A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 
adult content


About a week ago, Ez's old bud, DZ, was back in town for a quickie holiday tour of nadaland. DZ fled nadaland for parts of the country that can best be described as Middle Hell. It's good to be reminded that there are worse places than ithaca even though the very idea taxes credulity. Ez and DZ were hanging out at the Chanticleer between forays into the cold night for frequent smoke breaks and a trek to the Chinese restaurant down the street.

DZ is connected to a lot of people in Ithaca. During his three year tenure, he befriended most of the clerks at the A plus, waitresses at Mexican restaurants,
bookstore clerks wide and far, cooks at the ABC, narcissistically disturbed graduate students. DZ is, in other words, a social democrat, the opposite of a snob, the garden variety of whom seems to populate nadaland. The fact that he often whips out a notebook and jots down quotes and notes betrays the fact that he is also a writer chipping away at the next great american novel. But that doesn't detract from his ability to connect with a lot of folks who ordinarily get marginalized, like convenience store clerks and adult bookstore attendants.

Speaking of whom, DZ happened that night to run into a dude who had formerly worked at A Plus but was now holding down the lonely fort at ithaca's one and only adult bookstore. The guy was standing in front of the garish, pink facade on State St., enjoying a smoke. As DZ chitchatted about old times, Ez snuck a peep inside at pegboards filled with rows of adult accessories. The wonderful world of american packaging. Dildos in plastic molded packages. Imagine that. Stocking stuffers. God knows what else people buy these days to enhance foreplay but it's sure to be found neatly shrinkwrapped on a shelf somewhere like this. conjuring up a vast network of factories, loading docks, stacks and stacks of brown boxes with asian lettering stencilled on the side, greasy salesmen with order books, the willie lomans of porn, billing clerks, packagers, marketeers, showrooms in places like Cleveland and Boca Raton, corporate board rooms, company logos, "we've been in the dildo business for 25 years", sales conventions, company picnics, mergers, acquisitions, Nafta, WTO, globalization, dildo sweatshops, the latex jungle.

Ez used to do anthropological field studies in Times Square, touring the porn shops that line the streets around Port Authority. What a sad universe. One six foot high rack of glossy genitalia after another, a smorgasbord of orifices, seedy Pakistanis eying you from behind high counters with glass cases filled with latex sex toys. Hey, if you want to discover amerika, wander into an adult bookstore near the Port. The soulless heartland of america. The merchandise mart of wet dreams. The walmart of sex. The final stop in the commodification of all life. Except for visiting your doctor's office.

So Ez was pretty excited when he found a great blog this morning. The adventures of a 30 year old female video store clerk in some place like LA.
It's hillarious! Read it - http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4475. This young woman spent a year gathering material; she's also a great writer. Life on the other side of the counter.

Working in an adult bookstore in a small town. What's that like? What do you say when Al Cohen walks in one night? Everybody knows everybody in places like nadaland. First of all, you're right on Main Street. What stories those porn clerks must have about the dark corners of the soul where the sun rarely shines. Could they have picked a less salacious pink? Reminds Ez of a pimple. Think about it now. Al Cohen got rid of the African American-owned barber shop to make way for the State St Theater restoration. Why, in this ever yuppifying community, do the town fathers tolerate an adult bookstore that mocks their illusion of a progressive utopia ? Are they too liberal to mess with the first ammendent holy cow of porn? Or does its very existence hint at a money trail leading right to the democratic machine strongbox? Some guy named Leonardo owns the building. Is he a heavy contributor to the Party? Or do sex shops serve a socially useful function? Ok, readers write in now. This is an interactive site. Oops, Ez forgot there are no readers

Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 9:46 AM