Misty Monday is The Mint

4/22/2015

Misty Monday at The Mint east of Castro Street has been around since the late 1990s. Monday is always misty there and a tad bit slow pace when Monday falls on 4/20. Terrific, young stud Evan, whom I met for the first time last week and became an acquaintance, DJs/hosts all those courageous singers offering to karaoke for a Monday eveing audience beginning at 6 p.m. However, you don't have to wait for Evan or until 6 p.m. in order to do your thing on stage. You can start as early as 2:30 p.m. after lunch when The Mint opens its doors.

Evan, bartender and Karaoke host at The Mint

On Mondays, the bartender is Brian all day and night. Tireless and witty Brian has memories of a more tawdry San Francisco that dates back as far as the 1970s and tells me it is his aim to make the word, “Groovy” cool again. Why not I agree with him. After all, afros have certainly made a comeback...only now I'd have to wear a wig if I must have one. But yeah, "Sugar Sugar...goovy and Jughead Jones and Ethel" we definitely welcome back.

Brian bartends and sings on Mondays at The Mint

Too, fun-to-be around Brian has one of the greatest Broadway voices I’ve ever been entertained; when he sings in soprano his voice sends chills up and down my spine. It’s enough to make me like musicals when I am not, at all, a fan of musicals...though, I’ve been to several musicals, had boyfriends who were stir-crazy musical fanatics, and so I kind of got into it out of respect for their feelings, but really not every gay man you meet, and I am chiefly one of them, is not into that kind of song and dance. Some people are shocked as if they've been offended when I tell them, you don’t like musicals when they believe I should like musicals because I am a gay man and all gay men must like musicals. Like am I that melodramatic all the time? Do you think I break out into song and dance every time I kiss a guy I really want even for just one night? A relationship beyond that....well, it sort of becomes a melodramatic soap opera filled with lots of romance and intrigue and almost deadly suspense like "The Secret Storm."

Martinis on Monday at the Mint; then a Third one means just that...

On the other hand there is opera. An elite performance. A prestigious first class act. Yes, I still think of delightful “Samson & Dalila” when the whole set came tumbling down and how we roared, "Bravo! Bravo!" at my first opera my then first “major” of lovers Mr. Eklund took me to see when I was a green younger lad, and as newcomer to San Francisco, everything, every sight, every smell, every person I came into contact was like tasting candy for the first time, and I still think life is a lot like that...