This is a RSS file. Copy the URL into your aggregator of choice. If you don't know what this means and want to learn more, please see: http://platial.typepad.com/news/2006/04/really_simple_t.html for more info. http://platial.comhttp://platial.com/map/Lit-City-/14845 Seeking San Francisco Bar by Bar They’re the repositories of so much of the city’s undiscovered history, of anecdotes and information that rarely find their way into ink– some of the best stories out there. And San Francisco, original home of the shanghai and the world’s largest collection of ‘last chance’ saloons, is particularly endowed with bar stories. From Chinatown’s underground dens to SOMA’s industrial caverns, the Tenderloin’s dives to the Fillmore’s jazz joints, the Mission’s Mexican pubs to the clubs and surf shacks on the outer edges of the city, so much of the city’s history and stories lie in shards on the grit and sweat-soaked floors of its many watering holes. This issue, in attempt to sweep up a few good ones, we asked contributors to send in stories their favorite spots. ]]> http://platial.com/post/1308228 2007-04-23 12:50:45.263439+00:00 http://platial.com/post/1308233 2007-04-23 12:57:03.841367+00:00 http://platial.com/post/1308235 2007-04-23 12:58:19.404536+00:00 http://platial.com/post/2136869 2007-10-15 10:31:22.505016+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952012 by Sherilyn Connelly Billing itself as San Francisco’s Premier Transgender Nightclub, Divas is flanked by a fire station and the dealer-infested southeast corner of Polk and Post. Though primarily a market whose meat consists of Tenderloin sex workers, it’s also a popular and safe hangout for all manner of non-professional cross-dressers and transvestites, as well as transsexuals such as myself. I was at Divas one slow Tuesday night in early May. The upper floors were closed, and there were seldom more than half a dozen patrons in the room. My improbable mission was to hook up with an attractive stranger. The improbability stems from the fact that I like girls, not boys, but boys go cruising for trannies at Divas; (genetic) girls, as general rule, do not. Where can genetic girls and tranny girls go to hook up? It’s a question that nobody else seems to be asking. At a dyke bar like the Lexington Club, I’d be tolerated but ignored. At least the male patrons of Divas would objectify me. While I didn’t want them to touch or really interact with me, knowing that I was turning them on did my ego good, even if I’d surely be sleeping alone that night. A narrow, multifloor letterbox, the ground floor features the main bar and a small stage. A dance floor and lounge collectively known as “Dragon” occupy the third and fourth floors. My favorite bit of décor is the purple neon Motherlode sign hanging behind the bar. It’s a remnant from different, if not necessarily simpler, times. Divas grew from a much smaller establishment at the corner of Post and Larkin called – you may have guessed – The Motherlode. The ever-crowded bar moved to its current, more spacious digs in ‘98 after five years of neighborhood protests, legal challenges and far more obstacles and roadblocks than one might otherwise expect in an ostensibly queer-friendly town, let alone in as dicey a neighborhood as the Tenderloin. Though the prostitution issue was frequently cited by opponents, it’s probably not altogether inaccurate to say that the sex workers were not so much the issue as the tranny clientele in general. For some reason, writing at Divas can be like hanging a “Please Disturb” sign. Presently, a man approached and said, “You seem nervous. Are you German?” As I processed that, he followed up with “Are you a transvestite or a transsexual?” That stung. I may not have the silicon hips and tits or surgically-reconstructed face of the average working girl, but after eight years of estrogen, with my own head of blonde hair and nary a follicle of facial hair to be found, I’d like to think I’m obviously not simply a man who dresses as a woman, especially to a Divas patron. I was about to leave when a genetic girl entered, an event akin to a streak of lightning in a clear sky. She was on a mission as improbable as mine, and neither of us slept alone that night.

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]]> 2007-02-08 13:48:02.413709+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952018 by Broke Ass Stuart It took about three seconds after walking in the door at Jonell’s to realize that this was exactly the spot we were looking for. Named so because it sits on the corner of Jones and Ellis, Jonell’s is the type of fine establishment where sitting with your back to the door might be the last bad decision you ever make. The patrons are generally drunk and leery old men who piss away all their money on booze and hookers, but the vibe is actually far from inhospitable. In fact, if you sit down at the bar, expect to get an earful of some the most fucked-up stories you’ve ever heard. This place has been serving drinks for at least 50 to 70 years and used to go by the name of the Horseshoe because of the shape of the bar (real original). It has loads of horse memorabilia from its supposed golden age and not much else. There are two non-functioning bar-sinks however. A friendly but worn-looking Samoan face approached us smiling and asked, “What’ll it be guys?” “Hi,” I smiled back, “can we get a couple of Budweisers please?” “Sure honey, I’ll be right back.” As she walked away a man pushed through the door with the force of a house ripped from the ground and blown to Oz. The bar was pretty empty, but I knew he’d land right next to me. They always do. This one’s name was Mike. The man said a round of hellos. “Hey Suzy, hey Ricky,” he greeted the couple who ran the bar. Then he greeted the only other people in the bar besides me and Kenny, a fat white guy who appeared to be completely catatonic, and an old black guy in a straw fedora. “Hey Fred, hey Willis. Oh man I just came from this huge fucking party where there was all this free food and free booze, and Jesus, shit man, you shoulda seen all the pussy in this place. This guy I know jus’ opened this Cuban restaurant and tonight was the opening party. It was beautiful, my buddy really went all out, and the food, oh the food!” Then, glancing over at us, “Ha! Shit, man, the women in there were so hot they wouldn’ta even fucked me when I was you’re age. How old are ya, 21, 22? What are young bloods like you doing in here anyways?” Suzy the bartender dropped off two Buds for Kenny and I, and a glass of whiskey for Mike. “Thanks, Suzy. How’d ya know what I wanted?” “Cuz you get the same damn drink every night,” Suzy answered smilingly. Mike looked like his 50 or 60 years on this Earth had been rough; you could tell he’d definitely been around the block a few times. But he was jolly in his roughness, and he was energetic and also pretty tubby. He kinda reminded me of a grown-up, bearded version of Chunk from The Goonies. I got the feeling that Mike was a good guy, just a little overzealous. “The best bar in the world is just a few blocks from here,” he told us. “You ever heard of the Brown Jug over on Eddy and Hyde? Best bar in the world. My old lady’s been working there for 22 years. Beautiful American Indian broad; we been married 30 years, can you believe that? Man, they got some nice atmosphere in there and a great jukebox and boy, my old lady can really pour a drink. Take my advice. Go in there and ask for Shelley. Tell her I sent you and tell her that I send my love.”

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]]> 2007-02-08 14:02:17.064705+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952020 by Joe Donohoe The 222 Club is what hardly what you would call a “dive” bar, but the intersection of Turk and Hyde Streets in the Tenderloin District certainly qualifies in the “gritty urban edge” department. The 222 is all that’s left of the famous modern jazz club The Black Hawk. In its day, the Black Hawk was the most important modern jazz club in the Bay Area. Charlie Parker used to play hookie from paying gigs just to jam at the Hawk because he liked it better. Dave Brubeck, one of the spiritual founders of the West Coast Cool style of jazz, played there. Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk recorded critically distinguished records in the Black Hawk’s recording studio annex – now the 222 Club. Co-owner and cashier Helen Noga discovered the singer Johnny Mathis there and went on to manage him to become a household name in the early ‘60s. Vince Guaraldi, who scored most of the original soundtracks for the television treatments of Charles M. Schultz’s “Peanuts” comic strip started out working as an intermission Black Hawk pianist, subbing in for Art Tatum. Vernon Alley, an African American jazz bassist, who is credited with doing much to desegregate Bay Area music clubs and the music unions, booked shows at the Hawk for years. What was probably most impressive about this jazz nerve center, however, was its funky lived-in atmosphere . The drapes were black and moth-eaten. There was no air conditioning and no heat. During the rainy season, water from leaks in the roof collected in strategically-placed saucers around the club, creating a counter-tempo to the performing rhythm sections. The phone could ring at any time during a show, and the musicians just had to tolerate it. Said co-owner Guido Caccienti, “I work and slave hard to keep this place a sewer.” The Black Hawk’s heyday was from about 1949 to 1963, after which it was closed and demolished except for the remaining 222 space. What used to be the club’s main section is now a vast parking lot. People hustle paperbacks and pirated DVDs against the cyclone fence surrounding the space. Although it was an important part of the cultural legacy of the city there isn’t even a plaque to commemorate the club, but the locals remember it. After the closure in the late sixties, 222 Hyde became one of the city’s first tranny bars, according to current co-owner Joe Kaplan. Then it was eventually abandoned. For a number of years it was a burned out shell of a space frequently occupied by street squatters until Kaplan and his wife Bianca acquired it around 2000. They completely rebuilt the inside and reopened in 2004. Now a long narrow bar area gives way to a sub-level where live music, experimental hip hop, and acid jazz is spun and performed, keeping up with innovations in improvisational sound. Vintage Black Hawk posters are framed on the bare brick walls and the club has the agreeable vibe of a Lower East Side performance lounge transplanted to San Francisco.

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]]> 2007-02-08 14:10:25.019401+00:00 http://platial.com/post/1814919 by Robert McLaughlin

This was in 1999, way before the health department began cracking down on all the groping, moaning, and squirting going on in the bathroom. You’d peer into that dim bathroom and see men with potbellies and last season’s Calvin Klein jeans all tangled together in a sticky pile-up. You’d think to yourself, are they all clamoring for the same dot on a Twister mat? It was always so shadowy in the front room of the bar—all it was really lit by was the white Christmas lights along the walls and the glow coming from the TV showing low-rent porno (porno so amateurish you’d see rashes and pimples in places you didn’t want to see rashes and pimples). The bouncer, who was 6’5 and hulking and very Harley Davidson, what with his frizzy gray beard and constipated scowl (I imagined he ate kidnapped children as midnight snacks) was always the first person you’d see when you walked in. Imagine seeing this guy in the ugly light coming down from a bad porno. God knows what I was looking for that night. It wasn’t sex; most of the men who went there were either homely in a buck-toothed, backwoods, Kmart kind of way, or amped on speed with the gnarly complexions and dilated pupils to act as stop signs for your convenience. I get a vodka and lurk in the dark against the chain link fence that was arranged in the back for maximum prison yard effect sexiness. I grow tired quickly with all the cruising, watching all those sets of eyes slink by that appeared as if they could detach and gobble you up. Back and forth, back and forth—following all the action in that bar was like being at Wimbledon. I decide to go smoke because cigarettes help me focus. You’d have to walk down this hallway that had Day-Glo-painted walls to get to the back patio, and this hallway was lit by black light. People like me with pale skin and freckles would look like pasty raver zombies flecked with specks of mud in this hallway—so attractive. I light up as I step down and join the smokers and soon enough this cute skateboarder (he had the body of a swimmer and Mark Hamill’s 1977 face) was hitting on me. Wow, someone hot. A friend of his joins us. I can’t remember what this guy looked like—I wasn’t paying attention. All I can remember is that he kept smoking pot at a furious clip from a tin foil pipe. Laughs, MORE DRINKS, bullshit chat, closing time, I’m slurring…the situation changes. The three of us stumble back to Hamill’s apartment down by the End-Up and get REAL comfortable in about 15 minutes. A key turns in the front door and oh shit Hamill’s boyfriend is home and no-face and me get shoved out the back door carrying our jeans and shoes and erections. We lose it and wobble to his SRO in the Tenderknob and he throws me down on his bed that smells like bleach and tells me the only way he’ll be able to cum is if I fuck him. He drags on his pipe and flicks on the TV and an evangelical Sunday morning service was on. Oh, you’re smoking crystal, I realize while watching the minister thump his hand on the podium (I can be SLOW). I zip up and wiped his kisses off and leave. I walk home as the sun rises and watch the seagulls swoop down on O’Farrell Street while thinking about my upcoming 27th birthday. This is my life?

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]]> 2007-07-11 23:56:44.530444+00:00 http://platial.com/post/942250
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]]> 2007-02-01 19:12:38.20177+00:00 http://platial.com/post/951973 by Joe Donohoe I remember the Sandbar because one night I somehow ended up there, very drunk, after an evening of exploratory chaos that somehow brought me almost to the edge of the ocean. The place smelled like beer and puke and the floors were sopping wet with what seemed like the sweat of the patrons. The Sandbar was right “where the debris meets the sea,” at the edge of the city. The Sandbar first materialized in 1941 as the Oar House at 47th and Taraval in the Outer Sunset. Half of the present building was divided off and served as a bait shop for Ocean Beach fishermen, known as The Master Bait Shop. The Oar House acquired a rough reputation. In the 60’s and 70’s it became a biker bar and extremely violent fights were not unknown. One well-told story recalls the loser of a fight retreating into the reasonable sanctuary of the night after being stabbed, and returning again later in the evening with a shotgun to shoot off the arm of the man who’d stabbed him. As the gunman fled, the other patrons took the severed arm and put it on ice in the hope that if they kept it fresh, the good surgeons of UCSF might be able to sew it back on. Unfortunately, this didn’t work. And fortunately everyone was drunk or somebody might have gotten hurt. In 2003, the Sandbar was acquired by Dave Quinby and Les James from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. Inside, among other things, they found the vents in the men’s bathroom had caved-in. The smell of the sea and years of shit had seeped into the sand below and now hovered in the air, rather than being pumped out into the atmosphere. The drainpipes from the bar had corroded and anything that had ever been poured down the bar sink had collected and fomented in the sandy soil beneath. “You know you got a problem when even your plumber says it smells bad,” said James. Thousands of metric tons of Rose’s Lime Juice will take their toll. Haunted by the thought of the bad karma of decades worth of drunken amputation and other debaucheries, Quinby hired a practitioner of Haitian voodou to come in and exorcise the place with doves and sage. Reborn as the Riptide, the pipes are fixed now. The ambience feels like that of a proper neighborhood bar. The staff is solid and there’s a roaring fire in a stone fireplace to keep out the Pacific chill. The two TVs are always playing surf films and the walls of knotty pine create great acoustics for live music nights (bluegrass and blues feature heavily). The walls bare signed promotional photos of musicians Quinby or James have met (James was the drummer for one of the Bay Area’s premiere country bands: Red Meat) including Johnny Cash and Ralph Stanley. For solid working class ambience and low pretension it’s the best night-spot west of 9th Avenue.

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]]> 2007-02-08 13:00:51.288199+00:00 http://platial.com/post/951991
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]]> 2007-02-08 13:39:05.763859+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952079 2007-07-11 23:56:16.718196+00:00 http://platial.com/post/951993
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]]> 2007-02-08 13:42:05.57325+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952014 by Christine Curran I discovered Specs years ago, when I offered to drive a group of friends to North Beach after a show at the I Beam (a very bad idea, it turned out). Unfortunately, one of my passengers, a 6’4 rock star-type, was sitting on the back seat battery of my 69 VW bug, which quickly ignited. I found myself pleading with my entourage to help me “put out the fire, dammit!!!” Somewhere between Interstate 280 and the Embarcadero exit that no longer exists, my guests convinced me to pull over. They then proceeded to pee on the fire raging in the backseat of my car. I remember people going by at Broadway and Columbus, shaking their heads – as if this had never happened to them. After the ordeal, we slid into a seat at Specs, although one of my passengers, whose ass was almost fried in a moment of bad luck, spent most of the evening, eyes glazed over, watching the cockroach races on the wall. Right next to Tosca, across the street from Vesuvio, in small Saroyan Alley sits Specs, identified by a marquee consisting of eyeballs framed by, you guessed it, a pair of specs. The bar’s second name is the 12 Adler Museum and it was the premiere North Beach beatnik hangout before the action moved to Vesuvio. It was also the City’s first Union bar and one of the first lesbian bars. Specs was founded by a well-traveled merchant marine who stocked the place full of knick- knacks from around the world. These have long provided talking points for patrons and the official name for the tavern. There are old nautical charts, scrim shaw (illustration on whale bone done by Eskimos), Polynesian tribal masks, art by North Beach punk icon Winston Smith, photos of Sophia Loren and a general salty ambience. Specs Simmons, the owner, can often be seen in his trademark black leather Beatles cap and black leather jacket. At first glance, he looks like a gregarious hairless Santa – only, instead of kiddies, there’s usually a good-looking girl or two sitting in his lap. On the back wall of the bar there’s a newspaper article about him and his fishing buddies being rescued from the high seas, sometime in the early 60’s. When I used to wander in here on Sundays, they had a nude drawing workshop that anyone could participate in. Specs has always been a big supporter of high art. I remember that through the years there have also been woodcut classes, lectures, writing workshops, acting, poetry, art openings – you name it – these walls of dark wood and sea faring bric-a-brac have hosted just about everything you can think of, as well as the infamous “Wheel of Cheese.” I was sad to learn that my favorite bartender, Sean, has finally retired.I will miss his familiar “Anooother pint, fer ya, then?” No matter. The Guinness still flows freely, and Specs still maintains its surliness and rough and ready feel, like the captains quarters of some long-ago pirate ship.

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]]> 2007-02-08 13:53:33.871259+00:00 http://platial.com/post/952019 by Broke Ass Stuart How could I say no to that? If this guy Mike said the Brown Jug was the “Best Bar in the World” it had to be a pretty fucking strange place. I almost felt like it was my civic duty to go check it out. No one is quite sure exactly how old The Brown Jug is; they only know for sure that it’s been there since at least 1941. They know this because recently someone found a raffle ticket from that date. It’s said that back then the Tenderloin had at least four bars on every block. My first impression of the Brown Jug was that it looked the way that Redneck biker bars always look in movies. There were framed posters of motorcycles on the wall, and a neon Budweiser light that kept trying to end its miserable life and finally flicker out for good. Instead of playing the expected music, like Lynyrd Skynyrd or David Allen Coe, the jukebox was blaring mid 80’s adult contemporary light rock, like Level 42 and Hiroshima. A bit confused and caught off-guard, we sat down at the bar and prepared to order some drinks. I addressed the bartender who was drying some glasses behind the bar, “Hi, are you Shelley?” She eyed me suspiciously and said, hesitantly, “Ya.” “We just came from Jonell’s where we met Mike,” I said. “He told me to tell you ‘hi’ and that he sends his love.” She shook her head, chortled a bit and walked away to grab some more glasses. Shelley put down the glass she was working on and spit out her reply, “I don’t talk to that motherfucker when he’s been drinking. Shit, I don’t even talk to that motherfucker when he’s been thinking about drinking, that rotten piece of shit.” Shelly then picked up the glass again, took a breath and said, “Now what the fuck can I get you?” “Two Budweisers,” Kenny answered. She brought over the beers and Kenny paid her while I was doing my best not to look him in the eye for fear of losing my shit and cracking up. So I turned to my right and saw at the end of the bar a lady looking like a washed up, drunk Diana Ross making weird scrunched up faces at her drink. She and I made eye contact so I waved to her and said, “Hello.” She replied by giving me the finger. She continued to do so every time I looked over there for the rest of the night. “Fuck it,” I thought, and turned to my left where I saw a crumpled up old man who looked like he’d been sitting on the same barstool every night since 1948. I smiled at him and nodded, but got no response. Just as I was about to return to my notebook, though, some cheesy song that only gets airplay on your mom’s love-song stations, like “I Go Crazy (Each Time that I Look in Your Eyes)” came on. The old guy next to me suddenly got all animated and started silently waving his cigarette around in the air and grinning like someone who just had their first taste of flesh and realized that they loved it. This was the point when I realized that the Brown Jug probably was the best bar in the world, but that it was far too much for my fragile soul to handle. It was like having your mind opened up to all the secrets of the universe and realizing that maybe you didn’t want to know those secrets after all.

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