Meeting People Can Be Easy

It's hard for a loser to meet people in any city, but in New York, forget about it. The good bars are too loud and crowded to make a move and, as our Cassanova Correspondant, Varun, reported previously, the subway system seems to be built to prevent flirtation.

That's why we are excited to read about a small bar that provides a safe zone for meeting people one night a week. Every Friday night, the Big Six Lounge on the Bowery hosts an hour of free jello shots and conversation. Employees at the bar will take the initiative to introduce you around to everyone at the bar. It's like a singles night where you don't have to come up with an opening line (though you will need to say something eventually). What do you have to lose? Everyone is there to meet people like you. Worst case scenario: you just get free jello shots and go somewhere else.

The Best Free Bar Food in NYC

The "Frugal Traveler", the New York Times' cost-conscious roving reporter, touched this week upon a topic that is near and dear to the writers of this venerable publication: Free food. While he is usually hilariously out of touch, the Frugal Traveler wrote a nice article featuring some great city watering holes known for their delicious give-aways. Included on his list are two Loser's Guide favorites: the Crocodile Lounge (Manhattan) and the Alligator Lounge (Brooklyn), where you get a free pizza with every drink. He also created a useful map of all these places through Google that will be updated regularly to help you bar hop with ease.

The Impossible Quest to Find a Quiet Bar on the Weekend Somewhere Along 14th Street

Has this ever happened to you: It's Saturday night and you miraculously find a cool bar that's peaceful enough to drink and talk with friends. Until, after an hour, a band of drunk, raving Vikings invade the place and force you out? No? Well, I swear to Thor it has happened to me.

It was a typical Saturday night in the city. As usual, it seemed the entire populations of the five boroughs along with southern New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island had made the sacred pilgrimage into the middle third of Manhattan to drink and/or dance themselves blind. Every bar, restaurant and crack in the wall overflowed with people.

My friends and I squeezed through the crowds along 14th street until we got to the emptier east end to meet my cousin and her friends at Otto's Shrunken Head Tiki Bar and Lounge on Avenue B. The bar itself goes a bit overboard with their design: painted mermaids on the windows, disgruntled wooden masks inside and straw hatches dangling over the counter. Nevertheless, it is a comfortable, relaxed setting where you can lay back in plush leather booths, order a cold beer or a drink that looks like lightning simmering in a glass, all while holding a solid group conversation. For nearly an hour, we did just that.

Then, without warning, a dozen supercharged men stormed the bar wearing viking helmets. In their first ten minutes, they swarmed around our table, cutting off all our breathing room and spilling a large mug of beer on my friend's dress shirt. We decided to leave the bar quickly after (though not before taking one of their viking hats as a souvenir). As we walked out the bar down 14th street, passersby asked us if the Viking Party had ended already. We sighed and trudged on.

It was just past midnight and we were unsure how much longer the night should go on. So we decided to stick to 14th street, working our way westward, to keep near all the subway lines. We wandered into the Crocodile Lounge but only made it far enough inside to smell the pizza in the back before getting fed up with the density of people there. Later we walked into the Beauty Bar, which combines my three least favorite things: crowds, techno music and beauty parlors.

The truth is there may not be a bar worth going to on that street that isn't in a state of chaos. If you want to succeed in this environment, you may have no choice but to act like a viking. Yet, as I found later, the best option may be to take a grand voyage to 13th street and go to Professor Thom's. The downstairs is your typical busy, loud sports bar. But the upstairs is a quiet lounge with comfortable chairs and a balcony to look out at the East Village. Buy your cheap drinks downstairs and chat in style upstairs in the lounge.

- Seth

Halloween Democracy

Halloween transformed New York City for one raucous night. But this year, I couldn't stop myself from wondering if the night foreshadowed what the world will look like in a few days if McCain and Palin win the election. Long lines of people stocking up on groceries, Sarah Palin impersonators wildly trolling the streets, policemen everywhere trying to quell all the hooligans shouting "Riot, riot, start a fire!" Not to mention all the zombies...

Oh well.

Usually, I love Halloween for the simple reason that it is the one day of the year when everyone is on equal footing: anyone can be cool as James Dean or dull as Joe Biden, just by wearing a mask. It's a night where being a freak is actually enviable. I love Halloween because all it takes to be the coolest person in the room is a good idea for a costume. Unfortunately, this year, I had none.

As the countdown to the night's festivities began, my friends latched onto their last ideas for costumes: one cut out a white shirt and a yellow shirt and called himself an egg (he spent the night asking girls to figure out what he was), another wore his army jacket and called himself a vet (you have to look inside to see the wounds, he said). It reminded me of a previous year where a friend had dressed in blue with a tag on him saying "Yonder," and when people asked him what he was, he'd go crazy and say, "I'm the wild blue yonder."

It's a reminder that you always have the power to define yourself. For the first time I decided to embrace Halloween in my own skin. Now, here are the reasons why you should never be yourself in New York City: 1) If you're not wearing a costume, many clubs will either turn you down or charge you money to enter. 2) When people ask what you are, and you say "I'm just me!" They probably won't stick around long. 3) You'll be even easier to identify in embarassing Facebook photos. 4) Because it's Halloween, idiot.

- Seth

Recipe for the Perfect Halloween Party Disaster

Halloween is nearly here and with it so is that desire to throw your own perfect Halloween bash. It should be easy: pick your costume, pick your friends and pick a venue in the city to combine the two. But New York City, god love it, always knows how to throw a wrench in your plans.

The entire week of Halloween is already booked with other parties and events going on downtown. So in order not to conflict with anyone, we made our Halloween party two weeks in advance. Unfortunately, that means our party was only two days away from the moment we thought of it.

Realizing time was key here, we used our magic Facebook-powers to create an event in less time than it takes for Sarah Palin to say "Maverick."


Without thinking, we invited 100 people. This is never a good idea: it's too many people if everyone shows up, and since 100 is an easy number to do math with in your head, if too few people show up, everyone will be able to calculate the tiny percentage of people who like you.

We made two more amateur mistakes: first we suggested to BYOB and second we didn't establish a solid starting time for the party, suggesting people could show up "whenever." In the city, everyone needs a plan and the promise of cheap or free drinks to get them moving from point A to point B.

Finally, we ignored the most basic rule of a good Halloween party: wear costumes. Instead we suggested people just wear stickers stating the idea for what they want to be. Unfortunately, that's like expecting a turkey sandwich and being handed a recipe written in mustard.

So here's the punchline: If you really want to throw a Halloween party weeks before the actual day, and you're too cheap to buy drinks or can't plan ahead enough to buy a costume, just pretend it's your birthday and maybe people will show up anyway. Maybe.

- Seth