Everybody's drinking for the weekend!

In the never-ending battle to get from Monday to Friday, here are some adventures I hit along the way.

Tuesday, Hubris and I saw a play, which is surprisingly rare for us despite the fact that we are in the playmaking business. We saw The Seafarer on Broadway, which was totally bad ass. While it is basically a standard issue Irish drinking and Demons play, it’s really cool, and featured really great performances, notably from Ciarán Hinds who offers a fabulous monologue on the nature of Hell. Of couse, this being an Irish drinking play, we walked out of the theater craving an unsafe amount of Irish Whiskey. Our original plan was to go to Scruffy Duffys and get the best wings in NYC, only to find that Scruffy Duffys was no longer there (Horror!). Hubris made a terrifying suggestion, Flahertys.

A word on Flahertys. It is a bar and restaurant right on Restaurant Row (for non locals, that’s a block in Hell’s Kitchen near Times Square, with a bunch of restaurants that specialize in pre or post show meals). Hubris and I first encountered it during the misery that was our 2006 Off Broadway season, where we were as close to functional alcoholics as we could be without a needed intervention. We went there one night for 2 beers after the show. We each woke up the next day not with hangovers, but each had horrendous headaches. We would go there a couple more times during the season, only having a couple of drinks, but waking up each time with horrendous headaches. We began to suspect that they were poisoning us but our tolerance was so good the strychnine just gave us a buzz.

Besides its consistent attempts to kill us, the bar itself kinda sucks; its tap is bad, the staff is rude (one time an old man yelled at Banker for having his legs up on a seat and for looking tired), and the food is mediocre. We had not been there in a while, so the novelty of hitting it off now seemed too good to pass up. We sat down in their cozy lounge section, found that they had replaced their former super hot Eastern European waitress with a slightly less hot Eastern European waitress, and orders some Powers. I guzzled that Powers down faster than I have ever drank any straight alcohol; powered by Irish theater I was. After a while a lady friend of Hubris’s came by, who would scowl at us for ‘being on a man-date’ as she claimed it (why can’t two friends go see then disuss theatre over booze without it being odd?). As we were drinking, I spy a man coming from the other end of the bar towards the exit. I take a moment to confirm my suspicion, and realize it is in fact Mr. Ciarán Hinds. I am dumbstruck and have no idea what to do. Normally in these situations I would anonymously buy the guy a drink (which I did for Josh Charles of Sports Night fame once), but he is clearly leaving, so that’s no go. I don’t want to annoy him, and screaming “You were the bomb in Rome” seems crass. All I can do is stare as he leaves, then grab Hubris and shake him for a minute. When I explain why I have been freaking out, he races out of the bar to confirm the man’s identity. After a successful recon, we hatched a plan to stake out the bar another night and buy him a drink. Hope it works.

Wednesday night, I had dinner plans with Rockstar at 7:30 at Gramercy Tavern. Gramercy Tavern is not the best restaurant in NYC, nor is it the most ‘hip’. It is however, possibly THE restaurant in NYC, with over a decade of excellence and well ranked among the locals. We have a very good, if not mind blowing meal, with what could be the best scallops and the best quail I have ever had. We washed the meal down with a very good bottle of Burgundy, and I followed up with a port and a really good desert wine. Of late I have gotten more into desert wines as a nice way to end a meal, usually too sweet to drink without food but if you have some cheese or dessert (I had both, good thing I do not care about my appearance), it is better than a scotch or cognac. I remained mostly sober though, but had an excellent tasting experience, and it is always great to hang out with Rockstar, as his crazy job keeps him out of circulation.

Thursday night, I carried on a ‘good all boys’ tradition. Once every 2 weeks or about, I go out and have some beers with Banker and Zorba (a friend of mine since we were 6) on the Upper East Side. We used to go to our high school and college haunt of Becky’s, but after a couple of trips we realized we were owed better. We now go to Jack Russells, which not only has the distinction of being a bar on the Upper East Side that doesn’t make it me want to swing a chair at someone, but is also one of the best sports bars I have ever been to. Each booth is fitted with a T.V. so you could watch any game you want. The food is standard pub fare, but god bless them they never even try to cook anything more fancy. We have a lovely time as always, but left pretty early, as Banker’s super shitty job requires him to wake up at 5:45 am.

Stupid jobs, limiting weekday boozing!

All travails that I went through in order to get to blessed Friday. Weekend is not looking too crazy, but I will see what I can come up with. Happy Leap day!