I feel mentally drained this morning as I sit down to write. I got dressed up last night to go out to a stripclub with some money I'd saved up over the last few weeks, but as I neared the joint I lost all my enthusiasm and just went out for a roast beef dinner instead. I seem more reluctant to part with my hard-earned cash now by stuffing it into a girl's garter. What a change from eleven months ago when I first started this blog...

Well, maybe seeing the Sugar Shack Burlesque show on Wednesday night was enough pulchritude for Sir Cranky this week, not only because it was sexy and fun but also because it was inexpensive. I spent $18 at the Sugar Shack show ($10 admission, $5 in tips, $3 in raffles tickets and a souvenir) as opposed to the easy $100 I would drop in a stripclub between the hefty admission, high price of beer, tips to the dancers onstage, and two or three lapdances.

I also stopped in at the Starshine Burlesque pre-show on Thursday night and saw the cute Precious Little go-go dancing, and that only cost me $6 for a beer and tip, and a couple more bucks in tips to Precious's garter. As I said yesterday, if I hadn't felt like I was getting a cold and needed some sleep, I would have stayed to see the whole Starshine show, because it's always lively and entertaining.

The only thing I don't get at the neo-burlesque shows is the personal interplay with the dancers that I get at the stripclubs, whether it's conversation over a drink or a lapdance, and I do miss that.

I feel as if I'm aging like Dorian Gray's portrait without the occasional banter with flirty young women, so ironically I may have to FORCE myself to get over my reluctance to part with a C-note on occasion, and go back to the stripclubs lest I look at myself in the mirror one morning and see the face of a decrepit old man.

This should be proof, if there was ever any doubt, that some men go to titty bars for far more than just the flesh display. Some may go, in fact, for the freedom to express their admiration for women, something that is frowned upon in the regular world. In a stripclub you can tell a girl you think she's beautiful, and she takes it in stride. If you say something like that in a bar, she's as likely to think you're a cliche-ridden creep and tell you to buzz off.

I had two dreams last night. In one, I got involved with a femme fatale who set me up to be assaulted and robbed by two male associates. Alarming. In another, I was sitting next to Lindsay Lohan and told her she had a beautiful face. She looked at me quizzically and asked, "What do you mean?"

When a man tells a woman she has a beautiful face, what DOES he mean? Exactly what he's saying, or that she should be nice to him because of his appreciation for her?

All I know is that I saw a picture of Lindsay in the paper yesterday and thought, "She has a beautiful, saucy face," and I guess the feeling carried over into my dream life.

In any case, I awoke to the sound of rain on the windows, a gray day in New York.

I burned the candle at both ends the other night when I went to the Sugar Shack Burlesque, because I'd been working out in NJ at my freelance job on Wednesday (a day which starts at 6 a.m.) and didn't get to bed until 2 a.m. Thursday after the burlesque show. Felt under the weather yesterday...

It's hard to believe I used to burn the midnight oil on a regular basis until very recently. I rarely got to bed before 1 a.m.

I feel like I've aged five years this year. Between worrying about my sister Jenny's health and stress about finances, I just feel middle-aged more than I usually do.

I go to these neo-burlesque shows and I identify with the ironic post-modern take on all this kitschy culture, and wish it had been around when I was in my 20s. Of course, back in the 70s when I was that age, respectable women wouldn't be caught dead stripping or impersonating "cigarette" girls as at these burlesque shows today. Females of my generation (at least in New York) got really angry and insulted if you referred to them as "girls" and caused a good deal of misery and inspired plenty of misogyny on their way to achieving the supposed equality that not only allows women to run and ruin major corporations just like men, or fuck up international diplomacy just like males, but also allows "grrls" to dance onstage and jiggle pastie-covered boobs and have fun in a way that their feminist foremothers would frown upon.

And yeah, I know, liberated women have also done lots of good as doctors and what-not; but please allow me to be cranky for a few paragraphs.

Like men, women will push the boundaries, see what the traffic will bear. One of our fellow Blogstreamers once said to me in a comment that women get into fashion for the sheer fun of it, and I shouldn't take everything they wear personally as an aggressive statement towards the male half of the species. I'm seeing the wisdom of that comment. Still, last night when I was entering the subway at Union Square I saw a young woman who was wearing a bodice that literally put her two plump white breasts on a shelf which displayed quite clearly their curved soft undersides. First I thought to myself, "How does she expect any man to take her seriously when she wears something like that?" but then I realized that the new generations of men have been so conditioned to accept that women can wear anything they want now because fashion has become just a fantasy with little psychological resonance beneath the surface. That young gal's bodice in a way exemplifies what women have been trying to do for thirty years: trivialize their bodies (especially such vaunted protuberances like breasts and buttocks) so that men don't see their figures as anything overwhelming or special, but just women's bodies. I guess after enough exposure, that gal's bosom is just two plain old tits, nice to look at but essentially unextraordinary unless they're being bestowed on MY lucky lips.

Sometimes I think that many women, if they had their way, would eradicate much of the poetry and magic in this world in their quest to bring everything down to the mundane.

I prefer the male point of view, that women's tits are not only fun to play with but are gorgeous and poetic symbols of far more than just sexual attractiveness or milk production, icons worthy of cataclysms and poetry.

Anyway, watching these neo-burlesque shows, I find it ironic to remember that although it's a female-driven activity today, many of its rituals and symbols were products of the male imagination and were aimed at satisfying the male hunger to look. Burlesque as it exists even today still springs essentially from the masculine world-view. I don't care how many straight women and lesbians enjoy watching it now, I'm talking about its history and origins in the past.

I met my writer/bodybuilder/streetfighter friend Rexx for dinner last night, and afterward I thought I'd check out the Starshine Burlesque at a bar in the East Village. I read on the Internet that the cute and busty winner of their Summer Starlet Search, Precious Little, would be doing the pre-show go-go dancing set, and I haven't seen her since that award-winning performance. I went over to the club and had a beer, and watched Precious do a few songs in a fetching manner, but I was too damn tired to stay for the Starshine show. I really felt as if I were getting a cold and needed to call it a night. So after slipping a couple of dollars into Precious's garter, I went home, and I'm glad I did; I feel a little better this morning.

When I was sitting at the bar, though, a twentysomething woman came up to buy some drinks. I made room for her to slide in to give her order to the bartender. For a moment I thought she was RunAround Sue, one of the producers of the Sugar Shack Burlesque the other night; she had the same kind of coloring and facial structure, although her hair was different. But I had seen Sue in a wig at the Sugar Shack and didn't recognize her at first either. Anyway, I asked this girl if she was one of the dancers. She said no, but thanks for the compliment. I chatted with her for a few sentences, and she said she was hanging out with a friend. When she got her drinks and left my side, she said, "Thank you, sir," as if to say, "Thank you, OLD GUY, for letting me squeeze in to order my drinks."

Thank you, sir.

I don't mind when people call me Sir here because that's part of my nom-de-blog, actually I kind of like it, either Sir or Crank or whatever, but this gal in the bar didn't know about my blog so her use of the appellation "sir" was either a) respectful b) telling me she knows I'm too old and how foolish I was to try to make time with her.

I'm starting to really miss the stripclubs, where at least I know the young women want me for SOMETHING--for my money (whatever there is of it).

I start to understand the appeal of golddiggers--for some men, it's too painful to be ignored by young women, so us older guys are willing to take whatever kind of attention they'll give us.

It must be a biological thing, because it goes against all emotional sense and rational intelligence.

I know that I have far more in common with women in their late-thirties, forties, and up.

Sir Cranky has been overdue for sexy live entertainment--by the shapely buttocks of Venus, has it actually been almost a month since I went to a stripclub or burlesque show??? Time flies--or as I prefer to say in cracked Latin, tempis fudge it!

So I was delighted to get a message on my blog from RunAround Sue, the New Burlesque dancer whom I’d praised in my entry a couple of months ago about the Starshine Burlesque Summer Starlet Search. Although we don’t know each other personally, she thanked me for my comments and told me that with her associate Lady Satan she would be co-producing a new revue called the Sugar Shack Burlesque. The premiere performance was held last night at the Kraine Theater in the East Village on East 4th Street and Second Avenue, underneath the well-known KGB Bar.

I met my newly divorced writer/artist friend ZP, and first we had a tasty repast at Cucina de Pesce, a reasonably priced Italian restaurant just down the block from the small theater. The weather was perfect so we ate outdoors, first inhaling a shared Caesar salad and then chicken parmigiana for ZP and chicken marsala for my cranky self. We discussed both the vagaries of ZP’s quest to get a low-income apartment in New York (divorce has left him considerably leaner of means) and the ups-and-downs of Relationships between Males and Females (human variety). Briefly we also touched on Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Medicaid, and various trashy distractions in the daily tabloids. So after coffee, we were ready for burlesque!

As veteran readers of this blog know, so far I have stayed incognito about my blogging career as Sir Cranky except for a few longtime associates who know of my “secret identity.” Writing anonymously frees me to write with less inhibition about a great variety of delicate topics important to me, and that is why I utilize the mask. Seeing RunAround Sue at the entrance of the theater as she and her friends were getting ready to set up, I was tempted to introduce my shadowy self, but was not quite ready. Almost reluctantly, I continued for the time being to follow my instinct for invisibility.

In any case, let’s put aside my neurotic conflicts and discuss the show, which was a LOT of fun! For ten dollars, the audience got over an hour of dames, yuks, and magic. The theater had a downward sloping stadium-type seating for ninety-nine people which gave a relaxed view of the proceedings. Master of ceremonies was magician Albert Cadabra. The timing of the cheerful bullet-headed Mr. Cadabra recalls Johnny Carson’s! ZP kept saying, “This guy should be on tv.” Albert is an asset to any show (I saw him a couple of years ago in another memorable burlesque revue), and his unique methods of identifying and locating a spectator’s vanished card provide much hilarity. Indeed, his act presents in a nutshell the challenge that the modern wonder-weaver faces: in 2006, it is clearly not enough to merely use well-focused brain power to ascertain what card an audience volunteer picked, but instead, to impress today’s hopelessly jaded throngs, the up-to-date conjurer must hammer a nail into his nostril to call forth Egyptian powers of divination, or insert his fingers into an animal trap to prove his unwavering devotion to finding an elusive Two of Hearts! Also astounding and guffaw-inducing is Cadabra’s method of revealing a spectator’s chosen card when it appears in his trousers!

Before the show began, a comely and leggy “candy girl” clad in the outfit of an 1940s nightclub cigarette jane presented us with an opportunity to buy candy cigarettes and other items. I didn’t even know candy cigarettes were still manufactured--I thought they were politically incorrect! I quickly took an opportunity to dangle one out of the side of my mouth, and ZP told me I had the sleazy wiseguy look downpat. And I thought I looked like Roman senator.

The opening act utilized the rotating panels of the Kraine Theater stage in a low-tech but funny homage to cheesy Vegas choreography to present RunAround Sue and Lady Satan as 60s style espionage girls. Sue was fetching in her knee-high black stiletto boots, shimmery black dress, and raven Louise Brooks-style wig, and Lady Satan was an alluring contrast in a curly platinum wig, short white minidress, and white 60s style knee-boots with medium heels. They pointed little pistols at each other from across the stage like Bond Girls, until Sue got the upper hand in this clash of spies and stripped off Lady Satan’s costume; but the Lady got in her own licks and peeled Sue down to her sexy one-piece bathing suit tan lines, pasties, and ruffly red and black panties, all to the accompaniment of catchy retro music.

Both Sue and Satan each came out later for a solo. Lady Satan did a breathless Marilyn Monroe-style number, playing with a feathery boa that had her utilizing a dismembered (rubber) arm as a loving prop, ultimately revealing drawn-on Frankenstein-like stitches on her torso when she disrobed. RunAround Sue did a stanza to a Bobby Darin song wherein she tiptoed home on her fishnet-covered feet from a night on the town, carrying her heels in her hands. She disrobed down to pasties, bottom and those fishnets, and then slipped into a satiny pinkish chemise as she leaned back for a night’s slumber. Sue has a classic American pinup face, and the curvaceous softness of her body lingers lushly in the mind. Her solo reminded me of 50s burlesque legend Lily St. Cyr’s bedroom fantasy wherein Lily did a reverse strip and also got ready for bed, but Sue’s simpler chemise seemed more erotic, contrasted to Lily’s elaborate negligee which was almost like a frilly tent. (You can see Lily do this act in various burlesque DVDs.) Also, in the 50s and 60s, the chemise was visual code in American movies for the nudity that the censors wouldn’t allow. Whereas today Elizabeth Taylor would be permitted to show her bare body in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Butterfield 8 (which Liz made in 1958 and 1960, respectively), back in her era she had to famously don a chemise in her intimate scenes with Paul Newman or Laurence Harvey. So, in a way, when Sue covered herself with the chemise at the end of her act, in my 50s saturated “Sir Cranky Brain” it was almost as if I could hear her proclaim to the audience, “I’m really going to sleep in the nude!”

See how a knowledge of trivial cinema history comes in handy?

Also on the Sugar Shack lineup were Veronika Sweet, well-tanned, flashing big hair and false eyelashes, blowing bubbles as she stripped her taut body out of a sequined dress for her spoiled Mafia Princess trademark number; and Jo Boobs, whom I’ve heard about for a while but had never seen before, doing a memorable turn as half-stripper, half-Godzilla (she wore a lizard head, lizard gloves, and lizard paws), ultimately peeling out of her accessories to reveal the saucy redhead concealed within, and just in time for her to stomp on a cardboard Tokyo!

Last on the bill but by no means least was one of the most acclaimed New Burlesque queens, Dirty Martini, winner of the coveted Miss Exotic World crown in 2004. She came out in a full classic headdress and sparkly red bra and bottom, and gracefully worked with big feathery fans in the time-honored mode. (In fact, several of the girls did fan work in this show, but I personally find fans less interesting when the dancers are not naked or nearly nude. Fans concealing pasties just don’t do it for me.) Miss Martini is a hefty gal, but has an EXTREMELY curvy figure which includes a derriere out of a buttlover’s surrealistic daydreams--meaning it looks like a butt seen through a fisheye lens; or a butt which would be proportionate according to today's slender standards on a woman twelve feet tall, instead of on Miss Martini’s average height. Her bottom, however, is complemented by a comparatively narrow waist which gives her a uniquely hourglass figure. Her shape strikes me as a close incarnation to that of the legendary nineteenth century actress Lillian Russell; except that Dirty did her act in a bra and bottom which showed that HER wild curves are not achieved by corsetry!

She obviously made a big impression on ZP--he emailed me that he dreamed about her last night! Sir Cranky, however, woke up this morning thinking about Sue in that chemise...

Anyway, when you add in a couple of funny contests and a raffle for audience volunteers, popular peeler Moxie Block acting as stage manager, as well as free Tootsie Roll Pops as a thank-you for our attendance, you’ve got the Sugar Shack Burlesque--a show I look forward to seeing again. Good job, RunAround Sue and Lady Satan.

For your interest, below is a link to the Sugar Shack site:

SugarShackBurlesque

I hate housework, but on occasion I break down and do it. I live in a large studio apartment with a kitchen and bathroom. To clean my entire apartment would require two weeks of uninterrupted labor with time out for a crust of bread and sip of water, but I figured I could handle my bathroom in a reasonable time frame. I broke the loathsome task into a three-part encounter with Scotch Brite sponges, Comet, Viva paper towels, and sweat.

It's funny how when you finish cleaning your bathroom, it not only looks brighter but larger. As I leaned over to spit out my toothpaste this morning, my sink seemed like a cheerful sunny canyon...as opposed to the grimy existential abyss it previously was.

My commode would now be a worthy perch for Rodin's famous "Thinker."

And I can almost imagine sitting down in my tub for a soak!

Almost.

I confess: it would take a geologist to get out all the musty crusty that accumulates in the base of the sliding shower door.

But I did a valiant job, if I say so myself.

I think cleaning is one of those fairly finite tasks that, unlike artistic endeavors like writing, can be given a grade.

I give myself a B. No reason to cultivate OCD about my cleaning. Cranky's water closet is back to being a bright and friendly place. Case closed.

The littlest room in my house! I wuv you.

Which reminds me of a funny anecdote...

There was a nineteenth century classical composer whose symphony got a bad review from a critic. In response, he wrote the critic something like this:

"I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. Your review is before me. Presently, it will be behind me."

Wit is the aristocracy of sarcasm!

I read this morning in Dave Kehr's New York Times DVD column that Double Indemnity, with Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson, has just been given the deluxe treatment on disc. Although I've seen this film a couple of times and have enjoyed it, there's one reason why it's never had an exalted position in my heart: Barbara Stanwyck.

Don't get me wrong, I love Stanwyck, I think she's great in a lot of her roles in Baby Face and Lady of Burlesque and The Lady Eve and Crime of Passion and others, but in this movie, wearing a ridiculous blond wig (at least it looks like a wig), she does not seem like a gal a man would be willing to murder for. Or that he would be SMART to murder for! Personally, I think Stanwyck's femme fatale fabulousness in Double Indemnity is next to nil.

Am I committing film buff heresy by saying this? But I've often wondered if other fans feel this way, because I've never seen this reservation expressed before.

In my opinion, director Billy Wilder should have cast Mary Beth Hughes in Stanwyck's role!

You will ask, "Who is Mary Beth Hughes?" Today she is mostly forgotten, except for her role as a nightclub singer in I Accuse My Parents, a film that was parodied on Mystery Science Theater and which is available on DVD without funny commentary from Alpha Home Entertainment (www.oldies.com). She can also be seen in good 40s melodramas on DVD from the same company: Inner Sanctum, The Great Flamarion, and The Lady Confesses (with Hugh "Ward Cleaver" Beaumont in a most uncharacteristic role).

Mary Beth was a good actress and gorgeous enough to have made Double Indemnity more believable, at least for Sir Cranky.

Dave Kehr says Fred MacMurray was "out of his depth" in this movie, but maybe Fred just wasn't turned on by Stanwyck! After all, this is the man who married a major, major hottie a few years later--June Haver, a gal whose beauty and talent were rumored to have intimidated even the great Betty Grable. Just check out The Dolly Sisters to see June at her foxiest.

Getting back to Mary Beth Hughes: just a glance at her five-minute role as a tawdry good-time girl in the 1950 Kirk Douglas starrer, Young Man With a Horn, shows you a tramp that a guy would be silly not to slay for!

In fact, Miss Hughes could convincingly play a woman that a guy would seem BRIGHT to want to kill for!

Casting is EVERYTHING sometimes, but especially in film noir. Shitty noir can still float if the dames are socko.

Just check out the link below to a gallery on the great site Brian's Drive-In Theater to see what I mean. Be sure to enlarge that hot poster from Men On Her Mind to get a good look at Mary Beth's sexy gams.

Yes, between her curvy body, dimpled smile, and lush legs, Mary Beth Hughes could almost have turned Sir Cranky into a film noir sap himself!

Brian'sDrive-InTheater&MaryBethHughes