Fuck Ups: Tending the Bartender (Part 1)

My local bar is a nice Brooklyn neighborhood dive with a pool table, a back garden, and a cocaine pusher named Ken. I know every single one of the bartenders who works after nine by name. None of them seem to mind that I am underage, and they consistently buy back everyone's third round as long as the customers tip. For me, they buy back every other round until closing time, after which they buy every round until sunrise. The owner drops by and stays for a few drinks with his girlfriend every few nights, and he always buys my drink for me if I order next to him at the bar.

Needless to say, my gal pals and I have spent many a wondrous night (and morning) of binge drinking at this poet-girl haven. And over the course of those nights, some of us have gotten friendlier with the staff than others. I tend to go for the bartenders no matter where I am (notice the Part 1 attached to this article's title) because I find that chatting them up helps distract them from carding me, and once I'm chatting, I turn into Vilma Kaplan, Bundle of Lust. This Fuck Up is one of my own tales:

It all started out good. The girls and one or two of our male friends met up and gathered at our usual table in the back for a rousing night of liquored-up hijinks. We chit-chatted the night away, the group dwindling as we blurred into the wee hours, until finally, it was just me and my friend Z left. We moved up to the bar to hang out with the two bartenders and the last few hooligans trying to catch a pussycat to pet before close.

Bartender 1 was a hot Irishman with a manly platinum wedding band that somehow managed to increase his sex appeal. Around forty, he was the kind of older man I always fantasized about and was slowly working my way up to.(I'd made good clean strides from 18 year olds to 30 year olds, but not yet beyond that.) For the sake of this Fuck Up, let's call him The Fantasy.

Bartender 2 was a new guy, we all called him The Kid, even though he was 28, much older than me. I struck up a nice conversation with The Kid about college degrees and homelessness while my friend Z made her move on The Fantasy. He'd been oggling her for weeks, and the tension was driving her nuts. She knew if she could keep him interested, she could keep herself in a veritable fountain of free beer.

At four a.m., the bar officially closed and the middle-aged, male regulars got kicked to the curb to wait for their cabs. We, the cute young thangs, were invited to smoke indoors, and have our pick of drinks as long as we could keep the bartenders entertained. Quickly, however, The Fantasy got that gleam in his eye that meant he'd figured he could swing me and Z for a threesome, and he started grumbling at The Kid to clean up and get out. I made a few joked with The Kid about how I wished he could stay, but..., and he made a few jokes about what a slut The Fantasy was. We both said, "Duh!" to each other's jokes, and The Fantasy hustled The Kid out the front door and pulled down the window gate behind him.

After that, it was a lot of slinky smiles. The Fantasy went in back to put up the chairs and turn off the lights, and Z and I popped open the antique cash register to pilfer quarters for the juke box. I put on Bruce Springsteen or some other such suitable fodder for young Fucking Up. Z came up to me and said, "Watch me?"

"Huh?" I asked, very confused by her request.

Z said, "I don't want to sleep with him.

"So let's go home," I said, seeing no dilemma.

"I don't want to go yet," she said and peeked into the dark back room where The Fantasy was prowling around.

"Okay, so let's stay. If you don't want to sleep with him, don't sleep with him." It went on like this for about half a song before I got frustrated and said, "I have no idea what you want me to do."

To this, Z replied, "I'm going to go into the back. I want you to stay up here. If I don't come back up here after two songs, come back. Whatever's going on, just go with it."

"Go with it?" I asked, trying to get her to tell me whether or not we were going to fuck The Fantasy in the back of the bar.

She scrunched up her face, through her hands in the air and huffed, "Go with it," as she walked into the The Fantasy's lair.

I sat at the bar, toyed with the idea of pocketing a few bucks from the till, poured myself another Jack rocks, squirted some club soda in the sink out of the nifty beverage hose, changed the lineup on the juke box, blah,blah, blah. Then, it was time. Two songs were up, and I made my way into the back, ready to play dumb.

"Oh, oops," I said, rather sarcastically, as I approached The Fantasy, who was pretty involved in grabbing Z's ass while she jerked him off with a nonplussed expression on her face.

He leered over at me and said, "Come here."

"Would your wife like this?" I asked because I'm a bitch and wanted him to be sure I knew exactly how base the whole situation was (but I was damn well going to enjoy myself anyway). The Fantasy ignored me and grabbed me by the front of my shirt to kiss me when I obeyed. As far as kisses go, I'd rate it a ten out of ten for pornographic fantasy and a three out of ten for real life fun. But I was not deterred. I am a girl who likes sex, especially sloppy, fairly anonymous sex, and I take on the task of hooking up with a lot of enthusiasm. I kissed The Fantasy with willful abandon, and even started to warm up a little as his hands wandered over to my body from Z's.

Z was still fairly expressionless as she cupped The Fantasy's balls. She said, "Yeah, grab her tits. She has epic tits," to which we all responded with murmurs of agreement.

The Fantasy was clearly overwhelmed by the two women in front of him, though and as he fumbled, I was starting to understand the unexcited look on Z's face. He kept pushing on the top of my head and whispering, "Get on your knees, baby."

I said, "No, stop pushing on my head," so he started begging, which really annoyed me. But I was all about making the best of the situation, so I kissed him to shut him up, and he got over the fact that I wasn't going to suck him off. (Sorry I'm not a better feminist. I aspire to be one.)

Z frowned at me and pointed at The Fantasy's cock with her free hand while he was busy eyes-closed groaning. First, I sighed with disappointment, then I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. "Let me," I said, taking over the manual activity while Z went to work making out. I thought he was just having a hard time getting it up. He was an older guy, and he'd had his fair share to drink. But when I got his dick in my hand, I had to admit that there just wasn't anything there. The Fantasy was no fantasy at all. He wasn't even a reality. He was barely a thumb. And a flaccid, bumbling thumb at that.

(A side note for fairness: Size is not everything. I have had satisfying encounters with many men with any number of penis sizes. But there is small, and then there is, "Oh, my God, I cannot believe I have been fantasizing about fucking this man against a wall only to realize that his dick is not a dick at all." And if he'd been a better guy, not a cheating scuzzball, I would have had inventive, pleasurable, non-penetrative sex with him for hours. There is so much more to fucking than pentration, I know, and it can be so much more fun. All of that is beside the point. It is situational irony. The Fantasy had the Least Fantastic Cock Ever.)

By this time, Z's dress was on the floor and my shirt was around my waist. Z made a frustrated, disgusted face, and I that was it. I made an executive decision. I dropped The Fantasy's dick to pick up Z's dress and pull it over her head. "We have to go," I said. The Fantasy looked dumbfounded. I took Z's hand, and dragged her up front.

We grabbed our purses just as The Fantasy emerged from the back. "You don't even want another drink?" he asked.

I said, "No," very sternly while Z fixed her hair. I looked at the clock on the wall, which read 7:42 AM, and cringed, "We have class in less than two hours." The Fantasy sighed and let us out the front. As we crawled out of the dark bar into the morning sun, I caught my shirt on the security gate and ripped a hole in it. Once on the sidewalk, we ducked our heads as we walked past shiny moms and dads drinking their morning coffee at the shop next door.

As soon as we were a block away, Z and I both started cracking up. "What the fuck did we just do?" I asked.

"Nothing," Z said, "There was nothing there to do."

Two hours later, I sat in class, still pleasantly drunk, and argued about and obscene Arthur Miller story that somehow paled in comparison to the morning I'd had so far. The Fantasy was ruined for Z and I forever, but he still pitches our free drinks over the bar like a trooper. Even though it was a completely dissatisfying encounter for all three of us, there is something to be said for the simplicity of post-hook up interactions with an older, sluttier, married man.

Fuck Ups: Emergency

The year my friend, Y, swore off men was long. Very long. So long that it accidentally became fifteen months.

Her first fishing trip back in the big sea of dating, she found herself set up with a friend of a friend. He was Dominican, sang in a band, felt no qualms about taking her into his bedroom for two hours of making out and abandoning their friends in the living room. All attractive qualities.

But his moves pretty much ended there, and Y was left feeling... not much.

Y, however, being an intrepid young dater, feeling rejuvenated after her love-sabbatical, did not give up. One lucky Saturday, she found yet another friend of a friend to hook on her line.

He was an Air Force Reservist with shoulders she couldn't wait to dig her fingernails into. So she did, and that was that.

Left with fine memories and a little skin under her fingernails, Y went home expecting nothing more from her one night stand. By the next night, however, Y had received numerous texts of "High five!" and "Get-it, get-it girl!" from her friends. Apparently the Air Force only teaches homosexuals not to tell.

Y kept her head up high, however, and made little grins of satisfaction whenever she thought no one was looking. One night, while on duty for work, she received an emergency page. When she dialed the number and asked, "How can I help?" the Air Force Reservist confusedly said, "Who is this?"

Y's boss had (ever-so-kindly) paged her one night stand's number to her emergency work pager. By doing her job and responding to the page, she came out looking like a cling-on. I said, "Remind your boss that you only like abuses of power in the bedroom," but I'm pretty sure she didn't tell him in those exact words.

Books You Should Be Reading But Aren't: The Dead

Okay, okay, so "The Dead" isn't a book. It's a short story. In the "Dubliners." We've written about its last sentence, and it truly is a remarkable one. But the story in and of itself stands alone as an exemplary example (is that redundant?) of Joyce's more coherent work (that is, in a traditional narrative). In the last two years, I've read this story about four times, and it's been a pleasure each and every time. It's one of the few stories where a dinner scene is both necessary and executed well. The dinner table has often been a trap for writers, as conversation becomes action with seated guests. Joyce does not fail here. For starters, start simply with the foods on the table, each so fraught with symbolism, it seems overwhelming if you think about it, natural if you don't (also, a perfect example of how food can enhance a story without the story being about food). Familial and social dynamics are explored and exploited as if you were witnessing your own family's last Christmas party.

And the devasting ending, when the narrator is convinced that his wife is still in love with a (now deceased) boy from her adolescence, he looks out into the snow, seeing the great equalizer. Snow covers both the living and the dead, something that he had previously tried to protect his wife from (by buying her snow boots, etc.).

I could go on, but this is a story I refuse to summarize. Please read it. You'll be glad you did.

Cocktail of the Week: Metropolitan

Apparently, not one liquor store in my neighborhood sells angostura bitters. So my metropolitan was becoming a problem. I had brandy left over from sangria, and wanted to use it, so I went and bought sweet vermouth in order to make a metropolitan with, but they didn't have the bitters. So after hiking up and down the block, going to three separate liquor stores, a nice, short man with a round face suggested I try Campari instead. I was skeptical, but tried it anyway. The result is not terrible, but it's a little too bitter I think. I tried putting more sugar in, but it just tastes like a homemade liquor concoction. Which is what it is. It's drinkable, but not what I was going for. Also, recipes need to be more specific that a "dash" of bitters.

Anyway, here's a recipe for a metropolitan:
1 1/2 oz. of brandy
1 oz. of sweet vermouth
2 dashes of angostura bitters
1/2 a tsp. of simple syrup

Mix in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into glass. Drink.

Maybe you'll have better luck than me.

Recipe from here.

What I Did Last Night

Last night, I brought my local bar home with me.

This Week's Cocktail

Because I've been craving it, and haven't been getting it: Sangria.

Red or white? Use wine (usually red, sometimes white), fresh fruit, two tablespoons of sugar, and brandy, whiskey, or (more rarely) rum (one shot to the bottle of wine). Combine and chill over night. Before serving add some type of clear citric beverage (sprite, 7-up), gingerale, or club soda (2 cups).

If you want to serve it immediately, use lots of ice. This is a drink that needs to be cold. Now if only it would stop raining, I could make some.

Image from here where they have lots of different recipes for sangria.

Books You Should Be Reading But Aren't: Trilogy

Yes, HD. So hard to find in a bookstore, so enjoyable to read. For those of you who do not know, HD stands for Hilda Doolittle, who was brought to us by Ezra Pound (Imagiste!). As one of the few female Imagist poets, she stands out. Her brief lyricism is decidedly more feminine than the lines of her male contemporaries (i.e. Eliot, Pound). It was mostly her earlier work that garnered the Imagist label (it's said that the label was invented by Pound to market her work), and by the thirties and forties she had moved on to work that is rarely specifically defined, but is broadly modernist. At the penning of Trilogy (in England during the second World War) she worked with varying mythologies and history to write effective war poetry which has the ability to be violent but is softened by romantic phrasing.


The tenth poem of the first section of trilogy, "The Walls Do Not Fall"

But we fight for life,
we fight, they say, for breath,

so what good are your scribblings?
this--we take them with us

beyond death: Mercury, Hermes, Thoth
invented the script, letters, palette;

they indicated flute or lyre-notes
on papyrus or parchment

are magic indelibly stamped
on the atmosphere somewhere,

forever; remember, O Sword,
you are the younger brother, the latter born

your Triumph, however exultant,
must one day be over

in the beginning
was the Word.

HD's poetic signature in Trilogy was her couplet (though not a heroic or rhymed couplet, perhaps extending from the Imagistic idea that "the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms...a new cadence means a new idea." (Some Imagist Poets, 1916)). Her later work was influenced by DH Lawrence, so the motives became more grandiose and less pointed, often making the work more difficult (and less read). Trilogy is a journey that is not linear, but rather jumps back and forth through times and cultures to make large statements about war, the written word, and our place in all of these things.

For more information on Imagism and their tenets, go here (a really good read by Amy Lowell), and for more information about HD's sordid, Freud-filled life, go here.

Fuck Ups: Trophies

When my friend, X, went to Boston, she was expecting a bold, run-around weekend with an old friend, wherin they would put on some mascara, drink a lot, and see all the sights. What X found, however, was that her sharp friend had gone all pink around the edges-- sorority pink. X's friend lived in a sorority suite in her college dorm. The walls were plastered with snapshots of hungry co-eds posing in diners where Harvard MBA men (their future husbands) are known to hang out

After being loaned an expired ID from a sorority alumna, X allowed herself to be squeezed into something sequined and taken out to wait in the rain for an hour outside a"really fantastic club". This club turned out to be a glorified sports bar where Boston's lesser college girls go to make themselves available to disinterested baseball fanatics. X's friend was set on picking up a guy to show X just exactly how smooth and confident she had become since beginning her BA. She made a big show for her sisters about what a slut she was (even though X knew very well that she was a virgin with huge self-confidence issues), then started to sucker men into buying her shots of raspberry vodka. X, tired of her (soon to be ex-) friend's sad show-boating, decided the best thing would be to never have to return to the Greek girls' rookery again.

X adjusted her size 12 jeans and set across the bar to make time with a reasonably cute Red Sox fan. He was wearing a baseball cap, nursing a beer, and trying to avoid the ladies in Juicy Couture. X introduced herself, paid for her own beer, and made a joke about her tattoo (a camel on her toe... Get it?). After listening to the guy talk about baseball for at least fifteen minutes, X made her move. She said, "You're hat is really sexy" (or something to that effect), and the guy went all squiggly around the edges. X had politely seduced the man into getting her the hell out of dodge.

Back at his place, things moved along nicely. While riding him reverse cowgirl, however, X realized that she wasn't going to have an orgasm. "Fuck this," she thought, and dismounted without warning. Before the confused Bostonian could react, X had gathered her clothes, snagged his Red Sox hat from its proud peg on the wall, and aborted Mission Avoid Sorority Life.

She wore that ball cap all the way home. It almost made up for the fact that she'd lost her cellphone at the guy's apartment. A good rule of thumb from my good friend, X, "If I'm not going to have an orgasm, why should he? Especially if I don't even know his last name."

One Wet Sentence

The other day while enjoying sushi with a dear friend and Samuel Fuckett staff writer, she mentioned that she and another friend had been perusing the singles pages on craigslist. She described to me how half of the ads they read contained one lewd sentence and then at the bottom: "If that got you wet, send me an email."

My friend was upset. "How is one sentence going to get me wet? I need more than that!"

I thought for a second, and agreed. When it comes to a craigslist ad I need more than one sentence to get me wet. Things like "want 2 suck ur dick" might be intriuging, but certainly not pant ruining. When I thought about it more, I then realized that there was a single sentence that could get me wet. It isn't particularily lewd, but if I were to stumble upon a craigslist ad that read:

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

The Dead by James Joyce"

I would email that person right away to tell them that their ad required me to mop my chair.

So, dear readership (if you are out there), what one sentence, literary or pornographic (or both), gets you wet?

Last Night--An Open Thread

Went to dinner, had white rice and whiskey. Went to a bar and discussed the white appropriation of jazz music with a John Mayer loving black man. Got tired of hearing Michael Jackson music.



What did you do last night? Tell us in the comments.

Talking About TV While Maintaining Your Percieved IQ: Dick Wolf Edition

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crimes, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Dun dun.


Aww yeah. We here at Samuel Fuckett (okay, ONE of us here at Samuel Fuckett) have a notable obsession with this television show. So it makes sense that it would be the first to undergo this dissection.

Overview: Law and Order was basically the granddaddy for all these crime dramas. Without Law and Order, we wouldn't have CSI or any of its spinoffs. (Okay, maybe the world would be a better place without David Caruso and his one-liners, but we digressed.) It was, essentially, the first real "procedural": the show begins with the discovery of a body, and moves from there. We see the police investigate the crime. We see them go to the DA to get warrants. We see the DA prosecute the crime. We see Dick Wolf's name. Every single episode is the same, it can be boiled down.

Did You Know That: Law and Order is, as of this season, tied (with Gunsmoke) as the longest-running crime drama in the history of television. It first aired in 1990.
Law and Order has three spin-offs: Law and Order: Criminal Intent (CI, for short), Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU), and Law and Order: Trial by Jury (which was short-lived, as it was Jerry Orbach's show, and he passed away after filming roughly half a season). SVU is currently the most popular show in the franchise.
Mariska Hargitay, the female lead of SVU, is the highest-paid actress on television.
Richard Belzer, Detective Munch on SVU, has played his character on eight different television series. (SVU, Trial by Jury, Law and Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, and once on episodes of The Wire, Arrested Development, The Beat, and The X-Files)
Sam Waterston, DA Jack McCoy on regular Law and Order, holds the record for longest recurring character in consecutive episodes. He was in 333 (!) episodes straight. If you were to watch the episodes non-stop, it would take you ten days, provided you had them on DVD sans commercials.

Talking Points: Controlled Manipulation. If we human beings love one thing, it's the unexpected. However, we also love schadenfreude, so we prefer it when it happens to other people. Law and Order is notorious for its little twists: cliffhanger endings, surprise jury findings, suspects killing themselves at the end, victims not being as innocent as they look--just about anything that the writers can feasibly throw in there. There's a reason this show has run so long: it gets at what people really enjoy.

The Dun Dun: It's actually a combo of many different sounds, including monks stamping on a concrete floor. Consider its place in pop culture: undeniable. People love that noise. We're Pavlov's dogs: dun dun? It's become the sound of drama. Twists. Justice, maybe. Dick Wolf, by making that sound the cornerstone of his show, also guaranteed it would last for a long time.

The Idea of a TV Franchise: CSI has one now. Shonda Rhimes has Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. NCIS has a new spin-off set in LA. Law and Order became a monster. And, via the injection of youth, as well as character development in SVU, the spin-off became more popular than the original. Consider the details: the theme song stayed the same, as did the "dun dun." It was essentially the same show, only with a different focus on the crimes (sexual crimes, as well as crimes dealing with children, as opposed to just murder.) The same holds true of CI, where clips of the perpetrators scheming are interlaced with the detectives tracking them down. CI builds suspense. SVU, with its concentration on crimes of an emotion-spurring nature, builds loyalty of the audience to the characters. While the detectives on the other shows shift often, Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have been on the show since the beginning. People of nearly every walk of life watch one show or another: each spinoff centers around a different idea, so there is one that appeals to everyone.

Dun dun.

Fuck Ups: Cherry Poppin'

To warm things up here at Fuck Ups, I offer you this sacrificial virgin:

After three months of dating her TA, my friend had decided: she was as horny as hell and ready to be rid of her social anxiety-inducing V-card. Her TA was great: loved it when she showed up on their first date wearing antique flight goggles, enjoyed going down on her, and never got pushy about penetration.

The TA was not just a man she was ready to have sex with, he was a man she wanted to fuck. And he was about to leave for a semester abroad, so her window was narrowing.

When he asked to stay over one night, she excitedly rushed home to meet him. With the TA due to arrive at any moment, she put on her pink teddy and a sexy pout. Then, she unlocked her front door and lay down in bed to wait. There she was, waiting to uncage her virginity... and waiting and waiting and waiting.

But the TA never showed. His excuse was, "Uh, sorry, I got drunk with my friends instead."

Well, if he wasn't going to give it to her lying down, she wasn't going to take it lying down. She did like Dan Savage and Dumped the Motherfucker Already.

Books You Should Be Reading But Aren't: Happy Days

We’ll start with an easy one. Written by our namesake (with obvious liberties taken), this is, like most Beckett plays, stripped down to bare essentials. There are two characters: Winnie (a woman about fifty) and Willie (a man about sixty). The play was originally written in English (an exception for Beckett—who often wrote in French) and performed at the Cherry Lane Theater in our beloved city, New York, in 1961.

Winnie is buried up to her waist in a mound of dirt in the first act. She is awoken by a bell. She has a black bag in front of her, containing mostly cosmetics. She insists on getting ready for the day, though she knows she is (mostly) alone, clinging to the idea that Willie, her mostly silent, simple companion is there listening to her falsely optimistic, incessant monologue.

“Not that I flatter myself you hear much, no Willie, God forbid. Days perhaps
when you hear nothing. But days too when you answer. So that I may say at all
times, even when you do not answer and perhaps hear nothing, Something of this
is being heard, I am not merely talking to myself, that is in the wilderness, a
thing I could never bear to do—for any length of time. That is what enables me
to go on, go on talking that is. “

She insists, that no matter what else will be left, even if Willie were to leave her, there would be the bag. She pulls a revolver out of the bag, seemingly at random, saying, “You again!” unwittingly pulling her escape from her mound and placing it on the stage, for the audience to contemplate even after Winnie herself has moved on. Even when she gathers her things at the end of the day, she does not place the revolver back in the bag. Winnie does not really even consider suicide as an option. Willie has also given her a parasol earlier in the act, presumably to shield herself from the distressingly hot sun with. She wishes that Willie would let her see him, since she cannot turn around and would come out from his hole (“What a curse, mobility!”). She tells us at the end of act one, “This is a happy day!...Pray your own prayer, Winnie.”

In the second act, she is buried up to her neck, having lost all of her mobility, except the movement of her eyes, which Beckett instructs. She can’t use her parasol anymore, so she is left exposed to the elements (perhaps a reference to the sixth circle of Dante’s Inferno). Also, she cannot use the gun, and so Beckett blatantly violates Chekov’s rule (do not put a gun on stage if you aren’t going to use it) and makes Winnie’s situation seem even more helpless. Willie does not seem concerned about Winnie or the gun, and in fact comes out of his hole dressed in a suit (“dressed to kill”), like he is ready to go somewhere. He comes into her field of vision for the first time in a long while. She nags him about not coming when she cried for him earlier in the act, but all is made better when Willie utters “Win” as his last line of the play, and Winnie exclaims, “Win! Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! After all. So far.” With one word, Winnie surrenders her previous belief that Willie does not love her and feebly sustains herself on his attention, in spite of her ever more desperate situation. We are left with the questions, “Will Winnie be buried alive? Will Willie stay despite his mobility? Will he shoot Winnie?”

Winnie’s character is grasping at straws, hoping to find something that she can justify her existence with (prayer, blessings, Willie, even a small music box), and she is quickly failing. It is in the last act where even her salvation, suicide, is taken from her by the rising mound. Her only hope is Willie: that he will either stay with her and comfort her, or shoot her. We never see the conclusion of this, heightening the distress of the play.

Watch a clip from the second act, in the film version, here:

How to Judge People Based On: Their Neighborhoods!

When meeting new people, whether for friendly or romantic intentions, it's important to remember that where we come from has influence on how we act. Although New York City, especially Brooklyn, is full of ex-patriots from other states and countries, their neighborhood of choice does say a lot about them, their sensibilities, their likes and disslikes, whether they are a douche bag or an asshole. This guide should help provide guidance when striking up a relationship with someone new. Don't forget, these are all gross over-generalizations. And also, they are true.

Bedford-Stuyvesant ("Bed-Stuy"):

Bed-Stuy became one of the most Afro-centric neighborhoods in Brooklyn in the '50s and '60s when the cost of living became too expensive in Harlem. It is now slowly being transformed into the next battle ground for Brooklyn gentrification. Although you still won't find too many posh boutiques or swanky restaurants, you will see a lot of something you might not have 10 years ago: young white people. Because of its vicinity to the Pratt Institute, it has become a low-rent haven for Pratt students looking to get a nice apartment for cheap, and who want to earn a little street cred. Most of them end up getting mugged in the process. When you meet someone from Bed-Stuy who isn't born or bred, remember this: they probably think they're a lot cooler than they actually are.

Williamsburg:

The neighborhood of Williamsburg has become infamous in New York City as being a Mecca of the newest annoying thing white people are doing: being hipsters. You will probably meet two types of people from Williamsburg. The first being the actual hipster, living in a dimly lit railroad apartment that their parents pay for, while they work in an organic shoe store for booze money. These people should be avoided at all cost, which shouldn't be hard because there are only three reasons a hipster from Williamsburg will maintain any sort of interaction with you:

1. You also live in Williamsburg
2. You have foreign cigarettes (preferably French) to bum to them
3. You are foreign (preferably French)

Every once in a while you might run into the other unfortunate souls who inhabit Williamsburg, those who were duped into living there by "friends" or real estate agents. These people are very upset that they signed a year long lease to live in a neighborhood where it is acceptable to wear sheer leggings and an over-sized t-shirt as an outfit. You should comfort them and perhaps suggest that they live in a more acceptable neighborhood.

Fort Greene/Clinton Hill:

When being introduced to someone from the very up and coming Fort Greene/Clinton Hill neighborhood be advised: they do have a baby. People love Fort Greene/Clinton Hill because it's like Diet Park Slope, a lot of the same taste without the painful cost of living. Although you will find a few yuppies (one too many cafes where you pay $10 for a sandwich and a handful of mixed greens), the people are generally nice and well meaning. You won't find too many younger people here, even though the Pratt Institute is in the neighborhood, see Bedford-Stuyvesant ("Bed-stuy").

Prospect Heights:

People who live in Prospect Heights are boastful people. It is a little known neighborhood that enjoys the perks of being close to the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and Prospect Park, while not paying an arm and a leg for rent. When meeting someone from Prospect Heights, realize that they have just discovered something magical, so forgive them if they sound a little show-offish. Also, a special note on women: most women who live in Prospect Heights are lesbians.

Park Slope:

If you follow the credo of Samuel Fuckett, you probably won't be meeting anyone from Park Slope any time soon.

South Brooklyn:

South Brooklyn is mostly residential and boasts some of the cheapest rent in the Borough. Beside Hispanic and Russian families, the neighborhoods also play home to a lot of sensible Manhattan commuters looking to save on rent. People who live in South Brooklyn are usually business people with little interest in going to bars/nightclubs (or else they would live by them). Just make sure you are able to discern whether that makes them a fresh breath of air in this culture obsessed with getting drunk and making mistakes, or just plain dull, before you get to know them too well.

Bushwick/East Williamsburg:

See: Williamsburg

Talking About TV While Maintaining Your Percieved IQ: The Basics

You're at a party your cousin is having for the 4th of July. Someone starts talking about television--the cliffhanger ending of Grey's Anatomy, who Mike marries at the end of Desperate Housewives, the latest death on Lost. You're in college, feeling vaguely superior to the peons shoving cheeseburgers into their mouths, and you want to enlighten them all. Or you're just sick of them talking about how Barack Obama's going to destroy the world, you know, whatever.

Consider the following:

- You want to be able to still connect to them. Don't go banging out the proverbial theory of relativity in Law and Order. Judge Judy's book was right [or, at least the title]: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Or in your case, Smarty, right? Another good rule: don't be condescending. You know you're one of the smarter one around the barbeque, but there's no need to be a jerk about it.

- Start with the basic and expand, but keep it concise. Nobody wants to sit there longer than it would take them to watch the show (on DVR, sans commercials, of course!)

- Bring connections the layman might not make. Parallelism in Grey's Anatomy. The way the island on Lost is a little like purgatory. Did you know that the writers of Criminal Minds start every episode as if it is the saga of the knights of the round table? Now you do. Drop this into the conversation and see where it leads. Your fellow folks could surprise you with the things they've noticed.

Every week, we'll be discussing a popular television show: bringing you a summary, as well as talking points for future awkward party moments. Stay tuned. Or, you know, something less cliche.

Drinking Rules

Even people who drink a lot should have standards. We've compiled a list for you to follow.

Rules for Drinking:

1. When you're on a date, never order a coke and anything. Try a real drink.
2. When drinking cheap whiskey at a party, share it out of the bottle. It's a great way to meet people.
3. Mixed shots are a waste of time.
4. If you need a chaser, you shouldn't be taking shots.
5. Never drink and take amphetamines.
6. PBR is not ironic; it tastes like piss.
7. But if they're selling it for $1, have no shame.
8. Until you're out of college, your wine doesn't have to be pretentious.
9. Peppermint schnapps do not belong in your liquor cabinet.
10. When having guests over, get more than you think you'll need. It always runs out.
11. Hide your cab money somewhere (your bra, sock, etc.) so that you don't spend it on booze.
12. Beer before liquor, never been sicker--except when you're not.
13. Liquor before beer, you're in the clear--except when you're not.
14. Margaritas are good in the summer. They're better for your soul in the winter.
15. It's okay if you don't know what's in your cocktail. But you'll look less stupid later if you do.
16. While staying after hours at a bar makes for a good story, it usually leads to trouble.
17. Puking does not mean that you can go back for more.
18. Not drinking before five is a good rule, but it's flexible.
19. An open bar does not mean that you get to puke in the corner. It's impolite.
20. Drinking when you wake up is a sign of addiction. Going to class drunk from the night before is a sign of a good time.


Of course, I could tell you that rules are made to be broken, and that you can do what you want. But we will judge you.

Inauguration

We're tired and sexually frustrated. Welcome to Samuel Fuckett.