Seen and noted at the coffee shop where my writer-artist friend ZP and I had cheeseburgers tonight:

An Asian girl so gorgeous we were reduced to sputtering schoolboys in her wake. We would have cried in our cheeseburgers if we hadn't already finished them.

She was about twenty-five, poring over documents that led us to believe she may have been a law student. Silky black hair, strong features (we guessed Chinese), and--wonderfully--a cleft in her chin like Rose McGowan's!

She wore a fluttery skirt that did not conceal the apple-lovely shape of her derriere.

Her sweet knees peeked over her black high heeled boots.

As ZP so aptly put it, "Only twenty years and half a million dollars separates me from that."

We each made unnecessary trips to the men's room to properly survey her awesome imagery on the way back to our table.

Yes, it's always nice to combine fine cuisine with sightseeing. We multitask with our stomachs and loins, and, as aficionados of beauty, etch the glories of Manhattan into memory.

I went to a memorabilia show today in Manhattan. It was fun hanging out for several hours, talking about old movies and related topics with the other collectors and the dealers.

This is one especially nice aspect of the fall season for me--after a summer lull, the collectors shows resume.

The only downside right now is I have to watch my spending, because of my currently shaky financial situation as a freelance worker. I bought a couple of things, but I was adding up the totals in my head and getting blue that I can't buy as freely as last year. Oh well, I have enough stuff as it is, I suppose...still, having to tighten my belt both as a collector and as a lapdance aficionado does make me a little glum at times...

On the other hand, getting a few choice pinup photos put my mood right again.

These memorabilia shows sometimes have celebrity guests, actors or actresses from films or tv shows of the last few decades. They meet their fans and sell autographed pictures.

It was at one of these shows, for example, that I met Noel Neill last spring. She played Lois Lane in the Superman tv show of the 50s.

Today I met Melody Anderson, the blond beauty who played Dale Arden in the 1980 big screen version of Flash Gordon, which starred Sam Jones as Flash and Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. According to her bio on the Internet Movie Database, Melody is fifty years old now, but she sure didn't look like it to Sir Cranky. In fact she was even more beautiful than when she was in Flash Gordon or 80s and 90s television programs. Arranged in front of her on a table were stills from the various movies and tv shows she appeared in. She was dressed in a very classy manner with a white sweater and scarf.

I've seen the 1980 Flash Gordon, but for a baby boomer like myself, it seemed but a pale shadow of the original thrill-packed 1930s serials with Buster Crabbe, Charles Middleton, and Jean Rogers. I watched those serials--also known as "chapter-plays"--over and over on local Chicago television's "Community Space Theater" on Sunday mornings back in the early 60s. Not being a big tv viewer in the last thirty years, I wasn't familiar with much else that Melody Anderson had done, but I went over to her anyway and chatted for a few minutes. I learned that she left acting for the most part to get into the field of psychotherapy and social work, in which she has made quite a name for herself. I didn't feel like spending money on her autograph, so I simply talked with her, and she was very gracious indeed. I couldn't help thinking that if she were MY counselor, I would find it emotionally therapeutic just to simply sit in the same room and look at her gorgeous blue eyes for fifty minutes a week! Talking about my many problems would be an extra added bonus.

Ah, therapy has come a long way since Freud! I approve.

My mood has improved somewhat from yesterday...

A convivial dinner with my writer/bodybuilder/streetfighter friend Rexx last night helped. Our conversation delved, as it often does, into the mysteries of the freelance life and the minds of women...and tonight I'm going to dinner with my writer/graphic designer pal Diana. She felt like getting a deep dish pizza, and asked if I wanted to join her...

The weather here in New York has been dreary and chilly, and sitting in my apartment all day trying to work has not been easy...sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself as a freelancer...

At one point, when I felt down in the dumps, I just let myself sit on my couch and daydream...

I daydreamed about a young blond woman about thirty whom I saw in a magazine...nicely dressed, very ladylike in a skirt, sweater, stockings, and high heels...in outward appearance, 180 degrees opposite to the strippers I've known...

The truth is, the older I get, the more I find ladylike women extremely sexy. Although I get turned on by blatantly erotic gals, I also feel slightly embarrassed in their presence, because all I can think about is their...tits...butts...and so forth...

But a "lady" gives me an opportunity to more gradually contemplate her charms...

This is yet another reason I enjoy old films...because even when the femmes are fatale, they're still ladylike...

Another way I improved my mood this afternoon was by simply taking a shower...

The benefits of self-applied hydrotherapy are not to be scoffed at.

Finally, just getting some lively comments on the blog helped my mood. Thanks, Moonsilver, Lady Blumoon, jackie, and mike...

It was good to read on the 'Stream that I was not alone in feeling terribly saddened by the awful events in the news this week...

I sometimes suspect that I latch onto bad news as a way to express my ongoing angst about life in general, but I think that this week has been grimmer than usual, and posed heavy questions to all of us about the nature of life and faith...

Anyway, I better shut up or I'm going to fall back into "The Slough of Despond," as it was called in that old book Pilgrim's Progress. That's about the only thing I remember from that tome, which I had to read in high school...

This is just one of those days...

Beautiful weather, blue sky, warm with a refreshing edge of autumn cool, the lush sunshine of early fall...

And yet I feel gloomy...

All the sad stuff in the news this week, and then I watched a grim tv show last night called The Nine, about the aftermath of a hostage crisis at a bank robbery...

I should have watched a Betty Grable movie instead...

I got some work done today, at least, but as soon as I was done the glum mood returned...

The onion bagel and cream cheese that I ate this morning upset my stomach and it's been unsettled all day...

I'm going to have dinner with a friend, but I don't what I should eat...

At least, on the positive side, I made an appointment to go to the dentist for a checkup, after procrastinating for way too long...

Yet anticipating that makes me gloomy...

I can't understand how I can be disciplined in my professional work, and yet be a champion procrastinator sometimes when it comes to taking care of myself...

I know I've been feeling blue, because I've hardly seen any attractive girls on the street...

I know they're out there, but in my mood perhaps I'm too critical...

Oh well, it's a mood. It'll pass.

Right?

I enjoyed The Black Dahlia last night, although I didn't care for some of the casting, and the storytelling was a mite on the confusing side. Still, confusion does go with the territory in these types of twisty nest-of-vipers murder mysteries.

From what I've read about the real facts in the unsolved 1947 Black Dahlia murder case, however, the truth is far more interesting than the fictional story James Ellroy constructed around it in his novel, on which the movie is based.

The non-fiction book The Black Dahlia Files, which I read last week, was much more gripping as a picture of Los Angeles corruption and criminality than anything in the movie. So the film, and its storyline, have to be taken pretty much on their own terms simply as examples of modern noir fiction. It's really just an old-fashioned B-movie with up-to-date big budget trimmings.

Although Josh Hartnett was likable in the lead as a detective trying to crack the Black Dahlia case, he wasn't strong enough a presence for Sir Cranky, aficionado of Robert Mitchum and John Payne in similar types of roles back in the 40s. But the female friend with whom I saw the movie enjoyed Hartnett's handsome looks and acting quite a lot on the sheer "hunk" level.

Although I was taken by Scarlett Johansson's large jiggly bosom in tight 40s sweaters, her voice and acting in the role of cop's girlfriend were not convincing to me. I liked Hilary Swank as the femme fatale but only when she dropped her bad-girl affectations and seemed emotionally vulnerable in her bed scenes with Josh Hartnett. She's pretty when she doesn't have too much lipstick on her mouth, and I could even see a cute sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks.

Mia Kirshner, who played the Black Dahlia murder victim, and is seen mostly in black-and-white screentest footage and a simulated "stag movie," is far more memorable than either Johansson or Swank--as well as more beautiful and natural in the 40s manner than either of them. Likewise Rose McGowan is a sultry standout in a small but showy part that doesn't even get her a listing in the movie's opening credits. Rose has a great voice, and she's dressed up like an ancient princess in her role as an movie extra. She does a lot with her scene, and I wish she'd been one of the leads. Man, I love that sexy little cleft in her chin! She has yet to enact the femme fatale that she was born to portray. She would have been better in Hilary Swank's part.

So on top of the convoluted storyline, the casting seemed out of whack.

I just don't know why Scarlett Johansson is a bigger star than Rose McGowan.

Also good was big, beefy Mike Starr in the role of a detective. I remember him fondly from a great role as a sleazy loan shark in the 1980s tv show Crime Story, as well as that of a schlock movie producer in Ed Wood.

The ultimate solution of the Black Dahlia case that this fictional film presents is pretty weird and depressing, but just taken as a pulpy exercise in noirish mayhem, the movie delivered my $10.75 worth of ticket. I'm glad I saw it in the theater, because I'm sure it's more effective on the big screen than it will be on DVD.

In fact, I'll probably see it again.