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Jack London Drank Here, Too — Final Lush Years pg151
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
1988
A lucky bonus to my downtown building were five bars within easy walking and staggering distance. That alone probably saved me from a devastating string of DUIs in my final six years of boozy excess. While pondering possible future careers, I considered following Jack London’s example of being a great author. It seemed like too much work, so instead I settled for telling colorful stories and lies from barstools, and kept painting. — From Chapter 8
Half the bars over 100 years old within fifty feet of the San Francisco Bay shoreline are celebrated as being watering holes of the famous author Jack London. Many have plaques commemorating his prodigious patronage. The building in this painting is half the original Lido Saloon. Jack got sloshed here, too. As one story goes… Jack fell in the drink drunk, got carried away by the current and was fortunately rescued by some local fishermen. This gave him the idea for Sea Wolf, where the protagonist was not so lucky, and was fished out of the water by a departing whaler captained by a cruel despot.
When I moved to Benicia the big, Victorian Lido Saloon was mired in its original location by the waterfront, next to the Gold Rush era train…
