OF BIRTHDAYS, BOOZE, AND BURLESQUE BROADS

Yours Truly, showing appreciation for animal print pumps.

This Monday night saw the celebration of my friend Erin's twenty-sixth birthday, first at the Commonwealth bar and the majority of the debauchery occurring at Lucky 13, an ultra-sleazy Brooklyn dive that features cheap drinks, lurid exploitation flicks running on the place's two video monitors, a jukebox filled with about 98% heavy metal, and a pole on the bar for when the ladies feel like getting their drunken freak-dance on.

Erin, da Viking metalhead boithday goil.

Once our general group of loons and reprobates was assembled, we departed Commonwealth for the far more distasteful confines of Lucky 13, a small dive festooned with all manner of horror movie memorabilia and other pop culture tchotchkes, much of it signed by the actors and actresses involved.

The bar at Lucky 13.

Two shots of Lucky 13's walls (that's my pal Suzi with the camera).

The reason we were at the place, other than the relatively cheap drinks and vile atmosphere, was a burlesque show that featured an assortment of loopy bump 'n' grind cuties in sexy/goofy outfits, and while we waited for it to get started we downed round after round of mind-altering, liver-destroying intoxicants, all while wishing Erin a happy birthday. Other than myself and Suzi, the party included this motley crew of once innocent young ladies, now ruined by the ways of drugs, drunkenness, dick, and heavy metal music.

Left to right: Jill, Gina, Kate — who seriously reminds me of a hippie-era version of Supergirl — and the birthday girl.

Erin & Jill, deep in the clutches of the party godz.

When the show got underway, the first of the peelers was an attractive redhead who delivered a giddy and downright weird nervous bride act, shaking and smiling like a mental patient as she shed the various layers of her wedding gown.


I'd say there were about a half dozen performers gracing the stage and/or pole that evening, but my favorites, after the bride, were a pleasantly plump cowgirl who shook her stuff to a Patsy Cline tune,

and Mary Cyn, a willowy thing who took the stage in a straightjacket from which she attempted to escape.

Alas, Cyn was no reborn Houdini, so she required assistance to vacate her restraints,

and once freed she exploded into a lusty routine of gyrations that took her from the platform to the bar top, where she worked the pole with merciless abandon to the incredibly (in)appropriate strains of Buckcherry's "Crazy Bitch."


Her act was fun enough to begin with, but what sent it over the top for me was her dingy pair of Chuck Taylors, lending her the aspect of some wanton bastard daughter of the Ramones.

I mean, when compared to the other somewhat standard footwear found on the assembled peelers, Cyn's choice was both audacious and refreshingly silly.

What's cooler, Chucks or "Fuck Me!" pumps? You decide!

All too soon the show was over, but that didn't stop the performers from dancing about the bar in various states of undress, passing around the hat for donations, working the pole, and generally having a good time, and their infectious attitude worked its magic on the crowd as we got more and more crocked. Inevitably, I had to take my leave and drain the weasel, and in the bathroom I was delighted to find a piece of grafitti that tells it like it is,

and a light switch guard bearing the likenesses of the Crazy Babysitter Twins from GRINDHOUSE.

By the time I returned to the group of inebriated ladies, Kate kindly obliged to show me her Motley Crue thong while simultaneously trying not to slip off the bar stool,


as well as proudly displaying the impressive ink on her back.

Erin represents for metalheads everywhere.

By the time things finally wound down, Cyn had collected quite a few bills from appreciative patrons of the arts and kindly left her stunning arse uncloaked by a skirt or any other article of attire that would have detracted from its excellence.


I just wanted to bite her, I swear I did.

Finally I fell willing victim to the beer and tequila coursing through my brain and decided to wander north, there to curl up and slumber secure within the confines of the Vault of Buncheness.

The world at nearly 3AM, as seen through a haze of beer and tequila.

I bade Erin farewell and again wished her a happy birthday, and once she got into her cab I walked home, the exercise serving to burn off some of the liquor's effects. Thank the gods that I had sense enough to take Tuesday off.