Cherry Bomb

Hollywood is so out of ideas they're remaking music videos.



I'm astonished at two facts about The Runaways biopic:

• Although it seems odd that the role of Cherie Curry is being played by 16-year-old Dakota Fanning, that's the correct age for when Cherie auditioned for the band. If anything, Dakota is a year too old.
  
• But Kristen Stewart does not a Joan Jett make, in my head and without having seen the movie yet.
  

Of course, I'll see the movie. And this song is practically Stormy's theme song. • 5:52 AM 1 comments

Who is Newton?

Mmmm... Newton. • 8:26 AM 0 comments

Video game memories

Wil Wheaton has reminisced about video games, and why not? And it's prompted me to remember old video games, too.

• Asteroids Deluxe, the short cabinet version, Elevator Action, and several others will always remind me of the 7-11 at Park Ave. Kevin and I would play that damned Elevator Action for hours.
  
  
• Dragon's Lair will forever be associated with Kellogg Bowl in Milwaukie, OR. I remember Terry putting quarter after quarter into it, while I stood around and watched, until he got to the end one night. He had done it before, and wanted to show me that at the very end (Spoiler Alert!), when the knight killed the dragon and rescued the princess, his helmet came off and he looked like our friend Andy.
  
  
• There was a video game that involved landing on a planet that was only found at Kah-Nee-Tah in eastern Oregon; it was a black and white vector graphics game in a primitive cabinet. I can't remember the name but I have a vague feeling it wasn't Lunar Lander, though it may have been. I played it once during one brief glorious road trip, with Amy and Terry.
  
  
• I and others from high school would play Battlezone, the tall cabinet version, at the Kienow's in downtown Milwaukie, a store no longer there. Steve Kilgore was the best at that game. Kilgore was also the best I'd ever seen at regular ol' Asteroids; he demonstrated the trick of saving one small asteroid, then flying up constantly and waiting for the saucers to come out, picking them off one by one.
  
  
• I know there were games at the bowling alley in Gresham where mom and dad and Donna and Gary would play, but I can't remember what they were.
  
  
• And the sit-down versions of Pole Position and Red Baron, and several others remind me only of the arcade at Clackamas Town Center. I can still hear the sounds of that arcade, and feel the excitement of knowing all that entertainment was waiting for me. I can hear the jingle of exchanging quarters for tokens, see the specific brass color of them, and feel the groove in one side of the tokens that made sure you could only put the token into the slot one direction. I remember the red-headed guy who worked there, then moved next door to the hamburger place after a while, and spending hours talking to him. I worked in that mall, at a small game store that sold, among other things, Dungeons & Dragons books and dice, for six long years, and spent years there prior to getting a job, and the arcade was a favorite hangout. I could write a week of blog posts about all the silly things I did or saw there.
  

You? • 7:55 AM 2 comments

Running

Nine days ago I participated in the Running With The Wolves 5K, and I ran the fastest I've run in months: 5K in 0:30:17, for an average pace of 9:44 per mile.

The day was perfect: not too cold, sunny, no rain. There were very few people on the course; only 81 finishers total. But it was fun, and I am glad I did it.

Then I didn't run until tonight.

I had a mildly-injured foot, a bruise or something on the ball of my left foot. Other than that, I really have no excuse. Maybe I needed the break, and maybe I just failed to motivate.

Mrs. McGinnis, my sophomore high school English teacher, once told me, "If anyone learns how to motivate you, you'll be an unstoppable force for good!" She meant it kindly, I suppose; generally I liked her. But that fear of motivation has haunted me for over 20 years. To this day, I don't know what motivates me.

I run because I want to be faster, although realistically I'm too old to ever be considered a fast runner. I run because I want to be thinner, and then I wipe out any gains from exercising with a single donut. I run because I want to meet other runners, and then I just run, solo, through my neighborhood and never join running groups. It's like I'm working at cross purposes to myself.

The inner workings of my mind are as impenetrable as, well, other people's minds.

But I ran tonight; I ran 15 minutes at 6 MPH, and then switched to run/walking, with about a minute break every half-mile. I finished 3 miles in 0:31:28 total.

My plan is to run again on Thursday. I'll be sure to update if it happens.

Labels: exercise

• 6:46 PM 2 comments

What the internet is for

Here's what the internet was made for: funny cat videos.

This one made me laugh out loud.

• 9:31 AM 0 comments

"I didn't do anything to you, you stupid creature!"

That's what I said to the opossum in my dream that was spraying me like a skunk.

Good morning, blog. • 8:45 AM 2 comments

Bother me tomorrow; today I've got no sorrows

Doot doot doot, lookin' out my backdoor.

• 5:53 AM 0 comments

This Too Shall Pass

I love these guys.



Seriously. I want to give them money. That's how much I love them.

Update:

I gave $7.99 to Amazon so I could download their album. I hope Amazon gives at least some of that to those guys. • 6:14 AM 6 comments

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