San Francisco Is Very Pretty In The Night Time

After a recent trip to California, a precious myth was dispelled rather forcefully from my naivety. Firstly, San Francisco is not warm; no one seems to mention this in their glowing revues of the city’s cosmopolitanism. More importantly, there are a lot of people who left the love of the 60’s far behind them. Perhaps the two are linked; after decades of rigid nostalgia and even more decades of cold summers, something snapped inside the post Bubble-busted San Franciscan. Perhaps the tinge of jealousy of their southern neighbors? A crack in the self sustained vanity? The regrettable yet inevitable disdain for the smell of their own farts?

Whatever the reason(s), a healthy contingent of San Franciscans have turned in their veils of idealism (on the 40th anniversary of the summer of love no less) for D&G cologne and Armani Exchange clubbing attire for the burgeoning ‘ultra lounge’ scene. Other than zip code, this subterranean lounge was distinctly reminiscent of the golden era of Miami night club, all flashy lights and bottle service.

To be fair, my first and only witness to this scene, the music was good. Dirty Bird found its way in the building. Sadly, though not altogether shocking, Dirty Bird was no match for the testosterone that pulsed through the veins of the club patrons.

Only twenty minutes and two cocktails into my evening at the bar when some pushing and shoving broke out next to me involving the majority of people that made up the small crowd I was cocktailing with. Someone was bumped, drinks were spilled, girls were pushed, and my friends found themselves the unfortunate recipients of fate and bad timing and ‘roid rage all popping out of the same nicely wrapped package at once. Bartenders quickly jumped over the bar in an effort to subdue the instigator, calling for backup on little ear piece walkie talkies. Real help lifted this guy off his feet and out of the club, but not without a fight! Such a fight was put up that a third bouncer felt the need to re-subdue this guy with pepper spray. Lots of pepper spray. Like, enough to circulate throughout the ventilation system. The whole place starts coughing, first the people dancing, then the people at the bar, then the really drunk people making out in the corners. Bad, dry coughing, like pepper and chemicals in the throat. Not a natural feeling, but not difficult to imagine.

The finale? Forced evacuation out of the club en masse. The moral? None. Just that, after all the Miguel Migs and Mark Farina shows where they consistently bring out enough beautiful women to make everyone else enjoy spending their nights drinking $12 cocktails, I was hoping for more of the Om-vibe out of San Francisco’s sexy side. But who knows, perhaps San Francisco deep house era is as in the past as the Summer of Love. After all, even Om is all up on dance music’s new testosterone tip.

Paperclip People - Throw || Open

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Hip Hop, Culture, House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.