Tags
bar, bros, marina, san francisco, sf, the marina
yesterday evening i headed out to enjoy the traditional pre-thanksgiving drinksgiving festivities. my mother was visiting, staying in a hotel just off of chestnut street, a nice quiet place unfortunately situated in the heart of the marina.
now i’m usually able to get along with most people, even if i don’t think much of them, i’m still polite when the situation calls for it. but thrice in the last two evenings of oddly finding myself in marina night spots i’ve been tempted to mangle some bros with their pint glasses.
it started tuesday, when i came to the neighborhood and met with some people of a startup expressing interest in working with a friend and i. we went to the blue light after to catch a drink near last call, where one of the bartenders is a friend. she gave us shots of fernet, a couple beers and a smile. behind us, some kid kept nudging us with a stool, laughing, but, with a glance from the two of us, stopped, raising his hands as if to claim innocence. a moment later, three bros take shots and drop their glasses on the floor, leaving shattered glass every where and walking out.
the next evening after dinner, walking through a large crowd outside the tipsy pig, a young bro said something i didn’t hear nor paid any attention to, which, once back at the hotel, my mom told me was ‘are you for sale? discount?’, directed at her.
soon after i left to find a dive and a glass of whiskey to calm myself. is the comet club actually trying to be a dive? i can’t tell what the place is supposed to be. it looks like it should be a dive, but the classic rock is often drowned by shitty Top 40 music, woo girl screams, and bros laughing and smashing glasses. you would think they’d never seen a guy sipping whiskey in a leather jacket there before with all the looks i kept getting from the girls, the awkward glances from guys. at least i had met one of the bartenders recently, and he proved to still be friendly and say hi.
here, three fucks tapped my friend on the shoulder and scampered away, giggling like fourteen year old girls. they did it to me once, i slammed my whiskey, and asked them what they wanted. they all glanced about, pretending i hadn’t said anything, as if oblivious to the room. they only gave a glade to my middle finger as we left.
we walked some blocks to the only safe bastion against the douche baggery of the neighborhood, donahue’s cocktail lounge. this is the only place in the marina i could actually. the bartenders jake and sully came right over to say hi, listened to our brief story of the previous bars, and poured us shots and shots of fernet and discounting our whiskey in sympathy. we traded some similar stories from around the neighborhood and talked about one of my favorite subjects, whiskey an bourbon. the mates behind the bar of irish pub saved the streets from smashed faces.
be sure toremember, the marina is only worth going to if you’re a douche, want to find a fight, or find a naive girl who’ll take to her parents house nearby so you can leave them stains in the morning. i can’t the immature bullshit i’ve seen in the neighborhood, the arrogance and disrespect, especially when it comes from kids who don’t have the balls to say anything when they’re called out on their actions. and beyond that, me being quite obviously not of their type, or any sort of marina-looking sort, it seems i would likely be blamed for whatever the situation ended up being. bros banding with fellow bros against the rock and roll man they likely rarely see in their ‘hood.
so i raise my glass to the marina: cheers to you and your herpes triangle of clubs, to your idiocy, to your paid-for college educations that haven’t taught you so little about being a good person, and to the fact that the next big earthquake will sink your house into the bay.
