of Sir Cranky.

Or maybe lately I'm just in a "close to the vest" kind of mood.

The other night I was hanging out with some of my movie buff friends when we got the news that Gordon Scott, who had starred in Tarzan and sword-and-sandal films, had died at age 80. Scott may have been forgotten by the general public, but he was still a big star to us. I was never into Tarzan, but I admired Scott as one of the better actors in the gladiator genre. He gave quite an impressive performance in 1961's Duel of the Titans, a retelling of the founding of ancient Rome. Scott plays a surly and belligerent Remus to Steve Reeves' more noble and upstanding Romulus. The Italian film was one of the more elaborate examples of the genre, and also featured the gorgeous Virna Lisi, whose beauty probably warped me in my adolescence when I saw her pop out of a cake in the 1965 Jack Lemmon comedy How to Murder Your Wife. (I've written here before how the Italian glamour girls of the 50s and 60s seemed to have formed the template for what I find most desirable in women. Unfortunately, nobody told me you had to look like a gladiator to get them.)

The New York Times ran an obit on Scott today, but the Baltimore Sun ran a far more interesting story on May 3rd, by Frederick N. Rasmussen, for which I provide a link below. Scott died in Baltimore after living for years at the home of a couple who befriended him; it is a poignant tale. He was a well-known star, a macho man with an eye for the ladies, once married to actress Vera Miles, but who lived out his days in obscurity. Such is the stuff of Hollywood legends.

I myself met Scott once about fifteen years ago at a memorabilia show, where he was signing autographs, and we spoke briefly. He seemed like a nice guy, big and brawny. But unfortunately, at that time I knew very little about him so I didn't have much to say or ask. It was only subsequently that I saw his films and grew familiar with his work, thanks to tapes and DVDs.

On another front...

Last night I watched a fairly lame 1954 British film noir called Blackout only because the lead actress, the late Belinda Lee, was so ravishing my eyes wanted to gobble up every last inch of her footage. The film is part of VCI Entertainment's three-disc, six-movie Hammer Film Noir collector's set. Blackout stars Dane Clark and has a very convoluted and hard-to-follow plot, but Miss Lee is absolutely stunning. She was only nineteen when she made the film, fresh from her career as a model, and I watched the movie wondering why the hell she never made it bigger as an actress. For the answer, I went to the excellent site The Love Goddesses which showcases some great photos, and tells Miss Lee's tragic story. She was literally in the wrong places at the wrong times when it came to both her career and her physical life itself. But again, although she may be forgotten by the general public, she was a star all over again last night to the enraptured orbs of a middle-aged film buff living on the edge of Times Square.

In Blackout, Belinda plays an heiress whose father is murdered, and she turns to hard-luck guy Clark to help her find the culprit. Miss Lee goes from sweet to sultry in the course of the story, but her amazing eyes, wavy blonde hair, curvy figure, and versatile expressions give her character a mysterious and alluring depth. There is one scene where she plays it cold and calculating when caught by Clark in what seems like a treacherous lie, and her expression is an iconic mask of the femme fatale in all its mesmerizing potential. It therefore comes as no surprise that she later played the evil Roman empress Messalina in a sword-and-sandal film, which I have yet to see! Blackout is no knock-out, but Belinda sure is and makes the movie worth a watch.

It is really a pleasure to pay tribute to these performers whom the mainstream film histories and critics seem to bypass, but who continue to sell tickets--in the form of DVDs--right up to this day.

BaltimoreSunGordonScottObit

BelindaLeeAtTheLoveGoddesses

I just had a Twilight Zone moment at the post office. I dropped off a letter, and noticed there seemed to be no line to buy stamps, which was what I've been waiting for the last couple of days. There was just one guy being served at the counter, so I went up behind him and waited. I was standing there for a minute or two, trying to decide what kind of stamps to buy (the flags? the vegetables? Judy Garland?), when I heard these voices saying "Mister, mister." I didn't pay attention because it sounded as if it was for someone else further away. But finally I turned around and there were about eight people standing behind me on line! They said I had cut in front of them, but I literally didn't see them. What made it really hard to believe that I had unwittingly cut the line was that the guy directly behind me was about six foot seven and standing behind an enormous baby stroller with twins. It was the two ladies behind him had been calling out "mister, mister;" he didn't say a word. I told the ladies I'd seen nobody, which was the truth. One of the ladies said, "That's probably because there was a big gap in the line," and that was possible, because sometimes--but not all the time--people wait in line for stamps several feet behind the person at the counter. But I think I would have noticed a six-foot-seven daddy with a stroller big enough to plow a field.

It was embarrassing (as I would never cut a line knowingly) but also excessively surreal. Since the whole point of this was to purchase stamps when there wasn't a fifteen minute wait, I left. But for a crazy moment I thought that all these people had assembled behind me and decided to fuck with my head just to make the line shorter for them!

Am I experiencing symptoms of lapdance withdrawal?? It's been four weeks since I was in a stripclub, after all...

I just know I wouldn't have missed Paul Bunyan and that stroller...

I'm drinking a glass of ginger ale. Ye gods, sometimes ginger ale tastes so good. My favorite soda.

I had Chinese take-out tonight as a treat from the cheap cans of soup I've been having lately for dinner to conserve money. Chicken with cashews and an egg roll, while I tried to get through Dr. Orloff's Monster, another mid-60s Euro gothic horror film by the ultra-prolific director Jess Franco. Although it has some good imagery (Franco's scientists tend to haunt nightclubs and strip joints), the film is almost maddeningly elliptical. Franco seems more interested in the visuals than the narrative. Yet there is something oddly pleasing about the stream-of-consciousness feeling of his flicks, something that makes the viewer feel oddly free, liberated from the restraints of traditional dramatic structure. Nice as a change of pace, but I definitely prefer more rigorously designed storytelling.

It looks like the weather is going to be beautiful for the next few days. The girl-watcher shall emerge from his winter cocoon...orbs at the ready!