San Francisco Bar Beat

There is no better city in the world to become a barfly then San Francisco which is a great reason why the city is my favorite one in the US but an equally great reason why I do not live there. I could easily see myself shacking up as a regular on a stool (or a few) in various neighborhoods like Bukowsky to get my literary grit on.

But when I visit I like going to the old and beloved and well as finding the new. On a recent  trip with the Cute Gardener, we sampled quite a few so I decided to get inspired by my fellow man Jack Kerouac, who loved the city so much that he penned one of my favorite little books called San Francisco Blues, and ink some little ditties.

Aub Xam Xam

Haight Ashbury Persian lair, throbbing like a quilted womb,

Ottoman empire mosque shaped bar,

intimate corners 'neath sexy night

amber plum red light cush

weird and exotic rums

and dark-skinned, almond eyes girls

mingling with gay men

mingling with old, dazed, silver haired male hippies

and a pregnant bartender wiser than her 1960s waif sisters.

Good for heated conversations

quiet privacy beneath arched doorways

and jewel colored glasses that glisten

like prisms

throughout the blackness. A throbbing womb

to welcome and hold the curious.

St. Regis

South of Market lobby bar,

breathes and sighs,

whisks you in to its sleek elite,

black polished granite for the clack

of heels and nightcaps-

ending with men in dinnertime coats-

and their lovely dolls lolling across their laps.

Big burly bears stroking mutual thighs on couch,

arrogant young rich boys in for the feminine kill,

politicians getting loose with ladies for sale,

and a neat Old Man and the Sea in a tall glass

between my fishnet-coated knees.

The Alembic

Bare bones rectangular space

with noted street cocktail cred,

perched on stools till witching hour

sampling good old fashioned craft:

bourbon and cherries,

egg cream, port wine and coffee,

blood and sand with fruity brandy,

a poop deck scatological cognac…

…making friends with locals

dressed in vintage blue flick finery

laughter cracking alongside the cubes

of big fat ice floating in gold glass.

Photographing churches on the streets

rolling home.

Vesuvio

North Beach joint of the Beats and jazz,

history peppered, smoke shellac walls,

ground zero for literary pilgrims

cuba libres with lime and boisterous boys

bartended by unisex hep cats

no nonsense sketchpad and hang around den.

83

SOMA wood and swank,

belly up to the bar and spit out your list of faves

to the jolly and hip bartenders

who do nothing more than crave

a list of ingredients,

a piece of sassafras about your ass,

and thirty seconds of gab

before concocting for you, the

drink of your dreams

based on what’s inherent to your palate

and the mood you’d like to make.