dark dreams

wandel

bartendress @ the zeitgeist beer garden

I miss these really gruff, frank no-nonsense women that go around in dirty t-shirts. Maybe it's because I'm such a girly girl lately, walking around in ironed shirts and even trying out heels but too afraid to buy them for fear it will destroy my soul. There have been several epic battles this year, but that's a tale for another day.

The bartender at the Zeitgeist was one such San Francisco lady; she was polite, knowledgeable, and able to handle orders while chatting about how she didn't like her new haircut. Also, she has the best beer on the planet, all the new Californian microbrews. There is good American beer, you know, although nobody will believe me. While most people are drinking the worst possible beer on earth throughout the country on Superbowl Sunday, there are friendly bartenders filling up big pitchers of Stella Artois for beer fanatics.

She's not pretentious about it though. And she doesn't overdo the service, like how some bartenders ask you how you are doing even though they don't really care. Lean back and watch her move back and forth the bar plastered with a zillion generations of punkrock stickers and big floppy bottles of vodka and whiskey. They're all here for the beer though.

At the end of the night she'll be wiping the countertops with a gray rag tucked into her back pants pocket, back aching, and then go stand outside smoking a cigarette in the outdoor beer garden with the rest of the crew. She's probably heard a lot of the drama that has gone on tonight but has learned to filter it out. It's one of the tricks of the trade.

graciela iturbide

alice neel

"I do not know if the truth that I have told will benefit the world in any way. I managed to do it at great cost to myself and perhaps to others. It is hard to go against the time of one's time, milieu and position. But at least I tried to reflect innocently the twentieth century and my feelings and perceptions as a girl and a woman. Not that I felt they were all that different from a man's. I did this at the expense of untold humiliations, but at least after my fashion. I told the truth as I perceived it, and, considering the way one is bombarded by reality, did the best and most honest art of which I was capable." -- Alice Neel