Chow Sad Hour
When I lived in San Francisco, I used to go to a bar in the Tenderloin that offered Sad Hour. Paper coasters bore the details: “Sad Hour, 5—7 p.m. Come in and cheer down.” It was a colossally divey place, genuinely so, a place you would not want your mother to know you were. The portly bartender, Carl, when not screaming Tourette’s-style at regulars staggering in high out of their minds or passing out in their seats, was available for a slow dance or two. Sad Hour had no drink specials, no snacks, just bittersweetness served up with a view of life’s rich pageantry—tranny hookers, miscellaneous nefarious deeds—transpiring in the gloaming outside.
These happy hours are nothing like Sad Hour.
I miss that bar.