Slouching Towards Euphoria: Radio Bar

After bidding adieu to my corporate job that has sustained me through writing my thesis and acquiring teaching experience, I walked into a local bar to toast my former career and my future one. I had walked by Radio many times to get a morning espresso and wondered what the bar was like. No time like the final time.

Radio is a hipster dive bar. It’s not truly a dive, although it’s made up to look like one. Like hipsters themselves, hipster bars have an ironic self-knowledge. The font of the Radio sign is pseudo-Chinese character. The bar has red hanging lanterns and trays with floral designs hanging of the wall. Radio is close to Oakland’s Chinatown, so the motif works well. It’s also painted black and it’s so dark in there that Dick Cheney could get laid.

The bar is a shotgun shack layout with a loft at the end of the bar. The loft has a chain-link fence, which is a nod to Goths or to piggy sex clubs. A mannequin lies on her side on a walkway above the bar. She wears a long slip and looks to the ceiling, perhaps trying to see how the stars are aligned tonight. The seats at the bar are attached to the ground and swivel around. The seats remind me of the bars from the sixties and seventies, the kind of bar you see in Goodfellas, the kind of bar where Joe Pesci kills a made man. In the middle of the bar is a huge column. Either it’s a load-bearing column or it’s a vent. The bottom part of it is covered in square bits of mirror, like a disco ball.

The have a generous supply of Jack Daniels, Makers Mark, and more vodka than you can shake a piroshki at. The bartender made me an excellent Manhattan. A lone, turned-off TV sat on the walkway. I imagine that when they turn it on, it plays cult movies. The bathroom was truly hideous. The smell curled the paint off in strips. The graffiti must have been there for years, including references to the corporation, whose doors I traveled through for the last time a half hour before.

They have DJs here, but there is nowhere to dance. But at hipster places, dancing is not on the menu. DJs come in many forms. The club DJ is pumping a crowded room full of e-bombed dancers. He or she has a headphone in one ear, while staring intently at the turntables. The wannabe club DJ plays bars, where they blast beats and no one is dancing. They just annoy the drinkers, while the bar tries desperately to be hip. The hipster bar DJ spins indie and old rock songs. No one dances. They just say ahh, this guy knows his old rock and indie stuff. I’m guessing Radio Bar DJs are this way.

I like Radio. It’s an unpretentious place with decent drink prices. Oakland, for some bizarre reason, has expensive drinks, but Radio seems like an exception to the rule. The bartender was cool, and the jukebox was well-stacked with great music. The swivel chairs are comfortable. Just be prepared to be blinded when you walk out in the sunshine. The blinding orb will remind you, that you’ve left the cocoon for the cold, bright world.

Bloody Battles in the Comment's Section

The New York Times Dining & Wine section had a humorous article on people getting drunk at expensive high-class restaurants. There were examples of stripping, throwing up, passing out and singing. The article was light and funny and made the top ten emailed story list with ease. Not much of a gloss can be put on the article, but what was really interesting was the comment’s section.

With newspapers being on the internet, people can comment on a story right after reading it. This makes news reporting immediate and interactive. No more waiting for the letters to the editor. Now you can read the reactions in their raw, unspellchecked glory.

The reactions fell into distinct categories. The most popular response was people’s own stories of dealing with drunks at restaurants or their own confessions of drinking a bit too much before dinner arrived. They’re actually pretty boring so I won’t reprint any of those.

Besides the stories, most comments were arguments. The ex-drunks and nags got up on their soap box:

Why is it acceptable to poison oneself with alchol [sic] for any reason?

And this:

Wasn’t the same kind of thing happening in Rome just before it fell?

Yeah, that’s right America is on the decline because people get soused in restaurants. Here’s a guy who was driven from civilization due to these brutes:

I recall similarly creepy scenes at a number of 4-star restaurants, and … This was one reason I lost my taste for those restaurants and hotels — and for that matter gave in to my natural reclusiveness and retired to a hut in the woods!

Perhaps that is for the best for all of us. Hopefully you won’t be making bombs. And then there is the pothead who is far superior by his choice of inebriation:

Alcohol is a legal but deadly drug. As this excellent article clearly shows, judgement [sic] goes right out the window when some people get drunk…At the same time, the far less dangerous drug pot should be legal and therefore provide a safer alternative.

This guy points out alternatives:

If you drink to reduce stress, their are other ways to achieve, including meditation, marshal arts, [sic] sex, sports, nature walks, or RX medications and psychotherapy.

Marshall arts? Sounds like paintings of sheriffs. Of course, there are the smart asses who love to rile people:

Any fool can drive home sober, but it takes real genius to get there safely while drunk.

And this:

I have dined at the finest five-star restaurants the world over. Boorish and drunken behavior are not unique to the corner tavern. After all, alcohol still is the best way to wash down all the pills.

And then there are the deluded, ugly-American arguments:

Public drunkenness among the young, usually a result of binge drinking, is newly epidemic in university towns in France, but drunkenness in good restaurants is in my experience almost unheard of. Middle class French people drink and eat judiciously…More than that, French people think (and I think they are right in this), and you might as well be dining at McDonald’s; [sic] after the third glass the wine drinks the man or woman. Moreover, it is not thought polite to be drunk in public in France. That, they think, is for Brits and Americans.

I’ve encountered many publicly drunk French in France. The French might think being drunk in public impolite, but that doesn’t stop them anymore than it stops us.

Thankfully, most of the comments were for having fun in restaurants. I’ll leave you with this gentleman’s thoughts:

With apologies to all of you who are apalled [sic] at the sight of several inebriates in “your” fine restaurant, I have to say that intoxication is an essential part of the fine dining experience. Vomiting, acting out, and some of the other behavior described here has no place in a fine restaurant, but getting drunk and slightly boisterous does. Simply put, fine meals are a celebration of the ideal of hedonism- if you’re shovelling foie gras [sic] down your gob and chasing it with a rack of lamb, you don’t have the moral high ground from which to condemn those who also like to imbibe fine wines and maybe break out into a song or two.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Daft Punk

Daft Punk tries to answer that age old question: what do you do with a drunken sailor? No, wait, that’s not it. No, they try to answer that conundrum, how do you make two guys playing with synthesizers interesting? The answer: with lots of lights and videos.

Let’s rewind a bit. Daft Punk, a French synthesizer band, played the Berkeley Greek Theater last Friday. I went with a small contingent of friends. First, I stopped off at Henry’s Publick House and Grille. Notice the old tyme spelling. Henry’s was packed with Cal students getting their gills greased. The Guinness pint I ordered came in an American pint glass instead of an English pint glass. The difference is about three ounces. The waitress sheepishly apologized. Publick house of lies is more like it.

The opening band was The Rapture. They were energetic and multi-instrumentalist. They would flit between bass, guitars, keyboards, turntables, and drums. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but they were a great band. They deserved a dark club instead of the fading sunset.

When The Rapture finished their set, the curtains stayed closed for a half hour. Someone (or thing) was spinning records. I assumed Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (this guy has two hyphens in his name!) and Thomas Bangalter were backstage having their pâté and Château neuf de Pape, waiting for darkness to fall.

Daft Punk’s music is abrasive. They especially like a hard shriek of a synthesizer. They also favor repetitive vocal lines, which is commonplace in dance music. Their theme is the love affair/battle between technology and humanity. They’ve had a huge following in Europe for more than a decade. They sold out the Greek, so they are building a following here.

I danced on the cement steps to the right of the band for a while, but went to the top of the amphitheater to get direct view. Daft Punk has an advanced light show, probably the most intricate and expensive since Pink Floyd’s heyday. They stand and toggle switches in a pyramid that has light patterns and videos that play off of it. A grid stands on both sides of the pyramid that lights up in different colors. And behind them is a giant screen. Their robot suits also are lined with lights. Taken as whole, the show is breathtaking. I’m happy I am not asthmatic.

At first I was standoff-ish. Where the warmth, I thought? Where’s the interaction? A friend pointed out, they could be paying their bills online for all we knew. I mean they were bent over looking at electronic stuff while the light show raged. Who knew if they were playing music or just hamming it up to a recording?

But this is just another show and the show was fantastique. They played their hits. The crowd loved them and danced their ass off. Even if the most cynical guess was correct, it didn’t matter because in a word they were fun. Robotic fun but fun nonetheless.

After the show, I ended up driving a behemoth Suburban with a raucous crowd in the back. If you want to test your Zen, try driving an enormous SUV with a bunch of drunken sailors. We turned the apartment into a dance party. At one point I languidly laid on the couch while watching young things dance. I might as well been wearing a toga and eating grapes while watching slaves dance.

I didn’t get much sleep that night. It was good but it was wrong. But the memory will be of the fun and not of the wreck I was the next day.

Oh Yes It's Ladies' Night and the Litigation is Right

Have you ever see that news guy on ABC named John Stossel? He’s got a mustache, and he’s a libertarian (read: Republican who likes drugs and sex) and he does these condescending news reports in which he exposes some falsehood. Yeah, that guy.

He’s a tool.

Anyway, ABC News has this report of people suing bars over ladies’ night. The lawyer (and it’s always the lone lawyer bringing these suits) is claiming ladies’ nights at bars discriminate based on gender and are illegal.

Roy Den Hollander is a New York lawyer who says Ladies' Night drinks and admission specials are unconstitutional, and he says he's suffered personally. Hollander is also a graduate of Columbia Business School and seems like a guy who should be able to get into a decent bar and afford the drinks. So what irks him?

"I'm tired of having my rights violated and being treated as a second-class citizen," said Hollander, who is seeking class-action status for his suit in federal court.

Sigh. Okay, let’s continue with the article:

Tim Gleason, general manager of the China Club in New York, calls Hollander's complaint "pathetic" and echoes other club owners who argue that the discounts actually help both sexes by balancing out the ratio between men and women. Nevermind that some men are more than happy to pay for inequality in the ratio department.

Yes, that’s true. What will Hollander counter with?

In court papers, he cites a 1970 case against a bar called McSorley's Old Ale House. The ruling in the case struck down a policy excluding women, claiming it violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

I’ve been to McSorely’s. It’s a great bar, but not a good comparison. Today’s bars aren’t excluding men, only giving discounts to women:

Club owners maintain that Ladies' Night is not a policy of exclusion, but rather an economic enticement to increase business and satisfy their customers. They say the marketplace dictates whether the promotions are abandoned, not the courts.

And Hollander shoots back with fratboy logic:

But, Hollander said these perks do not justify discriminatory prices because the same beneficial end could be achieved by charging men less or equal to the amount women are charged.

"Each guy that walks into that club will have more money to buy her a drink, and the more she drinks, the more fun she and the guys will have," he said.

Okay, so Hollander is wasting tax money and court resources. Normally I would bag on this guy for being so lame and then Stossel does a commentary on it, and I hate John Stossel. ABC News apparently will hire anybody. Here is Stossel on how ladies's night is actually against the law:

…It IS against the law — which ought to make us think about how many laws we have. Ladies' night is a long and useful tradition, but activists have actually succeeded in getting them banned in more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia.

Stossel is saying that discrimination law is one too many. Then he says ladies’ night is long and useful. Long and useful? Ladies’ night? Starting in the 1970s is not long and it’s useful only to greedy bar owners. Here’s a thought, don’t charge to get into your lame meat market. Unless you have live music, you shouldn’t charge to get into your bar. And really, in meat market bars, women rarely buy their own drinks anyway, No need for discounts.

Some people go to bars to relax and see friends. Pubs are social centers. Some go to bars to see sports. Have you ever been to a bar with six television screens? Some people go to bars to get hammered. That’s what they are there for. Some go to dance and see live music.

And yes, some go to bars to get laid. Some people go specifically to get laid. These are the lamest bars of all. Why? Because there is a palpable sadness in the air at meat markets. Desperation and booze don’t walk so well together. And if a place has to bribe women to get them to come down that makes it all the more seedy and sad.

So, why I think it’s a wasteful use of the court, I won’t miss ladies’ night. It’s dated anyway. Women don’t need encouragement to hit the bars. Sorry, Kool and the Gang. Back to you, Stossel, ya tool.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Forbidden Island

I wonder if those first people who walked into Hinky Dink’s (soon to morph into Trader Vic’s) understood the kitschy drive behind Tiki bars. Probably not; they probably thought it was exotic, which Tiki bars are, but now they mix kitsch along with exotic.

I have a friend who moved to the island of Alameda, and I finally got the chance to visit him. We checked out a Tiki lounge near his house called Forbidden Island. This place is the best Tiki bar I’ve ever been in. Trader Vic’s is bland. The Tonga Room is way too expensive and touristy. Trad’r Sam’s is great but a little ramshackle.

The outside has wood paneling with painted Tiki gods and palm trees. As you enter, a long wood bar with a low ceiling covered in palm fronds is to your right. There are booths with bamboo walls and couches and the kind of chair that Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island would lounge on. A fountain gives off its soothing sound and emits a green color. They have an outside area for smoking with tables and couches and another fountain. A corpse of a pirate lies near the fountain.

The jukebox is stocked with Hawaiian music, surf guitar, rat pack classics, and a whole lotta soul. Black velvet paintings of busty nude women hang on the wall. They played beach movies on the one television. The place has a curious smell of stale, sickly sweet drinks and the fried bar food they serve. The bathrooms have old advertisements for Tiki cups and rum. The bartenders were two really cute brunettes that had more than a passing resemblance to Betty Page.

The drink selection was superb. They carried classics like the Mai Tai and the Fog Cutter. And they also had their own tasty concoctions, such as Neptune’s Garden, a bluish umbrella drink and the eponymous Forbidden Island that comes with its own mug. They had a wide range of rums, and I’m sure they could make you any drink in the world, so large was their bottle collection. And the food was decent: friend prawns in a coconut batter and sweet potato fries served for an impromptu dinner.

My friend and I met a dialysis technician (which might come in handy some day) and drank outside by the fountain. Tiki drinks are sort of like boozing and eating a whole lot of desserts at the same time. Plus, you get to say things like, “I’ll have a Banana Mamacow, please.” And I love the kitsch. It’s joyful and goofy. It’s a celebration of beach vacations. Next to us, were some bartenders on their day off. They told us stories of comeuppance for snotty customers. Always be nice to bartenders.

We drank a bit too much for a Sunday night, but logical thought was not present. Meh, the ancient gods of the Pacific Islands approve, so I can’t complain.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: The Attic

On Saturday night, I saw a friend perform in a Hip Hop dance show. Hip Hop dance is fluid movements, punctuated with sharp stops symbolizing major attitude. You definitely do not want to get into these people’s grills. My friend is an excellent dancer, and his time on stage was woefully short. After the show, we retired to a bar a couple of storefronts away from the theater. I’ve never heard of The Attic, but San Francisco never ceases to surprise me.

The Attic resembles many hipster bars in the Mission. The interior is painted in black, and the paint job looks sloppy, as if the painters were hitting the hooch as they worked. The entrance is like a long narrow hallway with the bar on one side. In the back is a bigger room with booths and tables. Horror movie posters sporadically line the walls. A few peculiar paintings hang on the wall. One has a giant head of a conquistador floating above a harbor, very strange. We sat in a booth, whose seats seemed entirely covered in duct tape.

We sat and drank and made fun of the hipsters. As the title implies, hipsters try to stay hip by wearing unusual clothes. I knew one guy that wore women’s pants and clown shoes?!? I kept making fun of two guys wearing bright-red tuques, a knitted hat they wear in Canada because it’s so freaking cold there. I am way too lazy to dress hip. I look like a preppy that has gone to seed. A D.J. started spinning records of hard rock bands from the seventies and eighties. I complimented him on a Pat Travers choice; I haven’t heard Travers in a long time. He also played Saga, another band I haven’t heard in some time.

On going to the bathroom, I noticed a flyer for a drink special: Canada night, all Canadian whisky and beer discounted. Hmm, I thought, they have a Canadian night, how hipster-ish. When I returned to the booth, they handed out the words to “Oh Canada” in English and in Québécois French. Ah, the light bulb appeared over my head. Sunday must be Canada’s Independence Day or whatever they celebrate since they are still under England’s queen. That’s why people are wearing the tuques. That’s why the D.J. is playing Pat Travers, Saga, Rush, April Wine, and Triumph. Canada did put out some fine hard rock bands.

At midnight, we sang “Oh Canada” along with a recorded version by Céline Dion. I pounded my chest, just like the screecher from up North. With the exception of a friend who went to camp up north and knew the melody, we butchered the melody. Of course, this is a perfect example of hipster-ness, a mix of fascination, adulation and a huge dose of irony. They are making fun of Canada while worshipping it. While annoying as that is, it is also fun. It sure beats a normal night of drinking. And it is surely more fun then drinking in a Marina bar, watching the aging frat boys and sorority girls do the sad mating dance they do.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: The Alembic

After seeing a noisy pop rock band, called the Noisettes, at Amoeba Records in the Haight, my friends and I stopped off at a bar called The Alembic. It occupies a space that was a taqueria, now it is a high church to good spirits.

It’s interior resembles a roadhouse, a very clean roadhouse, a roadhouse where the drinks start at six bucks and head up from there. Little alembics line the shelves, along with cocktail books and pictures of pipes and kilns. The ceiling is covered in brass with two fans that languidly rotate. The tables and the floor are distressed wood. I tried to comfort it, but to no avail. They have a chalkboard that is held up by ropes and a pulley. The board lists the extraordinary amount of fine booze they sell. The bathrooms are sparkling clean and they have rolled cloth towels. The place is a mixture of down home and decadent.

I was told that the owners also own the fine hippie brewery, Magnolia’s down the street, so it is no surprise they carry Magnolia’s excellent craft brewed beer on tap. They carry other top notch beer also, including a great Belgium beer selection. Don’t ask for Bud or Coors here, fool. To my pleasure, they carry the most gin I’ve seen anywhere. I tried the Dutch gin called, Boomsma Oude. I had it in a martini, which was a mistake. Boomsma Oude is aged in oak barrels, which gives it a smooth and earthy taste. Smooth is good for martinis, earthy is not. This would be excellent in a highball glass.

The real pleasure in Alembic is the choice of bourbons. Bourbon is very trendy right now, but not in a lemon-flavored way. The Alembic has dozens of aged bourbons. I had a drink, I’ve never tried before: the Mint Julep. Outside the bar, they had a small chalkboard with a quotation of Hunter Thompson regarding the Mint Julep. I wish I wrote down the quotation, but if Hunter recommends it, I’ve got to try it. I assume he has sent many a pious person down the treachery slopes to hell.

A Mint Julep at The Alembic is made with mint, sugar, 12-year old bourbon and "brutally crushed ice." They are not kidding about the brutality. The bartender put the ice in a canvas bag and beat it with a stick. The drink is served in a silver cup. The cup frosted over. It was a hot night, a rare hot night in San Francisco, and I wanted to say in my worst Southern accent, would y’all like ‘nother Julep to fight the vapors with?

I admit it: I love this bar. I highly recommend you check it out.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Harvey's

I've been avoiding writing about this Harvey's because it's my main watering hole. (In this neighborhood, I avoid calling it a watering hole; gays cannot pass up innuendo.) But they have just redone the place, and I got some space to fill (Jesus, more double entendres). This bar carries San Francisco history. The bar is named after assassinated city supervisor, Harvey Milk. Back when it was called The Elephant Walk, the San Francisco Police, in retaliation for the White Night Riots, came in here and destroyed the place along with cracking a few heads.

An excellent history of The Elephant Walk can be found here.

The bar is much more sedate these days. Most nights, it closes before midnight. But I like it for that very reason. Most bars around here are meat markets with loud dance music. When I want just want a quiet drink and talk to a friend, it's the place to do it. They also serve food, which is mostly hit and miss. Like The Edge, Twin Peaks, and Moby Dick, tall windows line the outside walls, so people are content to eat and drink and watch the people go by. The windows are symbolic too, letting people know there is nothing to hide inside. The new decor is slightly bland. Soon they will put up more art and a tribute to Milk, but for now it sort of resembles someone's rumpus room circa 1979.

The staff is really cool, laid back and very attentive—so attentive that I usually end up stumbling home. Which isn't too bad, but it is uphill. They are also patient with my sometimes elaborate drink requests. The choice of booze is limited. I wouldn't mind a passtisse or a good single malt scotch, but their shelving is limited. They have trivia nights and drag nights and lesbian nights. Soon they will have a D.J. booth. I'm not sure if that'll be to my liking, but the masses have got to boogie.

I guess what I like most about it is the local hangout feel it has. It feels like a gay Cheers. And after a couple of drinks, there is a definite laugh track.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Lush Lounge

I tried to hit a bar new to me called Decco, but, alas, it was closed on Tuesday. Everyone needs a day off but Tuesday? Tuesday is the new Friday. Everyone knows that. So my intrepid and, with the exception of me, unemployed group trudged through the Tenderloin looking for a drinking establishment.

We ended up at the Lush Lounge off of Polk and Post. Actually it’s called the Lush Lounge Martini Piano Bar, although in my haze I don’t recall a piano in the place. I feel like I’m in the seventies time period because of all the ferns in the place. There is also a love for classic movies. Pictures of classy movie stars like Audrey Hepburn line the wall. When I was there, Chinatown played on the televisions.

I suppose this place is a gay bar, being that Polk was the major gay area before the rise of Castro Street, but every time I’ve been here, it’s mostly straight folks sipping cocktails and gazing into each other’s eyes. It’s a very romantic place. The lights are low, the music murmurs, and the drinks are sweet.

Normally, I’m not into sweet drinks. I used to be. I used to concoct sweet libations that tasted like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but not anymore. But that night I tried the mango mojito they had for five bucks. Such a deal! And they were tasty. The pretty blonde bartender worked her magic and made quite the tasty concoction. They also offer such sweet boozy treats as Raspberry Truffle and Dreamsicle. You can harvest quite the nasty hangover here if you wanted to.

Outside drug-ravaged locals would walk by and gaze into the bar. The occasional cop siren would blare. It’s a weird neighborhood. Even though the neighborhood is gentrifying, there are still many immigrants and homeless and Charles Bukowski types. Then, a couple of blocks up is Russian Hill, where its well-heeled population of white-collar types live and drink and eat. Even though Russian Hill is a slight incline from here, if the hill reflected social levels, then you be staring up a cliff wall outside of the Lush Lounge. But such is the city.

One of these days I should try a dry martini here. See how they do it. But I think the best use for Lush Lounge is an after-dinner desert drink. If a Lemon Drop doesn’t start the night right, than your night will not take flight.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Bay to Breakers

King Claudius: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

I've ran the Bay to Breakers four times, and every time I tell myself I'm going to walk it and enjoy the party. So I did it this year. It was a glorious day and my pale Irish skin cooked in the sun. But it was worth it. Bay to Breakers is another great reason to live in San Francisco.

I thought about dressing up, but in the end I just wore jeans and a cool dragon shirt. My roommate and I met some friends and walked over to Hayes Hill. Although the race starts at eight in the morning, we didn't arrive until ten. The race was all walkers and partyers at that point. I saw the usual naked people and Elvises. So many Elvises. The guy has been dead for 30 years, and people are still dressing up like him. In our group, we had a Where Is Waldo?, runing of the bulls runner, and some girls wearing dirndls. The crowd was filled with pirates and catapillars and wacky seventies clothing and word puns like black-eye peas. Frat guys pushed kegs up the hill. Occasionally, they would pick up a girl and have her drink from the tap while hanging upside down.

On Divisidero, a house party was filled with Elvises who stood on the roof dancing. There were playing The Who's "Baba O'Riley" on the stereo. I thought everyone would shout out "They're all wasted!!" with the music, but only I did. I guess I'm old. I got separated from my group, and took a small nap in the grass. Very pleasant indeed. I then wandered to the polo fields and watched Cracker play. There are a wonderful, boozy bar band. David Lowery's scratchy voice sounded like an old friend to me, although it was strange seeing this band in the early morning.

I met up with the group at their place in the Lower Haight. I sat in the sun and gave my face a great red glow. I made it in to work today. Although I'm fried on the inside and outside, I regret nothing. Summer is here.

Slouching Towards Euphoria: Barclays

Before band practice, I'll meet my drummer at a sports bar/pub called Barclays off of College Avenue on the border of Oakland and Berkeley. Barclays is in a sub-basement, but it is not dark or cave-like. It has wide windows and a large front patio. Inside is a nice dark wood bar, and mirrors give the place an illusion of space. It has the accoutrements of a pub: beer signs, beer banners, dartboards, empty bottles running along a shelf. It also has several televisions, always turned to some game. When I was there last, it was pool and a basketball game on the tellys.

Besides the bartenders, they employ young, good-looking women as servers. They are polite and suffer through my beergeek questions: "So where is this brewery located?" At its very heart, this is a neighborhood pub, and the cliental are locals. This being Berkeley, the locals are white, affluent left-wingers. I'm usually there in the early evening, so the age rage is in the thirties to fifties. I'm sure when the night goes on, a younger crowd inhabits the place. Down the street is student housing for UC Berkeley, so I assume students come too, if they can afford the $5 beer. Since this place serves food, a lot of families come in too. If they allowed dogs inside, then it would be a true pub.

And they do offer a good selection. I like that they concentrate on local brews. Northern California has some of the best microbreweries in the country, so it makes sense to offer local beers. Plus, up the street is Alice Water's place, whose motto is 40 miles or less for food supply delivery, so why not put that philosophy towards beer? The also serve the beer in a large English pint glass for $5, so it's not a bad deal. They have beer coins, in which you can have a discount of you buy the tokens in bulk. The food is good too, much better then the usual pub grub, and they serve it in large amounts.

Funny thing is I don't really like this place. I don't watch sports, so the televisions are a distraction. The families make it more of a restaurant than a bar. They only serve beer, which is limiting. They have a faithful local following, and the insular attitude makes me feel like a stranger. Although they play music faintly in the background, there is no jukebox and no live music. They close at midnight, which is pretty lame for a college town bar. I appreciate their love of beer and food, but the cons outweigh the pros. But I'm sure the yuppie dads who live in the hills are happy to have some place they can bring the kids, while they enjoy a great brew. It's just not for me.

Slouching Toward Euphoria: Moby Dick

Moby Dick is another neighborhood bar. It’s a gay bar but has the feel of a regular pub. The building has long windows that open out to the street. A nice long wood bar gives it the classic saloon look. A slight upper half second room has pool table, pinball games, and video games. Back in the seventies, the bar was called the Corner Grocery Bar, so I’m assuming it was a corner grocery in the sixties, but who knows? There are TVs all over the place, and they play music videos, usually dance music. I wonder if they had live music at one time; the upper part would have been a good stage, but live music in Castro is nonexistent. Hell, even in the whole city, live music is shrinking. Fun seems to be beating a retreat in this city, but that is for another post. I actually did see a singer with an acoustic guitar at the Moby Dick the other night. He was great and the place was packed. Maybe they’ll bring back live music to this neighborhood.

Behind the bar is an aquarium with two or three lonely fish swimming about. The tank has a lot of coral in it and rising up the bed of a coral is a mighty coral phallus. Those are pearls that were his eyes, and coral that was his cock. But if you want any reminding that you are in a gay bar, go to the men’s room. The bathroom has a low ceiling, dim red light, soft music playing, troughs only, and mirrors that line the troughs. Yes, no privacy for your private parts. Now, for me, this is a little disconcerting. I’ll admit I’m a tad pee shy. Probably stems from my time going to monster rock shows as a kid. Trying to pee in a trough in a packed stadium bathroom filled with drunken, hostile white trash put a block on my bladder. Now don’t get me wrong, if I have to go, I’ll use Moby Dick’s bathroom, but I do laugh nervously when I use their toilet.

But it is hard to not like this bar. They have a good beer selection; the prices are decent; the bartenders are pretty cool; and the cliental is mixed and relaxed. Weekends, the place is packed, but on the weekdays, there is room to move about. And despite its name, the bar has a lack of obsessive guys with peg legs. What’s not to like?

The Sweet Sin of Gin

The New York Times had a gin comparison in their dining section today. Evidently they tried eighty gin martinis between four people. I like those odds. But even better was this well-made point:

“Before we discuss the findings, though, we need to clear up a little matter. It’s come to my attention that some people believe martinis are made with vodka. I hate to get snobbish about it, but a martini should be made with gin or it’s not a martini. Call it a vodkatini if you must, but not a martini. Gin and vodka have as much in common hierarchically as a president and a vice president. Vodka can fill in for gin from time to time and might even be given certain ceremonial duties of its own, but at important moments you need the real thing. Vodka generally makes a poor substitute for gin in a martini or any other gin cocktail.”

Hallelujah, brother, Testify! I hate to be redundant when ordering, but with the vodka craze—that thankfully is ebbing—I have to order a “gin” martini, so I won’t get the bastardized kind. Luckily gin is coming around again, the NY Times article lists a great many that I have not tried. But I will, oh yes, I will. First one I will try is Plymouth, which they think is the best for a martini.

A side note: I’m very cautious when ordering a martini. I go by a couple of rules.

Really good-looking bartender = I order a beer. Usually these guys and gals are hired to be eye candy, and have not learned the finesse of mixing. There are always exceptions, but beware.

Also, Irish/English/Scottish pubs = I order a beer or a scotch. When in Rome, or Dublin…

Dance clubs = puh-leeze; they don’t even carry cocktail glasses. It’s beer or a vodka and cranberry juice.

The best place for martinis are hotel bars, lounges, or punk clubs with rockabilly bartenders. Hotel bars with their starched shirts and inflated prices are pretentious but they do mix well, especially if there is an old timer behind the bar. Lounges can be hit or miss, but at least they try. Rockabilly bartenders are very proud of their martinis and they are usually great.

Even so bartenders still shake a martini. I don’t know about bruising, but I don’t want to see ice shards in my martini. A martini should be pure, like a calm lake. It is a preview of how my soul will be after the imbibing. Drinking is not just taste and smell; it is visual (and it is aural when you clink someone’s glass in a toast.). See, don’t get me started on martinis. Shesh.

Slouching toward Euphoria: The Edge

This will be the first post documenting the bars of San Francisco and the Bay Area. The moments in a bar are fleeting and often forgotten for obvious reasons, but I think they are an important part of humanity. That sounds grandiose, but they are places where people can ease themselves away from the pain of life and show another part of themselves. Sometimes that other part can be bad news, and that is well documented—the alcoholic’s descent into hell is always an Oscar winner—but there are good times in bars, and I hope to scrape off a telling detail or two.

The closest bar to my flat is The Edge, a bear bar that has been around with various names since the eighties. I’ve only been here once since I moved here. It is small with big open windows and a smaller back room with a pinball machine and video games. The upper wall is lined with pictures of naked porn stars, a surprising rarity in the Castro. I suspect that bars used to be raunchier back before AIDs decimated this neighborhood, but I can’t verify that claim. The cliental is older, hairy gay men: bears, although that doesn’t necessarily apply to all who drink there.

Perhaps because the cliental is older, The Edge is packed between six and eight p.m., and then it is relatively quiet after that. The patrons spill out on the sidewalk or gaze out from its open widows. The drinks are cheap and strong. They play classic rock, a change from the usual disco/techno/screaming diva music heard elsewhere. Walking home late at night, I passed the bar as Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” was blasting from inside. I dug it.

Another time, as I coming home from work on the MUNI train, I spied two skinheads. They were dressed exactly the same. Pale green jackets, tight grey camouflage pants, Vans sneakers, and shaved heads. One was about ten years younger, but that was the only difference. I wondered why someone would want to resemble another person so mirror-perfect, but perhaps they enjoyed the attention. They walked my route home, and sure enough they went into The Edge. It was early, so it was prime time, and they entered the packed bar in order to be admired and to lose oneself in the crowd of beards, bellies, and beer.