NY Barfly

Happy 2008, Chumps and Non-Chumps Alike!

Goodness. Another new year? Does anyone else agree that this passage of time business has grown tiresome? We feel like it was only yesterday that we had to put up with the teeming hordes of spectators waiting for the ball to drop and their resolutions to kick in. The only enjoyable bit of the whole evening is witnessing their resolutions fail .03 seconds later when they are herded out of Time Square and start gorging on vendor purveyed street meats. Chuckling “at least its not carbs” while slurping grizzle does not a resolution keep.

What does the crystal ball of 2008 whisper to us? A democrat in the Whitehouse, fame and fortune for Barfly, and those love handles of yours – not going anywhere. And why would you want them to? You’re good at something – gnawing meat off a stick on the corner of 49th and 8th is a real talent – especially with those salivating port authority bums lunging at you (note: street meat wooden skewer makes a good bum repellent weapon. Aim for their eye. Not the glass one).

There will be no street meats for us this New Year’s Eve. Everyone always wants to know what we’re doing on what is supposed to be “the most funnest day of the year ever”. And the answer? Nothing, save perhaps finding new friends that utilize proper grammar. New Year’s Eve is for chumps. And, for cousins of chumps (interestingly enough, a chump’s cousin is always named Tony).

We’ll be staying in and planning decadence and dominance (same thing really, but don’t tell Tony, lets he get it in his head that he’s all fancy and asks to be called Anthony) for 2008. But, we suppose that we wish our readers a Happy New Year. While our glorious website may be a timeless artifact of modern sophistication, we do understand that some of our readers do adhere to convention (i.e. the calendar year).

So, Happy 2008 gentle readers. Our only resolution this year is that when that ball drops, and the crowd in midtown lets loose a roar, our champagne glass will be raised, and our toast will be to you. If that resolution doesn’t work out, well, we guess we could stand to lose a few pounds. . . .

Review: Don't Tell Mama ('cause its Christmas!)

During the holiday season, Barfly frequently finds that we are jealous of non-city dwellers. Yes, we have our loneliness, bitterly mumbled Christmas carols, and "figgy pudding" (can anyone recommend a reliable figgy dealer?).  But, glorious suburbanites have all of the above and strip malls. Conspicuous consumption tastes even more delicious when you're 30-deep in a register line at Kohl's (25 of which are expatriated Indian housewives with kohl's cash tucked into every fold of their Santa sari.)

The other evening we longed for a taste of this suburb holiday spirit. We decided to jingle over to New York's own gentrified strip mall - Restaurant Row. There surely would be some suburban tourists with polyester Santa hats to keep us company. And if not, at least we could afford ourselves some mediocre Italian cuisine at one of the dumpy dining establishments. Their stale foccia is a sophisticated New Yorker's version of fruitcake (the fruity chunks replaced with dead baby roaches).

We almost ended up going to Yum Thai as we thought it would be fun to convert the heathenish waiters to Christianity, i.e. threaten to call the I.N.S. if they didn't take a Jesus pledge (plus we love spring rolls). But, as we walked down the street we heard the tinkling of a piano. Christmas music spilled out of one dilapidated looking bar. The sign read Don't Tell Mama and illuminated our way like the star of Bethlehem. If only those poor Thai waiters would get a glimpse. God help their damned Buddhist souls.

We sat at the bar in a room full of tourists. Our Christmas wish had come true. We may not be able to revel in the Muzak at Kohl's but we sure as hell could enjoy the singing waiters and piano player at one of the most non-New York institutions that exists: the piano bar. The only thing better? If they plopped the manger down in midtown and trotted out the little drummer boy for all to hear. Even that wouldn't be able to capture the true spirit of the suburban holidays. They wouldn't be selling anything.

Caught up in the spirit of giving we've decided that everything gets a glorious 5 olives (!) on this Christmas Eve. Yes, that includes the singing waitress with the corncob hat. Five olives to the fact that she was wearing an oversize sweater to hide her 1) immaculate pregnancy or 2) impetus for New Year's resolution. We call her Patty -  and would like to wish her a very Merry Christmas indeed. You might want to cool it on those Cosmos Patty, because whether its #1 or #2, you've got problems.

To the rest of you, we suppose you get 5 olives, yada yada. . . Happy holidays, blah blah blah. . . All this "joy". . .how exhausting. Do we really have to do this every year? Though, those Kohl's cash coupons do make all this baby Jesus humbug seem worth it. They've got Vera Wang designing pillows now. Five olives indeed!

Davey and Drunky: Just in time for the Holidays! (except for the Jewish ones, thankfully those are over)

President Barfly: Approval Rating - 90 Proof!

In the life of sober young lads and lassies there comes an inevitable moment. It may be inspired by a jingoistic career day. It could be a special moment on TV. Whatever sparked it, we all can empathize with the moment you told your stepmother’s boyfriend “Daddy Joey, I want to be president when I grow up!” We have our limits. We can’t empathize with whatever it was Joey did to you after (though we didn’t share your years of therapy).

We, on the other hand, were never quite as idealistic as the typical American youth. Even at the most naive of ages, it was clear that we would be happy as an assistant manager at the Cost-Co (a.k.a. the ‘glamour store’ of suburbia) if it afforded us our precious martinis. When the other students were playing Manchurian candidate and pledging ‘allegiance’ to the flag – we leaned over and whispered to our teacher “We want to be a barfly when we grow up!”

She bent over and smiled a strange smile. “Now, why would you want to do that?” she asked. “You should want to be president, like the rest of ‘em.” She motioned to the remainder of the class as she hiccupped. A light smell wafted our way – half acid reflux, half last night’s merlot. It smelled like freedom.

“Such sheep” she whispered and shook her head. From that very young day, we always knew that our dreams were within reach.

Alas – it has come to our attention that the two career goals may not be so far apart. Apparently 43 shared our goal as a tot. But, it didn’t work out so well for him as he didn’t get the pre school memo about the perils of quitting:

“I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that,” George W informed in a recent interview.

Gasp. Could our current president be himself a barfly? We haven’t even done this quitting nonsense; it seems that we’d be much more electable. Thank god, we’ve wanted to tell our manager at Cost-co to screw-off for a while. He thinks he’s all cool because he just got his learner’s permit. Well, we just don’t think there is anything that special about being allowed to drive. He’ll see what we mean when he gets the wisdom that comes with age. Being revoked is, like, the high point of awesome.

Upon further studying the constitution (this news interview with the president, it’s the same thing if you’re a republican), it seems that W offers some words of warning for any young Barfly that wants to lead the free world into drunken oblivion: "Addiction competes for your affection … You fall in love with alcohol.”

After looking up this ‘affection’ business, we realized that we may not be presidential material. We’ve been in love with alcohol for so long, we’ve forgotten what feelings for anything else are like. And, as we wrote in our kindergarten essay “What I want to be when we grow up”, that’s certainly how we prefer it. (Title of said essay: We want to be a drunken charlatan utterly devoid of any plebian emotion. Or Scooby-Doo. He’s neat.)

We also didn’t realize that this sort of thing involves the voting “public”. If we wanted to be popular amongst those folks, we’d just run for king of bingo night at the local hospice. Though, it’s good to see that some people try to have an effect past the reaches of glorious drunk town. Like our former teacher. Last time we looked, we found her doing pretty well:

Barfly's 4-Real Gift Guide (we suppose we must, but we won't like it).

It seems that our gentle readers have all become daily candy-fied. Wait – we forgot that it’s the wretched joy-filled time of year. You’ve all become daily-candy-cane-ified (we’re not all humbug – we know a righteous holiday pun when we see one).

Apparently, when one publishes a gift guide in this digital age, the blog-reading public expects it to contain actual suggestions for “gifts”. Well, we didn’t get the memo (or, whatever the blog version of memo is – maybe it has something to do that what that face book business everyone’s squawking about?). We thought that as a sophisticated populous we’d evolved beyond the “oh gimmie gimme” of exchanging shoddily wrapped robotic dogs to the more reasonable “Oh, why, let’s not engage in such business this year. We’ll spend money on cocktails instead. Isn’t it nice, we’re all so very benevolent.”

We gather, due to the lack of comments on our previous post – this is not the case. Yes, we know that many of our posts don’t have comments on them. But, we assume that this is the norm for wildly popular sites like ours (how on earth does one have time to leave a mere comment if they are so awash with fulfillment and glee?). But, a holiday related post should be chock full of comments. After all, ‘tis the season of giving.

We figured that we’d better do it properly, lest our readers all drift into the oblivion of Christmas time church-going. Behold our 2007 holiday gift guide. Since we are the definition of trendsetter (we were the birdie that suggested not one, but two boings) we’ll just go ahead and tell you what we want. We figure that you’ll find something on the list that will provide a bright moment in Aunt Gertrude’s sad, sad existence.

Gifties that are sure to buy our love, divorcing parents with children style:

Sherpa – For mountain climbing, yak handling, and taking out the recycling. It’s not just for us, either. Habib will be happy – he needs some company.

These candy cane shot glasses – We’re so sick of all the sweet cookies, brownies, and treats that pepper the season. A few sips out of these puppies will wash that gross sugar taste right out of our mouth.

Martini, straight up, with olives – Yes, we know that we have plenty of these already. We just thought it would be funny to see the $7.00 / hour sears employee try to gift wrap it.

Designated driver – After we run out of money, we can sell him for more drinks!

Witticisms – We do so love them. And, best part of all, it’s free for you (please note: if you’re giving us a gift that is free for you, there better be a twenty stuffed into it).

Tickle me Elmo – We know that this trend may have passed, but if you’ve ever held Elmo’s hand and had him tickle in just the right way, you’d be asking for one too.

Coal – Didn’t you hear – it’s for the good kid’s now. Santa, your reign of terror is over.

Careful shopping, ladies and gents. Though, keep in mind that it’s possible that our deductions are entirely off base. Our reader’s lack of comments may indicate that the great majority of them are pagans, warlocks, and non-gift giving gentiles. In that case folks, you’re already in good company. Please disregard the above guide and say hello to the Corn Mother for us. Blessed be!

Barfly's Holiday Gift Guide (if we must. . .)

Each year, one begins to recognize certain truths about the ‘holidays’. When your family is desperately trying to cover that bare spot on the tree with tinsel, take a moment to realize how much work the holiday spirit truly entails. Then, take a moment to talk to your family about actually buying a tree instead of fashioning one out of your neighbor’s discarded wreath clippings. And then, you can finally take a moment to talk to yourself. Of course you'll say "my god, i didn't thet these lame ass family members a damn thing. What to do?" (syn. 'Barfly, help us!')

Barfly knows how the typical gathering goes these days. We should know, as we are a student of modern American gatherings in all of their hilarious incarnations. Use your mind’s eye for a moment as we Norman Rockwell the hell out of this holiday:

That racket you heard upstairs wasn’t reindeer hooves at all. The nog part of the egg drink caused daddy to nog with the next door neighbor. From the sound of it, they sure like to open presents. Everyone pretends not to notice that daddy has been missing for 11.3 minutes. Its not that his pants are unbuckled, it’s that he’s bursting with holiday spirit!

Mommy will overlook daddy’s ‘silliness’. She baked all the cookies and sprinkled them just so. The stockings are hung perfectly. All the donkeys are aligned in the porcelain manger. A few extra rum balls and the holidays will still be just as special as ever.

Aunt Gertrude doesn’t care about any of ‘em. She’s just poured herself another glass of the blackberry brandy (her third!). She feels happy that someone is finally paying her some attention. That delicate glass camel standing with the wise men has been eyeing her all night.

But, what to get everyone so that the entire room will be willfully distracted from the decidedly non-christlike party games being played? Well – we’d be happy to make suggestions – but not for your crappy family. They are clearly beyond redemption. We’re not up on our Calvinism these days, but if you can still buy spots in heaven, you better start ponying up. Gertrude gets in for half price if she can figure out how to get her new pal through the eye of a needle.

Review: Port Authority Bus Terminal (no, believe us, its fancy)!

Part of what we enjoy ever so much about being an NYBarfly is our ability to find off-the-beaten-path places to drink. We’ve delighted in bathroom cocktails, hiding in the stairwell-tini’s, and curled up under the sink (if our nesting instinct is acting up) lager. But, time and again, we constantly find that the combination of desperation, vagrancy, and murder-suspects make mass transit hubs our favorite “in the know” drinking destinations.

Out with a group the other night we debated where to head:

“How about dinner? I like sushi,” one of our friends said. What is this sushi business, we wondered? Probably something she found out about on Citysearch – poor plebian follower.

“I dunno,” another chimed in. “Maybe we should head over to the W hotel and have cocktails.” Wethinks someone has been paying too much attention to New York Magazine. If Adam Moss told you to jump into a mysterious vortex of cool, would you? (imagine that said vortex is full of sharks).

Luckily we had just the thing that would bring this disparate night together: “Hey kids, we know a great place to go that will make everyone happy.”

“Tell us Barfly, tell us! You always know the best places. You’re amazingly cool . . . “ (compliment stream cut short for sake of time).

“Why, where but the bus station will make this a truly special evening.”

And, a special evening it made indeed! After our friends stopped shaking their heads and murmuring variations of “such an alcoholic” they were on their merry way to wherever it was that Rachel Ray told them to go (ladies, if Build-A-Bear served martinis, we certainly would have accompanied you). We, on the other hand, felt like inhaling some exhaust fumes with our stale beer. Off to port authority we were!

Port Authority Bus Terminal Bar – South Building – 8th Avenue at 41st street (2nd Floor) -

Having to take an escalator to the bar – 5 olives – Goodness – mechanized transport certainly has come a long way in the digital age.

Homeless vagrant that stares at you through the bar window as you drink – 4.5 olives – Some people may be put off by his maniac gaze, but he’s just good ol’ Bummy to us. Don’t be so quick to judge - he’s not one of those homeless people at all! He lives in the bus station silly!

Patrons – 4 olives – It’s hard to figure out who we like the most. The runaway teen in the corner seems sweet, but his forehead tattoo is a little much for our tastes. The battered woman quivering over her whisky might be nice. Oh, wait- these two know each other – he is going to talk to her, maybe it’s his mom or . . .oh, we guess not. Jeeze – we get that they like each other, but if they are going to use that much tongue they might feel more comfortable at Penn Station.

Discovering who your “true friends” are – 3 olives – We suppose it had to come to this. They ended up coming back after their excursion and attempted to join us for a drink. Such a shame. If only they had built us a bear, we still would be talking to them.

Davey and Drunky: Finally we learn some frickin values.

Barfly has found some new friends that highlight valuable lessons. Children, please pay close attention as to avoid prison, AA, and that meddlesome bureaucratic nightmare that is Megan’s law. We only want wholesome despots running around – like in the old days.