-During this holiday season, I have been getting emails from readers around the world who are visiting New York for the first time.  It seems as if I am considered a connoisseur of nightlife in the city because I frequently write about my nocturnal exploits.  The one question I get most often from out-of-towners is this: “Karo, what’s a good bar to go to?”  And after a few minutes of stammering and racking my brain, I usually respond, “You know what, man, I have no fucking clue.”  The thing is, the bar scene in this town is more inconsistent than a Giants long snapper.  Sometimes I get so frustrated I just want to take a wrecking ball to some of the spots around here.  In that spirit, I present you with my official guide to “razing the bar.”

-They say it’s not enough to know what you don’t like, you need to know what it is that you do like.  Fuck that.  Here are five bars to avoid: any place that has more bouncers outside than people on line, any place that plays the songs “Jesse’s Girl” or “Love Shack,” any place where the coat check costs more than a Coor’s Light, any place where glow sticks can be found, and, finally, any place where you can shout “Ooh ooh” in that annoying high-pitched voice and people respond “Ooh ooh!”

-If you’re gonna go out in New York, you have to talk the talk.  Terms you need to know: Cover, Promoter, Comped, Guest List, VIP, and Reduced.  “Cover” is the charge you pay at the door just to get in the club.  In business school terms, the purpose of the cover is to increase customer switching costs, i.e. once you pay twenty bucks to get in somewhere, you’re less likely to leave and go somewhere else.  “Promoter,” also known as “Clipboard Guy”, is hired by the club to tell everyone they know about a party that night and then stand outside and not let anyone in.  “Comped” means the promoter told you that you would get in for free, but when you get there you’re not on the “Guest List” he has on his clipboard and you have to pay anyway.  “VIP” and “Reduced” mean the same thing…absolutely nothing!

-Remember in college how the beer was free-flowing and you could drink half a Natty Light, say the rest was “ass” and then toss it?  Well welcome to NYC baby, that Amstel in your hand cost eight bucks, you better drink every last drop!

-When it rains on a Saturday night, where the fuck is everybody?  The bars are like ghost towns.  Now I know all the couples are snuggling up at home watching “Notting Hill” on DVD, but where are the single people?  This is our time to shine!  Throw on those North Faces and get out here!

-On March 30th, a glorious and long-overdue change will take place in New York.  Smoking will officially be banned in all bars and restaurants!  Finally, my hair won’t smell like smoke for three days after going out.  I won’t come home night after night with centimeter-sized circular holes in my jacket.  And I won’t have to change my contact lenses halfway through the night because they’ve dried into my eyeballs.  Score one for the Mayor!

-Let me get back to my point that it is impossible to find a consistently fun bar or club.  Like the “Lion King,” bars undergo the Circle of Life.  To illustrate my point, I am going to use the real world example of a place in New York called Spread.  Spread, a spot in the east 20s, is sort of halfway between a bar and a club, which New Yorkers call a “lounge.”  (On a side note, lounges are only allowed to have monosyllabic names, I think the Mayor also came up with that one.)  Spread opened up right about the time I moved to the city.  Since it’s less than a block away from my apartment, I went there often and loved it.  It was a chill spot with good music in a great area and the drink prices were only mildly offensive.  I was welcomed there with open arms every weekend.  Then, about six months later, I was about to walk in when I felt the telltale sign that things were changing – a velvet rope had hit me in the abdomen.  About six different bouncers told me to wait in line until I could be interrogated by, you guessed it, the Clipboard Guy.  Spread was now being “promoted.”  For the next six months I avoided the place like the plague, mostly because I couldn’t get in.  Then, one day, I noticed the velvet ropes were gone.  I walked in and the place was practically empty.  The Circle of Life had continued – the promoters had fled to the next hot spot and took with them all the customers.  About six months after that, I walked by and noticed that Spread was hopping again.  Curious, I went inside but didn’t recognize anyone.  Then it hit me – this was the “Shecky’s crowd.”  See, there’s about a year lag between when a bar opens and when it gets listed in the new Shecky’s and Zagat guides, at which point it becomes swarmed with tourists and B&Ters.  The last time I was at Spread, they played Jesse’s Girl and I spotted a dude with glow sticks – surefire signs that the End was near.  In a few months, Spread will probably be razed and replaced with some new lounge with no sign out front.  And we’ll all flock like lemmings as the Circle of Life continues.

-The other day I felt like I was in camp or something.  I had to write my name on the tag in my jacket before I went out.  Every night I go out, I put my jacket on an empty chair and then return four hours later to find twenty identical jackets piled on top of mine.  It’s like the fucking lost and found at a J.Crew convention.

-Next time one of your buddies suggests an out-of-the-blue bar to go to one night, ask him if he got laid the last time he went there.  As a rule, anyplace you go and get laid warrants a return visit, no matter how bad the place actually was.

-What are these chicks thinking when they order glasses of white wine at frat bars?

-OK ladies, in exchange for the cheap shot I just took, I’ll give you an inside tip.  If you see a cute guy drinking a Yuengling beer, approach him and ask if he’s from Philly or went to school there.  I guarantee success.  There, we’re even.

-I’ll even give you another one.  Ladies, if you spot two guys, one in front of the other, taking casual sips from their beers and walking slowly in a clockwise fashion around the dance floor, approach us.  We’re doing what’s known as “taking a lap,” and if we don’t find anything we like soon, we’re outta there.

-I’ve got a new hypothesis.  It’s called the “Balls Theory” and it’s a corollary to the Dude/Chick Ratio I introduced in Ruminations #31.  The Balls Theory goes like this: when going out with a group of guys to an exclusive club, your chances of getting in are inversely proportional to the amount of testicles present.  If it’s just me, I’ve got a 2:1 shot.  If it’s me and a friend, we’ve got a 4:1 shot.  Four guys?  8:1 shot, and so on.  I’m going to continue testing this one out and get back to you, though.

-In order to party most effectively, you need to know four important things: the Art of the Nap, the Art of the Pre-Game, the Art of the Drunk Dial, and the Art of Late-Night Eating.

-The Art of the Nap.  Naptime in New York is generally from 8-9pm.  When you wake up, you are required to say things like, “Oh, I feel horrible” or  “Man, I could easily go right back to sleep for the whole night.”  Fight through it.  You’ll need that nap to get all the way to late-night eating.

-The Art of the Pre-Game.  Pre-gaming is a money-saving skill I learned in my fraternity days.  Some people have evidently not picked up on it.  When I go to the supermarket after my nap to pick up some beers for pre-gaming, I always find dudes standing mesmerized in front of the cold beer section.  If you’re confused as to what to get, use my simple rule: Coors Light if the pre-game consists of all dudes or a large number of people, Amstel Light if girls are involved or if you’re celebrating something.  There, problem solved.

-The Art of the Drunk Dial.  The proliferation of cell phones in recent years has made the drunk dial an almost unavoidable occurrence.  Drunk dials usually take place in the vestibule of the bar, after you walk in the front door, but before you enter the actual bar area.  This is the only place that is not either loud or freezing, making it a perfect breeding ground for the three varieties of drunk dial.  First, you have your Boys Call, which consists of you calling everyone in your phone book to tell them how drunk you are even though neither of you can hear a thing.  Then you have the Booty Call, which usually goes something like this, “Hey, it’s about um…let’s see…4:45am…wanna hang out?”  Then you have the Boner Call, which is the dumbass message you leave on your ex-girlfriend’s or parent’s machine.  You usually hear about those the next day.

-The Art of Late-Night Eating.  It happens like this: you get up from your nap like, “Shit, I’m kinda hungry right now.”  You start pre-gaming and say, “Dude, I’m not eating late-night again tonight.”  You get to the bar like, “Well, if I take a girl home tonight, I won’t be able to eat.”  Next you thing you know you’re leaving a message on your ex-girlfriend’s voicemail and saying to the cashier, “I’ll have two pepperonis and a white slice to go please.”

-It seems as my last issue, Ruminations #33, may have brought the first appearance of the “Ruminations jinx.”  You may recall that I spoke very highly of my good friend who was following his dreams by attending culinary school.  The day after the issue went out, he slipped on a puddle and broke his elbow.  He’s now in a cast from shoulder to wrist.  And since it’s his slicing arm, he had to take a leave of absence from school.  He also told me never to write about him again.

-As always, here are random some things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Who are these people who sit in Starbucks all day staring out the window and scribbling in little notebooks?

-Sometimes don’t you just want to open your car door in the middle of traffic and clothesline that dude on the motorcycle that is driving between the lanes?

-I was in the kitchen in my apartment the other day (a rare occurrence) and I noticed something very strange.  Almost every single plastic souvenir cup I have has Charles Barkley on it!  It’s amazing.  The man has been retired for five years and he’s still got new cups coming out!

-My good friends the Triplets went on a cruise with their family in December.  They had a great time.  Good for them.  Except that they made “cruise friends” and it is the most annoying thing ever.  It’s like the twentysomething version of “camp friends.”  The Triplets are always talking to them on the phone and meeting them out at the bar and exchanging pictures and making plans and shit.  Dudes, grow up, color war is over!

-Have you ever used the restroom in a restaurant and it’s sort of out of the way in the basement and when you come out of the bathroom you’re all disoriented and you don’t know how to get back and you end up like walking into the kitchen by accident or opening the wrong door and setting off the fire alarm and when you finally find the stairs and make it back to the dining area you’ve been gone for half an hour and you just wish you had held it in until you got home?

-When you see a brand store (like a Diesel store or a New Balance store) and you’re wearing that brand, don’t you sort of walk in there like you own the place?  And what do you do?  You go right for the article of clothing that you currently have on and hold it up like a badge of honor or something.  “Yes, that’s right people, I’m actually wearing this right now!”

-So Joe Millionaire has filled the place in my heart that has been left unoccupied since the great Temptation Island craze of early 2001.  I have two comments about the show.  First, have you noticed that the girls look terrible one moment and then ridiculously hot the next?  They show a girl and I’m like, “Get rid of her Evan!” and then they show her again and I’m like, “Oh my God, give her all the sapphires!”  Second, is Evan not the largest human being you have ever seen?  The man is gargantuan.  He makes Yao Ming look like Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

-My roommate and I have been arguing for months about getting something new for our apartment.  We want something really cool so people will want to come over and chill more often.  Some ideas have been a huge flat-screen TV, or a fish tank, or XBOX, but those are all kind of boring.  Then I heard what some of my buddies at Stony Brook Med School out on Long Island got: a stripper pole.  That’s right, they actually bought and installed a stripper pole and regularly pay to put it to use.  You know what I say to that?  God fucking bless America.

-Quote of the Month.  Now I know that I haven’t had a Quote of the Month lately, but I am going to try to bring it back.  This month the honor go to Captain Forrester of US Airways who, on my flight to Vegas for New Year’s actually said, “Attention ladies and gentlemen, please lower the shades on your windows during the flight.  This will reduce the glare on your fellow passengers’ TV screens as well as make the flight attendants appear more attractive.”  Ay ay Captain!

-Do you ever feel kind of guilty when you blind CC someone on an email, like you’re tricking the people you didn’t BCC?

-My grandma cracks my shit up.  She is 92 years old and lives in a senior home on Long Island.  Once a week, a kid from the local high school comes and gives a lesson about using the Internet.  My grandma is really getting the hang of it…well, sort of.  The first time she emailed me, it came from 435OrioleBlvdMargateFL33063@yahoo.com.  I asked my mom what the hell was going on.  She told me that when the kid asked my grandma to pick an address, she gave her old street address in Florida.  The last time I visited Grandma, I found her standing, a little bewildered, in the mailroom with a handful of letters.  She said, “I’m still trying to figure out how the computer knew my mailbox was full!”

-My sister Caryn is turning twenty-one in just a few short days and I am going to visit her to celebrate the occasion.  For me, it’s a bittersweet moment.  I still remember the look on her face when I got her her first fake ID (“Aaron, a hundred bucks for this piece of shit?”).  On the other hand, now we can get shitbombed together without fear of reprisal (my parents are thrilled at this prospect).  Regardless, I’m psyched for the moment I can buy my little sis the nastiest shot at the bar and say, “Caryn, on this day you are a woman!  Now kick it back!”

-Is it just me or is Ja Rule everywhere?  Besides the fact that he performs at every concert, halftime show, and Foot Locker grand opening in the country, I think he sings the chorus of every song on the radio.  And does he ever go anywhere without Ashanti?  And how come Ashanti is nominated for like 900 different awards but you can’t name the title of even one of her songs?  Next thing you know they’ll be in a 1-800 Collect commercial together.

-I love when chicks tell me that they still have their dad’s gold card in their wallet “just for emergencies.”  What kind of emergency could necessitate a $50,000 limit, a sale at Steve Madden?

-Who are these guys that shave their sideburns like two inches above their ear line?  My God, that’s worse than the mullet!

-Ever notice that guys like to know the “source” of traffic?  It’s not enough to be stuck in traffic, we need to figure out its origins: “Wow, this is definitely Giants Stadium traffic.”  “No dude, it’s rush hour.”  “I think it’s holiday shopping traffic.”  “Must be an accident.”  “Should we listen to the traffic report on the radio?”  “Nah, it’s more fun to argue about it.”

-Have you ever gone to the gym and done that half-ass workout?  You know, you’re tired, you’re hungover, but you know if you physically go to the gym, you’ll feel a little bit better about yourself, so you just go there and attempt to convince yourself that you already worked out that day?  You’re like, well, I did lift that box earlier this morning, so that’s pecs.  And I had to stick my arm out forever to get a cab, so that’s triceps.  And my gym bag is so heavy, so that’s biceps.  Great, all I need to do is bend over to pick up that towel, that’ll be my abs workout, and I’m outta here!

-So it’s been almost three years since my last serious relationship.  I know, that’s a long time.  But my single years have treated me very well and during that time I really had no interest in having a girlfriend.  But I think the times are changing.  I can’t really pinpoint it exactly.  Maybe it’s when I realized that all of my friends have had a minimum of three girlfriends in this time period.  Or maybe it’s when I heard P. Diddy’s “I Need a Girl” the other night and I started to get upset.  So, I have an announcement to make.  Yes, it’s hard to believe, but I, Aaron Karo, am in the market for a girlfriend!  I am officially declaring myself eligible for the draft.  This could get ugly.

-And, finally, the past three years have also been a time for introspection.  You see, I’m not your average guy, I’m a lot to handle.  In fact, I’ve made a list of some of my foibles, quirks, and idiosyncrasies that any potential girlfriend will have to deal with.  Here goes.  I have one pair of jeans that I wear almost every day and rarely wash.  I regularly watch the same exact episode of SportsCenter twice in a row.  I have unusually large calf muscles.  I’m the only one I’ve ever met who likes orange juice with lots of pulp.  I turn my master lock to zero before I leave the gym locker room like that is going to foil would-be thieves.  I love sushi so much that every time I go out for sushi I order way too much, eat it all, and then get a stomachache.  I’m not really a morning person or a night person.  I have trouble pronouncing the word “continuity.”  When I move, I label almost every box “misc.” thereby defeating the purpose of labeling at all.  I get my important news from the top right corner of Yahoo.  I regularly settle important disputes with rock, paper, scissors (best two of three).  I’m completely lost in any part of the city where the streets have names instead of numbers.  I know all the words to Young MC’s “Bust a Move.”  I just found out that my whole life I’ve been snapping incorrectly (I use my thumb and index finger).  Sometimes when someone is running to catch an elevator I’ll pretend to hit “door open” but actually hit “door close.”  And, last but not least, I write down and make fun of all the intimate details of everyone I’ve ever met in an email column I share with thousands of people around the world.  In short, fuck me!

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