NY Barfly

The Little Vagabond (man, he sure can hold his liquor)

The spring weather has so inspired Barfly that we’re positively giddy. In fact, we’re so giddy that we’re going have a nip of the dangerous drink that we sip only thrice a season: culture.

But, what to do? We’ve been to the circus – if you’ve seen one midget Asian in a body stocking you’ve seen ‘em all. . We’ve recently recovered from post traumatic shock syndrome after our visit to the New Museum (conceptually speaking, that is). If we have to pretend to like Jazzercise one more time, well, then we’d be content to live in a flabby, cultureless void for the rest our existence.

We went into our library for inspiration (only after the nursery failed to provide any ideas – a lot of good your help is, stupid Mr. Hobby Horse). Perhaps one of those dusty “book” things could guide us. As we ran our finger along the spines for an idea, we realized two things:

1. Books bound in skin may provide a sleek visual thrill, but they sure feel yucky.

2. Culture was right in front of us! We just had to look inside the books. We’ve always been so focused on the crystal decanter full of 100 year old brandy that we never realized this.

We pulled a book down decided to look in two places for our culture. We knew what we’d find the bottom of our goblet. The book? Well, if it failed to sate our cultural giddiness, then we suppose it would make good kindling for the fire that Habib drew for us.

The Little Vagabond – Poem by William Blake. Explanatory notes by your friendly Barfly (jeeze Blake, couldn’t you like, explain it yourself! Paraphrasing for the plebeians is so exhausting. Habib! Another Brandy!)

Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

Mammy! Mammy! It’s coooooldd in dat dere church! We’d much rather plop our ass on this cozy barstool than deal with “eternal salvation”. Boring!

Especially boring if Heaven is the type of place that rhymes “well” with “well”. Foolish verse with lazy rhymes? Not where we will spend our time (get it? because we rhyme good!). . .

But if at the church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

Geeze church! If you’re going to keep nagging, you should just serve some beers after the watered down communion wine. We might stick around for some karaoke. And, if you compliment our soulful rendition of “Life is a Highway” we suppose that maybe you’d be able to talk us into going to this Heaven place. They serve drinks there, right?

Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

The priest – dude - he’s like wasted! And us, we’re as tipsy as some simile involving birds! And that anorexic bitch that beats her kids (damn them for making her fat!)? She’d get drunky too!

And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

Like a good drunken grandpa, the old dude would look down and realize that we’re all as drunk as he is (we always knew he was – if not, then how do you explain this). He would be so happy, that he would pour his ostracized transsexual teenage grandson a Malibu bay breeze and buy him a new set of fishnets.

Footnotes:

1. Heaven – You may have to squint through your drunken eyes, but you’ll notice the H is capitalized. This is a literary device that indicates the place is not fictional. The reader can find similar examples throughout literature like Narnia, Hogwarts, and Israel.

2. Dame Lurch – Notice how the name indicates the character’s personality. Much like William Clever or Barfly Sexiest Drunk on Earth or in Heaven.

Ah culture! Being a God (you surely don’t expect a merely mortal Barfly to be doing something as omniscient as ‘blogging’), we’ve realized that we should take the moral of Blake’s springtime rhyme to heart. We suppose (if we must) that we love the commoners who hide in the glamorous milieu of our readership. We love you even better if you’ve been drinking in a religious place. And to bid adieu – both to you gentle reader and to our decanter of brandy – we leave you with a Barfly Blakeism:

The Little Charlatan, Isn’t He Adorable -

A judgmental stare, with endless talk of sin,

They say ‘try harder for heaven, right now you won’t get in.’

We roll our bloodshot eyes; it’s “yawn” to them we say.

Just bring a bottle over and for their souls we will pray.

Uh, like, about that art stuff. . .

Barfly would like to thank one of our readers for bringing our art-world related posts full circle (like that shape that they use in paintings!).

Ladies and Gentlemen, our hopes and dreams in the art world have been restored (to the extent that we are capable of having hopes and dreams). We have found a piece that truly transcends any brilliance that we have yet to encounter, and also makes silly things like “sculptures” somewhat bearable.

For once, we will let the pictures do the talking. If you begin to get overwhelmed by the picture, and need to once again hear the sound of our glorious voice, either send us an email or soothe yourself by blowing air over the lip of your empty bottle.

Behold, art we can stomach, especially with a bit of lime. The Gin and Tonic Fog Machine Installation:

And to think – our recent installation where we stood there and waited for people to buy us shots got hardly any attention. Indeed!

Cultural Cavorts: The New Museum

“Gasp”, we gasped the other day while paging through the culture pages. “What is this?” we mumbled as we mimed confusion and shook our head from side to side. We even clucked a few times – this let the other people on the subway know that we were truly confused, not just pretending for blog-sake.

The New Museum?

The high-art literati are clearly not as well-informed as they lead their woeful interns to believe. Sophomore undergrads beware! Your time with Sven may get you some college credits for your art history major, but he is leading you down an illusory creative path. It is Barfly who decides what is “new” and what is, how you say, “old”. We also happen to know that being forced to disrobe and read the Ikea catalog out-loud in a sexy voice isn’t performance art and doesn’t get you extra credit – but we’ll let you take that up with your career services office.

How dare they name a museum without including us on the adjective committee! We consider ourselves the toast of the New York art world – they serve wine at all of the gallery openings, don’t they? Recently premiered in a newly built location on the Bowery, the museum houses a grand collection of conceptual art. Conceptually peeved, we decided to go check it out

What passes for new these days? Well, we found out as soon as we rode the gigantic elevator to the fourth floor and started our way through the gallery. Two humble examples:

A bicycle on a pile of rocks with a print out of Mel Gibson hanging from a rod. We had to ponder for a moment, then we realized. It was Braveheart Mel, not Air America Mel. Truly profound.

A mannequin head with a wig on. The piece so coyly titled “This is Not an Art Piece”. When we naturally tried to stroke the mannequin’s hair, a security guard said to us “sir, step back from the art piece.” Pure brilliance.

We overheard a docent explaining the concept of the show to a passerby – “The show is in four parts, and this is the first wave. The fourth will only contain sound art. By then, you’ll have gouged your eyes out from looking at these pieces. Only then you can truly appreciate an audio-cassette of Yoko Ono mewing. It’s all very Oedipal.”

As we descended through the galleries and gawked at the chairs stacked in the corner, the twin mattress covered in bottle caps, and the cardboard strewed about the floor we were a bit overwhelmed. We commenced clucking. While the people in the subway moved to then next car, the patrons in the museum started lightly applauding.

“Excellent! A perfect elocution of what this piece is trying to express!” Uhhh, yes, we suppose the bundle of clothes wrapped in twine was indeed making a cluck like noise. . .

We finally reached the lobby, the end of the exhibit. We reflected on the monuments that we just encountered. The thing that stood out the most? The security guards, standing and watching over the sculptures. Many of them stared into space. The walked back and forth between the artwork with seemingly straight faces. They all looked to be of a different ethnic variety. We imagined what they said when they called their loved ones outside the country (say in Columbia):

”Honey, you won’t believe it, these putas come in and stare at a pile of belts for an hour like they’re golden! They call this stuff “new”. Ha. It’s not new. I saw it the other day in the firkin dumpster next to Dunkin’ Doughnuts!”

Our decision of the day: we would begrudgingly recuse ourselves from the adjective committee in cases like this. Maybe Sven does have his place – we’ll let him handle jobs like this. We were glad, as the museum did leave us with one very important concept: a drink – and Sweet and Vicious was only a block away. Brilliance!

P/S – Sven’s interns who are left without a gig for the semester, go ahead and send Barfly an email. We’d never make you do such a thing. The IKEA catalog, how chintzy, we much prefer more glamorous Barn de la Pottery.

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. . . .

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.

God Bless Ye Drunky Gentlemen!

The holidays are in da house, and Barfly is caught up in this “spirit” thing. Holiday parties. Open bars. Old men coming down chimneys. We thought it appropriate to guide our readers through the many drunken hurdles of the upcoming season. Like reindeer doing what they do (they jump over hurdles, as far as we know.)

So, ladies and gentlemen, we. . ..

No, we can’t. Give us a moment as we splash our face off with Vermouth. This holiday season we’re feeling extra warm. It may have something to do with glaciers melting. It may have something to do with the 1/8 of brandy that we just finished (don’t blame us, we were standing under mistletoe). At this moment – it seems as though blog is not enough. No, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, we will tell you how to drink during the holidays, in verse:

Button up your britches – the holiday’s are nigh.

The bells, the elves, the children – you surely can’t stay dry.

But how to stop your liver from changing into coal?

Why, Barfly says just justify to please your thirsty soul.

“The Jews they drink and dreidle, so it’s ok for me

And they demand your monies, but I’ll just let you be

The banks are all still open on the festival of lights.

Surely having one more sip is better than their blights.”

“And crack the grey goose open, God bless the top shelf label.

It’s not as if they didn’t sip while birthing in the stable.

It’s called the Christmas spirit, so we should all toast thrice

To peace and love and blah blah blah – please pass the blood of Christ.”

“Perhaps we should slow down? What was that you say?

Young Jesus would be mad at you on this his special day.

So what you’re not a Christian? your holiday is Kwanza?

Well can’t you find some pagan juice or sip on La Bat onza?”

And if your friends still judge? They’re humbugs that they are.

Their sober gifts and precious love won’t take them very far.

For this ‘spirit of the season’, it’s but a clever a ruse

Concocted by the liquor cos so they can sell more booze.

Terminal 5: Can't they just play the CD?

Barfly visited new venue Terminal 5 the other night to engage in one of our least favorite New York exploits: listening to live music. Folks, this is the modern age. New York social goers are not Neanderthalithic Victorian dwellers sitting in the ‘parlor’.  We don’t have to pretend to enjoy it as Heathcliff and Jane Eyre pound out their repressed sexual longings on the harpsichord.  We prefer our longings on display and our music produced.

Lucky for us the designers of the fancy new concert hall were so focused on lighting the omni-present balconies that they forgot one teensy-weensy detail – the acoustics. Barfly had a great time running up and down flights of stairs and jumping to their numerous bars. The stair climbing calories we burned let us justify another pint glass full of frothy $6 Budweiser. The best part – we weren’t distracted by the pesky music, or in this case the pesky dull roar of poorly amplified song lyrics. As the concert wrapped up we found ourselves tapping our foot. How funny – our counting down the minutes was almost in time to the music.

We spilled onto the street. We were exhausted by all of that listening. We needed a drink, but we were on 11th avenue. Yes, we could throw a cinder block through one of those BMW dealerships, but by the time we found the booze stash we figured the vagrants lining the street will have started a round of knife fights over the precious drink (except for those crafty bums who got right to it and started drinking the gasoline straight from the tanks).

Not to mention we’ve grown bored about drinking around classic cars.

So, we wandered, and found a friendly looking bar nestled on 11th a few blocks from our venue. We opened the door to Dixie’s Texas Tavern and instead of being greeted with jaded silence we were hit with a wall of noise. More live music. In a small bar. A youg’un pranced around on stage and sang lines from the velvet underground. The acoustics in this place were unexpectedly excellent. Our night was doomed. 

At least it was a Texas tavern – there should be plenty of whisky to drown out the sound. We sat far from the stage and sipped, careful to avoid any rattlesnakes and illegal immigrants – the pitfalls of any good fake Texas watering hole. We tried to shake the memories of Terminal 5. Unfortunately Dixie's didn’t offer balconies to explore. Just cheap drinks, a young crowd, some pretty girls playing beer pong and the music.

We think that we spied the singer’s parents in the first row. He only sang covers. We did our best not to listen. To scoff at the fact that he was clearly from long island. We half-rolled our eyes as he whipped his long hair around and when he hit the high notes. But, our disdain was off tempo. In this small bar on 11th avenue, down the block from the fancy new venue with all the pretty levels, we found something truly shocking: music that rocked.

He took a break, the radio came on, and we longed for another song. He walked back by us and caught our eye. “Whatch’d ya think?” he asked.

“Well, we aren’t usually into this sort of. . .”

We continued chatting and noticed his lip ring, his shaggy hair, and his ripped jeans. He joked that he was only twenty as he sipped his pint of beer. Could he be the one that makes this cultural anomaly interesting? “You know. You’re actually really good. We just saw a concert at Terminal 5. Its gonna be you up there one day.”

He seemed genuinely flattered. “Awesome, thanks. That’s super encouraging. I hope that you’ll be the first one in line if I play that place.”

We thought of the crowds, the expensive beer and the ticket price as he was called back to the stage. ”See you? At Terminal 5? Nah. Live music sucks. Get back up there, we can’t wait for your next song.”

FUCT: The Tip Doesn't Count (but that zygotes worth double).

A sophisticated gentleman goes to the theater (five syllables). An average New York drunkard would rather stay home with a twelve pack and watch Gerenuk getting gored on Animal Planet (pronounced ‘dat show wit da monkeys’). Combine the best of the namby-pamby fag show that is Broadway and the smell of animal carcass in the savannah morning and what do you have? Why, it’s the perfect way for a high-brow drunkard to spend their weekend evening: FUCT. (A small warning for you Animal Planet fans: savannah odors emitted by a TV show can smell strangely like cigarette ash lighting your chest hair on fire. You might want to check on that).

Founded by a band of merry latent gays, FUCT has been spinning its wheel of torture at the Cherry Lane Theater for a few seasons. What started as an excuse for a bunch of male theater majors to get together and take their clothes off has turned into something much grander: an excuse for a bunch of male ex-theater majors to take their clothes off and SPANK each other.

Now, gentle reader, is the time to quit trying to hide THAT side of you. Come on, you know which side your dear ‘ol Barfly means. That side of you that feels “a little movement” down there as you watch Johnny Knoxville rub glass into wherever. That side of you that can’t really take talking dirty seriously, that can’t help but giggle when confronted with having to call a “fifi” something that would make Eve Ensler blush. Not to mention the chuckle after the ten thousandth time she claims its so big – you’ve measured it, you’ve dealt with it, it doesn’t “bother” you at all. That side of you, of all of us, that just, goddammit, wants to get FUCT.

So, come join at the Cherry lane for some high-brow mayhem. Because we are so full of anticipation, we’re doing two things. First, we’re going to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a date with Barfly to see the show. Tell us something about THAT side of you, and you’re entered to win (Role of Barfly will be played by an empty chair, somewhere in your proximity. We’re not going out with you. Pervert.)

And, even more glorious, we’re going to write a review before even seeing it. How fuct up is that!

FUCT– The Cherry Lane Theater – Weekends in June

Asses – 3.4 olives – We thought cellulite didn’t exist on men. We’ll have to watch some more nature documentaries to figure this one out - theater majors are a rare breed

Free beer before the show – 5 olives – If you drink enough of it, testicles of the cast members will appear blurred later in the evening (believe us, you WILL be thankful).

Barfly’s attempt at frat boy humor (see underlined above) – 2 olives – It’s a start, but we think we could have done better. Perhaps we should take up lacrosse?

Having more pseudo naughty words to remember – 1 olive – FCUK – clothing brand. FUCT – salacious comedy show in the West Village. FUCK – what to say when you wake up the next morning and realize that the tip may not count but it seems to be oozing green stuff. Now that we have that in order, can someone please explain what a Fifi is?

Social commentary, biting wit, and dazzlingly intelligent humor swathed in thin layers of homoeroticism, testosterone, and pain (not necessarily in that order) – 5 olives – Uh, like, yeah, we’re like too drunk to even understand what that means. The asses though, I guess they were fun. Dude.

Review: Bikini Blood Bath

Ladies and Gentlemen, our friend littlefly is more than just a woman of the city (“slut” to the plebeians), she's also a cultural aficionado and pizza lover. Be sure to enjoy a slice and a beer as you read her movie review and secretly ogle the porn that is in your minimized browser window, hidden from your bosses shifty eyes.

The lights dimmed at Two Boots Pioneer Theater. A guy shouted “YEA!” and pumped an enthusiastic fist in the air as unnecessary boobs flashed the in opening credits. I certainly had come to the right indie film premiere this weekend.

A throwback to the cheesy slasher films of the 80’s, Bikini Blood Bath is a breath of nostalgia…so as long as you can move past the fact that 2/3 of the actresses are somewhat big boned and in spirit of the title (like any good low definition thriller) are clad in swimwear for the majority of the film.

Set in woodsy parts of Connecticut, BBB features high school students as its main characters. The young students are played by thirtysomething fat guys wearing football jerseys and suburban whores. When the girls decide to throw a house party and hang out in the hot tub it becomes clear that the Evil Chef killer (Evil Chef being made obvious by his chef hat ominously popping up behind bushes) is going to use his signature weapon—a butcher’s knife, (hello!) to slash at least two of the fat ones. The two token skinny ones who were scripted to make out and probably some of the jocks who come to spy on the girls in hopes of witnessing some lesbian “action” are likely also doomed, but after the fat girls. .

Topped off with a hair metal soundtrack I couldn’t help but be pleased with this deliberately cliché horror flick. A special thanks should be said you to the actors’ and actresses’ parents for letting the creators use their homes as a set.

Review: Bikini Blood Bath

Insertion of a blow job scene that ends in homicide -4 olives— It was fun to pretend that this never happened in my life - god rest his soul? Slurp slurp….

The majority of the audience being the cast - 1 olive—Perhaps if there was less sexual tension on the set more time could have been spent promoting.

Someone screaming “No, don’t run UP the stairs!!” during the highly anticipated girl running upstairs to get away from the killer scene - 3 olives— Running up the stairs seemed like a good idea to me.

Location- Two Boots Pioneer Theater - 3 1/2 olives - Props to the producers for taking the premiere of this low budget film outside of Connecticut. Maybe now it will be a hit…ha.

Pissed off lesbian gym teacher character - 2 olives — I expected more from her.