Screengrab by Various Today in Hooksexup's film blog: We list our greatest guilty pleasures. You can't imagine the shame!
61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Hooksexup's videogame blog: A piping-hot plate of Tim Curry, Half-Life for a dollar and adventuring with Adventure.
To be a good stripper in New Jersey is to know exactly the right moment to play Sinatra. Let's pretend it's the late '80s, the halcyon years of Jersey go-go, a pre-lapdance, pre-silicone era when there were still brunettes in the business. It's a Wednesday night around ten p.m. The good boys have gone home, the rockers are bored, and you're about to get onstage in front of a zoned-out crowd not yet drunk enough to fall in love. Time for a strategy. You scan the room. You spot them. The proud Italian Americans. They're a little older; they always know the owner. They wear slacks, have good watches and freshly combed hair. They drink real drinks — Scotch and soda. And they are your only hope for this upcoming set, during the lull, when the girls start getting bitchy and stupid and insist on dancing to Black Velvet.
This is the moment I would run back into the dressing room, take off the short-shorts and slip into a long silk nightie and some fake pearls, then strut back out there like some classy broad from Atlantic City.
"Summer Wind," I would yell as I ran by the D.J. booth. Then I would float onto that stage just as the intro, that familiar, sultry horn-line setup, would begin, and me and Ol' Blue Eyes would start working the magic.
The young fellas always knew enough to be respectful — this is New Jersey, this is Frank Sinatra, pay your respects, give the girl a dollar. The old guys got misty. But, most importantly, the middle-aged guidos with the chains and the nice hair took notice. Nice dress, nice gams, this one knows how to walk, hey sweetheart, over here. By the time you saunter towards them, they're all singing along with Frank. They have their arms around each other and are waving you over, pinky rings twinkling. Dollars mean nothing to these guys. You get a couple of twenties and lots of fives. And you get respect. In New Jersey, Frank Sinatra is an understanding.
Frank Sinatra was born 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey, around the corner from where I live now. A little ways uptown, in the hallway of my father's brownstone, there is some graffiti written on the wall. A heart drawn around the name Joe Sinatra and Ellen, paired forever. Joe was Frank's first cousin and lived in the brownstone next door. Hence the Plexiglas my father placed over the scribble to preserve it.
You can't go two feet in Hoboken without being reminded of Frank. Many restaurants play nothing but his records and have only autographed pictures plastered from floor to ceiling. Frank Sinatra equals sex in New Jersey. Especially North Jersey, where everyone is an authority on his sex appeal. His songs set the tone, his shady associations kept the blood racing, his arrogance made you melt, and his phrasing made you drop your pants. Let's be real: he scored Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow. The man is hot.
For me, Hoboken was mainly funny, grumpy Italians, great Italian bread and serious pizza. When I got here twenty years ago, it was still like this: dusty, corny, tasty, with a rude sensuality just around the corner. Hoboken was a great place to fool around. After just ten minutes on the PATH train, you could be in Manhattan, where you might feel too cool to have sex with the guy from the pizza joint. But in Hoboken, after a night of beer and fresh mozzarella sandwiches, you might feel free to drive tothe back of town, before it was covered in condos, back when it was just winos and wild dogs. There you could have a fling, make out with a guy for hours in an old Buick, listen to Dean Martin tapes, have yourself a perfect evening.
Not anymore. Since about 1985, Hoboken has gone condo. Not that I don't appreciate some aspects of change. Hoboken was half a dump; it smelled like piss and was littered with drunks and car thieves. I bought while it was ugly, fixed it up and have been renting to young, sparkly yuppies ever since. And, I must say, yuppies are good tenants. They pay on time, don't complain much. But on the whole, they are not sexy. The women
"Please," said my teenage dogsitter. "There's mad sex going on here."
tend to be nasally and so self-absorbed they talk about wedding showers — at the top of their lungs! in Starbucks! on their cellphones! — like they're organizing the Olympic Games. The dudes, though sometimes gorgeous in their Claiborne suits, are just a little too sports-bar for me, and again, too loud. At this point, Hoboken has turned into one long Banana Republic ad: attractive, neat, and lacking in erotic adventure.
To find out about some real sex, I had to go eleven minutes north of Hoboken — to the pricey suburbs known for their excellent schools, large parks and megamansions — and straight to the source: teenagers. My dogsitter, Molly, lives by the G.W. Bridge; a recent high-school graduate, she's gorgeous and sarcastic. Those pretty little white suburban boys love rap, pot, special K and my dog walker Molly. And who could blame them, with her long legs and bitchy comebacks? During arguments, she throws the first punch, dresses conservatively but wears sexy underwear. Once in a while, her girlfriend with the big tits will join her for a threesome, and during senior year, with the love of her life, they practiced a little yellow rain just to see if it felt cool.
"What!" I was shocked, grateful for the info, but flabbergasted.
"Please," she said. "There's mad sex going on here. You know that skinny blonde I used bring over to walk the dogs? She blew every boy in school. We've all been doing it since we were, like, thirteen."
Okay, then. Back in Hoboken, my search for a local sexcapade continued. The yuppies had failed me, so I decided to go up the gentrification food chain. I called my sexy, successful real-estate agent, Marie. Her office is full of really hot looking agents, all bone structure andaggression, with a bossy-in-bed style of communication. The desk next to hers was occupied by a young man who obviously had become weary of modeling. A big and lovely thing, he was talking a mile a minute into his headset while shuffling leases in front of him. I imagined him taking me on a tour of those new condos, the big ones by the Hudson River. Maybe on the tenth floor, he'd show me the view, the place would be empty, just linen-white walls, the New York skyline, and him, clipboard in one hand, other hand on my left buttock . . .
"Hey, Ondine, what ya got for me?"
"Marie! Hey, hi, yeah, um . . . I have an apartment that needs to be rented, and I need some sex gossip from the real-estate world." I said, as Agent Bend-Me-Over-the-Windowsill walked across the office with a stack of manila envelopes.
"Okay, drop me off some keys for the apartment. And as far as the sex goes, we're too busy, really."
"That is a shame," I said.
"You're not kidding," sighed Marie.
What happened to all the romance? I wondered as I walked up the hill, through the campus of the Stevens Institute of Technology — which, it should be noted, Sinatra attended for one-and-a-half semesters — to have a few minutes with my favorite view of Manhattan. It is a beautiful spot, with plenty of nervous nerdy young scientists to keep you entertained, especially if you're thinking about sex. Is that one with the nice hands getting laid? He doesn't like me watching him, or maybe he does, but has yet to learn how to make eye contact. The high geek factor is a turn-on for a perv like myself. Is it their innocence? The fear in their eyes? Am I just a maniac? Having occasionally dabbled in geekdom, I have learned that they're inclined to masturbate more than your average college student, and sometimes even in the library. Is it wrong that I find that sexy?
I have just started to give myself the creeps as I head back down the hill. Then it hits me: Masturbation! One can masturbate freely without going insane! Who said that? Well, just the most famous sexologist in town: Alfred Charles Kinsey. Born in Hoboken 1894, the biologist and entomologist, specializing in the study of gall wasps, studied engineering at, yes, Stevens Institute of Technology, but most importantly, wrote Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. That's got to count for something. Finally a native with sex on the brain.
I prance home with a sense of foolish pride. I live in a town that produced both Sinatra and Kinsey. Two sex experts. As Sinatra's ex-wife, Nancy Sinatra Sr., said when asked why she never remarried, "Once you've had the best . . . "
By the time I unlock my door, I'm singing "Fly Me To The Moon" and recalling weeks of orgasmic foot-rubs while listening to old tunes by the river years ago in the car of a local Italian guy. Nice big nose, big green eyes, too bad he had a girlfriend.
That night, my friend, a local bartender, invites me to check out the new titty bar at the edge of town.
"I hear it's pretty crazy," he says.
"I can't. It will just make me hostile."
"Come on. Get over yourself."
But I can't. For today, I'm stuck in the past. Listen, even strippers can get nostalgic — though I'm sure I'm kidding myself. I just know that if I walk into that bar full of young professionals all revved up from their Girls Gone Wild videos, if I watch them give money to the blonde with the biggest cans and high-five each other over their shots of Jagermeister, I will get unfriendly. Am I being provincial? Yes. Old fashioned? Sort of. Have I somehow concocted a stripper superiority complex? Apparently.
Do I really believe that slinking across the stage to Sinatra is sexier than dry-humping the stage to Velvet Revolver? Duh. If you think I'm being too hard on the new idea of what's sexy, bite me. But not too hard — I don't like teeth marks, just those soft little nibbles, you know, the way cats do it, and I like eye contact, maybe a few choice words, we could do it on the fire escape, or the roof, or the park late at night . . . why are you looking at me like that? Don't people do this kind of stuff anymore? n°
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ondine Galsworth is working on a novel about her experiences as a go-go dancer and a book about her new addiction, the rodeo. A New York native, she now lives in New Jersey.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
