east village idiot

I usually don’t freak out over celebrities, except when I’m drunk, apparently.

I learned this last night, when Adrian Grenier came into my neighborhood bar. I was pretty lit from a seemingly never-ending series of holiday parties. For some reason, I was absolutely convinced he was going to become my new best friend (he didn’t). I considered asking him to play beer pong against me and my friends (it never happened). I figured when he left, I should come over to him and ask him to “hug it out, bitch” (even drunk, I’m not that ballsy).

The one ridiculous thing I did do was buy him a shot of Jameson to get my bar tab over the $20 minimum for credit cards. So I did a shot with Adrian Grenier. At the time, it made sense. But then, when you consider his status as a public figure, he probably gets free shots at bars all the time - and not from some random drunk guy at the bar.

He was very gracious and took half the shot and gave the rest to a friend with him. I took all of mine and suffered the consequences later. They were very laid-back and quiet in the corner of the bar, and I was the only asshole to bother them the whole night. I still don’t know what got into me.

Oh, right… alcohol.

I saw this on Friday night in the bathroom of a bar on the Lower East Side. At the time, I was pretty drunk, and deemed it worthy of a cameraphone snapshot. Now, I’m just baffled. 

I’ve been told by my friends that I have a 16 year-old girl’s taste in music. I strongly disagree, unless this 16 year-old girl lived in 1995 and wore Doc Martens. Unfortunately, the concerts I’ve attended lately haven’t helped me prove this theory wrong. At nearly every single show, regardless of the venue, I have felt like the oldest person in attendance. Even when the show is 21+, I’ve felt like everyone there was exactly 21 - and no older.

I first came to this realization in 2002, when I went to a Weezer concert. The only people in the crowd older than me and my friend were parents taking their kids to the shows. I was baffled. When Weezer put out their Blue Album, some of these kids were in kindergarten. I was in high school. When they played “Undone (The Sweater Song),” the crowd couldn’t get into it. When they played “Hash Pipe,” these middle-schoolers went crazy. Twelve year-olds shouldn’t even know what a hash pipe is, let alone be singing about one! Why was this happening?

It only got worse as the years wore on. I got older, but the crowds stayed the same age. I’ve been put in uncomfortable situations where drunk girls have started flirting with anyone in sight at a concert, opening the door for two illegal activities: underage drinking and statutory rape.

Last night was decidedly different. I was treated to the most unexpectedly silver-haired audience in the world: a Jimmy Buffett concert. There were Hawaiian shirts as far as the eye can see. And sure, there were some twentysomethings and thirtysomethings in the audience, guzzling their margaritas and dancing to “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” but after I sat down and looked down my row, I realized something: I was the youngest person in my row. I alone probably brought down the average age of the row by about two decades.

The silver-haired lady on the right was holding up a sign saying it was her “59th” - presumably her 59th Buffett show, as it was clearly not her 59th birthday. She danced rather wildly, leading me to wonder if she was trying out her new replacement hip. The guy on the left was wearing this festive Hawaiian shirt, but he was silver-haired and wearing earplugs. He also stood up exactly once during the concert - at intermission, to leave his seat.

The girl next to me, who didn’t seem much older than me, came back during the intermission and struck up some conversation with me. “You wouldn’t believe the bathroom lines,” she complained.

“Oh, I could,” I replied. “I think intermission is necessary at a Jimmy Buffett show. Everyone here has a bladder control issue.”

Jimmy Buffett’s jumbotrons often displayed scenes from his fans, Parrotheads, tailgating before his concerts. It gets to be a boozefest that can only be compared to New Orleans’ Bourbon Street on any night. One striking similar is the number of bare breasts on display. When these breasts were shown on the jumbotron, the silver-haired folks in the crowd looked away. I was waiting to hear one of them say, “well, I never!”

I honestly felt guilty getting up from my seat to get a beer. I would force everyone in my row to stand up, and I imagine that many of them have knee or joint problems that would make that painful. None of them even had a drink. I thought that was half the fun of a Jimmy Buffett show! A performer doesn’t sell his own brand of tequila and beer for nothing.

I had a good time, but I think I should put off my next Jimmy Buffett show for a while. Say, another fifteen years. Or until he plays a gig that’s not handicap-accessible.

This week’s Time Out New York has their “Summer Drinking Playbook,” which details a step-by-step process by which an amateur pickup artist can get laid at several different bars in New York City, based upon the unique amenities of those bars.

Most amusing of the bunch was a guide to 230 Fifth, a bar with the ability to attract every douchebag and douchebag-lover in Manhattan on a hot summer night with $9 beers and $12 well drinks. It’s the place to find people who like to be seen drinking overpriced drinks by people who like to watch people who like to be seen drinking overpriced drinks. It’s also the place to find women who still haven’t realized that their obsession with Sex and the City creates visions of unreasonable pick-up scenarios that will never materialize, even at a bar where some douchebag will throw down his card for bottle service. I cannot believe they actually call this place a “bar.” It’s a shitshow.

A good friend of mine threw a birthday party there last month at 11pm on a Saturday night. I flat-out refused to go. She was offended that I wouldn’t even give the place a go for her birthday, but she later confessed that everyone who attended was outraged by how crowded and expensive it was, and they quickly fled to a Murray Hill bar - not a huge improvement, but in that neighborhood, beggars can’t be choosers.

Rather than take a play out of Time Out New York, here’s my step-by-step guide to going to 230 Fifth and picking up a girl.

Step 1  Stand in line for nearly a half an hour. Since you already hate this place, find a couple of females in line who are waiting to get in. They will undoubtedly be complaining about the wait, because they’re probably wearing uncomfortable clothing. Flirt with them and complain about the wait in line yourself. If flirting is unsuccessful, move on to Step 3.

Step 2  If your flirting is successful, suggest in the elevator that you guys “take this somewhere more fun.” If their reply is, “OH! Sure! You mean, like, someplace like… Cain, right? Let’s go,” bail out immediately. The only other likely response is one of disgust, but you were never serious, anyway, because a positive response to an offer to go home with two girls within 10 minutes of getting into a bar would merely be a red flag that they’re probably prostitutes.

Step 3  Walk up to one of the two bars. Ask for a Bud Light draft. Place $5 on the bar - and a $1 tip. When the bartender tells you it’s $9, laugh hysterically and walk away.

Step 4  Go back downstairs to the street. Hail a cab. Tell them to take you to any of the shitshow college bars in town where the [few] girls are incredibly, incredibly easy (suggestions: Down the Hatch, The Big Sleazy, Jake’s Dilemma, Bar None). Buy every girl in the bar a drink with the money you’re saving by not drinking at 230 Fifth. They will be your best friends all night, and you will draw the ire of every fresh-out-of-college fratboy around you.

Step 5a  By the end of the night, if you can’t find a way to get laid by the female patrons at one of the aforementioned bars, you need more than a “Summer Drinking Playbook” to help you along.

Step 5b  If you manage to take a girl home, congratulations. Now, you will suffer the consequences. Nurse your hangover back to health. Get tested. Don’t feel bad for yourself, because you voluntarily went to 230 Fifth. You deserve it, you prick.

One night, a couple weeks ago, my boss sent me a picture message she took at Penn Station. It was late, and she was very much amused by a particular drunkard who had decided to lay down against one of the station’s escalators. Here is part of that picture:

Already, this is high comedy. The puddle running down from his head is not puke. If you look closely, you can see a Burger King drink cup. He decided to use the cup as a pillow for his little nap in Penn Station. That cup happened to be full of soda.

Soon after, my boss observed a Penn Station janitor watch the drunk man make a mess of the station floor. Rather than clean up the soda and run the risk of disturbing the drunk man, the janitor took an alternate approach:

I applaud the ingenuity - and/or laziness - of the Penn Station janitorial staff.

After a six-hour drinking marathon on Tuesday night that involved a dinner party, an actual party, and an after party, I was pretty much shitfaced. Considering the amount of alcohol consumed, it was a small miracle I even got out of bed the next morning, especially since the majority of my drinking was in the form of wine - boxed wine, no less.

When I woke up that next morning, a few things came back to me: I ended up at Puck Fair, some guy jumped out of his chair in joy when he found out that I write this blog (my ego was quickly deflated when none of the seven other people at the table had even heard of my blog), I made at least five drunken phone calls, I ran into a kid I went to high school with who I hadn’t seen since graduation day, and I accidentally woke up my roommate when I barged through the door and poured myself some water.

However, there’s one thing that didn’t come back to me: how I got home. This is one gaping hole in my memory from Tuesday night. It’s as though my recollection of transporting myself from Puck Fair to my apartment was just snatched from me completely. I remember walking out of Puck Fair. I remember walking up the stairs to my apartment. But I don’t remember anything in between. This has often been referred to as “going on autopilot.” I was locked in and engaged on getting home, I suppose, because I made it home in one piece.

After much consideration, I have three theories of what transpired in those missing 15 or 20 minutes from Tuesday night:

• I took the subway. In this case, I was probably listening to my iPod and singing along, very loudly. If this theory is correct, then I apologize to my fellow subway passengers for putting you through pure, utter hell at midnight on a weeknight.
• There’s also the possibility that I walked, and miraculously, did not get lost. I usually have an amazing sense of direction, but when you mix me with alcohol and named streets, things have a tendency to go horribly wrong. If this theory is correct, then I shall pat myself on the back.
• I took a cab. Several things must have occurred in order for this theory to hold water. I am absolutely certain that I was out of cash when I left Puck Fair, so I must have (a) gone to an ATM and (b) given the cabbie a $15 tip on a $5 cab ride, because my wallet was empty on Wednesday morning. If this theory is correct, then there was one very happy cab driver in the East Village on Tuesday night.

Whatever theory ends up being true, I’m grateful that I even got home. And I’m even more grateful that I toughed out the worst wine hangover ever.

Oh, and if anything else happened in those mysterious 20 minutes, I cannot be held responsible for anyone I maimed, raped, tortured, offended, chased, teased, or shot with my invisible gun. Blame it on the booze.

My phone rang at about 9:30 on Christmas Eve, and I got a call I wasn’t expecting.

“Hey, Chris!” It was a friend from high school. “I’m having a few people over to pre-game before Midnight Mass. I didn’t know if you were going, but you’re more than welcome to come over.”

Yes, pre-gaming for Midnight Mass.

Christmas: an excuse to consume outrageous amounts of alcohol to numb the pain of religious tradition.

I must admit that I am a bit enamored with my phone. But after this weekend, I think it’s gotten a little out of hand. When I’m drunk, my phone and I are all over each other. To prove it, let’s review Kate’s pictures from Saturday Night at a party for College 2.0:

Look at my phone! I loooove my phone!

 My phone is way more important than you people.

My phone even likes it from behind.

Heather’s clearly jealous that my phone loves me more than her Blackberry loves her.

 My phone is good enough to eat!

Yeah, dearest LG Fusic, we need to talk. I think I need to give you some space. Like, in my pocket instead of in my hand.

Yes, I did dress up for Halloween. And yes, I made this decision at the last minute. Thanks to the ingenious shopping habits of Kate, I was able to make my entire costume for about $30, plus the cost of the throat drops I sucked down all day yesterday to revive my voice after shouting loudly in my best shrill Chris Farley impression.

Meet Chris as Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker:

It’s really awkward going out dressed up three nights before Halloween. I seemed to be the only one dressed in a costume as I walked through the East Village around 9pm on Saturday. I actually held my arms across my chest to try to conceal the throw pillow stuffed up my shirt.

Saturday night, it was hard to tell who was actually dressed up for Halloween and who was in their normal garb. First there was my friend Travis, who was dressed half as a rabbi and half as a priest (he was a cliche: “a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar”). It was a brilliant costume, but it definitely had the potential to offend. As we boarded a Q train at Canal Street headed for Brooklyn, two Hasidic Jews boarded in the same car. What resulted was an excruciating 10-minute trip over the Manhattan Bridge between Canal Street and DeKalb Avenue with no means for escaping embarassment… or the evil eye. You could feel the wrath of God on that Q train, my friends. Travis may very well be cursed for life.

Then, as I was walking home, I saw a man dressed in what looked to be a brilliant Osama Bin Laden costume: a long, thick beard and traditional Afghani dress, right up to the headgear. Then I remembered that there’s a Mosque just a block away from my apartment. Was it a costume, or was it for real? I’m thinking it was the latter, and now I am filled with guilt for my insensitivity. And besides, who would dress in an Osama Bin Laden costume? That’s so 2001.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Is3icfcbmbs]
I could use a whole lot of HeadOn this morning.

On a completely different note, be sure to come down to Professor Thom’s (2nd Ave. between 13th and 14th Streets) on Monday night. I’ll be hosting trivia night starting at 9, filling in for the venerable John Quinn. Drinks will be had, questions will be asked, prizes will be awarded, football will be aired, and other passive verb phrases will be acted out. Be there or be square. Unless you’re a total trivia nerd… in which case, be there and be square.