The Booze Thread

[Sgt PSN]

Hmm.....I do love me some swedish fish.  Might have to try that one out.  I laughed at how big the gummy bears got.  Fat little fargers did give me a solid buzz although I don't recommend eating them by the handful.   

[General_Failure]

What about gummy worms and tequila?

[Susquehanna Birder]

I've heard that the swedish fish thing works great...and skittles (separated by color).

[hbionic]

racist.

[Susquehanna Birder]

Just giving them the full experience of their fruity heritage.

[PhillyPhreak54]

The Swedish fish thing is a goddamn genius idea.

[Diomedes]

Settle down homos.

[Eagaholic]

hey, why do you think they call them gummy bears?

[Rome]

December 21, 2008, 10:00 pm

By DAVID KRAMER

One thing I miss about drinking is hanging out in bars.

For years my wife and I resisted owning a television, so I would use my local bar like the family room, and go there to watch sports on TV. My wife used to tell me with pride that during the summer months, when the windows were open at my local, the bartenders would see her walking by on her way home and shout greetings to her outside, whether I was at the bar or not.

My local bar was Peter McManus over on 7th Avenue and 19th Street in Manhattan. It's an Irish place with worn banquettes and stools and an old, beat-up bar complete with a fish tank and photographs of family and patrons going back for generations.

I used to joke that I was surprised to be treated like a regular over there because I always considered myself to be firmly irregular. And as much as I did frequent the place, there was a group of guys and women who were always there. From my vantage point, they were the real regulars. Still, I was treated really well at the bar no matter how often I showed up.

McManus is one of those rare New York bars that still understands and holds dear the concept of the buyback — a drink on the house for every few you buy. And depending on the bartender and the length of my drinking session, the buybacks could be plentiful. Every now and then, the cadence of the buybacks would increase and I would find myself going one-for-one with the bartender, which made it difficult to slip out in a moment of polite one-upmanship.

I thought this was just great. I knew that buybacks didn't go to just anybody. They were a perk of the inner circle, the handful of patrons who were genuinely liked and trusted by the staff. So a buyback didn't just mean free beer — a great concept on its own. It meant acceptance. It meant I was on one of the rings of the inner circle.

Of course, there was a trade-off for all those buybacks; you had to tip nicely. Most nights I drank too much, left big piles of cash on the bar and staggered home. Being a big tipper was not something you could accuse me of in most circumstances. I still remember going out for dinner with my grandmother in Florida, where after an obscenely large early-bird special, she packed up all the extra food and the basket of rolls to take home and told me to tip one dollar per person. This was etched firmly into my tipping ethos.

When my wife and I got married in the early 90's and we started looking for a place to live in Manhattan, my only condition was that our apartment be near a bar I liked. We lived briefly on Second Avenue in the West 30's, but I didn't like the local bar very much so we soon moved to Chelsea, where I settled on McManus.

This was about 1993 and I was becoming more and more obsessive about the Knicks at the time. I was a loud and vocal fan, and soon became friendly with the bartenders during the prime Patrick Ewing-Charles Oakley years. I hoped to drink them to a championship. I often laughed to myself about the fact that I lived within walking distance of Madison Square Garden, but could not think of a more magical place to watch those games than from a stool in My Bar.

After a few years on 21st Street, we decided to move. I remember walking into McManus and telling Bruce, one of the bartenders there, that I was about to move out of the neighborhood. I remember his glum expression as he told me to wait a minute, then left and came back with a beer.

"This one's on me," he said. "Where are you moving to?"

"Twenty-fifth Street!" I said, holding my free beer. In those days, any place above 23rd Street was decidedly not Chelsea, and we both laughed hysterically. I don't think I paid for a drink the rest of the night. Despite the long commute I now had, I managed to maintain my regular status.

                                                             *    *    *

Last winter when I was still drinking — long after the demise of the Knicks — I was in McManus. I was sitting next to Bruce at the end of the bar where the off-duty cops and bartenders typically hung out. On this particular night there were no cops in the house; it was relatively slow. Suddenly, at the middle of the bar, a customer began yelling at one of the bartenders. The guy had been cut off. And he didn't like it. Everyone at our end of the bar looked over with concern, and the guy opened up his jacket like he had a gun in his waistband. All around me everyone jumped into action.

Someone grabbed a bat and jumped over the bar. Bruce got up and he and a bunch of others ran and began pushing this guy out the front door. For a split-second I just sat there. All alone now, sitting at the bar, I considered that after all these years, I had never been in a bar fight. I had no idea what to do — and that guy had a gun for all I knew.

Something drove me just then to jump up. I started across the bar and made it in time to join in on pushing the angry customer out the door. We all got outside and almost on cue a police cruiser stopped on the corner to see what was going on. They guy took off and the cops never got out of their car. They didn't chase him; nobody had really seen a gun anyway. We all went back inside and drank some more.

When I got home I woke up my wife. I told her about how I had been in my first bar fight — if that was what that was. Then I told her the details of what had happened.

I told her about that split-second, how I was frozen on my bar stool and didn't know what to do. But then every free drink that I had ever had, and the potential of that ending — forever — flashed before my eyes. No more special treatment. No more buybacks ... The thought was staggering. I just had to do something.

She couldn't believe I had been so stupid: "You have a son!" She couldn't believe I would run right into the scuffle when there may well have been guns involved. What would she have done if I had been shot or killed?

I promised her I would never do anything like that again, and now that I am not spending time in bars, it's an easy promise to keep. But to tell the truth, even now, I know there is just no way I could have lived with myself if I had been still sitting on that stool when all the guys from the bar came back inside.

Bad judgment? Sure. But I wouldn't blame the alcohol. I never did have very good judgment, and still don't, even though I am sober.

[Diomedes]

Yes, bad judgement:  It was bad, awful judgement to let your drinking get so f'n bad you had to stop, dickbag.  Now you can't drink anymore and those of us who still can don't give a shtein about your goddamn bar stories. 

[ice grillin you]

i love how he acts like buybacks in nyc are only for regulars...you drink steadily in a nyc bar for more than an hour and you are guaranteed of getting a buyback

[Susquehanna Birder]

First, that story was too damned long.

Second, buy backs are cool. I never stayed in one bar long enough to get any buybacks, but I was in one with my late BIL, and it was pretty magical to behold. Befriend the bartender and you will never go dry.

[Rome]

I spent a large portion of liberated whore moneiez in downtown bars.

farg all of you who did not.

[Sgt PSN]

WTF is this story about and why did it take 18 paragraphs to tell it?  It could have been much shorter and gotten the same point across. 

I went to this bar frequently but didn't feel like I was a regular eventhough the bartender gave me buy backs, which are reserved only for the most loyal and dedicated customers.  So I was included in this bar stool fraternity even though I just said I never felt like it.  By the way, the bar I went to is one of the last remaining bars in America that gives buy backs.  Did you know that?  Aren't I awesome for finding one of the best kept secrets ever?  This could only happen in NY. 

Then one day I said I was moving and the bartender was like "oh noez!" and I was like "it's only 4 blocks up the street, lolololoz."  He gave me a drink on the house because of my superior wit.  Then this one guy was drunk and angry and made a gesture that indicated he had a weapon.  Everyone else in the bar sprang into action while I came to the realization that I had never been involved in a bar fight before and began to wonder what the proper protocol was.  Once I noticed that the bar patrons had the situation well in hand, I sprung in to action with the same verocity as the guy who doesn't want to do any heavy lifting so he just uses his finger to push a little bit while everyone else does all the work.  Then I had a few drinks to help calm my nerves and bring me down from my adrenaline high. 

I went home and told my wife hoping that she would be sexualy aroused at my machismo but she reminded me who is really in charge in our house and now I'm not allowed to drink anymore.  I miss my balls.   

[Rome]

It was just a story about an ex drunk and his buy backs.

Settle down already.