Angry young man Milton Bosch, writing for Complex City Guide, toured San Francisco in search of its "douchiest bars." Now, while I don't argue that our fair city has its share of asshole watering holes, I am going to have to take issue with a few of his choices. He spreads his hate around pretty well, though.
To Bosch's credit, he calls himself a douche in the introductory paragraph, but then again he's also conflating a bunch of annoying elements one may meet in a bar, all of them male, and putting them under the larger umbrella of "douche," which is sure to cause some objection. To wit, he refers to both brogrammers and techie douches, as well as "entitled frat boys, pervy old men, and self-important hipsters," all of which he takes aim at.
Hitting the bottom of the list at #25 is Dear Mom, and I'll call him out on his first factual error. He refers to their Buck Hunter video game, "Big Buck World," as the "number one douche game right now." Actually, the whole Big Buck Hunter phenomenon dates back well over 10 years, in bars in Brooklyn and beyond. And back before Gawker and the rest popularized the words "hipster" and "douche" for our urban nemeses.
He takes aim at other "hip" venues like Madrone Art Bar, Cat Club (for "dorky, plaid-shirted, newly-moneyed nerds-cum-hipsters"), Casanova, The Hemlock, and gay-hipster hangout The Stud the latter I'll take issue with because a) he went there for SomeThing on Knife Tribute Night which may be a little pretentious but was also pretty awesome, and b) he sounds like he'd never been to this 50-year-old place before and therefore can not be trusted.
And a bunch of frat-tastic, drunk-entitled-white-boy bars make it (rightfully) on here, like Eddie Rickenbacker's, and the Marina's Campus, Tipsy Pig, and Stock in Trade (which clocks in at #1). He really hates it there. "It's impressive how these losers maintain their snooty front when they are so damn sloppy. I guess it's easy to fit in when everyone looks exactly the same."
And yes, the mostly character-less bar that took over from Marlena's in Hayes Valley, Brass Tacks, probably deserves its slot at #17.
But Bloodhound? The Cafe? Beauty Bar? How does one even compare these places with all of the above? It all starts to sound pretty arbitrary, is my point, when basically everyone could be called a douche.
Someone with a little more knowledge of the city, and expertise in the field study of douchebaggery, might have been better suited to this job.
