Live Nude Girls Unite!

Smart Boris: The accidents of time and space could have thrown me into the world anywhere; somewhere, some thousand-armed deity chose San Francisco, the only city where buses run better than cars, Asians in big pink sombreros serve you fresh but unspeakable chowders, and strippers--ahem, exotic dancers--put aside petty conflicts over shoes and shiny lotions in order to form a union. I couldn't be prouder, and I mean it. By the way, the stripper-dancer you see above actually works at the Lusty Lady, that petri dish of a gentlemen's club (while we're euphemizing) where these Hoffa babes won their novel and frivolous prizes, like not getting fired for being black or, and I like this one especially, in the event that you miss a shift, not having to find a replacement with breasts at least as big as yours. Seriously, that was a rule there. So if you want to meet that sexy, bookkeeping strumpet, take Pacific Avenue to the intersection of Kearny and Columbus. Stop at 1033 Kearny, just east of Chinatown. If you fell in the ocean, you went too far. Or not far enough. I'm sure China, the real China, has plenty of strippers too. Just don't get lost in Chinatown. No strippers there.

As for the movie, it belongs in that grim category of good stories with bad storytellers. Never let a lesbian stripper-comedian who failed out of grad school but who keeps mentioning that she could have finished if she wanted to, you know, because the paper she wrote on Foucault gives her wicked street cred, yeah, never let that woman write and direct and produce a documentary about the hugely important civil rights agenda she pushed through at her favorite titty bar, the one she works between stand-up gigs and conferences in honor of Simone de Beauvoir. Somebody else should have made this movie, because it really is fascinating material, but more than that, it matters. Those working in the sex trade need the protection, leverage and manic corruption that unions offer. Just ask Frank Sobotka.

Long live labor! And long live that unashamed weirdo in the basement booth who looks like my fifth grade art teacher! You're all right, you brazen pervert.