No Such Thing as an Ugly Blowjob

(just put a bag over her head, poke a hole for the mouth, and yell "did I tell you you could turn around?")

Other possible titles for this post were "Tennyson's Titties" and "Your Gun is Digging Into My Hip," but only this supreme quote of the night from Benjamin could truly capture my first titty bar experience at the Tennyson Lodge.

The Tennyson is set amidst the picturesque hills of Bethel Park, PA, a quiet little town nestled between a laundromat and a Dairy Queen just off Rt. 88. The Lodge's small, unassuming structure has the charm of an Elk Lodge and the cameraderie a Kiwanis Club, only all the elk are naked and everyone is staring at the flapping pairs of kiwanis. And they were small kiwanis at that, little flapjacks flitting back and forth like a hummingbird's wings to the singing warble of, you guessed it: karaoke.

Curious buttf*cking George I hate karaoke. I know this makes me an almost unbearably wet blanket in 19% of social situations, but the only things I hate more than karaoke are brussel sprouts and child molesters. Karaoke. Killmearaoke. Put-the-microphone-in-a-boat-and-implode-it-araoke. Not only are we going to make bad music, but we're going to make it LOUDLY, insert it directly in your brain past your shriveling cilia, and wedge it right between your will to live and your need to destroy.

Only at the titty bar they don't call it "karaoke," they call it "baraoke," and so for three hours every Wednesday and Friday night people gather to stand up on stage and get fondled by "Sage" and "Seven" and, God help you, "Kimmy."

Now, before you think me some heartless purist with a piano up my ass, I should note that I have nothing against people who enjoy karaoke. All of my friends love it, and I've been told there's others like them. It's a small, relatively harmless (unless you're an eardrum) way for people to be a star, for non-musicians to make music, for regular Janes and Joes to express themselves and have the spotlight on them after a hard day's work. For them I have nothing but quiet admiration, because they have the balls to get up and do it and I don't.

That said, I also applaud married people having great sex, childen recovering from surgery, and llamas having baby llamas, but that doesn't mean I want to watch them do it. Lots of life's little triumphs just don't translate onto the stage, especially not for three hours at a time.

Now, you may think that this being a titty bar and all, the aformentioned titties would be a welcome diversion from the karaoke onslaught. You, sir/madam, would be mistaken, because there were no breasts at this bar. The only real breasts there belonged to my girlfriend, and I could only see the top couple inches of them.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Why Martin, you are a strapping young man who is most likely outfitted with man parts of a considerable size and girth. How could you possibly not have enjoyed seeing boobs that belonged to *other* girls?

Well, for starters, the teeny tiny breasts were attached to teeny tiny women. I wanted to like the one girl, my sweet Seven, but felt nasty because she more closely resembled a 13-year-old hairless boy. Jesus, I have bigger tits than these people, and nobody has to pay to see mine.

Secondly, going to a titty bar is a lot like watching the Food Network: "Here is something absolutely delicious that I just whipped out and I'm going to now wave it in front of you, tell you how good it tastes, and then go to commercial." No touchie. No touch.

Thirdly, and more seriously, I couldn't help but feel really sad for all the girls dancing there. It's a strange sensation because they are all adults and have made adult decisions, but when even Howard Stern says, as he did on Sean Hannity's radio show, "If your daughter is dancing on a pole, you've failed as a parent," there's something unmistakably off about your profession. They are, after all, someone's baby girl.

I was listening to an interview on "Fresh Aire" today, and although it seemed extraneous at the time, Terri Gross was talking to an author about writing sex scenes. She was asking if it was hard to write a sex scene, and the author replied, "It is hard to write a sex scene, because what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to titillate me, to arouse me? Everyone's had sex, good sex. Nothing you can write can titillate me more than the real thing. So every sex scene I wrote I asked myself, 'What is this doing? What is this telling us about the characters?' Sex has to reveal someone, has to educate the reader. Sex needs to be in the context of a soul."

Looking back on it, I think that's why the titty bar just wasn't all that exciting. The dancers just took off their clothes, shook their vaginas, traded smiles with men and their dollar bills, and then kept on dancing. Sure it was kind of exciting for the first few moments when you don't know where to put your eyes, when you're afraid to look away because you might offend her, but then it became this sort of mechanical thing, this pussy production line, and I found myself longing for the intimate mystery of a girl with her shirt on.

Like music, it is the space between the notes that truly moves you.

Next up is a gay bar, because I am ridiculously curious, and then a straight bar with male dancers. I want to see Jessie's reaction, to see if she feels the way I did about the Tennyson Ladies. Maybe the Lodge was just a sketchy enough place that the tinge of desperation was able to rise above the cigarette smoke and that a more upbeat establishment would have left me with a different taste.

Much like the Food Network, however, it doesn't make much sense to be hungry in the living room when there's a good cook in the kitchen...

ever as always,

martin