THE SENSIBLE APPROACH TO SATURDAY NIGHT

The other evening K-chai and I left the Occidental early, as it was getting too crowded for conversation, and he needed to get up at a reasonable hour the next morning. While walking toward the metro station, I asked him if he had ever been in a particular drinking establishment that we just passed.

He indicated he had, but it was not his kind of place.

Which I can well understand. It isn't my kind of place either. It's a meat rack. Shallow and aggressive college grads go there in hopes of finding someone to boff.

Which, you will understand, is a lousy reason to go to a bar.
And alcohol is a perfectly idiotic reason for boffing.


I've always liked peaceful well-lit bars, but those are getting harder to find.
A place where one can simply read the papers while enjoying a pipe is almost entirely a thing of the past. Primarily because one cannot smoke in bars anymore, secondarily because people are just not used to or tolerant of non-social relaxation.
This is also why visiting my formerly favourite coffee shops in North Beach has disappeared from the plate. In one of them, I'm guaranteed inane chatterments with "artistic" types. Or maybe they're just skeevy;
there seems to be an enormous overlap there.
Skeevy bohemians.

Most other coffee shops are similar, and Starbucks doesn't appeal.

Besides, there aren't too many places where on can curl up and read for several hours anyway. Coffee shops just aren't particularly quiet now that everyone has ego problems and cell-phones.


The Occidental, on a quiet night, is a very pleasant place. Frequently one can have a worthwhile discussion about subjects other than sports, and no one in their right mind goes there to pick up sexual partners. Sure, occasionally one of the desperate pudgy middle-aged single-men might strike up a conversation with an unattached woman with precisely that goal in mind, but the rational patron will naturally assume that she's there NOT in hopes of random anonymous sex, but would appreciate semi-random semi-anonymous evidence of common humanity while she enjoys her smoke.

It is, as perhaps you know, the last place in San Francisco where one can smoke indoors. Consequently there is a reasonable presumption that the clientele are there primarily for that purpose.
Any desperation should be left outside.
We expect civilized behavior.

There aren't a lot of women who visit, because bars are often more of a man thing as one gets older. And many women do not appreciate cigars or even pipes.


Most Saturday evenings I will end up there after work, having stopped in Chinatown beforehand for a bite to eat. It used to be almost empty at that time, but the economy is improving, and recently young urban professionals have learned that cigars are a mighty cool thing. So sometimes they'll stop by on their way to the pick-up joint on Kearney Street, in order to compose their nasty minds beforehand, and get a head-start on the intoxication needed for random anonymous coupling.
On the whole, we are glad to see them leave.
Conversationally they offer little.
Plus they come in groups.
Male bonding.


THE COMMON LIVING ROOM

Sex and alcohol should never be combined. If either party to the event needs Dutch courage (or the support of their peers), they probably shouldn't go forward. Sex, always, should be something you want to do while sober, with someone you actually like, whom you have seen in good light. And then only discreetly; not as the result of a social scene.
Are they a nice person; intelligent, decent, clean, and sane?
Could you ever introduce them to your friends?
Are they kind to your stuffed animals?
Can you trust them?

Personally, I cannot imagine bringing up the stuffed animals in a bar, and certainly not with someone tipsy. The chance of everything heading south at a rapid clip is far too great.

Stuffed animals can ONLY be discussed in private.

And then ONLY with nice people.



Final note: ALWAYS introduce your dates to your stuffed animals. But NEVER rely on the furballs for recommendations and romantic advice; they'll usually get it wrong. They're stuffed animals.


If you read this on Saturday evening, I may be at the Oxxy.

The stuffed animals wait disapprovingly at home.




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