“There are a couple of big changes to the 2009 racing season, which kicks off on Wednesday, July 22. The most noticeable is the reduction of the weekly racing cards from six days to five, leaving the track falling quiet on Mondays.”
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Cheetahs Club & Restaurant
So what if it offers nyotaimori (all-you-can-eat sushi served on a naked woman) in its private Kabuki room? Cheetahs is a real strip club through and through. Think iced urinals and doormen who resemble characters from Boogie Nights—and not ironically, either. The girls here are a tad more desperate than at other clubs (expect to be invited to their weekend DJ gigs) but not pushy, and they don’t mind putting their hands near your crotch during a lap dance. 252 W 43rd St between Seventh and Eighth Aves (212-819-9300, cheetahnyc.com)
Flashdancers
This basement-level space fills up on Friday and Saturday nights, but by day it’s still a popular destination for tourists, businessmen and the odd celeb. Its taxi-top ads, pamphleteers and proximity to Times Square ensure regular foot traffic—including a dozen or so girls looking for jobs each night. The high worker turnover makes for a roomful of the city’s most beautiful transients (with Eastern Europe and South America well represented); a lap dance here is like getting up close with a Renaissance-period statue—a bit cold; and a bit awe-inspiring, if a bit boring for its lack of imperfection and personality. 1674 Broadway between 52nd and 53rd Sts (212-315-5107, flashdancersnyc.com)
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Head Quarters
The slimmer pickings of this loungey club’s “boutique” staff—35 girls on an average night, 75 at most when busy—aren’t a plus for the variety-is-the-spice-of-life type. But HQ’s hospitable staff has a genuine appreciation for repeat customers, making birthday phone calls, doling out promotional freebies like baseball tickets and discounting dinner packages at the upstairs restaurant. Moreover, this is where you go to find women who might not fit into a typical club’s ideals—e.g., between the ages of 30 and 35. On a weeknight, you’ll likely spend more time chatting with the pretty Hungarian after you’ve paid for the lapdance than before—a pleasant bonus if you’re into that “talking” stuff. 552 W 38th St between Tenth and Eleventh Aves (212-967-4646, hqnewyork.com)
Lace
Despite its frilly name, this location of Lace is a no-frills establishment: It’s roughly the size of some other clubs’ bathrooms, and there isn’t even a bar to drink at—just a handful of seats on the cabaret floor and one lonely stripper pole. Of course, what it lacks in flash and velvet it makes up for in intimacy: Don’t be surprised if you catch a nipple in your mouth during a lap dance—the girls here are mighty forward. 689 Eighth Ave at 43rd St (212-765-5047, laceclubs.com)
Penthouse Executive Club
For all the raunch the Penthouse name connotes, this club is remarkably refined—classy is not an ironic description. Catering to well-padded expense accounts (charges show as “Robert’s Steakhouse”) and bonus-laden financial types, the Executive Club crams 19 private rooms—spaces range in size from coffin to a Hell’s Kitchen 3BR, with price tags from $150 to $1,000 an hour—into a deceptively cozy 2.5-level arena. A small stage sits dead center, with two single-occupancy go-go platforms accommodating additional pole dancers upstairs. Lured by VIP expenditures and repeat customers, the city’s most sought-after entertainers perform here—as many as 80 on a weeknight. The net is a bevy of attractive pros—sexy, flirty and experienced veterans of the New York–Las Vegas–Miami megaclub scenes—savvy at parting men from their paychecks. Still, a Jackson is all anyone needs to enjoy a well-practiced caress from a perfectly made-up seductress. 603 W 45th St between Eleventh Ave and West Side Hwy (212-245-0002, penthouseexecutiveclub.com)
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
You might have missed the goods. I am glad I went last June.
Overrun by bankers:
Around October, when the economy went into free fall, a bunch of out-of-work finance guys in their 20s descended on Buenos Aires, where you can have the penthouse, the steak dinners and the bottle service at ridiculous nightclubs and still save money renting out your apartment in New York or London.
Lifestyle arbitrage, baby! The word got out, and the party built on itself, making the fantasy it offered all the more intoxicating: Come spend a month—or four—in Buenos Aires, where you really are a master of the universe, where nights are sleepless and potential business deals are all scams and the clubs teem with unemployed expat bankers looking for their identities in piles of cocaine and the bloodshot eyes of hookers and thieves.
Jesse, a 27-year-old former New York City investment banker, moved to Buenos Aires 11 months ago. In the last few months, he says the trickle has turned into a full spray: On average he meets two new arrivals a week. “There is a huge global migration of newly unemployed bankers to Buenos Aires,” he said. “The funny thing is that most of them claim that they left voluntarily, but none of them can say that while they look you in the eye.” Talk naturally turns toward the Wall Street crash. “There is an instant sense of community,” said Jesse. “If you think about it, losing a high-paying job that you worked your entire life to acquire is a very traumatic experience. I can’t tell you how many emotional conversations I have had discussing how it happened, how you feel about it, what your plans are. Most have decided the industry is over and have no idea what they want to do going forward.”
ON Saturday nights in Buenos Aires, the Miramar cafe crackles with the energy of local families, famished tango dancers and gregarious waiters delivering plates of crisp-skinned sardines, shrimp and fresh oysters. Miramar is in San Cristóbal, a barrio known for its tango dance halls but otherwise off the tourist beat. Local diners come to share generous servings of oxtail soup, rabbit hunter-style or chorizo-laced Spanish frittata. Even with a couple of bottles of malbec and mineral water, the feast seldom tops the equivalent of $15 a person.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
An iconic mural featuring caricatures of more than 100 people – and several fleet-footed horses – who have shaped racing history is now on display at the Del Mar Racetrack.
The renowned racing artist Pierre “Peb” Bellocq installed the mural this week after spending nearly two years on the project.
The 30-foot-long, 6-foot-tall piece depicts legendary crooner Bing Crosby, who founded the racetrack in 1937 at the fairgrounds along with Jimmy Durante and Pat O’Brien, who are also pictured.
About half the people in the mural are living, and some will attend a dedication ceremony July 25.
The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, a private company that has a state contract to operate the annual horse races, commissioned the project to celebrate 70 years of racing. The racetrack was founded in 1937 but it closed for three years during World War II. The 70th season begins July 22.
“We went back and looked at all our history and photographs and looked through our media guides to see who made a mark at Del Mar over the years,” said Joe Harper, president and general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club since 1978.
“We have photographs of all these people scattered around, and now you can see them together,” he said.
The acrylic mural, in the Clubhouse/Turf Club entryway, features many of the glamorous Hollywood stars who frequented the track in its early days, such as Ava Gardner, Betty Grable and Barbara Stanwyck. Others are the actor Robert Taylor and comedian W.C. Fields, both racing fans.
Among the living people depicted are horse trainer Bob Baffert and horse owner Jenny Craig, known for her weight-loss centers, who is pictured next to her late husband, Sid.
Harper himself is depicted wearing sunglasses in the center of the mural above his mother, horse owner Cecilia deMille Harper.
There are also notable horses, including Seabiscuit, who won a match race with Ligaroti in 1938. Dare and Go, who in 1996 beat Cigar – then considered the best horse in the country – is pictured smoking a cigar with a satisfied look on his face.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Police in France have made 26 arrests and recovered a series of stolen rings, necklaces and watches as part of an investigation into last year’s spectacular multimillion-pound robbery at the luxury Paris jewellers, Harry Winston.
The daring heist last December saw a group of robbers, some dressed as women and wearing wigs, steal almost every piece of jewellery on display in the chic boutique. They stuffed diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches into bags as well as emptying two backdoor storage cases before getting away within minutes. Items worth about €85m were stolen – the biggest jewellery robbery ever in France, and one of the world’s biggest gem heists.
It emerged last night that investigators had been monitoring suspects in and around Paris in recent months. On Sunday, they learnt that some foreign nationals were due to arrive to collect some of the stolen jewels to sell them on. The police swooped and made arrests on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.
There are several women among the suspects, who are aged between 22 and 67. Police said 26 people, including a security guard at the jewellery shop and several known gangsters, had been placed under investigation.
They are accused of having taken part in the raid or the preparations for it, or of having helped sell the jewels. Police also recovered weapons, as well as €250,000 in cash.
Originally, members of the Pink Panthers gang that operates out of the Balkans, and which has been involved in other high-profile jewel thefts, were suspects, but they appear to have been ruled out, according to police.
The robbery, carried out in daylight a few weeks before Christmas, had led police to suspect experienced professionals and “real pros”. The gang appeared to have a detailed knowledge of the boutique’s lay-out, knew the location of supposedly top-secret storage boxes, and referred to staff by their first names.
The American jewellery boutique on Paris’s chic Avenue Montaigne has been the target of previous heists. In October 2007, armed robbers made off with jewels worth more than €10m.
The late actor Richard Burton bought jewels from the store for his wife Elizabeth Taylor; the late shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis also bought an engagement ring there for the former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
