Jesse, you rock!

First of all, I applaud and congratulate Jesse on an extremely insightful and noteworthy post.

After seven succesful dive bar meetings, it is about time we established some guidlines and a credo that at least comes close to the tagline that started it all:

A unique monthly descent into San Francisco's underbelly and world of distinguished dive bars.

That said, I would like to invite anyone and everyone to please start commenting or ranting (even better) about anything on this blog. What the hell...nobody reads it anyway. HA!

The following is my rant:

When I leave the house, on the eve of a Dive Bar meeting, I have expectations. First and foremost, I want to see all of the people I haven't kept in touch with for a month - possibly meet more. Secondly, I want to have fun. And thirdly, I want to experience a new bar - hopefully semi divey, in a new neighborhood, that I might possibly want to go back to. And I don't think that I am in the minority with these three expectations either.

So isn't that enough?

Maybe not.

I totally agree with Jesse in that we need to, "muster the social courage and hygienic tolerance necessary to truly explore these cultural phenomena." And if that means taking a stroll around Eddy and Larkin along with Charlene (a post-op transexual) and her pimp, then so be it. I'm sure she's nice. However, I would like to remind everyone that as a group of at least 20 strong, we have the power to completely transform a bar into our little sandbox or playground. With this in mind, we have a responsibility to respect the people whose lives we change for one brief evening - the ones that call these dive bars their home. Along with the decor (or lack thereof) and the all encompasing smell of piss, they are the ones that have made dive bars divey. And we do invade their space, albeit for one evening, while possibly offering a glimpse of "...light, carefree benevolence." However, we must remind ourselves why these men and women go to a bar and stare cross-eyed at the bottom of a glass...to drink, possibly heavily, and in peace.

Hey, WTF? Who the hell cares? There's probably a nice glass of drown your sorrows at the bar next door. I bet THAT place is not full of a bunch of SFDBO'ers preparing for the week's end by getting their drink on.

I'm sure we are all anxiously awaiting the next dive bar choice. Congrats to everyone on their contribution in making SFDBO such a success.

Kaya, you're it.