"A Friday Night of Booze and Sex Shows in San Francisco"
Date: 02 Aug 97
Ok, so maybe it wasn't your typical Friday night, but in Bagdad by The Bay, it's pretty much anything goes.
Kate and I had lucky 13 on the 28th. We were stuck in Napa, and didn't get to celebrate righteously, although I learned yet again that I've married well. For my present, Kate presented me with two sixers of Hornsby's Cider. Kind of a light, refreshing beverage, easily consumed in large quantities. Happy anniversary.
So Friday night, we said "lets go into the City and take Jim and Paula." Jim and I have had many evenings of excessive consumption, and when we get Kate and Paula involved, the evenings usually devolve into serious drinking until the wee hours. The last time we got together was for the Holyfield/Tyson fight. Thank Ghod for replays, because the whole ear thing would have been missed had we been at the fight itself.
J&P showed up at 2pm Friday. We piled into their car and headed for the City. After checking into the Hotel, we cabbed it to the WashBAG (aka the Washington Bar and Grill, home to many fine journalists including the late Herb Caen), to wet our whistles. Pilsner Urquell on tap, and I recall observing a couple of Martinis being prepared in front of mine eyes. A short walk led us to an outdoor bar of types, which called for a bottle of Zinfandel and some appetizers.
Then to The Stinking Rose. The last time we ate there, Kate and I were afflicted with maybe the worst case of Monkey Butt known to mankind. And maybe it was just me. It only seemed like a roomful of people breaking the most foul wind known to mankind every five minutes like clockwork. Farting? Garlic? Yeah, we ate garlic, a couple of pounds worth, since that's all they serve. And Chianti. A couple of bottles with dinner, after pre-dinner drinks. Maybe it was the booze or the company, but the evil wind failed to blow. Just as well...
North Beach in SF is one of those places that you have to go to, sort of like Mardi Gras, or the Super Bowl, or a tornado. Sure, you can see it on TV, but until you experience it, it's one of those things that you still have to stretch the imagination to figure out what the attraction is. Home to Carol Doda, sex shows, barkers at the door, a mini-circus of the strange, with enticingly vague and shadowy things occurring in the haze just beyond the edge of vision.
WTF, we entered the underground world of steamy sex shows. Pay to get into one, and there are other establishments that let you in for free, on the strength of a little green wristband declaring to the immediate world that you are "paying" clientele. Dollar lap dances. The naked dancers are a second rate distraction from the hardest of porn flicks being projected on the big screen. Freaks of nature and feats of athletic and physical prowess, captured on film and on display for any who care to look.
Naturally, this thing calls for serious booze. The fuck shops don't serve alcohol, but the soft drinks are "on the house" and the proprietors don't seem to concern themselves much with Beam and Bacardi making their way into our cokes, courtesy of the corner liquor store. Fluorescent glasses, black lights, high grade booze, mirrored walls, big beat music, naked dancers. The cotton caress of alcohol, cut with the hard edge of open sexuality.
A parade of dancers that seem to be more interested in Kate and Paula than in Jim and Sully. I'm observing free lap dances for the women. I'm also noticing the dancers' hands freely straying over the women's bods, and hearing comments like "Hey, these are REAL!" Dancers offering to take Paula and Kate into the "back room" for special dances. Jim and I being refused entrance to the dances, unless we pony up $20 each. THEY ought to be paying US, observes Jim. We'd retire, I respond.
The dancers: none of them are stunning, but all of them are erotic. An act for money? Simulated masturbation, or for real? Faux nipple and clitoral erections? Paula notices that every tittie bar has a common prop: a chrome pole. What if they didn't have the pole, she asks. They'd have rails, sez I.
Fuck it, that's why there's more than one place to check out. We freely roam the streets, generally heading to the next club, stopping off at bars along the way. A round of Black Russians bought for our table by an old Hispanic guy, who wanted to dance with the women. Muchas gracias, Pablo. What a fucking life.
And a great thing about cabs. Other than the fact that there's no way to get a DUI, the bastard Cabbies seem to have no regard for curbs, traffic cones, or other vehicles. Front end alignment? Fuck it. And those other cars can just get the hell out of the way. Screw 'em, they should have been quicker. Hell, a metal bumper will stand up to a few cones. We missed the trench, didn't we? And the light wasn't all the way red when we entered the intersection. Well worth the $10 for the pointers on driving technique.
All things said, there's nothing quite like a night on the town in a city that offers up eroticism and caters to drunks, especially when accompanied by a couple of highly attractive women.
-Sully