We live in America: the country that replaced hamburger buns with fried chicken, breeds politicians like Anthony Weiner, who continuously get caught with their pants around their ankles, and proved that ten-cent beer nights at baseball games end in drunken riots. The things in life that continuously keep our tails wagging from one day to the next can be narrowed down to a trifecta of consumption: greasy food, sex and alcohol.
This includes you. Yeah, you. You might shrug off any accusations of your gluttonous urges and pretend that with the New Year, you're going to live a healthier lifestyle. However, we both know that your mouth still waters when you see the Golden Arches, and you regularly stay up at night while staring doe-eyed and open-mouthed at the glimmering sex streaming across your computer screen.
Luckily for you, San Francisco is a special town that specializes in all three of these vices and a portion of each can be condensed into a single evening of sinful pleasures.
Food:
Let's begin your evening by filling up that belly with some non-organic, Atkins-be-damned, greasy food of the Gods. Show up at SOMA StrEATfood Park on 11th Street and Harrison at 6:00 p.m., and roam around the park's available food trucks on display. The 50-plus vendors are swapped out daily and offer some of the best street food SF has to offer. If you are lucky, Bacon Bacon will be waiting for you. The truck's name includes the two most delicious ingredients on our planet and is offered on every item on the menu. Start off with the bacon cheeseburger and add a helping of bacon jam. The juicy piece of red meat accompanied with the double-bacony goodness will make your cardiovascular system constrict with joy.
If you pass up the chocolate covered bacon for dessert, make a stop at The Golden Waffle. Their Belgian waffles are not just portions of pancake batter pressed into silly shapes but use Belgian Pearl Sugar, which gives them the unique flavor of their homeland. As you bite into each square and feel the soft crunch of the crystallized sugar within the baked good, you will instantly begin mentally drafting hate mail to the Waffle House you drunkenly visited in college.
Sex:
At 7:30, start making the half-mile walk to 14th Street and Mission. Upon arrival you will find a behemoth of a brick structure taking up almost an entire city block. This urban castle was built from 1912-1914 and started off as a National Guard Armory. It then went on to become a sports venue, and after being unused for thirty years, a man named Peter Acworth purchased the building. He also happens to be the founder of Kink.com, and films hardcore pornography within the premises. Specializing in BDSM films, they also include any sort of fetish that would make your Catholic schoolteacher's face turn 51 shades of grey.
Several times a week the folks at The Armory give tours of the building, and yours will begin at 8:00. Friendly tour guides, who are also models in the biz, and terrible players at the game "Never Have I Ever," take you through the halls that are still cleaned with military discipline. You will be shown several set rooms; one of which has what appears to be a wooden floor, but is actually rubber padding made to look like worn down wood. You might be able to conclude right away why the floors are padded, and if not, just kneel down on your knees in any non-carpeted room in your house for several hours and see how they feel.
Elegant paintings of naked women bent into positions that would be difficult for most yogi masters adorn the walls as you are led through all three stories of the building -- from the dungeon with rooms full of toys that could be mistaken for medieval torture devices, and barrels filled with lubricant, to the exquisite top floor used for filming group activities. The guides happily answer any questions you may have and give the X-rated details on the filming process along the way.
Whether you are heavily into BDSM/fetish porn, or get off by simply watching kissing scenes in jewelry commercials, being able to look behind the curtain at some of the country's most intense pornography will be more fascinating than any other tour you've been on before. Just make sure to book the tour in advance, and bring an ID saying you are over 18. Kids do not need to know that there are some water sports that don't involve actual water.
Alcohol:
Once the tour is concluded, walk off that thickness in your pants from the heightened libido, and make the 12 minute trek over to 11th Street in between Folsom and Harrison. Be on the lookout for a brightly painted yellow building with a sign for "Butter." That's right, the bar's name is Butter; the main ingredient in anything worth eating and lifeblood of Paula Deen. You will think you wandered onto your drunk uncle's property as you enter this watering hole when you notice the fake RV home parked inside, and watch the classic videos of men in spandex fighting in the WWF, projecting onto the walls.
Clad in bandannas, tattoos and with long, greasy hair, the bar tending staff appear to be the folks that visit salad bars solely for the macaroni and jello. Don't be thrown off by their mean appearance. It's all part of the package, man. These guys will give you some of the friendliest service this side of the Appalachia.
Start off with their Whitetrash Driver cocktail. Served in their finest mason jars, you will be able to enjoy some vodka mixed into your old favorite, Sunny-D. Once you are stocked up on that Vitamin C, it will be time to get exotic with the Tiki Trash -- a blend of coconut rum and Hawaiian Punch.
Now, watching the video of Jake the Snake pile driving Brutus the Barber Beefcake will not distract you from the fact that it has been two hours since your last meal. You will need to get some more preservatives in your system before you shrivel up like a California Raisin. Fear not because Butter has all the essentials to keep you kicking as the drunken patriot you are. Fill up on SpaghettiOs, deep-fried Twinkies, Frito Pies (yep, that's chili and cheese gracefully placed on top of a heaping of Fritos), White Castle burgers and the tears of a unicorn. Well, perhaps not that last one, but the rest of the options are just as magical.
So, let's stop all this foreplay and go balls-deep into what matters to you the most -- if only for one night.