Two strippers

Her head hung over the edge of the bar, dangling upside down between my friend and I, her long dark brown hair fanned out as a curtain towards the floor, while her naked body stretched away from us towards the stage. Her legs made a V that framed the far side of the stage.

Another night at the Acropolis.

The dancer, N., had been telling us how excited she was to be leaving Portland and going back to Las Vegas to do a photo shoot and enjoy the warmer weather.

"Are you going to work the Spearmint Rhino?¹" my friend asked.

N. turned to look at me, her face expressing disbelief, then back at my friend. I laughed at her expression. N. gracefully lowered her legs and pivoted up and off the stage back to a standing position and moved towards the pole in the middle of the stage.

My friend looked confused. "What'd I say?"

I said to my friend, "You have to realize that the best clubs for guys are not necessarily the best clubs for dancers."

N. heard my explanation and returned to us (we were the only guys at the rack; it was early in the evening). "See? Right? He gets it!" she pointed at me. "I don't want to work at some place where you have to grind. I'm just not that into..." her voice trailed off.

N. was an older dancer, meaning she appeared to me to be in her mid to late 30s. She was tall (hard to tell exactly, because of her 8 inch clear plastic heels) and tanned and thin with a magnificent pair of well-done but enhanced breasts. Her face was plain, but lit up when she smiled in spite of needing some dental work. When I had first approached the stage I wasn't sure how attractive I thought she might be; my philosophy in strip clubs is, if I don't think the current dancer is my type, to just pass until the next one. But my friend had approached the stage as if drawn, and I went with him.

But the more we talked, the more interesting I thought she became. It was as clear a distinction between physical beauty and charisma as I could think of. I was impressed and now understood why N. was clearly a successful professional stripper.

The three of us continued to discuss various types of strip clubs and eventually segued into strippers who actually want to have sex with a celebrity and keep the baby (have you heard the story about the star of LOST and the exotic dancer from Bend?), while my friend and I tossed dollar bills on the bar.

And then N. finished her set, and K. took the stage.

Where K. was clearly younger than N., but just as thin. K. had not spent any money on medical upgrades that I could see. Where N.'s hair was long and straight, K's hair was short and wavy.

And in spite of her newness to the "industry", which I admit is pure speculation on my part, she had already done a photoshoot for Hustler.

She was dancing for us, when her attention was caught by something on the far side of the bar. She stopped, covered her naked breasts, and walked away from us. "This is a no-cellphone zone, sir," she said, putting as much venom into the honorific as she could muster. Which was quite a bit. The guy she was talking to had an iPhone out, and was holding it up, camera lens towards the stage, while staring at the screen facing him. K. had a back and forth with him until he relented and put the camera away.

The pair of bouncers, stationed at the door, never looked up or moved from their seats.

When K. returned to us, she said, "You can't take pictures in here."

My friend laughed. "It's been so long since I've been in a strip club, I didn't even realize that you'd have to ban cell phones in here!"

K. nodded. "Yeah. Not that I care that much. I mean, I've got a spread in Hustler coming out. If someone wants to shoot a camera phone picture of me, that's a hundred bucks. No sweat." She laughed.

"Really? Hustler?" I asked. "How'd that happen?"

"A friend of mine set it up for me. She's got connections in the porn industry." I wondered at the euphemism once again; how "industrial" was dancing naked or having sex on camera?

Just another night at the Acropolis.

---

¹ Careful - that site has auto-playing music.

Labels: stripclub

• 9:30 AM 0 comments

The real spoilers

I'm not the spoiler for talking about LOST around people who aren't caught up.

No, the real spoilers are the folks who aren't yet caught up who hang around when I want to talk about last night's episode with my friend who is equally obsessed with me, preventing me from discussing all the many revelations and implications and making us talk in vagaries: You're the real spoiler, sir!

He's spoiling my fun! • 7:19 AM 0 comments

It's always fun

It's always fun when the old guy who sits on the bus mall and yells about how the God Who created us all full of sin wants us to accept His love and forgiveness for the sin He created us with, gets into a shouting match with a crazy street lady who just wants him to shut the Hell up.

Yeah. Good times. Good times that never end. • 1:37 PM 0 comments

A thought about our bodies

As I drank my coffee this morning, a thought arose. I was pouring liquid into a bag of liquid. More than that: my body is made up of cells, which are, themselves, tiny bags of fluid.

Even our bones, which seem pretty solid to us, and are the structure that everything hangs off of, are made of cells.

We're bags of fluid made up of bags of fluid.

So what holds it all together?

Or maybe I need more sleep.
• 6:56 AM 0 comments

So now I have a plastic tooth

I had my temporary crown put in yesterday. It was only going to be a partial crown, or "onlay", but when Dr. Jill saw the extent of the crack I've been living with for the past two weeks, she decided that it needed the full crown treatment.

First step was to take an impression to build the crown from, and "prep" the tooth. Prepping means using a drill and grinding down the tooth into a smooth nub, onto which the crown will be placed.

While the crown is being made, a process that takes 3 weeks and consists of fabricating a gold-and-porcelain replica of my old tooth, I wear a temporary crown made of acrylic.

Or plastic, if you will.

Since leaving the dentist yesterday, as the massive amount of anaesthetic slowly wore off, I've been feeling the replacement. You know that feeling, that there's something new in your mouth, and it's odd and out of place? That's what I feel. I keep biting down on it, then remembering that I'm supposed to baby it, because it's only plastic.

This morning it felt "smaller", meaning I'm noticing it less. But it's still there. And it occurred to me: it's just like the classic "plastic tooth" spy story cliche!

I hope Dr. Jill didn't include cyanide. That'd be awkward



• 6:46 AM 0 comments

No coffee morning

Because I was lazy, I was early for work today.

I was lazy yesterday and did not wash my coffee pot. So when I got up this morning at my normal time, the time that gives me time to make coffee and make breakfast and do a little surfing before work, I could not make coffee.

Instead I showered and shaved and got dressed early. Then I was still hungry, so I headed out to a coffee shop to get some coffee and wake up.

Having done that, I took the bus to work. Where I was early.

Because I was lazy. • 9:01 AM 0 comments

Michael Emerson is confused

Caution: the clip below, from "The Soup", contains a spoiler for last week's episode of 24, which I do not watch nor care about, but is a set-up for Michael Emerson to riff on themes of LOST.



And it made me laugh. Out loud. • 12:13 PM 0 comments

The shirtless dancing guy theory of leadership

A fascinating talk from TED by Derek Sivers on leadership:



Building a movement requires a leader... and followers. And following is framed as a brave act.

(via Charles Lemos @ MyDD.) • 9:59 AM 0 comments

An observation

As the amount of TV shows and motion pictures I watch increases, the amount of blogging I do decreases.

I hope that this is just a fall/winter phenomenon, and that as the days grow longer once again, I'll spend more time outside and away from the glowing small screen. • 9:45 AM 0 comments

I'm sure I must have an opinion on something

Saturday of a three-day weekend, the third day of which I have been granted a paid non-work day due to the American penchant for honoring elected leaders as if they were gods.

I've eaten breakfast; thick sliced applewood smoked bacon, nine-grain whole wheat bread without any high fructose corn syrup slathered in real organic butter and the preserved fruits of the marionberry vine, and farm-friendly organically grown coffee beans, blended half-and-half with decaffeinated beans and beans meant for use in espresso, but ground and brewed in a drip machine, flavored with low fat vanilla soy milk and raw sugar.

I'm listening to Lady GaGa sing about being Starstruck while I sit here at my desk. I can raise my head to my right and look out the window, and see the occasional runner trudge by dressed most often in dark-colored form-fitting synthetic fabrics from neck to ankle as protection against the rain and cold. When I hit the F12 button on my keyboard, a transparent overlay falls over my screen and displays, among other things, a widget that tells me it's 47º Fahrenheit in my zip code.

I take a sip of my decaffeinated and flavored coffee. Yeah. Saturday. • 10:03 AM 0 comments

Elevated

Scene One

I walk into the elevator lobby. The guy there before me has already pushed the up button; since I'm going to the basement, I push the down button.

We wait.

An elevator arrives; the up light lights up. The other man gets on.

He looks at me, leans out, holds the door open. "You going up?" he asks.

I look at him, blankly. I point at the still-lit down button, directly in his line of sight. "Uh... no. I'm... I'm going... down. That's why I pushed... the down... button." My voice drips with snark.

He lets the door close, shaking his head.

Scene Two

Hours later, I'm ready for a break. I leave the basement, go out in the sun; I want to take a walk and get some fresh air.

I approach the intersection and the lanes of the one-way street are clear, except for a lone white SUV approaching in the far lane.

The SUV slows. The SUV stops. Inside, I see the driver, an older woman, wave me across.

I double-check and the lady has no stop sign. There is no other traffic. In my head, I calculate that if she hadn't stopped, she would be well on her way and I would already be half way across by now. Why did she stop?

I wait.

I feel anger at her, though I'm not sure of the reason, or even if it's reasonable for me to feel this way.

She waits.

Finally, she rolls down her window and waves me across again.

I look around. Still no traffic - wait, a car approaches from the other intersecting street. The driver of that car sees me and the lady's standoff and appears confused.

All three wait.

Finally, the late-arriving car pulls out and around the front end of the SUV, which was slightly blocking him.

I still have not moved from the sidewalk where I stand.

The lady rolls forward and looks out the window at me. "Why didn't you cross?"

"Why didn't you just go?" I ask her in return.

"Because if someone is crossing the street, the law says I have to let them cross."

My anger returns at what I see as her lecturing me. "I'm not sure that's true."

She's still there, in front of me. There is still no other traffic. "Were you going to cross?"

"I'm waiting for someone," I say, and I think, I'm waiting for you to leave.

"Oh. OK." She pulls away.

I immediately cross behind her, hoping she will see me.

I don't know why that made me mad. Or perhaps I started out mad.

Scene Three

Back at work, I wheel an empty cart out to the elevator bank. I use my key on the freight elevator and wait for it to arrive.

A lady, dressed in a professional outfit, in contrast to my jeans and t-shirt, walks out of the training room. "Are you going to one?" she asks. Just then, another non-freight elevator arrives, and she walks into it. She turns towards me, holds the door open. "Do you want to take this elevator?"

My anger returns, unreasonably annoyed. "No I am waiting for the freight elevator because I need to get this cart to the loading dock and I can't get there from those elevators."

"OK," she says. "Fine. Sorry."

Epilogue

Is it just me? Was I in a bad mood? What the Hell was going on?

It's probably just me. • 6:12 AM 3 comments

Turning data into a story

first, I saw that Michael Lopp, writing as Rands, posted a long, thoughtful essay on the hierarchy of information, and about how the data points available to us are getting shorter and shorter (going from long newspaper articles to short, 140-character tweets), and how those of us who love Twitter are taking the small data points and creating a narrative, a story, from those tiny bits:

"Those frustrated with Twitter are frustrated because they have a belief that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end. And that it should have all of those parts before it’s presented to them. What the hell am I supposed to learn from a tweet? The point of Twitter isn’t knowledge or understanding, it’s merely connective information tissue. It’s small bits of information carefully selected by those you’ve chosen to follow and its value isn’t in what they send, it’s how it fits into the story in your head. There are great stories to be found on Twitter, but you have to do the work."

And then I saw Google's Super Bowl ad, and it demonstrated the point perfectly:



The small pieces of information we get from Google aren't the story; it's what we do with the information.

Brilliant. • 7:41 AM 0 comments

New Orleans knows how to party

I guess my favorite non-Portland-Oregon city had something to celebrate this past weekend.

Does this look insane, or what?

Saints Fans Celebrate Super Bowl Victory on Bourbon Street

And this is the edited-for-polite-company video. • 7:30 AM 0 comments

Is it just me?

Is it just me, or does it give me a tiny sliver of hope that this Saturday Night Live skit is based in the idea that Americans who watch SNL will recognize who the current White House Chief of Staff is, and his reputation?



Or did the writers of the skit just figure that people would laugh because of all the cursing?

(I fall into the first category, myself.) • 5:56 AM 0 comments

My chosen form of passive entertainment

Yesterday, while a significant number of people were watching the American football championship game lovingly called the Super Bowl, I spent the day listening, instead, to a different form of passive entertainment: I listened to a group of geeks play Dungeons & Dragons in a podcast from Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons.

The geeks are Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik of the webcomic Penny Arcade, Scott Kurtz of the webcomic PvP, and Wil "Just a geek" Wheaton.

Last year, they, along with Chris Perkins from Wizards of the Coast as Dungeon Master, played several sessions of 4th Edition D&D and recorded it for posterity.

This is only interesting to those who like D&D enough to be entertained by others playing, but for my own part, I was vastly entertained. Mr. Perkins is a lively and animated Dungeon Master, and the rest of the players are all creative, quick-witted and share an amazing camaraderie. Wil Wheaton, of course, has skills as both a D&D player and an actor and writer. I spent the afternoon with my iPhone playing the podcasts while I cleaned the house, and went shopping, and generally goofed off. And I spent much of the time smiling or even laughing aloud at their antics. It was vastly entertaining.

The one quibble I have, listening to the game mechanics for 4th Edition D&D, is that it doesn't really feel like D&D to me. All classes have a seemingly vast array of special powers and magical-seeming abilities, and everyone gets "healing surges" and ways to shake off damage and keep fighting. It feels more like a comic book; the characters feel more like superheroes or video game characters than the gritty ordinary folks I remember from old pulp fiction and my early days of D&D.

The other downside is that Wizards of the Coast has not made it easy to get all the episodes of Series 2 and 3, at least that I could find with my Google-fu. And they don't seem to be in iTunes anymore, either. For my friends' sake, I have compiled the various links below. I'm not trying to infringe anyones' copyright or intellectual property; these links go to the official versions of the files. If anyone from Wizards of the Coast asks, I will remove these links. Until that happens, feel free to click on these links and choose the option that saves the linked file, and then enjoy them.

When I get around to finding Series 4, I will update this page. Yes, I'm aware of what happens in Series 4 even though I haven't listened to it yet; don't post a comment here and spoil it for anyone else still unspoiled. As Mr. Wheaton says, "Don't be a dick."

Note: All episodes of Series 1 can be found on the page for Series 2, Episode 1.

Series 2

1. Episode 1
   
2. Episode 2
   
3. Episode 3
   
4. Episode 4
   
5. Episode 5
   
6. Episode 6
   
7. Episode 7
   
8. Episode 8
   

Series 3

1. Episode 1
   
2. Episode 2
   
3. Episode 3
   
4. Episode 4
   
5. Episode 5
   
6. Episode 6
   
7. Episode 7
   
8. Episode 8
   

• 7:05 PM 0 comments

The View From Maya's

One of my favorite places in Portland: the window seats at Maya's Taqueria at SW 10th and Morrison.

The Central Library is a block away, the MAX train stop across the street, Powell's City of Books just down the street. For years and years, I've sat in this window, enjoying a tasty Mexican meal (their verde chicken is tops) and watched people go by.

I remember the very first time I was here. I was an employee at Powell's, back in the early 90s, and Clyde and Peggy asked me if I wanted Mexican for lunch. We walked in, and I was a bit intimidated by the long counter, blocked off with plexiglass, and the giant menuboard of choices. Red sauces or green sauces? I couldn't decide. "I assume the red one is the spicy one?" I asked.

Clyde laughed, "That's not always the case. You gotta ask."

Turns out the green sauces is the spicy one at Maya's. That was also the first time I ever ate a burrito with a fork.

I love this spot. Day or night, dry or rain, workday or weekend, so many people. • 8:40 AM 0 comments

Wes Anderson's Spider-Man

I'm still trying to find my writing mojo.

But these guys have totally got Wes Anderson's number. Presenting Spider-Man, as directed by Wes Anderson.

• 1:36 PM 0 comments

Man, that's so Eighties

While I try to think of something interesting to talk about, please enjoy this musical video of a song that's stuck in my head in much the same way the video's fashions are stuck in the 1980s.



You're welcome! • 12:30 PM 0 comments

Pop culture intersection

Imagine having to live this day, today, over and over again, Phil Connors-style, as a fan of LOST.¹

Getting to see the opening episode of the final season, but never getting any more answers to the questions of the show…

Yeah. That'd suck.

A quote from the last episode of the penultimate season, I think, sets up what we're going to see as the series concludes. When li'l Sawyer was shown, in flashback, first writing the letter to "Mr. Sawyer" that he would carry with him all his life, an older man (an uncle?) said to him:

"I know you're angry at the man that did this to your mommy and daddy, and, Hell, you got every right to be. But you've got to move on. Ain't nothin' you can do to change that.

"What's done, is done."

Is that true? Or does Sawyer (and the others that were touched by Jacob) get a do-over?

---

¹ Thanks to Ken for planting that idea in my head. • 5:50 AM 0 comments

Sometimes I forget

Me, yesterday, talking to a friend¹ about President Obama's debate with the Republican House Caucus at the Republican's retreat on Friday: "Here's how you can tell President Obama was doing well - Fox 'News' cut away from his debate, cut him off in mid-sentence, even, so they could then 'analyze' what was going on, live! MSNBC and CNN carried the whole thing, uninterrupted."

Terry gave me an odd look. I know my friend isn't into politics as I am, but my sense is that he's generally an Obama supporter, so I worried if I had offended him somehow. "So… wow… what you're saying, then, is that… Fox is a Republican network?"

My turn to be surprised. I thought this was common knowledge. Apparently not. "Yes. Oh, my, yes. I could give you lots and lots of evidence of that! Fox News is a partisan network and only gives the Republican side of things, consistently."

Terry said, "So that's why you watch MSNBC or CNN; they're not as conservative?"

"Well," I said, "all corporations are conservative and pro-business. You'll remember that I don't get broadcast or cable TV; that's not where I get my news. But I'm pretty informed." I smiled.

"Yes you are!" Terry agreed.

I do not judge Terry for not knowing this. He's got other things to thing about; his family, his job, his friends and entertainments.

But it's important for me to remember that not everyone knows the things I take for granted. Republicans can obstruct laws with a minority as small as 40 Senators, for example. The Supreme Court is narrowly conservative and has been issuing many 5-4 decisions that may be disastrous for our democracy. And, of course, Fox 'News' is anything but fair and balanced.

How much louder do the Democratic leadership need to shout the message until folks like Terry get the message: Fox 'News' is not a news outlet one can trust?

And if Terry is reading this, here's the video of President Obama at the Republican retreat:

---

¹ Hi, Terry! • 5:50 AM 0 comments