While running an errand today over on the Upper East Side, I realized I was near the location of a brothel I had frequently visited in the late 1970s. Or rather, I was near the building that housed the brothel. I was curious to see if the building, an old three story tenement, was still there, and it was. It faced Second Avenue. Back in the day, the doorway that led upstairs to the brothel was next to the entrance of a small restaurant at street level. I paused for a moment by the wooden door, now scarred by illegible graffiti. There was still the buzzer that I had to press to be let upstairs...

Just as I do with strippers now, I got emotionally attached then to the hookers I knew. The girl I visited there was named Ginny, and she was a small, kittenish girl of 22. This was 1978, so she would be fifty now.

Ginny was quite pretty and had really nice legs--pinup girl gams that were almost startling on her small frame--and she was kind and friendly, with a good sense of humor. She was also Jewish, and would never work on Friday night, which is of course the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. She would always go to her grandmother’s house in Brooklyn for dinner.

I remember Ginny telling me one day about how she had tried cocaine for the very first time the previous night and had such a great time and felt so sensual. I was never into drugs myself, but I remember not having much of a reaction to what she said--because nobody seemed to realize or acknowledge until the 80s just how bad the cocaine thing could be. At the time, I thought it was more like the relatively benign high of marijuana than the dark addiction of heroin.

Ginny had medium-length hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders, and it was the color of butterscotch. She always wore Candies slides, those backless wooden heels that were new back then, as well as little stretchy leotards. Her butt looked sensational in nude-colored pantyhose too...

It cost me $25.00 to spend thirty minutes with her.

Ginny was a sweet girl, so I visited her for about six months. I stopped seeing her only because I got too attached and didn’t enjoy paying for her company anymore. One day as we lay across the bed listening to the traffic on Second Avenue, I said, “I wish I’d seen you at a bar or a museum and came up and said something and got to know you that way...that would have been different.” “Yes,” she said, “that would have been.” She seemed to understand why I didn’t want to pay to see her anymore, but maybe she was trying to lure me back when she told me I could call her at the brothel if I just wanted to say hello. I did call once, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere because she didn’t want to date me in the regular sense and I didn’t want to spend money on her anymore in the commercial sense. I guess we were forever fated to be a hooker and john, like two stars that remain fixed in a constellation...the next couple of times I called, whoever was at the switchboard wasn’t able or willing to put me through to her, so I gave up. I lost track of Ginny, but I remember she said she was into horses, and had dreams of being a jockey. She was rather petite, so who knows? Maybe she fulfilled her dream...

I wonder if an old horse somewhere is now wondering whatever happened to a butterscotch-tressed cutie whose fine legs pressed so tightly on his flanks back in the fine running days of his youth...

I went a little crazy yesterday and spent more dough than I should have. After the pecuniary responsibility I exhibited Friday night, with a beer at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone and an inexpensive dinner at a Greek diner, I couldn't seem to stop spending money yesterday.

First I went down to a Starbucks in the East Village for a cafe mocha. Seeing the bustling throng of NYU students there, a good number of them attractive Asian gals, lifted my spirits. The place was very crowded. Then, an attractive thirtyish blond woman with some sort of European accent asked if she could share my table; I said sure. But when I tried to chat with her a little, her replies were clipped and uninterested. I guess she really just wanted a seat. She drank her coffee, ate a sandwich, and hurriedly flipped through fashion magazines, out of which she dramatically and noisily ripped the subscription cards and placed them on the table, as if their presence were an obstacle to her efficient perusal of the periodicals. Or, as it only occurred to me much later to ask her, perhaps she wanted to encourage me to subscribe?

I drank my coffee and read a book for awhile, then went over to Kim's Video on St. Marks Place. I guess if I don't want to spend money, I shouldn't go into Kim's, because their display of the latest DVDs is catnip to me. I was able to nimbly rationalize spending more than I wanted to on a boxed set of Bettie Page's 8mm tease movies from the 1950s, and a double-disc edition of the Mexican Gothic horror classics The Vampire and The Vampire's Coffin, starring German Robles. And since I was already spending more than I should, why not throw in that copy of The Monster Art of Basil Gogos, a collection of the renowned illustrator's cover art for mags like Famous Monsters of Filmland, which got me addicted to horror movies in the first place back in the early 60s? Well, I told myself that all these things were belated birthday presents to myself, and went to have some udon soup and a Sapporo at a nearby Japanese restaurant on 9th Street. But when I got home last night, I couldn't seem to concentrate on watching any of the movies I'd bought; my mind was restless and distracted. So as it turns out, this weekend I have watched halves of four DVDs: half of Mudhoney, half of Orchestra Wives, half of Betti Page's 8mm flicks, and half of The Vampire.

I woke up feeling tense and decided to go back down to the East Village to have another cafe mocha at Starbucks this afternoon and chill out and read for awhile in the pleasant glow of the autumn sunshine. I did, but the proximity of Kim's called out to me again like the Lorelei on the rocks did to the Teutonic sailors of legend, and I ended up spending yet more money there on a couple of film magazines...

Sometimes I think that I am not so much a collector but rather a knowledge junkie who tries to fill the various holes in his info archive with appropriate works, whether printed, painted, or filmed. Ironically, the relative low price of the things I like--an eight dollar magazine here, a twenty dollar double DVD set there--makes them tough to resist except by my practicing total avoidance of the tempting emporiums at which they are displayed. We all know how these little purchases add up. So for several weeks I will have to stay clear of Kim's or my overall budget will lean over into the water like an ocean liner that just kissed an iceberg...

At least I paid for everything in cash, and didn't use credit cards.

I had the strangest sensation last night when I finally left my apartment after being inside most of the day and feeling itchy for some fun. As I walked towards Times Square in the swarms of people hurrying either to the Broadway shows or just to see the bright lights of the Great White Way, I suddenly felt as if I would find all the old haunts there--the sleazy topless joints of yore, the crummy bars with pimps and prostitutes, the ten dollar massage parlors, the cheap movie theaters showing continuous double bills for three bucks a ticket. I also felt in that moment that I was thirty years younger, as if I had stepped not only into a time warp but a rejuvenation machine.

We all know there's a term for thinking you've seen something before when you haven't--deja vu; I wonder if there's a term for the sensation I've just described, that of your mind fleetingly recapturing the past as if it's right before you once again.

Needless to say, this nostalgic illusion quickly passed, and I was back in 2006. I decided to have a beer at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone bar and restaurant, which is staffed by beautiful waitresses in bikini tops and mini-sarongs. I'd stopped by there a week earlier with a friend, and the scenery was pleasant so I figured it might be worth a shot by myself.

The place was packed with an afterwork crowd, mostly guys with a smattering of gals, and of course the gorgeous waitresses circulating through the emporium's two levels. I briefly chatted with two female customers but they didn't seem particularly receptive. Still, in the half hour I stood there nursing my bottle of Bud Lite (which cost $7 plus a buck tip), I saw enough pleasing pulchritude that I didn't feel it was necessary to then go to a stripclub and spend an additional C-note on essentially the same thing, except more bare. Between the video screens showing footage of the Hawaiian Tropic girls in beauty pageants and posing on the beach, and the sarong-clad waitresses moving about the restaurant, my brain managed to ingest enough eye-candy. So I took myself to a diner and had a Salisbury steak with sauteed onions and a baked potato, then went home to watch movies for awhile. I watched half of Russ Meyer's 1960s backwoods sexploitation melodrama Mudhoney, and half of the 1940s musical Orchestra Wives, which featured the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

So between my momentary delusion that I was back in 1970s New York, my pit stop at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone (very 2006), and my tastings of Mudhoney (1965) and Orchestra Wives (1942), I covered a lot of territory in my time-traveling last night...

It’s been a tiring week, mentally. I’ve been working on a project that involves a lot of reading and note-taking and analysis. I wish I could discuss it more here, but I can’t for my usual reasons of discretion. Anyway, the project is fun and absorbing, and it will bring me some extra money, so necessary around the holidays; but I almost feel as if I’ve been living in my head for the last few days. I didn’t make it out to my freelance client in New Jersey this week so I’ve been a bit of a hermit since Monday. Now it’s just after six on Friday, I’ve been in my apartment almost the entire day, and I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin. I have to go out and take a walk and get some exercise and get in the flow of the weekend crowds.

It’s funny, often the crowds get on my curmudgeonly nerves, but right now I just want to be in the middle of them.

It was so beautiful today when I went out for breakfast that I lingered at Columbus Circle and hated to go back to my apartment to work, but if you’re not disciplined as a freelance worker you never get anything done. I’m not making myself out to be a freelance saint, I do my share of goofing off too, but I try to stick to a nine-to-five or ten-to-six regimen. It works best for me. Gives me the delusion that I lead a normal life.

On another front, I finally managed to get over my procrastination, which was really making me edgy, and make an appointment to see a podiatrist for an annoying problem I’ve had. I’ve put the visit off because I have a feeling the treatment is going to involve some in-office surgery (as it did about a year and a half ago) and I’m then going to have to arrange my schedule around soaking my foot two to three times a day and hobbling around for awhile. Well, I guess I should be thankful for minor problems, but do you hear any gratitude in my whining? Nah. Anyway, I hope by Thanksgiving it’ll be better. I have the appointment in about ten days.

I really am stressed out tonight. Perhaps I will finally hit a stripclub again this weekend and try to relax a bit. I’ve saved a little cash out of my now-tight weekly budgets so I can have a smidgen of fun if I choose. Nothing extravagant, but enough to buy a drink for a pretty lass and have a dance or two or tip the gals onstage. That’s not asking for too much.

Movies and DVDs are fine, but sometimes a cranky man needs live entertainment...

I want to thank everybody who is encouraging me to keep on writing here as I ride out some pesky doldrums. Out, damn doldrums, out!

Now, there is a mid-thirties woman I know in the movie memorabilia circles which I frequent who seems to like me, but to whom I am not attracted. She has nice qualities, and she’s not bad looking, but she just doesn’t do it for me in a "sexual chemistry" way. She gave up on me and now has a serious boyfriend; but I had a dream about her last night.

I dreamed that I was going to fly with her to her native country, and it was a very important trip which we had planned together carefully. But when we got to the airport with only about an hour to spare, I realized I had left both my ticket and passport at home. There was no time for me to go back and get them and still make the flight.

I went to the security counter and talked to the women there and tried to explain that I had forgotten both my ticket and passport but it was still important that I be allowed to take the flight nonetheless. My traveling companion went off to the side to wait while I handled this matter. She didn’t seem too concerned, in fact she sort of faded out of the dream at this point. I thought I’d handled the situation successfully and that security was going to let me fly without ticket or passport. One of the security ladies asked me if I’d ever met Doris Day, because she somehow knew my hobby was watching and writing about movies. I told her I hadn’t met Doris, but I had written about her on my blog.

I thought this security lady’s friendliness indicated that everything was hunky-dory, but as it turned out I was not allowed to fly, and the dream came to an end. I awakened much earlier than necessary, to the sound of rain and the gray light of a chilly dawn.

To me this dream is yet another example of my fear of connecting in any deeper way than placing tips in a stripper’s garter. For in the dream, while I made plans to do something significant (travel) with a woman who liked me, I “forgot” my ticket and passport to “fly” (a classic sexual metaphor). Do people ever forget things they really want to do?

I couldn’t go on the trip, but my love of fantasy women was alluded to in the dialogue about Doris Day--who is the prototype for the sexy but maternal type of woman who turns me on a lot these days.

Last night, I watched a film featuring exactly that sort of female, and I kept thinking, “It’s amazing how seeing a woman’s face that blends kindness with eroticism can actually make me feel as if I love her.” Love a total stranger. The actress wasn’t Doris Day, but someone similar.

It was as if the security lady in the dream were reminding me that although I had forgotten my ticket and passport to “fly,” I still had my fantasy life to make me happy...

Or semi-happy, as the case may be.

To switch gears slightly, I was also thinking today about how certain business situations that make me feel financially powerless also seem to acutely set off my desire to go to a stripclub.

When my financial frustration level becomes high, as it did this afternoon, I want to escape the feeling, and a stripclub pops into mind as the cure.

Maybe I feel less powerless in a stripclub when I can wield financial power over others; because make no mistake about it, with all the trendy talk of the “empowerment” dancers supposedly experience in clubs, the reality is that they hear the word “no” an awful lot in the course of their evening’s work...as in, “No, I will not pay you to dance for me. No, no, no.”

Even the wimpiest, smelliest, most repulsive customer can wield this power over beautiful dancers--and I am NOT describing myself, by the way!

Due to a recent tightening in my situation as a freelance worker, I therefore feel a constant financial pinch that doesn’t allow me to exercise cash power over the strippers--so I’m caught between feeling monetarily limp both in my work and in my social life. I guess I’ve been avoiding the clubs so as not to sink completely into a quicksand of emotional impotence.

Hmm. What did I say yesterday about my thinking too much??

And as far as quicksand metaphors go, I guess I got that from watching George Reeves last night in Chapter Ten of the 1949 serial The Adventures of Sir Galahad, as he flailed for his knightly life in that very messy substance...