I think I would go crazy without my old movies and tv shows.They serve not only as entertainment, but as DVD time machines to eras I find more compatible in certain respects.

For example, I like to watch an old movie or tv show and go back to the years when New York City women did not wear flip-flops everyday on the street as normal footwear. I like to get as far back from flip-flops as possible, and therefore many of the flicks I like are from the 40s and 50s.

Why do contemporary young women like wearing flip-flops? They are the hardest shoes to keep on one’s feet, even at the beach--the only place where they belong; and they flatten women’s butts with their lack of uplift. Basically, they turn every woman who wears them into a peasant. Flip-flops are so defiantly anti-glamour they seem insulting to any men who love alluring artifice in females! Their widespread use pollutes the visual environment!

Manhattan women who wear flip-flops seem to shout, “We want to be close to the ground, down-to-earth!” in counterpoint to the cold ambition and self-absorption usually on their faces. I see no earth mothers here!

Flip-flops, then, are a cunning disguise; because many New York women are not down-to-earth at all.

In fact, I would suggest there is probably a direct correlation between how complicated a woman is, and how often she wears flip-flops. More complicated, more flip-flops; less complicated, less flip-flops. Less like an earth mother, more flip-flops!

Another thing Gotham women have managed to do this summer is desexualize their breasts!

Everywhere you turn, women wear deep scoop-neck types of blouses or tops, revealing their cleavage and in some extreme cases, the very shape of their tits. But why? Cleavage used to make a statement, but now it is just an expression of “naturalness”--for THEM. For men, cleavage remains a signal of seduction, and yet it seems drained of eroticism on these women today. Even though their tits are showing, they walk the streets with their usual grim expressions that signify the emotional humidors in which their souls are enclosed!

Yes, I watch old movies. When women were bad, they looked bad; when they were good, they looked good. When a woman showed her cleavage, she was a tramp. Now, she’s just a busy citizen, on the go!

Throw out your scorecards, Cranky! Ambiguity is the new black!!

So one reason I like old movies is because the women don’t wear flip-flops!!

Hmm. I wonder if there is any correlation in this town between the sales of vintage movies on DVD, and the predominance of flip-flops?

I wonder how many other guys need to avail themselves of these precious DVD time machines, like Sir-Cranky-in-a-Knot?

Going to stripclubs, I've met many dancers who, despite having loyal regular customers, would complain that they wanted plastic surgery to "improve" themselves so they could make more money.

I wouldn't tell them what to do, since it wasn't my place, but I would let them know that as far as I was concerned, they looked perfectly fine just the way they were.

What some women seem to forget, and men know instinctively, is that each woman has her fans.

Meaning, there are admirers for every kind of female, every shape, every breast-size, and so forth.

I woke up this morning and Daisy popped into my mind. She's an Asian stripper I'm getting to know as well as I can on my now-limited funds. I hang out with her for twenty or thirty minutes in the club, if that, get two or three dances, and we chat a little.

I find her a very sexy dancer, but I noticed after she left me that she was having a harder time getting another dance. I thought to myself, "These other guys don't know what they're missing." But I guess they wanted something else for whatever reasons...that busty blonde over there, or that voluptuous Brazilian brunette, or that slender black girl. Daisy kept chatting up the gents until she finally found another customer, and then another.

Yes, every woman has her fans.

I've written here before about how good dancers and their regular customers collaborate on a "work-in-progress" when they do lapdances. Instead of a one-time experience, the work-in-progress is lapdancing that gets more interesting as it goes on. Two dances one night, three dances another night, two more another night--they all accumulate in a work-in-progress of exponentially increasing sensuality and fantasy.

The work-in-progress is even tinkered with when the dancer and her dance come to mind when the customer is at home, perhaps idly looking out the window as he gets up in the morning...he contemplates with zeal its many pleasures.

Good lapdancing is not Astaire and Rogers, obviously, but it is a collaboration between a man and a woman, and it can be exciting as it develops into its own little work of erotic art, a continuing cliffhanger of tease.

Another thought occurs to me. Do the other customers get a different vibe from Daisy? Can the pleasure of our dances together be related to a chemistry she feels with me but not with some of the other customers? Could she be frustrated by my limited funds, and wish she could continue to dance for me not just because she wants the money, but because she likes me specifically and enjoys dancing for me?

I never allow myself to take thoughts like this very seriously, since stripping is her JOB; and yet it is possible since she is human and I can actually be rather personable.

Maybe she presents the potential customers she approaches right after me with a different aura. Maybe they can see in her eyes that she wishes she were still dancing for Sir Cranky!

It is pretty to think so, but I don't really believe it.

Still, isn't this the fantasy that I found so absorbing as I recently read the novel The World of Suzie Wong--of the woman whose job it is to please men (in Suzie's case, as a Hong Kong prostitute, in Daisy's, as a Manhattan lapdancer)--a woman who then finds herself immensely pleased by one man alone?

Yep, I sure enjoyed The World of Suzie Wong.

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You know, although I don't discuss politics or the news in this blog, feeling myself ill-equipped as a writer on those topics, they do affect what I write. From the anti-Semitic remarks made by Mel Gibson over the weekend, to the conflicts in the Mideast, I am very much aware of all the serious stuff going on. It's been getting to the point where I can barely read the newspapers because I find it all so depressing and disheartening. I'm just saying that although I expend most of my words on topics like lapdancing or movies, I keep their actual importance in perspective. Worrying about having enough money for an extra lapdance or a deluxe DVD falls under the category of "happy problems."

May all our lives be full of only such problems.

My kid sister Jenny in Chicago told me yesterday that my eighteen-year old nephew, Jake, came home and revealed that he got a tattoo of his initials on his back. I suppose it's a way to assert his independence and incipient adulthood. Although some Jews these days obviously get tattooed, it’s considered taboo in the religion because it breaks the rule against the making of graven images, the equivalent of raising idols to pagan gods. Supposedly, tattooed Jews cannot be buried in Jewish cemeteries. I don’t know how strictly this is enforced now; perhaps it depends on the individual cemetery and denomination. Anyway, it’s not like my family is observant. It seemed that Jake only had a bar mitzvah to please his parents; they actually gave him a choice, and he decided to go for it, but has not been observant since.

Jenny’s reaction to the tattoo was fairly bemused. It was my brother-in-law, her husband, who brought up the point about Jewish cemeteries, just in passing upon hearing the news. Anyway, Jenny obviously has other, more important things to worry about, like her recovery from cancer. After having a major treatment for her tumor in early June, she’ll have new biopsies to check her progress in September.

My nephew is going to be a sophomore in college. Like a lot of kids his age, he’s wrapped up in his own life to the exclusion of adults. This summer he’s worked a job as well as gone to summer school when not hanging out with his pals. When I visited my sister in May, I stayed an extra two days to see Jake when he came back from college. He didn’t spend more than five minutes talking to me. This behavior is a comedown from how he and his sister hung on me when I came to visit when they were younger. It made me start to think that an uncle, even an attentive one who never forgot a birthday gift, is in some ways not unlike a favorite toy that is regarded as dull and boring when the child grows up. It’s almost as if the uncle is regarded not as a person but a fun-making device with an expiration date. Anyway, I don’t express these feelings to my nephew or niece, but just continue to let them know that whenever they feel like visiting, I’ll be glad to show them around New York City. They’ve never been to my town; in fact, the last time Jenny herself visited was in 1984, right after she got married. My family is not big on vacations...

On other fronts, the mercury here is supposed to hit 100 degrees tomorrow. Arghh. I never wear shorts, but this is almost enough to make me start. I don’t know why I don’t wear shorts, actually, because on the few occasions I have, women have complimented me on my muscular calves. I inherited them from my father, I guess, just as I seem to have inherited foot problems that I’m finally going to have to deal with in the next few weeks. But first things first. I haven’t had a complete physical in two years, so I’m going to start with a trip to the internist on Thursday. Yep, everything from bloodwork to the cherished prostate exam...

I have been neglecting myself a bit. The dentist and eye doctor are also in a holding pattern at Sir Cranky Field.

I don’t want to take care of myself!! I just want to feel like a teenager who will live forever!! I just want to ogle the girls and watch my movies and read my film buff magazines!!

A fellow Blogstreamer, CITIZEN ZANE (check out his fun blog), asked the other day why I chose the name “Sir Cranky.” Well, it’s not only because I get curmudgeonly, but because I am capable of acting quite infantile as well, like a cranky baby who wants things HIS WAY!! Stomp-stomp!!

I think about my nephew and consider his tattoo as a form of rebellion, although maybe it’s more than that. When I look back at myself at eighteen, I remember how I was not rebellious at all...I came back from freshman year at college, got a telemarketing job, hung out with my girlfriend Andrea, and just stayed in the “good Jewish boy” groove for one more summer.

The next summer, with the help of a friend of my father, I got a job as a page at NBC in Rockefeller Center in New York, and I worked backstage at the Tonight Show while living in a room in the Young Man’s Hebrew Association (YMHA). It was that summer that my rebellion against my past began. I went to bars and picked up girls (you could still legally drink at eighteen then). I lived on packs of bologna and drank quart bottles of Bud while reading John O’Hara novels (regarded as quite risque in their day). My rebellion wasn’t comprised of having long hair or a beard, or smoking pot, but of becoming pretty much a Bohemian in terms of my lifestyle and goals. I rejected living in a middle-class neighborhood in Chicago and getting married and having a family, and instead I moved permanently to sleazy, dangerous New York, consorting with writers, actors, hookers, and strippers...going to see kung-fu and gangster movies on nasty old 42nd Street...and in a way, my rebellion has never ended.

It’s funny; if my father hadn’t died young at forty-nine, my life might be different. He was quite capable of making me feel ashamed of myself; I wanted his good opinion; so who knows? If he hadn’t died in 1977, he might eventually have shamed me into a more "respectable" life. I remember one morning when he was getting ready to go to work, and he found me asleep in my clothes on my bed after a late night: “Why don’t you act normal?” he asked. That was during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, the last I spent in Chicago.

Everybody else in my family has middle-class lives, but me? I was no hippie, but I really rebelled on a profound level. In some ways, I am still quite Bohemian, living in an apartment cluttered with books and videos and magazines. Oh yeah, I’m professional and disciplined and organized in my freelance work, but that’s largely because of my fear of catastrophe--a fear of not being able to survive (an infant’s fear, actually) which is expressed through an acute and specific anxiety about not being able to pay my bills.

Sometimes I feel like I have an inner Gauguin, waiting to chuck it all for life on some island paradise! But my infantile/bourgeois survival fears restrict my forays to utopia to the nearby stripclubs where I can mingle with exotic girls (Asian or otherwise) but then return safely home afterward.

There’s really something very absurd about my way of life. Half-rebel, half-conformist. Half-adventurer, half-couch potato. Just call me “rebel in a box.”

And now, having said all that, I have to get back to making a living...

It was good to see my actor/writer friend Sid onstage again last night, even if it was just in a staged reading of a rather silly play that was a satire of post-World War 2 male-female relations viewed through the prism of 1940s superhero cliches. Yes, you read that right. Somebody in 2006 felt the need to write a play examining gender relations in 1948 by having the female express herself through becoming a crimefighter ala Wonder Woman.

Sid hadn't done stage work for many years, and previously had gotten small roles in movies, soap operas, and tv shows--although his primary occupation for years has been as a staff writer for various companies. Last night Sid zestily played a comic German villain who is subdued by two superheroes in the New York of 1948. Bringing a contemporary note to the proceedings was the fact that one of the crimefighters was a man in drag. Did I say 1948? Seemed like 2006 to me.

Some of the performers were quite good and will undoubtedly continue onto better things. The young actor playing a mad psychiatrist garnished his megalomaniacal dialogue with an effectively evil laugh and wielded a ray gun with panache. Also of note was the narrator of the show, a veteran performer in regional theater, whose vocal delivery affectionately recalled the suspenseful tones of radio shows from the 40s, and provided a couple of solid moments of irony and hilarity. I also liked the bare midriff of a cute redhead who played a salesgirl in a department store for crimefighters (!), even though the display of her navel over hip-hugging jeans firmly squelched any remaining illusion that the story took place in 1948! Then again, it was a staged reading and authentic costumes were not the point, although Sid was given a Kaiser Wilhelm-style helmet to evoke his character's Teutonic misanthropy. The actors playing the crimefighters wore full costumes, however, and the guy playing the crossdressing avenger (he also wrote the play) certainly exhibited a passion for detail right down to his long red fingernails, impeccable lipstick, and falsies.

In attendance were Sid's wife Terry, a voiceover artist; their thirteen year old son Von, who seems to have mastered the technique of the evil laugh himself; as well as an actress friend of Terry's and of course our mutual writer friends Moe and Betty.

Yes, it was a real "superhero" week for Sir Cranky, between seeing Superman Returns, watching the 50s Superman tv show, and catching this play! Maybe this week I'll focus on pinups instead, since I just picked up a very lovely little book called Jeepers Peepers, published by Collectors Press in Portland, Oregon.

There are a lot of collections of pinups around (the word is spelled with the variant "pin-ups" in this new book) but this is a stand-out volume for four reasons: one, it's pocket-sized; two, it's inexpensive; three, it has a clearly written introduction by pinup expert Louis K. Meisel that even gave a longtime buff like myself some new information about the genre; and four, it has a really sweet collection of pictures, broken into different categories such as nudes, glamour, and exotic. Best of all from my point of view, though, its cover showcases one of my personal favorite pinups of all time. If you click on the link I've provided below, you can view the cover at the Collectors Press site, and if you click on the image itself, you can see it even larger. The pinup was painted by the late great Gil Elvgren.

There are three things I really love about this pinup of a lady in her bath: the shape of her back and bottom, her cupid's bow lips, and the evocation of the water and the tub. To me it evokes a scenario not of a peeping tom, but rather a saucy game between a guy and doll who are playing at voyeurism as a prelude to sex, like a husband who pretends to peek in on his wife as she bathes on a balmy night back in 1948 (the year the original pinup was published).

I own a deck of Elvgren pinup cards from the early 50s, which is where I first saw this image, and now many more people will be able to enjoy it on the cover of this enjoyable book. I don't work for Collectors Press, I'm just sharing my enthusiasm with you, so do check out the link and see if you agree with me that this pinup, which is actually entitled Jeepers Peepers, isn't a keeper!

JeepersPeepers

I’m not exactly sure why, but early yesterday evening I felt at peace with the world. I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but it’s a feeling I rarely have. I’m usually dissatisfied and stressed and constantly thinking (or fantasizing) about how I can improve everything in my life.

I’d felt okay for awhile earlier in the day as well. I’d taken a walk over to 42nd Street to look for the new issue of a film magazine I like (Classic Images), and then I walked home slowly through Times Square. I stopped at a food court on Eighth Avenue and had two Nathan’s hot dogs. These are the franks made famous at Coney Island, but they have long been available at other places around the city. The food court offered a nice deal: the second frank was a nickel (the original early 1900s price) if you bought one at the regular price. So I had a tasty, inexpensive lunch.

After I blogged for awhile yesterday, I started to brood and get into my head a bit too much, and I thought I was setting myself up for a gloomy evening--especially since it rained heavily in the late afternoon. But then it cleared up and, looking over my weekly budget from last week, I realized that if I don’t buy any new videos THIS week, I could afford a visit to the stripclub. So this week it’s strippers over DVDs, at least in terms of expenditure. I obviously already have plenty of DVDs to watch, which I’ll continue to do.

I took a shower and dressed up, shaving a second time in ten hours and even putting on a little cologne. Before I went out to the club, I had a can of beer so I would save some cash (a brew at home costs me 70 cents versus $11.00 to $12.00 (including a $1 to $2 tip) in the club.

I always feel better about myself when I dress up in a nice shirt, slacks, and sport jacket. I guess I’m an old-fashioned guy. The dancers in the clubs seem to look at me more respectfully, too, or perhaps that’s because when dress up I have a more self-confident aura. Anyway, I ran into Daisy, that cute Asian dancer I’d met a couple of months ago and with whom I’ve hung out three times in the past. It made me feel good that she remembered that I am deaf (from a childhood fever) in my left ear, and so when she sat down on my lap she favored my right side so I could hear her soft and very girlish voice over the music. She had just started her shift, and her body was smooth and fragrant from body lotion. As she danced for me in the back of the club on the couch, she joked that I was “taking her virginity” as I was her first customer of the night. I told her that when I get a dance from her, I feel as if I’m about to lose MY virginity! It’s true; there’s something both innocent and knowing about Daisy that makes me feel I’m at her erotic mercy, as if I’m an inexperienced teenager in the hands of a sensuous nymph. That’s a sexy feeling for me. Anyway, I didn’t want to go overboard with the spending, so I had to limit her performance to three very enjoyable lapdances. She asked for “number four, please!” but I told her I really couldn’t afford it. “Credit card!” she suggested, but I replied that the moment I used plastic in the club would be the beginning of the end for Sir Cranky. Judging by her laugh and the look in her eye, she seemed to understand exactly what I meant. I’m sure she’s tantalized more than one guy out of a substantial sum of money, especially in the champagne room, and seen more than one look of male ambivalence when the customer is presented with the tab.

Don’t get me wrong. If I had the money, I wouldn’t mind spending it. I am not a cheapskate. If I have a good time, I feel it’s worth it. But times are tougher for me now. And I would have to be a multi-millionaire before I would go into the champagne room.

Then Daisy did an unusual thing. She suggested that even if I didn’t get another dance with her, I should get a dance with one of her co-workers, another Asian gal who apparently had just started working at the club. She even introduced me to this other girl. I politely declined, and told Daisy privately that if I’d had more money, I would have spent it on HER! She seemed surprised, almost as if she believed that the reason I stopped at three dances with her was because three had been enough, when the reality was I could have gone for another two with Daisy. Or three! Or four! Plus a few drinks! Ah, if I were a rich man!!

Later Daisy came over with her co-worker and suggested a two-girl lapdance, but I had to decline again. And still later she stopped by briefly on her own and sat on my lap, making yet one try for a dance, but I told her it would have to wait until next time. Oddly, her insistence on asking me repeatedly for more dances didn’t annoy me; she seems to do it more out of entrepreneurial pluck than anything else. I have the feeling she’s had quite a hard time in life, but there’s also something about her that doesn’t quite add up for me; I can’t put my finger on it. When I first met her, I thought she was of a different Asian ethnicity than she told she was. For some reason, I still have that feeling, or maybe it’s just that there’s something about her innocent/knowing persona that seems like an act, albeit an entertaining one, and it makes me wonder about the veracity of other things she says. Anyway, she said I was a “good boy” because I like Asian girls. On that score, I have been a very good boy indeed as I am fairly fixated on Asian women of late.

Of course, I don’t ONLY like Asian girls, I like all kinds, and as it turns out one of my favorites from a couple of years ago, Nicole, is now working at this particular club. She is a blond European. I wrote about her when I first started this blog, but I hadn’t seen her for many months because she went to work at a club I don’t like. Well, it turned out that she didn’t like that club either, and she switched to one of my regular hang-outs instead. Last night, I tipped her a couple of dollars while she was onstage, and then she sat down and we chatted for awhile. She’s a very well-educated, well-spoken young woman, and one of the few dancers I’ve met who understands that this stripclub habit is an expensive one for the customers. She didn’t take it personally when, in early 2005, I’d run into some financial difficulty when I lost a lucrative freelance account, and I told her that I wouldn’t be able to come by as often, or spend as much when I did. She understood completely, having endured some rough times herself in coming to America.

So it was fun to catch up with Nicole last night, get a few dances from Daisy, and also have an amusing conversation with a leggy brunette dancer from the South who sat herself down next to me and began to chat. I told her she had long, shapely legs and she said, “Well, they get me around.” I recalled for her Abe Lincoln’s statement, when asked how long a person’s legs ought to be, that they should be “long enough to reach the ground.” She looked at me quizzically and said, “Did he really say that? He had a quite a sense of humor!” And I briefly flashed on Honest Abe coming into the club for a dance, perhaps taking a break from a tempestuous night with his famously emotional wife, Mary Todd.

I only spent twenty dollars more last night at the club than I had intended to, which wasn’t bad. Afterward, I stopped at the supermarket to pick up some sandwich meat and bread, and went home to concoct myself a cheap dinner and watch a couple of episodes of the 1950s Superman tv show starring George Reeves. I read in the paper this morning that the new movie Hollywoodland, which is a drama exploring the mysterious 1959 shooting death of Reeves, is going to be in competition for the top prize at the Venice International Film Festival next month. Ben Affleck is going to play Reeves. I’m eagerly awaiting this film.

Tonight I’m going to a play spoofing 1940s superhero comics in which my actor/writer friend Sid is going to be playing a Nazi villain. He has specialized in this type of character in the past, and our mutual friends Moe and Betty will also be at the show. So I’m looking forward to a sociable evening! I hope you enjoy your Saturday too, and thanks as always for reading my blog.