Always true to his word, Bear took me to a strip club last night to drown out my sorrows. Adventuring with Bear is always a surreal experience, and it usually starts out at some little known Thai, Vietnamese, or Hawaiian mini-chain with excellent food and questionable service. As such, if you’re on a tight budget and ever have the chance to stop at Thai Original BBQ in South San Francisco, I would recommend it. Don’t expect candles and piano players, but do expect to be full.
We stopped by a kung fu academy somewhere in the depths of the city after dinner to pick up some more boys. The granite steps of the building led into a workout room complete with a raised boxing ring, weight machines, and a large rubber matted surface with kick bags. Everywhere there was intricate gold and white wall and crown molding, granite, and windows soaring to the ceilings. “There’s a vault door?” I said to Bear. “Yeah,” he said, “this place was converted from a bank to a kickboxing school.” Inside the vault the staff had set up a changing/locker room for the clientele. It reminded me of the 1920s style converted schoolrooms in Pittsburgh that now sold as luxury condominiums, complete with the original blackboards running the length of the living room walls.
We headed back to the cars after gathering all the attendees and drove through neighborhood after neighborhood of sometimes glitzy and sometimes depressed nightclubs, bars, and strip joints. “That place is a ghetto,” Bear pointed out as we cruised downhill through a yellow light. “Oh, that’s ghetto too, and that, that’s ghetto.” I looked over at him briefly. “But this place we’re going, this is a gentleman’s club.” I didn’t suspect I’d actually meet any gentlemen, but the crowd I was with was cordial enough so I didn’t care.
Somewhere on Howard Street, Bear had free passes to what his friends dubbed an upscale club. I’m not sure what I envisioned would be going on inside, but it wasn’t anything that extraordinary. I ended up the only individual in our group of six guys and one woman watching the show. “Wow, she’s very athletic,” I said to Bear, who looked briefly over at what I was pointing out then started telling me a story about a bar fight he’d been in. “Great, now you made me look over there, and she’s gonna come over here,” he said. I continued staring. She should consider Zumanity, I thought to myself as the girl hung upside down from a vertical pole then slid down it spinning with her legs outstretched. “That was totally amazing,” I said to the air, as the guys downed shots while I peered around their raised glasses.
The music and decor could only be called cheesy. While it was clear someone had spent a lot of time and money thinking about the setup, it didn’t mean any taste was involved. Aside from the bubble fountain and badly placed fog machine that kept obscuring the dancers, there was a huge piece of red neon wall art depicting the Golden Gate Bridge, along with a flickering burned out section. The dancers, on the other hand, varied in taste, and it was clear they picked out their own outfits and “themes.” The unifying element appeared to be the little metal lunchbox purses they all carried and the sky high 6″ platform shoes with the clear sole and heel. Since most guys I meet claim to be 5’10″ and are really all 5’7″, I can’t imagine that a little 5’2″ Asian girl who weighs about a dollar five with clothes on and wearing 6″ shoes is going to contribute to a short man’s already shaky self-esteem. But what do I know. Maybe it would only matter if they were trying to date these women, which they’re not.
At least, I think they’re not. One of the dancers came down from the stage in her frilly black and magenta outfit and sat with our group, looking at her cell phone with two of the guys. It became clear to me that far from being some random half naked girl, she had some past history with at least one person in the group. I wonder if guys dating strippers is like girls dating sports stars. I assume one does it for the public attention and not the stimulating intellectual conversation. I did wonder what all those ladies were saying to the suited and tied men near the front of the stage, but it’s unlikely it was as academic as I imagined. As everyone in my group became more and more incoherent, I perused the ladies and wondered why they were here, what they did for a living outside of this joint, what they hoped to accomplish with this money. What did I hope to accomplish? I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t dancing naked either.
Bear knew the waitress who supplied our table with endless glasses of liquor. She was an exotic little Asian girl wearing a cute half tux with a bikini bottom and cuffs. “She makes a ton working here,” Bear said, “and all she has to do is serve drinks.” “I just came back from a shoot in Hawaii,” she said, “under the waterfalls. I might go to Miami next week!” She was beaming — a full row of perfect white teeth flashed in the dark. I hadn’t shot in forever. I guess it was something I did to pass the time last year, and I had since fallen out of it after not being sure what to do with the pictures other than say “Yeah, once I looked like this.”
I left around midnight, before the real ruckus started and before I was too tired to make the long trek back to the burbs and mundania. If I ever wondered for a split second what it was like to a stripper, I decided that it was much too cold to be working naked in San Francisco, and now my curiosity is forever satisfied.
