Not all changes are good. That's what a friend of mine opined the other day. Some say Iraq under Saddam was a safer place. Just ask the Kurds. With criminal gangs running unrestrained in Moscow, some long for the old Soviet days, when the police were the criminals. Things are better now. Soviet citizens were once shot for no reason. With Putin in control, you can count on being shot for a reason. When Marshall Tito died, Yugoslovia erupted into war. In Italy, Mussolini kept the Mafia under control, until the Americans gave them all civil service jobs. When I was a kid, I actually heard a German fellow bellow, "This would not have happened when Adolph was alive!" It's amazing how sentimental people can be.
All of these changes on the world stage are beyond my ken. They didn't happen in my neighborhood. But this is happening in my neighborhood: The John Barleycorn pub on Larkin & California Streets is under threat of disappearing. That venerably sodden old home for troubadours and local pubsters is in danger of being displaced by the new property owner -- as is the adjacent Front Room Pizzeria, which has served Nob Hill for over 40 years. The plan? New condos, I suppose. I don't really know. But Supervisor Aaron Peskin has been brought in to mediate the beef. A petition to save the tavern is making its way up and down Polk Street. You'll know how this likely will turn out. Better find a new pub. A change is gonna come. Is the change gonna do us good, as Sheryl Crow surmises? Who knows?
I know that St. Patrick's Day will not quite be the same without the street party outside O'Reilly's Irish Pub & Restaurant at 622 Green Street. That's right. No party this year. Well, no authorized party. The captain at North Beach's Central Police Station has reportedly put the kabosh on the wassail this year, citing last year's complaints from residents about noise, and public drunkenness. Drunkenness on St. Pat's Day? Gambling in Casablanca? Owner Myles O'Reilly says the cancellation of the party jeopardizes his annual Oyster Festival, traditionally held later in Washington Square Park. He was counting on the money he could make on St. Pat's Day to support the whole shucking thing. Is the party over? Well, I don't think you can easily stop the revelers from crowding into O'Reilly's on March 17. San Francisco still takes its parties seriously. I don't think that has changed.
Even though I haven't had a drink in years, I'm still protective of old saloons, particularly saloons that provide live music, as John Barleycorn does. Or did, depending on the outcome of this dispute. Local folkies make Monday a regular music night there. I confess I played there with a group thirty years ago. They had a great jukebox -- until I broke it. But certainly not on purpose. I swear. The machine died while I played "Wings of a Nightingale" by the Everly Brothers 27 times in a row. The jukebox committed harikiri. It couldn't take it anymore.
I still make a note of which bars open at 6 a.m. (John Barleycorn does not. The pub likely got its name from an old English folk song, "John Barleycorn Must Die," or even from Jack London's autobiographical novel, John Barleycorn, about London's struggle with his alcoholism. It's scary.) Jack London might be interested to know that the number of bars that open at dawn has dwindled dramatically in recent years. This observation reveals a perverse form of nostalgia on my part. There's nothing romantic about an habitual drinker -- especially one with an opinion. Saloons are just the sort of places where people can argue about changes on the world stage. It's where you can slam your pint glass on the bar and exclaim, "This would not have happened in the days of Adolph!" and few would pay attention to you. Adolph who? Yes, a bar is a safety zone for idiocy or for eloquence -- a corner for the inconsequential jabberings of the inebriated. That will never change.
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