Tuesday, December 6, 2011

PETA Killed Jesus: Can't-Fail Holiday Playlist


Besides coma-inducing rum cider and horrific sweaters, the key to a successful holiday party is, of course, the music. A lazy host might simply throw on a David Hasselhoff or a Keith Sweat Christmas album and be done with it. But a pro understands the need for diversity -- classic rock, boy bands, the sentimental, the silly, the makeout-friendly. The best part is that you'll only need about 80 minutes of fresh holiday jams, because by that point your guests should be drooling eggnog like autistic snowmen and popping squats behind the tree. And if they aren't, you need to re-dose that cider ASAP. In no particular order, these following tunes will also help to unkill the buzz. You're welcome. (image from here.)


1. Mariah Carey / "All I Want For Christmas Is You"
This is not only one of the best things about December but also one of the catchiest songs ever recorded. This is why my girl Mariah was the unrivaled shit in the '90s. I don't care if you praise Allah, if the smoky intro and sleighbell-infused and joy-oozing beat doesn't at least make you smile, you're a horrible person and deserve only meaningless death and suffering for the rest of your Christmases and all the time. Any self-respecting playlist maker will play "All I Want" at least every four songs. 



2. The Flaming Lips / "Christmas At The Zoo"
This one's a little weird, like all The Flaming Lips' stuff, but it's endearing and pleasantly quirky, and who doesn't like rescuing animals in the name of Santa. Don't worry it's not an homage to PETA. After all, PETA killed Jesus. 


3. Bruce Springsteen / "Merry Christmas Baby"
This is the epitome of what I love about the Boss -- a testosterone-laced carol where everyone rocks out, gets laid, and feels nostalgic about it for years to come. I can envision myself getting into a bar fight with some knuckleheads in the Dirty Jerz while this song plays.


4. Peanuts Christmas / "Christmas Time Is Here"
This is better off played early in the evening before people get too drunk to feel genuine human emotions and only wants to blast "All I Want" on repeat.


5-6. Adam Sandler / "The Chanukah Song Parts 1 and 2"
I'm sorry my Hebrew friends, but you don't give me many party-friendly options. Barbra Streisand even sold you out and made a Christmas album. I think Matisyahu needs to take the initiative here, until then, we're left with...




7. James Taylor / "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"
This is when you a) locate the mistletoe, and b) find that random cousin that someone brought that's been chugging your death cider because she doesn't know anyone, and who desperately wants to make a bad decision. Let James do the rest.


8. Paul McCartney & Wings / "Wonderful Christmas Time"
In order to fill the one-Beatle quota, it's either this or John Lennon's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which is about poor people and AIDS and other sad junk. No thanks.Caring about things is what New Years resolutions are for.


9. Frank Sinatra / "Winter Wonderland"
"Your Christmas spirit doesn't scare me, I've chunks of Elves like you in my stool!" - Santa


10. Madonna / "Santa Baby"
This sounds like it's being sung by one of Chris Hansen's jailbait minions, but it's quite conducive to drunken grinding.


11. *NSYNC / "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays"
Don't act like this doesn't get stuck in your head every time you hear it. And check out Gary Coleman as an elf in the video, RIP.


12. South Park / "Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo"
Everyone might not be down with this timeless South Park treasure. But if you know people who don't like South Park, why are you inviting them to your holiday party?


13. Boyz II Men / "Let It Snow"
If James Taylor fails, this is your foolproof Plan B. Unless you're already passed out in your own puke under aforementioned mistletoe.



14. Snoop Dogg ft. Nate Dogg / "Twas The Night Before Christmas"
After Grandma's in bed and the snitches have gone home, that's when you break out your festive 40 oz and candy-cane flavored blunt wraps! And the next three songs.


15. Afroman / "Violent Night"


16. Tha Dogg Pound / "I Wish"



Segue to standard non-holiday fare, or put "All I Want For Christmas" on repeat. Either way, you won't remember it.


Monday, December 5, 2011

I lived in a city with a misspelled French name, you bathed in corrosives: Secular December Party Playlist




Parties aren't just for holidays. But for dark parties, it's dark out! Start off slow, no dancing, a little country rock, some spacey Lips stuff, a lotta Lips stuff. Drain the punch, punch your legs to the groove, heat up. Then slow it down, a sad slow dance. Fuck that, someone spike the punch. Dubstep and step into a trip. Badass rock anthems save lives. Now go back to slogging 'nog and jamming to Paul McCartney, you ugly-sweatered floosies.

1. Guided by Voices / "I'm Cold"
2. Flaming Lips and Neon Indian / "Is David Bowie Dying?"
3. Beck w/ Flaming Lips / "Lost Cause (live 2002)"
4. Guided by Voices / "Smothered in Hugs"
5. I'm From Barcelona / "Battleships"
6. Ween / "Your Party"
7. David Bowie / "Stay"
8. Smog / "Left Only With Love"
9. Nu Shooz / "Point Of No Return"
10. Sageone / "The Legend of Mumm-ra"
11. Flaming Lips / "Gummy Skull #1 'Drug Chart'"
12. Diarrhea Planet / "Fauser"



Wednesday, November 30, 2011

5 Tent City Poems



Avant-Girl 2011 (Washington Square)


The azalea,
she said,
means temperance,
passion,
sisterhood,
good-luck drum circles
and fragility.

We waited
in her tent,

smoking.




 
Minority Report


Face it, blondebeards,
waves burned
this prairie
more than twice:

Our time is moot.





The Media Materializes as a Schaffner Film


Apelike quadrupeds
with widescreen lenses
strip us in vitro.

Time to stop drawing
prosthetic crucifixes
on the sidewalk.





PTSD is So 2007 (Rubber Bullet Sonata)
                        

“The least coolest person on TV,
more interesting
than anyone here,”

sings Private Jimmy

while we sponge
his vegetable legs.





Historical Context



When asked why he felt so compelled to douse his body in flames, the elderly monk replied, “My feet hurt.”






Thursday, November 10, 2011

Twitterectomy



#sometimesyouhaveto

#occupy
#butitshardwhen
Zombie Apocalypse
#remindsmeof
Ronald McDonald
#iftheworldends
Happy Birthday Madonna
#whitepeople
#neverforget

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

I read a lot which means I'm cool and increases my chances that people wearing glasses will like me

I fell a bit short of my goal of reading 100 books in the past year (yes, I start my years in November -- so radical, I know), still, 72 books isn't bad for working more than 40 hours a week, and I'm not even counting 25 or so chapbooks of less than 20 pages. I wanted to write a mini-review for each book, which, sadly, is far from a novel idea. So I'm ratcheting it up a notch by writing each review as a quincouplet, which is basically a five-word poem with two words in the first line and three in the second. The form was originated by Benjamin Krause of twenty20 Publications and Diamond Point Press, in whose forthcoming quincouplet anthology I'm happy to have a few of my pieces appear. So yeah, five words per book, except for the ones I've already reviewed, because I've spent enough time thinking about them. 



“The Blue Tower” by Tomaž Å alamun: Slovenia’s genius / happy nihilist trees

"A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat” by Arthur Rimbaud: l’enfante retourne / ma tête brûle

"Gardens of Earthly Delight" by George Williams: review forthcoming / sometime next month


"In Lieu of Hartshorn" by Travis Brown: Greying ghost / makes nice things


"Sex at Noon Taxes" by Sally Van Doren: language games / can get naughty

"Nemesis" by Philip Roth: grandpa’s ramblings / still, polio sucks

 “Illuminations" by Arthur Rimbaud: l’enfant terrible / c’est mon favori

"A Shiny, Unused Heart" by J.A. Tyler: review forthcoming / The Brooklyn Rail


"In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan: don’t, tigers / eat less parents

"Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World" by Donald Antrim: coral do-gooders / delusions from fish

"Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" by Nick Flynn: best memoir / I’ve ever read

“Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin: historically trite / well-formed but sleepy

"Emotionless Souls" by David S. Grant: how come / this is published?


"Rushing to Paradise" by J.G. Ballard: bored Polynesians / make nice bombs

"The Trial" by Franz Kafka: this feels / like contemporary non-fiction


"The Laurel Poetry Series: Byron": this dude / got some ass

"The Body Artist" by Don DeLillo: ethereal freak / not much happens

"Wild Animus" by Rich Shapero: self-published drivel / could use editing

"Martini: A Memoir" by Frank Moorhouse: drink, drink, / drink, drink martinis!

"The Iguana Complex" by Darby Larson: dreamy mindfuck / felines elicit resentment

"The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker: epic perversion / but no boner

"Micro-Fiction" edited by Jerome Stern: short flash / some really flashy

"Story of My Life" by Jay McInerney: cocaine schoolgirls / always a hell


“Killing Yourself to Live" by Chuck Klosterman: tragic roadtrip / culture-subverting truth monkeys

"Trust" by Liz Waldner: these poems / make me scrunch

"Burning Girl" by Ben Neihart: Baltimore love-thing / stranger than anticipated

"Drinking Until Morning" by Justin Grimbol: dude drinks / weird things happen

"The Illustrator" by James Robison: bohemian pederast / gets more bohemian

"The Rainbow" by D.H. Lawrence: modernist porn / Lawrence’s a boss

"Bright-Sided" by Barbara Ehrenreich: thinking positive: / pretty darn stupid



"Train Wreck Girl" by Sean Carswell: girlfriend dies / future looks brighter

"I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill The Clone and Eat It" by Sam Pink: bottled rage / seldom this insightful

"Out Of Touch" by Brandon Tietz: Emprise Review, / where’s my review???

"Ham On Rye" by Charles Bukowski: your childhood / wasn’t this bad

"Things Are Happening" by Joshua Beckman: I love / all your words

"Affluenza" by David LaBounty: weird neighbors / are probably mass-murderers

"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett: men once / were hardboiled badasses


"How Can I Help?" by Ram Dass: Hindu gurus / make nice houseguests 

"Vox" by Nicholson Baker: phone-sex paradise / no plot necessary



"The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford: post-WWI masterpiece / Englishmen were sneaky

"Go" by John Clellan Holmes: Beat precursor / better as concept 

"Factotum" by Charles Bukowski: odd-job perils / booze away dogma

"You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense" by Charles Bukowski: how sparrows / like drowning happily

"The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster" by Richard Brautigan: hippie’s lament / time to grow

"Bring Me Your Love" by Charles Bukowski: Crumb cartoons / make Chinaski monstrous


"Generation A" by Douglas Coupland: bees gone / Shytengart’s future’s worse

"South of No North" by Charles Bukowski: early drunk / before real decay



"Waiting For Godot" by Samuel Beckett: god laughs / at bumbling Frenchmen





"The Essential Numbers 1991 - 2008" by Gordon Massman: insanity is / the fucking shit

"Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Shteyngart: near-future ache / China should frighten

"Good, Brother" by Peter Markus: mud people / fish solicit violence


"My Father's Tears and Other Stories" by John Updike: Rabbit runs / out of time

"Without Wax" by William Walsh: 18-inch lovemeat / even sadder anomalies 

“Rabbit, Run” by John Updike: this guy’s / a real jerkoff 

“Fragments of Sappho” by Anne Carson: lesbian poets / write radical verse

“How It Ended ” by Jay McInerney: I wish / I’d written these

losers, lesbians, perverts

My review of Tiff Holland's Betty Superman is up at Used Furniture Review. I really loved this little 32-page book, made me wish I had a super dysfunctional childhood. Much thanks again to David Cotrone at UFR for the acceptance!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Budweisers and copyediting stole my 26th year!


You guys should check out an essay by the inimitable John Reed, “Arthur Phillips Stole My Bike,” in this month’s Brooklyn Rail. There’s a lot going on here: A heated dialogue about how best to create a new Shakespeare play using the Bard’s own hallowed (or hollowed) words; the value of community in a literary world that too often caters to isolationism; the controlled chaos inherent in being a working writer and professor; a touch of nostalgia for a Manhattan childhood and young adulthood; the complexity of getting anywhere on time in New York; a mysterious theft.

As personal essays written by NYC fiction writers are wont to do, I found myself considering my own situation as it pertains to literary things (solipsism alert!), and realized that this year has been somewhat of a setback. Sure I’ve tinkered with my novel a bunch (which hasn’t slowed the slew of rejections), published a bunch of reviews, an e-chapbook and a few poems, but I could have done so much more. I’m not talking about writing 2,000 words a day and finishing a novel and two books of poetry in six months, I mean in like, life.

Like, it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to sit on my boxered ass all day every day taking six hours to complete freelance work that could easily take three, thereby destroying any time to do work I actually wanted to do. Like, going to the same seven or eight bars and making no effort to look on either side of the Budweiser pressed to my rotting lips. Like, feeling fine continuing as a doorman for way too long when other opportunities have continued to slap my jaw and I do nothing but shirk. Like making, uh, not much effort at trying to meet girls and forming what could be considered the loosest of interpersonal post-friend-level bonds, and heroically sabotaging anything that might actually be good for my lonesome ass. Like, failing to immerse myself in the many coteries of writers this fine city offers (What John’s saying about the need for community and collaborating, duh) and remaining a mostly anonymous curmudgeon.

This ineptitude, coupled with the fact that my freelance contract of 1.5 years has ended without much of a warning (putting the “starving” back into my job description), has me feeling better and happier than I can remember. Spending one’s time working alone can only be justified by meaningful work, not mind-numbing “editing” work for a major corporation that will probably tank within the next few months. What my week now lacks in a nifty paycheck, it makes up for it with TIME. Time to write what I want, to finish/start projects I’ve been brooding over for months, to work on the literary magazine that I know can do big things. Not as much money to decimate my once-youthful body with toxins and lard, and I've never felt so fucking energized, baby!!!

Events will be attended, group projects will go down (including a Monkeytown screenplay collab I’m not at liberty to discuss)! Time to get excited, 2012 might actually turn out OK. Until December 21.

Also, I just wanted to mention that Short, Fast, and Deadly in its current incarnation has put out its final issue. I am eternally grateful to SFD for publishing many of my flash fictions and poems in the magazine and in the 2010 Anthology. I’m more stoked that I will be the staff chapbook reviewer at the bigger, badder Short, Fast, and Deadly Monthly, dropping this January. Watching the empire grow from within.

Stay posted, and stay fulfilled! Hoo-ah!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

so, like, y'all do jaga bawmbs n champang, dog?



A few observations working the door in the West Village during the Halloween parade:

*  I can’t look at girls wearing 1920s flapper costumes without thinking about Nucky Thompson’s Gollum-like sex scene in this week’s Boardwalk Empire. Thanks for ruining Prohibition for me, Buscemi.


*  Seeing Pokey without a Gumby is a very real sadness.


*  Manhattan high schoolers are ballsy. Sorry kid awesomely dressed as MacGruber. I appreciate your ID that’s not only printed on a sheet of China-grade cardboard but also has been expired since 2006, and the $200 of your allowance you’re offering to get you and your generically slutty teeny bopper friends with no IDs in the bar. Come back when there isn’t a police blockade grilling me from across the street. You’re probably undercover cops aren’t you, little shits…


*  Being “sober” on Halloween sucks. Being sober while wearing a costume would be worse, I guess.


*  There is an inverse relationship between wearing a costume and enjoying oneself at a small, intimately lit bar where mellow jazz is being played. If you are wont to ask doormen, “Yo B, how much it cost to check out this fly downstairs club, dog?” you probably won’t have a good time. I’ll take $100 though.


*  Haven’t seen this many Impalas on two wheels since the last time I YouTubed Dr. Dre.


*  Best costume award goes to a girl wearing a parasitic twin dressed as a vampire from Twilight. I’d like to think that this is apt satire commenting on Twilight’s – and junky YA in general – suckling of America’s collective diabetic teat, but even if she’s just #TeamJacob, it’s still hilarious.


*  200-lb black lesbians dressed like Scottish warriors from Braveheart are some of the very nicest people.


*  More of a general thing, but it’s really obnoxious when people walk up to me and ask if we’re closed. Yes, because most drinking establishments employ guys to stand outside just to tell people that they aren’t open. I’m a humansignpostipede!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The baby elephant gagged on it a little




Just finished the first offering of what is sure to be much awesomeness from Plain Wrap Press, Janey Smith’s Animals. This unassuming creature sneaks up with major oh-you-think-this-but-really-uh, like, you wake up at the crack of dusk, casually chilling, when, excuse me, a giant polar bear sidles up on its belly all who’s-the-boss and totally infiltrates the Zen of your nose-picking and self-dithering session. What? Many more pleasant oddities ensue – the plight of the Joey (the infant kangaroo, not Lawrence), a bossy pet pygmy, more baby animals feeling the sting and shirk of that bigger beast, Capitalism – all in a neat 66 mini-pages. Animals’ super-cute, compact and pale packaging (and isn’t that the best kind) almost made me feel bad for putting it down when I was done, as if to say, “Dude, you’re going to ruffle through me, leave my pages all dog-eared and finger-moist, and you’re not even going to spoon with me for an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras?!” One of my friends thought the book would make a nice coaster for his PBR tallboy (damn hipster). Another tried to use it as an effective, if far-from-deadly ninja star. Some of my friends don’t read good. But if you do read, you should do yourself a favor and give this little guy a scratch. It won’t bite too hard.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

it takes less muscles to smile than to swallow a snowball

Got a couple new reviews up. Andrew Borgstrom's Meat is All, -- another awesome Nephew of Mud Luscious Press -- at Outsider Writers Collective. This book is seriously insane, both visually and thematically and whoa dude, gave me nightmares, but good ones, the kind I wish I could always have, only problem is I think it's sold out. If you're nice, I'll lend you my copy.

 Haven't done a lot of music reviews recently, but I couldn't resist writing a few words about Diarrhea Planet's debut LP, Loose Jewels. The review is up at DeckFight, a really cool Southeastern rock blog and chapbook publisher. DP -- Punk meets pop meets just raging out and loving life. This CD will be my workout mix and my pre-party pump-up jam for months to come. 


Thanks to the editors of both websites for being nice enough to sully their screens with my words.

Friday, October 21, 2011

The Five Things That Piss Me Off The Most While Bouncing in Manhattan



To support my meager freelance earnings and non-existent literary earnings, I work at a bar where I mostly man the door. Said bar is one of downtown Manhattan’s swankiest neo-speakeasies, an underground mixology nerd’s wet dream, where bartenders slang $13 cocktails and the wait to get in is seldom less than 20 minutes on a weeknight. While “bouncer” is an accurate description of what I do, the bar’s clientele – off-duty bankers, successful creative types, NYU hipsters armed with Daddy’s PIN – aren’t usually in need of being bounced, and at a slightly out-of-shape and pasty 5’10”, I don’t cut anywhere near as intimidating a figure as my burly counterparts manning the gates of posh Meatpacking District clubs and frat-soaked yuppie-pits in Murray Hill. So I’ve tried to keep the following list of things patrons do that never fail to irk me as universal as possible, in the hopes that the city’s barflies might realize the mental anguish they enact on my brethren and me each long, tumultuous eve. Not that they’ll change, but I can still gripe. 



1. Guys Who Wait for Girls to Show Me Their IDs Before They Show Me Theirs


This may not seem like a big deal. What’s the problem with a guy trying to act courteous, it’s the same as holding a door or pulling out a chair, right? The problem is that when you see a social gesture as pointless this one again and again, it begins to gnaw at your soul in the worst way.

Real-life example:


Guy comes up to the bar with his female companion. Seeing that they are dressed business casual but are on the young side, I ask for identification. Of course the girl is the proud owner of a monstrous satchel whose ideal purpose seems to be transporting large human body parts. While she scours through the expanse of fabric, I am dutifully holding the door (a super heavy old-school metal door) open. The guy has his ID out but for some reason is declining to give it to me. After 45 seconds of me extending my hand to this character like a mongoloid and his girl still digging around, I say to him, “You know, I can see your ID now.”


“I’ll wait.”

Uh. More digging.

“So why don’t you just show me your ID now.” Still holding the door, arm getting sore.

He looks at me like I just crapped jelly beans out of my nose. “It’s called being a gentleman.”

“Oh?”

Girl: “Yeah! He’s a gentleman!” Makes loopy flutter-eyes that make me want to expell jelly beans out of multiple orifices.

Fast-forward through way too many seconds of my life and the girl finally finds her ah, NEW JERSEY driver’s license. The guy, who’s been grilling me like I’m some kind of ingrate for longer than I like, gracefully allows his stiletto-heeled plunder to saunter down the stairs. He nods at me grotesquely, follows. I finally close the door behind them, stretch my arm, and that’s it.

So a guy waited for his girlfriend so she could give me her ID first. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if his reasoning had been different. Because as I see it, part of what defines a gentleman is a combination of courtesy and tact, shown not only toward the objet d’heure (the insipid and unremarkable Jersey girl), but to all rational souls he encounters. Considering myself to be rational for the most part, I find it a little ungentlemanly that someone would want to make me hold a heavy door like an idiot for any unnecessary amount of time. It would seem more gentlemanly to make the process as efficient as possible for all parties involved (especially given the fact that it was cold and rainy on the night in question) and to escort his lady as quickly and as safely as possible. Unless you consider bouncers to be somewhat less than human, which seems to be a fairly common opinion.



2. Talking


The cold, misanthropic door guy is a pervasive stereotype, and a valid one. If every bouncer you encounter seems more content to keep his arms crossed and stare into space or constantly check fantasy football stats on his phone than strike up a conversation, it’s because of what those conversations will inevitably entail. 75 percent of the time when guys in line interrupt me from my mobile Drudge Report, it starts well enough: “Hey man, how’s your night going? What drinks do you recommend? You don’t look like a bouncer, what do you really want to do?” And that’s cool, until the real reason for bothering me rears its douchey head: “So, like, I’m trying to come here next week with a girl. Will we, you know, have to wait in line? I mean, we’re practically best friends, I know you’ll remember me. Just in case, give me your number and I’ll call you so you won’t forget. Thanks so much, bro!” Bouncers, and especially those who work at places where there’s a wait to get in, don’t want to make friends. We want to survive a drama-free shift, avoid tranny crackheads on the 4am subway and watch re-runs of Ancient Aliens until sunrise. Giving us a hefty bro-pat will not help to differentiate you from the hundreds of obnoxious faces we cringe at on a nightly basis. You won’t be receiving the James Franco treatment, or even the Paul Giamatti treatment.

And ladies, I’m not stupid. I know what you’re trying to do every time you gush about how crazy it is that we both went to boarding school in Connecticut (OMFG!), how I could be a stand-in for Pick-Any-Conventionally-White-Movie-Star-of-the-Past-Decade, how you think it’s so noble that I freeze and/or sweat my ass off outside a bar for seven hours at a time to support my, like, TOT-ALLLLLY interesting artistic endeavors. Not to say that I don’t find the cleavage-pops, the pouty faces and the inappropriate touching at least a little amusing, but it still won’t help you get in.


Advice to both genders: Save your vocal chords for your actual friends. Quiet and respectful always trumps faux-friendly douchebaggery. Unless you’re familiar with the Ben Franklin Handshake. Provide one of these and not only will you get in immediately, but we can also discuss the latest advances in biomedical engineering or how much you hate the new Facebook for as long as you want.




3. Checking Women’s IDs


This is your classic no-win situation. If I ask a group of women for proof of age, they will most always roll their eyes while digging through their heinously large bags and mutter something about how they haven’t been carded in, like, for-EV-errrrrrr! If, however, I decide to be generous and save these same women the trouble of rummaging through godknowswhat and let them in sans IDs, I’ll get the same eye roll tinged with more than a hint of utter desperation: “But, but…I feel so old! Do I really look that old?? I’ve never not been carded, wah, wah, wah…” It’s not flattering for anyone involved. Also, failing to acknowledge that it’s a woman’s birthday (And why anyone would want to celebrate any birthday after age 21 is beyond me) is apparently equivalent to hoarding child porn. Hint: We only look at the year on your ID, as in, we don’t care.

On a side note, my friends always ask me how I fail to pick up more women at work. Valid question. I let any number of gorgeous girls pass me by with nary a nod. I’ve already explained why I avoid talking to women. Seriously, if a young lady wearing shoes that cost more than my monthly salary and wielding a monstrous piece of stow-away luggage also known as a “purse” rolls up with older dudes, suited or otherwise, who are all clearly balling, I doubt she’s on the prowl for some side bouncer action. That may sound defeatist, but what else do I really have to offer? My MFA degree? Ooooh, those are really sexy, and profitable! If a woman is genuinely interested in me she should probably stop drinking outrageously expensive vodka tonics because she’s going to have to support my writing struggles for the next, well, until I stop writing.




4. Europeans


The bar where I work gets a lot of tourists. The majority of these are from Western Europe. I don’t know what they write in NYC guidebooks, but I do know that these books are in desperate need of some editing. To my friends from across the sea (especially the French, Italians, Germans, hell, everyone), let me simplify things. 1. In America, we card. I don’t care if you just got off a plane, if you left your passport in the hotel, if “In my country we do not do this,” if your accent is in fact pretty sexy, I still need to see your ID or you’re not getting in. 2. “But what is this line you speak of? In my country we do not…” Stop right there. You understand the concept of a line. Tribesmen in Indonesia who have never had the pleasure of going through airport customs understand the concept of a line. You should be so lucky. 3. Loud soccer chants are unacceptable. Chanting of any kind is generally discouraged. 4. I know the Euro has taken a hit recently, but if you leave less than $5 on a $91 tab, the bartender will send me pissed off texts with frowny faces and chances are you won’t be receiving the same quality of service upon your next visit, because if I recognize you, we’re going to magically be at capacity the rest of the night. 5. Not all Americans, especially New Yorkers, are monolingual heathens. If you’re two feet away talking shit about me in French or relatively coherent Spanish, you’re going to be sober for a long time. ¿Comprende?



5. “Is this a line, or are these people just…”


I know we’re all oblivious to what’s going on around us most of the time. You’re cruising down 7th Avenue, earbuds blasting Katy Perry just loud enough for no one else to hear, hoping your boss doesn’t email you with any extra work, wondering whether the Gchat your OkCupid date sent you an hour ago contains kinky undertones (why all the barfing emoticons??), hoping your date loves swigging Old Fashioneds as much as you do, I get it. There’s a lot going on up there to distract from the here and now. But when you approach your drinking destination and fail to notice the 20 people neatly lined up double-file against the side of the building, all glaring at a guy in a suit in front of the entrance ignoring them and playing Brick Breaker on his Droid, it’s obvious what’s going on. I can’t count how many times I’ve had a person saunter past me and reach for the door, only for me to explain that all these people currently stabbing him or her with their eyes are waiting to get in and that he or she needs to promptly take a position at the back of the, what’s it called? Oh yes, the line. The once-dead eyes light up with indignation. “But, but…I thought all these people were smoking.” No one is smoking. “I thought all these people were standing around.” Yes, because people in New York love to stand in an organized fashion observing the bricks on the side of an otherwise nondescript building! Then there’s my favorite: “Oh, I didn’t see the line.” Granted, these responses could just be covering up for failing at a rather stupid ploy to gain early admittance, in which case, congratulations, you now look stupider than if you had just gone to the back of the line. And if you really are that oblivious to your immediate surroundings, you’ve got much bigger problems than having to wait in line for a drink. In fact, you should probably quit drinking and never bother me again. Have a GRRRREEEAT evening!



Honorable Mentions


6. Using the word “cheers” for anything besides toasting
7. Using the word “queue” for any reason
8. Name-dropping
9. Asking how long the wait is going to be
10. Australians

*If my bosses read this, just kidding about the Ben Franklin Handshake