Saturday, Jan. 7 - There are some days when I am amazed I’m not an alcoholic.
You come home super late, deadline kicked your ass with copy flow that was one big wave after another of calls, mishaps and revisions. You are wide awake and the rest of the world is asleep. Grab a beer. Grab a bottle. Grab a glass. Drink it down with like-minded individuals who are awake when the world is asleep.
Every major newspaper in the country has a bar, a watering hole where you go to de-stress and melt the rest of the day away in bourbon, wine and beer.
In San Francisco, there are three bars right next to the San Francisco Chronicle, two of them stocked full of reporters and newspapermen/women talking about life inside the newsroom and the meaning of it all outside of it. The patrons talked about sports, the Zodiac killer and the industry. When I walked in there, I felt like I walking into a social club of like-minded compatriots at the end of a long shift. I’d get out of class – high school, junior college and university – to drive to SF and clear my head. Sometimes I’d walk into those bars (the names have been scrubbed from my memory, especially on a second Guinness at 2 a.m.) and know that this is where I wanted to be “when I grew up.”
In Sacramento, working at The Bee, there wasn’t as much camaraderie in the newsroom, but there were two bars within easy walking distance to gather in and unwind. And they were frequented by those inside the newsroom and inside the corporate offices. At Sac State, most of us on the paper would first gather at the picnic table outside of the offices and move to one of the tens of hundreds of bars/taverns/joints in the city. I always preferred the craft brew bars downtown, but the most fun came from the small dives that a group of 12 would take over and call our own.
When I worked in Calistoga, there were wine tastings and three-bar hops inside the city limits to spend the weekend away. Not the same thing, but the wine tastings always brought out the best — and worst — people. Always good to engage in a bit of sociology with your vino. The fun came from meeting the tourists, enjoying the locals’ company and feeling like you were living in one of the cushions of luxury enjoyed by those way more monied than you’d ever experience.
I still have friends who live there and I’d return there to live in a second if I got the chance. Yeah, it is one of the few places I’d return to in California. Besides San Francisco, Calistoga is one of the very few places that triggers the right vibe in my head that I need to survive. It is a mega-dose and when I feel it draining or low, vacations get planned and life revolves around returning there to get my charge.
It would never be the same again if I returned for good, but I still miss that place.
Here in Aberdeen/Hoquiam, there are logger bars, dives, military service posts and restaurant joints to sit down and enjoy the time in, not to mention the people. But it doesn’t feel the same, especially when you are used to one vibe and another is predominant and putrid. Sorry, but that is one of the knocks around here. Snobbish, yeah maybe, but I’ll never deny that I am at times.
But the point to this is simple – this business and a drink are intertwined. The old days were stocked with stories of reporters opening file cabinets to pull out 12-year-old scotch for a quick belt to inspire a finish to a story or a shift. Smoke in the newsroom, light your garbage can on fire, drink a shot and ask whether the Giants will win the pennant with a son of a pretty good, but not Hall-of-Fame caliber player, coming from Pittsburgh.
A beer and a drink has been by my side throughout this journey. I’m still healthy (enough) to enjoy, but I do wonder on nights like this how the rest of the world gets along without. Maybe. Maybe not.
By the way, I just poured by third Guinness glass, my last before bed.
And, after a brief pause, I’ve lost the rest of my post in my head. Sunk in Guinness and serenaded by The Clancey Brothers. So be it. G’night everyone.
Wait. One more… I lied. I’ve had Cee Lo Green in my head all night, so why shouldn’t it be different now. Enjoy. G’night freaks.
