— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
About a month ago, I jumped on the Alameda/Oakland ferry at the Ferry Building and took it to Jack London Square. The ferry is a lot like traversing the length of the Oregon Trail, only you are on water, shivering in the fog, and chugging gin & tonics. Anyway, I stopped of at this place called Merchant's Saloon. It's a lovely place full of neat stuff like a platform full illuminated by black lights, a piano covered in tags, lots of lovely signage, cheap 24s of PBR, and, of course, graffiti.
While you think that might be enough to get it a '4 out of 5 neon pairs of wayfarers' review, it gets even better: they have a urine trough. That's right, I said urine trough. See, when you sit at the bar, you'll notice there is a tiled trough with a drain in the middle. “What's that for, Kevin?” Well, as the name “urine trough” would suggest, it is there so patrons of the bar can urinate right at their bar stool. Yep, no need to even get up from your seat in this place, just piss while taking another shot of Jimmy.
Ahem. Sorry, that was longwinded. My point with that story is that Oakland is a treasure chest of pure awesomeness. So stomach the trying 8-minute tube ride across the bay and expel your bladder at the bar.
Comments (8)
To me, it suggests that one must travel from SF to get to Oakland.
Was this post really just an excuse to say Urine Trough?
Yes.
the problem with going to oakland is getting back. coming back at midnight sucks, I’m not trying to take up drunk driving again.
Haha, the reverse is true as well!
In the few months I’ve lived in Oakland I’ve become a veteran of both Last BART and its even more sadistic cousin, First BART. If you thought having to peace out from your friends at midnight and make the mad dash from the bar to the BART station was crappy, instead imagine waking up at dude’s house at 6am hungover as hell, then having to make the long BART journey home in last night’s clothes that probably smell like smoke / are stained with Four Loko spillage, among people in business attire who obviously have their lives together way more than you, in the harsh light of day. BART needs to run 24 hours if for no other reason to save us from awful situations like that. Right, you guys?
yeah fuck first bart. fortunately bart’s design doesn’t allow for 24 hour service without adding tracks, at least that’s what they say, thanks to the visionaries of the 70’s or whenever the fuck they built that shit the 24hr design was passed in favor of some commuter bullshit. If bart ran 24 hours I would actually considering moving across the bridge.
Travel guides like this always leave out important administrative details. In this case, you don’t even mention where to apply for a passport. Destined to stay in SF, we are…
all I know is that the new bathrooms in Dolores Park better have urine troughs, like at Candlestick….
The piss trough is antiquated, a relic from Merchants’ past. You aren’t supposed to piss in it in 2010. It was there because only men were patrons, sailors and merchant marines et. al.