According to my
calculations, tonight's event,
Meat, will be our 500th event since we re-opened on
July 13, 2001. So how about that.
While I'm at it, allow me to direct your attention to event number 503, the Nina Hagen show this sunday. This will be her third visit here (and fourth show, since she played two nights last year) and she always puts on quite a show. The opening act this time is Storm and The Balls. Storm's previous band, "Storm Inc.", played here in October 2001 -- one of our first live shows, in fact. Great show; I listen to their CDs a lot.
Last week, the SF Board of Supervisors voted in favor of the later last-call that I mentioned earlier, so now State Assemblyman Leno is going to propose legislation some time in the next few weeks. Based on public response, they've scaled back their proposal from "let large cities in California decide whether to have a later last-call" to "let San Francisco decide." (Apparently folks in other cities would rather not have that choice at all...)
So in the face of this good news, let's take a peek at what's happening on the opposite coast, shall we? Apparently there's a move afoot in New York City to pull back last call from 4AM to 1AM for many bars and restaurants! Not globally, but they'd make people jump through more permit hoops to be allowed to be open later than 1AM. Nice, huh? The New York Nightlife Association site has news about this. Of course, the NYNA is also trying to repeal the smoking ban in NYC, so it's not like they're sane or anything. That's just reason number two to never set foot outside of San Francisco.
Apparently they claim that the smoking ban has caused lots and lots of bars and clubs to go out of business in New York, causing "widespread industry layoffs", because apparently New Yorkers are such party animals that they'll say to themselves, "you know what, I'd like to go clubbing, but I can't smoke there, so I'll just stay home instead."
The California smoking ban improved my nightlife experience immeasurably. It only takes one trip out of the state to remind me of the horrors of coming home and having to leave my clothing outside because I can't stand to be in the room with their post-club stench. Hell, I can't wait until they ban smoking on sidewalks. And after cigarettes, I hope they go after patchoulli. I don't want to smell any of you fuckers! Get away from me!