Then Slocum released a longer video, in which she called people at the bar white trash, and it became clear that the whole story was—at the very least—way more complicated than she originally let on.
After the incident, and to respond to the anti-tech backlash that’s swept the city, a few bars in San Francisco banned Google Glass. Taking the opposite approach, the Stanford Court Hotel—a former Marriott that remodeled itself in 2013 to coddle to the booming tech industry after almost going bankrupt a few years prior—started offering free drinks to anyone wearing the superfluous $1,500 face computer.
“The complimentary drink is geared toward the local tech crowd who own a pair, and might feel like an outcast or nuisance due to the recent string of negative press,” explained a hotel spokesperson to SF Gate. “[We] want them to feel at home.”
I figured this bar would offer a bleak glimpse of what the world might look like in 5-10 years, should “wearables” invade. I headed over at happy hour on a Thursday.
The Stanford Court Hotel sits castle-like on the apex of Nob Hill. The castle metaphor isn’t a hyperbolic stretch: On the high-walled south side of the place there’s actually a defensive tower. I wondered if those standing guard would dump boiling oil on any non-tech peasants, should they storm the fortress demanding breadcrumbs.
The entrance is concrete and cavernous, like a parking garage, or to extend the castle metaphor, it functions sort of like a barbican. At first I wasn’t sure if it was the correct entrance, but noticed a cement fountain in the center, and some bored valets, so I moseyed in. I was initially worried they’d stop me—I had biked there, uphill, from my apartment in the Mission, and had sweat through my shirt.
Walking in the door, there was a welcome mat with #GDBYE, which stands for either “goodbye” or “god boye.” If the former is true, then it was facing the wrong way, saying “goodbye” to everyone entering. There were iPads at the front desk, sitting vertically in stands, that read “#hello.” I thought these were odd design touches that fundamentally misunderstood the point of hashtags.
The lobby was crowded with pilots and flight attendants. Above, there was a faux-stained glass dome—the glass was painted different primary colors. Toto’s “Hold The Line” played over the lobby’s speakers. An electric motorcycle was parked next to a sign that read “take charge.” There were Macs lined up along a window that looked out into the entrance area, their screensavers flashing images of the hotel rooms, I suppose in case guests forgot what their rooms looked like.
I walked to the bar, passing a couch with pillows that read CTRL, ALT, DEL. I wondered what these pillows signify—perhaps the couch freezes often?—and snapped a photo. I briefly considered flipping the pillows out of order, to see if anyone noticed.
The bar was quiet. Nobody was wearing Google Glass. A Warriors game was ending on a flatscreen TV at the far end of the bar. In front of it sat a 50-something tourist couple. Three chairs up from them a 30-someting guy pecked at his laptop, and on the other end two women sat drinking white wine and talking loudly but incomprehensibly. The only thing I could make out was when one of them said, “Have you ever watched ‘Devil Wears Prada’?”
I sat down between the tourist couple and the guy on his laptop, who was apparently locked out. He kept trying different passwords, hitting enter, watching the screen shake to say “no,” and then letting out a long sigh.
I ordered a beer from a tired, middle-aged bartender, a Big Daddy, which cost $7.61. In my neighborhood you could get it for $5 outside of happy hour. As he filled the glass I noticed they had Vodka on tap.
The tourist couple next to me sat quietly, definitively not the kind of people the hotel was hoping to draw, digging through the dish of assorted nuts in front of them with their fingers, picking out the M&Ms. The wife—dressed like a mannequin from Chicos—sipped her red wine, as the husband—sneakers with high athletic socks, jeans and a windbreaker—waited for her to finish, empty beer glass in front of him.
He spoke to me after I ordered, in a Sam Elliott baritone. “Big Daddy, huh? Ever had that before?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Where’s it from?”
“Here.”
He thought about this for a moment, then looked as his wife, satisfied. “Must be a local or something.”
A long moment passed.
“Big Daddy,” he repeated to himself.
The guy to my left suddenly slammed his MacBook shut, and crossed the bar to the CTRL-ALT-DEL couch, where he was charging his phone at a nearby outlet.
I sat and drank.
The bartender replaced the peanut dish in front of the tourists with another full container.
“That’s just what we need,” the guy said sardonically.
It suddenly occurred to me that the bartender never offered me a dish of nuts. I thought about complaining—what, you think I’m too sweaty for some assorted nuts?
The laptop guy returned, opened his computer, furiously tried a few more passwords, and then angrily asked the bartender to change the TV channel. The game had ended, and players were being interviewed.
“What do you want to watch?”
“Anything, I don’t care, just a game. As much as I love watching interviews,” he said.
Only a few seconds after the channel was changed for him, he closed his laptop, and wandered off to one of the Macs in the lobby. He sat in one of the awkward spherical beanbag chairs, that were too low to the ground and made him look like a 6-year-old at the wheel of a large automobile. He immediately visited Espn.com and scrolled through, bored.
I texted my friend: “This bar is the opposite of fun.”
A fly circled and then landed in my beer.
by Joe Viex, deathandtaxes | Read more:
Image: SF Gate
