Re: I'll have the phat prik, please.

1

Yeah but there's a sweet back room if you ask for the "Deluxe Pad Thai."


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 6:15 PM
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I can't believe that they closed down all the cool strip clubs and sex grottos that used to make new york fun. the authorities are so gay. the photos reminded me of something I know I've mentioned here, namely that my mom took me to see a times square porno when I was a baby, like, a babe in arms, in the 70s? because?!!??/1?! she's downstairs, I guess I could ask her, but that's not always the best way to get at the truth. she was trying to freak out the squares? her fellow porno-goers? the ticket-selling dude? just felt like watching a times square porno and couldn't get any babysitting last-minute?

we're having a medically fraught moment, I'll maybe ask her later. everybody send good vibes to my baby sister so she doesn't have to have any emergency surgery. I kinda feel like, emergency surgery, personally, but. and when I originally took her to the A&E I took her to the nicest, nearest one, not the hospital with the best food, necessarily. but fuck, I haven't stayed in that hospital since I was in rehab, maybe they've improved on the culinary front. and my mom was going to go with me to the other hospital because I have 1 hour of PT and 1 hour of acupuncture, but naturally better she should go with my sister.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 7:32 PM
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Good luck, alameida's sister!

I've been telling people about the former site of Plato's Retreat for years, but most seem more impressed by the fact that Houdini used to live on East 113th St.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 8:18 PM
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Maybe it was West 113th. I went looking for the building once.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 8:34 PM
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Yes, good luck.


Posted by: X.Trapnel | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:03 PM
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the authorities are so gay.

You know, sound the "no sense of humor" alert, but I've heard that phrase for like thirty years and I don't think it's cute, even in a hipster-racist "everyone knows I don't mean it" way.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:16 PM
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The soup special is cream of sum yung gai.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:39 PM
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Wrong cuisine, racist.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:48 PM
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The Mineshaft is all about fusion.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:51 PM
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Cambridge is going in the right direction, the Manray is reopening in a space formerly occupied by a Blockbuster video.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 9:59 PM
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sound the "no sense of humor" alert

Or you could cue the video where Louis CK gets schooled on "faggot"


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 04-10-13 10:17 PM
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The clip in 11 is very good. (Though the etymology doesn't seem well-sourced.)


Posted by: X.Trapnel | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 12:18 AM
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So if we have a romantic or legal problem now we have to Ask the Waiter (ATW)?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 12:44 AM
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now we have to Ask the Waiter (ATW)

Yes, and instead of the analogy ban now everything must be couched as an extended metaphor with pets.


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 1:51 AM
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If only it was a Cantonese restaurant we could Ask the Chow Mein Shaft.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 2:32 AM
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6: especially since a more accurate complaint would be that, in this case, the authorities are being not nearly gay enough.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 2:33 AM
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I, also used to live on 113th street. the W one, two different buildings.

mr. smearcase: OK, you're right. I'll stop.

fucking. the. argh, they're giving their other treatment options one more try, and then maybe it's "remove your entire lower intestine" day tomorrow. I was like...isn't she using that colon, if: improperly? and the doctors were all like, nah, you get all your nutrients absorbed by your small intestine and your colon just lazes around absorbing water. we can chop all that shit out, hook your small intestine up to your rectum, and everything is fine. until your horrible genetic ailment that's causing laxity in all the ligaments of your body goes buck-wild on your small intestine, and then we got nothing.

I canceled all my hospital stuff to go with my sister because my mom was out of commish. it's like three tent-poles of feeble, trying to keep each other up. that ain't never going to work nohow. I suggested this analogy earlier and then banned myself suggested the only way we could succeed would be to use my children as rawhide strips.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 2:34 AM
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16: that was my whole fucking point! I was going for the cheap joke or I wouldn't have said it, jesus.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 2:35 AM
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I promise every motherfucking one of you: when I say something unjust and hurtful to you, that shit is going to be funny. I care enough to be ruthless and emotionally gutting with my own family in search of hilarity or, at the very least, one-upsmanship that arrives with a single, heart-stopping 'ha!' before tears dim the eyes. you people are like family to me.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 2:41 AM
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Somehow I was disappointed that this turned out to be an actual article with lots of illustrations, instead of a "Before and after" slideshow. What has the internet done to my mind?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 5:27 AM
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20: I was pleased with the extant article, but still wanted more photos. I'm pretty sure some photos of naked people were taken at some of those clubs, sometime, ever. and why was there not even a single photo from inside the mineshaft? (insert obligatory reference to the gayatollah abu-labs)* also hilarious: michael musto refers to "the gays." that would be weird even if you weren't rather famously gay, but...?

*is the gayatollah abu-labs, and/or his superkoranic fellatio powers, no longer funny?


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 6:03 AM
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FWIW I have chewed out close friends for this usage. I'm not just being a phat prik.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 6:04 AM
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21: No, argh, it's fine. "So gay" meaning lousy just has a history, I think, and is something people are loath to give up. I heard some rotten little rich girl on the Upper West Side who I'm sure has never kicked in the skull of a homosexual call something "so gay" and had to sit there and think if it is publicly acceptable for a 40-year-old guy to read a 13-year-old for filth loudly in Zabar's. I just thought "can you really not think of another way to say this that doesn't make someone sitting nearby irritably relive the million times someone incrementally more likely to have kicked in the skull of a homosexual said it in his presence?"

I am really not sitting around waiting to correct people for saying something that offends my gauzy, diaphanous sensibilities. KK?


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 6:11 AM
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I don't know, I mean, sure, fuck the authorities, but it seems like most of this happened in the 80s and early 90s. The article also mentions AIDS as a cause contributing to the death of sex clubs. I think Guiliani wasn't the mayor back then.

The article says that the last of these places closed in 2002. Don't ask me how I know this, but I gather that the Internet has bad for the sex industry.

And then there's the fact that homosexuality is not nearly as stigmatized as it was 30 years ago. I assume bathhouses are less popular places for gay guys to meet now that they can meet anywhere, and eventually be introduced to each others' parents.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 6:38 AM
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She probably had a knife at a place as rough as Zabar's.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 6:39 AM
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(Though the etymology doesn't seem well-sourced.)

It is in fact inaccurate.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 8:03 AM
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oh I'm a moron, I wasn't talkin about the michael musto "the gays" thing in that context, only, quite separately that it was hilarious, because who says "the gays"? disjunct from this both in intent and in genuine effect of being a jerk, it was little bitchery to needle about the gayatollah, who is obviously grandfathered into any conceivable rule, and many we probably can't even understand. more importantly, since I don't want to say hurtful things to people, I was right when I said "OK mr. smearcase you're right, I'll cut it out," and wrong when I said anything else. and now I should say also "I'm sorry for being an asshole."

I would never say "that's so gay" out loud, it would sound awful. I did say things were 'retarded' until relatively recently I probably fucked up and said it two weeks ago. I explained to my children when they were younger that it wasn't a nice thing at all to say but I said it sometimes anyway, wrongly, and would they please correct me. they are very effective reminders, when present, and even when they are not the overall effect has been good (though imperfect, see sup.) I guess bérubé convinced me of the hurtfulness? my children learn mandarin swear words from their fellow-students. many of these, unfortunately, are totally racist. (the students and the words, actually.)


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 8:17 AM
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Oh hey, my buddies and I cut class and visited Show World Center 25 or so years ago.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 11:58 AM
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I assume bathhouses are less popular places for gay guys to meet now that they can meet anywhere

Less popular surely, but still extant and serving their historic function. A friend of mine joined one* and was shocked at how sex-oriented it was, including big bowl of condoms in pretty much every room.

* I can't recall why he joined, if not for sex. Maybe it includes a gym? But anyway, the point of his story is that he wasn't anticipating a 70s-style bathhouse, but it pretty much was.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 04-11-13 12:06 PM
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* I can't recall why he joined, if not for sex. Maybe it includes a gym?

Seems like the only plausible explanation.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-12-13 2:48 PM
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In the New World Order, co-ed bathhouses, or even just one of them with just one chick, please.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 04-12-13 2:52 PM
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30: Shower/locker room is the only other option I can think of - he needs to take 2 buses from his home to his work, so a way station would be useful. But I'm baffled after the fact.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 04-12-13 3:56 PM
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30: Shower/locker room is the only other option I can think of - he needs to take 2 buses from his home to his work, so a way station would be useful. But I'm baffled after the fact.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 04-12-13 3:56 PM
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