It rained here on the weekend.
And when it rains in Southern California people don’t go out to the bars. This a fact I learned when I lived in L.A. When I first moved there from the South it was “come on man,” but I quickly adapted and just went with it. I mean, what’s the point of going out to sit in a mostly-empty bar? You can’t meet anybody.
Fortunately in the fall, there is football and people do go out to bars for the games regardless of the weather. In fact, it’s better when it’s rainy or cloudy; this removes any guilt about being inside a bar on a nice day.
Because there are so many transplants here, Southern California has bars that fans of every NFL team and alumni bars for colleges who live here now pack for games. On Thursday, I met some transplanted friends from Buffalo – they had wings to eat, no surprise – to watch the Bills in the Thursday night opener.
They were at Taste & Thurst in the Gaslamp Quarter and while there, I met a cute girl who briefly popped in to say hello. She’s a 49ers fan and they watch their games at Bootlegger in the Gaslamp. I filed away that knowledge to putt to future use.
I did not go out Friday night. Pointless. Plus, Saturday I was at Bootlegger at 8:45 a.m., on Saturday for a different game. It’s the bar where alumni and fans of my alma mater, Alabama, go to watch the games. They call it “Tuscaloosa West” and it’s an accurate description because if you can’t be in Tuscaloosa for a game, Bootlegger is a great alternative.
The game started at the ridiculous time of 9 a.m. – gee thanks FOX Sports! – and since Bootlegger has bottomless mimosas for 25 bucks, that’s what I drank. The game lasted for three-plus hours and while I was drinking water from time to time to hydrate – as I recommended in my drinking tips TikTok video just a couple days earlier – three-plus hours is still a long time to be drinking mimosas.
I met some Bama friends there whom I had not seen in a while and after the game we all went to Knotty Barrel for a beer.
And that was pretty much the end of my nightlife the weekend. I am obsessed with college football – well, whenever Alabama is winning anyway – and went back home to watch some of the other games. I had planned to go to Patrick’s on Saturday night to hear the band but dang it, that couch was soooo comfortable and the games kept going to midnight and I never made it out that night. Plus, while it wasn’t raining it was gloomy and people here don’t go out when it’s gloomy, either.
Sunday, I had planned to go back to Bootlegger to look for that girl – the place is more packed for San Francisco games than it even is for Bama ones – but the 49ers were getting hammered and, figuring she would not be in the best of moods, decided to do it for another game. Plus it was still overcast.
So why don’t people here go out when it’s raining? Simple. It’s because we have 325 days of sunshine a year and we don’t like getting wet!
Cheers.
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