A Bathroom Without Art Is Stupid

When I enter the first of the three single use bathrooms in Madrone Art Bar (each one a distinct color and distinct experience, like portals) I can feel the deep and thumping bass of the We Work Here collective’s blend of deep house, disco, and techno through the cracks of the door that is just a few feet from the heart of a sparsely-bodied dancefloor, which means there is no need to stop dancing, or, in my case, no need to stop moving my head forward and back and forward and back to the repetitive, high-BPM rhythm that gently takes control of my body, but still, there is a distance between me and the music, and it seeps in as a muffle of itself, allowing the other senses space to explore — the pale, sky-blue color of midsummer days on the walls and door and ceiling, the two shallow and mysterious black wall-mounted cabinets full of an overwhelming diversity of stickers (“Life without art is stupid,” “Stand with Hong Kong,” “Yes, you can,” “My ass belongs to the bluegrass,” “Joy is resistance”), the aftermath of those before me as grimy paper towels embedded in the black floor and clear half-full glasses on the soap dispenser and on the modest sink with almost boiling-hot water and even on top of the white toilet that a man must have used before me since the lid and seat are both up, that unmistakable mixture of cleaning supplies and piss mercifully subtle — though I am eventually forced to notice a tiny woman staring up at me and me junior in terror, with wide-eyed obsidian pits and dirty blonde hair and deep red lips and a harsh shadow slicing her neck in half, stuck on the bottom third of the toilet lid by some brave and clearly somewhat germophillic soul hoping to shock someone like me awake with an unignorable statement. It works; I am here. I dance and drink more water in hopes of checking out the other two bathrooms tonight, holding down the uncompetitive space near the three water pitchers at the back of the bar, cooled down by the wisp of a breeze from the open door to the smoking area out on Fell St where I tend to sit with a cigarette or joint whenever the self-consciousness of the dancefloor wins another battle in the eternal war, or when the mood to strike a conversation with a stranger overcomes me. But if I keep drinking water, I’ll eventually have an excuse to go back to the dancefloor and maze through the dark mass of bodies to the bathrooms, the little sanctuaries. Just before the bathrooms is a sign on the wall that says “This is not about you,” a helpful reminder against all of the distracting evidence to the contrary. The red bathroom’s main priority is its color, which is intense and bright and hard to not be affected by, but there are also drawings and words written on the walls and far fewer stickers. I can’t help but think of the San Francisco MOMA’s second floor bathroom whose red is somehow more intense and ubiquitous and shockingly abrasive (in my humble opinion, the best bathroom in San Francisco), and unfortunately the Madrone version is just far less interesting and fails to adequately punch me in the face, so I am unable to really be there as much as I’d like, and I let the undercurrent of hurry I usually fail to notice rush me through the universal activities.

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