Marlen Esparza is my idol

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 01:00:00 +0000

It's been some time since I've had an idol, and by “some time” I mean the days when I woke up and kissed Shawn Cassidy's face on the cover of Tiger Beat. Luckily, Debbie Harry took over that role, filling my soul with a drive to create and the courage to be myself. But I got distracted by life and a few years went by – say, 30 -- before I found myself on the verge of T-shirt-donning worship. Now, my Facebook pic has been changed to that of a young woman wearing a red gown and a wide fight stance, her jab holding an invisible opponent at bay, right fist cocked back and ready to throw a cross punch — a fast cross, a hard cross, a beautiful cross. This girl can box like demon. I worship the mat she shuffles on.

I first discovered Marlen Esparza on a CNN special called “In Her Corner.” I watched it and then watched it again, crying through the whole thing. Marlen is from Houston, Texas, and she is part of the first women's Olympic team in the first year that women’s boxing is an Olympic sport. She's hit me in the solar plexus. I just love watching her train. Man she's fast. Pow, pow, pow, pow! Sounds like a machine gun.

Ask a call girl

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:07:00 +0000

I assumed the Showtime series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" was yet another hackneyed, over-the-top hooker story intended to shock the masses. But by the second episode, I was addicted. The imported British comedy, which ended its first season on Monday night, has proved well crafted and witty, keeping the harsh and gritty edges of London rather than presenting it in Vaseline-smeared Playboy soft focus.

As a high-class call girl named Belle, the excellent Billie Piper is young and handsome but also a bit worn-out looking, as we might imagine her to be. Though the show is sexy -- with plenty of unblinking bedroom romps -- it is also funny and perhaps even, dare we say it, informative, with juicy tidbits about a taboo and complicated life. Who doesn't wonder what the life of a call girl is like?

And yet, how accurate is it, really? Some of Belle's clients are unbelievably handsome. At one point, she enlists her (darn hot) ex-lover/best friend, played by Iddo Goldberg, into a client-requested foursome. By the time Belle had one of her regular clients (also her accountant) wearing a leather thong and licking her toilet after a request for some S&M action, I had to wonder -- how much dramatic license was being taken? There was only one way to find out: I needed to talk to some experienced call girls.

Salon.com > Ondine Galsworth

Marlen Esparza is my idol

Ask a call girl