I was walking around Civic Center yesterday, enjoying the fine weather, when it occured to me to drop into the Market Street Cinema. I hadn't been there in years, since the changing of the guard, and I was curious whether reports of the MSC's demise were true. Besides, I needed to piss but didn't want to piss on the sidewalk like the locals.I always liked it that the MSC is not some hole in the wall, but a real theater with an entrance, lobby, balcony, and downstairs bathrooms. You pay for your ticket where generations of San Francisco moviegoers used to buy their Milk Duds. It cost $20 to get in at 2:00 yesterday. The old Hispanic lady who used to take tickets is gone, probably the victim of cost cuts.
The downstairs bathroom is exactly the same. It still smells like three-decades' worth of Lysol. And the stairs are still steep and the handrail is still there to help drunkards get down the stairs without falling.
Blast from the past: As soon as I entered the theater proper, I was assaulted by three dancers asking if I'd been there before and whether I wanted to go to the back for an erotic interlude. However, none grabbed my cock like the old days. Thinking of Tony Parker and his amazing ability to cut through the Cavaliers defense, I squeezed past the three dancers ("I want to look around, I just got here") and sat down. Had they pick-pocketed me? I checked.
The theater looks smaller. The passage along the back where you used to be able to stand and survey the action is gone, boarded up, probably because there isn't much action to survey.
Totals at 2:05 yesterday: Six dancers, two patrons.
The other guy, hands folded on lap, looked like a middle-aged Presbyterian minister, and he was seated several rows back, which left me the sole person at stage-side, an onerous responsibility. I put $2 charity dollars on stage. I felt bad for the girl dancing to a nearly empty house, and one song later, I put $2 more charity dollars on the stage.
I would've put more dollars on the stage but neither this dancer or the next ventured into the seats for my one-on-one personal gratification. There must be a policy against dancers leaving the stage. Being this charitable, being the only man at stage-side and the de facto only man in the house, didn't I deserve better?
The next dancer elicited $4 charity dollars from me.
The two dancers performed to these six songs: "This Is Fucking on Cocaine," "Bad Girlfriend," "Hurt Me from Behind," "Give Me That Nasty," "Sex Me," and "You Do Me." I'm really losing patience with this hip-hop shit.
I think they installed a new sound system. The sound seemed clearer. They also installed a smoke machine that blows smoke on the right side of the stage between each dancer's second and third song. Why then? It's an MSC mystery.
Not willing to spend any more charity dollars, I headed to the rear of the theater. Immediately four scantily clad women stood and headed my way like desert wanderers toward a man with a canteen. One of them was georgous, a Cambodian I found out later. Because lap dances were being sold at two songs for $25 instead of the normal one song for $20 (a sign as you enter tells you the price of lap dances), I plumped for a two-fer with the Cambodian.
Only it wasn't so much a lap dance as an opportunity for me to inspect her from close-up. She had beautiful deep rich dark skin and a tight body but gave a lackluster lap dance.
I left, dodging the maneuvers of two dancers as I headed toward the door. The Presbyterian minister now had the place to himself and I hope he made good use of it. I spent $20 + $4 + $4 + $25 = $53. On Market Street, it was still nice and hot with no wind blowing.
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