Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 23, 1993 TAG: 9307230117
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mark LAYMAN
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
"THE TORTURE GARDEN (FORMERLY BONDAGE-A-GO-GO) PRESENTS A SUMMER SLUMBER PARTY. COME ON DOWN IN YOUR PAJAMAS . . . BED SHEETS . . . UNDERWEAR . . . SKIN . . . EXOTIC DANCERS GET IN FREE."
A crumpled copy of the San Francisco Bay Guardian lay on the sidewalk. Under a stark black-and-white photo of one of those "exotic dancers," with stringy hair, a puffy face and dark shadows under her eyes, was this headline: "Lap-dance Blues - Strippers search for respect at the Market Street Cinema."
And in a storefront nearby, there was a poster for a play previewing at the Cable Car Theater, "Free Will and Wanton Lust."
Melinda, usually unflappable, shook her head and sighed. "There's sex in the theaters. Sex in the newspapers. Sex in the bars. Sex on the streets. Everything is sex, sex, sex. No wonder everybody here is so squirrelly."
She's a small-town girl from Idaho who's survived in San Francisco for five years. But even a first-time visitor doesn't have to look hard to see why some call this city "Sodom by the Sea."
Yet, there's an ambivalence toward sex here, probably because the specter of AIDS looms over every bacchanal.
There are constant reminders of the epidemic, even if you stay out of the Castro, the city's predominantly gay neighborhood.
An advertisement plastered on a bus-stop kiosk near Golden Gate Park shows two shirtless men embracing. They're wrapped in an American flag and holding a condom.
Every Wednesday, the San Francisco Examiner runs "The Toll" and updates the statistics: 10,869 dead here since 1981.
There were pledge cards in every bookstore and restaurant for an AIDS walk-a-thon.
And that Bay Guardian cover story warned that many of the lap-dancers at the Market Street Cinema shoot heroin and carry HIV.
But the city's lusts are untamed.
It all began at the Condor Club, a bar in the North Beach neighborhood kitty-cornered from City Lights, the bookstore made famous by Jack Kerouac and the "beats" of the 1950s.
The Condor claims to have been the world's first topless bar. The waitresses have covered up and it calls itself a "bistro" now. But the walls are lined with photos of strippers who performed there in the '60s and '70s, like Carol Doda and Rita Ricardo, and framed newspaper accounts of the bar's battles with the authorities.
The Condor is spoken of with a sort of fondness - the way longtime Roanokers reminisce about Papa Joe's. The Condor was a classy place in its day. Its famous blinking nipple sign was almost as well-known a symbol of the city as the Golden Gate Bridge. Strippers descended from the ceiling on a grand piano - until one tragic night when the piano player was squashed against the rafters when it rose unexpectedly.
A brisk walk to Polk and O'Farrell, not far from the city government offices, brings you to the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theatre. The Mitchells were the Cecil B. DeMilles of pornography; "Behind the Green Door" was the first and most famous of their big-budget films. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who worked as the theater's night manager while researching a never-written novel, dubbed it "the Carnegie Hall of sex."
Its live shows - for a $25 cover charge and however much you'd care to tip - are legendary among traveling businessmen from the four corners of the globe.
But in recent years, the O'Farrell's luster has dimmed. Insiders now consider the female-run Lusty Lady in North Beach to be the city's premier sex theater.
And there was, of course, the shooting.
Late on the night of Feb. 27, 1991, Jim Mitchell burst into his younger brother Artie's house and fired three bullets through him. Artie had his problems with drinking, drugs and violence, and a jury let Jim off with a voluntary manslaughter conviction.
The reaction of the San Francisco establishment says a lot about the city's love-hate relationship with its seamy side.
Through the years, the cops never let up on the Mitchells and the O'Farrell Theatre. Yet, when the day came for Jim Mitchell to be sentenced for the shooting, the judge had before him letters from San Francisco's mayor, police chief, sheriff and a county supervisor - all urging leniency.
A squirrelly city indeed.
Mark Layman is the night metro editor for this newspaper.
by CNB