The pool table is covered with a varnished piece of plywood so that now it functions as a proper table. Or, at least, as proper as a table can be in a place that sells 25 cent hot wings on Wednesdays and has the most flat screen televisions in the whole city. Across the table there are two petite Mexican girls with braces on their teeth. They are either best friends or sisters, and they smile and laugh at whatever their male companions say to them, which is not very much. Mostly, all eyes are glued to one of the many screens, all tuned to ESPN but not all in synch. One side of the bar cheers about five seconds before the other side when a particularly exciting play occurs.
The guys across the table are in t-shirts or sports jerseys, which would be oversized on anyone but these guys, who are oversized themselves. Two pitchers of Bud Light on our side of the table are nothing compared to the two mini-plastic kegs of Budweiser—not light—that they methodically consume, along with buckets of wings and a quesadilla with goopy orange cheese that doesn’t have a chance to spill from the sides of the tortilla, because the guy eating it finishes the triangular piece in two quick bites.
There’s a guy with a closely clipped mohawk wearing clear framed glasses. He’s talking to a dark haired girl with perfect boobs and tanned skin, licking sauce off some wings and wiping his fingers on a napkin. When someone across the table cheers, he raises his hand in a high five to the large man in a maroon jersey sitting to his left, who obliges. Then the guy with the mohawk turns back to the girl, shifting his chair ever so slightly. The large man turns to him, all solidarity gone, and tells him that he needs to move his chair because they are sitting too close to one another. He’s touching his back, he says. The rules of masculine contact have been established: Hard and fast, not soft and slow.
At the end of the night, a french fry pudding of hot wing sauce and cheese congeals in red and white checkered paper trays lit by a blanket of fluorescent bulbs.
One craves dried squid about as often as one craves beef jerky. It’s a novelty snack that only makes sense in a Japanese supermarket, especially when it’s displayed next to sweetened sesame coated roasted baby crabs or other tiny dried fish meant to be consumed like popcorn. Dried squid is meant to be consumed like Big League Chew. In condensing all the chewiness of the sea creature, dried squid eliminates the slimy sensation without compromising the overall toughness in the bite. It pairs perfectly with crunchy coated peanuts, fish flavored crackers, 1950s beach blanket pin-ups and citrus fruits. This is California.
Katy Rodriguez designed a capsule collection for Resurrection of short n’ sassy party dresses featuring an abstracted photograph by Wingate Paine. His 1966 book, with text by Federico Fellini and Francoise Sagan, featured sultry shots of beauties in the boudoir: brunettes with bedroom eyes.
"You like them because they are young, they are beautiful, and a trifle mad."
Unfazed by the pickled eggs at Joe Jost and the suggested sausage sandwich, we collected ourselves and drove to the LBC’s premier antique shop, where doll parts, vintage smut and ’80s era Coca-Cola bottles peacefully collided.
The mail had a curious smell, as though it had been laundered in a bath of Natural Instincts shampoo. The offender was not that issue of Modern Bride, but a small padded envelope containing the tiniest vial (vile) of perfume. “Ageless,” it was called, and it proclaimed itself to be the “world’s first anti-aging perfume.” What is the secret of youth, besides a cloying mix of pink grapefruit, mango, pomegranate, jasmine, musk and apple? Make yourself smell like a Jolly Rancher, Teen Spirit deodorant and shampoo. “It smells like a nice air freshener,” said the girl seated next to me.
They claim it will make you “feel 20 again,” that age before the stench of booze legally permeates from the pores of young women, when they’re more apt to smell like whiskey and keg parties. At 30, she will smell like a cosmopolitan, at 40 she will smell like a dirty martini, at 50 she will smell like a martini with a twist and at 60 she will smell like vodka on the rocks with a side of fresh squeezed orange juice. The secret to smelling young? Never grow old.
Three year anniversary, tomorrow, May 2nd at Joe’s Pub. Last chance to see the show…until…? Buy your tickets here.
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