Friday, May 28, 2004

 

It's Getting Hot Up In Here

Let me take a break from my mildly amusing Photoshop antics at Venal Scene, because I'd like to talk very seriously about the subject of strip clubs.

They shouldn't be called "strip clubs." The act of stripping clothes off is treated as a minor event that happens between songs, often off stage. They shouldn't be called "nude dancing clubs," either; while that does go on, it's background, atmosphere. No, we should call these places "dry humping clubs," because that's where the real business is, where the money is going, the lap dances. "Dry humping clubs," just like we should call movie theaters "popcorn distributorships."

For those of you who, like me, were raised as secular puritans, the lap dance is where a naked woman sits in your lap and grinds on your erect schlong, for five minutes. You pay her a sawbuck for this, plus tip, which is usually another sawbuck. Messing your pants is optional, but for another couple hundred dollars, you can go in a back room with the naked lady and virtually guarantee it.

So how did a secular puritan like me come to learn this? Bachelor parties.

This past weekend was a lost one in the wilds of Las Vegas, for my friend's bachelor party. These weekends had much the same itinerary: drinking, eating, drinking, gambling, drinking, ow my head, drinking, swimming pool, drinking, ow my colon, drinking. And strip clubs.

As we all know, strip clubs are to bachelor parties what hookers are to real bachelor parties: a necessity. If you tell people that your bachelor party was strip club-free, it's like you've failed some ancient rite of passage, one that is no longer enforced upon penalty of death, but certainly still expected of all males. Guys pretend that it's no big deal, but in their hearts they say: how totally d*ckless. Yes, I had no strip clubs in my bachelor party.

Let me give you a bit of background on my experience with strip clubs. I grew up in Portland, OR, and legend has it that Portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any city in the country. True or not, there sure are a lot. Even as a young boy, I could sense the abundance. So occasionally, when we'd pass a Center For the Clothing Removal Arts, I'd ask my dad about them. He, being a Berkleyite liberal feminist sensitivo, would tell me that they were evil places where exploited drop-out drug addicted women sadly writhe for pathetic half-man creeps like your uncle, etc. I rarely believed anything the old man said, but for some reason I took this to heart. So I never went in one.

Until the bachelor parties started. I hit the age of Everybody Marries, and all of a sudden, they became a regular part of my life, like dental check-ups, and about as fun.

That's right. You heard me. I Don't Like Strip Clubs. They make me tense.

Now, for any women out there who think it's because I'm so sensitive, let me just say this: you're stupid and ugly. Seriously, I don't fully understand why I don't go in for the clubs, but it's not because of that. I like naked women. It's safe to say that I'm enthusiastic about the naked female body. But I really, really, really don't like strip clubs.

Go ahead, call me gay. It won't be the first time (that was my grandpa).

I can't get past the mercantile nature of the whole thing. A woman in a club is paying attention to me because I am paying her money. Sorry, I can't make intimacy into a business transaction. If we're going to play "Touch Dan In Fun Places," this had better be a mutual hobby. It's too intense for me to look on in the same way I buy my morning coffee.

Of course, trying to explain this to other guys is impossible. On this last excursion, the Best Man asked me point-blank, "What guy doesn't like strip clubs?" Perhaps I should've lied. I should've rolled my eyes in the same incredulous way and said, "Right you are dude! Strip clubs are the most!" But I didn't. I told him I didn't like them. He looked at me like I'd just told him I set my hair on fire. "What's wrong with you?!" he demanded. "For God's sake, live a little!"

Well, I have lived. I have lived through the last of the Close Friend Bachelor Parties. And now I never have to go in one of those friggin places again. I'm as happy as a straight guy who turns down seeing naked women can be.

posted by Dan 1:48 PM
|

 

Better Living

Todd Levin offers The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Hate Mail.

posted by Dan 1:05 PM
|

Thursday, May 27, 2004

 

Subway Ads / Prayer Candles #1

FOR HEALTH:

Hail DR ZIZMOR, board certified
dermatologist, protector of
pores, slayer of scars & dark
spots, Lord of the fruit acid
peel of the Vine; take this
acne from off my flesh. Why do
I still get zits when I’m over
thirty? Surely I have exhausted
the oils of youth. I scrub my
face nightly with coarse rags,
in the name of DR ZIZMOR. I
might add DR that your own pelt
is smooth, firm, and yielding to
the touch, in the way of
biscuits. & that drawing of the
girl in the straw hat, do I know
her? The one who looks "GREAT
FOR THE BEACH." Do you have her
cell #, DR ZIZMOR? Just cuz I
could hook her up, you know, my
boy manages clip-art models. I
read in the paper that you cook
the books. Should I believe
that someone who makes the
outside clear could be on the
inside corrupt? Smite the liars
with blackheads, DR ZIZMOR.

posted by Dan 8:41 PM
|

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

 

Fear and Loathing...sort of

I did vanish for a few days, didn't I? Forgot to mention that I was going to Las Vegas for my friend's bachelor party. Managed to come back mostly intact, so I'll chalk it up as a success.

For those of you with a free night tonight, who love spur-of-the-moment activities...

My playwriting group is having a public reading TONIGHT (Wednesday) of short pieces. The night includes two by Truj: "Plastic Money," a Twilight Zone episode in freestyle verse, and "Angry Snow," a short comic monologue written becuase men kept coming to my site looking for angry monologues.

The details:

IN THE LAND OF THE LOST AND FOUND
an evening of short works by the members of Playwrights Gallery

Center Stage
48 West 21st St.
4th Flr
Wed., May 26th
7:15 pm

Come on, what're you gonna do, watch "Law and Order" reruns?

posted by Dan 2:54 PM
|