Dear Bars of San Francisco,
We have a pretty good relationship right? We see each other almost every night, sometimes with friends, sometimes one on one. I love you generally, be you divey or dancey or fancy and I do my best to do right by you. I rarely ask you for anything. Ok, there was the time I asked for more cats and the other time I asked if I could recreate Pee Wee Herman's "Tequila" dance on the bar. I published a story about the first demand and the second one you graciously quiesced to even if it meant I made a fool of myself. It grieves me now to ask you for yet another thing but I am afraid I must.
You know those giant TVs you have? The ones that are always playing sports games (or that one time at Elbo Room, The Princess Bride). I want you to use your HBO subscription (I know you have one, I've seen the boxing matches) and start playing TV shows I want to watch. Specifically Girls and Looking, which are coming back this Sunday and I'd really like it if we could all watch them together.
This will bring tons of fun people to already fun bars. Hell, we could even implement a drinking game like "take a shot everytime Marnie is obnoxious or Sosh has hair that looks like an acid-riddled Princess Leia." Actually we might have to make stricter rules for the drinking game because those rules would get us slickered far too quick!
But Molly, you say, patiently pouring me another beer, it's easy to watch sports in a loud bar, dialogue needs to be heard to be appreciated. This is true. I think I speak for all my fellow watchers when I say we'd be content to read subtitles if it meant we could watch premium cable at a bar with our friends. Plus it'll make us feel like we're watching some fancy foreign film about gorgeous men romping around SF. (I cannot be the only who that swoons when I see Jonathan Groff making eyes at me from those Muni ads.) If you play it, we will come.
Some of us don't have the option to watch it at home. Our houses lack televisions and our parents can't figure out how to work HBO Go and our ex-boyfriends are being stingy with their passwords. Plus some things, Lena Dunham's boobs in particular, just need to be appreciated on a big screen.
Speaking of boobs, I also want you to start showing Game of Thrones when it comes back. Not Mad Men though, I think watching a bunch of depressed people drink in a bar surrounded by other depressed people drinking would be too much for me.
And don't act like this sort of thing is unprecedented because I fondly remember a day in 2012 when I sat in Elixir and watched the Dowton Abbey season premiere. There were specialty cocktails, costumes, and I lead the charge on a "TEAM THOMAS" chant. It was glorious.
To conclude, please start airing these shows. If you don't, well, I mean I'm still coming. You make a great Bloody Mary, but I'll be noticeably absent on Sunday evenings.
Love always,
Molly and The Bold Italic
Photo courtesy of Flickr user, Jeff McCalib.