Crazy Legs and his Mom

Alright, time for Part II of the Krista Spends Her Lunch Break With Crazy Legs Conti.

OK, where did I leave off. I was just meeting Legs in his office slash bunker of booze. He really does work in a room filled with alcohol. He says this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only does he work in a room filled with liquor but the room to the left of his office is the refrigerated unit filled to the brim with Robert's steaks, and the room behind his is the stripper's locker room. And Legs can't access any of it. The girls usually don't arrive until his shift is over and the steaks and alcohol are meant for paying customers only. So close, yet so far.

The first place Legs showed me was the walk-in refrigerator around the corner from his office. The first thing I noticed was the gi-normous Methuselah (yes, that is the actual name) bottles of Champagne. They were the size of a 4 year old! I laughed and asked if those were ever opened, thinking they were maybe for show, but Legs said he actually has a hard time keeping them in stock. He tells me of this young guy whose father is some big whig somewhere. Apparently this kid comes in almost once a week and orders one of these huge bottles. Wouldn't you be pissed if you had some stupid kid spending all of your hard earned money on 4 year old kid sized bottles of champagne and lap dances! If he were my kid I would have him shot...seriously shot.

So, back to the tour. Legs then ushers me into a locker room. It reminds me of a stripped down(no pun intended) version of my high school gym locker room. Bare bones. Fluorescent lights, no mirrors, and small. Not exactly what I had imagined, although movies really play a part in creating my imagined stripper locker room. Don't you think of those mirrors with exposed round bulbs with boas and make-up scattered around the room? The only thing that hinted at the locker rooms users were the names written on masking tape...names like Sapphire, Peaches, and Topaz. I hope to God these are their stage names. Seriously people, if you name your kid Sapphire you might as well buy them a g-string and a pole on their 10th birthday.

Crazy is showing me the locker room when he picks up a pair of clear heels. The kind of heels you would never see on anyone other than someone dancing topless. He tells me they are in lost and found. This strikes me as so funny and immediately makes me wonder what else you would find in this club's lost and found. Perhaps that should be the topic for another article.

A bright pink stairwell leads up from the locker room to the side of the main floor of the club. As we entered I was taken aback....it was so plush and nice...and I couldn't see a pole! It seemed more like the Supper Club in the 50's than a place where hot chicks show men their labias. (Sidenote, PEC is not a nude club...only topless girls here, I just couldn't resist writing labia.) The only thing giving the place away for what it truly is are the photo collages behind the bar of naked women. They reminded me of the photos suburban hair stylists have on their walls, except these girls are mostly wet and showing their ass.

The whole time Crazy Legs is telling me everything he knows about the club. It's so interesting. I have to admit, a part of me is dying to go back there when the place is open. Liz and I talked about it and the thing we kept coming back to is - what do you wear to a strip club? Honestly, as a women, you don't want to wear anything too revealing lest you are mistaken for someone on staff. But you would still want to be cute, right. Liz and I decided we would wear very classy shift dresses with pearls. Classy and understated...now we need to talk Crazy Legs into coming with us, because you know he would be a good guy to go out with. Crazy Legs, are you listening? Liz and I love us some tequila shots and I'm buying.

So anyway, back to the tour. Legs tells me all of the strippers wear evening gowns on the floor. Most of their money is made on lap dances and private room rentals. The girls are actually sub-contractors. THEY pay the club to work there. I think Legs told me it was around $150 for a Friday or Saturday night. They can get about $500 to $1000 for an hour in a private room. This is some major bucks. $1000 for an hour! Shit. Maybe these girls are the smart ones here. I have to work a week for a thousand bucks. That's 40 hours of excel spreadsheets and pushy clients. These girls show a boob and do a little shimmy for an hour and they have a cool grand in their hands. Damn.

Legs tells me the real pretty girls are the cocktail waitresses. I should have asked him what they wear, cause something tells me it's not a white button down shirt and black pants.

Upstairs houses Robert's Steakhouse. One of the best steakhouses in NYC. I had heard of it before, but I never knew it was in a strip club. That has to be a male paradise, you can get a lap dance while chewing filet mignon and drinking scotch. Perhaps I need to carry around steak when I go out...perhaps then I could find myself a boyfriend.

As we are leaving Crazy Legs hands me the dvd for his documentary. We then talk about his assorted other jobs, such as nude model for FIT students, window washer, and film production crew. I think I could talk to Legs for hours. He is just one of those guys who takes everything you can out of life. I doubt he would ever turn down a request that could lead to an adventure. And that's probably what has lead him to his weird and wonderful career as a competitive eater.

As I'm leaving the club to go back to my office a delivery guy asks Legs to open up one of the side entrance doors. I give Crazy a hug and walk toward the street. As I'm crossing the delivery guy yells and asks me if he could get inside now. I yell back, "Yeah the door is open, go on in." At the same moment this homeless guy is crossing the road and with a smile on his face yells over to me, "Hey can I get in too." It makes me laugh and I yell back, "Man, I don't think so." Something tells me he wouldn't be so interested in getting in if he knew the place was empty save for a fully dressed Crazy Legs.

Liz and I just watched Crazy's documentary tonight and it's excellent. We loved it. I hope it gets some more air play. It doesn't seem right that this is sitting on a shelf when The Cutting Edge gets played once a week.

Eat all you can Crazy Legs. Thank you again.

Ah, sometimes life hands you a little golden nugget of goodness. And I was handed such a tiny nugget yesterday. This little chunk o'delight was given to me by Crazy Legs Conti, competitive eater and man about town. I shall explain - Liz and I wanted to get our greasy hands on his documentary and he graciously offered to make the hand-off at his place of work, which happens to be a few blocks from my own office. This may sound like a mundane, run of the mill, meeting...however if you presume such a thing you obviously aren't familiar with Crazy Legs, or Mr. Legs as I like to call him. No, Crazy Legs happens to be the Day/Purchasing Manager for the Penthouse Executive Club. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like. It's a strip club. Legs lured me in with emails leading up to our meeting promising views of a Space Age and Byzantine Era Red rooms. How could a girl resist?

I don't know about most of you, but as a straight female I've never ventured into a strip club before. I have my own boobies and have never felt the urge to see any more than my own two. And somehow watching my male friends get lap dances or salivating over fake boobs and lip implants never seemed like my idea of a good time. But I was curious to get this behind the scenes tour, especially from Crazy Legs.

When the day arrived for the tour I found myself wearing a conservative pinstriped suit due to my day job and felt severely over dressed as I opened the door to the club. Part of me felt like I should only be wearing clear heels and pasties, but since I don't really have the pastie body type I thought better of it.

I walked in and a young women was cleaning the entrance. I was thinking, surely they don't call him Crazy Legs. If I walk in and ask for Crazy Legs I'm gonna be escorted out of the place. So I thought, I'll just ask for Conti, play it safe. So I ask the woman where I could find Conti and she looked at me like I just asked when the dancing snow peas show up. She looked completely perplexed...but I kept on. "Conti," I repeated. She kept looking at me funny until she goes, "who, wait, you mean Crazy Legs?"

Of course, Crazy Legs...that's exactly who I need.

So I'm shown the way down into the depths of the club until I'm pointed into a room filled with alcohol. I thought they were confused about where I was supposed to be going until I looked through the bottles to see bits of dreadlocks peeking out from behind some Petron. There he was...Crazy Legs.

He welcomed me warmly and immediately stood up and began the tour like a seasoned professional guiding tourists through Universal Studios. I don't think this was his first Penthouse Executive Club tour.

Part II to come tomorrow.

*Interesting side note, as I spelled checked this document in blogspot it stopped on dreadlocks, and in its stead offered - teratology. Um, which is the study of birth defects....do you think the good people of blogger have a thing against dreadlocks?

There is a sad sad show on television. It's sad...pathetic...and makes you embarrassed to be a human being. Do you want to know what it is? Here is a hint -


It's not about this guy.











Thomas Edison





It's about this one.


The show is called American Inventor and it is the saddest (in all sense of the word) show on television. Over and over again some sad sack is dragged out and lays all their hopes and dreams out in front of four dumbass judges who tell them if the thing they've invented and given up marriages, children, houses, jobs, and life in general has been worth it. And you don't have to be a Nobel prize winner to realize that most of these inventions are not worth it. At all. And these people look crestfallen. They have just been told the last 20 years have been wasted on an idea no one will ever want...ever.

You feel sorry for these people and pissed off at the same time. Sorry because they really did believe these inventions are really going to change the world and pissed off because they REALLY thought these inventions were going to change the world. DUMBASSES. Ugh.

I won't watch that show again and neither should you. Trust me. I'm saving you an hour of agony. As for me, I'm gonna turn my tv off (gasp) and listen to my cd player..with electricity...two inventions that weren't crap.

Love,
Krista

Our Corned Beef and Cabbage coverage is posted. I hope you like it.

This made me laugh.

Hey, remember Margaret? She's pissed someone has eaten more spoonbread than her. Pissed.

We are back! I just walked in the door after a whirlwind trip to Boston for the Corned Beef and Cabbage eating contest. I don't want to say too much because I have to save some of my creative juices for the article Liz and I are working on about the whole deal, but suffice to say, it rocked pretty hard and three of my favorite eaters won top prizes (Patrick Bertoletti, Badlands Booker, and Tim "Eater X" Janus). We will have pictures and details about it all over at Digest by tomorrow night, so keep your eyes open for that business.

So now I'm home after an afternoon in a rented car. Ugh, don't get me wrong, I love road trips. I put them up there with a fucking awesome live show (think Elvis Costello performing Angels want to wear my red shoes all alone on a stage with no electricity, yes this really happened at a show I attended a few years ago, freaking cool as shite (I'm using shite to pay homage to the fact it's St. Patrick's Day today) (are all these parenthetical asides annoying yet...can you even remember what I was talking about...yeah me either...oh yeah road trips.) So anyway, yes I love road trips, however I'm feeling so antsy right now. It was only 4 hours in a car, but right now I just don't know what to do with all my excess energy. It's not even energy really...it's more like pent up hostility/playfulness/feeling like I want to cause some trouble. Car rides just make me feel like I need to start some shit(e). I think I annoyed the ever silent Josh to no end today and probably Liz and Jay to boot. At one point Liz yelled at me,"Do you have your seat belt on!" Turned to Jay and then said,"Jay is she buckled in?" Like I was a kid who was playing with the door handle and threatening to open the door at 70 miles an hour. haha. I was just feeling the need to annoy. I can't help it. Well, I can, but that's not as much fun.

So now I'm at home, watching saved Wide Open Country music videos and thinking of who I can call and get to come over and entertain me. And yes, I just said I'm watching country music videos. The other day my roommate Davin came in and said, "Uh, Krista, how often do you find yourself watching CMT?" Like if it was more than an hour he was going to have to call someone to take care of me. Let me explain, I don't watch CMT, I just record Wide Open Country which is the alternative 30 minutes the channel gives to artists that aren't singing about their love of tractors and/or the U.S. of A. I'm actually watching a Bobby Bare video right now. How cool is that?

Anyway, like I said, go on over to Digest Saturday night and you will hopefully be able to see what Liz and I were able to get out of or third time covering an eating competition.

So hey boys and girls, I bet you were just thinking to yourself..."I could really go for reading another one of your and Liz's groovy competitive eating articles." Well your wish is soon to be granted because next week we are off to Boston for the corned beef and cabbage competition. Where else would any self respecting competitive eater be a day before St. Patrick's Day? Boston - check, gorging on Americanized versions of Irish food - check.

Liz and I are renting a car and driving up with the Jay (bestest friend and husband of Liz) and Josh (resident silent hottie), renting a hotel room, and getting to Ned Devine's early enough Thursday morning to do our utmost to impersonate an investigative (Dateline, 20/20, Primetime, 48 hours, 60 Minutes) reporter. I wonder if Ned Devine's will start serving green beer before noon? It will be the afternoon in Ireland, right?

This should prove interesting.

So you are all following the Ultimate Blogger competition at Urban Honking right? You aren't? Then why the hell not?

The lovely Zoe is a contestant and last night she came over with Liz and a few others to help bring in the new season of ANTM and say goodbye to the old Project Runway (gasp Chloe?) as well as record her Ultimate Blogger entry*.

*note all you Krista fans (and Jebus knows there are many)...that is me singing back up! Hehe and all the footage was taken in my apartment. Whooo.

According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

Why don't you check it out? Or we cut off your Johnson!