1232 Grant Avenue | San Francisco, CA (North Beach)
One of the oldest continuously operating taverns in the city, this live blues joint has hosted royalty such as Janis Joplin, Charlie Musslewhite, Paul Butterfield, and Boz Scaggs. All information I was blissfully unaware of when I stumbled into it.
Stand in front of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Look west up Columbus across the street where Grant jogs up the hill and you’ll see Betty Lou’s Seafood. You want to walk past that. Walk past the Pantera Grill across Fresno. Walk into the corner entrance of The Saloon and say hi to Heidi; she’ll be perched on the bar staring out the door with her tongue hanging out, a loving and placid Chihuahua unless you are another dog passing up Grant. Then she’s insane.
It’s just past lunch and you just had coffee in Caffe Trieste, accidentally sitting in the same place on the back bench where Ginsburg sits in a picture on the wall by the cash register. You open your satchel, go through the books you picked up at that holy place—The Beats, A Gentleman in Moscow, couple of postcards, a timely collection of poetry, Things You Will Find in my Ear by Palestinian poet, Mosab Abu Toha and, of course, Howl. You’re sitting there with your hot cortada and your delicate pastries shuffling through your shit, glancing up occasionally at the ancient nobles clustered at the front with their wild white hair and their loud conversation about turds which you can barely believe when a guy half your age walks in, dressed exactly like you.
This is odd because you are attired for a man closing in on retirement: smart earth toned button-up with button-down collar under a wine-colored sweater vest, beige slacks, and an Irish cap. Old man sartorial accoutrements. But so is he.
You don’t have to stand for this kind of mockery. Out the door. Around the corner. Across the street and there on the corner of Fresno and Grant you see a tousled snowy done disappear into The Saloon and follow them. You stop in the corner door, lock eyes with the dog on the bar, look back into the dark recesses, breathe deep the faintly florid bouquet of whiskey and urine and listen as the bartender and a swaying patron argue about Jimi Hendrix. Waylon Jennings launches into his 1977 hit, Luchenbach Texas. You haul your shit back past an ancient crone surrounded by newspapers, the source of the florid bouquet, and settle your carcass in a stool at the end of the bar. You know this place. You are this place.
Order a whiskey. Pay for a whiskey. The bartender tools on back up front to the argument and Heidi the chihuahua turns her head to peg you with an investigative glare and the old lady snaps her paper open wider and it’s all just too, too goddam perfect so you raise your phone to take a picture and the bartender sees you.
Bartender: yeah, hey, no. The thing about pictures is, this guy here [he cocks his head to indicate the pewter-haired bohemian petting Heidi and bitching about ‘screens, man’] is on parole and he’s not supposed to be here.
Now you want the picture more.
Bartender: just make sure he’s not in any shots.
You hide him behind a whiskey glass and do one of those counter-top shots.
Look back in the back at the house drum kit asleep on the stage. Look at the bean colored walls, paint falling down in limp shags. Look at how the bar sags from the indecisive horizontals of an earthquake city. Marshall Tucker keeps 1977 rolling along with “Heard it in a Love song.” Finish that Bulleit Bourbon. Say goodbye to the dog.
