The whore’s look.
Anyone still have their dad’s old copies of the Travis McGee novels lying around? If so, you should take down “Nightmare in Pink” and give it another read. There’s a long passage about two-thirds in, where Travis tries to penetrate a rich man’s perimeter by booking a prostitute from the same high-end service the man uses. There’s an explanation of how the service works, how the customers are protected and the girls shielded from the police that I think a certain former U.S. governor would recognize. It masquerades as a showbiz talent agency, of course. Travis asks about the rates, and the madam/booker tells him:
“Most are at two hundred and two-fifty. We have several at three hundred, a few at four hundred, and two at five hundred. But it varies, according to the size and quality of our list at any given time. There have been some at a thousand, but not recently.”
“What makes it worth five hundred, Mrs. Smith?”
Her expression told me she thought it a vulgar question. “Those are girls who are very well-known due to television work usually. Some accounts prefer to be seen with girls who will be recognized in public. Generally they don’t stay on our list long.” Her smile was quite suddenly and surprisingly vicious. “They either go up, or they go down.”
Keep in mind this book was written in 1964. Factor in inflation, and I’d say we’re talking Spitzer’s girls. Later, Travis meets the one he chose, Rossa, in a cocktail lounge. She’s beautiful, smart, perfectly groomed:
She had no whore look or whore manner that I could detect. But there was a curious inadequacy about our easy conversation. We both knew there was an envelope of money in one of my pockets, and it would end up in her purse. This was a situation I had never been in before. It took me a long time to analyze it. Finally I realized that we could generate no particular tension between us because the result was preordained. She was a stately and beautiful girl, fashionable and bright, with shining eyes and a good mouth. But there was no spice of pursuit. A doe which runs up and stares down the gun barrel is not a sporting venture.
…At one point I glanced up quickly and surprised a different expression in her eyes — an absolute coldness, a bleak and total indifference which was gone the instant I saw it. And that, I thought, was the whore’s look and the whore’s secret, that monumental unconcern which insulated her.
I grow a little weary of the latter-day feminist upgrade from prostitute to “sex worker.” I guess, if you were the kind of girl raised in a house where your mom’s boyfriend ran his grubby hands all over you and you figure out a way to make it work for you, that’s a lemonade-from-lemons deal, but let’s not dress it up too much in women’s-studies b.s., OK? Ashley Alexandra “I am not a monster” Dupré may not be the most odious player in this whole affair, but she’s hardly an innocent, either.
I found this kind of pathetic:
Her MySpace biography says she started singing professionally after a musician she was living with heard her singing the Aretha Franklin hit “Respect” in the shower and burst into the bathroom with his lead guitarist.
And then what? They signed her with Interscope, or they had a three-way? She should have insisted on getting her propers when he got home, instead.
Every so often I open a newspaper and read a long, searching, new journalism-wannabe profile of a sex worker, usually a stripper. (They’re easier to find than actual prostitutes.) It’s almost always complimentary and respectful, and always liberally illustrated, because if there’s one place you don’t have to ask a photographer to do a thorough job, it’s a strip club. When I was a very young reporter, a photog approached me with the pictures he’d been taking at a down-at-the-heels club on High Street called the Garden Burlesque. He wanted me to write the story, and talked about the gems he’d found there — this girl was in college, and this one was an entrepreneur, and they were all wonderful, wonderful people who were happy to tell their stories. So I agreed to go with him one day and meet everyone.
The college student was a slack-jawed moron who said she was thinking about maybe enrolling at a local secretarial school. Most of the rest were just garden-variety skanks lucky to have reached 25 with a full set of teeth. I forget what the entrepreneur was planning, but the standout of the group was a girl who was six months pregnant, and royally pissed that she’d recently been banned from the stage and assigned to ticket-taking instead. “I caint make no tips now,” she whined. (“What was she dancing to?” our witty columnist asked when I told him about it, “the ‘Baby Elephant Walk’?”) It was as grubby a bunch as you’d expect to find in that era, the last years before the new-style high-end clubs started to open, the ones where you’d find the Ashley Alexandra Duprés and their gym-toned sisters. Well, everybody was moving up in the world, then. It was the ’80s.
I feel worse for Ashley than I do for Spitzer. The whore always gets the worst of it, and I suspect this will be no different. She’s headed down the trail blazed by Jessica Hahn and Donna Rice, and if we still know her name in three weeks it’ll be because Howard Stern made her a co-host and Hugh Hefner wrote her a big check. But like Travis McGee’s date, she has “that monumental unconcern” at heart. It’s the whore’s look, and monster or not, it’s hers, just the same.
(Order your Amazon through me and I earn 4 percent. Click the “powered by Amazon” logo.)
Connie said on March 13th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Lileks news! Front page column! Please Nancy, be snarky for me.
Peter said on March 13th, 2008 at 8:59 am
My money’s on Trump either signing up Eliot or his lady – or both. They could be quite the pitchpersons for his product.
Kirk said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Imported from end of previous thread:
What restaurant, Connie? Not that I’m an expert on the place, but we really liked Saugatuck and would go back. Not based on toilet amenities, of course.
And I agree. The dog looks bitchin’.
Randy said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Wow Nancy, you are hitting them out of the park the last few weeks. If I can come up with an even more trite sporting analogy I will pass it along. Thanks for the great read, as usual.
brian stouder said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Great post. (And indeed, I’m not a Wire guy, but I nonetheless enjoyed your post on the final episode very much). Leaving aside any ‘latter day feminism’ euphemisms, I was struck by the irony of this excerpt -
At one point I glanced up quickly and surprised a different expression in her eyes — an absolute coldness, a bleak and total indifference which was gone the instant I saw it. And that, I thought, was the whore’s look and the whore’s secret, that monumental unconcern which insulated her.
…if indeed Spitzer would say his wife was “indifferent” and “unconcerned” about him!…maybe this is why it would be much more forgiveable if he was fooling around with a woman “for free”…instead of being the same sort of pig that would go to a game preserve and shoot a captive deer, just as another excerpt imagines
Connie said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Kirk, see end of previous thread for the Saugatuck answer.
Kafkaz said on March 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Strippers often are prostitutes. All you have do to get a sense of the range of services many of them offer is talk to some men who frequent them, or spend a little time touring something like this. A mini-course in modern sexuality. The Hooker with a Heart of Gold probably doesn’t even work as a stock character, anymore. Sorry, Miss Kitty!
MichaelG said on March 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
There’s a web site run by a woman billed as a “College Girl Hooker”. I can’t link to it here at the office but I will later when I get home if somebody else hasn’t already done so. I forget how I got there. I think it won some kind of blog award. Very interesting. No heart of gold here. She works in New York City and works solo, not as part of some agency. I haven’t looked at the blog since the Spitzer affair. Maybe she’ll have something to say.
alex said on March 13th, 2008 at 10:58 am
“Toilet Girls. Browse a huge selection now…”
I’m afraid to click on that google ad.
Danny said on March 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Another day, another whore named Ashley. Tsk tsk.
brian stouder said on March 13th, 2008 at 11:30 am
But if they make toilets TOO accomodating, don’t we risk having more cases like this one (which we’ve all heard about by now), where a woman spent two years on her boyfriend’s john?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23593885/
an excerpt -
“She is an adult; she made her own decision,” said her boyfriend, Kory McFarren. “I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it.” The case drew nationwide attention after Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat in the two years she apparently was in the bathroom.
(Did the guy get her anything for those two Christmas seasons she missed? or for her birthday? Books would have been good)
Sue said on March 13th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Brian – I wonder what Dr. Laura has to say about this situation?
Danny said on March 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Brian – I wonder what Dr. Laura has to say about this situation?
That this is Silda’s fault, somehow?
michaelj said on March 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Connie,
Did you burst into the shower with that request? Was anybody with you? Musical instruments?
If you need an answer about physiology, Dr. Laura’s your man (and maybe Ann Coulter’s), but you might want a second opinion from Doctor Mike Marshall (kinesiology).
Tracking down Spitzer was pure payback. Dumbass was dumbass enough, but he screwed with the wrong people. The investigation was run by a loyal Bushie from the USAttorney firing days, and was based on bogus warnings to the USAtty’s office from Wall Street bankers about ‘structuring’–that thing drug dealers do to keep transactions under FBI radar. Unadulterated witchhunt. Done in by bizarre sexual compulsions, but I’d say busting pension fund rapists was worth the peccadilloes.
And the Mann Act charges? Not in billions of years. Just move along here. Nothing to see but misdemeanor soliciting. Meanwhile, Larry Craig still has a congressional office in Washington. Hookers may have been travelling business class, but, you know, it was just business, and nobody was transporting them anywhere but overpaid USAir.
Lady and crapper? Maybe she was thinking about the King, and I don’t mean Mitch Ryder.
And isn’t Spitzer young enough to get the GOP youthful indiscretion mulligan? I mean, he’s not old as McCain, who’s clearly working on his second trophy wife but wants to try the President thing first. What’s the matter with his staff that they don’t make the obvious infidelity link with Raygun? Even Barack loves Ronnie.
Danny said on March 13th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Blah blah blah blah, it’s all George Bush’s fault.
Blah blah blah blah, it’s all Dick Cheney’s fault.
Blah blah blah blah, Haliburton, my friend. That’s the ticket.
Blah blah blah blah, anyone with an R after their name. Evil, I tell you.
I think that about sums up the last million posts.
michaelj said on March 13th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Oh. And has everybody forgotten Ollie North’s bimbo, Fawn Hall, who stuffed shredded Iran-Contra evidence in her (apparently) Granny panties. Maybe it’s quibbling, but I think there are politicians that get in trouble over sex, and there are politicians that get in trouble over sex while criticizing another politician for getting in trouble over sex, or, say, shredding the Constitution. The latter couple get radio shows and Faux News facetime, and, I’d hope, a more desperate and painful circle in hell.
del said on March 13th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Nancy, the McGee passage was a joy to read.
Did anyone see the 48 Hours 2 hour special last week about the former stripper who had her boyfriend murdered in remote Alaska? Compelling stuff. The woman was an absolute siren. Beatiful, alluring, deadly and without “the whore’s look.” Her charm persuaded a lover to murder another lover whom she’d taken a $1M life insurance policy out on. She later married a physician the day after he graduated from med school and earned her bachelors and masters degrees and started a family before her conviction. Anyway, unforgettably haunting.
brian stouder said on March 13th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
And isn’t she the one who got her whole murder plan from a detective/crime novel?
(edit: it would be funny if it was a Laura Lippman one…)
michaelj said on March 13th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Emperors Club? Spitzer’s Client 9. Does the buck stop there? I doubt they had nine clients. Who might Messrs One through Eight be? How did one name get out? Doesn’t the “strategic” leak make it reasonable to speculate about other clients, and their identities?
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
“The college student was a slack-jawed moron who said she was thinking about maybe enrolling at a local secretarial school. Most of the rest were just garden-variety skanks lucky to have reached 25 with a full set of teeth.”
If the decade would have been right I’d have sworn you had been led to my old girlfriends! Well, ten years before your story was filed they may have been missing a few chompers way before age twenty-five.
Actually, I rarely went to those places in the FWA of the 1970′s.
Sometimes the guys driving to and from the softball games we played would just pull in and we’d go in and have a few brews.
I may have this all mixed up, but I believe one skank-joint was the Hi-Spot on Anthony, there was one , at least, on West Main, and the “R” Club off Coliseum…many others…a couple work-buddies always found trouble at a joint called The Boom-Boom Room on Calhoun. I should have left this to other bloggers because I don’t remember much about that scene.
I do recall hearing about all the wide-open activity in those clubs during the Armstrong administration. There was a place called The Godfather Club somewhere on the north side where god-awful sex acts were available right out “in public” , I heard.
Also, guys who like to pay for it had many options in old Fort Wayne…massage parlors were abundant…just plain whorehouses, I heard.
I married young and avoided all extra-curricular “fun.” But I never felt like I missed a goddam thing. Everyone decides for themselves , or has their compulsions and desires decide their sex life. “I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’…”
michaelj said on March 13th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Were y’all aware that John D. MacDonald was a good friend of Warren Zevon’s? It may be heretical to say this, but great as Travis McGee is, I think the character has been perfected in Dave Robicheaux. Ezekiel Rawlins is better than both, and he’s got the best sidekick, Raymond “Mouse” Alexander who famously said:
You said don’t shoot him, right? Well I didn’t. I choked him. You didn’t want him dead Easy, why you leave him with me?
There’s a pretty good version of Darker than Amber that was made in the late 60s (I think), with Rod Taylor and the immortal Theodore Bikel as “Meyer”.
Writing detective books must be daunting when Raymond Chandler’s been, gone and done that. I like the one-offs about people given a moral push into reluctant and doomed investigation, like Smilla’s Sense of Snow and Cutter and Bone. Both were made into decent movies, and Gary Sinise playing Captain Dan in the wheelchair plagiarized John Heard’s portrayal of Alex Cutter.
Laura said on March 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I’ve been lurking for a while — thoroughly enjoy your blog. Thought your reporter’s blood might get stirred up by a fun story in The New York Observer about how the NY Times got — and broke — the Spitzer story.
http://www.observer.com/2008/touchable
ashley said on March 13th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Ashley seems to have that Kim Kardashian look about her. And we know that she isn’t into things that are safe.
Ashley…evidently, in a previous life, I was Reinhard Heydrich. A karma debt from hell…
Sue said on March 13th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Just had a chance to read today’s offering and subsequent comments more carefully:
1. Guys: Are you really comfortable in a strip club? I have a friend who says it is one of the few places where he feels totally at home, but I suspect most guys would find it embarrassing without a lot of alcohol beforehand. I understand that the workers are trained to get the customers to buy lots of drinks. Seems obvious, pushy and money-grubbing. Plus, the clubs always offer “the most beautiful women in [location]“. None of the beautiful women I know work in strip clubs. Where are they getting these babes from?
2. Girls: Around here we call them “Deer Hunters’ Widows Weekends”. The ladies all head to the Sugar Shack or some such place that is offering store-brand versions of the Chippendales and supposedly they have a screaming good time. Is guy candy fun for you? I saw a male stripper once, at a home party that promised a surprise and didn’t mention what it was. I was embarrassed for him and for the people around me – they talked about him like he wasn’t even there. I admit that I am overly modest, but I was appalled at how easily everyone got into it and forgot this guy could hear everything they said.
3. Nancy: Your remark about the slack-jawed moron who was thinking of going to secretarial school reminds me of the elected official (I can’t remember if it was state or fed) who thought he had the answer to both the welfare-to-work problem and the nursing shortage problem: just have these welfare moms become nurses! That’s all! If you don’t mind someone who never actually finished high school dispensing your meds. So, on behalf of secretaries everywhere, may I express my outrage? Sure, it wouldn’t be a med mixup, but just try to find that file.
Jeff said on March 13th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
That was just the book and chapter i was thinking of, Nancy — but i couldn’t come up with the title and didn’t want to thumb through the shelfful to nail it down. And dead-eyed or not, she managed to . . . ah, read the book, folks. But the mechanics of it all MacDonald had down cold.
I am pleasantly surprised to find a point of agreement with michaelj — Bikel was pitch perfect for Meyer. The rest of the movie didn’t quite do it for me, but oh for a good director and lead to put some of these on film. Magnum, PI came close sometimes.
Mmmmm, The Butler — http://webcams.fbv.mhe.viapointe.com/wwmt/saugatuck.jpg
Kafkaz said on March 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
MichaelG–Checked out that Confessions of a College Call Girl blog. Could be the recent surge of literary hoaxes that has me wondering how real it is. For whatever reason, it just doesn’t read like an actual memoir, to me.
Are we going to find out that it’s all just the postmenopausal yearnings of some granny with a good imagination, a literary bent, and a bit of an approach/avoidance issue when it comes to men? Or maybe created for “gotcha, suckers” revenge by some bookish girl with philosphical leanings and serious writing aspirations who is pretty ticked by how easy it is to rivet drooling crowds with porn, and how hard it is to win even a single reader for her earnest poetry? It wouldn’t surprise me. It’s veddy veddy writing workshop, somehow. It’s like Playboy Advisor meets Joy of Sex, only mostly without the joy, with just a hint of the Story of O thrown in for that requisite edgy feel. Strange.
Jeff said on March 13th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Sue — Many (many, pre-married, pre-seminary) years ago, when i was running a summer camp and had encountered a series of daunting obstacles that were overcome at the expense of my good humor, some senior staff members took me prisoner on what was supposed to be my one night off a week (that i hadn’t taken for a month), and carried me into South Bend, Indiana, to an establishment that apparently sold drinks to sad men while sadder women removed their clothes. Music was tangentially involved (Flashdance it wasn’t, though the neighborhood and broken dreams were somewhat similar).
I have never been more uncomfortable through a well-intended evening in my life, with one exception. The lead performer came off the stage at the end of a number and told me that “the other gentlemen at my table had invited me to sit on your lap.” I cheerfully declined, but pulled out a chair next to me and said, “Feel free to join us for however long you’re supposed to be at our table.” They had already paid for her drink (see MacDonald for the skinny on that scam), and since the guys who brought me had left in disgust to review the jukebox selections, we talked.
She said Cheryl already had to do the next “dance” (a label i chose not to dispute), so why not relax a bit — we talked about the Cubs, the new coach at Notre Dame, and then she told me about what she hoped to do with her kid when she’d piled up enough from this job. I apologized for not having any cash on me to tip with, and she got up to leave saying “I wouldn’t have taken it anyway; that was kind of mean for them to bring you here.” I assured her i was delighted to have met her and talked a bit, and wished her well. We shook hands, and i thought then and still do that it was a pleasure to have had a normal human interaction in that place, just to show it could happen.
Need i point out she hated her job, and hated even worse that she came to despise every man who patronized the joint — and she suspected they knew that she did, but somehow that was all part of the deal for them. Nor can i imagine willingly going back to such a place. Your mileage may vary, but the economy of mutual contempt seems to be a universal additive to the unhealthy mix.
ashley said on March 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Sue:
Comfortable? No more or less than any other place. I tend to like dive bars more than “upscale martini bars” where you can’t even get a martini with gin. Basically, I get bored with strip clubs after about 3-5 minutes. It was fine when I was 18, but now, whatever.
I dated a stripper (surprise!) for a couple of months about 20 or so years ago. We met at a casting call for a movie…a legit movie if you need to ask. She invited me to her work where she “danced” and I showed up and voila, it was a strip club.
I happened to go to high school with the manager, who came back from the army and said, without pity or pride and with a tad bit of resignation: “I, unfortunately, seem to have a talent for managing strippers”.
A seat near the pole was available, so I bellied up and did the worst thing you could ever possibly do to a stripper: I made eye contact. Yeah, I didn’t even look at T or A; I just stared into their eyes. When she got off stage a couple of dancers later, she told me that the other girls said it was the most unnerving thing that ever happens to them, and I had to quit it.
In any case, her story was much like that of the heroine in Carl Hiaasen’s “Strip Tease”, except she a) had silicone implants that rated about an 8 on Moh’s scale of hardness and b) she wasn’t nearly as bright. One kid, crazy ex-husband, small apartment, rich sugar daddys trying to get her to be their one (or two or seven) and only and so on. Way too much drama for a 24 year old.
Such is life.
Danny said on March 13th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Very accurate take on things, Jeff. Back in my pre-Christian college days, I met this totally hot, well-endowed Scotch-Irish redhead when I was out with some friends. We hit it off and when she told me she was a stripper, I really didn’t believe her (too innocent looking) and even if it was true, I thought what would it hurt to have a little fun with her.
Long story made short, we ended up living together for two or three years. Very passionate, sometimes stormy deal. Now, at first, she didn’t think she hated what she was doing for a living, but it dawned on her after coming home a crying mess a few nights that she really did hate it. I never pressured her to quit, but I did tell her to seek counsel. Well that opened up a very sad can of worms that revealed a history of sexual abuse and repressed memory.
She ended up quitting for a while, but then wanted to go back to it. I cared for her too much to watch her destroy herself, so I told her if she went back to it, I was leaving. And the rest is history.
All of the women she worked with had been sexually abused as children. Every one of them.
And I never really cared much for hanging out in those places. I just went because my girlfriend and most of her friends worked there. As such, I was in the in-crowd. Hanging with the bikers, playing pool in the back. Not a customer. The contempt we all felt for the “customers” was pretty strong.
It was an odd few years there. Trying to make it through engineering school while being in a relationship with a totally damaged person who I cared a lot about. Eye-opening, to say the least.
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
…and Eliot may ask himself, “How do I work this?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbUCvz1LYE&feature=related
michaelj said on March 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I have never understood the allure of strip clubs, or “tittie bars” as we call ‘em down South. When I worked in Boston, clients would invariably suggest a lunch break at 11:30, and, just as invariably, suggest going around the corner to the Combat Zone. My partner at the time (and my best friend to this day) is a very beautiful woman, and you could have bet successfully they’d been ogling her all morning, and were getting some sort of pocket pool self-gratification by suggesting she go to the strip club with the boyos. We’d tell them we had other plans but they should help themselves, and we knew the day was shot.
Going to strip clubs is one of those things, like cannibalism
and premeditated murder that mammals eschew, other than humans and rats. What’s the point? I did skip school once in Detroit to go see Lottie the Body, but that was old-school burlesque house ecdysiasm. Lottie was pretty amazing but she was preceded by a woman who went about a buck ten eighty, and a working mom with a Caesarean scar. Vaudeville comic too, and that was seriously ugly. This was something suburban kids going to school on 7 Mile did, like drinking Ancient Age with the 12th Street oldtimers in the bleachers at Tiger Stadium.
Brian Stouder: I don’t care who wins them, caucuses are bumrush affairs run by intimidation, by people who’ve decided to appoint themselves arbiters of correctness. You know, middle school imposed on the political process, in the Biergarten. Democracy is never an option, and some pigs just know they’re more equal than others.
nancy said on March 13th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Michael J., Zevon was friends with Ross Macdonald, aka Kenneth Millar, not John D.
Learned fascinating things about John D. just a few months ago — the WSJ used him as an example of how to manage an artistic career with good business sense. (He was a Harvard MBA.) Said he had the first three Travis novels in the can before he sent the first to his agent, so they could come out bim-bam-boom and build momentum and audience fast. The first three are pretty slim, but pack a powerful punch. Rereading them, which I do every so often, I’m struck that they’re both dated and timeless. I love when Travis goes off on a tangent about his awesome sound system (playing Eydie Gormé), then another one about some aspect of human behavior that never gets old. What a guy.
Stephanie said on March 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
This is totally unrelated to today’s post, but what do you think of The Abstinence Teacher so far? I thought it was some good stuff. I once wrote Tom Perotta an email, and he actually wrote me back. Oh, to have his career!
nancy said on March 13th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I got another big chunk of it read today on the stationary bike — thank God for those easel/book/magazine racks — and I’m enjoying it very much. I’ll have to check out the Amazon reviews Danny was talking about, but so far I don’t think it’s a caricature at all. But that’s just me. Next stop: “Election.” After Laura Lippman.
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Name dropping: I have concluded that in the US a person has to live a very sheltered life without bumping into or spotting at least a few celebrities . I won’t bore you with the list of big names I have heckled or just seen walking around or waiting for a train or airplane; my point is that since I didn’t have a home computer until seven years ago, I never emailed or chatted with any media stars.
Except David Simon. He used to come online right after The Wire Season One epis and answer questions and explain scenes when people had thoughts and ideas. One night we went one-on-one for 10 minutes…well…I thought that was pretty fucking cool.
He would sign on “Simon here…”
Jeff said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Anybody hyar’bouts read “Had a Good Time” by Robert Olen Butler? It’s an odd little tour de force, a series of unconnected short stories all based on actual picture postcards he picked up through the years, from back 1890-1940 when you could get a picture taken and turned readily into a postcard, so some views were stock and kitschy, and others were “ripped from the headlines,” only you didn’t know what headline. He would work in whatever was on the postcard into his story, which was necessarily cryptic and brief, and left plenty of room for elaboration.
Good book all around, and easy to read in chunks. Read it on an airplane when it came out a couple years back, and have been slowly piece-reading it again since.
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Dammittall! I can’t just go to YouTube anymore when a song crosses my mind, because Pandora has my speakers occupied, educating me and exposing me to the best music I never heard before…I love the way Pandora utilizes and presents the music genome.
Linda said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
The young woman in question will get hurt for the rest of her life in that no matter what else she does from here on in, she will be the Spitzer hooker. He will retire from public life awhile, but some well-appointed friends will quietly see that he gets a think tank sinecure to keep him from watching too much daytime t.v.. If she had been found to be a prostitute years from now, after some life of public achievement, this incident would have been a weird footnote, but now she will have to opt for total obscurity or freak show status, nothing in-between.
The “too much women’s studies b.s.?” A lot of that comes from middle-class feminist guilt, a fear of being disrespectful of women’s choices, even when the choices society creates for poor people are only bad or worse, and the guilt some sex worker’s customers feel, who then try to rationalize using paid sex services. I agree, a lot of it is b.s.
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Linda:
As the late Mike Ryoko wrote when doing a story on an unhappy lottery jackpot winner, “A million dollars can buy me a lot of friends.”
He then wrote that he would go to someplace like the French Riviera and have a sign made reading “I have a million dollars, want to be my friend?”
Miss Dupres will never have to work that line another night. She’ll get a $2 million advance on her book, and live , well-fed, in her penthouse. Ashley Youmans. No fucking wonder she changed her name.
david c roach said on March 13th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
its the madonna-whore duality of mans and womans nature.
which has already been expounded upon, much more eloquently than me.
a few observations.
happy husbands usually dont stray. men want a saint around the home, and a whore in bed.
all women “sell it” on any given day, for whatever the current market price is, and what the woman wants that date.
a few free drinks, and a roll in the hay. up to a rich man, with a mansion, and a mercedes.
man- women will dump you if they get a better offer. they will leave you for a better offer.
bad luck with the ladies? rent. its not free milk, but its better than a “cow”
whats the difference between a hooker, a mistress, and a wife?
the hooker asks: are you through?
the mistress asks: was it good for you?
and the wife thinks:I think I’ll paint the ceiling blue.
As an adventerous single male, I have enjoyed the vices that forw wayne has had to offer throughout the years. I was a regular at the “r” club- beer. pool girls. perfect!
close to home-a sub/grinder; a few beers, some pool with nude girls, and a few dollar dances- summer sweaty pretty boobs, and girls. ahhh.
the scorpion- corner broadway/taylor- mudwrestling!! dirty, grubby fun!
the cozy clubs on goshen road…
worked at showgirl 1-2-3 as chef/kitchen manager. ran for congress as a adult club advocate.
worked at stewies- great food, nice marilyn monroe photos.
worked at body shop/boom-booms. boom booms was a great place. got a few free lap dances from my boss lady- can your job say that??!!!
and of course- sailing the 7 seas, living like a pirate- asian p-ssy.
when I think back on all the great women, strippers, hookers I’ve dated, slept with, 3-ways-lots of them-menage-a-trois.
and all without catching any STD’s at all! well, there was that little club overseas-but we wont go into that here.
I will die a happy man, with my last thought being “all the girls i’ve loved before”-all several hundred of them!!!no to brag, but its true! looking for mrs. right, or right now- whatever. as I said – they all sell it if the price is right.
god i love the single life!
Connie said on March 13th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
TMI
alex said on March 13th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I’m with Linda. If Dawn Wells couldn’t shake the Mary Ann image until she got busted with pot, how on earth is Mizz Dupre ever gonna be known as anything but that whore. That whore that did whatever it was Silda wouldn’t do, no less. The book advance and Playboy pictorial money will have been spent on drugs and alcohol by the time she’s thirty, I’m bettin’. Maybe she’ll have a career renaissance if she lives to get pulled over at age 69.
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
damn, david c. roach…”… well, there was that little club overseas-but we wont go into that here.”
Why hold THAT back? But only several hundred? You got some catchin’ up to do!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
alex: Mary Ann is the kind we love unconditionally.
Harl Delos said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Ashley’ll get bookings on the basis of her notoriety, and if she can sing, she might end up jump-starting a career. Look at what Joey Heatherton did with some talent (although not a lot), and what that babe from Baywatch did, with even less.
Makes me all verklempt, though, to think of how that poor girl will suffer the rest of her life….
Dexter said on March 13th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Harl: Remember those “Perfect Sleeper, Perfect Sleeper [mattress] by Serta” commercials that Joey Heatherton did circa 1972? Hottest thing on TV, I thought. Then years later I heard she had been linked to Imus , uh, romantically. Broke my heart.
Dexter said on March 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am
The girl sings pretty well!
http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertainment/music/blog/2008/03/ashley_alexandra_dupre_aka_kri.html
mouse said on March 14th, 2008 at 12:54 am
David-where was Stewies’. Been there ,can’t remember where?
Laura said on March 14th, 2008 at 1:17 am
David C. Roach:
You say you’re single? Amazing! Your post makes you seem like quite the catch.
Harl Delos said on March 14th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I was a regular at the “r” club- beer. pool girls. perfect!
There was a woman there who danced to “Bridget the Midget.” Can’t remember her name, maybe “Holly”?
Most of the girls in most of clubs come on with dirty, stringy hair and bad makeup, shuffle around a bit, and remove 90% of their outfit in the first 30 seconds, then stumble around for the rest of their set in a daze as if they were stoned out of their mind. And maybe they were.
Some of the higher-class joints, like the Brass Ass on Monmouth Street in Newport (across the river from Cincinnati), the dancers are awake, the makeup at least equal to you’d expect from a cashier at Maloleys, expensive, professionally-sewn breakaway costumes, and an actual strip-tease dance. Now, “higher-class” is a relative term. You can smell the mildew when you walk in the place, and when they say a two-drink minimum, they put two cans of not-too-cool beer in front of you when you enter, popping both tabs, so that the second one starts going flat before you have a chance to start sipping the first.
But Holly, if that was her name, was the most impressive dancer I ever saw. She had magnificent costumes, her high-energy dancing was performed with olympic precision, and she looked more wholesome than Mary Tyler Moore. She didn’t perform a strip-tease; there was nothing at all sexual about her dancing. She was dancing in the near-nude, but it was a work of art. You could have broadcast it on PBS without old biddies calling to complain.
One of the other patrons told me he went to high school with her – maybe South Side? – and that her mother sewed the break-away costumes she wore. And she didn’t act like she hated what she was doing, except that everybody asked for “Bridget the Midget”; she got tired of doing it over and over, so she started refusing to do it unless someone tipped her $20 in advance.
The girl sings pretty well!
Maybe if she had a decent arrangement of a decent song, and a good producer. She seems to stay on key, and her voice has a pleasant tone, which is quite enough to work as a backup singer, but could she fill a theatre in Branson five years from now, when Spitzer is old news?
I feel mean-spirited saying that, especially given my own lack of talent in that area, but singing is like writing. Everyone thinks they can write, and most people have trouble composing a grocery list. Frank Sinatra, Junior can stay on key, and he has a pleasant voice, but he was a dud. Joey Heatherton had those qualifications, too, and she could dance fairly well, too, but I don’t think I’ve heard of her performing since Dean Martin had a weekly TV show.
MichaelG said on March 14th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Ahh, I once had a letch for Joey Heatherton .
Kafkaz, I know a reader may have the impulse to arrive at a quick evaluation and judgment when looking at something like the College Girls whatever. While it is certainly the reader’s prerogative to do so, it isn’t necessary to either take her completely at face value or to dismiss her as a fake. The judgment may be left in suspense. I have no idea if the writer if that blog is what she purports to be and don’t particularly care. I’m aware that it’s not an annotated sociological study published by a university press. I’m happy to take her observations for what they’re worth along with all the other stuff I’ve heard here and there over the years. I find interesting her observations on women and their self image and on hookers and their attitudes toward their customers. That wouldn’t change if she were proved a fraud or proved genuine.
Sue said on March 14th, 2008 at 9:42 am
David: Well, I did ask the question. But Holy Gods…
Life imitates McGee « STEVENHARTSITE said on March 14th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] imitates McGee March 14, 2008 Nancy Nall looks in the pages of a John D. MacDonald novel and finds there a lesson for Eliot [...]
david c roach said on March 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I dont know why- I just prefer “edgy” girls. at least you know she’s a gold digger from the get go. and only the ones who can carry on a conversation. single women at office/desk jobs are sooooo boring. bla bla bla. yadayadayada.
I’m a prize catch- i’m not stupid. i’m educated. i can carry on a conversation. unfortunately, theres a lot of women who cant, so i get bored easily, and lose interest.
Stewies at located on coldwater road, across from glenbrook mall- right out the driveway from macys.
It was fun working there on the weekends- i’d get to autition lots of girls from out of town, who wanted to do something on a dare, it seemed. after checking id’s for legal dancing age, i’d coach them- dont be scared. its just like a day at the beach in a bikini. just focus on your music, and have fun. tease the guys. you’re in control.
they usually had costumes they just bought at the mall, and some music- so it was pre-planned “lets go to fort wayne, and be strippers for a day”.
oncen they made a lot of money, and realized its pretty easy, and all the men werent all creeps, and some of the single men were even kind of handsome (especially the DJ-me!); they would return on a semi frequent basis.
naturally, you want girls to work a lot, so we could all get to know them, and trust them- dont want thieves rummaging around the dressing/locker room, going through the girls stuff, looking for money.
Most professional strip clubs/gentlemens clubs are run very much like a vegas, or other night club/show club.
and many arent. it all depends on the owners, the mgt, and the other staff.
interesting, isnt it?
Laura said on March 15th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
icky
Harl Delos said on March 15th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Stewies at located on coldwater road, across from glenbrook mall- right out the driveway from macys.
Sounds like L. S. Ayres is Macy’s now. I was thinking that there was a tire dealer across from that entrance.
Is it the building where Ollie Fretter was located?
Hattie said on March 18th, 2008 at 12:15 am
That coldness. Yes. I experienced that once when I got a manicure and pedicure. The young woman treated my hands and feet like pieces of meat. It was indescribably odd. So Johns accept that. Strange.